“You put a flower on my grave,” he told her. “Don’t you remember? At the cemetery. You saw your grandfather. He came to you. And then you put a flower on my grave.”
She shook her head. “I never saw my grandfather after he died.”
Beau sighed. “But you did.”
“Please, I’m begging you, go away,” she pleaded.
He looked weary, defeated. “But I need your help,” he all but whispered.
“I’m going to close my eyes, and you’re going to go away. When I open my eyes, you’ll be gone,” Christina said, and she closed her eyes tightly.
She opened them.
And to her amazement, when she opened them, he was gone.
She swallowed and stood, leaning on the wall, afraid to move away from it. Afraid that if she tried to stand on her own, she would merely slip back down to the floor, into oblivion.
Killer was still there, looking up at her with his trusting brown eyes. He barked, then whined and drew even closer.
“Killer, huh?” she said to him. “You didn’t even bark at him. You befriended the…the enemy,” she said. “No, not the enemy. The guy who wasn’t even here. You’re supposed to be protecting me,” she chided him.
But could anyone or anything protect her from herself?
She looked at her watch. Eleven-thirty. But she didn’t want to be alone.
She was getting dressed and getting out of there.
“Come on, we’re going upstairs,” she told Killer. No need. He followed her, then waited on the bed while she washed her face, pulled on a navy knit dress and stepped into a pair of sandals. She grabbed her purse and made sure she had her cell phone. Suddenly she realized that the television was on.
Had she left it on?
She didn’t know and didn’t care. Not anymore. It was a proven fact. She was insane, which was leading her to believe she was seeing the ghost of Beau Kidd. There was no denying it now.
Her hand was on the remote, but she hesitated. A newswoman was talking about a police warning for woman—especially young redheads—to avoid being out alone and steer clear of strangers.
She flicked off the television. “I have a dog now,” she said weakly to the dark screen, then headed back down the stairs. She had just reached the front door and was going for the handle when Killer began to bark.
Christina screamed.
Someone was there, right on the other side of her front door.
There were no good games on at eleven-thirty at night. Didn’t matter. Michael McDuff was happy enough to sit on a stool at O’Reilly’s, staring at ESPN while the good games were recapped. His family had always come here, and a man didn’t have to drink at a place every night to lay claim to a bar stool. He was on his third Guinness, a big mistake, considering he had a meeting first thing in the morning.
“Hey, handsome, don’t you think you should maybe get some food into your system?”
He spun around. Mary Donahoe, with her bright eyes, cheerful smile and unruly carrot-red hair, was standing at his side. He smiled. “Guess you’re right, Mary. Perhaps I should have something to eat.”
“Good call. What’ll it be?”
“Shepherd’s pie, I guess.”
Mary cocked her head at an angle, staring at him. “A young lady in here the other night ordered the same thing, and I just realized there’s a likeness between the two of you.”
He laughed. “Must have been Christina. My cousin.”
“Ah, I knew there was a lot of family. I’ve not been here so long myself, but I hear from O’Reilly.”
“Not so much family now. Everyone’s dead except me, my brother, Dan—the truly charming one—and my cousin, Christie. She just moved up here, and she’s living in the old family house.”
“Nice. It’s good to have family,” Mary said.
“What about you?”
“My family is all back across the great old ocean,” she said lightly. “I miss them.”
“So you live alone?” he asked.
“Aye, me and me cat.” She laughed and turned toward the kitchen.
He caught her arm before she could walk away. “Mary, don’t leave here alone, you hear me? It’s not safe.”
She touched her curling mop of hair. “Well, it’s true it’s red,” she said. “Still, I’m a careful girl.”
Mike shook his head. “Please, don’t go home alone.”
She smiled. “Well, if you’re still here when me shift ends, you can see to it that I get safe to me car, okay?”
“I’ll wait until you’re off,” he told her grimly.
She smiled. “Shepherd’s pie, sir. On its way.”
“What the hell?” Christina heard an angry voice ask from outside.
She was almost paralyzed with relief. Quickly—before he took it into his mind to break it down—she opened the door. “Jed,” she breathed.
“You were screaming!” he said accusingly, then stared at her, frowning as he noticed that she was carrying her purse and her keys. “You’re going out?” he asked incredulously.
“Um…yeah.”
“Where the hell do you think you’re going at this time of night?”
She drew her brows together, trying to think of a reply. Her hesitation etched a deeper frown into his forehead.
