She crossed the room to his side, slipping out of her shoes to alleviate the pinch in her pinky toes.
“Her mother had trained her in healing with herbs,” Colt said. “She brought the men out here to prevent the spread of the disease.” He pointed at a picture.
“That’s her,” Naomi said. “That’s the woman I saw.”
Colt cleared his throat. “When the house was purchased, the new owner brought out the preacher and hired four women to scrub the place from top to bottom. Belle was one of them.”
“It could use that again,” Naomi commented, her eyebrows rising in a suggestive stance.
Colt’s eyes fell closed for a long moment, and he swayed on his feet. She braced herself against him. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, fine,” he said, but he still looked a little woozy. “I’ve been getting over a cold.”
“It seems like you’re just starting,” she said.
He glanced at her, his eyes deep and mesmerizing, yet also glazed with pain. His eyelids fell half-closed for one heartbeat, two. He swayed to a symphony only he could hear.
His eyes came fully open as he reached for her and caught empty air. “You’re really pretty,” he said, his mouth curving into a smile.
While Naomi thought Colt was the embodiment of male perfection, she’d hardly known him long enough for him to blurt such things. She slid her leg away from where she’d been supporting him, realizing too late that she shouldn’t.
His knees buckled, and he fell to the floor, his eyes rolling back into his head as he lost consciousness.
“Colt!” Naomi knelt next to him as a blast of cold air filled the cavernous library, like someone had opened a window. She checked over her shoulder, and sure enough, every window along the east wall stood open, the wind and rain pelting the bookshelves.
The wood will get ruined! she thought, aware of how ridiculous that was. It was a house, and Colt was a person. Still, she jumped to her feet and ran across the room, grateful she’d shed her heels. She wrestled with the window for a long minute before aged, warped hands covered hers and pulled the pane into position.
The ghost of Jacob worked with the ghost of Belle as they systematically latched all the windows into place. Naomi stood paralyzed, unsure of what to do next. When Belle finished the last window and turned to her, Naomi sprang into action.
“He fainted,” she said, hurrying back to Colt’s side. “What should I do?” His face was pale, and his lips had turned an unsettling shade of gray. He hadn’t seemed that sick. A cough. A sniffle. A sore throat, maybe. Had he mentioned having a headache? Naomi couldn’t remember, and her medical training only extended to putting a Band-Aid on a paper cut.
Warmth radiated from the fireplace, a welcome addition to the library. Naomi glanced up to find Jacob sitting in the same chair she’d seen him in earlier. He wore the same clothes, the same somber expression on his face.
“How can I help Colt?” she asked.
Jacob looked over her shoulder, and when Naomi turned, she found Belle standing there. She walked away, pausing at the door to the library in a silent invitation for Naomi to follow her. Before she did, she grabbed a throw off the back of the unoccupied chair, beat it against the floor to remove as much dust as possible, and gently tucked it around Colt. He hadn’t seen Jacob the first time, and she didn’t know if he could feel the warmth from the fire or not.
Belle had moved into the kitchen, and she pointed at one of the alder cupboards. Naomi opened it and found jars of all sizes, some with powders in them, some housings pastes, some holding liquids. None of them bore a label.
“Which one?” Naomi searched Belle’s expression for answers, but the ghost remained mute. Naomi thought she must be nightmaring. After all, she’d never imagined ghosts when she fantasized about finally stepping foot into the Millhouse mansion. She’d only thought of paint colors, fabric swatches, and preserving the original floors, mantles, windows.
A loud thud behind her sent her heart into overdrive, causing her hand to catch on one of the bottles and send it crashing to the countertop. The earthy-sweet smell of herbs and dirt reached her nose. After the ear-splitting crash faded into silence, Naomi listened but heard nothing but the strumming of her heart.
