A Sinful Trap

by R. G. Alexander

  There was a moment of silence. “You’re welcome?”

  Mr. Olyphant guffawed.

  “When you’re done, can you make sure they get to the kitchen? I’m sure Ava has something ready for them to celebrate our first official attic excursion.” Hopefully that would give her a few minutes of privacy with the ringleader.

  “You should sell tickets,” Mr. Olyphant said as he started down. “At least advertise the history of this place. Combine a haunting with a good roof and all that pretty new furniture, and you won’t have an empty room all year.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  Will surprised her by moving to follow them.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.

  His lips twitched. “I thought you wanted us in the kitchen.”

  “That’s it?” Bailey crossed her arms. “What is it about me, Will? Can you at least tell me that before you go?”

  His smile disappeared. “What do you mean?”

  “I made a wish, exactly like Dani and Kaya did. I saw the grandmother of all spiders twice in this very attic, and both times she tried to eat my face off.”

  He winced sympathetically. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  She wasn’t done. “You told Dani beautiful stories and carved her a kachina doll. You burned sage in my attic with my guests, but the second I get here, you’re leaving?” She tried to keep her voice from breaking. “I thought you’d have the answer.”

  “What answer?”

  “The answer about why my great adventure isn’t falling in love or winning the lottery so I can finally, finally, have something to call my own. Why it appears to be about releasing people who don’t want to be tied down by me. Because that’s not anything I haven’t done before!”

  Her words whipped around the attic before fading away, instantly filling her with remorse. She was a horrible person, shouting at her best friend’s grandfather when he didn’t deserve it. None of this was his fault.

  “I’m so sorry. It’s been a long day,” she whispered, shifting on her bare feet in the middle of the attic, her fists clenching and unclenching on her skirt while fat tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. “You can go if you want to. I’ll be fine.”

  “I like that you talk a lot,” he said abruptly.

  “You what?” She swallowed. “I mean, thank you?”

  Will took a cautious step closer, as if he were approaching a wounded animal. “I like the bright and loud about you. Your clothes. Your hair. Your voice when you sing, according to Kaya. It’s who you are, and I enjoy it. Most people do, I think. But even though you like to pretend that it is, it’s not all that you are. The people who matter can see the hummingbird behind the Hano clown.”

  “Stop. I’m very susceptible to flattery right now,” she joked weakly. Clown did not sound like a compliment.

  His expression was too compassionate for her to be offended. “The hummingbird is quiet but shines just as brightly. Your kindness. Your loyalty. They shine. Even if you weren’t so important to Kaya, I would still know you had something special to give. A hummingbird always does. It travels between two worlds, doing good for other people, bringing rain to help things grow, but having no time for herself. Though they may long to love her, she flies too fast to notice. Too fast to be truly seen. Which is sad, since I imagine love is the one thing she truly wants.”

  Bailey wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, nodding. “You’re good. This is a good talk and I can see why Dani has a crush on you. I don’t understand the two worlds part, but the rest was spot on.”

  “You’ll understand when you need to.” Will raised his hands in apology. “Now I am leaving, but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to tell you a story, or that I’m not carving you something special. It’s because I came here to find out what they were trying to say, so I could help you. But it turns out they only wanted to talk to the innkeeper.”

  Bailey froze. “Who?”

  “The spirits.”

  An icy chill finger-crawled its way up her spine as she slowly turned her head. She gasped softly when she saw the two little girls looking right at her from a gloomy corner of the cluttered space.

  “Really?” she said in disbelief. “There’s only so much a person can take in one day, you know.”

  She might have fainted for a minute. When she opened her eyes again, the girls were standing over her, frowning.

  “She’s bleeding,” the one with braids said.

  “It’s not that bad,” the short-haired girl assured her. “Not like the time I fell off the roof back home. There was so much blood that time, remember? You passed out when you saw the bone sticking out.”

