Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (84 page)

Besides, Sam hadn’t slept in this house for over nine months, let alone have a sexual relationship with her.

“Sorry,” Lexi muttered.

“What’s Justin doing down here?” Maggie asked, more to herself than Lexi.

“Why’d dad let him stay?” Lexi answered.

It was a good question. She and Lexi stared at each other with baffled expressions.

“He used to do things like that,” Lexi went on, softly. Sadly. “He used to love us.”

Maggie wanted to say,
He still loves you,
but she couldn’t bring herself to add more lies to the ones Lexi had already endured. Instead, she dared to touch her stepdaughter and squeeze her hand.

“Everything changed when he married you,” Lexi said, the moment gone.

“I know,” Maggie answered. Lexi had told her as much many times over.

On the couch, Sam shifted. A second later, his long lashes lifted and he looked up, pinning Maggie with slumberous blue eyes. She frowned—mainly, because she didn’t want to swoon—and came the rest of the way down the stairs. Lexi turned abruptly and went back up.

Neither spoke as she descended, but Sam’s heated gaze moved over her legs, her hips, lingering on her breasts, then her mouth. Finally, he met her eyes. “Good morning,” he said.

She was already fighting the effects of that possessive gleam but the low, husky voice nearly did her in.

“How did Justin get down here?” she whispered.

“Bad dream.”

Usually, he crawled in bed with Maggie when that happened, but she’d closed her door last night. She swallowed the jarring notes of jealousy and guilt that played on her overwrought senses.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, still prone. Still all-male long, lean and sexy.

“Nothing,” she answered softly, staring at him, while emotions churned inside her, making it hard to catch her breath.

“I ...” She shook her head.

“You okay?” he murmured.

“I ... I guess I’m just wondering ...”

He waited, brows up, tense. She could see it in the bunched muscles of his bare chest, the hard line of his jaw.

“
Who
is this man sleeping on my sofa?” she murmured. “That’s what I wonder.”

For a moment he simply stared back, not answering though there was a clear response in his eyes, if only she could decipher it. Finally, he swung his legs to the floor and sat. Justin popped up beside him, instantly wide awake.

“Our sofa,” Sam said.

“What?” she asked, still trapped in that blue gaze. It made her dizzy, what she saw there, what she knew better than to believe.

“He means the sofa belongs to both of you,” Justin offered helpfully.

“Thanks, buddy,” Sam replied.

Justin turned
you’re welcome
eyes on Maggie, as if he’d just solved a bigger mystery that she should thank him for, too. At last, she broke free of Sam’s hypnotic hold.

“Time to get ready for school, Jus.”

Justin hopped down, startling Minnie who unfurled from the foot of the couch. Sam shot the cat a disgusted, incredulous look.

“You,” he said.

Minnie stretched sensationally, gave Sam a cool yowl, and sauntered off.

“When did we get that cat?” Sam asked in a dark voice.

“After you left. Don’t take her attitude personally. Minnie hates everyone.”

“Just like Lexi,” Justin said.

“I don’t hate everyone,” Lexi piped in, coming down the stairs dressed in tight jeans and a t-shirt, eyes lined in bright blue with a clumsy hand. “Just you, dingus.”

Sighing, Maggie headed for the kitchen.

For the Reaper, the next five days went something like the first. Much to his disappointment, the ghost hadn’t reappeared so he’d had no chance to learn more about who “she” was. After Maggie cleaned the closet, Justin returned to his room. He didn’t have much of a choice—he knew Maggie would have questioned it if he’d refused and the little man didn’t want to worry her. He managed to hide his reluctance from everyone else, but before he went to bed, he hugged the Reaper and whispered, “You promise you won’t let her get me, Dad?”

Justin’s earnest use of
Dad
still brought a hard knot to a place beneath his breast bone. He wanted to swear to this child that no one—
nothing—
would ever harm him again. But by the very act of being there, an imposter father with goals that were far from altruistic, the Reaper was hurting Justin.

And when the time came for the Reaper to take Sam Sloan and return to the Beyond ... what then? Who would stand between Justin and danger when the Reaper was gone? The child would be devastated over being abandoned again. Lexi, too, although to a smaller degree. She’d never let him in.

