by Sharon Sala
There was a distinct moment of silence, then a soft chuckle.
“I’ll make extra biscuits.”
“Sounds good,” Laurel said. “Sleep tight.”
“Mmm-hmm. I probably be the only one sleep-in’,” they heard Marie mutter.
She shut her door with just enough force to shatter the quiet within the old house, and then there was silence.
Justin heard Laurel sigh.
“It’s all right, baby,” he said softly.
Laurel turned to face him on the stairs, then put her arms around his neck.
“Oh, Justin… sometimes you almost make me believe that’s true.”
The despair in her voice was his undoing. Unwilling to wait any longer, he picked her up and carried her the rest of the way up the stairs.
“Which door?” he asked as they reached the first landing.
She pointed to the one that was slightly ajar.
He strode toward it, still carrying her in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all, then pushed the door inward.
He passed through the small sitting room into the bedroom. On the other side of the room, the parted curtains let in just enough moonlight to bathe the interior in a pale eerie glow. The covers on the old four-poster bed were turned back. Her robe and nightgown had been draped across the back of an old velvet settee beneath the window, while her slippers sat side by side near the foot, awaiting her pleasure. Marie had left a night-light burning in the adjoining bathroom, as well as a small lamp on a table beside the door. It was a scene straight out of the past, only Laurel and Justin were very definitely real.
Justin kissed the side of Laurel’s cheek, laid her down on the bed, then crawled onto the mattress beside her. As he began to undress, he took his cell phone from his pocket. They both looked at the phone, then at each other.
“I’ll leave it on in case Harper calls,” he said.
Laurel shut her mind against what she already knew. No one was going to call, and Mattie Lewis was going to die. It was enough to drive her mad. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Justin’s neck and pulled him down.
“Help me,” she whispered. “I don’t want to think about anything but the way you make me feel.”
Justin thrust his fingers through her hair, raking them close to her scalp as he swallowed her sigh with a kiss.
“Ah, baby, this is heaven,” he said softly, then began to take off her clothes.
When she was completely naked, he looked down upon her, marveling at the beauty before him.
“What is it?” Laurel asked.
He shook his head, almost smiling as he trailed a finger across the curve of her breast.
“We’ve been this way so many times before, but the real you is so much better than the dream.”
Laurel shifted beneath his gaze, wanting to feel the weight of him, aching for the moment when he filled the emptiness inside her, then reached for him.
“Take off your clothes.”
He heard the hunger in her voice and answered with a soft groan as he yanked his shirt over his head, then stepped out of his boots. By the time he came out of his jeans, Laurel was on her knees, helping him disrobe.
Her hands were shaking, her breath coming in short, urgent gasps. The need in her belly was coiling tighter and tighter. The ache between her legs was turning into real pain. She wanted him now, hard and fast.
Justin saw the urgency in her eyes, felt the thunder of her heart beneath his hands, and kicked out of the last of his clothes. Within seconds, he was on the bed, with her beneath him.
“Now, Justin… please,” Laurel begged, and opened her legs for him to come in.
He took her without hesitation, piercing her warmth and then swallowing back a groan. So hot. So tight. So unbelievably good.
Laurel wrapped her legs around his waist and arched up to meet the first thrust. Soon she was coming undone.
“Oh… oh… oh, Justin… oh, God.”
He hadn’t known she was this far gone, but the tight, sweet pull of her body and the urgency in her voice were as potent an aphrodisiac as any drug could have been. He began to move, even as he felt the tremors of her first climax and laughed aloud from sheer joy.
“Ah, chère, he said softly. “The petite morte is so beautiful on you.”
Laurel’s mind was still floating, trying to catch up with what he’d done to her body, so it took her a few moments to catch on to what he’d said. When it connected, she had to ask, “Petite morte? What is the petite morte?”
Still inside her and throbbing with unspent passion, he raised himself up on his elbows, then thumbed the curve of her lower lip. It was damp and swollen. He traced the shape with the tip of his tongue, tasting her, knowing that, with her, his life could be complete.
“The little death? My darling Laurel, we have so much to share.”
“So tell me,” she pleaded.
He traced the shape of her nose from the bridge to the tip, then gently bit her bottom lip. When she groaned, he stopped.
“So… there are those who adhere to the theory that we are as close to death at the moment of climax as we will ever be without actually dying. For one fleeting moment, when we are undone by ecstasy, our heart pauses, as does our breath, thus the little death.”
Laurel put her arms around Justin’s neck.
“A little death seems a small price to pay for making love with you.”
Justin nuzzled the curve beneath her chin. “Are you willing to die again… for me?”
“Oh, yes, love. Please.”
Justin took her in his arms and began to kiss her all over, as if memorizing her shape and face with nothing but his mouth and his tongue.
Laurel dug her fingers in his hair, riding the sensual high until she lost track of where she began and Justin ended. Outside, a storm began announcing its arrival with a grumble of distant thunder. Lightning spiked on the horizon, shattering the atmosphere with a surge of power that mirrored their passion. Somewhere between the thunder and the rain, Justin rose up on his elbows and resumed their dance of love.
And time passed.
