How To Bring Your Love Life Back From The Dead (14 page)

“So, are you going to stand there
all night or do you want to hear what I’ve learned?” Ana asked,
leaning against the end of a nearby bookshelf. She had a coy grin
on her face that seemed a bit shaky from nerves.

In answer, he strode over and pulled
her tight against him for a kiss. He could never upset her again.
She felt right in his arms, and his existence had seemed pointless
without her. She slipped her arms around his neck and stood up on
the tips of her toes. This felt good. It felt right. Perfect even.
Better than he deserved. Then, she opened her mouth and brushed her
tongue against his. Far better than he deserved. Kissing had never
been so satisfying.

Shane pulled away slowly, enjoying
the sensation of her soft lips clinging to his.

“I want to do this all night, but
I’m afraid it drains my energy quickly,” he said. Damn it
all.

She reached down and grabbed his
hand, pulling him toward the table in the center of the room. “Come
look.”

“Wait. Before anything else…do you
forgive me, little mouse? I was a complete and total ass, and I’m
so sorry.”

She waved it off as if it was
nothing, clearly excited about something in the book she’d taken
with her.

“Analise.” They had time to study
whatever history she was interested in, but he wouldn’t spend
another day wondering if he’d ruined everything—even if his daytime
self wasn’t completely sure what this ‘everything’ was. He’d found
his soul here in Ana. It hadn’t taken long, but last night, sitting
here, without her…. Sometimes, you had to lose something to
recognize its worth.

Ana looked at him, blinking her
green eyes. Her full lips already looked thoroughly kissed but as
if they needed more. He needed to kiss them more. The riotous curls
of red framing her face were begging him to slide his fingers into
them. If only he had more energy, the things he could do with his
Ana.

She licked her lips. “I didn’t know
that you couldn’t leave here until this morning, and I might have
over-reacted.”

“No, I was being immature, but I
wasn’t expecting to talk about that.” He should have
been.

“You mean how you died?”

Swallowing the acid that always
seemed to accompany the thought of his death, he nodded.

Ana tapped the book. “You know. I’m
trying to figure out what happened to you without prying into
that.”

Had she found out about how he died?
How would it be to finally know? He’d prepared himself for seeing
the words in a book. He’d looked through every book in this
collection hoping for a single book to escape the censor who’d
placed them there. It was surprising that the librarians had never
tried to find other—complete—copies. Still, preparing himself to
read it in a book was different from hearing the words out loud. It
was as if he wasn’t really dead until someone confirmed
it.

“So, you know how I died then?” he
asked.

Ana frowned down at the book, biting
her lip. “Actually, I can’t find anything—any proof of what
happened to you.” She met his eyes and said on a sigh, “So, you’ll
have to trust me, Shane. I want to know what happened to you. I
think my family is hiding something to do with it, and I have to
know that we—I mean, my family didn’t kill you.”

Her words stunned him. Her family?
He and Charles hadn’t always seen eye-to-eye but he wasn’t kidding
when he’d said he didn’t believe Charles capable of murder—despite
what had happened with Agnes.

“If you don’t want to tell me, I can
keep looking…or stop looking. I mean, this happened a long time
ago, and maybe you don’t care.”

Did he? Would it matter if he knew
how he died? It’s not as if it would change the fact that he was
dead. On the other hand, it was likely he’d been murdered or they’d
have found his body. If Charles was to blame—even if that seemed
highly unlikely, he’d want to know that he’d placed his trust in
the wrong man. After a century of having no knowledge of how he’d
become a ghost, he might know, and maybe that was the secret to
moving on with his life—or his death rather. Any way he considered
it, he most definitely wanted to know. Even though it wouldn’t
matter—it would matter a great deal.

“Analise,” he said, taking her hand
in both of his. It was time to share this with someone. He did
trust her. She was a good person. A much better person than him, in
life or during this half-life. Shane hadn’t exactly searched for
any redemption this past century. “I have no idea how I
died.”

“What?” Her sweet mouth dropped open
in shock.

Embarrassed, he shrugged and let go
of her hand so he could pace. “It’s true. I’ve been searching for a
hundred years to find out what happened, but you’ve noticed the
abridged books in here.”

“So, you weren’t in a fight with
someone when it happened…or on the edge of a cliff…or out on a
boat?”

“No. One moment, I was in my
bedroom, reading a book, and then I was here in front of my
painting…an apparition.”

“Well, how much time had passed?”
she asked, worrying her lower lip with a finger.

“How the hell should I know? It’s
not as if someone was waiting here with a watch to show me, saying,
‘Hello, Shane, it’s midnight and you’re dead.’” Wincing, he
apologized, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be short with you. After a
hundred years, it’s still a shock to be dead, and I keep hoping for
closure in the way of knowing what happened.”

“So, do you want me to help
you?”

Did he? It was one thing to find out
himself, but quite another to have her doing the searching. Without
help, he might never discover the truth, though. Plus, it would
give him time with Ana.

Nodding, he said, “I’ve hoped also
that knowing might help me be done here.”

“Done?” Even in the dim light of the
private collection, he could see her pale at the thought. She had
to realize how doomed this relationship was, though, didn’t
she?

“I’ve been here a hundred years,
Ana. If it were possible for me to have died of boredom, I would
have. My days are spent in a half-life and my nights I’ve spent
reading these books, sometimes three and four times.”

“What about me?”

What about her? Perhaps that was the
cruelest part of this. He’d have to let her go because he certainly
couldn’t expect her night visits to the library to go on forever.
She was young. She was beautiful. She deserved so much more. He
couldn’t leave, and she shouldn’t stay. Doomed.