And Maggie ... What would she feel when he left her?

“I won’t let it get you, Justin,” he said gravely, feeling like he’d fallen into a pit of quicksand he couldn’t escape. Each nuance of this human façade pulled him deeper. He still didn’t have answers and with every passing hour, it became easier to think of himself as Sam. Not the Reaper ... Sam. Sometimes he did it without even realizing.

If he didn’t get out of this body soon, he never would. Worse, he feared he wouldn’t
want
to. Maggie was an irresistible enticement, but the children ... the unit they made as a family ... it filled something inside him that he hadn’t known was lacking.

He was still relegated to the couch at night, but that didn’t really matter. He spent the long hours of dark awake, patrolling the house, making sure everyone under his care was safe.

The irony of that did not escape him.

When he did finally sleep, he awakened with a stiff neck and a yearning so deep he could barely contain it. He didn’t understand the changes at work within him, but even reapers were sentient enough to recognize that a metamorphosis had taken place. He’d never be the same.

So far, he’d seen no sign that he was missed in the Beyond, though he waited, expecting harsh, unrelenting retaliation at any moment. By fault or accident, he’d broken the most important law of the Beyond: No mixing with humans. Most humans had never even heard of the Beyond. Those that had mistook it for heaven ... or hell, depending on their perspective. They didn’t understand that it was a world, whole unto itself. It was both of those things and, at the same, it was neither.

He wasn’t the first to break the laws of the Beyond, though. He’d heard rumors of another Reaper who’d taken things a step too far and stolen a body for his own purposes. Until now, he hadn’t understood how that could happen. If it was true, he could surmise that it had ended badly. He expected the same cruel end for himself, even though he was a prisoner in this body, not a thief. Retribution from the Beyond was dealt in black and white. Shades of gray didn’t matter.

But deep down, he had no regrets. In a small amount of time since he’d opened his eyes in this human body, he’d experienced a spectrum of emotion that had illuminated his world. He didn’t like half of the feelings that kept him occupied—the inexplicable angst whenever Maggie walked by and he couldn’t touch her; the bewildering need to make her smile; the endless longing to hold her against him; the frustration of not knowing what would happen if she let him.

He understood the mechanics of copulation. He’d reaped men and women in the throes of passion countless times. But now he knew on a cellular,
human,
level, that the experience would be entirely different from this side of the equation. In this world, everything came layered in complexity and sentiments.

This body yearned to mate with Maggie, but he knew she would require an emotional connection that Sam—the Reaper—
who or whatever he’d become—
feared he’d be unable to make.

What if she found him lacking? What if he couldn’t live up to the expectation her human husband had set?

He probed that hollow place that housed the remnants of Sam Sloan and found what he always did, echoes of incomplete memory. His childhood was there in chips and splinters. A smiling mother who smelled of soap and, inexplicably, apples. A doting father who’d had more muscle then brain. There’d been a sister at one time, but she’d died in a car crash when she was twenty-eight. Sam had met his first wife, Janet, at the funeral.

And there the memories dried up in the drought-stricken land of Sam’s psyche. He couldn’t even picture his ex-wife’s face. He didn’t remember the birth of their children, the divorce that had left them in his custody, or the years that came after.

But he remembered meeting Maggie that day in front of the coffee shop.

Maggie
...

As if summoned she walked through the front door, dressed in clingy pants that lovingly hugged every curve and a loose top that hung to her hips. Sneakers covered her feet and all that gorgeous hair had been pulled back in a ponytail that bobbed with each step. She’d just taken Justin to the bus stop and her cheeks were flushed from her walk. She had more makeup on than usual. Was she hiding sleepless nights beneath her mask?

He finished his lazy inspection at her eyes. Humans called it the window to the soul. He believed it, looking into hers, but he wondered what she saw as she gazed back. Did she suspect his soul was borrowed?

He moved to stand in front of her, remembering how it felt to hold her in his arms. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

“The same thing I’m always thinking,” she answered, making herself a cup of coffee. Finished, she faced him. “That I’m stuck in some bizarre hiatus. I don’t have a clue what happens next.”

