Eternally Yours (9 page)

Her wave of guilt broke into indignation. How dare he accuse her of being careless--again? He knew nothing about her. It all came back to his disapproval of her plans for the studio.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, excuse me for being close to a wobbly table. Excuse me for wanting to make improvements on my own house--and for trying to do you a favor by returning your manuscript. I should have saved myself the ride over here and thrown the damn thing out as soon as I realized you’d left it.”

Pouncing at the door, she twisted the knob open and spun around to face him one last time. “I’m so sorry I disturbed you. You can go back to your sulking now.”

* * * *

Mark watched her slam the door and winced to himself. So she thought he spent his time sulking. Was that really the impression he gave people? Worse yet, was it actually true? Reflecting on the encounters he’d had with her, he realized he had been pretty moody--and he’d also been a part of too many scenes like this. When had he become so touchy?

He looked at the broken cup in his hand, one of a silly cappuccino set that Karen had given him for Christmas. He had always thought the design was too feminine for a guy’s apartment.

An abrupt rush of cold made him shudder. The table shook and the other cup tipped over. He snatched up the handle and saved half of the coffee, but the rest splattered all over the wall. “Damn it!”

He glanced around at the ceiling and other walls, almost expecting an earthquake to kick in. Everything besides the table stood exactly in place.

The incident kind of spooked him.

For lack of a better explanation he adopted Lara’s helicopter theory. He had no explanation for the cold that had coincided with the vibration, but he wasn’t about to let his imagination run wild. The old schoolhouse often got drafty, and he’d noticed it more than usual in the last week.

He now held both cappuccino cups. The second one hadn’t been damaged, but he dumped the rest of the coffee down the drain and threw the cups in the trash. Following them up with the matching saucers, he muttered to himself, “Good riddance.” He should have tossed the stupid things out a month ago.

On his way to the closet to get a mop, he thought he heard a soft hiss.

He stopped and listened, his forearms tingling as goose bumps rose on the skin. The only noise was the ticking of the clock in the living room.

As he began mopping up the spill he caught another faint sound. This time he could have sworn that a man’s voice whispered, “Fool.”

Refusing to stop again, he reasoned that he must be hearing his conscience speak to him. He knew now that Lara hadn’t knocked over the first cup of coffee. The expression on her face when he’d accused her should have told him that from the start. Those big baby blues had looked so innocent. His behavior to her was inexcusable. He would have to try to apologize.

He sped up his mopping. Normally he dreaded apologies but, for some reason, this one felt urgent.

* * * *

Floating above, Geoff frowned to himself. He sensed a change of mood in his descendant. The ghost knew that when his own emotions ran high, his penetration into the physical world increased, and he feared that his condemnation of Mark might be seeping into the mortal’s conscience and taking root.

He moved away, putting some space between him and the man. Though he hadn’t been able to resist spilling the cups of coffee, he shouldn’t have called Mark a fool out loud. He believed his descendant had heard the epithet and taken it to heart. If the scapegrace found it in himself to learn to appreciate Lara, it wouldn’t do Geoff any good!

Backing out of the apartment, the ghost decided to follow his love interest home. What was he doing wasting his time with this jackanapes anyway?

Chapter 6

Lara stalked into her house, still seething from the encounter with Mark. The nerve of that guy! How dare he say she didn’t know how to care for things of value? She knew more about handling valuable objects than he ever would. Hadn’t she taken a graduate course in the restoration of paintings? She’d been entrusted to work on masterpieces.

She slammed the door, triggering a scraping noise on the other side that ended with a thump. Before looking she knew the knocker had fallen off.

Reopening the door, she picked up the heavy lion’s head. The oxidized-green snarl on its face seemed to mock her.

“What?” she asked it. “Are you trying to prove his case?”

She saw that the ear had been nicked, and tears welled in her eyes. A feeling of complete inadequacy pressed down on her. Taking extra care, she placed the knocker on an empty plant stand in the foyer. She had too much to do in this house, too many repairs, let alone the renovations. Ron had left over half-a-year ago, and so far she’d done little more than dream. At this rate she would never get on top of things.

