Ellora's Cavemen: Tales from the Temple IV (17 page)

And then he pressed his hips down against hers, stilling her frantic movements.

“So, my love, my one true love, would you like me to fuck you?”

Katie glared up at him and pouted, “Darn it, why did you stop?”

Sulkily, he said, “Well, you haven’t told me that is what you want me to do.”

With a hoarse yell, she said, “Fuck me, please!”

With a rough laugh, he plunged into her, sinking his cock deep inside, lowering his mouth to her breast, sucking first one nipple deep, then the other, as Katie arched her hips up and took his cock deep, deep within the wet, aching well of her pussy, the burning fire of impending orgasm building inside her body, even though she didn’t recognize it.

With a sobbing cry, she threw her head back and came, clenching down around his cock and coming in slow rhythmic waves as Lucas started to pulse deep inside her, spilling hot washes of seed inside her pussy.

CJ came out the reverie, feeling strangely replete. Like the dream… Opening her eyes, she looked down at the journal. She hadn’t gotten past the page that mentioned Lucas making love to Katherine.

Slowly, she turned the fragile pages.

And there, two pages after, was a small paragraph, where he had teasingly told her about fucking, and how he had done it, and how he had teased her into using that naughty word.

CJ’s vision started to blur.

How had she known?

Oh, man.

She had read ahead without realizing it. That was all.

Simple.

But she wasn’t convinced.

And she also didn’t understand why she was falling for a man who was dead. Or why she was jealous of his lover.

He’d been dead over a century. Both of them.

Ridiculous, especially for a logical, mature woman.

Eyebrows rose when CJ drove her flashy little car into Warren. It was still a small town, once a fairly prosperous one thanks to the coal mining and the tobacco farms. Of course, the tobacco farms were suffering, and coal mining was reliable, easy money. It had turned into an antiques town, and several bed-and-breakfasts were thriving.

Tourism was their main income now, and the townfolk were friendly.

They were also incredibly nosy, even for small-towners.

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“That’s her,” Willa Monroe said, nodding to the long, slim woman with honey blonde hair. “She came into town a few months back and spoke with Dusty about painting that old house. Didn’t so much as blink when he quoted a price.”

“No wonder, look at the car.” The stern-faced woman didn’t so much as express a trace of envy, even though she would have cheerfully shaved her head bald to drive that car, just once. “She was here last week and was just as stuck up as you please.”

The third lady laughed. Clair said, “She got cornered by Marcella Fields practically the minute she got out of the car. What kind of mood would that have left you in?”

“Not a nice one.” Willa’s graying blonde brows rose and she said softly, “I wonder how much she knows about that house.”

Next to nothing, but CJ was ready to remedy that. After being stopped numerous times by the locals with greetings and subtle hints about her life and lifestyle, and some not so subtle, she finally found her way to the library.

The small woman who sat at the desk, thumbing through a well-worn book, looked up the moment CJ entered. Laying the book down, a beaming smile on her face, she said, “Chelsea Jane. How wonderful to see you again. My, what a lovely woman you’ve become.”

It couldn’t possibly be. Not after twenty years. But there she sat, her white hair piled into its simple bun, her glasses perched on her nose and her eyes twinkling like faded blue diamonds.

“Mrs. Graham,” CJ whispered, delighted. She didn’t so much as hesitate when the old woman came around the desk with her arms held open wide.

She still smelled of cinnamon and cookies, CJ thought. But she seemed so tiny. Her head didn’t even reach CJ’s shoulder. She hadn’t thought to see her here. Rosa Graham had been old even twenty years ago.

Guiding CJ through the library, she proudly pointed out the additions, as if she had done each one herself. She displayed the children’s area and the area devoted to local writers and artists. Two writers, three different artists, a singer, a painter, and an old craftsman.

“Maybe we can add you someday,” Mrs. Graham said, pointedly referring to the dream CJ had hesitantly revealed, when she had just been seven years old.

CJ hadn’t told a soul why she was here. But it bubbled up out of her now, as if she could no longer keep it to herself. “I want to write a book. Books, lots of them. That’s why I’m here.”

