by Jo Leigh
The thought that she had that much power over him sent an arrow of desire straight to her core.
“You know, I could get used to waking up and finding a guy all naked and tied up and waiting for me,” she said, leaning above him and watching the way her glowing hair tickled his chest and his nipples promptly responded. “Even if his stomach does sound rather monster-like.”
He smirked. “I’m sure you could, and I’ve done my damnedest not to wake you, even though it’s well past lunchtime.”
Lunchtime? She turned toward the windows and realized that when he’d gotten up to get the necktie, he’d also untied the heavy drapes and let them completely cloak the room in darkness. “How long have we slept?”
“Oh, at least ten hours, but I’m going to have to leave this bed now, or I must admit rather embarrassingly, if I stay here much longer, I may wet the bed.” He indicated his impressive erection. “I’m afraid it’s not entirely due to arousal this time.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She scrambled up the mattress to loosen the necktie at the post. Evidently, her knot-tying skills were improving if he wasn’t able to slide his hands free. She grinned.
“Hey, it’s not that funny,” he chided, sliding his arms free, then wincing when his shoulders cracked and popped as he moved them gingerly back in place.
She covered her grin with her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “I could have slept over there-” she indicated the reading chair that occupied a far corner of the room “-and then you wouldn’t have had to worry about accidentally touching me, or anything.”
“As if I’d let you sleep anywhere but beside me while you’re here.” He gave her a reprimanding look. “Don’t even think about it, chère.” Then he climbed naked from the bed and grinned at her. “Besides, I’m not complaining. I wouldn’t trade watching you sleep or feeling you against me for anything, but right now, duty does call.”
He walked toward the bathroom while Celeste stared at his magnificent behind. Then he paused at the door and glanced back at her in a caught-ya-looking move.
“Hey, what can I say? I like what I see,” she said.
“Me too,” he said. “In fact, I like one thing very much, your eyes are silver again.”
She scooted across the bed and rose on her knees to see her reflection in the mirror above the dresser. Sure enough, her eyes were silver, not black like the other ghosts she’d seen. Funny, she’d never thought to look at them before, but apparently Dax had, and he’d noticed the distinction between her and the other spirits. “What does that mean, that they’re silver?”
“It means you’ve rested well,” he said. “They turn darker when you start to get tired, and then, when they turn black…”
“I go back?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you ever seen another ghost with silver eyes?”
“Nope, and neither has any of the other Vicknairs. Nan and I have started a list of differences, in fact, while we’ve been analyzing some letters from the attic.”
“Letters?” she asked, still staring at her image in that mirror and still not quite adjusting to the difference. She didn’t look like herself with these odd-colored eyes.
“I got a note from Grandma Adeline telling me that what Nanette and I needed was in the attic. We’ve been looking for proof that the house was inhabited during the Civil War. That’ll give us a better chance of saving our home.”
“Saving it? From what?”
“It’s a long story, but basically, ever since Katrina hit, the parish president has the power to remove all hazardous structures, and for some reason, he doesn’t want to give us the time we need to get this place fixed back up. Nan and I are trying to get it put on the National Historic Register to tie his hands. But while we were looking for that, I’ve also been trying to find answers about why you’re stuck in the middle the way you are. Grandma Adeline said that what Nan and I were looking for was in the attic. Granted, I’ve been helping her try to get information about the house, but I really thought she was referring to your situation, and I also really thought that those letters would help.”
“And they haven’t?”
“No. Well, not yet, anyway. Then again, there’s no reason for me to worry about getting information from those old papers while I’ve got you here. Surely we can figure this out together, and we’ll start with the list Nanette and I have made of differences between you and other ghosts.”
“Okay,” she said, holding her hair back and then tilting her head one way, and then the other, to get a better look at the odd-colored eyes. “What could it mean, that they’re different?” When she was living, her eyes had been green, the same bright green as both of her parents’, and her older sister’s, Nelsa. She frowned, and realized that she’d never see their green eyes again. Then she wondered…why wouldn’t she? Prissy had been allowed to see her parents again, and now Angelle was doing the same thing. Why hadn’t she been given another chance?
She climbed off the bed and moved toward the mirror, bringing her face close to the reflection so she could properly survey the strange hue. The gray eyes weren’t unappealing or anything like that; they were unique, like the silver marbles she and Nelsa had played with as children. But they weren’t her eyes, and that realization made her stomach queasy. “What does it mean?” she repeated.
He’d already entered the bathroom, but he’d evidently heard her question. “Well, that’s easy. It means you’re special,” he called.
“Special,” she repeated. Funny, she didn’t feel special; she felt confused.
Dax exited and winked at her as he crossed the room, and his stomach, once again, roared. He grinned, picked up a pair of jeans from the top of the dresser and slipped them on. “I’d love to start up again,” he said, zipping them as he spoke, “but now that you’re rested, I’m going to have to eat first. Do you know it’s past three in the afternoon? And besides, I do want us to try to talk a bit as well, and put our heads together to figure out exactly why you’re so special.”
“There’s something different about me, isn’t there?” she asked.
