Unhallowed Ground (19 page)

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bark.”

“Caleb, you have ancestors who used to live here. Did you know that?”

He shook his head. “My folks weren’t the kind who were into figuring out their roots.”

“Well, there are a lot of Web sites that do just that, and I printed off your family tree. I feel like such an idiot for bursting in on you this morning, and at least this explains why I was so…confused.”

She was palpably sincere. Her eyes were silver in the moonlight, and he could smell the faint scent of her perfume. Somewhere in his core, he felt a stirring and a warmth. He’d wanted to touch her from the minute he’d seen her, but he’d never been more tempted than he was at that moment.

He needed to walk her home, see that she was safe.

He needed to keep his hands off her.

“Actually, you barging in that way was rather titillating,” he said, unable to prevent a smile.

She laughed, her cheeks turning a becoming shade of rose, but she didn’t look away. “Look, what I’m trying to explain to you is that I’m not a lunatic and I don’t usually go banging on men’s doors and yelling at them. I guess I did have a dream, but if you look at this, you can see why I thought what I did. I mean…this could be a picture of you.”

“Point taken,” he assured her, then shook his head sadly.

“What?”

“I’m afraid this means you’re not going to barge in on me again.”

“I upset Bertie. I think I’d better behave from now on,” she said, turning away. “I need to explain things to her, and apologize.”

“Show her the picture. She’ll understand,” he said.

She smiled and started walking. He stayed by her side, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep himself from reaching for her, determined not to act like a jackass and ruin this tenuous connection between them. The night was warm, but with a sea breeze that stirred her hair as they walked and carried a tantalizing whiff of her perfume to him. He found himself noticing everything about her. The silky sheen of her hair and the way that it swayed on her shoulders as she walked.

The way she walked.

The way she was built.

Her skin was smooth, and she was wearing a sleeve
less knit dress that revealed a lot of that skin, and molded her curves so tightly that he had to swallow. Hard.

She had a great mouth, generous and well-defined. Beautiful lips. Perfect nose. He remembered how it had felt to have her underneath him that morning, the feel of her flesh against his.

He almost tripped over a cobblestone as they moved down Avila, ready to make the right that would lead them to St. George.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes, just clumsy,” he assured her.

“It was strange that day, when I saw you just staring at the house,” she said.

“It’s a beautiful old house,” he said.

“But it seemed as if you were drawn to it.”

I’m drawn to its owner.

“I like historic architecture,” he said lamely. They had reached her house, and stood staring up at it. The mansion had been magnificently constructed. That night, however, he felt as if the darkened windows were eyes, staring back at them. It was as if something brooding was living inside the house. He gave himself a mental shake; he wasn’t prone to whimsy or flights of fantasy. It was a house.

A house and nothing more. But history happened in houses. Events occurred. The good, the bad and the very ugly.

Adam said there were two kinds of hauntings. Residual, the events of the past happening over and over again. And active, or intelligent, when spirits remained behind, chained by the trauma of their deaths.
They could even learn to move objects and travel from place to place, which was why Abe Lincoln could be seen both striding the halls of the White House, or sitting in the seat where he’d been shot at Ford’s Theatre.

He couldn’t communicate with ghosts himself, but he worked with a number of intelligent and completely sane people who did speak with those long gone.

But this house…

It was as if the house itself wanted to tell him something.

He was suddenly anxious to get back inside.

But not tonight.

“Caleb?” Sarah said softly, studying him.

He turned to her. Her eyes were so wide and concerned.

Silver and beautiful.

“Let’s get you safely inside, okay?” he suggested.

And maybe, just maybe, I can stay awhile,
he thought.

S
he walked ahead of him to the carriage house, taking her keys from her purse. She opened the door, and he followed her inside, where she turned on a light. The room was neat and clean. He walked over to the bathroom and went inside, came back out and, shrugging sheepishly, ducked down and looked under the bed.

She turned on the television. She wanted the noise, the illusion of company, he realized.

“Great movie,
From Here to Eternity,”
she commented.

“Yep.”

He was still standing next to the bed.

“Would you like something to drink? I don’t have a lot here—beer or white wine. Soda, coffee, tea.”

He could tell that she didn’t want him to leave. She was afraid, but she didn’t want to admit it. “Sure. I’m not much for wine, so I’ll have a beer.”

“Have a seat. The sofa is comfortable,” she told him, heading for the refrigerator and looking relieved.

He sat, and she brought over two beers and sat on
the opposite end of the couch, facing him. Then she took a swig of her beer, smiling shyly.

Was it possible to envy a beer bottle because those lips had been around it? he wondered.

“So…how did you end up working with Adam Harrison?” she asked.

“Adam found me,” Caleb said, then turned the subject to her. “How did
you
meet Adam? And by the way, I’m glad you did—you wouldn’t trust me as far as you could throw me if it weren’t for Adam.”

