SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (10 page)

“No,” he said, and his voice gave him away. “I always wondered.” And God knew he was still looking back. “I was dealing with a lot of shit from Matt.”

“Good for you, Reilly. Glad you could be there for him.”

She reached the landing and turned left. In a matter of steps she’d be at her door, through it. He’d be off the hook. In the morning, he’d get up, spread Matt’s ashes out where their mom was buried, and hit the road. He could be back in Los Angeles by early afternoon.

“He’s dead now,” Reilly said.

Gracie turned, surprised. “Your brother’s dead? When?” Her soft voice managed to sound injured and impregnable at once.

He hadn’t meant to mention it—not any of it. His brother’s death was far too personal to share with anyone.

“Shot himself out at the springs a few months ago.”

The breath she let out was slow and full of a million things she didn’t say. He could feel them, though, all her conflicted sentiments about his brother. Now was the time to tell her where he’d been during the handful of days when she’d decided to bail on him, yet the words felt like another kind of betrayal when his brother’s ashes were still stashed in his bag.

“He’d only been back in town for a couple of weeks,” Reilly heard himself say. “He spent most of the past sixteen years in jail. No surprise there.”

“He always ran on self-destructive.”

A family trait. As did an obsession with a certain girl next door.

Reilly rubbed the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at her face. An awkward pause filled in the shadowed spaces between them. He figured the best thing he could do was leave it at that. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and glanced up at her from beneath his lashes, unable to make his feet move away. There was so much he wanted—
needed—
to say, but there were no words that could make up for the disillusionment and pain that stood between them.

He followed her all the way to a door at the end of the hall where she stopped. The horse-dog waited at her feet, watching him with a steady, menacing look.

“Gracie.” He reached out as he said her name, but the dog advanced with lightning speed and a low growl. Reilly took a hasty step back.

“Juliet,” Gracie reprimanded in a harsh whisper. “No. Friend. Friend.”

She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Reilly’s middle in a meaningless hug meant to convince the dog that the hostility it felt was false. The warmth of her body came through the light embrace and on their own, his arms went around her, pulling her closer. Her hair smelled of coconut, her skin of something sweet and seductive, the scent of Gracie. He’d chased that scent since the last time he’d held her.

The tension in her body seemed to travel like a current to his. He turned his face into the crook of her shoulder and held her tight for just a moment more, just as long as she would let him.

When she pulled back, a mixture of hurt, anger, and mystified hunger lurked in her pretty eyes. She stepped away and opened the door before he could see more. A blast of icy air rushed out at them. Not just cool, but subzero. It snapped him out of his daze.

“Jesus,” he said. “You’ll be frozen before the sun comes up. Maybe she had the air set so high downstairs because all the cold stops here.”

“Maybe,” she agreed, crossing into the room that must have been her grandmother’s like a stranger who’d taken a wrong turn. Slowly, she turned in place, her gaze brushing over the surface of a heavy wood dresser that looked older than the Diablo itself. An antique grooming set was laid out on dainty doily. Pretty little boxes lined the edge by the mirror, oddly shaped and metal. Gracie met her own eyes in her reflection and the desolation he saw would’ve broken his heart if he still had one. Her relationship with her grandmother had always been troubled.

The horse-dog
grr
’d as Reilly crossed the threshold, but didn’t try to eat him so he started looking along the floorboards for the vents—no easy feat when Gracie’s grandmother had the room packed with heavy furniture.

“This bedroom set belonged to her great-grandmother, I think.”

“It’s probably yours now,” he said softly.

Gracie swayed and reached for the bedpost. Slowly she sank to the edge of the bed, watching him as he continued his search for air vents. He could almost see his breath now.

“She never even met Analise,” Gracie said. “I sent her an announcement when she was born. I sent her Christmas cards, every year with pictures. She never responded.”

Crouched down by the roll top desk, Reilly paused and looked back. “Why?”

“Not a clue.”

They stared at one another from across the room, and he was pretty sure they were both thinking of the mysterious twists and turns of life. From her expression, she didn’t like thinking about it anymore than he did.

He couldn’t see behind the desk, so he stood and pulled it out from the wall.