  Bailey grimaced at that graphic, then sat up and glanced around to get her bearings. She couldn’t see through their bodies, and though the attic was hers, it looked clean and recently finished. She was going to go out on a limb and say she was unconscious. Probably dead. “This attic was trying to kill me.”

  Braids giggled. “Attics don’t kill people. I like your dress.”

  “Broken hearts kill people. And sometimes knives.”

  Bailey glared at the girl with the obviously self-inflicted hairstyle and bloody imagination. “You’re very dark. Wednesday Addams has nothing on you. Who are you?”

  “I’m Stan and this is Lila. Who’s Wednesday Addams?”

  Who named you Stan? “It doesn’t matter. You wanted to talk to me?”

  The girls ignored that, walking over to a bright red chest painted with yellow flowers. Other than that, a rocking horse, and some luggage, the rest of the attic was empty.

  “Hello? Will said you had something to tell me?” Bailey tried again, feeling ridiculous.

  Now even ghosts were ignoring her. This day kept getting more surreal.

  “We’ll keep everything we care about in here, so it can stay safe until we come back again,” Stan told her sister.

  “Will they let us come back?” Lila worried her braid. “Why do we have to go away at all? It’s fun here and we can be together. Mommy won’t care. She doesn’t like us anyway.”

  Bailey knew what that felt like. She wanted to tell them they didn’t have to go back if they didn’t want to, but she couldn’t form the words. She tried to move and realized she couldn’t do that either. What fresh hell was this?

  “We’re coming back.” Stan sounded sad, but confident. “Years from now, Uncle Thad will leave this place to us and we’ll decide to make it a boarding house like the lady the town gets named after. We’ll be so happy together and everyone will want to stay here. You’ll see.”

  These little girls were those sisters?

  “Then what happens?”

  “Then I’ll meet a handsome man who can change into a wolf,” Stan continued as her sister listened, riveted. “He’ll be my mate, and I’ll love him, but he’s a restless soul and needs to feel important. He’s not as good a man as we both need him to be. Not like Uncle Thad at all.”

  “Oh no,” Lila murmured, reaching for a doll to hold for comfort. Bailey didn’t blame her.

  “He left his family before, the same way Daddy left us. The way Mommy wanted to. You’re scared he’ll convince me to leave you next. So scared it gives you nightmares. And then he does. He tells me we have to move because he’s been sent away by the coyote man.”

  The coyote man? Was she talking about Stax?

  “I don’t want to leave you, but he says we’ll send for you as soon as we sell the inn. You don’t believe him. You convince him to go on ahead, so you can have a few more days with me before I join him…”

  “That’s when I tell his secret to someone who goes after him. Kills him.” Lila cried at her admission, and Stan wrapped her arms around both her and the doll.

  “It’s okay, Lila. I never told you what it meant to be his mate. It was a secret, he said. The only secret I ever kept from you. That’s why you didn’t understand that the rope that tied my heart to his would kill me a little s
lower when he died, but kill me all the same.” She kissed her sister’s forehead. “You never left me alone, once you knew. Not to eat or sleep or see to the guests. Not even when I died. You didn’t want me to do that alone either. The sheriff came and found us both up here. He buried us out in the desert in secret, because we didn’t have any family left and his cousin, John Pikeson, wanted the inn.”

  No wonder Stan was so dark. She’d had a Pikeson in her life, too.

  Bailey’s heart hurt for them, but was this why they’d started making noise after seventy years of silence? They wanted her to know that mating was disappointing and led to a horrible death in an unmarked grave?

  “That’s not it. Why would you think that?”

  Anyone would think that, Stan.

  Stan shook her head, looking irritated. “We wanted the wolf to know about his grandfather. To see what’s in our trunk. It isn’t worth a dime and it won’t change anything, but people deserve to be seen, flaws and all. And I wanted you to see it too, because we created this inn and we deserve to be remembered.”

  You could have just said that.

  A Locke had been the reason the inn’s first owners disappeared, and a Locke purchasing the inn was the reason they’d come back. She supposed it made sense, but she still wasn’t sure why she had to know it instead of Cam.

