The Strangers on Montagu Street (43 page)
Read The Strangers on Montagu Street Online
Authors: Karen White
Tags: #Romance, #Psychological, #Contemporary, #Fiction
Instead, my gaze settled on the clock behind him, the glowing readout indicating it was almost five thirty in the morning. My head jerked up off the pillow. “Crap.” After kissing Jack quickly on the lips, then flinging the covers off, I began to scramble around the room, and then into the hallway, dining area, living room, and kitchen, searching for my clothes and shoes, shyly holding up a pillow from the sofa as a modesty shield.
Jack stretched lazily in the bedroom doorway, completely naked and apparently finding my running around without clothes oddly exciting. “What’s the rush, Mellie? Didn’t you take today off? I thought we could spend the day . . . inside. Where you won’t need your clothes.” He gave me a long and appreciative look. “And why bother hiding behind a pillow? I’ve seen everything already.” His smile was smug and not a little self-satisfied.
I was very tempted to stop my search and return to Jack’s bed and ignore the rest of the world a little longer. Instead I snapped my bra off of the floor lamp behind the sofa and struggled to put it on as I searched for my underwear. “Jack, as much as I’d like to, I’ve got to get back home before everybody’s up and sees me coming in wearing what I wore last night. Especially since my mother knows I was coming to find you when I left the party.”
I found my dress in the kitchen and was stepping into it when Jack joined me, standing behind me and kissing me on the back of my neck and shaking my resolve. “You’re forty years old, Mellie. I’m sure your mother will understand.”
I turned in his arms and kissed him, feeling how eager he was for me to stay. “What about Nola? What’s she going to say?”
His eyes widened. “You’ve got to hurry.” He whipped me around and began zipping my dress. He ran back to his room while I went in search of my purse, and returned wearing shorts and a T-shirt and carrying both of my shoes. He held them up like trophies. “Sorry it took me so long. These were in my bed for some reason.”
I blushed, remembering how they got there. “Thanks,” I said as I took them from him and began to put them on.
“I’ll drive you.”
I shook my head. “That’ll look worse if somebody sees you dropping me off. Besides, I have my own car.”
He put his hands on my hips and drew me toward him. “So when can I see you again?”
“Tonight?” I bit my lip, embarrassed at how eager I sounded.
Jack grinned. “As much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, I’m afraid I can’t. My mother’s been begging for me to join her on a weeklong buying trip to the Northeast, and since I don’t have the excuse of working on a book, I should go. She doesn’t like going alone, and my dad needs to stay behind to manage the store. Who knows—maybe I’ll find my next book inspiration while I’m gone. My mother already cleared it with yours regarding coverage for Nola if you weren’t available.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. “So when will you be back?”
“Next Thursday. It’ll give us something to look forward to.” He kissed my neck again, making me sigh. “And there’s always the phone.”
I nodded, thinking of everything that remained unsaid between us, and knowing that none of it could be said over the phone. “Jack—” The alarm on my phone chirped, interrupting me.
As I fumbled with my purse to pull out the phone and turn off the alarm, Jack asked, “What’s that?”
“My alarm. I always wake up at six o’clock, so I set my phone alarm to go off fifteen minutes before my bedside alarm goes off.”
He stared at me for a moment before responding. “That must be a ‘Mellie-ism,’ so I’m not going to ask for an explanation.”
“A ‘Mellie-ism’?”
“That’s what Nola calls all of your idiosyncrasies. Like how all of the clocks in your room and your watch are set ten minutes fast. Or how you stick labels on the inside of your drawers to show where everything goes. Mellie-isms.” He kissed me on my forehead. “I think they’re cute.” He reached over and grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter. “Come on—I’ll walk you to the car. I’m not in the mood to explain the birds and the bees to Nola this morning.”
I allowed him to lead me out the door. And as he kissed me good-bye at my car I did my best to convince myself that what I needed to say to him could wait just one little week.
My feet seemed to float above the ground as I went about my daily routine the following week. I was very careful to hide my emotions from everybody else, feeling it only fair until I’d told Jack, but Charlene wanted to know where I was getting my facials now, and my mother and Nola had each scolded me for putting the coffee grounds in the refrigerator and the milk in the pantry. Twice. Only General Lee seemed to have guessed the truth, and had taken to sleeping at the foot of my bed instead of on the pillow next to me, as if he understood that particular place was being held for somebody else.
My work schedule was busier than usual, and I closed a record three times in one week, earning me my regular—and coveted—top spot on the seller’s chart in Dave Henderson’s office. Jack and Amelia were apparently just as busy, as associates in the antiques business wined and dined them from Boston to New York. Our phone conversations were brief, as if both of us were aware that a profound yet unacknowledged change had occurred in our relationship. We were explorers in uncharted territory, using blank maps. And I kept waiting for him to tell me that he’d discovered the truth behind his canceled contract, and each day that he didn’t I felt more and more guilt about keeping it to myself. Still, I convinced myself that telling him over the phone wasn’t an option, and that I would tell him face-to-face as soon as I saw him again.