She didn’t know what to do. Had Colt regained consciousness and fallen again? Maybe someone had knocked on the door. Naomi’s mind ran wild with possibilities. As she stood trying to make sense of it all, Belle reached down and began tracing her finger through the spilled paste on the counter.
P-E-P-P-E-R-M-I-N-T.
Belle looked at Naomi meaningfully, but one more glance into the cupboard confirmed that Naomi would never find the peppermint. Another sound from the library drew her attention, and she flew back that way, praying she’d find Colt alive.
Colt hit his knee for a second time on the blasted armchair. Why couldn’t he lift his leg high enough? Why was the library so stuffy? Who had lit that oppressive fire?
“Naomi?” he called, his voice a mere shell. His heart raced but seemed to be skipping as many beats as it took. He needed a drink of water, badly.
“Colt!” Naomi dropped to her knees in front of him and smoothed his hair off his forehead. It felt like a natural thing for her to do, but the current that buzzed through him suggested that he’d prefer her to be more than a simple nursemaid. “Are you all right?”
He still couldn’t quite see clearly. The room seemed to be layered behind a pale green film. As Belle and Jacob crowded behind Naomi, a bolt of anger shot through him. He hated this house, hated this library. Hated the spirits that wandered his property.
For a few moments upstairs, he’d considered hiring Naomi to renovate the house. Turn it back into the historic charmer it could be. Maybe he’d even move back into the house— maybe with Naomi. His thoughts had scared him, and he’d dismissed them almost as quickly as they’d come. If he did restore the house, he’d donate it to the county as a historic landmark. He could never live here again, even with a beautiful woman by his side.
“I think so,” he said, leaning his head against the dirt-encrusted upholstery. He closed his eyes, experiencing Naomi through his other senses. Her tropical scent lingered so close; her fingertips brushed his hair, his jawline, his hand. He opened his fingers, and she settled hers in the empty spaces.
“I don’t feel very well.” He hated feeling weak and disliked even more that she’d witnessed it.
“I got that part.” Her soft voice came so near that he opened his eyes to find her face mere breaths from his. “I don’t think you have a cold.”
He certainly didn’t feel cold with her so close. Something drip, drip, dripped through him, adding strength to his feeble places with every passing moment. “Do you think I’m contagious?”
She shook her head, her eyes dropping to his mouth. He was thinking about kissing her too. It wouldn’t be wise, he knew. He barely knew Naomi, though her good reputation had preceded her. Yet he felt drawn to her the same way he’d always been captivated by the gold mine on the hill. He stayed away from the mine, just like he’d abandoned the house. He should keep his distance from Naomi too.
He absolutely shouldn’t be leaning in, the anticipation of kissing her overwhelming his good sense. His lips brushed against hers, a mere touch. She sighed, and that simple release sent his desire soaring. He slid his hands along her shoulders, up her neck and into her hair as his mouth found hers and held on.
She melted into his embrace, and he didn’t care what was wise and what wasn’t, what was contagious and what wasn’t, or if she would judge him for seeing ghosts. He simply lived in that moment, unhurried and unaccustomed to feeling something warm for a woman.
Naomi pulled away too soon. He opened his eyes to find her head ducked and her fingers fiddling with a ruffle on her blouse.
“Wow,” he said, to get her to look at him.
She smiled, a lovely curving of lips that clearly revealed more than she intended. He saw a flash of apprecia
tion in her eyes before she straightened and went to stand at the windows. He stood, expecting his legs to be unsteady, but was surprised to find them strong. He joined her and watched the sleet slice through the sky.
“Looks like we might have to stay the night,” he commented, watching her out of the corner of his eye. She stiffened— the response he’d expected— then slipped her hand into his.
“There are lots of bedrooms, right?” she asked.
“More than anyone would ever need.” He squeezed her fingers. “I’m thinking maybe you should restore this place. Make it a landmark historical piece.”
Her eyes widened, and she searched his for the hint of a lie. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
“You’re certainly that.” She gave him an impish grin. “Are you feeling all right?” She glanced toward the bookcase, where he’d fallen.