  Lila knelt beside Bailey, her smile sad, but resigned. “I didn’t trust her love for me. Stan was all I had, but I didn’t think our bond could compare to what she felt for her mate. I was so afraid I would be left again that I made a mistake I couldn’t take back.”

  Hadn’t she been thinking the same thing about Cam and Davide? That she couldn’t compare? That they would leave her? Not that she condoned what Lila had done, but she did understand her fear.

  “I’m glad it’s you.” Lila’s expression was almost maternal now. “You know who you are and you’re not alone. You had my fears, but it never even occurred to you to manipulate them or separate them, did it?”

  After she’d felt their love for each other? Knowing what she felt about them?

  “Never.” She touched her throat in surprise. She could talk again.

  “We like you, innkeeper.”

  “Thank you. And I’ll get Cam the trunk and make sure you’re remembered from now on, okay?” She smiled at Stan, then looked around, expecting the television ending she’d always secretly believed was real. “Do you see a light now or…?”

  Stan laughed. “Nah. We’re going to stay for a while. Watch you make this place into what it should have been. What it would have been, if we’d been able to follow through on all our plans.”

  “I’m good with plans,” Bailey told them, her throat tight. “As long as you don’t scare the guests, because I will invite The Divine Darla over if you don’t keep it down.”

  “We’ll be quiet now,” Lila promised. “Mostly.”

  “You should wake up.”

  “Wait...what? Lila...” The laughter of little girls echoed in her ears as she fell. Why was she falling? “Stan?”

  “Who is Stan?” Dani asked from the narrow couch in Bailey’s bedroom. What were they doing in her bedroom?

  Bailey groaned, reaching for her head to make sure it was still attached. “How did I get here? What happened?”

  “That’s what I want to know.” Dani stood up and stretched, groaning as she rubbed her lower back with one hand. In her other was a cup of delicious-smelling coffee. “All that new furniture you had delivered yesterday and you didn’t get any for yourself? Be honest, did you spend the budget for that on shoes? Because I’ve seen your little closet now, and it’s ninety-four percent heel.”

  “Hold that thought.” Bailey hopped out of bed, thankful she was still in her now wrinkled and dirty polka dot dress, and ran to the bathroom. Two minutes later she was back, the dress was on the floor and she was dragging the covers over her breasts. “Let’s try that again without the teasing. What happened?”

  “Liam and I helped you down from the attic last night. You don’t remember?” Dani sat on the edge of her bed and studied her eyes. “Your pupils look good. You got another little scrape on your forehead, but you’re still not showing any signs of a concussion. I guess that means I don’t have to yell at Will too much for leaving you alone up there.”

  “Last night?” She looked out the window. Barely dawn, but still. “I saw them. It wasn’t a dream.”

  “I believe you. So does Liam. He brought Jace over to carry down the trunk you kept muttering about. They put it in the back of your truck.”

  Right. The trunk. Cam and Davide. “I owe them one.”

  “No, you don’t.” Dani pushed her curls behind her ears and handed Bailey her cup. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?”

  Bailey accepted it gratefully. “As soon as you tell me what possessed you to bring Kaya’s grandfather over to my attic.”

  “Stax,” she said instantly, surprising her. “Called your bluff, didn’t I? He told me to bring Will here and let him do his thing with the spirits. That it would be important to you. He also said you were having a rough time and you might need my help.”

  “Stax is getting on my nerves. I saw him at the café, but all he did was tell me to listen. And that being safe wasn’t enough anymore, whatever that means. I’m thinking of sending Kaya after him.”

  Dani grinned ruefully. “She wouldn’t mind, I’m sure. I don’t understand why she doesn’t trust him. She’s so connected and she can see so much, but I’m starting to think that might not be a good thing. Who wants to know what everyone is thinking all the time? It has to make you cynical.”

  “You mean you aren’t thinking of rainbows and puppies right now? Oh, and Liam’s junk?”

  Dani offered her a finger in response. “One out of three.”

