Ever After (13 page)

Shelby and Kaitlyn trotted past us going in the opposite direction.

As they passed, something weird happened inside my head. One of them had done something to get my attention, and it had worked.

Kaitlyn put her finger over her lips.

What had she meant for me to do?

As cries of horror still sounded outside, Cole took me to the library and shut the door. He placed me in a chair and kneeled in front of me.

I burst into tears. Too much. This was too much.

A wild look erupted in his eyes. “Are you okay? God, you’re crying. Are you hurt?”

I nodded, trying to get my bearings back.

Cole’s hand cupped my face as he looked me over.

“Wait, no. I’m not hurt. I don’t know.” My breath caught in my throat with him that close. The rest of the world nor what had just happened mattered. I had fallen for him. I couldn’t deny it anymore. I couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t stop it.

“There’s something you need to be made aware of. I’m not just a handyman, or groundskeeper, or your employee. Ava made me promise before she died that I’d be the bodyguard for whomever she deemed beneficiary. I thought you should know that.” His voice shook as he stumbled over the words. He slid his jacket over where a shiny black gun glistened in the sun that bled through the library windows. “Are you sure you weren’t injured?”

Pride, yes. Body, no. Another moment ruined. It was as if he could detect when my feelings deepened, so he shredded my heart at each advance.

“I’m sure I’ll live.” I wiped my nose.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming. I should have protected you better.” Cole’s fingers grazed my cheek. It pulsed with pain where I’d landed on it or hit it on a chair. I couldn’t remember. When I winced, he cringed.

“I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about,” I said.

He stood and put space between us, his turn of silence sending spikes of ice to the pit of my stomach. Pacing back and forth over the Japanese rug, he kneaded his temples. He glanced out the floor-to-ceiling windows and then turned back to me. He opened his mouth, but words didn’t come out. He shook his head and paced some more.

I couldn’t imagine how he felt. Outraged. Devastated. Heartbroken. I had to say something. I chose my words carefully. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am, Cole. Losing someone you love is hard enough, but having someone take her from you more than once. I know that made you have to relive the pain. You have to be almost out of control right now. I just want you to know that I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here.”

Cole turned on me, his glare ferocious.

I cowered back into the large plush cushions.

“Would you stop with that idiotic psycho-babble. You don’t have a damned clue what you’re talking about. Since we were kids you thought you knew what was going on inside my head, but you don’t always know. You’ve always jumped to conclusions—” Cole’s face paled. His eyes bulged.

“I’ve only known you for just over two days.” I trembled.

“Or has it been longer?” An inappropriately cheerful voice sang from the library entrance.

Shelby and Kaitlyn filled the bottom half of the tall doorway.

“There’s only one thing about this situation that’s morbidly hilarious. Ava couldn’t make you look for her, so she made her inherit you. You come with the house.” Shelby smiled.

Cole took a few wobbly steps back from me. He wagged his head, his skin white as ash. He inspected me, something much darker than hate gathering in his eyes. He darted past the girls and slammed the library door open with a flat hand. It thundered against the stone wall, spraying shards of glass across the marble floor.

“What in the world’s wrong with him? And what were y’all talking about?” I asked when I was sure he was out of earshot.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

“His brain is finally figuring out what his heart’s been telling him all along.” Shelby shook her head at the mess on the floor.

“And you really shouldn’t psychoanalyze until your doctorate certificate is hanging on your wall. In this case, even then, it wouldn’t help.” Kaitlyn looked up to the ceiling and then back to me.

“I’ll get that.” Shelby nodded to the glass and left the room.

“What did y’all mean about inheriting Cole?”

“Let’s talk about this later. The police aren’t far away.” Kaitlyn sat with me on the sofa.

I buried my face in my hands and tried to relax. “I need to know.”

“Not just yet,” Kaitlyn said. “I promise. Soon.”

Shelby returned with a dustpan and broom. “The police are here, but Thomas is handling it.”

Kaitlyn took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I guess I made some enemies today.” I squeezed her hand back.

