One-Click Buy: September Harlequin Blaze

by Jo Leigh

  Nanette moved the bowls to the table, then got some drinks from the fridge. “Come on, I’m starving.”

  “I need a quick shower first, then I’ll head back down.”

  “Well, hurry, before the gumbo gets cold.”

  He nodded, left the kitchen and started toward his room, but he didn’t really care if the gumbo was cold. He had no appetite, for gumbo or anything else…except Celeste. His hunger for her was palpable, and quite possibly would never be satisfied.

  With that still on his mind, he entered the shower. As each hot droplet of water covered his skin, he remembered Celeste’s trembling hands, her warm mouth, her sweet kisses. It’d been three weeks, and he hadn’t gone one minute of that time without thinking of her. Right now, in fact, he could see her so clearly, the way she’d looked when they’d made love. Those golden curls tumbling wildly around her as her body moved over his, her mouth caressing his neck, nuzzling him as her sweet, hot center accepted every inch of him.

  He could almost hear her softly moaning, then those moans turning into sharp gasps as she thrust her hips and brought him deep, deep within her. And he could feel the tensing of her flesh around him, holding him so tight as her climax grew imminent.

  Dax bowed his head and closed his eyes as the hot water pelted him. Then he circled his cock with his hand in an effort to reproduce what was happening in his mind. There, she was riding him, fiercely determined to claim every inch of him and to bring him to the same kind of powerful orgasm that was building within her.

  In reality, Dax was finally succumbing to his baser needs. Three weeks was way too long to go without a release, and one minute was way too long to go without Celeste.

  He thought of her again, of the way those dark eyes closed slightly as she came, and the way her mouth parted in sweet, delicious abandon…and his body tensed, his erection pushed forward as though trying to get inside of the woman in his mind, and his hips jerked in orgasm.

  By the time he returned to the kitchen, Nan was rinsing her bowl in the sink. “Obviously, your idea of a quick shower and mine aren’t the same. I assumed you decided to rest for a while so I put your gumbo in the fridge, but I can heat it up if you want.”

  “No, thanks,” he said. Unfortunately, even after his climax, he was still only hungry for one thing. Celeste. Her touch. Her smile.

  Her kiss.

  He sat at the table and reached for the stack of letters in the center. More than anything else he’d done today, he’d read and reread the letters from the attic. He was convinced that he’d missed something. His grandmother had said that he and Nanette would find what they needed in the attic. While Dax knew that the letters would help Nanette with her quest for historical-landmark status if she ever decided to share them with the world, he hadn’t found anything that would help him get Celeste back.

  “Still hoping to find something?” she asked, drying her hands on a towel, then sitting next to him at the table. She peered over his shoulder at the letter in his hand and frowned. “I still don’t want to show them to anyone. Maybe we won’t have to.”

  “Maybe not,” Dax said. “I do think this is what she intended for you to use, whether you choose to or not. But she said what you and I needed was in the attic. I know she was talking about these letters.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t talking about you getting Celeste back. Maybe all she was talking about was the historical landmark status, and she said both of our names because we’re the ones who’ve been doing the most to try to find proof.”

  Dax didn’t buy that. His grandmother had said that what Nan and Dax wanted was in the attic. She knew what Nan wanted, to prove the house was inhabited back then, and Adeline Vicknair undoubtedly knew what Dax wanted too.

  “No. She included me because of Celeste. I know it. I’ve just got to figure out how to use these letters to help me learn where she is, and why she can’t remember what happens when she’s there.”

  They continued to scan the letters. He nearly knew them all by heart now, and there was nothing in them that referred to spirits stuck in the middle. Every ghost his great-great-great-great-grandmother mentioned was simply another assignment needing a little help to find the light.

  “Have you been back up to the attic?” she asked.

  Dax shook his head. “No, why?”

