by Cameron Dane
Memories of what had happened tonight churned in Maddie’s mind, mixed now with the freshly opened wound from four years ago, and she went stiff and hot under the collar all over again. “The ghost you don’t believe in just touched my face and led me here. I checked the place out, but like you, I didn’t see anything. That’s the gist of what happened.” Holding her sweater more completely closed—she’d only done up two buttons before—Maddie spun and strode out into the starry night. “And now I’m going to bed.”
Barely two steps away, and Wyn called out, “You can’t keep running every time we should be talking and hashing stuff out.”
Spinning to face him, Maddie glared daggers straight into his chest. “We don’t need to talk about anything. Our actions have already spoken volumes. You just don’t like what I’ve interpreted yours to mean.”
“Bullshit, Maddie.” Wyn took one step closer, and flames of black fire soaked his stare. “The fact that you haven’t ever let yourself fully go with a man until tonight, with me, tells me everything I need to know about you.”
Maddie flinched and spat back, “And the fact that you fucked a woman on the night I turned twenty-one and we were supposed to have sex for the first time tells me everything I need to know about you.”
Stiffening, Wyn became even more of a statue. “We never discussed you coming over that night, at that time, for any reason.”
“We didn’t have to!” Maddie cried, nearly driven to smack him. “It was implied every time we commented on waiting until I was twenty-one. You know me. You knew my enthusiasm, you knew my love for you,” her voice hitched, vulnerability cracking through her shell, “so you knew coming over at midnight so the two of us could celebrate the moment I turned twenty-one was exactly the kind of thing I would do. You knew me. You knew. Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t figure it out. And what did you do to commemorate that night? You humiliated me.” Hated tears started to fall, but Maddie swiped them away as fast as she could, determined not to look weak in front of him. “And you crushed my heart and broke me with that one act. Don’t you dare tell me you didn’t do it on purpose. I won’t hear it.”
Taking the blows without swaying, Wyn answered through tight lips, “I didn’t humiliate you on purpose. I swear.”
Hysterical laughter escaped Maddie, chopping up the night sky like a chainsaw. “So then you cared so little for me that you didn’t even think about it or me, and the damage you did was just a side effect. You just didn’t care to bother at all, and that’s even richer.” She flicked him double middle fingers, knowing it was childish, but if she didn’t she would crumple to her knees in front of him, a puddle of all the pain and hurt and weakness and self-doubt she’d worked so hard to hide from him since that terrible night. “You might be living here for the next week and a half, but we don’t ever need to talk again.”
Maddie flipped him off again, just as he blurted, “I haven’t been with a woman since that night. Nothing; not at all. Not until what just happened with you on the floor tonight.”
What? Maddie sucked in air. Her chest squeezed, but at the same time she uttered, “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.” Light from the shed shone across Wyn, exposing rigid, ruddy angles on his face. His jaw clenched, but he didn’t look away. “I haven’t been able to get an erection with any woman in four years. I can’t say I haven’t tried. Christ knows I’ve tried to do a million different things to get you out of my head, including dating rampantly, I won’t lie about that.” Black intensity lit his stare, and the heat in it snaked down into Maddie’s core. “But the truth is I can’t get it up unless I’m dreaming or jerking off to thoughts of you. Why do you think I lost it so fast tonight? Part of it was knowing you hadn’t been with anyone but me, but part of it was also actually having sex again after going for so long with only the company of my hand. You overwhelmed me, in a lot of ways.”
Even as Maddie’s heart stupidly raced out of control, she asked, “Am I supposed to be flattered?”
His jaw clenching a mile a minute, his hand closed in a tight fist at his side, Wyn hissed, “I’m just telling you my reality, Maddie. You said you were a vessel, that you could have been anyone for me tonight. I’m telling you that’s not true. My heart and body and soul and mind won’t let me be intimate with anyone else. It’s only you for me. You could not have been just anyone. It had to be you.”
“So you’re pursuing me because otherwise you might have to go the rest of your life without sex.” Maddie snorted, her defenses higher than ever. “It’s nice to know why I’m so important to you.”