“The living are the least of your worries. They’ll find no explosives out there. Our ghost is plenty powerful enough to destroy a casket. If she gets angry enough.” Kaitlyn took her hand back with a jerk. Doing that weird stare-thing at something directly in front of me, she stiffened. “Don’t move until I tell you to.”

A transparent woman with a skeletal face floated in front of me. In broad daylight. Before Kaitlyn had time to instruct me, the ghost lunged forward.

I screamed, jumped straight up, and stumbled to the left. I caught my knee on the tea table, and a sear of pain immobilized me.

Kaitlyn jerked me onto the floor.

Long black hair and the back of a dingy, shredded dress disappeared into the brown leather.

“What the hell was that?” I clenched my sore knee.

“The other part of your inheritance.” Kaitlyn grabbed my hand. She jerked me up and rushed me from the library to the safety of my room, if it was even safe there.

* * * *

From the ledge of my window, the lamp-lit grounds of the house cast shadows on most of the lawn. Police cars and ambulances had come and gone.

Kaitlyn had been correct. No explosives and no evidence of foul play.

The authorities had left baffled.

“It’s not the first time we’ve had troubles, but this is by far the worst occurrence.” Thomas stared at the grounds with me. “Cole has vowed to get to the bottom of this. I promise it won’t be long before your ghost troubles are over.”

A fine bodyguard. “He hasn’t shown his face since he fled the library like a mad man.”

“He will probably be busy for a while.” Thomas left me to myself in my room.

Maybe I could sleep into some happiness where the guy in the old clothes would be there to comfort me.

That dream world was no different from here, though. Crazy events carried me from scene to scene. I never had control of where I ended up or what the guy and I talked about.

Most of the time, he talked in riddles. Nope. Not much different at all.

Tonight nightmares chased away any chances of seeing him.

In a room in the upper level of the house, I slid the heavy drapery to the side.

On the lawn, the forest was only yards from the window.

The moon’s glow washed over Cole as he moved in darting, unnatural motions from the trees to the grass of the grounds. His torso glistened in the moonlight, and loose jeans hung low on his hips.

Oh, to touch those hips. Longing set into a deep-set ache as he moved farther into the shadows.

Dark clouds and rumbles of thunder rolled over the tips of the trees. Lightning illuminated
Cole’s shirtless torso.

From the shadows behind him, a woman’s hands slid under his arms. They rested on his chest, caressing him possessively, but his face twisted in sorrow. Our gazes met in electric sizzles.

His lips moved, and his whisper brushed my ear. “I can’t love you.”

His body slid to the ground, melted into a dark pool of pulsing liquid, and then expanded to become the pond. (Dreams were crazy like that.)

The woman kneeled beside the pond of black and kissed the water. She jerked her attention to the upper levels of the house. Her beauty faded to a leathery, skin-covered skull, and where there should have been eyes, there were only holes.

She stood.

Lightning flashed.

She was a few feet closer to my window.

Lightning.

Below my window she stared up. Her long, tangled hair flapped in the wind.

Lightning.

My window slammed outward. Her body shot up from the ground, skeletal hands plunged through the opening, tangling her long nails into my hair. I struggled against her, but she jerked. A sickening thud and breaking bones ended my descent into the flower bed.

I clung to the footboard post for dear life. After I caught my breath and convinced myself I was out of danger, I got back under the covers. Wrapping my arms around my knees, I rocked myself to calmness.

Those fingers had felt so real. Could anything distract me after that?

The letter. Angrily, I tore into the stationery.

One short page with elegant, calligraphic font.

My Dear Allison,

By now, I’m sure you’ve experienced some strange things. You probably have feelings about people at Rolling Hills Manor of which you don’t understand. And you’re probably wondering why I hated you enough to deem you beneficiary of my legacy, but trust me, I have your best interest at heart. Your strong character will bring you out on top of the strange occurrences you will face in the coming days. My number one employee will be of utmost use and interest to you if he isn’t already. I smile as I write this.