She flushed and looked down for a moment. “Southerners,” she said. “We’re very hospitable, but that doesn’t mean we actually trust outsiders. ”

“I’m a Southerner, too,” he reminded her. “Born and bred in Virginia.”

“That’s awfully far north,” she said. “That’s where I met Adam, though. In Virginia. There was some trouble at a dig outside Fredericksburg—I was there taking notes and sketching finds. I met Adam when he came to see the director. Harrison Investigations had been hired to stop the weird things that were happening—tools disappearing, then reappearing, strange lights in the middle of the night, stuff like that. Even the newspapers had picked up on it and were joking that maybe the dig was haunted or cursed or something. Adam and his staff caught some college kids who had been creating all the trouble—no curses going on, just pranks. But my boss told me then that Harrison Investigations even gets called in by the government—quietly—to…look into weird events.”

Caleb admitted, “It’s true. He has an amazing
network of people located all over the country. He brings the right person in on the right case every time.”

“Does he ever find that…the rumors are true? That something…unreal is going on?”

“Some of the people who work for him seem to have an affinity for…I don’t know, communicating with the…other side, I guess you’d call it. And yes, some of them do have what you might call ESP, but that just stands for extrasensory perception. Seeing is perception, touching…but scientists know the brain has much more capacity than the average person utilizes, and I think that’s what ESP is, just utilizing those parts of the brain.”

“What about you?”

“Me? I have a way of mentally rebuilding a crime scene. I’m not sure it’s ESP, more just a different way to use logic by relying on my subconscious.”

“Logic. I like logic. And the fact that we don’t utilize all our mental capacities, that makes sense to me. The brain can take us by surprise, like my dream last night.”

She was looking at him, smiling. Her lips were damp, her eyes soft and bright. And she was standing so close.

In the end, it must have been the perfume.

A sound escaped his lips, a groan, and he plucked the beer bottle out of her hand, set it on the side table alongside his own and pulled her into his arms. He met her eyes again. “I didn’t exactly barge in,” he said huskily, “but this bedroom will do just fine.”

He waited, a heartbeat, a pulse, giving her the chance to pull away.

There were things he could say. Inane assurances that he wouldn’t leave if she was afraid to be alone, even if they just sat and talked or watched TV, or just passed the time in silence.

People came together for lots of reasons, not all of them emotional. A lot of the time it was just basic biology, the laws of attraction. Whatever this was had begun to simmer the first time he had seen her, the first time he had heard her speak, the first time her eyes met his.

She reached up, her fingers molding his jaw, her eyes filled with curiosity and fascination. The stroke of her fingers against his flesh felt like flickers of fire, and her eyes went smoke-gray with pure sensuality, and he leaned forward, into her, hesitated, his mouth just a breath away. He watched her lips curve into a half smile as she waited. At last he kissed her and found her lips everything he’d imagined they would be. Holding her in his arms was like holding the essence of life and heat, and every drop of blood in him began to steam, slowly and mercilessly. Sensation rioted through him as their mouths met, the touch igniting an eruption of hunger and desire. He pulled her more firmly into his arms as their mouths parted, then met again, as her lips surrendered fully to his and their tongues began to parry in exquisite exploration. He felt the flesh of her neck and shoulders beneath his fingers, the teasing touch of her hair against his flesh. Her arms curled around his neck, and she seemed almost a part of him, as if she could never be close enough.

She pulled away and stood, looked at him for a long moment, then walked away to turn off the light.

The faint glow from the television bathed the room in a soft, velvet glow as she walked over to the bed and let her dress fall to the floor.

He stood, too, stripping his shirt over his head as he strode over to her, then took her back into his arms. The naked flesh of her breasts, firm against his chest, sent an infusion of fire streaking through him like lightning, straight to his loins. The scent of her perfume, the way it seemed to steam from her skin, was almost unbearable. He buried his face against her neck, kissed the delicate flesh, and fought for control. Their mouths met once again in a passionate kiss that went deep, that intimated all kinds of other things, and aroused and stoked the fire that was burning so high and fast between them. He trailed his fingers down her spine, cupped and cradled her buttocks, drew her closer still. Her fingers scratched a path down his back, pressing, teasing, arousing. Still fused together at the lips, they fell onto the bed, and, breathlessly, he rose above her.

There were a million things he could have said, but nothing rose to his lips.

Her words were all in her eyes. Silver smoke caught in shadow. Open, wide, inviting.

He wasn’t prone to flights of fantasy, especially where romance was concerned, but…suddenly it seemed as if he had known her forever, loved her forever. Not just
wanted
her. Wanting was basic biology. Wanting could be eased by a stranger who would never be seen or even thought of again. This was something different—he almost pulled back to give himself time to understand this feeling of intense con
nection, of suddenly, unbelievably, realizing that he loved someone he barely knew, that he needed to be with her and protect her against all dangers….

Even against herself.