  “Maybe you’re right. The letters are what I need if I decide to turn them over to the historical society-which I won’t,” she said. “But maybe there’s something else in the attic intended for you. I mean, you pretty much stopped searching when you found the letters, didn’t you? Maybe there’s another clue up there that would help you find Celeste. Or whatever you need may have been in the stuff that Monique and Ryan took.”

  “No, I thought of that. They’d already cleaned out what they wanted before I got the note from Grandma Adeline. She knew what was up there, and she knew that what I needed was there.”

  “Okay, so it’s still there. Don’t you think if it were in these letters, we’d have found it?”

  Dax looked at her green eyes, alive with excitement.

  She stood, grabbing his arm. “Come on. If you’re not going to eat anyway, there’s no reason for us to sit around in the kitchen when we could be looking for whatever you’re supposed to find in the attic. Plus, now I’m curious. Let’s go check it out.”

  He dropped the letter he was perusing on top of the stack. “I know it’s a long shot, but you could be right. I did stop looking when I found these.”

  “Exactly.” Suddenly quite energetic for a woman who’d been teaching ninth-graders all day, she led the way to the third floor, taking the steps two at a time.

  When they reached the attic access, she moved to the side. “You’ll have to pull the string. I can’t reach it.” She pointed to the thin rope hanging from the panel in the ceiling.

  He grabbed it and pulled. Same as the last time, Dax barely made it out of the way of the unfolding ladder before it slammed him in the face. He caught the lower portion just before it hit the hardwood. Several dents and crevices already marred the floor from where previous Vicknairs hadn’t been so careful.

  “Ladies first.” He waved Nanette up the ladder.

  “Well, I’ll be, we do have a gentleman in the family after all.” She started up, with Dax close behind.

  “Hell, I’m just letting you go first because it’s dark up there,” he said, then laughed when she shoved a foot toward his head.

  “Smart-ass.”

  They emerged into the dusty room, and Nan quickly located the pull-string to turn on the room’s single bulb.

  “I thought you covered that back up before we left the other day,” she said, pointing to the chifforobe, which was the only piece of furniture in the room that wasn’t covered by a sheet or plastic.

  “I did.” Dax moved toward the large piece of furniture.

  “Did it slide off?” she asked, and then located the sheet, folded in a perfect square. “I-guess not.”

  “Didn’t I put it back on?” he asked, but he knew that he had.

  “Even if you didn’t, you tossed all of the sheets aside when you were looking through the furniture. I remember. And that sheet wasn’t tossed, it’s been folded. Neatly.” She paused, leaned down and touched the corner of the white cloth. “As neat as Grandma Adeline always folded things, I’d say.”

  Feeling a slight kick of adrenaline at the hint that there was still something to find, Dax pulled the top drawer open and slid his hand inside. It was completely empty. “There’s something else here,” he said, knowing their grandmother was trying to help him. “We’ve just got to find it.”

  Nanette opened the long door that composed one side of the piece and started rummaging through several old quilts and blankets. “I agree. She wants us to find something else, but what?”

  All of the drawers had previously been stuffed with cards and letters, but Dax had removed th
em. Even so, he pulled open the next drawer and slid his hand inside, but again came up empty.

  “Find anything?” he asked as Nanette removed the last of the quilts and placed it on the floor beside her. She ran her hands along the wooden bottom and up the sides.

  “I thought perhaps there was some sort of hiding place in here. I don’t know, like maybe a secret panel or something,” she said. “But I can’t find anything.”

  Dax looked down at her, still in the dress pants she’d worn to school, crouched on the dirty floor, running her hands across dusty old wood trying to find a secret panel. Her black hair had something grayish on one side, and he’d bet that it was probably a cobweb.

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it. Here Nan was, the girl in the family who always tried to portray herself as the oldest, the toughest and the biggest hard-ass when it came to dealing with spirits and sticking to the rules, but every now and then, Nanette’s softer side made an appearance, and right now was one of those times.

  “What are you laughing at?” she asked, raising one curved black brow as she spoke.

