Barefoot Bay: Whispers in the Sand (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Gail Chianese

  Colin dropped down into the sand next to her, stretched out those strong runner’s legs, and rested on one arm. He looked like any other guest in his cargo shorts and the loose-fitting tee that did nothing to hide the sculpted muscles in his chest and arms.

  “I think your grandmother’s house is haunted.”

  Her hand shot out and covered his mouth as Shay looked around, her gaze noting every person on the beach and whether they were in hearing range or not.

  “Shhh. Are you crazy? You can’t just blurt that out here. Are you trying to get me fired?” Shay lowered her voice and plastered on a smile as a family of three stepped out onto the sand.

  The little boy had been one of the pirates from yesterday and he ran to Shay to show off his booty of seashells in his plastic bucket. She took a moment to ooh and aah over the treasure before his mom called him back.

  “You should have called and I would have met you somewhere to talk.” Somewhere far away from Barefoot Bay and the resort, because the last thing she needed was for one of the guests or staff members to overhear.

  “You didn’t give me your number, and your grandmother wouldn’t either.” Colin sat up and inched closer. “Shay, I think this is the real deal and I promised I’d come to you first.”

  “Come on, let’s walk and you can tell me why you suddenly believe in…O’Malley.” She headed north away from the main resort building and the chance of being overheard.

  They walked in quiet unison for several minutes, bumping shoulders and hands, before Colin spoke.

  “I spent every free minute I had this weekend listening to the tapes and watching the videos, as did the rest of the team. Are you sure your grandmother is the one the spirit is attracted to?”

  She stopped and looked at Colin. What was he getting at?

  “Well, yeah. He was her husband. Besides, no one else in my family has ever claimed to be able to talk with my grandfather’s spirit.”

  “Are you sure? No weird feelings, cold spots, strange dreams…”

  Just of you. “No. Mom, Dad, and I play along, but truth be told—and if you tell Grammy, I’ll feed you to your precious big cats—we worry she’s lost touch with reality. Or a portion of it.”

  Should she tell him about that dream all those years ago? Would it help, or would he think she was as nuts as her gram?

  A cool wind blew across Shay’s shoulders, giving her the chills.

  Believe.

  There it was again, that voice in her head. Her subconscious? But why would it be a man’s voice if it came from her own mind? What would Colin say if she said she heard someone whispering to her? He’d probably have her locked up with an ‘I love me’ jacket.

  It’s what she’d do if the roles were reversed.

  Believe.

  “Oh, shut it, brain,” she muttered. At Colin’s startled look, she waved a hand and shook her head. “I need sleep and for you to tell me exactly what you found.”

  “We picked up nothing unusual on the video cameras. Unfortunately we didn’t have one set up in the kitchen with us Friday. As for EVPs, I picked up one really good recording from Friday. There’s a couple of questionable moments from Saturday and Sunday, but I’m thinking that was one of the guys and they just don’t remember saying anything then.”

  “Did it sound like one of your team?” she asked, totally intrigued by his revelations.

  “The voice is male, but it’s very faint. The thing is, all of the EVPS are on my recorder. The others got nothing and I find that strange since they were with your grandmother and I wasn’t. I was with you the whole time.”

  Like he had to remind her of the fact. It was no wonder that what little sleep she’d had over the past couple of days had been filled with dreams of Colin. They’d spent so much time together during the investigation, and he’d been incredibly nice and funny and oh, so sexy in his reading glasses, all she wanted was more of him. It was like being surrounded by her favorite dessert but only being allowed to look and not taste. After awhile, it was all she craved.

  “What did the voice say?” She held her breath, afraid to hear the answer. What if the voice in her head was actually O’Malley talking to her?

  Colin frowned and shook his head. “I’ll let you listen and decide. If I tell you, it might influence your decision. If it weren’t for the timing…”

  It hit her then, why he was even considering the impossible. They must have picked up the voice around the time the faucet exploded. Well, that could have easily been one of the other guys. If they could hear Shay and him talking on their recorders then it stood to reason that the same was true in reverse.

