Was that a kiss on the top of her head? Probably wishful thinking.
“The worst part of this is when I’m fired I’m going to have to tell my parents. My father will be uninterested, as usual. My mother will be disappointed. Also, as usual. She was disappointed when I took the job to begin with, and she’ll be disappointed when I’m fired. Just one more event in a long line of disappointments for my mother.”
“Aw, sugar. It’ll be okay.” He patted her back.
“No, it won’t.” Giselle couldn’t seem to stop herself from babbling. Her voice got that choked quality. She hated when it did that. She shouldn’t keep going or she would break down completely.
“My mother is going to get such a look on her face. It’ll be just like the time I got kicked out of the ballet class she enrolled me in. Her little Giselle just couldn’t pirouette. I fell flat on my face and went splat. I’m not kidding. I actually made a splat sound when I landed. It was so humiliating, it was…” Her voice sort of petered out to a forlorn stop.
“Damn it. Don’t do that. I can’t see a blasted thing in here, but I can feel you getting teary.”
“What’s it to you?” She pouted.
“Because if you don’t stop, I’m going to have to kiss you.”
She was silent for a heartbeat. “Okay,” Giselle said. A kiss might make everything okay. More silence. Just when she thought he wouldn’t do anything, Ry’s mouth came down and over hers, a warm, delicious cover. She pressed into him and he leaned back against the closet door.
She felt the light stubble on his cheek scrape her skin as he deepened the kiss. His lips sent a tingling through her from head to foot, but especially in her core. Giselle couldn’t resist exploring his body, running her hands caressingly up his jeans-covered thighs, over his hips and then underneath his t-shirt. She felt one, two, three… There were at least six packs on his abdomen and his chest wasn’t bad either. In fact, it felt firm and muscular. Only a sprinkling of hair.
She groaned. His hand caressed upward along her lower back on the inside of her peasant blouse. A throbbing beat inside her.
His hands left her breasts and explored downward to the hem of her skirt. He pulled it up and clutched at her behind, enjoying a frolic on the trunk of her vehicle. She hoped he didn’t think there was too much junk there. Uh-oh. Apparently not. His tongue entered her mouth and began to play a little hide and seek with hers.
How big was this closet anyway? Maybe big enough? No. She wasn’t going to go there on her not-even-first date. No. Maybe? Definitely and firmly no. But he was so incredibly scrumptious, especially when Giselle tasted him. She’d never felt so much desire for a man so quickly. There was no explanation. Zero to horny in ten seconds.
What did he feel? He couldn’t feel anything more than physical attraction. Even that wasn’t something he wanted, judging by their last few meetings. But as she stood there in his arms, Giselle admitted to herself that her feelings for this man went beyond the physical. Impossible but true.
Something in her recognized something in him. It was wondrous. It was terrifying. Better to keep things strictly on the surface, strictly in the physical realm. She could handle that. Barely. In fact, she couldn’t afford an attraction that was a distraction from everything she had to do.
She should pull away now. She would pull away now. Well, maybe in a minute.
Before she could pull herself away from the temptation of Ry, the door to the closet opened. The two of them tumbled out and onto the floor of the hallway in front of a startled waiter. Giselle ended up lying on top of Ry like a very slutty blanket.
Gazing up at the waiter who stared at them goggle-eyed.
“I thought it was the ladies’ room,” Giselle said.
“I thought it was the ladies’ room,” Ry said.
Giselle glared down at him and then jumped up via a sternly placed elbow to his stomach.
“Oooof.” Ry got up more slowly.
“You all go back to what you were doin’. I’m just gettin’ something to clean up a spill,” the waiter said.
Giselle retrieved her purse and camera from the closet floor. “Urmmmm,” she mumbled, embarrassed, and started down the narrow hall. Ry followed just behind. She could feel him over her shoulder, smirking. She refused to look. He just had that smirky vibe coming off him as if he knew she thought he was God’s gift. It was enough to make the little hairs stand up on her neck. As she continued through the restaurant, she could feel Ry at her back. Which way was the way out?
