Ellora's Cavemen: Tales from the Temple IV (15 page)

“I have the best teacher, you know. Sir.”

“The door?”

Keli winked. “Sealed.”

From outside came a great round of cursing and storming from Kik, who no doubt would slap them both silly as soon as she could get through.

“Guess we better make this worth our while,” Keli added, squeezing his cock until he groaned and lay back, surrendering to her Earthwork with absolute trust and satisfaction.

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About the author:

Annie Windsor is 37 years old and lives in Tennessee with her two children and nine pets (as of today’s count). Annie’s a southern girl, though like most magnolias, she has steel around that soft heart. Does she have a drawl? Of course, though she’ll deny it, y’all. She dreams of being a full-time writer, and looks forward to the day she can spend more time on her mountain farm. She loves animals, sunshine, and good fantasy novels.

On a perfect day, she writes, reads, spends time with her family, chats with friends, and discovers nothing torn, eaten, or trampled by her beloved puppies or crafty kitties.

Annie welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at 1337 Commerce Drive, Suite 13, Stow OH 44224.

Also by Annie Windsor:

Arda: The Captain’s Fancy

Arda: The Sailkeeper’s Bride

Arda: The Sailmaster’s Woman

Cajun Nights anthology

Equinox anthology

Legacy of Prator: Cursed

Legacy of Prator: Redemption

Redevence: The Edge

Vampire Dreams – with Cheyenne McCray

GHOST OF A CHANCE

Shiloh Walker

Shiloh Walker

Chapter One

He’d walked this road before. Countless times, on countless days. Sunny days, rainy days, snowy days, humid. You name it, he’d walked through it.

Coming to the gate, he wrapped his hands around the cool iron posts, stared through them at the grand house that had fallen into disrepair. The paint was chipped and peeling, the grass waist high, the gardens overrun. But when Luke looked at it, he could see the way it looked in its glory days, windows sparkling in the sun, a fresh gleaming coat of paint on the walls. White paint, only white. The house would look weird any other color.

There was somebody new moving in soon. He’d heard the small landscaping company in town was going to be very busy for the next few months. Somebody had been hired to come in and paint, do the necessary repairs. The repairs were cosmetic for the most part. The house had only fallen into neglect in the past few years. Hopefully, vermin hadn’t taken up residence.

Luke wondered about the new owner. Would he last? The most recent owner had been a college professor, and he’d died more than a decade ago. He’d hung around nearly twenty years, much longer than any of the other owners. Of course, from what Luke could tell, the man hadn’t much of a soul, little heart, little feeling. It would take quite a bit to run somebody like him off.

Hadn’t there been a child? A young girl… With a frown, he tried to remember. But there had been so many people, so many memories. And the faces all faded and blurred, running together.

With a sigh, he tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and turned away. He was aching with exhaustion and cold. God, he was always cold. He wore jeans and sweaters year-round, something unheard of in the humid heat of a Kentucky summer.

Even though it was well into spring now, and the temp hovered in the seventies and low eighties, he was freezing.

That, he couldn’t do anything about.

But he could get some rest.

He heard the powerful engine of a car approaching as he took the small, well-worn path. Right before the trees closed up behind him, he glanced back, saw a sleek, shiny red car come flying around the corner.

“Careful. You’re gonna hurt somebody,” he murmured before walking on.

The house was oppressive.

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Ghost of a Chance

Leaning against the hood of the silly red Mustang she still couldn’t believe she had bought, CJ folded her arms in front of her, cupping her elbows, hugging herself for warmth.

Or maybe for comfort.

She didn’t like this house.

She had never liked it.

But that hadn’t stopped her estranged father from leaving it to her. She had spent, what, three months here one summer before being shipped off to boarding school? The worst three months of her life, the summer after her mother had died.

The old bastard had put her in a room on the opposite side of the house from his, and when she had whispered the next morning, “I was scared last night,” he had laughed at her.

But not for long.

