Hacienda Moon (The Path Seekers) (14 page)

“Tandie, I don’t think you’ve ever gotten out. Forget about adding the
much
to it,” he said and grinned.

Even though he was somewhat aggravating, Tandie couldn’t deny how much she enjoyed his company. The bulk of August went by so fast that she didn’t even stop to consider she hadn’t heard from Saul the entire time.

After about another week, Chelby Rose’s final repair consisted of restoring the exposed areas on the roof. The adventure with Eric was almost over. Tandie’s heart ached at the thought of spending agonizing stretches of time sitting alone at her writing desk and reading herself to sleep while listening to crickets and frogs.

On the evening before the roof repairs were scheduled to be completed, Tandie realized something: she was truly, deeply, but not quite madly hooked on the workaholic man known as Eric Fontalvo. A small part of her was still upset about the spider joke. He sometimes put sixty-hour weeks into the restoration project. She just had to know more about what made him tick.

One evening he came inside for a drink and they situated themselves in her study.

“I’m really happy with the results. You’re amazing. I mean—your work is amazing. Almost as good as that blackened crawfish you introduced me to.” Tandie broke the ice since she could see he wasn’t about to do it. A nervous energy surrounded Eric today, and he kept moving his feet for some reason.

He glanced around with a curious expression on his face, shifted in his seat, and set his glass of Duplin on the table. “My client’s happiness is the goal. I do what I have to do to make sure it happens.”

“Why do you always look around that way? You do it every time you come in,” Tandie asked.

“It’s a fascinating house,”
he said, focusing his gaze back to her.
Bolivia’s howling wind whipped across the rooftops, putting Eric’s handiwork to the test. Eric jerked his head toward the clock chiming on the seventh hour.
He was nervous and jumpy this evening, completely different from the way he’d been acting.

“I promise I won’t let the boogey men under the stairs get you,” she said.

“That’s very comforting to know,” he said in that smooth but sarcastic way that only Eric Fontalvo could pull off without making you feel like an idiot.

Tandie wasn’t going to let him get away with it this time. “You have a slight accent. It sounds, um, different.”

“Okay, thanks, I think.” An awkward moment of silence passed. Eric clasped his hands together and then moved them apart.

“Say something in Spanish,” Tandie said.

“What? Why?”

“I love the language. It’s gorgeous.” Tandie shrugged and stared back at him the way he was doing to her.

“Want to hear something funny?” he asked suddenly, still not breaking their gaze.

“As long as it’s not at my expense again,” she answered.

“Maybe it will be next time,” he said with a smug grin. Tandie reached over and shoved his shoulder a bit. It was kind of like pushing against a wall. “Seriously though, I don’t speak real Spanish. My father was born and raised in America. And my mother’s family moved here when she was four.”

“How does someone with a super sexy last name like Fontalvo not how to speak one of the main languages of love?” She covered her mouth and muttered, “Oh, God, I can’t believe I just said that.” 

He shrugged, but his eyes lit up. “I guess it’s kind of similar to a psychic who has to ask a lot of questions,” he said, working to hold back a smile. “Aren’t you supposed to already have all the answers?”

“Ha ha. I’m working on that, thank you very much,” Tandie said, feeling a bit frustrated because she could never outwit him. “Well then, do you want to tell me how a name like Fontalvo ended up in Bolivia, North Carolina?
”

He sipped from his glass and glanced around before he said, “Not really. But I will if you threaten me with that paintbrush.”

So annoying.
“Funny. Keep it up and I might just do that.”

“My ancestors arrived here in the mid-eighteenth century. Satisfied?”

“Wait. So you can trace your history all the way back to the very first Fontalvo?” Tandie asked.

“Is that so strange?”

“Your family must’ve paid a fortune to have that done,” Tandie said.

“My family takes our ancestry seriously,” he said, his smile fading.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m criticizing, but, yeah that’s different.”

“Well, my family has a unique history,” he said and held Tandie’s gaze. Something was at war behind those eyes: sadness, loss, pain, and some other thing she couldn’t identify. “Would you like to hear the rest?” She almost didn’t hear his question because she was caught up in reading his eyes. 

“Sure, I would,” she said, forcing her mind back to their conversation.

“Our first ancestors opened a turpentine business and started a large family.”

“Did they know much about the Chelby’s? That would’ve been around the time the plantation was built.”

He shrugged. “You worked for a large police department. You’re the expert of finding information on people. Shouldn’t you know all of this?” he asked. Tandie couldn’t tell whether his side-turned mouth was a scoff or a smirk.

She inhaled deeply before speaking. “I’m not such a guru these days. I was fired because I lost my visions.”

“That seriously sucks.” He held her gaze this time without looking away. Tears welled up in her eyes, stinging her nose. She blinked them away. This wasn’t the right time for those to start nagging at her, n
ot in front of Eric.