  “I want to hear this evidence.” She reached out to grab his arm as a thought hit her. “Wait, you didn’t tell Grammy, did you? I don’t want to get her hopes up after all this time only to find out it was Dave or one of the others talking.”

  Colin threaded his fingers with hers and brought her hand up to his mouth. He kissed the back ever so lightly; if she hadn’t seen it she would have thought it was the wind. “A promise is a promise. You’re the first person I told.”

  As soon as Shay found out Colin had his computer and gear in his car, she insisted he retrieve everything and meet her back at her small bungalow. When she got there, she took the precious few minutes she had alone to jump in the shower to wash off the sand and grime of the day before slipping on a breezy sundress.

  There wasn’t much to the place, a small living room, a kitchenette and one bedroom with a bath. A few pieces of furniture supplied by the resort and a half dozen boxes containing her life. She shoved cardboard containers into one corner, tossed her pajamas into the closet, and pulled up the blankets on the double bed just as Colin knocked on the door. Why she bothered cleaning up her room she had no idea, as she didn’t plan to invite him that far into her life. At least not tonight.

  His gaze slid down and back up, twice, and had her gulping for air even though he hadn’t laid a finger on her. Maybe it was a good thing she’d showered and picked up because it looked like her plans might have changed.

  Colin looked around and headed for the couch. “Here, this will work.”

  Okay, they were going to skip the preliminaries. Well, it wasn’t like they didn’t know each other, hadn’t explored every inch of each other’s bodies more times than she could remember. Still a little romance would be nice.

  Colin waited for her to sit. Always the gentleman, even if he was a bit impatient tonight. She expected him to take the cushion next to her, to crowd her and eat up her space. Instead, he sat on the rickety coffee table across from her and handed her a pair of headphones.

  Huh? Not what she was expecting after he’d practically eaten her alive with his look. Maybe she’d been reading the signs wrong all along. She’d have to remember to look up “moonbow” and see what it meant, or ask Zoe the next time she saw her. Or maybe she should just be glad he was keeping his head out of the cloud and on business, right where hers should be, because her body may want to say yes, but she wasn’t sure her heart was ready to do the same.

  “I want you to close your eyes and just listen. When you hear it, if you hear it, let me know.” He held the laptop so she couldn’t see the screen. “If you need me to play it again, just ask.”

  He must have hit play because suddenly her head was filled with white noise and then she heard their conversation from Friday. She was talking about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s quote and about giving Colin a second chance. He said thank you and then…wait.

  Was that? No. Yes, it was the same voice. Maybe.

  Ugh. The word was crystal clear but could it really be O’Malley talking to her after all these years? And why did she keep hearing the word believe? What did he want her to believe in? Him? Herself? Colin?

  “Play it again,” she asked, as she wasn’t quite ready to admit what she’d heard. Grammy had full-on conversations with her granddad, so why did she only get one-word responses?

  “You heard him, didn’t you?�
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  She met Colin’s hopeful gaze, afraid to give him the answer he wanted, to give him the truth. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t trust him to keep his promise—he’d already done so once and, well, you couldn’t hold a person’s past mistakes against them forever. Admitting out loud what she’d heard meant she’d been lying to herself all these years. Even worse, she really was just like Gram.

  Crazy as a loon.

  “Shay, hey, are you okay?” His voice caressed her nerves, brought her back to this moment and unsettled her more than hearing her dead grandfather’s voice ever could do.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Not really sure what I heard. Maybe the word ‘believe,’ but I’m not convinced it wasn’t one of your team talking.”

  He sat back, all softness gone as he probably prepared for her attack. Shay reached out and took Colin’s hand.