Because the nights only got scarier, the noises he said she imagined only got louder.

Some mornings he would have a tight strained look about him, like he had heard it, too.

But she learned pretty quickly not to mention it anymore.

He hadn’t laughed the second time she had told him, or the third. On the fourth morning, he had asked her what scared her the most. She had timidly pointed to the library, the room just under hers, hoping maybe he could scare the ghosts away, like Mama would have.

Instead, he took her hand, jerked her out of her seat and forced her into the room.

He had locked the door behind her, saying, “You have to learn that there is nothing to be afraid of.”

For three long hours, CJ had sat there, throat locked tight with terror, tears running down her face. Three hours. The air in the room seemed to weigh down on her, and a strong coppery scent lingered in the air, a scent she was too young to recognize as blood.

And after he let her out, she never once commented on being afraid.

Reaching up, CJ rubbed her eyes and asked herself, “What are you doing here?”

With a weary sigh, she moved around the car to unpack her clothes. She knew the answer to that. She really hadn’t had any place else to go. She’d walked away from her job, her home, her friends.

This grand old mansion in eastern Kentucky was the logical place to come to.

Mouth compressed into a thin, grim line, she stalked up the stairs, noting that the cleaning crew had cleared the debris as asked. And when she let herself inside, the foyer was clean, smelling faintly of lemon polish. Not a speck of dust was anywhere to be seen and she mentally made a note to thank the cleaning crew for their good work.

Dr. Chelsea Jane Stivers lived her life by a certain set of rules.

When you did a good job, you were praised.

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Shiloh Walker

When you did a bad job, stay the hell out of her way.

If you had something useful to say, then say it. Otherwise, shut the hell up.

Oh, yeah.

And there were no such things as ghosts.

Later the night, music playing softly from the stereo, she set her computer up in the ladies’ parlor. Much of the original decor had been painstakingly redone by her father.

And he’d done a damn fine job. Nobody could say that he wasn’t a damn fine historian and antiquarian.

Just a bad father.

The pale ivory walls were covered with tiny pink roses, all hand-painted. No wallpaper. Not for Dr. John Stivers, professor of history. He’d insisted the flowers be applied by hand, the way they had been more than a hundred years earlier. The small delicate couch, CJ had no absolutely no idea what it was called, sat just to the side of the window, where the lady of the house could stare out at her husband’s land and be grateful he was such a good provider.

The couch would have to go. It wasn’t that she didn’t like antiques. She did, when they were useful. This tiny, uncomfortable couch was not useful.

But the rest would probably stay.

She wasn’t a flowers and lace female, but there was something soothing about the room. A restful, welcoming scent, soothing to her, something almost…motherly about the room.

And she needed all the soothing she could get, after the last few months.

“Don’t think about it,” she told herself.

But she couldn’t stop it.

How could she have trusted him?

David Armstrong had come into her life just a year ago, and swept her off her feet.

A fellow Literature professor at Hanover College, they had seemed to fit together so well, so perfectly.

Of course, David had gone out of his way to make it seem like that.

And then he had stolen her work right out from under her.

And after she had gone to the dean, the dean had looked appalled that she would accuse such a fine, upstanding man of such a crime. Of course, she had gotten her revenge.

She had stormed into his offices, determined to rip him to pieces. She had already tried logic, and it had failed.

He had never gotten the spare key back from her, so she breezed through the door.

Walking in, she had heard the noises right away. The kind of noises that you couldn’t 98

Ghost of a Chance

mistake for anything else. Eyes narrowed, she spied the camera lying on the floor, next to the chic leather jacket and a book bag.

CJ didn’t know why she picked it up, didn’t know what compelled her to do such a thing.

But she did it.

And she stood in the doorway, snapped off a good fifteen pictures before the film ran out. It was a student, all right. A very popular photography student that CJ had in her class just the previous semester.

Her name was Jody Morgan, and this would explain why she had been walking around looking like the cat with the proverbial cream.