Wyn flung his arms in the air. “You’re deliberately misunderstanding what I’m telling you!”
Maddie stabbed her finger, her whole arm shaking, right back at him. “And you deliberately fucked another woman, purposefully plunged a knife straight into my heart, on the night we were supposed to come together with each other and declare ourselves to the world.”
“It wasn’t like that!” He roared in her face.
“It was!” She shouted at him too, the resurgence of his rejection stripping her voice bare. “And until you can admit that, we are nothing to each other.”
Not giving Wyn a chance to make another excuse, to try to wear her down with personal declarations that ultimately didn’t have anything to do with his choice to betray her four years ago, Maddie ran back to the house, up the stairs, and into her room.
Once she was alone, Maddie began to shake. Her whole body trembled, rattling so hard her bones hurt, but she managed to get out of her clothes and slip into her robe. Pulling the tie tight around her waist, she tried to focus on the ghost, a spirit she now knew had a name and, at least for herself, definitive proof that her home was haunted. Instead of feeling happy, tenderness between Maddie’s thighs brought home the events of the evening with Wyn.
I had sex with him. Keening terribly, fighting back more tears, Maddie folded to the edge of the bed and covered her face with her hands. He knows I was a virgin. He knows how important the first time was for me. He knows now there hasn’t been anyone but him in my heart.
“Oh God.” Muttering into her hands, Maddie shook her head as her heart fell to her feet. “What did I do?”
I gave him everything. Again. Maddie’s heart raced, and her blood pumped so fast she swam with dizziness. He has power over me, and now he knows it for sure.
Swamped with double the doubts about Wyn and how to move forward, Maddie fell back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, looking for answers in the shadows and the old chandelier, all the while knowing they were only to be found inside herself.
Just as another bubble of fatalistic hysteria started percolating in her belly a soft knock sounded at the door. Maddie whipped up into a sitting position and wiped all leftover tears from her face.
Wyn called through the wood, “Can we talk for a minute?” Before she could protest, he added, “It’s not about us. It’s about the shed.”
Straightening up, locking her hands on her lap, Maddie exhaled one more time for good measure and then answered, “You can come in,” curious in spite of herself.
The door swung open, and there Wyn stood, all big and dark and intense, his brown stare probing and endlessly deep. And as if she was a hothouse flower and he the penetrating heat of a sticky July day, Maddie awakened for him under her robe. Her skin, so sensitized and aware of how he felt now, tingled all over, calling for his touch. Between her legs she pulsated and slickened automatically, as if organically recognizing her natural mate and preparing for his claiming.
Squeezing her inner thigh muscles, ignoring the achy way her breasts had beaded into tight points against the terrycloth of her robe, Maddie notched her chin higher and met Wyn’s gaze. “What is it?”
Staring back in silence for a long, heated moment, Wyn suddenly shook himself and cleared his throat. “Ah, I was wondering how you got into the shed tonight?”
Maddie frowned. “I opened the door.”
; Wyn’s brow furrowed just as hard. “You didn’t use a key.”
“No. I didn’t have much on me.” Her face heated as she—and of course he too—recalled why she’d been nearly naked.
The twist of his rough features overrode her embarrassment though, and she perched even straighter on the edge of her bed. “Why do you ask?”
His mouth pulled down at the edges, making him look even more grim. “Because when I checked the shed the other day, I had to pick it because it was locked. I then locked it again after I did my search.”
Cold washed down Maddie’s spine, making her shiver anew. “But tonight it was unlocked.”
Wyn’s nod was sharp. “Yes.”
Maddie’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “And you’re wondering how a ghost would unlock a shed.”
Arms crossed against his chest, Wyn leaned a thick shoulder against the doorframe. “That is what I’m wondering.”
“Maybe she didn’t unlock the door,” Maddie conceded, “but she did lead me there. I thought maybe she was trying to show me someone who was hiding out in the shed, but when I got there and searched there wasn’t anyone inside.”