  Bailey took a sip, thinking about Kaya’s warnings. “How did Stax tell you? Was it the mind link again? I thought that wasn’t happening anymore.”

  “This is the first time I’ve heard a peep, and before you ask, Liam knows everything.” Dani pointed to the coffee. “Drink up and stop stirring the pot. You’re the one chatting with ghost girls and falling for two aliens from an all-male planet looking for love.”

  Bailey stared at her mutely.

  “Two time travelers who lost their way while looking for love?” She tried again.

  More staring.

  Dani threw herself across the bottom of Bailey’s bed and shook her fist in the air. It was hard not to laugh at that, but she didn’t want to spill her coffee. “What are they, Bailey? He hinted that they’re something special. You can tell me. I promise I won’t freak out.”

  “It doesn’t matter what they are. They’ll probably be leaving soon.”

  She thought about what Lila’s ghost had said, and knew she needed to give them a chance, but it was hard to forget Cam’s feelings, or what she’d learned about the dangers of having two mates.

  “Oh? That’s a shame.”

  Bailey narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  Dani shrugged. “Because you seemed different yesterday. Happier. And when you mentioned the spider, I was hoping it was a good sign.”

  She thought again about Cam and Davide. The link was still humming, but it was definitely different today. Was it because her wall was up, or had something changed?

  “Spider or not, most men aren’t Liam,” she finally said. “You got the last good one.”

  “He’s not perfect, Bailey,” Dani said, frowning at her. “Do you remember that he lied to me? Or that I was a mess?”

  “You were not a mess.”

  “A flaming, hot mess,” she insisted. “Before I moved here, I had no real family. No true friends other than Liam, and I didn’t trust him enough to tell him everything Sal had done. After being with someone like that? I had a hard time believing I deserved something good. Something magical. It took you and Kaya, falling stars, a pitcher of liquid courage, plus Will and several supernatural assists to get me to take t
hat leap.”

  “When you put it that way,” Bailey muttered into her cup.

  “That’s the only way to put it,” Dani declared. “We are not the couple to judge other relationships by. We’re right for each other, but everyone is different. Now tell me what your situation is and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong and you should go for it.”

  Bailey groaned as she looked in Dani’s eyes. She couldn’t believe she was considering this, but she had to talk to someone. If anyone was going to understand being sexually attracted to a man who could turn into an animal, it would be her. “You asked for it.”

  “Still asking.”

  “They’re sort of like Stax, I guess? They’re shifters. Cam’s grandfather came here and found a mate—that’s how the Enchanted sisters died, by the way—so Cam bought this place to find out what happened. Now he and Davide both think I’m their mate, only you’re not supposed to be able to mate two at a time, so if I don’t release them, they could fight over me and die. Over me, when they’ve been in love with each other for decades.”

  Dani’s eyes had grown wider with every word, and when Bailey was finished, she stared at her for a good thirty seconds, before whistling. “Wow. I’m so glad I promised not to freak out. You don’t do anything halfway, do you? Not even wishes.”

  “Do you even remember my wish? I ordered two Ewan MacGregor lookalikes who could cook like Liam and secretly lusted after bossy women. Oddly, that seems much more realistic now.”

  “That’s not what you really wished for,” Dani admonished. “You wanted to be cherished and loved. If a mate means the same thing in real life as it does in a paranormal romance, I doubt you could get more cherished than that.”

  “That’s the thing. I’m not sure it does.” She set down the cup on the night stand and ran her hands through her hair. “They were complete before me, Dani. We’re connected somehow, and I’ve felt what they feel for each other. I saw their lives together, and I don’t fit into that anywhere. I’m not in this romance. It isn’t really my story.”

  “How can you say that?” Dani tilted her head. “What are the odds? You told me as soon as you saw the inn you knew you had to live here. And I’m going to be brutally honest—Pikeson treated you like cheap labor and stuck you in a closet-sized room, and you took it for more than ten years. You knew he’d never really sell you the inn for a discount. That guy? Come on. But you still stayed.”