“Nothing like a haunted house to get the imagination going,” Rosa mused, linking her arm through CJ’s and guiding her through the small sitting area.

Biting her lip, CJ asked, “Is… I mean, why have people always thought it haunted?”

“Because, Chelsea, honey, it is. It’s a sad house. Sad things happened there a long time ago, awful things. And it’s still waiting, for justice, for completion. Why, I’m not 108

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even sure we have anything about it, other than hearsay. The library wasn’t even built until 1923. And my mother and father were in charge then.”

“Yes, I remember. You used to sit in here reading as a child,” CJ said, pausing to study a painting. It was of a tiny, delicate creature with yards of inky black hair and laughing eyes the color of violets. She wore a hoopskirt and one small hand held a fan.

“Who is she?”

“One of my ancestors, Katherine Greene.”

Katherine. Katherine Greene… “I’ve heard that name before.”

White brows arched and rose. “Really? The Greene family is very prominent around here, and has always been, even back when that house was first built. In fact, Katherine was once engaged to the man who owned your house. They were so very in love. I believe she even lived there for a time.”

“Did she marry him?”

“No, no, I don’t believe she did,” Rosa said softly before she turned away.

CJ’s eyebrows rose and the little old lady changed the subject without blinking an eye. “There’s a church picnic coming up in just two weeks. Why don’t you come with me?”

“I’d like that,” CJ said, glancing back to the painting before following Rosa back to the desk.

Once engaged to the man, but didn’t marry him. Yet she lived there?

Later that night she went through all the journals, finding every one that belonged to Katie Greene. Eleven in all, from the time she was seven up until shortly after she turned eighteen. She wanted to read that last one, but started with the earliest one, written in 1834.

Those first few were those of any young child, pouting when she punished, daydreaming about what a grand lady she would become. About a puppy a young Collin Lucas Frost had given her. Collin Lucas.

Lucas…
the name brought back that memory of her dream, days earlier, of a man with sunny blond hair and pale gray eyes.

Collin Lucas Frost.

Coincidence
, CJ told herself, swallowing
.

Collin’s mama remarried today. I do not like her new husband. He shan’t make her happy.

Or Collin Lucas. He has very cold eyes, and I heard him be harsh to Collin Lucas while the boys
were playing. A boy his age should not be running about like a hewligan. I do not know how to
spell that, or what a hewligan is. But I do not think it is a nice thing.

His name is Peter Davenport and he is from Georgia. He has funny whiskers that cover his
whole face and I think his face would break should he ever smile.

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How can such a man make Collin Lucas and his mama happy?

Is that what happened? CJ wondered as she set the journal aside. It was written in 1836, when Katie had been nine. She imagined Collin Lucas would have been probably twelve. Still young, still a child. But obviously he wasn’t allowed to remain a child long after.

Hardly aware her eyes were closing, she drifted into sleep, one hand resting limply on her belly, the other curling by her cheek.

A sound like a sob filled the room and the cover of the journal opened, while CJ lay sleeping. Her head thrashed back and forth on the pillow as the pages of the book started to turn, slowly at first, and then faster.

CJ’s breathing became shallow and harsh as a murmur fell from her lips. The energy in the room became angry, oppressive, and the book flew off the nightstand and crashed against the wall across the room.

CJ yelped and sat straight, all vestiges of sleep leaving her.

She stared in shock across the room as the book fell to the floor. Her eyes widened, a cold hand seemed to grip her around her heart as an unseen presence started to turn the pages.

White-faced, her eyes huge, CJ whispered, “What’s going on?”

All she wanted to do was run screaming from the house, but to get downstairs, she’d have to get out of bed and walk by the book that continued to have its pages turned.

Her breath catching in her throat, she said, “Who’s there?” Her voice sounded pathetic, even to her own ears, pathetic and scared. Memories of a small child locked in the library surfaced and she tumbled free of the bed, rising to her feet, hands clenched at her sides.

“I don’t know who you are, but GO AWAY!” she said, her voice louder, stronger this time.

The air became so thick, CJ could hardly even gasp a breath into her lungs. And then she became aware of a second presence, a gentler one. A sound like a laugh filled the air.