But he didn’t get a chance to dwell on the matter because she pulled him down to her, and then they were kissing in a frenzy, hot kisses, liquid and steaming and damp, and erotic beyond measure. He began to move against her, laving her breasts, adoring her flesh, breathing her in. Then he moved lower, fingers stroking down her thighs as he kissed her abdomen, her hips, the tip of his tongue a burning ember that sent her writhing against him, her fingers kneading his shoulders, and the softest, sweetest, most erotic sounds escaping her lips.

With no logic left, no thought, he made love to her intimately with his touch and his tongue. She was transformed into a being of liquid, ever-changing sensuality beneath him, moving wildly, sending him into a spiral of desire. She rocked against him, arched and whispered, and drew him up until their mouths met again. He sank against her then, parting her thighs, sliding smoothly into her with a shudder of soaring sexual pleasure at being enclosed within her tight hot flesh. Her arms locked around him, followed by her thighs, and their mouths fused frenetically once more, as they began to move….

He felt the climactic explosion of her body and allowed himself his own release, leaving him to shudder slowly as he sank back down to a place where he was aware of flesh and bone and the beating of their hearts once again. He rolled to his side, carrying her with him,
gasping for one good breath and then holding her tightly as their heartbeats slowed.

He smoothed her hair, kissed the top of her head. The sensation that he had felt before, that he cared for her far too deeply, that he knew her laughter, knew her soul, swept over him. But it would be insane to say anything about how he felt. He would sound like an idiot if he suddenly whispered, “I love you.”

So he fought the temptation and only said gently, “My God, I’m glad you barged in on me this morning. And that you found that photograph.”

She went still for a moment, then rose, her hands on his chest and a smile on her lips as she replied, “Call it fate, because as much as I might have wanted it—” she blushed “—I’m not sure I would have dared to do anything about it. I’m not exactly accustomed to picking up men.”

She eased back to his side, and he looked down at her, grinning. “No? I don’t suppose you have to. I imagine men spend a great deal of time and effort wracking their brains trying to think of a way to bring you home.”

She laughed. “Thank you. I think. I mean, that was a compliment, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” He was silent for a minute, then said, “So tell me about your love life.”

“Nonexistent,” she told him. She was staring reflectively at the ceiling, and she looked at him. “I was engaged. He was in the service, and he was killed in the line of duty.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“He was a great guy. I still miss him.”

“I’m sure you do,” he said sincerely.
If you loved this guy, he had to be great,
Caleb added silently.

“It was three years ago now,” she said.

He frowned. “You haven’t…gone out with anyone since then? Even for dinner?”

“No. I haven’t given up on life or anything. I just never met anyone I wanted to…I just never met anyone.”

“Now I’m really flattered,” he said, picking up her hand and kissing her fingertips. He loved her hands, he thought. Delicate, clean, manicured but not ostentatiously. They were well-tended but not fussed over. Like her hair. Clean and silky, but not cut in some hip, high-maintenance style, not highlighted, just…

Just beautiful.

She turned to him. “What about you?”

“I was engaged once, too.”

“Oh…?” she asked in a tone that said she wanted to know more.

“Nothing dramatic. We just went our separate ways. She didn’t like my job or my hours. Or my occasional moodiness.”

“Are you moody? You always seem to be watching. You listen to people. You see what’s going on. You…you wear a mask,” she told him. “You never seem to reveal how you’re really feeling.”

He stroked the skin of her face, amazed again at the breathtaking beauty of it. “It goes with the territory of what I do, I guess. And we broke up a long time ago.”

“And since then? I would have thought that—well,
quite frankly, I’d be surprised if women weren’t throwing themselves at your feet.”

“I suspect they can tell I wouldn’t be interested. I haven’t felt like this in ages. Maybe not even in this lifetime,” he admitted.

She caught her breath, staring at him, but she didn’t accuse him of overdoing the flattery—or of being insane.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, what?”

“This morning…well, the thought was in my mind. About tonight. Except I didn’t plan on barging into your room again. But I
was
thinking—” she blushed “—about sex. With you.”

“It was the boxers, right?” he said, and laughed.

“Actually, maybe,” she replied, her own tone light. But her smoky silver eyes seemed to hold a serious message meant just for him, and she added, “I think this is more than sex. No pressure intended, plus I’ve been known to be wrong. On occasion.”

“This is
much
more than sex,” he agreed, then kissed her lips, lightly and tenderly. “Though the sex…was awfully damned amazing.”

She chuckled, a deep and throaty sound that aroused him again all by itself.

“I hope I’m not looking at a one-hit wonder.”

“Oh, Lord, is that a challenge?”

“I’m not sure,” she said honestly and a little breathlessly. “It’s been a very long time.”

“In that case…”

And then he made love to her again.

And she made love to him.

As they strove together for the peak, the bizarre thought came to him that he was meant to be here. With her. That he had somehow loved her, looked for her, forever.

Then the thought faded, and he lost himself again in pure, primal pleasure.