Ghost Talker (24 page)

Hi, Clare! Hi, Zach!
Enzo projected to their minds, though he continued to pace Texas Jack.

She hadn't needed Enzo that much, and had encouraged him to explore. She had no clue how long he'd stay with her, or would wish to reside with her, and didn't want to bring that topic up.

“Hey, Enzo. Good to see you again, Texas Jack,” Zach said.

And she had Zach, hopefully for a long time, though they hadn't seriously talked about that either.

Good to see you again, Zach, Clare
, Texas Jack said. He smiled and his whole being lightened.
Last night—it was last night we conferred with Darin Clavell, right?

“That's right,” Zach said easily, leaning on his cane, his arm around her shoulders. Clare suppressed a shiver that Texas Jack had problems telling time in the ghostly dimension. That didn't seem like a good sign for him staying together as a strong spirit.

“Good to see you,” Clare parroted.

Jack Omohundro wore a different buckskin outfit today. The coat had long fringe that reached his knees and sported fur cuffs and collar. The embroidered buckskin pants also had fringe along the seams. His feet showed moccasins, and a hat with a big brim angled on his head. She recognized the outfit from photographs and drawings.

He tipped his hat to them, walked onto his grave, and stared at them.
Well, here we all are.
He gestured downward.
And there I am, my remains.

Clearing her throat, Clare said, “You still want one of your bones to be interred with Giuseppina's?”

That's right.

Happy to oblige
. Zach's words, sent to Texas Jack, echoed in Clare's mind. He squeezed her shoulders.

Enzo leapt around the three of them.
We can do this. We are—

“A team,” Zach and Clare and Texas Jack ended, all at the same time.

That's right!
Enzo mimicked Texas Jack.

“So how do we do this?” Clare asked. She and Zach moved to the side of the grave, facing Texas Jack.

I can DIG! I love to dig!
Enzo replied happily, moving through the low stones outlining the grave. Texas Jack grinned and petted the dog, who wriggled in bliss.

Most dogs do
, Zach said mentally.

I can use Clare's energy to get the bone, and bring it through the earth and give it to her!

Texas Jack frowned.
Will this harm Miss Cermak—

“Call me Clare,” Clare said. She stood straighter. “This is my vocation, Jack, what I do, dangers and all.” She wouldn't say that she'd had no choice; that was past.

Holding her hand out, she called, “Enzo?”

Zach settled into his balance beside her, shifted his arm from around her shoulders to her waist. He felt solid; physically, mentally, emotionally. She'd never loved him more.

“We're a team.” His whisper tickled her ear.

Enzo hopped to the edge of the grave he stood on and stretched his neck to slurp up and down her hand. As he did so, Clare felt him siphon energy, strength from her. The spectral wound throbbed with aching.

Using all the willpower she had, she kept the toothy, gnawing hurt from showing, and blessed the layers of clothes she had on. Her thermal shirt had both helped the initial cold and now soaked up pain-sweat. She dipped her knees, too, to stay balanced. And as the Lab licked, he sank more and more beneath the earth until only the tip of his flagged tail showed above ground.

Dizziness faded and she thought she'd been able to cover her pain from everyone, alive and dead. She
had
kept her feet.

She and Zach and Texas Jack observed Enzo as he turned parallel to the grave. His tail lifted, then vanished, as if he'd begun to dig.

Aaahhh!
Texas Jack moaned, his mouth a dark hole in his phantom face.
Not my ribs, dog. A finger, take one of my forefinger bones.
His aspect rippled as if he were a two dimensional sheet that the wind had hit.
Yesss
, he hissed mentally.
One of my fingers that I caressed my wife with, loving her.

Which one?
Enzo's telepathic voice came hollow and confused.

Clare held out her hand, pointed with her right forefinger.
This one, Enzo.

All of that finger's bones?
Enzo asked.

Texas Jack laughed, and as he did so, his form solidified once more.
Just the top one, dog. That is sufficient.

Okey dokey!

And somehow, Clare sensed when the ghost dog's mouth closed around the object once living flesh and now skeletal bone.

Thankfully,
she
felt no pain and recovered fast from her previous distress. But she swallowed hard. When she closed her eyes, she could
see
Enzo's dog muzzle holding ivory. Zach let out a harsh breath, so he probably saw it, too. Dimly she sensed the entire long skeleton of Texas Jack, but she didn't want to look.

Harsh breathing came to her ears and she didn't know if it emanated from herself or Zach or even Texas Jack. She opened her eyes to see pain on the specter's face.

“Jack, this is hurting
you
.”