“Christie, where were you going?”
She sighed, opening the door wider to let him in. Killer barked happily. He obviously loved Jed, who continued to stare at her questioningly from the stoop.
“Out,” she finally said.
“Out where?”
“Out anywhere.”
“Have you lost your mind?” he asked her.
“Maybe,” she murmured.
“If you need something…need to go somewhere…I can take you,” Jed offered.
“No…just, uh, come on in. Shut the door. I guess I don’t really need to go out.”
“Christina, you’re scaring me,” he told her.
“I’m sorry.”
She had started walking down the hall, toward the parlor, when his hands fell on her shoulders and spun her around. He was close. She was overwhelmed by everything about him. Not just his scent, which was always clean and somehow richly masculine. There was also his height, the perfect complement to her own. The heat, the vitality, emanating from him.
She’d always had a crush on him, but it was getting worse. Deeper. Sexual.
She caught herself staring at his chest. At the cool striped cotton of his casually tailored shirt. She looked up slowly into his eyes. He had the greatest eyes. Dark. Bottomless. Hard sculpted features that added to the sexual allure of the man. He was clearly concerned as he stared back at her. He wasn’t mocking her. Not at that moment.
She opened her mouth, feeling the need to say something to keep him from thinking she was stark raving mad. But he just kept staring back at her, as if…
He tilted her chin, and it wasn’t just to look into her eyes.
She felt his mouth on hers, the merest touch, and it was as if intoxicating waves of heat rushed over her, filled her, fused into her body, blood and bone. She strained to reach higher, standing on her toes. She felt his lips brush hers again, not real, too real….
She pressed against the steely heat of his chest, shifting until her lips were fully beneath his. His arms went around her then, crushing her against him. His lips were no longer a whisper of air; they were crushing, like fire, hungering for and consuming her mouth.
In a thousand years, she never could have dreamed of this….
It wasn’t real, she thought. This was the kind of thing that happened only in dreams, in fantasies.
But it was real, and it felt as if all the events in her life had led her toward that moment. She was touching him, stroking the incredible contours of his face, warming herself against the fluid heat of his body. She was all but melded against him, except, annoyingly, for their clothing, which neither of them seemed to be getting out of the way fast enough. The moment somehow felt both amazingly graceful and yet ridiculously awkward.
In dreams, in reality, her fingers trembled as she touched him. As she did all those things she had longed to do for so many years. She felt the texture of his skin, traced the structure of his bones. She pressed against him with the entire length of her body, feeling a new weakness wash over her, along with a new strength, a new life. Her fingers played over his shoulders and around to his nape, then down his back. And all the while she tasted his kiss, tasted his tongue, reveled in the power and sweep and naked sensuality of that touch.
His shirt lay discarded on the floor, and she traced her fingers over his bare chest. Her shoes were off, her dress tossed on top of his shirt.
They’d been standing in the hallway, and then suddenly they weren’t. At first she was leading him up the stairs, and then it was as if he grew weary of their slow progress and paused long enough to sweep her straight off her feet. She met his eyes as he made his way up the steps. She was preternaturally aware of the intensity of his gaze and barely even noticed the softness of the bed as they fell down onto it. She had ached for this for so long, her feelings submerged beneath pride and dignity and self-preservation.
As his mouth traveled across her flesh, her undergarments seemed to melt away, and she realized she had no idea where they’d gone.
Lights blazed throughout the house, but she didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was the amazing sweet fire of his kiss, the heat of his caress against her naked flesh, the pressure of his body, arms, hips, sex…hard against her. She was desperate, starving, to return his every touch. But he was the more experienced lover. There were moments when she lay still, almost like a deer in the headlights, all but paralyzed by the sensations the liquid trail of his tongue and the sweep of his hands aroused upon her flesh.
God, yes, he was good.
God, yes, he knew what he was doing….
The tiniest sensation in itself might have been enough to make her insane, just the feel of his frame next to hers, the brush of his hair against her flesh, his slightest movement. But there was more, so much more: the way his body moved against hers, the friction, the strength, the ease. He was everywhere. Kissing her ankles. Sweeping his tongue on her collarbone. She shivered at the power of his hand stroking down the length of her, at his fingertips on her inner thighs. Then his lips again, caressing her breasts, her abdomen, her hip, followed by a series of liquid caresses low on her belly, high on her thighs, directly between them, a touch of sheer madness, not of this world….