“You need someone
living.”

She wrapped her arms around her
waist and turned away from him to gain some composure.

“If I could be even half the man you
need, little mouse….” He trailed off. There was no way he’d be able
to give her what she deserved, and his Ana deserved every happiness
in the world.

She nodded, inhaling deeply. “Okay,
but we won’t talk about it right now.” When she turned back, her
eyes were shiny with tears that she was holding back.

*****

It was almost enough to make her
wish she hadn’t started this crusade to find the truth. If the
truth took Shane away, it would taste like ash rather than victory.
On the other hand, he was right; she couldn’t expect him to stay
here forever. If he could leave the library, that would be
different.

“What did you find?” he asked,
stroking her cheek with the back of a finger. The cold felt good
against her cheek. He made her hot and cold all at once, and she
couldn’t imagine losing him.

“Actually, can I ask you a question
first?”

He shrugged acceptance.

“Was my great, great grandfather, I
mean, Charles, keeping a journal when you were alive?”

“Yes. That was the way he was,”
Shane said, starting to pace. “He was obsessive about those
journals actually. He recorded everything in them.”

“Was there anything that he’d done
that might have been so detrimental to his name that he’d insist
future generations never reveal the journals to any but the head of
the company?”

“What?” Shane sputtered, stopping
mid-stride. “Ana, your great, great grandfather was not nearly as
interesting as the actions you’re ascribing to him. Charles was
ambitious and could be ruthless, and I wanted to shake him on a
daily basis, but there was nothing that would need to be kept
secret after his death.”

Okay, that was what she’d have
assumed before she’d followed all the paths of information today.
They led in endless loops. She’d even made a trip to Hope’s Bay,
the next city over, to look at their local history
section.

“What if Charles did kill
you?”

“Ana....”

“No, hear me out, Shane. What if he
used something like poison and killed you and hid your
body?”

“This is a rather gruesome line of
questioning considering we’re talking about me,” he grumbled,
scowling. Whatever. She’d come to realize upon reading that note
he’d left for her that he was all bark and no bite—and that he
could apologize when warranted. This was a rather morbid topic, but
important. It was best to shove through it and hope he’d trust
her.

“What if that came out today or
tomorrow in the news? What harm would that do?”

“Harm?” he repeated.

“Well, clearly no criminal charges
could be placed, correct? He’s dead and you’re…not around to prove
anything. So, it’s not as if authorities could charge someone
for….” It was hard to avoid the words while still discussing the
topic.

“They couldn’t charge him with my
murder, you mean,” he said with a sour face.

She wanted to swat him and tell him
to stop being a big baby, but she took a deep breath, and let it
out. He was dead—that had to piss one off. “Yes, fine. What would
happen to the company if it was discovered Charles got control of
the company by killing you? Would it revert back to your
family?”

He clenched his jaw, and his
shoulders tightened up. “I have no one, nothing to show for my life
as far as relatives go. Things were different back then. I lost my
family in a cholera outbreak that wiped out most of the town. If I
had any family—even very distant—they’d have no hold on the
company.”

“So, if I discovered the truth, it
wouldn’t change anything outside of this room?”

She could see his mind working
furiously. He went back to pacing before stopping and saying, “No.
I can’t say that it would. Why?”

“Yesterday, I went to see my cousin
Max who is the owner and CEO of the company. I asked him for
Charles’s journals, hoping that the answer to all this was written
in them.”

“It wasn’t?”

“He wouldn’t let me look at them.”
It still outraged her. He’d accused her of wanting to sell off
their family possessions and then he’d all but thrown her out of
his office. “He said only the current head of the company was
allowed to see them.”

“Curious,” Shane said.

“I know!” Reaching into her bag, she
held up the next oddity. “I stole this book from another
library.”

Shane smiled at her—his grin wide
and amused. “How audacious of you, mouse. You’re asking about
century old crimes while perpetuating your own.”

Yes, she felt somewhat bad about
that, and she intended to return it. “Does it look
familiar?”

He picked it up, running a finger
down the spine. “A History of Crime in Hartford County 1870-1940,”
he said. “Yes, we have this book here. It’s mostly a hodge-podge of
court cases.”

She felt like a child with a gift to
give as she waited for him to do what she did when she found that
book—one that she’d looked through here in this collection. Shane
opened it and thumbed through its pages. He frowned when the book
fell open to certain pages—the pages immediately following gaps in
the chronological order of pages.

“Pages are missing?” he asked, while
double-checking this finding. “But…how? Why? Why would anyone take
the time to censor a book in a different library?”

“Not just any book either—this
wasn’t a book from within my great, great grandfather’s lifetime.
That means the same person who has been editing books that come
here—did the same in this other library.”

“For what purpose?” Shane asked,
setting the book down.

That wasn’t something she’d figured
out. Why would someone edit the content of a book? “To hide
something,” she said.

“Obviously.” What did he mean it was
obvious? Okay, she shouldn’t be offended. He was clearly as
startled as she was—and perhaps more so. “What, though? What would
need to be hidden for years after it occurred? Even murder would
have died with the murderer.”

“One more thing.”

“There’s more?” His voice squeaked
in surprise. It was such a little thing, but in light of the fact
that Shane kept up this image of masculine arrogance it seemed
doubly charming.

Her comment forgotten, she cocked
her head and looked at him. It would be so easy to fall completely
in love with him. She was almost there. Maybe she was there, and
she was lying to herself. Then what, though? He was right. This
couldn’t go on forever. On the other hand, would there be a time
when she could let him go because it was the right thing to
do?