It shouldn't, but it does. Seems like I am too fond of my own bones. Maybe too settled here.
His words faded in and out, gasping on the wind.
I WILL allow this. I want this, my bone with hers!

A pop sounded and Enzo flew straight up from earth to sky . . . close to the lowest branch on the trimmed pine. His face showed a comical expression and he yowled, the phalange dropping from his mouth.

Zach lunged forward, snatched the finger bone midair.

Texas Jack winked out, trailing a moan.

Fist shaking, Zach pivoted, arm in front of him. Clare stepped close, but not onto the grave. He looked as if he hurt, too. She hated that. She cupped one hand under Zach's fingers, then stroked the back of his clenched hand.

“Let it go, Zach. Let me have it now,” she crooned.

Beads of sweat dewed his forehead. His jaw had gone stony.

More petting of his hand. “Come on, Zach, just let go. I've got this.” She infused her voice with sincere confidence.

“I can't,” he stated from between gritted teeth.

Enzo joined them.
Wow, Zach. Funny-feeling bone, isn't it?

Another clenched, “Yes.”

“Drop it, Deputy Slade!” Clare snapped the order.

That worked. Zach's fingers shot open and the end bone of Texas Jack's index finger fell into Clare's waiting palm, warm from Zach's hand, and feeling like nothing but a bit of bone, a distal phalange, to be precise. She'd been dealing with a lot of bones lately and had studied up. Slipping it into the pocket of her coat, she took Zach's hand between her own and drew him back over the stones outlining Texas Jack's grave.

“Geez,” Zach panted. He shook his head. “Felt like an electric shock, then I couldn't let go.” Opening and closing his fingers, he shook his hand. “A lot better now.”

Me, too!
Enzo said.
Wow!

“Wow,” Zach said flatly. He met Clare's eyes. His had tinted more to blue than green, with dilated pupils. “You okay, Clare? That bone's not hurting you?”

“No.” She could state that with pure truth. Pulling the bone out of her pocket, she let it lie on her open palm, refusing to let her stomach go queasy. “I'm not having any problem holding it.”

That's because you are the GHOST SEER and Texas Jack is your project for now
, Enzo said.

“I suppose so.” She scrutinized Zach. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, well enough.” His chest rose and fell with deep breaths. He shook his limbs out, then scanned the area. “Jack's gone.”

“Yes. Do you think we should wait for him to return?” she asked, drawing a rectangular wooden box from her other coat pocket.

Zach shrugged. “Who knows? What do you think, Enzo?”

Enzo barked, then sent mentally,
I don't know, Zach.

“That looks like a fancy pen box,” Zach said as she opened the box and settled the bone into the quilted interior.

“It is,” she responded, flicking the box shut and putting it back into her pocket. “It's a beautiful day. We can wait awhile.”

“What about other ghosts?” Zach said.

“They aren't bothering me . . . us,” she said. In fact, she'd barely noticed them, a few gray or white human shapes in the distance. No phantom of her time period and buried close to Texas Jack had materialized.

They are afraid of Clare. They are not ready to move on
, Enzo said.
It is very pretty and peaceful here.
He wandered off, sniffing at a trail only he could smell.

“Yeah,” Zach said. He bent to pick up his cane he'd dropped. “We can drive around. You think we should head to Lowell and Giuseppina's grave tomorrow?”

“I think we should spend the night here,” Clare said.

“What?”

“It would be stupid to go back to Denver and to fly to Massachusetts without discovering whether Texas Jack can come with us because we have his bone.” And all of them had had a negative reaction to the situation. She'd like to make sure they were as healthy as possible before proceeding.

“Ah.” Zach nodded. “That makes sense.” He sighed and rolled his shoulders. “I was hoping to spend another night at home in our bed, though.”

“At home in our bed,” Clare echoed.

Zach tensed.

And just that easily their relationship had arrived on the table for discussion.

Zach's stomach pitched and grumbled at the same time. Clare smiled though the clouds in her eyes, which had intrigued and attracted him to her from the first, showed far too much. He picked up her hand, turned the palm over, and kissed it.

And her eyes warmed and some of that darkness vanished. Just because she looked at
him.
Like looking at him, being with him, made her happy.

How could he walk away from that? Or the fact that whenever he limped into her view, she'd always looked at his face, his shoulders, never at his cane or his crippled leg.

He couldn't walk away. Didn't think he'd be able to take any steps back from her at all. Ever. He'd been doomed since he'd charged after her when they both thought she'd gone crazy last month. She had a hook in him, his mind and emotions as well as his dick.

