by Dana Pratola
“I’m fine.”
She nodded, and to my surprise, slid over to me, resting her head on my shoulder. It was the most normal thing in the world to slip my arm around her and for her to lean into me. But I still didn’t want to believe it. Brenna, Brew’s niece.
Clearly, she had no idea what he’d done or that I even knew him. Or did she? Was that why she never wanted to talk about family? Because I would make the connection? Granted, she’d brought him up now, but maybe she was just overconfident that she’d completely snowed me, and becoming careless.
Brenna started reading, but I still couldn’t get my head around the words. All I could think of was betrayal and hurt. Had Brew sent her as a plant to get close to me, to decimate my business from the inside like he’d failed to? A man who would kill another man for firing him was capable of anything.
My heart refused to believe it. There was no way he would possibly know I’d find her in that haunted house, or that I would bring her here, offer her a job…. Good Lord, should I still trust her to work here?
My mind shot off in a dozen directions, constructing scenarios, deconstructing, then reconstructing them. I thought of all the reasons I shouldn’t trust her: I knew very little about her except her relation to Brew, a lying snake.
Once I stopped letting my worries rush ahead of my rationale, I thought of every reason I could trust her: I knew her as well as I needed to. In my gut I knew she was for real. And she’d saved my life.
She turned the page again. “Oh good, this is the chapter about us,” she said.
“Us?”
“Not us,” she said, pulling back to look at me before resettling. “But the house we shared. So, in a way it concerns us.”
I nodded, vacantly. “I guess.”
Her enthusiastic tone drew me in, making me once again conscious of her nearness. Before long I was enraptured—no, I don’t usually use words like that—not with the book, but by the way the lamplight played off her hair, firing darts of color through the dark brown locks. It looked soft. I had to touch it.
She paused only for a second when I lifted my hand to rub the ends of her hair between my fingertips. I smiled and, since she didn’t object, continued playing with the silky strands, winding a length around my index finger.
With the texture and scent of it filling several of my senses, I had trouble focusing on her words, but not so much that I missed her rereading a couple sentences, rushing over some words, and halting between others. It appeared she, too, had a little trouble focusing. Hmm. Could be due to our close proximity. What else?
“Oh, wow,” she said, after a minute.
“What?”
“The area between Phillipsville and Stanger are known to be littered with Cherokee burial mounds,” she read. “Even as far north as Myron County, heaps of stone are left, empty coffins long ago relieved of their crusty corpses, but not of the spirits of the restless dead. Many claim the violent deaths of over eight hundred Cherokee who perished in a land war in the Myron County territory are the ones ultimately responsible for the series of deaths connected to the property, their rage-fueled spirits possessing and using human hosts to seek vengeance on perceived enemies.”
She moistened her lips and went on. “In the most notorious case on the property, some claimed evil undead spirits caused a bloody rampage in the area known as Unger Hill, when ranchers were murdered on the property without provocation. Though legend has it the victims were killed in the house that still stands on the property, evidence shows that while they were connected to the house in some way, none of them were murdered there. One of the victims was found outside in the woods, and two others a few miles away.”
“Hmm. Ben was right,” I said.
She leaned forward and turned toward me. I already missed the feel of her against me.
“He knew that?” she asked.
“Well, he told me no one was murdered in the house itself.”
I was haunted nonetheless. Not by spirits or folklore, but by this living, breathing, fascinating creature. She went on to read that two of the dead were lovers, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, or something like that. I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. Toying with her hair had become far more engaging.
I closed my eyes, trying to follow along, and soon became entirely caught up once again in the cadence of her soft voice and the warmth of her body pressed against my side. No way on earth was this sweet thing in any way associated with Brewster McCloud, other than through a misfortune of birth.
CHAPTER 25
When I opened my eyes, and lifted my head from the couch back, Brenna was asleep, her head on my thigh, book collapsed on her chest, rising and falling with her slow, even breaths. I remember her asking if it was okay to lay there so she could prop the book on her thighs with her feet against the arm. Then she’d slid down while I continued playing with her hair. I remember more words, pages turning, and then nothing.