“What do you want to happen?” he asked.

She sighed, took a sip of coffee, eyed him from beneath her lashes. “I don’t know. Maybe I just want things to make sense.”

“Things? You mean like me?” he asked warily.

“And me.” She lifted one shoulder and tilted her head, still watching him. “Do you know ... When you asked me to marry you, I couldn’t say yes fast enough.”

“Why?”

She raised her brows, and he realized the question probably sounded strange to her. Presumably, she’d fallen in love, that’s why.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Maggie. I can’t believe he—I’m the only man who’s noticed.”

“Why do you do that? Refer to yourself in third person?”

His face grew hot as he tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. “Maybe I feel disconnected from who I am.”

“And who is that? Because you’re not the same man who left.”

In ways she couldn’t even imagine, but he certainly didn’t want to take her down that path. She didn’t know the truth and no guess in the world would bring her to it. “What about the man you couldn’t wait to marry?”

She shook her head. “You’re not him either. I don’t know who you are.”

She looked lost and sad. He’d put that sorrow in her eyes and he wished he knew how to take it away. Gently, Sam—the Reaper, he corrected himself anxiously—took her shoulders between his hands. Surprised, her gaze rose to meet his as her hands came up to his chest. She meant to push him away, but the pressure eased after a moment and her fingers just rested there.

“Tell me about us,” he murmured.

“Why do you keep asking that? Don’t you want to know other things?”

“Like?”

“What you do for a living? If your father is still alive—”

“No. I only want to know about you and me.”

“Okay,” she said, drawing it out. “What should I tell you?”

“Everything. How did I win you?”

A small smile curled her lips. “I’m not a prize.”

He could argue that, but didn’t see the point. Already he’d discerned that Maggie didn’t consider herself a “catch.”

“You didn’t have to do much. After we met—”

“Collided.”

Another almost-smile. “After that, we just stood there and talked. You bought me another cup of coffee and we talked some more. For hours. I gave you my phone number, you called me that night and I ...” She laughed softly. “I became addicted to you. I’d say I was obsessed, but it went both ways. At least, I thought it did. You seemed as into me as I was you.”

“At the hospital, you said you weren’t surprised to see me there. Why?”

She blushed. His face was close to hers and he could almost feel the heat.

“I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, Sam.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he murmured. “For all of the things I can’t remember doing. I must have been insane to leave you.”

But even as he said it, he realized a reason for that insanity had begun to surface in his mind. It was shadowed and vague, and yet it felt right. A threat had come to this house since Sam had surfaced in the hospital. What if it had been here before? What if Sam had left to draw it away?

She met his eyes, hers wide and hurt. “Why did you ask for me?” she whispered.

It took him a moment to follow. “You mean at the hospital?”

She nodded. “I hadn’t heard from you in months. Not that I’m complaining about that, but suddenly, you’re back, with a
gunshot
and asking for me. Being nice to me. And I keep waiting for the punch line, Sam. I know I can’t keep punishing you for something you don’t even remember, but I can’t pretend this is real. You could wake up tomorrow, remember everything, and leave me all over again.”

“That’s not going to happen, Maggie,” he said, that knot back under his breastbone.

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re right. I’m not the same man. Not anymore.”

She was shaking her head, eyes glittering with unshed tears. “Since the moment I saw you again, all of these blasted feelings keep surfacing. And then you didn’t die and—”

“Sorry about that.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You sure?”

She sighed and her head fell forward. “I don’t even know anymore, Sam. I look in your eyes and I see ...”

What? What did she see?

“A stranger.”

“I get that,” he said softly, shifting just a little more. Bringing her closer inch by inch. “I feel a little split in two, myself. But maybe that’s how it needs to be. I can’t undo what’s done. But I can be here for you now.”

“See ...” she began with a headshake. “All those words sound right, but you’re asking for a leap of faith that I can’t take. You came into my life like a whirlwind, then you left the same way. I’ve spent the last year just trying to put the pieces back together and now here you are, and I feel like I got it all wrong.”