  “You, looking for a secret panel. You expecting to find a lion and a witch in there?”

  She laughed loudly. “You never know.”

  “And then there’s that cobweb in your hair. I only wish I had a camera.”

  She ran her hands through her hair, captured the web, then flicked it from her fingers. “Disgusting.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking.” He leaned down and touched her shoulder. “But I really appreciate you helping me, Nan.”

  She smiled. “No problem.”

  Then a loud thunk echoed from the chifforobe, and both of them jerked toward the sound.

  “You hear that?” she asked.

  “Yeah, where’d it come from?”

  She leaned back into the elongated area that had held the quilts and blankets. “I think, maybe, in here?” She ran her hands around the interior again, but shook her head as she apparently found nothing different.

  Dax had surveyed all of the drawers except the bottom one. He pulled on it, and it stuck. He yanked on the drawer again, and this time it came free.

  Nanette leaned over him, and her shadow made it impossible for him to see inside, so he slid his hand against the bottom to make sure he hadn’t missed anything before. He didn’t anticipate finding anything, though, since he distinctly remembered doing the same thing when he’d originally found the letters.

  However, as he reached toward the back of the deep drawer, he realized that it felt different; the back wasn’t wooden like the rest of the drawer’s interior. No, this was some kind of fabric covering, and Dax was surprised he hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Hold on, I’ve got something,” he said, moving his hand over the fabric until he found its edge. He realized that this wasn’t merely cloth covering the back of the drawer; it was something lying flush against it. He maneuvered his fingers into the tiny crack between the fabric edge and the wooden side, and then pulled it to remove…a book.

  Nan backed up to let the limited light hit the object, and the two of them stared at the tattered book in Dax’s hands. The outer covering was a rose-colored cloth, and in the center, embroidered in swirling script and oddly similar to their grandmother’s handwriting, were three words.

  Until You Return.

  Dax opened the book, tilted it to catch the light and read aloud, “‘May 1, 1863. My darling John-Paul, keeping the Vicknair secrets about the beloved spirits is a duty I willingly chose upon becoming your wife. However, I never knew that I would also have to keep your visits a secret. For two years I dreamed of being with you again as a wife needs to be with her husband, and for the past two weeks I have been, nearly every night. This house has been so lonely with you at war, and my soul is waning from the many soldier spirits I am called to help find the light. Being with you that way again makes it bearable. I only wish we knew how you get through, and how we could lengthen your stays. I miss you so when you’re gone, John-Paul.’”

  “John-Paul,” Nanette repeated. “That’s her husband, and in 1863, he’d have still been fighting in the war.”

  “But he was visiting her. Or rather, his spirit was visiting,” Dax said, his blood pumping fiercely. “This is it, Nan.” He squinted to see the writing, faint on the weathered page, and moved it toward the light. “Damn, I can barely see the rest of this.”

  “Come on, let’s take it downstairs to a better light.” Nan crossed the room and quickly descended the ladder, and Dax followed.

  “In here,” he said when they neared the second-floor sitting room.

  The two of them entered the room, but instead of finding the place vacant, they found Ryan and Monique, huddled together on the settee, staring at the tea service.

  “Ryan’s waiting on his first ghost!” Monique exclaimed. “He came home from work and said that he’d been hearing hammers and saws all day long, but not the ones that were surrounding him at his roofing job. That’s when it hit me. Now that we’re married, he’ll start getting ghosts too.” She squeezed her husband and smiled broadly. “And I wanted to be with him when he gets the first one.”

  “Hammers and saws?” Nan asked.

  “I’m assuming he may get spirits who are injured in construction accidents, or something like that, don’t you think? That would make sense, wouldn’t it?” Monique asked.

  “I guess it would,” Nan said.

  “Who’d have thought-a few months ago, I was the ghost needing help, and now I’m going to be the one on the other end?” Ryan kissed Monique softly.

  “Hey, what have you got?” Monique asked, leaning forward to steal a peek at the book in Dax’s hand.