“I saw her tonight,” Gracie said.

The tone of voice, the reluctance of her words made Reilly pause. He had no doubt who she meant. “At the springs?” he asked, thinking Gracie must have stopped there before coming to the house. Yet he remembered how she’d burst through the door, frantic to see her daughter.
Their
daughter.

“In my kitchen.” A quiet laugh. “The dogs were all freaked out, barking, and the telephone rang—Eddie, calling to tell me what had happened. Before I answered, Grandma Beck was just
there,
sitting in the kitchen, holding an old ledger.”

He turned and leaned against the desk. “Same thing happened with Matt. In my car,” he said. “I looked over and Matt was riding shotgun.”

He was breathing heavy, but the air felt thin, icy. Like they were atop a frozen mountain.

“How long was he there?” she asked.

“A couple seconds.”

Her gaze traveled up to his shorn head and lingered. Like she knew that he’d gone home after that and stared into the mirror until his reflection blurred, wondering if he’d finally cracked. He’d started with scissors, whacking off his brown hair like it was somehow to blame. When that hadn’t solved anything, he’d gone for the razor.

Feeling way too exposed, he turned and looked at the floor again.

“I don’t see the vent,” he said, his voice pitched low. Husky.

Despite the instinct urging him to walk away, he glanced up and met her eyes. Gracie lifted a shoulder, her gaze never leaving his.

“I can figure it out tomorrow.”

I
not
we.
Because Gracie had been figuring things out on her own for a long time.

He came to stand in front of her. She had to tilt her head back to see his face. The position was intimate in itself—Gracie sitting on the bed, him standing before her. The urge to cup her face, to hold it while he bent and kissed her . . . it was almost too much to resist.

“Why are you here, Reilly?” she asked. Now her voice was husky, too.

He hesitated, wanting to give her the answer she desired. He might have, too, if he’d been sure what that was.

“It was time,” he said finally.

She frowned and he knew she was looking for the hidden meaning. Even
he
wasn’t sure about that.

He couldn’t help himself. He brushed the pad of his thumb over the puckered skin between her brows and then, because he couldn’t help that, either, he smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear, his fingers softly skimming the silk of her cheek. Her eyes widened and for a moment, he was lost in the swirling grays and blues, knowing that if she looked hard enough, deep enough she’d see right to raw and wounded center of him. This was an impossible situation and if he didn’t do something quick, he’d be in too deep to ever get out.

She shook her head and pulled back. Disappointment and relief waged a war inside of him. Reluctantly, he dropped his hand.

“You should leave,” she said.

Reilly agreed one-hundred-and-one percent. Leave. Go. Get as far away as fast as he could.

“You sure?”

“You had your chance to be a stand-up guy with me, Reilly. You didn’t take it. I’ve moved on. I’ve built a good life for me and my daughter. We don’t need you.”

“Your daughter dragged you all the way back here, looking for her daddy, Gracie. You haven’t moved on quite far enough.”

She stared at him, wounded. If she’d been cruel, he’d been pitiless. But he was right. The past was over, but tonight their daughter had decided to bring history into the present, whether they liked it or not.

He’d had every reason to walk away all those years ago. Reasons that had ripped out his heart and made him the man he was now. He’d betrayed his brother—the one person who’d always been there for him—so he could come back to her, only to find she hadn’t waited.

He shouldn’t be asking for a chance to make things right. Gracie should.

He laughed, low and without humor. She scowled at him.

“Good night, Gracie.”

Diablo Springs: Chapter Nine

Between the cold in her room, the turmoil of her thoughts and emotions, and the thunder outside, Gracie never really fell asleep. She kept going over everything that had happened. Eddie’s call, Grandma Beck, Analise.

Reilly.

Reilly and the mystifying yearning that his touch had dredged from her soul. She’d loved him since she was a girl. She’d hated him with every fiber of her being as a woman. For years she’d told herself she was over him and in a matter of hours, he’d turned her inside out. It infuriated her that with everything she had to deal with—all the trauma of coming home to the death of her grandmother and the realization that her trustworthy daughter wasn’t quite so trustworthy after all—Reilly seemed to have the front seat in her thoughts.