Brew’s niece. Crap.
I don’t know what I must have done to alert her, but I was sorry for it when she jolted awake, swept her hand across her mouth and pushed up to a sitting position.
“Oh. I guess I nodded off, I’m sorry,” she said.
“I did, too. I guess we were both more tired than we thought. I wonder what time it is.”
I took my phone from my pocket just as it buzzed, telling me a voice mail had been left. Jim’s number. Another from Tracy. That would wait.
“It’s eleven forty,” I said. I pressed PLAY on Jim’s message and waited for his voice. It didn’t come. Nothing but air. I shrugged, then hung up. Something was wrong. I had to talk to him soon, not leave him hanging, so I’d try again as soon as I got home.
“Okay, this time I really am going,” I told Brenna. “Feel like driving me back?”
“Of course,” she said, hopping to her feet. “Let me grab my shoes and jacket.”
I had to talk to her, too. It couldn’t wait. At the door, she took my hand and elbow to lead me out. I let her guide me to the front of the truck, then reversed our grip so that I was the one doing the guiding.
She gave me a little chuckle, and looked up at me, surprised, or unsure, to find me looking back.
“Brenna. I have to tell you something. I should have sooner….” Her eyebrows drew down, two arrows directing me straight into the depths of her gray eyes and I forgot what I’d been about to say. “I….”
Reflex—or just plain need—had me releasing her hand to gently cup her face and lower my lips to hers. That instant of contact, though initiated by me, still came as so much of a surprise, I jerked my head back for a second, unsure what I’d just experienced.
It might have ended there with me staring at Brenna as she stepped back, appalled, or with her demanding to know what the hell I thought I was doing, but to my amazement, she took a single step forward, raised to her toes and kissed me.
There was no hesitating this time, just lips pressed to lips, her hands slipping around my waist, and tiny puffs of our mingling breath eking out into the chilled night air. The awkwardness that typically came with a first kiss melted in the tangible warmth rising between us as I pulled her closer, angling my head to take us both deeper.
A little sound in the back of her throat shot an arrow of heat straight to my gut and I eased back a bit to rub my lips over hers, once, twice, before delving back in. This time, I plunged my fingers into the hair at the back of her head and feasted. For the life of me I didn’t recall having kissed another woman like this, and wondered vaguely why I hadn’t done it sooner. Such sweetness and instinctive response, waiting for me, it seemed, to just take.
Then, like a shock of cold water, I remembered why I hadn’t done this before. So that she wouldn’t think I was a snake, trying to slither between her legs under the pretense of being blind. I lifted my head, looking down at her, ready to finally come clean, but the sight of her closed eyes and parted lips drew me back and I had to have one more taste. Just one more.
<
br /> My head dipped, closer, returning to her sweetness. I was almost there, when a car horn pulled me up short. I turned to see Tory’s car racing toward us.
“It’s your friend, Tory,” Brenna said.
I jumped back, taking Brenna with me and watching the car roll to a stop beside me as the dust swirled through the yard lights. Tory swung the door open.
“Trying to run me down?” I asked. “What’s the rush?”
“Did you talk to Jim?” she asked, stepping one leg out, leaning on the car door.
Brenna grabbed my shoulder. “Hey, wait. Can you see?” She waved her hand in front of my face, paying attention to the way my eyes moved. “You can see!”
“No, I didn’t,” I told Tory, then looked at Brenna and nodded. “Yeah. I was trying to tell you.” I moved to take her by the shoulders. She retreated backward.
“How long have you been able…? Why didn’t you tell me? When…?”
“I tried to,” I said. “I couldn’t find the right time.”
Her eyes grew saucer wide and she raised her arms to the sides before letting them fall. “Um … any time?”
“I was—”
“That’s not something you keep to yourself!” Brenna said, then looked at Tory. “You knew?”