Stroke after stroke, he drove himself near the edge of a climax, only to pull back at the last moment because he wanted it to be with her. Measuring his rhythm with the sound of her breathing and the urgency of her caress, he managed to control his need.
And it was working until she gasped. Only once, and so softly he almost didn’t hear it. Seconds later, he felt her fingers digging into his arms, and then she moaned. The sounds were a trigger that loosened his control. She was coming undone beneath him as he came hard and fast in her.
Rain splattered against the windows, riding the gust front from the swiftly approaching storm. Wind tore through the mimosa grove with sudden fury, stripping fragile pink-and-white blooms from the huge trees and then scattering them about like confetti from heaven. Inside the old mansion, the lovers lay sleeping in each other’s arms, weary, but replete from their lovemaking. On a night such as this, only the restless spirits moved about.
Laurel slept, held fast within the safety of Justin’s arms. But though his presence was comforting, it was not enough to stop the dreams.
***
Laurel was motionless, her head pillowed on Justin’s shoulder as she slept. Somewhere in her subconscious, she knew they were being watched, and the knowledge gave her a faux feeling of power. No matter what visions might come, she would not face them alone.
Time passed with the storm, leaving the grounds of Mimosa Grove scattered with limbs, leaves and blossoms tom from the trees by the violence of the wind and rain.
“Help me.”
Laurel moved restlessly as the whisper crept into her dream. The image of Mattie Lewis’s face jumped before her mind’s eye, the same as it had been during her vision at the party—wide-eyed and sightless, with blood streaming down the side of her face. Laurel watched in slumberous horror as the first shovelful of dirt fell down on her face and into her slightly parted mouth.
<
br /> “Help me.”
Tears pooled beneath Laurel’s eyelids. It wasn’t the first time she’d cried in her sleep. It would not be the last.
She wanted to help. God knows she’d tried to help, but no one had listened. Why did they always ask her for help when it was too late?
Still sleeping, she rolled over onto her side and curled up in a ball, pulling herself as far away from life as she could get, but it was still not far enough away to deafen her to the plea.
“Please… somebody help me.”
A frown creased Laurel’s forehead. Why did Mattie Lewis’s spirit cry out for help now? There was nothing Laurel could do. Even now, the second and third shovelsful of dirt were being tossed down into the hole. Dirt was in Mattie’s hair and completely covering one eye. As Laurel watched in dreamlike horror, the dirt continued to fall until she could no longer see Mattie’s face. Still the voice persisted, begging for help. Laurel shuddered in her sleep, unaware that Justin had awakened and had become an unwitting witness to what was happening to her.
Laurel felt herself staring down into a disappearing hole. Shovel by shovel, dirt was returned to its proper place, covering the awful deed that had been done. Desperate to see who was burying Mattie Lewis, she tried to turn around, but her mind wouldn’t let it happen. All she could see were the hands on the shovel, a Mickey Mouse watch on a man’s left wrist and the toe of one large boot. She stared down into the hole again, watching as the killer tossed the last shovelful of dirt into the gap, then began patting down the mound he’d made, using the back of the shovel. As he was finishing, the first drops of rain began to fall. Laurel could hear them hitting the surface of a metal roof that was just behind her. She could smell wet feathers and newly turned earth, and then the thunderstorm hit. She saw the back of the man’s head as he turned and ran for shelter, then nothing. She looked down, watching as the rain began to make tiny tunnels in the newly packed earth. Once more Mattie Lewis’s face appeared, and then, to Laurel’s horror, it began to morph into someone else. When the first shaft of lightning struck near the makeshift grave, the ghost of Chantelle LeDeux was reaching out to Laurel.
“Help me,” she begged.
Laurel woke with a start, then sat straight up in bed. Shoving her shaky hands through her hair, she glanced toward the window. Raindrops were still visible on the glass, although the storm had finally passed.
“Dear God,” she whispered prayerfully, and covered her face with her hands.
Now she didn’t know what to think. It had made a sort of sense to her that Mattie Lewis’s spirit might have been begging for help, but she didn’t know what to make of Chantelle LeDeux’s unexpected appearance. All she knew of Chantelle’s history was that she’d run away from Mimosa Grove, leaving her husband and three children behind. Why was her spirit still earthbound—and here at Mimosa Grove, when it was the very place from which she’d fled?
She glanced over at Justin, then gasped. He was lying quietly beside her, watching her every move.
“I didn’t know you were awake. How long have you been…?”
“Watching you?” he asked, finishing what she’d been about to say.
She nodded.
“Long enough to know that you were dreaming. You were, weren’t you?”
She nodded.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Mattie.”
He reached for her, pulling her close to him and then holding her tight.
“I’m so sorry, chère. I wish there was something I could do.”
She looked away. “Yes, so do I.”
He rubbed his chin near the crown of her hair, nuzzling the tangles and smelling the faint scent of her shampoo.
“Want me to call Harper Fonteneau again?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “He’ll know soon enough.”
Justin tensed. “You mean she’s, uh…”
“Already dead? Yes.”
Justin’s belly knotted. It seemed impossible to believe that the sweet, smiling woman of last night was no longer of this earth.
“You’re sure?” he asked softly.