Silent and drawn, she dressed, uneasy in the freezing room. A dozen times she found herself spinning to look behind her, sensing something that was never there. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but it was hard to remember that when Grandma Beck had paid her a visit from the beyond on the night of her horrible, tragic death.

She didn’t become truly spooked, though, until Juliet lifted her head and growled at the corner where the desk was wedged against the wall. Slowly, Gracie let her gaze track the room as that fierce snarl revved. The watery daylight coming through the window did little more than cast shadows deep in the overstuffed room. Thunder still rumbled outside, but the lightning had eased. A steady drizzle pattered on the roof and raindrops streaked the windows. But the room was still. Too still.

Juliet’s growl trailed off, but she remained alert, her attention fixed on the corner.

“What do you see, Jules?” Gracie teased, her heart pounding and her skin prickly. It was silly to be so alarmed. Though grim, the sun was up and fears of things that went bump in the night should feel silly in daylight.

Slowly, she circled the room, her footsteps soft on the rug. Nothing moved but the swaying shadow arms of the tree outside, yet something unseen brushed against her throat and made her jump. The hairs at the back of her neck stood on end, and she pivoted as Juliet’s snarl became a fierce bark.

The big dog lunged at the corner, teeth bared as she snapped her jaws at the empty space. A ridge of fur stood on her back and her shoulders bunched with aggression, confusion adding a viciousness to her bark. A split second later, she heard Analise scream.

Gracie raced for the door; but Juliet tried to get their first and bumped into her legs, knocking her off-balance. Gracie’s feet tangled in the braided rug and she slammed into the wall with a thud that echoed loudly.

Struggling to regain her balance, Gracie raced into Analise’s bedroom and found her daughter huddled on the bed, eyes wide and terrified. Both Tinkerbelle and Romeo stood at the foot of the bed barking crazily. Reilly burst into the room a half step behind Gracie. His shirt was off, the top button of his jeans was undone, and his feet were bare.

“What happened?” Gracie demanded, pulling her daughter into her arms at the same time that Reilly asked, “Are you okay?”

Analise couldn’t catch her breath, let alone answer and Gracie soothed her, rubbing her back and murmuring calming words. Juliet joined the other dogs on the bed and all three crowded around her, seeking solace, too. A strange, unsettling scent hung in the air and the warmth after her freezing room felt shocking and unnaturally . . .
dark
.

Chloe and Bill Barnes stood at the doorway, looking in with curious eyes. Chloe’s turban was gone and her white hair stuck up in thin, frizzy tufts. Behind them, Jonathan tried to peer over their shoulders.

“What happened, sweetheart?” Gracie asked, smoothing Analise’s hair back. “Did you have a nightmare?”

Her daughter’s face was deathly pale. “I woke up and there was a man standing over me,” she gasped, tears on her face, eyes wild with fear.

Gracie shot an accusing glance at the men hovering in the door.

“No,” Analise said. “Not one of them. He was big. He grabbed my arm and tried to pull me out of bed.”

“He
what
?”

Analise leaned back showed Gracie her arm. Gracie looked for signs of a handprint or redness, but the skin was cool, smooth, and unmarred in any way.

Reilly crouched down in front of her daughter—
their
daughter. “Did you see where he went? Can you describe him?”

Analise’s tears came faster. “No. He was just over me when I opened my eyes—this shadow. I couldn’t see his face. He was just leaning over me. He grabbed me and when I screamed, he was gone.”

“Gone where, Analise?” Gracie asked.

“Gone. Just . . .
gone
.”

Gracie met Reilly’s eyes, both of them thinking about their own inexplicable visitors. Gently, Gracie patted Analise’s arm.

“He was here,” Chloe announced, chin up and eyes darting around the room. She heard fear in the old woman’s voice.

“Who was here?” Analise cried.

Before Chloe could answer, Gracie stood and blocked the woman’s view of her daughter. “You saw someone in her room?” Gracie demanded.

Chloe shook her head. “I can feel his spirit. Can’t you?”

“Whose spirit?” Analise whispered.