Ghost for Sale (8 page)

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.”

“He wanted to get back on his feet. The war had ravaged the south, though we were luckier than many. Being on the Maryland border, our town had a lot of Union sympathizers, and we recovered quicker than most. Still, it wasn’t easy.

“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.

“When Anna’s cracked, she slipped out, looked straight at me, and said ‘I have to find William’ and was gone. Once again, I saw a bright light and angels and once again, I had to stay put. I can’t very well move on without Anna. It just wouldn’t be right.”

“That has to be one of the most selfless things I’ve ever heard.” My chest constricted and my eyes stung. “So if you weren’t determined to find Anna and put her soul to rest, you’d be an angel now?”

“Well, now, I don’t quite see myself as an angel, but I believe I’d be in the light.”

“So instead of heaven you landed in what you thought was a bordello.” For some reason this struck me as funny. Laughter bubbled in my throat and spewed out. It had a tinge of hysteria to it. I couldn’t seem to stop.

“Are you all right?” Energy cracked. The sharp scent of limes and cinnamon intensified as he leaned toward me. I breathed him in. His presence steadied me.

I took another deep breath that mingled his scent with tangy damp ocean air and had an epiphany. “I know what we have to do.”

“And what might that be?” He gave a puzzled laugh.

I leaned toward him. Excitement buzzed along my nerves just under the skin.

“We have to find Anna and William and reunite them.”

“Well…” Before Liam could finish, thunder boomed, the earth shook, and a bolt of streaky white lightning hit the ground so close the air sizzled.

Oppressive heat thick as molasses engulfed me. Hot air burned my lungs.

“Jeeze-us.” The whites of Liam’s eyes shone bright against the dark.

“Holy crap.” I hit the button and the top rolled up. Sand spurted from the tires as I jammed down on the pedal and fishtailed out of the lane.

Back on the road, I realized not a single drop of rain had fallen. The pressure inside the car eased. “Well, what the heck do you think that was?” When Liam didn’t respond, I glanced over.

He wasn’t there! I checked the rearview mirror. If he was in the backseat, he wasn’t in my line of vision. “Liam?”

The silence lengthened. My hands tightened on the steering wheel, and I slowed my speed. “Liam, where are you? I thought we were linked, that we couldn’t be separated.” Hysteria rose in my voice.

“We can’t.”

Taken by surprise, my foot hit the gas. The lights illumed the car in front of me. I had to pull around it or smash into it. Luckily, there wasn’t a car in the oncoming lane or I’d be between the proverbial rock and hard spot. “Geez, Liam, you’ve got to stop doing that. You’re going to give me a heart attack. Where were you, anyway?” I managed to ask after I’d caught my breath. I let off the gas and dropped my speed down.

“I went back to see what caused the disturbance on the beach.”

“I thought we couldn’t be separated,” I repeated.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” His voice held an edge to it I hadn’t heard before.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think we could be separated even that much. You must have been five miles back.”

“I pushed against the link as hard and as long as I could till I was snapped back like a…”

“Rubber band?” I added helpfully, “Which is a circular, stretchy piece of rubber that holds things together.”

“I know what a rubber band is.” His voice had lost its sharp edge and now sounded dry. A smile slid into it, like the rustle of velvet. “It holds things together…like us.”

“Yeah, like us.” My insides went warm and fuzzy.

Up ahead, the lights of Faire twinkled in the dark.

“So did you find anything at the beach?”
Tap. Tap. Tap
. My fingernails clicked against the steering wheel, and I kept checking the rearview mirror. I let up on the gas as I hit the city limits.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Excuse me?” The hair on the back of my neck rose. A chill crawled up my spine. For a few blissful seconds, I’d managed to convince myself it was a dry storm.

“Something was back there. I could feel it. Couldn’t you?” Liam asked. He straightened the cuffs of his shirt.

“I felt the air turn thick and clammy like a storm was coming. And then lightning and thunder. It had to be weather related.” I held on to that thought like a lifeline.

“It wasn’t the weather.”

“What do you mean, it wasn’t the weather?” Cold from the steering wheel seeped into my palms as I nosed the Vette into the driveway.

He didn’t respond. I pulled the car into the garage and waited for him to continue. He rubbed a thumb against his lean jaw. A ghostly rasp from the five-o’clock shadow on his cheeks echoed through the car. His outline grew sharper, more defined, and his lips drew together in a straight line. “Something or someone took exception to what you said.”

“What did I say?”

“I believe the gist of it was you were going to help Anna and William get back together.”

Thunder rumbled inside the garage. Luckily, the bolt of lightning hit outside but near enough to shake the sides of the building.

“Okay, you don’t need to tell me again.” I threw up my hands in surrender from where I huddled crunched down in the seat. I whispered in the vicinity of Liam’s ear. “What is it?”

He’d taken off his jacket. His heart glowed red and pounded a wild rhythm against the fabric of his shirt. A rapid pulse beat in his throat. He turned his head. His insubstantial lips were inches from my own. Pops of electricity snaked between us. I moved forward, all thoughts of the strange atmospheric conditions gone, my only reality Liam. Fire and ice shot through me, weakening my bones and softening my muscles. For the first time in my life, I wanted a man, or to be precise, a ghost.

The next thing I knew he stood beside the garage door that led to the kitchen, his breath coming in short sharp pants. He collected himself and moved back to the car. “Don’t ever try to touch me.”

“Don’t you want to touch me?” I asked, hesitant. I’d never been brushed off before.

He leaned his elbows on the car and clasped his head. “Lass, if you only knew.”

“Long dry spell, huh?” I surprised a laugh out of him.

“You’ve no idea. But even if not, I’m afraid your effect on me would be the same.”

“Afraid?” I tried not to feel rejected.

“I’m very much afraid that no matter if I’m ectoplasm, as you quaintly put it, or if I was in human form, you would still devastate my senses. I’ve never met anyone quite like you. You’re so vital and beautiful.” His voice had dropped to a whisper.

My stomach fluttered. My lips parted. “This is insane. How can you exist and why am I aware you do? It’s like we’ve crossed some cosmic barrier.” I laid my head against the steering wheel, this time appreciating the cold smoothness against my hot forehead.