  “Maybe a way to get Celeste back,” Nanette said.

  And at Monique’s shocked expression, Dax added, “I’ll tell you about it later, sis. Right now, I have to read this. Good luck with your first assignment, Ryan.”

  “Thanks.”

  Nanette and Dax turned and started down the stairs.

  “Ryan’s a medium now,” she whispered. “I hadn’t even realized…”

  “That our spouses will become mediums by marriage?” Dax questioned. “Neither did I. I mean, I never thought about it, but our parents were all mediums. And obviously-” he held up the book “-Clara Vicknair was a medium by marriage.”

  “I know. I just hadn’t thought about it in terms of my future husband being a medium, but it does make sense.” When they reached the foyer, she went straight to the front door and opened it. “The porch. It’ll be quiet out here, and the lighting outside will help us see the writing better.”

  Dax followed her, then dropped into a rocker and flipped the book open, while Nanette scooted another rocker near enough to see.

  They scanned the next few pages and learned that John-Paul had visited Clara yet again two days later, then again three days after that. Through all of the daily entries, Clara discussed the war, and particularly the raid she’d heard about, a raid on Vicksburg.

  “How sad,” Nanette whispered.

  “What?”

  “That so many lives were lost then. Read this one.” She pointed to the opposite page from the one Dax was scanning, and he turned his attention to the curling script.

  “‘My darling John-Paul, I had twelve more ghosts from the Vicksburg raid, some Confederate, some Union, and all of them needing help through. Most wanted to see their newborn babes before they crossed. Oh, to conceive from our visits now, but I know that isn’t possible. Even so, when you come back, I’ll give you a child, a baby, with hair dark and wavy like yours, and definitely with your vivid green eyes, and perhaps my smile.’”

  “Twelve soldiers in one day,” Nanette said, emotion filling her tone. “Bless their hearts, and bless her heart for helping them.”

  Dax nodded, and flipped through the pages, passing several days where the entries were virtually th
e same-Clara helping several ghosts, and John-Paul visiting as often as he could to be with his wife. But she continually mentioned that her husband never knew when he was coming, or how long he could stay.

  Just like Celeste.

  “Do you think they ever figured out how he visited? Or-was he dead?” he asked, then said, “But that wouldn’t be possible, would it? I mean, the Vicknair line didn’t stop with him, so they had to have had a child together.”

  “Not necessarily,” Nan corrected. “There were several Vicknair brothers who fought for the Confederates, though he was probably the only one whose wife stayed here during the war. All of the records I found said that most women returned to their parents’ homes when their husbands left for the war. I’m guessing Clara stayed behind to help the spirits, or she’d have done the same. Anyway, one of the others could have had children.”

  “Didn’t you bring home that information from the parish courthouse? Or copies of it?”

  Nan jumped up from her rocker. “Yeah, it’s in my room.” She darted inside the house, while Dax flipped through more of Clara’s diary and hoped to find a hint as to whether John-Paul was alive or dead, and whether he’d ever made it back to her in his physical form.

  A single line in all capital letters, the text written jerkily, as though Clara had been upset at the time, caught Dax’s attention.

  MY DARLING, DON’T COME BACK.

  Dax read aloud, “‘My darling John-Paul, another soldier came today. As my duty, I helped him see his young wife and find the light, but this soldier knew things, things about you. Your visits weaken you, my darling, and this soldier knew that your body is already weak, wounded at Vicksburg. He said your body is in a hospital, and that you’re dying, John-Paul. You’re dying! Oh, darling, don’t you see? Your visits are only achievable because your spirit is wavering, deciding whether to yield to the light or to stay. Please, John-Paul, please do not allow your spirit to return. Wait, my darling. Heal, and then return to me, alive and well. Let your spirit rest, and join your body once more. Then return to me, forever. Return to me, whole. I would not have merely a part of you, my dearest John-Paul. I need all of you.’”