And slowly the heavy presence started to fade, leaving CJ standing in the room, hands clenched into fists, and the scent of rose water filling the air. A soft, gentle sensation seemed to stroke her hair and a soft wordless murmur filled the air.

And then that presence abated, leaving her alone to wonder if she had lost her mind.

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Chapter Three

With gargantuan effort, CJ rose from bed after a sleepless night, after convincing herself she had just had a nightmare. Dreams could seem so real, and that’s all this had been.

Of course, the torn pages and loose binding of the journal had her hands shaking as she scooped it off the floor.

She had thrown it in her sleep. That’s all there was to it.

But after she dressed, she took her car keys and drove into town.

Less than an hour after rising, she sat across from Rosa Graham at the Tea Kettle, a small cafe just across the common from the library and asked, “Why did you say my house was haunted?”

“Darling, you told me yourself you thought there was a very unhappy ghost there,”

Rosa said, sipping delicately at her tea.

“Nobody seems to want to talk about this,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“People love to talk about haunted houses, especially when the owner is a single young woman. What happened in that house?”

Sighing, Rosa set her cup down, dabbed at her pale pink-tinted mouth before saying, “It was built by a Collin Jacob Frost in 1800. A fine house, still standing, still beautiful after two hundred years. He died about five years later from cholera, I believe.

He had just one child, a son, Collin Jacob Frost, Junior. The younger Frost married the daughter of a general, Lucas Miller. Her name was Alice and word has it, she was as beautiful as one of God’s own angels. That was in, oh, 1818, I believe. Collin had fought in the war of 1812 with a childhood friend, John Greene. John became a pastor after the war, and Collin Jacob became a very well-to-do business man. His father had come from old money and the younger man was just as good at earning it as spending it. He dabbled in the coal mines, in tobacco, you name it. They farmed that land, and somehow they made a profit when not too many others around here could. Of course, his father had kept slaves, but in 1820, right before his wife became pregnant, he freed them. Slavery just didn’t sit right with him.

“His freed slaves stayed with him, for the most part. And they worked even harder as free men than they had as slaves. From what I can tell, he was a fine man.”

Rosa paused, sipping at her tea. “They had a son, Alice and Collin Jacob, named him Collin Lucas, after their fathers. They thrived, became one of the wealthiest families in Kentucky. Of course, word has it that Collin Jacob liked to gamble, liked his games a little risky. He could have gotten some of that money by rather questionable means.

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“He died in 1830, when Collin was seven. He’d caught pneumonia and just couldn’t kick it. Now, Paston Green and Collin Jacob had this idea in their heads, and not a thing would make them change their minds. So they did what they felt they must, in order to get what they wanted. They made their wills, leaving it so that things would be as they wished them or the families got nothing. They wanted their families joined, and they intended to see that it happened. Collin Jacob left Collin Lucas the entirety of his holdings, leaving his mother as his benefactor and caretaker until he reached eighteen.

The co-caretaker was Pastor Greene. Collin knew it was likely his wife would eventually remarry and he wanted his legacy left intact for his son, which is why they did it that way.

“There was only one stipulation. When Katherine Greene, John’s daughter, reached eighteen, she and Collin Lucas would marry. They so badly wanted their families united.”

CJ listened raptly, ignoring the looks coming their way as Rosa continued,

“Sometime in the 1830s, Alice did remarry. To a complete and total bastard, pardon my French. Peter Davenport liked to beat his slaves, word has it, and was infuriated that the workers on the Frost land were freemen, paid freemen at that. But he couldn’t change a thing without the consent from Pastor Greene.

“I’m not quite sure why Alice married him. Maybe she was just lonely and he courted her the right way. Nevertheless, my grandmother told me that he beat her terribly, right up until Collin Lucas was old enough to stop him. Collin Lucas came across Davenport beating her, and he beat Davenport something awful and damn near killed him, in the library of your house. Davenport left after that, but a few months later he up and comes back, likely to find Collin Lucas, but I don’t rightly know, and ends up dying there somehow, in that library.”