“Everything about you is different, Celeste. Unique and exceptional and distinctive…and addictive. And quite honestly, I’m hooked already. Hell, I don’t want to let you leave again. Ever.” He grabbed a white T-shirt from the top drawer of the dresser and pulled it over his head, then waited for her. “Wanna come down to the kitchen with me? Then maybe we can go for a walk outside and talk-try to figure some of this out.”
“And find a way for me to stay, you mean?”
“That’s the plan.”
“And then, after we talk,” she said, picking her shirt up from the floor, “we can make love.” She slipped the gauzy fabric over her head and then grinned.
He stepped toward her, then waited while she shimmied into her panties and pants. Then he gave her that crooked, sexy smile that she loved. “That’s definitely in the plan.”
“So, do you think I know something, or have seen something, that can help you figure out why my eyes are silver, and why I’m stuck in the middle?”
He opened the door and let her pass through first. “I don’t know if you can help me or not, but I know we need to try. He paused at the doorway, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and moved closer. “Hey, my hands are safe.”
“So they are.” She laughed, then lifted on her toes and arched against him, bringing her mouth to his and accepting another of those hot, passionate kisses that made her forget her limited time here, forget her exhaustion, forget everything but Dax.
She let her body lean completely against his, and he chuckled softly. “You realize you’re doing amazing things for my ego, if merely a kiss leaves you that weak-kneed.”
“Well, believe me, Dax Vicknair, it does.” She didn’t elaborate that she really felt the need to sit down, or to go back to sleep. And they’d slept longer than she’d ever slept
in her life.
Why was she so tired?
“Come on, let’s go to the kitchen.”
He led the way down the hall, then down the stairs to the kitchen. Celeste followed, trying to focus on something besides the fact that her legs didn’t want to cooperate. She noted the warped wooden steps along the way. Some bowed slightly; others dipped inward. They creaked and groaned against Dax’s weight, and Celeste wondered if the stairs were all that safe.
He paused at the foyer, turned and saw her examining the rickety staircase. “Don’t worry. We haven’t had anyone fall through them yet.”
“I was wondering.”
“I know. They’re a hazard, but if you take a look around, the whole house is. When we go outside, I’ll show you the front porch, and the fact that all of the columns are slightly leaning in various directions, and that one side of the house actually seems to have been pushed in a bit from Katrina. All of the rooms on this floor are closed off,” he said, indicating the plastic sheeting that covered the entrances to three rooms off the foyer, “except for the kitchen. And that’s because we like to eat too much to shut it down for any length of time.” He shrugged. “I guess Charles Roussel, the parish president, does have a case for wanting to knock this old house to the ground, but we’re getting there. The new roof is done, and we’ll just take the rest of it one step at a time. Shoot, this place has been around too long, and meant too much to our family and the spirits, to let it go without a fight. Plus, I met you here.”
His words touched her soul, and she leaned toward him and brushed her lips to his. “I’d love to stay here, with you, forever.”
“Can’t think of a thing I’d like better either,” he said, those hazel eyes staring into hers, which reminded Celeste that the eyes he was seeing weren’t even remotely like hers.
She swallowed, and decided to think about something else for now. Turning away from him, she indicated the plastic-covered doorways branching off the foyer. “What are you doing to all of the rooms down here?” she asked.
“We just finished cleaning them up enough to pass the inspection from the local historical society. They were worried about post-hurricane contamination since the bottom floor of the house flooded during Katrina, but we passed the test. Eventually, we’ll open the rooms back up and restore them completely. They need new floors and some paint. And furniture would probably be a nice touch,” he said with a laugh. “We can probably take care of that with a few trips to the attic, I learned this week. But for now, we’ve kept the demolition crew at bay, and that’s what counts. Thankfully, they’re completely slated with work in Jefferson Parish for now and haven’t planned to check our status again until next year, which is good, since we’re tapped out on funds for the time being.” He sighed, then started down a hallway that led to the back of the house and the kitchen.
She followed him though the swinging door leading to the kitchen and watched him rummage through the cabinets. Like the remainder of the house, the mahogany cabinets had seen better days; they were scuffed and scratched, with many of the doors missing hardware, as in the handle to the cabinet Dax was opening.
“Are these the letters you found?” she asked, indicating a small stack in the center of the kitchen table.
“Those are just a few of them, but they’re the ones that indicated specific times and dates when one of our ancestors was living in the house during the Civil War.”
“Which is what you need, right?”
He smirked. “That’s the way I see it, but Nanette’s still deciding whether she wants to share them. See, every letter there refers to the spirits, and she can’t decide whether she wants folks to know our little secret.” He placed a long loaf of French bread on the counter and cut it in half with a serrated knife, then moved toward the refrigerator and withdrew several plastic bags of deli meat. “Anyway, enough about Nan and her dilemma. It’s the list there, on the yellow notepad, that I want you to look at.” He tossed the meat next to the bread, then removed bottles of mayonnaise, mustard and relish from the side door of the fridge.