“Much better.” Colt couldn’t remember the last time he’d fainted, and while he did feel better, stronger, something inside still wasn’t right.
Naomi’s lips flattened, but she accepted his answer. She pulled out her cell. “I need to call my neighbor if I’m not going to come home. I was supposed to stop by tonight with chicken soup.”
“You cook?” His stomach roared at the very idea of food.
“I’ll look in your cupboards,” she said as she dialed and moved away from him. She left him alone in the library, and Colt couldn’t stand it. He followed her out, but instead of going into the kitchen where he could hear her murmurs, he turned and entered his father’s study.
His mother hadn’t touched this room either. She had a sick way of leaving things the way they’d last been. Colt didn’t understand it. She hadn’t loved his father, and if it were his choice, Colt would’ve thrown everything out and filled the room with greenery.
He couldn’t help wondering what Naomi would do to a room like this one. Heavy burgundy drapes obscured the view. A large, black desk hulked in the center of the room, with an equally giant chair behind it. The desk held medical papers, a decanter of brandy— his father’s favorite liquor— and random office supplies. Bits of newspaper clippings sat pinned together, and the bookshelves behind the desk were littered with town memorabilia, hospital journals, small bottles with colored liquids, and medical textbooks.
Colt found it ironic that his father saved people’s lives as a profession, but he’d killed himself with alcohol.
Jacob entered the room and sat down in Colt’s father’s chair, Jacob’s eyes forlorn and focused on Colt. He had never thought to ask them why they were still here, or if there was something he could do to send them to their restful afterlife. But when Naomi had mentioned figuring out what the spirits wanted, Colt had felt warm. He knew he needed to solve something for them.
“What do you want?” he asked Jacob, who continued to stare at him. Finally, as though the words Colt had spoken needed to sink through dozens of layers before they reached Jacob’s ears, the ghost rifled through the papers on the desk.
Colt heard soft footsteps running toward him. “Colt!” Naomi burst into the study. “I think you’d better come here.”
He grabbed the paper Jacob had indicated but didn’t take the time to examine it before joining her in the foyer.
Chapter Five
Naomi had confirmed with her neighbor, Edith, that she was okay, that she’d gone out on a job and the weather had prevented her from returning. Edith had agreed to call Naomi’s mother that night, and Naomi had gone into the kitchen to see if there was more than bottled medicines in the cupboards.
“Look,” she said, pointing at the counter where the poultice had splattered. The stuff still smelled like moss, with a bit of black licorice, and still had the word peppermint carved into it. But now, another herbal mixture had been spread across the marble. This one was almost black, viscous like tar, and smelled just as bad.
Someone had swiped their fingers through it in an angry slash that spoke a warning to Naomi.
Colt studied the counter while she explained to him that Belle had brought her out here and indicated that she needed to find peppermint to wake him. “But you woke on your own. And this wasn’t here,” she said, her voice straying into her upper octave. “What do you think it means?”
He ran his hand through the top of his half-hawk, reminding Naomi of how soft and thick his hair was. “I don’t know.”
They both glanced around; Naomi expected to see another apparition that would lead them down a yellow brick road to a fantastical land. Nobody was there. A smudge of black caught her attention.
“Colt, look.” Her lungs didn’t expand properly as she stepped to the wall holding all the photos of Colt’s family. A black thumbprint rested beneath a picture of an elderly man. Another beside a picture of a mother and father with two young boys. A third mark completely obscured the face of a third picture— obviously a man from the visible tie and jacket in the photo.
Colt removed the three pictures from the wall. He studied them while a storm rolled across his face. Naomi found this version of Colt terrifying, as well as desirable. She wanted to be the one to calm him, to soothe him back into the Colt who wore a casual smile and radiated a surprising gentleness.
“Who is that?” she asked.
He pinned her with a dark look. “My father.”