I gave you this house and all my worldly belongings so you could bring love into his life. Do whatever it takes to seduce Cole Kinsley. He may go nuts for a little while, curse me endlessly, and not speak to you, but I promise, he won’t deny you long. Don’t give up.

Ava

Well, Cole was right. She was crazy.

How had this woman known that I would like Cole well enough to stay in the same room with him?

Oh, Gah.

I couldn’t even think about what she said she wanted me to do with him. Every nerve livened, and the same deep heat from the dream settled into my face.

I shoved the sheets off, folded the letter, and stuffed it back in the bedside drawer.

Ava may have been a cunning businesswoman, but her knack at matchmaking sucked.

Instead of calming me, Ava’s talk about seducing Cole had added to the nightmare. Now I couldn’t sleep when everyone else was probably passed out cold.

A little investigative trip to the dangerous fourth floor might shed some light on things.

If people didn’t go up there, then maybe some old stuff that used to be Ava’s would still be in storage, or maybe I could shake that ghost out of hiding. It would take more than a mystery or a dead girl to scare me off.

Central air had been installed on all floors but the fourth, so the windows hung open. Triangles of intricately woven spider webs curtained the corners of the hallway on both sides. I wiped a cobweb from my brow and tried the light switches. Nothing.

A chill trickled down the hallway. I shivered even in the heat. Going against the bad feeling, I trudged forward.

There was something on this floor I needed to see.

The wood flooring creaked as if the next plank would give way beneath me. Not too far down, on a hall table, a polished but old oil lantern shined in a ray of moonlight. A new box of wooden matches lay beside it.

“No one ever comes up here.” Thomas’s words taunted me.

The knick-knacks surrounding the new objects were covered in layers of feathery dust.

Something sloshed inside the oil lantern. With the touch of a match, it slowly flickered to life. It cast strange shadows across oil paintings of what must have been Ava’s distant family. The paintings were either on the floor, leaned against the old wallpaper, or hung crooked on the wall. Too many of them were lopsided to bother righting.

I tipped the lantern toward the bottom corner of each painting.

CKK 1878, CKK 1923, CKK 1985, CKK 1998
.

Storage boxes skirted the walls of a large sitting room.

Tablecloths and napkins with worn and yellowed folded edges. Didn’t she throw away anything?

I pushed them to the side and searched on.

More linens and drapes. She must have kept a little of everything just in case.

The rest of the boxes appeared to be extras of every sort a household could use.

The few pieces of furniture were covered with dust cloths, and the fireplace was sealed off.

The deeper I got into the room, the more the lantern gave it an eerie, horror movie, mass-murderer-storage-bin feel, much like my bedroom just after the dreams. Every few seconds I swung the lantern around to check the dark corners.

When I decided to give up and leave the room, an old trunk with a shiny latch glimmered under my lantern. Every molecule in my body was magnetized to the object.

I popped the lid.

Countless old documents. Useless.

Newspapers. Useless.

Antique brown pictures from the late 1800s or early 1900s. My reason for existence.

It was the oddest impulse, but I knew the pictures.

I gently turned a yellow-edged one over. No date on the back or writing. On the front, a man, a woman, and a guy I would have fallen for had I lived in those days stared back at me. Upon further inspection, the younger man reminded me of Cole.

Maybe an ancestor?

He was a history book of facts about the place.

I couldn’t see enough of the room to properly search through. I’d come back in the daylight. Maybe Cole would come with me and shed some light on who the guy was in the picture. All I’d have to do was threaten to come up here alone, and he’d be on my shirttail, acting like he hated me the whole way.

The nighttime view from the window I’d seen the ghostly woman took my breath away, although it led me back to my nightmares.

The beautifully sculpted lawn had no corpses and unfortunately no hot, sweaty versions of Cole. And there’s where I’d landed in the flower bed. Flowers had been replaced so it appeared to have never happened.

A soft, whispery breeze propelled the pale sheer curtains outward. The cool air came in little gusts. The dream guy with no face and green eyes played on the backdrop of my eyelids.