“How about the shed itself?” Wyn questioned, his tone conversational. “Did it look different from the last time you were there?”
“Different from when I first moved into the house?” Maddie hadn’t been in the shed since she’d told Mr. Corsini to leave all the stuff in it. Closing her eyes, she tracked back to that snowy day, looking within for mental pictures to compare to what she remembered of being there tonight. She could feel herself stomping her boots just outside the shed door, getting the snow off them, and then following Mr. Corsini into the room. Side by side, she compared what she remembered of that day with what she’d catalogued when scanning the room tonight.
Suddenly her breath caught, trapped in her chest. “You know?” She reached out, mimicking her movements of tonight, superimposing them over the image in her mind. “Wait a minute.” She grasped air—that’s not right—and snapped open her eyes, landing her gaze on Wyn. “I picked up Nico’s old bat tonight to use as a weapon. It was leaning against the wall by the door, but I can distinctly remember it being on a shelf above the workbench back then. It was there with a glove and a ball and I think an old model car.”
Entering the bedroom, Wyn paced with a slow, focused manner, his fingers moving in a wavy pattern as if trying to contain arcs of electricity between the tips. “Okay, the bat was against the wall when I did my initial search. I remember the car being on the shelf that day too; it was red, and I remember thinking it was cool.” Jerking to a stop, he glanced at her quickly, dots of red staining his cheeks. “It wasn’t there tonight.”
Drawn to Wyn’s out-of-the-blue blush, Maddie stuffed down an instinct to reach out and touch him, to soothe something dark in his eyes. Instead she said, “So someone has been in there at least twice,” drawing the obvious conclusion and keeping them on track.
“And once in just the last two days.” Unforgiving lines mapped Wyn’s features into even more intimidating hard planes, and he uttered in a ruthless tone, “Son of a bitch. When I find you,” he glared at the outer wall of her room, as if he could see through it to the shed outside, “I will end you.”
Going numb, Maddie twisted her hands into a tight knot, looking up at Wyn with a new sickness in her stomach. “I don’t know what to say, except that you’re right.” The words, the full acceptance of the truth wanted to stick in her craw, but she forced them out. “You’ve been right all along.” She pressed her hand to her chest, trying to contain the new pounding within. “Someone has been sneaking around on my property while I’ve been living here. The candy wrapper wasn’t a one-time incident.”
Without a pause in his step, Wyn wondered, “Could it be Nico?” and cast a raised brow in her direction. “I haven’t been able to look into him too deeply yet, but maybe he’s resentful of his father selling you the house and part of the business.”
“No, I don’t see it.” From where she sat, Maddie followed Wyn’s trek around her room. “Nico has a piece of the company already,” she explained. “He’s not interested in more, or in having any say in how it’s run. I Skype with him every so often to keep him up to date about what’s going on with the garage, and honestly, he’s minimally interested. It’s just not his thing. And Mr. Corsini has already established that of what he still owns, he’s going to split between me and Nico upon his passing, and Nico is fine with it.”
“Maybe not.” Rushing around the bed, Wyn swooped in and sat next to her, animated now. “Maybe out front Nico is trying to save face. Maybe he’s actually very resentful of how close you and his father are.”
Maddie’s stomach roiled with those words, but she swallowed down an automatic “No,” response. Too many discoveries about her home weren’t adding up. “I suppose anything is possible,” she conceded, “but I just don’t think so. If Nico had shown any interest in the shop or living in Redemption this would all be his. He didn’t want it. He hasn’t his whole life.”
“Maybe reality felt a little different.” Wyn’s tone remained conversational, like they were partners, not challenging or combative. “Once Nico essentially became a silent partner, maybe he decided the percentage he was given wasn’t enough.”
