by Sandra Cox
“Sure, keys are on the key holder in the kitchen.” She’d switched on the TV, flipping back and forth from watching the jewelry channel to handbags. Sitting cross-legged on the couch, she munched on a bowl of popcorn.
“Thanks.” I blew her a kiss.
“Have fun.” She tossed popcorn into her mouth, her gaze glued to the tube.
The door from the kitchen to the garage opened for me. I was starting to get used to doors opening and closing as I approached. The Corvette’s door swung open and Liam materialized. “You’re a vision.” His water-over-stones voice made my breath hitch. He leaned forward. “And you smell a fair treat.”
“Thank you.” I slid in the car and caught a whiff of cinnamon and tart limes. “You smell a fair treat yourself. I see you’ve got your jacket back on.”
“We’re going out.”
That made sense. “About that, Liam…”
“Hmm?” He reached up and patted the dashboard. “I’m beginning to enjoy automobiles.”
“Of course you are. You’re a man.” I backed the car out.
“Do you think I could drive?” He glanced at me, a hopeful look on his handsome face.
“Not in my lifetime.” An icy shudder ran down my spine. “A car cruising down the road, with no visible driver, as if that wouldn’t draw attention. Not to mention you come from the buggy era. But back to the going out thing.”
“Um-hmm.” Liam now stroked the cream leather seats.
Men. “Liam, listen up.”
“I’m listening.” He reached for the radio.
Forgetting myself, I slapped at his hand and felt a surge of electricity pass straight through me. Short blue currents of light shot up from the dashboard. “Ouch.” I shook my tingling fingers. Now I had his attention.
“I don’t know how this works, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to have physical contact with me.” Regret flickered across his features but disappeared as quickly as it came.
“You got that one right.”
“So what did you want to talk about?”
Finally. “Would you mind waiting outside? First dates are awkward enough without a ghost monitoring everything I say and do.”
“You need a chaperone. He’s a man. I know what’s going to be on his mind.” His jaw jutted at a stubborn angle.
“He’s hardly going to jump me in a restaurant.”
“You don’t know him. He’s practically a stranger to you.” Disapproval radiated from every inch of his astral form. I’d noticed whenever Liam felt strongly about something his presence became sharper, more defined and he glowed.
I’d pulled into an empty parking space about half a block from The Grove. I faced the passenger seat, speaking to my ghost. “Well, I can’t argue that. But I like him, Liam. At least, I think I do.”
For a moment, Liam looked lost and oddly vulnerable. “I won’t get in your way.”
I leaned toward him but was careful not to touch him. “I like you too, Liam.”
“Unfortunately, I also like you.” He gave a short, rueful laugh before he pulled back. “We better go in.”
I blinked, brought back to the here and now. Those stormy gray eyes could suck me in like a vacuum. He glided out of the car and, after opening my door, headed for the entrance.
There was little light in the dim entryway. The room itself was brighter. A middle-aged woman with graying black hair and kind brown eyes walked toward me, a menu clasped in her hand. “Table for one?”
“I’m meeting someone.”
“Ah, the nice young man in the back I bet.” She stretched her arm and pointed.
Patrick stood beside the table, smiling a welcome.
“Yes, that’s him.”
Liam walked through a few empty chairs as we made our way to the table.
“You look fabulous.” Patrick smiled appreciatively.
“Thank you.” Both he and Liam started to pull out my chair at the same time. Patrick dropped his hands and jumped back. Liam stepped back and slid into one of the vacant chairs at the table. “Sorry.”
“Must be static electricity in the air.” Patrick reached cautiously for my chair. When sparks didn’t fly, he scooted it in.
The waitress took our drink order and moved away.
“So what did you do today?” Patrick leaned forward and crossed his arms on the table. The burgundy Henley he wore showed off a decent tan and well-developed pecs.
“Oh the usual, dinner with the fam.” Calmed the cook down from a ghost sighting. “And you?”
“Dinner with the family.” He picked up the tea glass the waitress set on the table and swallowed half its contents. She took our order and walked away.
After she left, I asked, “Who all was there?”
“Just my parents and my sister.”
“You’ve got a sister?”
“At least we have that in common.” Liam spoke in a quiet voice.
“I’m sorry, how thoughtless of me not to have inquired.” The words spilled out before I could stop them. We’d been sitting at the pool and I’d let myself get sidetracked by the phone call instead of asking him about his twin, Anna. Remorse flooded me.
“Not at all, you didn’t know I had a sister.” Patrick gave me a puzzled smile.
“I should have asked last night.” I should have asked this afternoon at the pool.
“Don’t be silly.” Patrick laughed.
I discreetly turned my chair so I faced both Liam and Patrick. “I’d like to hear about her.”
“She’s seventeen and driving the boys crazy.” Patrick shook his head and grinned.
“Later,” Liam said.
Whew. Holding up my end of the conversation would be challenging.
“I think I’ll mingle.” Just like that Liam was gone, at least from our table. My stomach churned as he glided into an empty seat beside two attractive young women.
“Is something wrong?”
The question jolted me back to my companion. “Why do you ask?”