Dragging her feet, she moved through the parlor to the studio. Mark thought she didn’t know how to appreciate her house. From where he stood, she wanted to ruin the wall and took no interest in the secret room. Now he believed she’d slopped coffee all over his manuscript and broken his stupid little cup. At this point she must have seemed like the most shallow person he knew, and she didn’t want him to think that about her.

She plopped down on one of the stools at her drawing table. He’d been arrogant about his opinions and gotten mad at her for no good reason--not to mention the fact that he seemed to be hung-up on his ex-girlfriend. Between his interfering and his moodiness, why did she even care what he thought?

Because she knew his opinions held a kernel of truth, regardless of the way he expressed them.

Gazing up at the far wall, she acknowledged that a lot of skill had gone into crafting the pocket windows. Once she’d removed them, she’d probably never find another place where they would fit and work properly.

She glanced around at the hundreds of old books in the room. Mark’s writing had affected her, too. How could she dismiss his opinion after she’d glimpsed what insight and passion he could summon up when he made the effort? Having had a peek into his soul, she hated knowing he thought hers was empty.

The displaced bookcase caught her eye. She wished once again that she had the courage to look beyond the secret entrance. If she found some wonderful treasure--say, a beautiful Victorian vase--she could restore the piece to perfection. Then she could show off her work to Mark and prove to him how scrupulous she could be.

Or at least she could call him and brag about exploring her fascinating secret room.

She stood up and moved tentatively toward the rear of the room. Today the area around the secret entrance didn’t feel cold. She took that for a good sign. The thought that a ghost might be lurking around the house had been eating at her for days. She kept telling herself she was silly: She’d lived here for five years and, before Friday, nothing strange had ever happened. Still, she couldn’t seem to shake off her fears. Even the coffee spilling at Mark’s had felt like a supernatural occurrence to her.

Inching toward the bookcase, she paused, then stepped again, like a bride walking down the aisle...but unlike a bride she didn’t go on to meet her destiny. She stopped short and eyed the bookcase, almost expecting to see it move.

A fluttering noise behind her made her spin around. Finding that one of her sketch pads had fallen from the table, she let out her breath. The pad had opened to a self-portrait, a discreet nude she’d done as apart of an anatomy study. Though she’d planned to throw it out when she finished, the sketch had turned out so well she’d kept it, strictly for personal viewing.

Her heart still pounding, she bent to pick up the sketch pad. But another noise behind her--this time a thump--made her start. Forgetting the pad, she whirled around.

A volume had tumbled out of the bookcase. She shuddered. What was it with so many things around here falling all of a sudden? She hated to move, afraid that something would else drop out of nowhere, but she leaned over to see if the book looked damaged. It was a novel Ron had left behind called
A Ghost of a Chance
.

She shuddered. I’ve got to get out of this house.

Her first thought was to call Di, but she remembered that her friend had a dentist appointment. For a moment she reconsidered going away on vacation, but being alone with two couples wasn’t a great remedy for isolation. Stuck alone at the beach, she wouldn’t be surprised if her ghost fantasies followed her, just as they had followed her to Mark’s apartment.

A glance at her canvases reminded her that in the past when she’d felt agitated after arguing with Ron, one thing had always helped calm her. Like Monet with Giverny, she could retreat to the garden, even if hers wasn’t so exotic.

She tucked a primed canvas under one arm. Picking up her box of acrylics with the other hand she hurried through the kitchen and outside. She chose a spot on the yard that looked out over adjacent farmland and put down her supplies. Retrieving an old easel and stool she kept stashed in the shed, she set up to do a landscape.

As she looked out on the sunlit fields and touched brush to canvas, her anxiety began to fade. Translating the scene in front of her from three dimensions into two consumed her concentration. While the canvas gradually developed into an image, she lost herself in her work for the first time in days.