Her legs were wrapped around David’s hips, and he was holding her naked ass in his hands. Mutual moans of ecstasy filled the room while they fucked each other’s brains out. CJ was almost loath to interrupt.

She cleared her throat.

Not loud enough, for just then, Jody screamed softly and started crying out his name as she started to come.

Later, CJ might be humiliated. Maybe. But for now, she was too angry to be concerned with that. Reaching out, she took a book from atop the filing cabinet and dropped it.

The resulting loud slam silenced the room.

She met David’s disbelieving eyes while she removed the film from the camera.

“Did I ever tell you I minored in photography?” she asked conversationally.

They broke apart, his eyes narrowing in rage while the student burned red with embarrassment. Jody was in shock but David was furious, his rampant cock wet, ruddy, still thrusting upward.

Jody was holding one arm across her breasts, as she reached for her shirt, lying across David’s desk.

Before he open his mouth, CJ said, “Darling, I’m going to make you a deal. I’ll hide this film up, good and tight, once you turn over all my papers that you took. And I mean all. And if I ever see anything I wrote with your name on it, this film is going to be developed, with a copy sent to every good Lit program in the country.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Arching a golden brown eyebrow, she dared him, “You wanna bet?”

With a smile for Jody, she dug a crumpled five from her pocket and tossed it on the desk. “That will cover your film, sweetie. Hopefully, you are as smart as you seem. If you are, you’d be wise to say the hell away from sharks like him. If you aren’t, well…”

CJ shrugged, pocketed the film and walked away.

Thinking back to that little episode, nearly three months earlier, made CJ smile.

It had been the beginning of the end.

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Shiloh Walker

She had gotten her papers back, turned in her notice that she would leave at the end of the semester. And she had landed here.

CJ was going to forget all about teaching, all about David Armstrong, all about her life, if she had anything to do with it. CJ was going to forget about how good it had felt to sleep in bed with a warm male body next to hers and she was going to forget the belief in happily ever after had to end with a man.

And she was going to write a book.

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Ghost of a Chance

Chapter Two

CJ’s first trip to town involved a stop at the small grocery. The post office came first, where she filled out the needed forms for a post office box. She smiled vaguely and politely, sidestepping as many of the locals as she could, brushing off a few, and dealing with those she couldn’t.

“So you’re Professor Stivers’ daughter,” a small woman with cardinal-red hair said, smiling a wide welcoming smile that did little to cover the avid curiosity in her eyes.

“We didn’t see much of you back when your father died.”

“I’m afraid I was too busy with his death to deal with being social,” CJ replied, tucking her hand into her pockets.

“Why, of course, you were. I just meant that we never seen you around until then.”

Arching one brow, CJ gave her best professor look, like the nosy bitch in front of her had been caught cheating on a final exam. Coolly, she stated, “My father and I were not close, Mrs. Fields.”

With a nod, CJ made her goodbyes and walked away, leaving Mrs. Marcella Fields standing in the dust.

Biting back a sigh of frustration, CJ dipped her hands into her pockets as Cordelia Simmonds waylaid her again as she walked into the small grocery store. “I remember you, Chelsea Jane. You were here just for a little while a long time back. Loved the library.”

The library, Mrs. Graham. At the mention of that, a real smile came out, and she held her hand to Cordelia. “I loved that library,” she said. She didn’t ask about Mrs.

Graham. The woman had been ancient when CJ had been here twenty years before.

There was no way she could still be around. And CJ wasn’t quite ready to hear what she knew had to be true.

“I think I remember you, too. You ran the church bazaar that summer,” she said, squinting one eye slightly as she tried to remember back. “You came out to the house every week, until Father agreed to make a donation.”

Baldly, in the way only a very old person could get away with it, Cordelia said,

“Your father wasn’t a very generous man, was he, Chelsea Jane?”

A sad little smile tugged at her mouth and she said, “No. No, he wasn’t.”