“First you kept staring at the empty chair at our table, now you’re glaring at those two young women a few tables down.” He tipped his head and arched an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry. I’m just a bit distracted.” Before I was forced to say more, the waitress came back with a loaded pizza. The smell of the rich spicy sauce left me weak in the knees.
Hot cheese dripped from the piece I lifted and plopped onto the plate. I laughed and bit in. Patrick followed suit. In between bites, we chatted like old friends. The evening passed quickly. When I noticed the busboys washing down the tables, I checked the time. “Holy cow, it’s already ten o’clock. They’re getting ready to close.” I took a last sip of my soda and stood up.
Patrick drew his wallet out of his back pocket, threw some bills on the table, and did the same. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Okay.”
Liam had been so discreet, I’d actually forgotten about him. He appeared at my elbow. “Time to go?”
I tipped my chin.
As we left the restaurant, Liam and Patrick headed for my car door. I shot Liam a warning look. He rolled his eyes and flew into the passenger seat.
“What a sweet ride.” Patrick rubbed the side of the car with a lover-like caress.
“It’s my cousin’s.” I slid into the seat and rolled the top down.
“Hmm. Maybe I asked out the wrong girl.”
I grimaced, touchy about the subject.
“Just joking.”
“Couldn’t blame you if you weren’t. She’s the heir to the VanLier fortune.” My muscles knotted, but my voice and my features were noncommittal. I hoped.
“Oh, Marcy is that VanLier.” He nodded and leaned on the car. “Money is a great benny. But when it comes to a relationship, that’s all it is, a benny. The minute I saw you, your head thrown back laughing at something someone had said, your eyes bright with life and humor, I knew you were someone I w
anted to know better.”
Warmth raced through me. I relaxed into the seat. Patrick was interested in me, not Marcy, not the VanLier fortune, me.
“No response? You weren’t hit with the same bolt of lightning?”
Beneath Patrick’s easy smile, there was a flicker in his eyes and tension in his shoulders.
Liam shifted in his seat.
Geez, I hated an audience.
I cleared my throat. “It’s not that I’m not interested, but I’m not very good with relationships.” There I said it. Mentally, I wiped my brow.
“There’s no push here. Let’s just take it slow and see what develops. Dinner tomorrow night?” He flattened himself against the Vette as a car rolled by.
“Careful!” My mouth went dry as the vehicle missed Patrick, though not by much.
He moved to the sidewalk and leaned in on the passenger side, near Liam’s face. “Tomorrow night?”
Liam glared at him.
“Sure.” His closeness to Liam unnerved me. Patrick angled his body toward me.
I leaned forward, my lips parted.
In the process, his shoulder rubbed against Liam’s and sparks flew.
Liam jumped up, his feet on the seat, his hands fisted.
Patrick leaped backward, rubbed his shoulder, and laughed ruefully. “I don’t know what it is about you. Till tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” I put the car in gear and pulled into the lane behind a blue minivan, then slowed for a red light. Liam slid down in the seat. He stared straight ahead, a pensive look on his face. I couldn’t gauge his mood. “Do you want to take a drive to the ocean? It’s only about twenty minutes away.”
He smiled and my breath caught in my throat. Time stood still.
The car behind me tooted its horn, snapping me back to reality. The light had turned green. I tapped the pedal and the car shot forward.
In minutes, we’d left town behind. “Thanks for giving us some privacy,” I yelled above the wind that whipped and pulled at my hair.
“Not a problem. It was a very informative evening,” he shouted back.
“How so?” Since the lane was empty, I pushed on the pedal. The Vette leaped forward with a hungry purr.
“I had no idea women spoke so bluntly about sexual matters. Their conversation was bawdier than two sailors. Why they even discussed…” He cleared his throat.
“Yes?” I waited in fascinated silence.
“Never mind.”
Laughter bubbled in my throat. I could just imagine that conversation. “And I’m sure you men never talked about conquests or a woman’s attributes.”
“Of course, but I didn’t know that kind of conversation was reciprocated.”
He leaned back, closed his eyes, and smiled. “I could get used to your mode of transportation. The wind on my face feels glorious. Though, it doesn’t compare with a gallop on a good horse.”
The unearthly beauty of him with his head thrown back, his hair flying as wild as mine, made my heart tighten. “You are so beautiful,” I whispered.
His head came up and his dark eyes widened. “I thank you, but as I said before, you are the one that’s fair beautiful, lass, with your long supple legs and midnight-blue hair. Your date had the right of it. You do have bright eyes and they sparkle like sapphire gems.”
I bit my lip and laughed awkwardly. “It’s not every evening a girl gets complimented by two gentlemen.”
“By a gentleman and a ghost.” An almost undetectable note of bitterness laced his voice before he lightened it and chuckled. “Perhaps that would be gentleman and gentle-ghost.”
I gripped the steering wheel. It was too easy to forget my friend was a ghost, ectoplasm, not flesh and blood. “I had it right when I said two gentlemen.”
We’d reached the turnoff to the ocean. I pulled off the main highway and drove a couple of miles to my favorite spot, a secluded inlet a little distance from the road.