  “I’m not saying you guys doctored the recording. Think about it, though. Dave, or was it PJ, heard you and me in the kitchen on his recorder and we weren’t that loud. How are we to be sure it wasn’t one of them and they just don’t remember saying it? You know, Gram has this sign hanging in her room: All things are possible when you believe in love. Maybe someone was in there and reading it in their head and didn’t realize they’d said one of the words out loud?”

  She held up her hand, thinking there had to be a logical explanation. They hadn’t ruled out every possibility at this point so there was no way she was willing to give credit to the improbable.

  Colin shut down the computer and sat next to her, sliding his arm around her shoulders to bring her in close. “You’re right. We need to investigate again, see if we can pick up more on the recorder or something on video.”

  “Can we do it, just the two of us?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  She smacked him playfully in the arm.

  “Such the gentleman, but you know, every now and then a woman likes a man who takes charge. Who knows when to—”

  He cupped the side of her face and turned her toward him. “I’ve missed you, Shay. Missed us.” He kissed her, warm and wet, soft and deep, sweet and sexy as the man himself.

  She’d been wrong earlier. Her heart was ready to say yes.

  Shay sunk into the kiss as the missed years melted away and everything was right in her world again. She’d thought moving to Florida would give her a clean slate, a new chance at finding love and happiness. For years she’d tried to forget this man, what they had, and what they’d planned on having together. Letting him back into her life on an intimate level would ruin her for anyone else, she knew that and didn’t care. She was pretty sure he’d ruined her for anyone else eons ago.

  “You’re overthinking things.” He kissed his way across her jaw and down her neck to her exposed collarbone.

  “Thinking?” No, more like accepting fate. “I’m not thinking about anything except how I can get your shirt off.”

  He grinned and reached down and tugged the tee over his head. She drank in the glorious sight that was Colin’s chest and upper arms, sculpted and chiseled from years of hard work at the zoo. She ran her hands over his smooth, tanned torso, tracing the indents and ridges right down to his waist. What did they call those cuts that ran from a man’s hips to his…? Whatever they were, she knew they made her stupid crazy and incredibly hot.

  Shay leaned forward, then ran her tongue along the edge of his ear before lightly nipping the lobe and smiling. Colin groaned, and, holding a handful of her hair, gently tilted her head back, exposing her throat.

  “You know all my weaknesses, woman, but then again. I know yours.”

  He kissed his way up the sensitive skin until he found the tender spot on the side of her neck, the one that would have her squirming under him in two point five seconds, seeking a deeper connection.

  “Colin, don’t you think we’re taking this too fast? It’s only been a couple of days?” Holy heck, where had that thought come from? Oh yeah, her subconscious.

  “We’ve known each other for a decade.”

  “Half of which we haven’t seen each other.” She laughed, half tempted to give into the raging hormones. It’d been a while and this was Colin, but she didn’t want a one-night fling.

  He kissed the side of her mouth, then her forehead and finally her nose as he eased back. “I won’t lie. I want you, Shay.” He kissed her again, quick and hard. “No, that’s not true. I need you like I need my next breath, but I can wait until you’re ready. Because this time I’m not walking away.”

  The phone rang before she could respond. With her heart pounding in her ears, Shay answered and listened to Gram. Or tried to. “Wait. You’re doing what?”

  Her grandmother repeated herself, something she hated doing and made clear with her long, drawn out sigh. Shay concentrated on the words, made the appropriate responses, all the while wondering if she’d lost her mind by stopping Colin.

  “Is everything okay?” He asked when Shay hung up the phone.

  She nodded. “So what are your thoughts on spending the night alone with me in a possibly haunted house tomorrow night?”

  Chapter Five

  A soft sniffle-snort blew the hair on Colin’s neck. It was the first sound he’d heard in an hour. He didn’t blame Shay for falling asleep; he was half tempted to join her in slumberland himself. The sun had disappeared hours ago and in its place the waxing moon bathed the room in a soft glow. The perfect ambiance for romance. Or a ghost hunt.

