Ever After (7 page)

“It’s a superficial laceration. The rock only breached the dermis. The wound has already closed. It looks worse than it is.” Cole passed us.

Almost-lawyer, business consultant, over-zealous yard care manager, raving lunatic. Covered in dirt and looking like a homeless person, he did not fit the doctor persona.

“Thank you, Dr. Kinsley, for that fine evaluation.”

“Anytime, Dr. Phil.” He disappeared through the door.

He could be such an—ugh!

After I cleaned up, and Cole did whatever people with multiple personality disorder do in their down time, Thomas insisted we all sit together in the dining room. He sat at an empty place setting, staring between Cole and me.

“I hope you’ll excuse me for not eating. My appetite was spoiled when you didn’t come back from your walk, Miss Knowles. I thought the worst.”

“You’re perfectly fine. I’m sorry I worried you.”

“I’m just glad you made it back in one piece. I should have never left you alone.” He flashed Cole a curious glare. “Other than the mishap, I hope you took good care of Miss Knowles.”

Cole’s mouth was gorged, so he didn’t answer.

“And hopefully you remembered your manners,” Thomas said.

“Other than inviting me to skinny dip in that nasty pond, I was virtually unoffended. He needs to learn how to deliver a line. He’ll never get a date that way.”

Cole made a garbled choking noise but finally found air to speak.

“I did not,” he said through half-chewed food. His glare could have sliced metal.

“He didn’t really, but he isn’t the best welcoming party I’ve ever encountered.” I smirked at Cole. Served him right for the trailer park remark.

“Well, that dreadful hole should be filled.” Thomas looked at Cole with deep set meaning.

Cole rattled his fork in his plate like a two year old. “It’s so far back on the property, other than the occasional idiot who isn’t watching where they’re going, it’s yet to bother anyone.”

First trailer park. Now idiot. That was okay. I’d fix him.

Thomas’s head swiveled back and forth between us as I stood from my place setting.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m quite tired.” I turned a pointed glare at Cole. “I’m sure you wouldn’t mind finishing up the tour tomorrow morning, would you? Uncle Thomas barely made it to the rose maze this evening without gasping for air, it was so hot.”

Cole flashed a Please-Save-Me look to his uncle.

I slid my chair in and clapped my hands happily. “Then it’s settled. See you bright and early.”

Cole’s face paled. He dropped his fork.

Thomas’s uncomfortable gaze was locked on the wood grain pattern of the table.

I wiggled my fingers good night.

* * * *

When I reached the parlor door, the recovered long, black, and gold casket was centered between two windows on the far side of the room. Since I’d been delivered to the property earlier this evening, I’d been yanked so fast back and forth between strange occurrences, I’d forgotten the real reason I was here.

A dead woman.

A puff of gray hair poked from the top of the casket. Standing at the threshold, I bowed my head.

Visiting her body up close would too be weird. Maybe after I saw paintings and pictures. She had taken time to get to know me, so why not do a little investigating of my own.

“I think we have a problem,” Thomas said. His voice trembled with worry.

“You think?” That had been Cole. His voice was so smooth. And the accent was unmistakable.

“You like her.” Thomas’s voice was grave.

My lungs solidified.

“Not a snowball’s chance in that. I can handle myself. I’ve done it for years, though I appreciate your concern.” Cole’s plate and silverware clattered. His footsteps moved nearer.

“I’m just trying to keep you in line. She obviously gets under your skin.”

“I’m only doing my job. I kept her from falling down an embankment. That’s it. And, as you can see, she isn’t impressed with me in the slightest.”

I leaned against the cold stone wall, pressing my hands flat.

“And a cat. She was almost eaten by a cat? She could have been killed.”

“The only thing you should worry about is me throwing her in that pond if she is nearly as irritating tomorrow as she was today.”

“There are a number of other guys who could take her on that tour.”

“Aren’t you curious as to why Ava Rollins gave her everything she owned? I am, and I plan to find out why.” Cole’s voice was final.

At least we were on the same page about something.

I hurried upstairs.

* * * *

A calming shower washed away the dirt from the fall. On the feather bed, a lump poked my right cheek. As old as the mattress was, it was probably rotten. It would be a long night.