“Do you need some help with the direction to the front door?” His voice mocked her.
“No.”
She stumbled across the front door by accident and turned in triumph to gloat at Ry with a scathing comment. The rat wasn’t behind her. Ry had disappeared from sight.
Giselle opened the restaurant door and noted that while she had been inside, daylight had turned to dusk. She stood nonchalantly by the front door. She would just enjoy the ambiance of a slowly setting sun for a moment. Okay, it was blatantly obvious that she was waiting for Ry. But he didn’t come out. Well, she wouldn’t wait for Mr. Ry Leland any longer, so she huffed to herself and walked through the parking lot toward the street. As she reached the sidewalk, about ten feet from the curb, she heard a yell.
“Giselle.”
She looked back to see Ry at the restaurant door.
“Wait,” he called to her.
Maybe she would and maybe she wouldn’t. To wait or not to wait. That was the question. Whether it was nobler to play it cool and suffer… Before Giselle could finish the really atrocious take-off on Shakespeare in her head, a dark sedan came squealing out of nowhere and up onto the sidewalk in front of her. The careening car missed clipping her by the width of a sand gnat. The car returned to the roadway and accelerated away through the intersection, turning left, its tires squealing. The scent of burning rubber filled the air.
The car would have hit her if she hadn’t leaped out of its way with a ballerina-like grand jeté. The leap might have been more reminiscent of the lumbering, clumsy movement of a startled moose. But she would claim to anyone who hadn’t actually seen the incident, the leap was like a ballerina. However, unlike a ballerina, she ended up falling to her knees and rolling to an ungraceful stop on the sidewalk.
Dazed, she forced her eyes open. Ry crouched on his knees beside her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Giselle gazed up into those beauteous eyes, now wide with concern for her. A pulse in his jaw where he unclenched and clenched his teeth. He ran his hands over her legs. But his touch was impersonal. No doubt he was checking for breaks. No sexual harassment intended. Dammit.
She sat up with stiff, jerky movements. “I told you I flunked ballet class.” She forced a weak smile.
Ry helped Giselle to her feet. They bent together to examine her knees. One knee was skinned raw and bloody. Ry returned to his full height and faced her with a serious expression.
He shook his head. “You’re all right.”
“Yeah, but I think the camera is a goner.” Giselle pointed to the sidewalk a few feet away where the Polaroid, which had fallen from her purse, now lay smashed in two large chunks and countless small bits. Willie would probably dock her pay for the cost of a replacement.
“Better camera parts than body parts.” Ry gazed in the direction taken by the almost-hit-and-run vehicle. “I think someone just tried to kill you.” His announcement echoed ominously in her ears.
It was Saturday at 6:05 p.m. Giselle still had no ghost. On the upside, she’d made progress. Someone had tried to kill her. That was progress. Things had gotten progressively worse.
Chapter Four
Shock hit Giselle. She shuddered with the realization that the threat that had been left at the B&B was not a joke. Now she knew what the “or else” meant.
After the near hit-and-run, she’d agreed to go with Ry to his place, which turned out to be a four-story, eighteen-fifties, Italianate-style row house just a few
blocks away. Giselle knew there had been a brief drive in Ry’s Jeep, but she wouldn’t have been able to retrace the path they took. Ry pulled into a garage from the lane and the two of them entered the house through the back door directly into the kitchen.
Ry deposited Giselle in a high-backed wood chair next to the table at the center of the room before going off to gather first-aid supplies.
Giselle perched there on the edge of the seat, unmoving. Her knee began to throb. Was that a good thing? Maybe it meant that the numbness of shock was wearing off. On the other hand, numbness was preferable to pain.
Ry soon returned and knelt in front of her. Giselle looked down onto the top of his silky wheat-colored hair while he cleansed her scraped and bloody knee with soothingly warm water. The muscles of his back flexed against the tightness of the shirt as he moved.