“Then why doesn’t he express interest in the garage when we talk?” Shifting to face Wyn fully, Maddie pulled her leg up and folded it in a butterfly against the mattress. “He doesn’t. And that’s because he only wants to know that we’re in the black and doing the best we can, because he’s a numbers guy. As long as the numbers are good and he’s making money, he’s happy.” Wyn’s face remained unreadable, so Maddie shrugged. “Check him out all you want, but if you want my gut opinion, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
Wyn zeroed in on Maddie, and his features actually, finally softened. “I trust your gut, Maddie, don’t for a second think I don’t, but it’s my job as a cop to verify.” He reached out, his hand inches from her thigh, but abruptly curled his fingers into a fist and shot back to his feet. “Meanwhile I’ll keep an open mind about other possibilities.” He strode across the room, back to the door.
Springing up too, Maddie called out, “Then open your mind about this. I do have a ghost, and it’s Mrs. Corsini.”
Wyn spun on a dime and instantly found her gaze. “How are you so certain who the ghost is now?”
Heart racing, Maddie rushed to him, stopping less than a foot away. “Because she was this close to me when I was in the garden.” She held her hands up less than a foot apart in front of her. “I saw her. She touched me. She touched my head and my cheek.”
“No shit.” Wyn wiped his hand down the rough lines of his face. “You’re serious?”
“Yep.” Maddie almost grabbed Wyn’s hands, but locked hers at her side at the last second. “But here’s the weird thing.” Excitement still thrummed through her, and she couldn’t keep from bouncing on her tiptoes. “She wasn’t scary or creepy. She was…warm.”
“No shit,” Wyn repeated, shook his head, and looked toward the heavens. “Damn.”
“I know.” Her chest swelling, unbidden, Maddie ran her fingers over her hair and cheek where the spirit had put hands on her, and the tightness in her chest expanded into a lump in her throat. “I didn’t expect gentleness and warmth, as if she understood me and was trying to offer a motherly touch.”
His stance widening, Wyn studied Maddie with a sudden spark in his eyes. “And you say she led you to the shed?”
A new lightness skipped through Maddie’s belly, and this time she couldn’t stop herself from grabbing Wyn’s arm. “Are you saying you believe me about her now?” Old hope, trapped in her heart, pounded against her sternum, desperate to break free.
Rocking on the heels of his bare feet, Wyn shoved his hands into his pockets, and more of that new gleam in his eyes made him downright sexy. “I’m saying I’m now open to your original thought that we have two separate things ha
ppening here. I think maybe we do have a ghost and a squatter—although now it seems not a permanent one for the second, maybe because I’ve moved in and cramped his style.”
“You truly think so?” Maddie couldn’t keep the hope and need out of her tone.
“I have to think we’re both right for the simple fact that as of yet you haven’t seen the ghost open gates and unlock doors, so we have to have a real person at work here too. Yet now you’ve seen close up something you know wasn’t corporeal, a person you knew to be real who is now deceased. Maybe they’re connected.” Lines pulled between Wyn’s eyes. He pulled his hands from his pockets and started making those waves with his fingers again. “There has to be a reason she led you to the shed and all the Corsini history in there.”
“But that would lead you back to Nico,” Maddie pointed out, feeling like part of a team again, like they used to be. “And less than a week ago I Skyped with him and he was at his apartment in New York. He wasn’t here in Redemption leaving candy wrappings under my guest bed.”
Lips tightening, Wyn circled away from Maddie. “I have to consider a family angle with the ghost being Mrs. Corsini.” He glanced at her, flashing a wry grin. “It becomes the most obvious connection and makes the most sense.”
“At least you’re not discounting my ghost sightings anymore,” Maddie murmured, raising a brow back at him.
On top of her in a second, Wyn stood so close Maddie had to bow back to look up into his eyes.
“Look, I’m not completely dense.” As Wyn made the admission, pink warmed his face. “I know I can be an ass with you sometimes. I try to speak openly and explain myself, but for some reason I step on my tongue a lot with you.” His jaw ticked, and he swore under his breath before taking her hand loosely in his. “All I can honestly swear is when I screw the pooch with what I say, it’s never meant to diminish you or cause harm. I swear.”
Her hand tingled, so alive where he touched her, but their fight and the discord between them still sat heavy like bad food in her gut.