  Shay snuggled in a little closer with her head on his chest and one arm tucked around his middle. It felt so right, the two of them there together like that, like so many nights long ago. How had he ever walked away from her? He didn’t know, but he did know that things were finally lining up right in his life. He had no complaints about his job. Working with the big cats—leopards, Malayan tigers, South African lions, and Florida panthers—was perfect and there was no way he’d be in charge of that number of animals and exhibits if he’d stayed in New York. Plus, Florida kept him far from his status-conscious parents. And now he had Shay back.

  Life was…almost perfect.

  “Hmmm.” Shay ran her hand up his abs and over his chest, causing Colin to suck in air or moan.

  “You’re snoring.”

  “Nuh-uh. I don’t snore.”

  “Then O’Malley got bored with us and fell asleep and he snores.”

  Her fingers traced intricate, intertwining circles, sending his nerves into overdrive. If it weren’t for the fact that they were sitting on her grandmother’s couch he’d finish what they’d started the night before in her bungalow. Out of respect for her gram he was calling on every ounce of willpower he had to even his breathing and ignore her caress. Not to mention, the spirit was supposed to be that of her grandfather. Colin didn’t know if he believed the old guy was still here or not, but the last thing he planned to do was make love to Shay with her grandfather’s spirit watching.

  “What time is it?” Shay pushed up and looked around.

  Colin flipped his wrist over to see his watch. “The witching hour.”

  Shay smiled and walked over to the computer monitor where they had four cameras feeding in. “What did I miss?”

  “Besides you snoring?” Colin got up and joined her. “Nothing. I was hoping that with your gram out of the house something might happen around you.”

  “Floating objects? Maybe O’Malley headed to St. Augustine with Gram to see my dad and mom. Or maybe we’ll pick up something on the recorder from earlier when we did that EVP session.”

  “I don’t know. The atmosphere feels different.” Colin looked around. “Less charged, if that makes sense.”

  “No, I get it. I’m going to grab a glass of water, want one?”

  He said yes and kept looking around the room. The energy in the house wasn’t the only thing that had been bugging him, but so far he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. Looking around he let his mind relax as he took in the room, noting every piece of furniture, e
very knick-knack, every picture…

  Colin raced down the hall to the master bedroom and inspected it, then he ran upstairs and did the same.

  “Colin, is everything okay?” Shay called from downstairs.

  “Yeah, just a sec.” He bounded down the stairs skipping the last step. “Where are the pictures of your grandparents? I see pictures of you, your brother, and your parents. All of you together. But the only one with your gram and maybe your grandfather is this one—and who’s the other guy?”

  Shay took the frame he’d been holding and moved over to the light coming in from the front window. “Gram said she lost all of the pictures of her and Granddad during a move shortly after he died, except this one. As to who the other man is, all I know is he’s a cousin. Gram doesn’t talk about him.”

  “So this is your grandfather?” Colin pointed to the one in a fedora.

  “No, that’s the cousin.” She titled her head, studying the picture in detail. “He must be Granddad’s cousin. I never noticed before how much the two of them looked alike until now. Funny, I always got the impression he was Gram’s cousin.”

  Colin held out his hand. “May I?”

  Shay handed over the frame and he studied the picture some more. The two men could have been brothers, twin brothers, not identical, but darn close. There was something else and he’d have to tread carefully here.

  “Shay, look at the body language between your gram and the cousin. I’m no expert, but look at the distance between your grandparents and then between your grandmother and the cousin. Now look at their hands.”

  This was important. He didn’t know why, couldn’t explain the excitement whipping through him at that moment, but it meant something.

  “So what of it?” Shay glanced down and then away.

  “They’re practically holding hands, or rather trying not to let anyone see them hold hands. This isn’t a picture of your grandparents and his cousin; this is a picture of your Gram and a man she loved. Your grandfather just happened to be in the shot.”

  Shay grabbed the frame and set it up on the coffee table. “Don’t be ridiculous. Granddad is her one true love. Why else would he still be around?”