With the lights off, the room was even bigger and more horror-movie-esque. Opening the drapes allowed the moonlight in. I stood in its glow for a few minutes and then turned back to the bed that would have consummated a fairytale couple’s wedding vows. Its posts were as big around as my body and looked like Roman columns with added carvings of souls wrapped from the floor to the canopy top. Surprisingly, the soft feathers enveloped me into a perfect body-shaped indention.

The dark lonely room fell away to pleasant but unsettling dreams.

A well-traveled path in the woods behind this house opened to a stream with worn grass along the edges. Tinkling water wrapped itself around rocks as it flowed down to a pond or lake. I almost stepped on a young man lying stretched over the softer grass of the bank. A hat covered his face. A makeshift fishing pole poked from between his toes. Muscles worked in his arms as he moved the hat from his brow.

My chest was crushed from the inside but gloriously full of admiration at the same time. And I hated it.

“Oh, it’s you. Shouldn’t you be playing with a doll somewhere?” he said, his voice between high and velvety.

Grass green eyes. Legs so long they poked out of tattered brown pants. Dark skin and well-defined muscles that could have only come from the working-class. Fifteen or sixteen years old.

“Annabeth? You in there?”

Who was Annabeth? And why couldn’t I place his face or his name?

My Victorian dress draped the ground and showed enough cleavage to encourage impure thoughts from any man. Tendrils of light-colored curls fell from an updo I’d never wear, the breeze blowing them across my face.

“Shouldn’t you be plowing a field somewhere?”

He sat up from the balled up piece of cloth he’d used as a pillow. A look I’d seen thousands of times before, but where I didn’t know, slid across his tanned cheeks, putting his red lips in a gorgeous smirk. He rifled around in a sack beside him, brought out some worms, and jerked his line in. When he tossed the hook to my feet and slid a bowl of pulsating dirt against the hem of my dress, my stomach churned, but I sat down.

“You ever put a worm on a hook?” he asked, just one corner of his lips turning up. My heart hiccupped. God, he was gorgeous.

Sitting knees to the side, I blushed when the dress’s bodice pushed even more cleavage into his visibility. The devilish grin diminished.

“I bet you’re too scared,” he said, his voice low, gravelly, and tantalizing.

I fell more into the dream, as certain details about her life sewed themselves in place of mine. They, I’m not sure who all that entailed, but they always thought I was just a little girl. Not caring that doing so increased the eyeful he’d already gotten, I leaned forward and took the pole. His eyes simmered into a gaze he’d given me a time or two, but my older sister always interrupted the moments.

Determination welled inside me. I hated worms, dirt, and anything that yielded poking the guts out of a living creature.

“I’m not scared to try anything once.” I shot him a meaningful glance.

He leaned back on his elbows, his eyebrows furrowing, a devilish smile on his sun-warmed cheeks.

The fat worm wriggled in the soil and would surely ruin my dress. This was not sexy. It wiggled between my fingers, begging for one last chance at life.

I took a deep breath and stabbed the worm. Pink tinged guts came out on the end of the hook. My stomach lurched, but I held my composure.

“You might just have some potential.” The guy’s brow rose with a smirk. He threw a piece of grass at me. When I ducked my head and batted my lashes shyly, his grin fell away. He put the fishing pole against a tree.

He tilted his head, his pupils dilating as he looked into me instead of at me. In that moment, the earth shattered and reassembled itself. A million butterflies lifted my stomach into my chest when he scooted over, laying down more grass as he took the place beside me. For a few seconds, the air was thick. Heat prickled my face as his lips neared mine.

Then I knew. I loved him.

“Potential for what?” A high-pitched blast came from behind us.

We jumped apart. A girl, a few years my senior, jabbed her fists into her hips and from her dark brown eyes, shot me daggers of hatred. “Mama’s looking for you.”

The dream fizzled away, and I floated for a few seconds. Then my legs pumped against the ground, my lungs searing.

A rotting corpse was three feet behind me and gaining speed. I turned, slid, and darted between walls of endless roses, their thorns catching the skirts of my dress.

She got a handful of fabric and jerked.