For the first time in my life, I had both of my parents to consult with about a major decision, but I knew what they would tell me, and I didn’t want to disappoint all three of us by going against common sense and reason. I recognized that I was acting like a coward, but the thing between Jack and me—whatever it was—was still too new and fragile to take such a blow. Like a person staring down a tornado, it seemed I was waiting until the last minute to seek shelter, hoping against all odds that it would veer off course and avoid me completely.
The only thing that was clear to me was that the dollhouse had to go. The feud between William and his father had escalated since the discovery of the graves on Manigault property, and Nola seemed caught between them as they haunted her dreams, using her as a conduit to continue past arguments, tossing her bedclothes and anything else in the room into disarray. Mrs. Houlihan was threatening to quit, and Nola walked around with dark circles under her eyes. I’d had enough.
On the morning Jack was scheduled to return to Charleston, I was awakened from a sound sleep by a shuddering rumble of thunder. General Lee dived under the covers as my eyes popped open in time to see a flash of lightning illuminating the room and a human figure standing next to my bed.
A cold hand touched my arm and I bolted to a sitting position. Thunder growled as continuous bursts of lightning flashed through the room like the end of an old-fashioned film reel, the figure leaning toward me seeming to do so in slow motion. I dug my heels into the mattress, pushing myself away until my head collided with the headboard. I tried to meld into the wood as the figure leaned closer, and in the next burst of lightning I found myself staring into two wide eyes. Two very familiar wide eyes.
“Nola?” I could barely hear my voice over the thunder.
Her hand squeezed my arm with surprising strength, and when she spoke, it wasn’t her voice that came from her mouth, but something much deeper, and darker, and not of this earth.
Lightning illuminated her very pale face, her eyes appearing hollow in the shadows. “We told you to stop her. And now you will pay.” The hand tightened on my wrist, cutting off circulation to my hand.
“Nola!” I shouted, trying to snap her out of the trance or whatever it was she was having.
“There is nothing you can do now to save her. You should have listened.”
I struck out with my other hand, colliding with the nightstand and making the lamp wobble. “Nola—wake up! You’re dreaming; wake up!”
The temperature dipped, and I sensed a pervasive light in the room that had nothing to do with the storm raging outside, yet the overhead chandelier and lamps remained dark.
Nola. Wake up. It’s just a dream.
It was Bonnie, her voice light and melodious. Nola lifted her head and I could see her eyes in the odd light as she blinked several times. Slowly, her gaze drifted to me and then to where her hand gripped my arm. She let out a cry and then covered her face with her hands.
The light dimmed and then vanished. I struggled out of the bedclothes, hampered by a squirming General Lee, who was trying to do the same thing, and fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp. I stood and reached for Nola, holding her in my arms as she wept.
Her words were punctuated by sobs. “It was William and his father, and they were so angry. At you! He wanted me to hurt you and I couldn’t stop—” A choking hiccup cut off her voice.
“Who, Nola? Who wanted to hurt me?”
“The father—Harold. William was angry, too, but at something else. I think he was angry with Miss Julia, something about letting things go too far. And how it was all her fault.”
I patted her back and waited for her crying to subside. “It’s all right, Nola. It’s not your fault—I know you wouldn’t want to hurt me.” I tried for a light note. “Unless I made you sing ABBA in public again.”
Her cheeks wobbled in an almost-smile and I knew I’d hit my mark. I set her away from me, my hands on her shoulders as my mind tried to organize what I had to do next. “I want you to try to get some more sleep—but you can stay in here with General Lee. It’s almost dawn, so I’m going to go ahead and get dressed, and I’ll send my mother in to stay with you if you’re still asleep when I leave.”
She swallowed as her shoulders relaxed, and a look of relief settled on her face.
“I’m calling Chad first thing and having him bring a friend to move the dollhouse to your dad’s condo until we figure out what to do with it—please let him have your key when he gets here. I’ve got an open house this morning on Daniel Island, but then I’m coming right back here. Should be around eleven thirty, so if you could be dressed and ready to go by then, we’re going to head over to Miss Julia’s.”
Her brows knitted. “What for?”
“To tell her I figured out what ‘stop her’ meant and find out why Julia’s asking for forgiveness. It’s time to put a few spirits to rest.” She nodded, our understanding that she’d never allow herself to be left behind not needing to be spoken.
I didn’t mention that I was afraid to let her out of my sight, afraid that William and Harold might not leave her alone until we found all the answers. Or that her mother was still here, hanging on for reasons that continued to elude me.
Nola and I stood at the front door of the house on Montagu Street, watching water drip from the old eaves and listening for the sound of approaching footsteps from inside. Nola rubbed her hands over her arms, and I saw gooseflesh despite the warm temperature. “It’s weird,” she said.
“What is?” I asked, ignoring the obvious answers of “this house” and “its ghosts.”
“I always have this creepy feeling when I’m outside the house and in the hallway. But never in the music room or in the Christmas room—which are pretty creepy but in a whole other way.”
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