I shut down the motor and relaxed against the seat. The waves lapped a soft rhythm against the rocks, the moon shone full and bright. Liam’s luscious cinnamon and lime fragrance mingled with the scent of salt water and damp sand.
Wings flapped as a large bird, seeming no more than a shadowy outline, flew in front of the car. I pointed at it. “The bird is almost as ghostly as you.”
He gave a soft laugh. “’Tis a very romantic place for a ghost and a beautiful young woman.”
“A handsome ghost and a young woman.” I leaned my head back against the seat and stretched out my legs.
“I don’t know about that, but you are lovely to look at, lass.”
I caught a faint hint of wistfulness that my heart echoed. If Liam weren’t a ghost… But there was no point in going there. “Liam.”
“Mm-hmm.” Arms behind his head, he stared up at the moon.
“Tell me about your sister Anna. I should have asked about her before. It was just a bit too much, you know?”
“I grant you, it’s not your run of the mill situation. What would you like to know?” The smile on his face faltered. He looked drawn and sad.
“Whatever you choose to tell me.”
He shifted in his seat, his gaze on the moonlit water. “Anna was a beautiful little thing inside and out. When she loved, she loved with her whole heart. She was engaged to be married—just what is the proper age to marry for lasses in this day and age? Surely, you and your cousins aren’t old maids?”
“Married! I’m only eighteen and Marcy’s nineteen.”
He chuckled. “Just teasing you, lass. You do want to wed someday, though, don’t you?”
Someday seemed a long time off. “Someday, I guess. But for now I want to go to college, experience life. See a bit of the world.
“But back to Anna… Unless you’d rather not talk about her.” Something about the stillness of him made me fidget in the soft-as-butter leather seat, uneasy.
He turned back toward me and gave me that smile that quickened my breath and made my pulse pick up. “You have only to ask and I’ll tell ye anything ye want to know, including about my sweet Anna. How can I not? We’re connected now. To my knowledge, you’re the only person on this plane that can see me, hear me. I can’t think of a connection more intimate.”
I could.
He plucked a translucent piece of wheat from the air and began to chew on it. The thin stalk dangled from his lips. He pulled it out of his mouth and twisted it back and forth between his fingers.
Wow. That was some trick.
I refocused on his beautiful mouth as he continued to talk. “Anna had been in love with my best friend, William Donaldson, ever since she could toddle. She followed us everywhere.” The smile crept back into his voice. He tossed the piece of wheat away. It dissipated in the night air. “When she set her sights on William, he didn’t have a chance. That girl was more stubborn than Homer Winslow’s prize mule.
“William considered her one big pain in the arse.” He laughed and gave me a quick smile that invited me to share in the joke.
My insides warmed. His smooth voice filled my head and mesmerized me like the lap of the water against the shore. The night air danced and played with his hair. I watched his lips as he continued his story.
His beautiful voice deepened with sadness. “Then the war came and we enlisted. We weren’t able to get home for two years. Funny little Anna had turned into a beautiful young woman. William fell head over heels in love with her. Anna was wild to wed him, but William had a stubborn streak himself. He was afraid she might get pregnant and he wouldn’t make it back to take care of her. Still, he came to her at every opportunity.”
In my mind, I could see the two young lovers clutched together in a desperate embrace, feel their pain of parting and fear of death.
“We survived, William and I, and came back home. Still, the lad wouldn’t marry her.”
“If he loved her, why wouldn’t he marry her? That doesn’t make sense.”
“William got on his feet within a year. He’d built her a little house with a white picket fence. He even planted red and pink roses around it. They smelled as sweet as sin on a hot summer’s night. I’d never seen Anna so happy.” He paused and glanced in the direction of a splash close to shore.
I shifted in the direction of the watery sound. My attention soon drew back to my ghost. “What happened?” I prompted.
He drew a sigh from deep in his belly. “Southern boys went a little crazy after the war. Hunger will do that to you. A group rode into town the day of her wedding, wearing red bandanas around their faces, headed for the bank. Anna got in their way.”
“Oh, Liam.” My heart sank, and ice seeped into my bones. I rubbed my arms.
“She was in a hurry, not paying attention, and stepped off the sidewalk as they came thundering in. They rode right over her.” Tension like thunder bolts filled the night. Electricity leaped and crackled in the air. Apprehensive, I checked for rainclouds, but the night was clear. The feel of an approaching storm came from Liam.
“I yanked the man closest to me off his horse and proceeded to beat the holy hell out of him. One thing led to another. I got shot.”
A dark splotch appeared on his chest and grew in size, the edges ragged. My mouth dried and my stomach pitched. He glanced over, saw the horrified look on my face, and the stain disappeared.
“I saw this beautiful light, and I swear there were angels beckoning me. I started toward it, then heard a wail. I turned and watched sweet Anna rise out of her body. I reached for her hand, but she pulled away from me and started running toward the church, calling William’s name.
“I tore out after her. By the time I caught up with her, the light and the angels were gone. Then we both fell into this black void. Sometimes in the dark, I could hear Anna calling for William. In the background, I could see shadowy figures as if through a veil. It was as if we inhabited the same plane as the living only in different dimensions. Then poof, we got sucked into those tubes.