I flailed, slipping from her grip. Fabric tore. I tripped on a cement bench in the next turn and limped on the stinging knee. Rose-briars sliced my face. When I could breathe no longer, I collapsed in the corner of two rose walls, thorns prickling my back.

Bony fingers reached through the wall and bit into my shoulders. The corpse pulled me kicking and screaming through the thorny partition.

Covered in perspiration, I jerked upright in bed.

“The curse is upon you. One of you has to die.” A throaty, female voice followed me out of the nightmare. No cuts on my arms. No slashes on my face. But the musky scent of roses filled the air.

Trembling uncontrollably, I crawled back to the center of the headboard.

A bathroom. A dressing room. A picture window at dawn. A canopy bed. Antique everything.

Stupid nightmares. I missed my hot, faceless ghost guy.

Jerking a blanket over my face, I nestled under the covers.

Dealing with cranky Cole Kinsley in the morning would require a fresh mind and a body rested enough to keep up with his athletic pace. Operation Torture Cole Kinsley couldn’t come soon enough.

* * * *

Aromas that reminded me of home led me downstairs.

Family members sneered at me as I passed them. I probably had dressed in something they’d never be seen in. A pair of casual green capris and a matching shirt that covered everything. Not nearly as bold as the me in my dream with my chest falling out of a dress.

I had brushed my unruly curls up into something that resembled a style and topped it off with lip gloss and mascara. I didn’t normally bother with those things, but this guy was worth it, even if he was mean and standoffish. If Cole thought I was beautiful after a plane ride and a roll down a hill, maybe he could move from possibly being attracted to unable to keep his hands off me in a day.

In the dining room, children laughed, parents reprimanded, and forks clinked. I avoided them and ducked into the kitchen where I met Nancy, a round, elderly woman whose only joy in life was cooking for the staff and guests.

In the hospital-sterile scullery, stainless steel counters and restaurant grade appliances spanned the walls. A small table with ten chairs—small compared to the thirty-person table in the dining hall—sat in the middle.

“This is where the staff members take their meals. You don’t mind to eat with us?” Nancy’s eyes were large.

“I’d rather eat with y’all than be eaten by the vultures in the other room. They keep giving me mean looks.” I winced with a half-hearted smile.

“I like you.” She nodded, pulling a plate out of the pantry.

It was massive, food on one side and dishes for every sort of occasion on the other side. An old, wooden table that would seat about as many as the table in the dining hall sat in the center of the room. It wasn’t carved and fancy, but it was nice.

“Three helpings of everything. I know,” Nancy said.

Confused, I started to reply, but a man’s grunt followed.

Cole staggered to the other side of the table. He jerked a chair out and plopped down, forehead to hand. Not a word. Not a glance.

“Headache?” Nancy slapped stuff on his plate.

“Something like that.” He glanced pointedly at me and went back to face-in-the-palm.

“If I’m that much of a bother, I’m sure you could find someone else to show me around. Maybe Dalton?”

“Sure. Whatever. He seems like your type,” Cole said.

Nancy’s head wagged back and forth between us, her brow furrowed.

“Cole Kinsley. That’s no way to talk to ladies or your employer.” She sounded motherly. “You better watch that mouth.”

Cole’s mouth pinched shut.

Nancy turned to fill another plate, grumbling all the while.

Cole cut his eyes at her but didn’t dare sass back. He swiped up his fork.

Instead of handing an overloaded plate to me so I could take it elsewhere, she made it a point to place it directly across from Cole.

“This is Cole’s attitude adjustment. After he eats, you’ll hear a change in his tune.” Nancy gave me an apologetic smile and patted Cole on the shoulder. “I keep telling you, you’re going to have to slow down on all that food. One day that metabolism is going to slow, and all those calories and cholesterol are going catch up with you. You’ll never find a wife if you’re fat and mean.”

“A wife is the last of my concerns. I work off the food when I’m actually working. I had things to get accomplished today.” Cole aimed an irritable look at me. With a mouthful of food, he forced something that could have been a grin. “You should trade with me for a day. I can cook.”

Wow. He made jokes.

He made an awful giggle-snort through the food in his mouth. Manners weren’t his strong point.