She grabbed the edge of the pad and slid it toward her, but couldn’t take her attention off Dax, and his ease in the kitchen. She’d heard Cajun men could really cook, in the kitchen and in the bedroom. She already knew about Dax’s talents in the latter, and undoubtedly, he could fend for himself in the kitchen too. He was merely fixing a sandwich now, but she could envision him by the stove, a big pot of something spicy simmering in front of him.
He surveyed all of the items on the counter, nodded as though deciding he had everything he needed, then started making a sandwich that, in Celeste’s opinion, would feed a small family. “Read that list and tell me if you can think of anything else. Hey, read it out loud. That’ll help me see if Nan and I missed anything.”
She cleared her throat, then began, “‘Silver eyes. They darken as she gets tired, and turn completely black, like other spirits’ eyes, before she is pulled back to the middle.’” Celeste looked at him and asked, “What color are they now?”
He turned away from the counter, tilted his head and said, “Pale silver, almost transparent. You must have rested well.”
She nodded. She had slept well with him by her side, but she had also felt tired before they came down to the kitchen. However, right now, sitting here and scanning the list, she didn’t feel the least bit fatigued, and that was good. She really wanted to stretch her time out with Dax. “I did sleep well.” Then she continued down the list. “‘No control over when she comes or leaves,’” she read, and added, “True.” Then she read the next item, a single word and a question mark. “‘Clothing?’”
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure about that, but Ryan said he had the ability to change his clothing at will. Basically, he thought about what he wanted to wear, and his attire changed. But when I first saw you in the summer, you were wearing a yellow tank top and jeans the whole time. I assumed that’s what you were wearing when you…” He paused, and she knew why. He didn’t want to admit that she’d died.
“That was what I wore the day of the wreck,” she said, helping him out of the uncomfortable sentence. “And you’re also right about my clothing. I don’t know how it changes, or why. That white gown that I had on the last time I visited you wasn’t anything I had when I was living. And these-” she waved her hand down her side to indicate the sage tunic and capris “-I didn’t own anything like this either. Not that I don’t like it, or anything like that, but this isn’t typically the kind of thing I’d have picked out to wear. In fact, it really looks like something more along the lines of what Nelsa would wear.”
“Nelsa?” he asked, and momentarily took his attention off the sandwich he was creating.
“My older sister,” she said, smiling as she thought of Nelsa. At twenty-five, she was four years older than Celeste and truthfully closer than just a sister; she was Celeste’s best friend. “Nelsa has always had a real flair for picking fashionable clothes,” she said. “Me, though, I was more of a tank-top-and-jeans kind of girl. The outfit you saw me in during the summer was basically what you’d always see me in, but this is pure Nelsa.” She looked at the gauzy, feminine shirt again. “I always wanted to dress more like her, tried to, actually, but never could really get a handle on her style. I guess it’s that younger sister thing, always looking up to her and all. She was the levelheaded one, the girlie-girl and the one with the cool taste in clothing. I was more of a tomboy, a little-or maybe a lot-more reckless, and I had a tendency to bend, or outright break, the rules.” She smiled. “Do you think I’m in clothes like Nelsa’s because I always admired her style when I was living?”
He paused, seemed to consider it, then asked, “What about the gown? Was that something she’d have picked out?”
Celeste laughed. “No, that’s the type of thing my mother would have picked out. She always got that sweet, virginal-bride kind of sleepwear when it came to buying gifts for me and Nelsa. I g
uess in her eyes, she was trying to keep us young and innocent.” She shook her head. “Okay. Maybe I wore that as a tribute to Mom, and this as a tribute to Nelsa?”
“But you said you can’t change your clothes at will, right?”
She closed her eyes, thought of her favorite green tank top and worn jeans, then opened them. She still had on the tunic. “No, I can’t.”
His brows drew together as he seemed to try to process this new bit of knowledge. “Write that down by clothing,” he said. “That your clothing seems to be a reflection of the people you were closest to. Maybe that means something, even if you don’t have the ability to change it.” Then he turned his attention back to the sandwich, spreading mayonnaise across one side of the bread and mustard along the other, while Celeste added the new information, and thought about her family, particularly Nelsa.
“I miss her,” she whispered. “Nelsa always kept me in line, or tried to. If I’d have listened to her this summer-” Her lip quivered, throat tightened.
“What?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t have been on that bus, and I’d probably still be breathing. The counseling position was actually for teachers who were already working in the school system, you know, not for brand-new college graduates who were merely eager to get started. I saw the opportunity to travel to those camps and work with kids, and I went ahead and put that I was employed as a kindergarten teacher.” She shrugged. “I lied because I didn’t want to wait until the fall to start working with children. I mean, I did my internship in the spring, during my last semester, and I loved it. Why would I want to stay away from kids for the whole summer?”
“Didn’t the people running the camp check your employment claim?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Yeah,” she said with a guilty grin. “But I was employed by the school they checked. I’d already accepted a teaching position there, beginning this fall, so they answered that I was employed by the school. Luckily, the fact that I hadn’t done anything but my intern duty there never came up.” She sighed. “If I hadn’t lied on that application, and if I hadn’t been on that bus, I’d be teaching now.” A tear pushed forward, and trickled down her cheek, and she brushed it away.