“How on earth do you do that?” a male voice asked behind her, startling her out of her reverie.
Mark
, she realized at once and avoided jumping out of her skin. Years of teaching high school had made her used to interruptions.

She looked over her shoulder and found him studying her painting, his lips forming a faint smile. Her heart thumped in her chest. She guessed he had unnerved her after all.

“Do what?” Clinging onto her productive mode, she dabbed her palette and blended touches of shading into the landscape. She noticed her irritation with him had faded, left behind somewhere as her work had transported her far away. Vaguely, she wondered what he was doing here.

“That.” He paused, then stepped closer. She could just barely detect the heat of his body at her back. “Create warmth and depth from something hard and flat...make layers of acrylic look alive. You’ve got light that looks like it really glows and shadows that hold secrets I can almost make out. I can’t comprehend how you’ve captured so much detail and atmosphere.”

“I suppose it’s similar to what you do with words.” Compared to his comments, her statement sounded childish to her. She couldn’t express thoughts the way he did. Thank goodness she could paint.

“What--make a fool out of myself?” he asked.

She stopped, surprised, then decided not to comment. Without meeting his gaze, she went on working.

“Lara, I’m sorry about this afternoon. I know you didn’t spill that coffee. At the time I thought you did, but after you left, the same thing happened again with no one near the table.”

She glanced at him out of the side of her eye. “Was a helicopter flying over the building?”

“I don’t know. I guess one must have been, but I didn’t hear anything.”

“I didn’t hear anything the first time, either.” Frowning, she tried to get back to her painting, but she’d lost her concentration. The more she thought about all of the little accidents that had been happening, the less she liked it. She just couldn’t dismiss the spooky feelings she’d been having.

“I don’t blame you for being mad at me,” he said, his voice soft. “I’ve been an idiot from the moment you and I met.”

“I’m not mad.” She shifted on her stool to face him. His eyes looked big, his gaze intent on hers. “If our roles had been reversed, I probably would have thought you had spilled the coffee, too.”

“If so, I doubt you would have acted like a jerk about it.”

She tried to stifle a smirk, only half-succeeding. “Probably not.”

“I want to make it up to you, and this time I want you to let me know how I can.” He moved closer, and her breath came quicker. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable in any way. If the best thing I can do is get lost, just tell me so and I will.”

Avoiding his gaze, she focused on her brush and palette. She set them down and picked up a rag, wiping at the streaks of paint on her hands. One thing stood out in her mind that she hadn’t been able to do on her own. Now that he’d convinced her he owed her, a favor wouldn’t put her in his debt, especially a favor she knew he’d be happy to do. “Maybe you can help me explore the secret room.”

“You’re kidding.”

She shook her head and looked away. The idea of entering the room intimidated her. To hide her uneasiness she kept herself busy gathering up her supplies.

“That’s not exactly penance for me. You know I’ve been dying to check it out. Have you taken a peek yet at all?”

“No.” Before he started making assumptions about her indifference, she decided to come clean. Better to be thought of as silly than apathetic. She met his gaze. “The truth is that the room gives me the creeps. I know I’m being stupid, but I’ve been having all sorts of eerie feelings since you stumbled across the secret entrance--in fact, since you found that letter in the parlor.”

“Hmm.” To her surprise, he didn’t even crack a smile. “Finding a room in your house that you had no idea existed is enough to freak anyone out. I’ve had some weird feelings myself lately, and I don’t even live here. But there’s no reason to be afraid. Why don’t we take a look when you’re ready to go inside? The sooner we can demystify this, the sooner you’ll feel comfortable again.”

“Okay.” Swallowing, she glanced up at the sky. A cover of dark clouds had begun gliding in. “It looks like we’re in for rain anyway. I’ll pack up now.”

While she put away her paints and brushes, Mark stowed the easel and stool in the shed. He ran out to his car to get a flashlight then met her again as she was carrying her things to the back door. Taking her supply box from her, he fell into step beside her.

“You said you’ve had ‘all sorts’ of eerie feelings.” He darted ahead and opened the door for her. “I’m curious. What exactly do you mean?”