Colt stared into his father’s face, the one of him as a young doctor— Colt’s age now. Both he and Rick had already been born. A three-year-old Rick sat on his mother’s right knee, a one-year-old Colt on her left. His father towered above them all, just as he had in real life. His mother, Rick, and Colt all smiled at the camera. His father did not, his hand on his wife’s shoulder in a possessive grip.
“This is me with my brother and parents.” He pointed at his toddler self. “I was cute, right?”
A slow blush entered her face as she took the picture from him. “The cutest,” she confirmed. “Where’s Rick now?”
“He lives in Denver,” Colt said. “Owns a sports bar. His wife’s an attorney.” He didn’t like the big city life, though it had some advantages over living in a town where everyone knew everything about you.
In the next image, his father glared out of the photo, his glasses perfectly positioned on his face. “This was when he graduated from medical school,” Colt said. “He married my mother the next day, and they moved into this house. Both Rick and I were born here. Dad had a private practice in town, and he worked the emergency room at the hospital on the weekends.”
Naomi took the picture from him, examining it. For what, he didn’t know. He gripped the last photo, the one that had been completely marred with the black substance. Any appetite he’d had had been quelled by the foul-smelling poultice. He’d hated those things when his mother tried to use them on him, and the years hadn’t improved their stench.
“This one was when he retired. The mayor threw him a party, and Dad insisted he get his picture taken. He bought his own frame and put it on the wall where he wanted. Mother hated it, because his eyes were too glassy. It was too easy for everyone to know he was a drunk.” Colt gave a short, barking laugh. “But everyone figured that out when he died from alcohol poisoning only a week later.”
He passed the photo to her. “Still, Mother never took it down.”
“Why not?”
Colt shrugged. “She was a superstitious woman. Thought he’d know and never leave her alone.”
Naomi met his eyes, a new hope shining in hers. “Could she see the— you know, the things we can see?”
“No,” he said. “I asked her when I was twelve. She said to stop making things up and go do my chores.”
Naomi frowned. “Could she have been lying?”
Colt considered it. He’d never thought of his mother as a liar. She’d been the one to send him away to boarding school. She wrote every week, apologizing for making him leave but insisting it was the only way to keep him safe. Colt hadn’t had to wonder who she was protecting him from.
And i
n truth, Colt had been relieved. He didn’t like living in such close quarters with ghosts. Feeding the chickens and mucking out the horse stalls meant he had to work away from the house, and the spirits would often follow him out there.
A crash brought Colt out of his musings. He joined Naomi as they hurried down the hall and into the study. The glass decanter now lay on its side, the copper-colored liquid dripping like blood onto the pine floor.
Drip, drip, drip.
Colt stared at the liquid, the paper Jacob had indicated crumpling as he fisted it.
Drip, drip, drip.
Naomi pressed closer, her shock seeping into him as she wrapped her hands around his forearm. He liked it when she did that— it made him feel like he could protect her. At the same time, she possessed an inner strength all her own. She spoke with ghosts, followed them, and wanted to help them find their rest. In a lot of ways, she’d already helped him by admitting that she could see the same apparitions he could.
“What do the ghosts look like to you?” she asked, her voice shattering the silence. He startled as she moved into the room and reset the bottle. She took some papers from the desk and used them like towels to soak up the brandy.
“They look like people,” he said.
“Transparent?”
“No,” he said. “Like you or me. In full color.”
She frowned, keeping her eyes on the yellow floor that had been brightened by the spill. “They don’t look like that to me.”
“They don’t?” Something cold and charged moved through him.
“No.” She stood and faced him. “They look transparent, warped, yellowed with age.” She took a step closer as tears formed in her eyes and her lower lip trembled. He reached out to cup her face in his hand. She pressed her cheek against his palm, a single tear warming his skin.
“They look like you do, Colt.”
Chapter Six
All Hallows' Eve Collection Page 26