“I watched him bury her. I smelled wet feathers and the scent of rotting earth. He wears a Mickey Mouse watch and has a spot of white paint on the toe of his right boot.”
“Jesus,” Justin whispered, and then said a quick prayer, as if warding off the evil of what she’d just said.
He turned her in his arms, making her look him in the eyes.
“Talk to me, Laurel. I don’t know what to do for you… how to care for you. Tell me how to help you deal with the hell that you see.”
She wrapped her arms around him and then started to cry.
“Just the fact that you believe is all the help I need. I can’t help Mattie. She’s beyond that. All we can do for her is wait. Everything else will come in its own time.”
Justin’s eyes welled, then spilled over as he cried along with her, grieving for Laurel’s burden and the loss of his friend.
“Just hold me,” Laurel begged.
Justin wrapped his arms around her and then laid them both down as they wept for the life that was wasted.
Just before she fell back to sleep, Laurel remembered Chantelle’s plea. It was too late to help Mattie Lewis, but maybe if she could find out what it was that unsettled Chantelle’s wandering soul, she could help her put her spirit to rest.
12
What might have been an awkward meal became, instead, a moment of bonding. Justin came down to the kitchen ahead of Laurel, following the scent of fresh brewing coffee and the sound of pans being banged about. Aware that he was going to be judged and probably found lacking, he decided to confront Marie with the news about Laurel’s latest vision before she could begin. She was bent over the oven door, trying to take out a pan of biscuits by using the tail of her apron for a pot holder.
He reached above her, took a pair of pot holders from a nail beside the stove and slipped in front of her.
“Good morning, Marie. Something sure smells good,” he said, and slipped the pan from the oven. “Where do you want this?”
She frowned and pointed to a cooling rack.
“That’ll do just fine.”
“Got it,” he said, and slid the pan onto the rack, but not before he nabbed a piping-hot biscuit for himself. “Lord, this is good.”
Marie tried not to preen, but she did take some pride in her cooking, and feeding a man who appreciated good food was always a pleasure.
“Well, you better have some sweet butter and preserves on that thing before it goes and gets cold.”
Justin certainly wouldn’t argue with such logic and moved toward the breakfast table.
“Sleep well?” Marie asked.
Justin slathered some butter on the biscuit, then took a big bite before answering.
“Um, sort of,” he said, and then laid the rest of his biscuit on a plate on the table. “After what happened at the party last night, I don’t think either one of us got much sleep. It was part of the reason I stayed with her.” Then he grinned and shrugged. “Only part. The rest was selfish. I love your girl, Marie, and she loves me.”
“Sure didn’t take you two long to fall in love,” Marie muttered.
“We’ve been seeing each other for months,” he said.
Her eyes widened. Her lips went slack. Then she frowned.
“No, you haven’t. She didn’t know anyone down here before she came.”
“She knew me… and I knew her.”
“What you talkin’ about?” Marie asked.
“The dreams… I’ve been dreaming of her… loving her… knowing her… for months. Every night. All night. And she was dreaming of me just the same. We didn’t know it until after Rachelle was found, and trust me, no one was more stunned than I was to realize that my dream girl was a living, breathing woman.”
“Sweet Lord,” Marie said, and fingered the cross she wore on a chain around her neck. “You tellin’ me true? You was kno
win’ each other… in your sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Oh, my.” Then she frowned. “What were you saying about trouble at the party?”
“Laurel had a vision.”
“A bad one?”
“As bad as it gets.”
“Tell me,” Marie said.
“She saw Mattie Lewis die.”
“Oh, Lord, oh, Lord,” Marie moaned, then swayed where she stood. “Little Mattie… I remember when she and Aaron were born. Was Mattie there? Did she warn her?”
“Yes, but it did no good. Aaron got mad. Wouldn’t believe Laurel. Even when Mattie was afraid to go home, Aaron took her just the same.”
Marie grabbed his arm. “Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe you could call Harper Fonteneau…. He could go—”
“Already did that. He wasn’t in the office, and he never called back. Besides, Laurel said it was already too late.”
Marie sat down in a kitchen chair, then pulled her apron over her face.
“This is bad,” she wailed. “Poor Mattie… and poor Laurel. She gonna leave, I just know it. If this don’t quit happenin’, she gonna leave me.”
“No, she won’t,” Justin said. “You underestimate Marcella’s granddaughter. She’s tougher than that.”
“I pray that you’re right,” Marie said, and then suddenly froze and tilted her head, as if listening. “She’s comin’ down the stairs.”
“So how about wiping your face and cooking me some eggs?”
“Yes, yes. It’s time to start the eggs. How you like ’em?” she asked.
“How about over easy?”
Marie nodded as she stood. She started toward the stove, then paused. Justin looked up and caught her staring at him.
“What?”
She hesitated for a moment, then shook her head.
“Nothin’.”
“Say what you think, Mamárie.”
Her chin jutted slightly as she frowned.
“I was thinkin’ that it’s been a long time since a man’s voice echoed within these walls.”
“And?”
“And it’s just a good sound, okay?”
It wasn’t until she smiled and winked that he realized he’d been braced for a rejection. He relaxed and nodded.