She looked sheepishly away, then back at me. “Jim called my phone a few minutes ago. Kash, he didn’t sound good.”
I had no choice but to ignore Brenna’s irate glare and address Tory. “What do you mean?”
“He was….” She moved her hands around in a circle and huffed. “I don’t know, out of breath maybe, slurring. He sort of sounded like he’d been drinking, but not exactly.”
I took my phone from my pocket and punched in Jim, sparing a look for Brenna, now standing cross-armed in front of me.
“Incredible,” she murmured.
After five rings, it finally connected. I heard a voice, but no real words. More of a groan, and maybe the sound of a thud. Could have been the phone dropping.
“Jim?” No reply. “Jim! Are you okay?” Still no sound. But I had that feeling again, like something was wrong.
“What is it?” Tory asked, stepping forward, putting a hand on my arm.
Instead of outraged, Brenna looked concerned now. I was, too, and hung up to call Andy. Thursday nights he had a gig as a bouncer at a bar around the block from where Jim sometimes stayed, in his brother’s basement. Passing the concern on to him, he jogged around the block with me on the line.
“Might as well hang on,” Andy said. “I’m out front. Yup, there’s his car.”
I heard Andy’s footsteps, and the static of air blowing through the phone as he walked. I was not ready for what I heard next.
“Oh man! No, no! Oh no!”
“What?!” I asked, already dreading the worst.
“What?” Tory echoed.
There was shuffling over the phone, more shouted words of denial, and I thought, a sob. More movement, then, “Kash!”
“Yeah!” My heart pounded.
“Kash!”
“Yeah! Andy, what’s going on?”
“Mac’s dead.”
“Dead? Mac?”
“What?” Tory gasped.
Brenna looked terrified, and she didn’t even know Mac.
“And Jim … I don’t know,” Andy said. “He’s sitting here covered in blood. There’s a hole in his head.” He let out a few expletives, which he never did, only given the situation…. “He’s good though. I mean he’s not dead. He’s dazed. Just sitting here on the floor.” More expletives.
“Andy, call 911 now.”
“Yeah, yeah, doing it now.”
He hung up and I ran to my truck.
“What is it? What happened?” Tory asked, eyes wide.
“Mac’s dead, Jim is hurt. Can you stay with her?” I asked, and drove as fast as I safely could away from the cabin, and Brenna.
*****
“Don’t be mad at him,” Tory said for the third time at least, taking a card from the pile.
Cull had driven up minutes after Josiah left, and since then we’d gone into the cabin to await news, passing the time by playing gin rummy with Cull’s carry around deck. I’d told them they didn’t have to stay, but honestly, I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway until I found out what was happening with Josiah.
I’d thought worrying with others would be better than being alone, but seeing them so edgy wasn’t helping at all. It was already after one a.m. and we hadn’t heard anything. Cull had called several times, and when there was no answer, dismissed it as a lousy signal spot this far out, but I didn’t like the bothered look on his face.
I didn’t reply to Tory this time. Just shook my head and took another card. Don’t be mad? Josiah could see. And he hadn’t told me! Though I had to admit, anger wasn’t first on my list. Beyond the initial confusion of why, was actual joy. I know he’d been blind. I’d have had to be blind myself not to know that. Now he had his sight back. It was miraculous! We’d been hoping, praying for it, now he had it!
Anger was definitely next on the list. I’d asked Tory how long he’d been able to see. Since Tuesday. Tuesday! Two whole days. Had he been messing with me? Trying to make me feel sorry for him so he could … what? Take advantage of me? I didn’t want to believe it. He’d had time enough to try to coax me into bed if that had been his goal, yet he hadn’t even tried to kiss me until a few hours ago.
Yeah, anger might have to drop down another peg as embarrassment welled within me. Had I acted differently because he couldn’t see me? Had I—good Lord—had I pulled my panties out of my butt crack while he watched? Or did that thing where I check in the mirror for boogers? There’d been so many times I thought he was looking at me and had dismissed it. Now to learn that he must have seen the way I’d been looking at him!