As he took a pace to a tree and leaned back against it, drew her into his arms, he tried to figure out exactly how long ago that would have been. Clare would know if he asked her—she kept track of that stuff, and important events had been occurring in her life last month, too.

For him, it had been two—three? no, two—days after he'd turned in his badge. Yeah, the day he turned in his badge would always be a major before-and-after change point in his life, never forgotten. Just for an instant, he recalled the smell of cleaned floors in the hallway outside the sheriff's office in Cottonwood County, Montana.

Then Clare turned in his arms and her fragrance, the mysterious night perfume she wore that contrasted so much with this sunlit golden-leaved day, the scent of his woman, enveloped him. Here, with her, was exactly where he needed to be.

She moved from his side to lay her head on his heart, and they stayed that way for a long couple of minutes. She shifted to his other arm, his free one, without the cane. She snuggled, then stood straight. Too restless. Too much on her mind.

He gave up and said, “Okay, lay it on me.”

“Are you happy being with me, Zach?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“And living with me?”

“Yeah.”

“You aren't even going to think about those questions?”

“Nothing to think about.”

She sighed. “All right.” She glanced away, then back, bit her bottom lip. “What about living in my house?”

He knew she adored her house, had bought it and moved into it—another big change for her—last month.

“I like the house,” he said, though he hadn't given that much thought. The old historic place seemed big for them alone—and, hell, he wasn't even going to
think
about children for some time to come, except he was, but he'd keep his mouth shut because that was a conversation he didn't want.

“Truly?” Clare asked, and he had to cast his mind back.

“Yes. I like the house. It's comfortable.”

“Good.”

He lifted his eyes and stared at the pine branches overhead, the brilliant blue autumn sky—today was the equinox—peeking through. Sunlight and shadows on the clouds, white wisps of icy ones at the top of the round dome of heaven.

Enzo barked. Zach glanced aside and saw the phantom dog bounding after an equally ghostly skittering squirrel.

He pulled her so her back settled against his front, clasped his arms around her body, and his dick reacted as usual to her.

No chance of sex right here and now, but unresolved lust and anticipation of sex when they got home and into her bed brought an edgy tang of pleasure.

Clare finally let the day and delight in the moment work on her and enjoyed the hardness of Zach's body behind her. But one last critical question niggled at her mind that she wished cleared up before they returned to Denver. She tilted her head, lifted her arm, and drew his face down for a kiss. Lived in that kiss, the soft and hard of it, of Zach. How easy it was to get that kiss and how difficult to end it.

She leaned back, breaking the seal of their mouths and the delicate stroking of their tongues, though she licked her lips, capturing his taste. Her heart squeezed hard in her chest.

“Are you ready to leave your apartment and move in with me, Zach?”

He gave her a long look and she babbled what she hadn't intended to offer—yet. “We can put the house in your name, too.”

“No.”

She stepped—no, hopped—out of his immediate reach, then simply wilted, her back curving, shoulders hunching, her head going down, gaze fixing on her jean-clad thighs.

Zach paced forward, reached down, and tilted her chin up. No use hiding her tears; they filled her eyes, and he was a trained observer.

“You're not listening to me, Clare.” His hands went to her shoulders and gave a tiny shake. “I
was
talking, you know. I said no to adding my name to the place, not to moving in.” He shook his head, appearing serious. “You jumped to a conclusion.”

“It was an . . . an emotional blow that turned my brain off.” She lifted her chin. “That tends to happen.”

“I understand that.” He stroked her hair. “Police work tends to make a person think fast on his or her feet.” He frowned. “Seems to me that your new vocation needs that more than accounting, too. But responding quicker will come with experience.”

Shrugging, she said, “I suppose.” She cleared her throat, shifted so she could pull a tissue from her jeans pocket.

He said, “We'll talk about property and ownership later. You need to feel safe and secure in your home before we decide to put my name on the place.”

“It's my sanctuary,” she agreed, then her mind backtracked. “Safe and secure in my home, or in my relationship with you?”

“That, too,” he said. He angled to stare into her eyes, and his continued to look more sapphire than emerald. “You haven't lived with anyone before, right?”

She stiffened a little bit, she couldn't help it. “No, but I think it's going well.”

“Yeah, but we really haven't been living together for real. We've been switching off places.”

Her mouth flattened. “We're doing fine. I suppose you want a trial period, where you keep your apartment.”

“A trial period? No. Don't want it, Clare, and I don't need it. We can go at the pace
you
need, always.”

Sliding her arm around his neck, she stretched so she could kiss him on the mouth . . . along with a flick of tongue to reassure herself, once more, of his taste.