He presented such an inexplicable mixture of badass crossed with male nurse that it almost made Giselle chuckle. With him ministering so tenderly to her, she wondered how she could ever have imagined him to be a meanie.
Ry paused and glanced up at her. “You’re a kind of Typhoid Mary, aren’t you? You bring chaos wherever you go.”
Now she could imagine him a meanie. She could also imagine kicking him in the shins. That was a cheerful thought.
Turning back to his work, Ry swiped the scrape with an antiseptic-soaked cotton swab. It stung and her knee jerked reflexively.
“Hey, that hurts.”
“It could have been worse,” he muttered as he continued to treat the scrape. “I haven’t known you for very long, but it doesn’t seem like you’re the type of person someone would want to kill. I mean I’m sure that everyone who has ever met you has been aggravated enough to want to strangle you at one time or another. But there can’t be anyone with hatred sustainable enough to want you dead.”
“Thanks…I think.”
“Did you see the license plate?”
“No, and I couldn’t describe the car. All I saw was a big, fast-moving blur. The car might have been light blue.”
Ry rose out of his crouch and sat opposite her across the kitchen table. “Maybe it wasn’t someone who wants to kill you. Maybe it was just one of Savannah’s notoriously bad drivers. Savannah is the city of the to-go cup, you know—liquor on the go.”
“I’d like to think that.” She bit her lip. “But I received a death threat at my hotel earlier. I thought at the time it must be a joke.”
“What did it say?”
“‘Leave Savannah or else.’”
“That’s a death threat all right.”
“I’m glad to have a professional opinion.” Heavy sarcasm dripped from her tone. Giselle took a Band-Aid off the kitchen table, opened its wrapper and applied it to her knee.
“Has anyone gotten violent while you’ve been here?” Ry stood. He took the remnants of the wrapper and the bloody swabs and tossed them into the trashcan in the corner of the room.
“The closest was you throwing me out of your office, but I think we can rule you out as a suspect since you were standing in front of the restaurant at the time of the near miss.”
“Good deductive reasoning there. Is there anyone else who has thrown you out of their premises except me?” he asked with a half a chuckle as he leaned against the refrigerator.
Giselle’s cheeks reddened and she sat in an embarrassed silence.
“There was? Who?”
Wincing as she looked up, Giselle almost whispered her answer. “Madam Divinity.”
His eyes widened. “Who did you say?”
“Madam Divinity the psychic reader.”
Barking laughter erupted from Ry. “Oh my Lord, that’s rich.” His eyes watered and he choked on the last chuckle. “What did you do to her?”
“It’s a long story. Do you know her?”
“I have a passing acquaintance with the lady,” Ry said, his eyes still dancing. “We can put her on the list of possibles, but I don’t think she’s a likely suspect.”
“What do you mean ‘we’? Are you going to help me?”
Ry went to the cupboard near the stove. “I’m going to make some coffee. Would you like a cup?”
“I’d like tea actually, but don’t change the subject. What are you saying?”
“I’ll help you with your investigation.”
Giselle jumped up at his words and he held out his hand in caution.
“But I want it well understood that I am not a psychic and I think all that paranormal stuff is mumbo-jumbo. Nevertheless, it’s clear to me that you might be in danger and you need protection.”
“Thank you,” Giselle said with quiet sincerity.
“Besides, the sooner you finish that article and get out of Savannah the sooner I can get back to my peaceful existence,” he mocked.
“Thanks ever so much,” she retorted with equal mock. He could really aggravate her. “I know why you’re really going to help me.”
His expression was blank.
“You just want the chance to kiss me again,” she said.
He flushed and started a sputtering response.
Giselle cut him off. “But I can tell you right now that it’s not going to work. This arrangement is strictly professional. No more forcing me to kiss you,” Giselle finished with a smug smile.
“As I recall, there was more than kissing going on in that closet.”
“I…I…don’t recall that.” Now it was Giselle’s turn to sputter. “But anyway…professional from now on.”