More than once I’d scanned his face as my heart melted to a puddle of infatuated goop. I felt it, yeah, but he wasn’t supposed to see it! His entire posse was in on his little stunt, too, I bet. He’d probably joked with them over how I made goo-goo eyes at him. I turned to find Tory eying me curiously. Great. I could be mortified right here and now instead of having to wait for him to come back.
“He honestly was trying to figure out a way to tell you,” Tory said.
I collapsed my five-card straight into my palm and sat back in the kitchen chair. “Why not just come out with it?”
She shrugged. “He likes you.”
“So you said. How does that make sense?”
“It doesn’t, he’s a guy.”
“Hey,” Cull said, pretending to be offended.
“I think he helped you by letting you help him,” Tory said.
Hmm. That made sense. Kind of.
“If you knew he could see, what would you think of him asking you to come up to his ranch? Miles from nowhere and no one?” she asked. “You don’t even know him, not really.”
“Oh yeah, I see,” Cull said.
Will you walk into my parlor? said the Spider to the Fly. I remember a teacher I had once reading that poem to the class. A cautionary tale of using flattery and manipulation to trap someone. I guess Josiah had been afraid I would think him a sneaky spider.
Wasn’t he? Even if it was for my good, and his parlor was better for me than an abandoned house, he’d pretended to be something he wasn’t to get his way. I sighed. I couldn’t fault him for it, I guess. He hadn’t done anything untoward to me. If anything, I felt we were getting close to each other, not just me to him.
I had work in the morning and should be asleep, but with that out of the question, I dropped my cards on the table and got up. “Anyone want coffee?”
They put down their cards and Cull slid mine over to see what I had.
“Hey, you won.”
As I made the coffee and looked through the cabinets for something to serve my guests—strange as it seemed at this hour—Cull brought up one of my new least favorite topics: Tracy.
“Forgot to tell you,” he said
to Tory. “Saw Tracy’s car parked over at Miss Minerva’s.”
Tory gave a grunt. “Figures.”
“What gives with that girl? Palm reader. Sheesh. Oh!” he added. “Did I tell you she’s having that ghost hunt?”
“The girl’s crazy, is what it is,” Tory answered. “Ghost hunt. That’s for kids. Gullible kids.”
“Yeah. she’s a little old for that stuff,” Cull agreed.
I couldn’t help laughing, and when they looked at me, did I have a choice but to tell them my own ghost story involving Tracy? After all, I was the catalyst for the stupid hunt.
By the time I finished a couple minutes later, Cull had tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks while Tory tried to catch her breath.
“Boy, what I wouldn’t give to have witnessed that!” she said.
Beneath the laughter I heard the roar of a vehicle. Josiah must be back! I went to the window and peeked out, but it wasn’t him marching to the front door, but Ben. I opened it before he knocked.
He was with a woman who looked familiar, and when she saw me her mouth fell open, her face going still and ashen. Though at first I didn’t place the face, I recognized the voice as soon as she spoke, all gravelly and nasal. Like a smoker with a persistent head cold.
“What the hell is she doing here?” she demanded, stalking over to me and pointing in my face.
Yes, an old friend of my mother’s. Sandy … something. The last time I’d seen her I was fourteen, though my mother still talked to her until they’d had some kind of falling out around the time she got sick. I didn’t know how to respond to her question. Josiah said all the women in the office, including Sandy, had helped tidy and prepare the cabin for my arrival, so my presence shouldn’t be a surprise.
“What’s wrong?” Ben asked, looking from her to me and back.
“This is Brew’s niece!” Sandy said. “Why are you here?” she repeated, jabbing the air between us.
Brew’s niece. So? What did that mean?
Ben glared down at me; his face suddenly no kinder than hers. “Is it true? You’re his niece?”