“Don’t apologize. You’re not the one who fired me.” She used sarcasm, hoping it would hide her true emotions.
It didn’t work.

He moved closer to her side of the couch and
cupped her hands in between his large ones.

“Let people care for you if they want to. That won’t hurt anything,” he said in a seductively low voice. They held each other’s gazes. His eyes were dark pools filled with a mysterious past, and Tandie’s ability to read them faltered. The same way she’d failed during the last few months of her NYPD stint. The same way she fell short of helping Chelsea and Baby B.
But seeing this softer side of Eric was a welcome distraction. She had begun to think the man was all muscle, sarcasm, and nothing else. A heated moment passed; and then he released her hands and stood up.

“Tomorrow we finish the roof,” he said. Tandie was happy that he’d taken to her assistance in such a positive way. She had felt guilty about hiring him to take on such a large project at a cheap rate. The least she could do was offer her Tool Belt Diva services.

“I can hardly wait,” Tandie said.
Oh, and by the way would you like to go out with me sometime? I’m extremely sex-deprived. Can you help me out?

He stopped just before he walked out of the front door and turned to Tandie, narrowing his eyes.
No way.  He didn’t hear what you just said
. “Listen, if you ever need anything—um, any help even after we’re done with the renovation then don’t hesitate to call. I’m not too far from here.” His gaze bore into Tandie’s eyes and a wildfire of thoughts spread through her mind.

“I’ll try to remember that,” Tandie said her face feeling hot with a blush. Eric nodded, walked out the door, and drove away into the dim evening
.

Tandie returned to her writing; but she was slightly distracted by the wind moving across her roof. She glanced up several times after hearing a scratching noise. She made a mental note to speak with Eric about fixing whatever was loose up there during their renovation adventure tomorrow.

She had returned the thirteen pages to their place in the story. Seven sheets were still missing. Tandie edited her story around them partly because she couldn’t remember what they contained.

She read the passage she typed:
 
‘
Darkness in human form remains an enigma unseen by any woman struck by cupid’s mischievous arrow. As Eric held Maud close, she felt his heartbeat, thudding in sync with her own. What does this mean? Handing one’s heart to a beautiful stranger, when deep down inside regret tears at your soul?’

* * *

Eric Fontalvo took the long way back to his house. He wanted to clear his head so he could think over the last four weeks he’d spent with Tandie Harrison. No. He wanted to beat the crap out of himself for not having the nerve to ask her out.

He already learned several things: she wasn’t psychotic, crazy, or vicious enough to murder someone in cold blood. Hell, she was almost ready to call the police on Eric when she saw the live crawfish he bought for cooking.

Whoever it was Abby and Shania saw on the beach outside the Aeneid sure as hell wasn’t Tandie. His mind then drifted back to Pastor Jeffries’s words about the roaming spirits. That was impossible. What he saw that night outside Tandie’s grandmother’s house was the product of a tired man who needed some sleep. Could it have been her grandmother’s ghost?

“Get a grip. Nobody can come back from the dead.”

 
But then, wasn’t he the man who belonged to a family where the eldest males didn’t live past the age of forty-two? And word around town was that a spell caused all of it. His father cheated the Fontalvo curse by an additional eight years. Did his family moving to New Orleans slow the process? Or did they piss off whatever put the curse on the family
and now it was waiting patiently for a shot at revenge?

Tandie Harrison was the key to finding those answers, and Saul Chelby wanted him to be in her presence for some reason. It wasn’t like the man lived in the house or even in Bolivia. He hardly ever came to town anymore. Everybody knew that. Why out of the blue did he decide she needed Eric’s assistance?

Coincidence?—one of the two things Eric lost faith in ages ago.

* * *

The next morning, the fog clouding Tandie’s vision brought along a familiar sensation she’d waited a long time to experience again. She trudged up Chelby Rose’s dark wooden staircase, one bare footstep at a time, her world consumed by a trance. Right away, her subconscious mind knew what had happened. She was walking into a vision, and it was taking place right inside Chelby Rose.

Tandie’s foggy trance led her upstairs to Chelby Rose’s four bedrooms. A woman’s voice humming a tune drifted into her ears as she trudged up the stairs one careful step at a time. The hallway seemed familiar in all aspects except one: the four bedrooms were now spread apart, separated by extra yards of wall spaced in between the old wooden doors.

Tandie glided past the first door on the left, her bedroom. She let the invisible hand of the dream, as Grandma Zee called it, pull her along
the hallway. A
s she moved toward the door next to it, a sharp sensation of dread washed over her body.

The room behind the third door
 
showered Tandie with coldness. It was the same feeling she first experienced when she entered it a month ago. Tonight her vision led her back to it again. She willed her feet to turn around. A slither of light glowed underneath the one inch gap at the bottom of the door. The humming voice continued even though Tandie stopped just outside the room.