“Professional is perfect for me too,” he said. “And with me on the job, the city of Savannah can sleep more safely tonight. Left to your own devices, you’d probably accost innocent people all over town. If not for me, I shudder to think of the fate of the poor Civil War re-enactors who’ll be in the park this weekend.”
Giselle pouted. “That’s so unfair. I think I would be able to tell the difference between someone playing dress up and a ghost.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Ry grumbled.
Giselle decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Better not argue with him. Just let him win the war of words. He had agreed to help her and that had to be enough. Just let him have the last word. She could do that. She was an adult. She wasn’t three. Oh heck. “I could so.”
Ry turned away, shaking his head and mumbling under his breath. Better not to know what he’d said.
While Ry puttered around in the kitchen making her tea, Giselle wandered into the dining room and through to the sitting room at the front of the house. Instead of the antique parlor furnishings she might have expected, Giselle instead found a comfortable modern living room décor. And the room had been decked out with the latest in toys.
A brown leather sofa and love seat with a teak wood coffee table had been placed to face a large screen, plasma television with state-of-the-art theater sound equipment. A high quality stereo system and the latest computer gaming technology completed the entertainment system that spanned one entire wall of the room. A typical guy set up.
Giselle smiled when she saw the computer with high-speed modem on a desk in the “office” corner of the room.
“Do you mind if I check my email?” Giselle called through to the kitchen.
“Help yourself.” A shout came back.
Giselle logged on to the magazine’s website and found she had twenty-eight new messages. A message from Willie marked urgent stood out. Maybe she’d open that one last. Yeah, that one could wait.
Oh dammit, she’d better open it first. It was hell being a responsible person.
Giselle! What have you done? What are these charges? Psychic reading and damages. Destruction of medium’s apparatus, pain and suffering? Turn on your cell phone now!!! I can’t believe—
Giselle clicked out without reading the remainder.
Glancing through the list of other messages, she saw one from an unexpected source with today’s date. Another click of the mouse brought the message up.
Gisell
e, my sweet. I have heard through the grapevine that you are in Savannah doing an article for your magazine. What a coincidence. I too am here. I recently moved from that dirty hellhole which is New Orleans. I have an excellent story I believe you will wish to use in your article. Can you meet with me this evening, after dark, perhaps for supper? I of course will not be dining on you, do not worry (ha, ha.). I will take a chance on your agreement and be waiting for you at an outdoor table at the restaurant near the corner of Jefferson and Congress (the City Market area) at 8:00 p.m. Yours, the Vampire Lester.
Fabulous. Perhaps Lester would have a lead on a ghost. Believing himself to be a vampire would surely give him contacts in the paranormal community, wouldn’t it? Giselle checked her watch. 7:23 p.m. Plenty of time to meet Lester. Ry would be thrilled. In fact, she couldn’t wait to tell him.
“Hey, Ry, guess who’s coming to dinner?”
* * * * *
Ten minutes later, the two of them had departed Ry’s house and were walking down the front stairs to the sidewalk along the brick-paved street. The evening was warm and sticky. The live oaks made a dark canopy over the street. The sound of the insects and city traffic mixed. The night’s symphony had begun.
Ry took no notice of what could have been a romantic atmosphere. He did place himself between Giselle and the street, which made her melt inside at his protectiveness. Realistically, he was probably just going with that Southern gentleman upbringing and it had nothing to do with feelings for her.
“I can’t believe you talked me into meeting with this phony vampire,” he grumbled.
“None of that phony stuff when we see Lester. This guy takes the vampire thing very seriously,” Giselle said, her high heels clicking against the bricks of the sidewalk. “Besides, you don’t know he isn’t a vampire. For all you know he could be real. He could be an undead, blood-sucking fiend who will rip out our throats on sight.”
“We can only hope so for the sake of your article,” Ry said dryly.
They soon found themselves passing a familiar place.
“Oh look, honey, it’s the café where we met for the first time.” Giselle grabbed his arm in mock flirtation.
A Girl, a Guy, and a Ghost Page 6
