SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (129 page)

He chuckled knowing how much he would have liked to have seen that. “That’s the problem. I can’t seem to control anything I do anymore. I was feeling so proud of myself. I could be anywhere I wanted simply by thinking about it. But something has changed and I seem to be stuck.”

“I hope it didn’t have anything to do with Jeremy.”

“Who’s Jeremy?”

“The guy I almost had the affair with.”

“You mean you and he didn’t—”

“No, we didn’t. You were right. I’m not the no-commitment type and Jeremy is all about staying unattached. He talks a family game, but in reality, he’s all about Jeremy.”

“It wasn’t my place to tell you what to do.”

“Same could be said for my telling you about Nanette.”

He hadn’t thought about Nanette since the last time he’d seen Hilly and now the mention of her name seemed to drain his energy.

“I have some questions for you that need to be answered and I’m feeling as if I don’t have much time, so we have to do this now.”

She moved her laptop off to the side, and scooted up tighter to the headboard, leaning on it with a pillow tucked in behind her back. Her hair was pinned up on top of her head and she wore no makeup . . . perfectly stunning.

“Okay, but we need to stay in this room. It seems whenever we move around too much you disappear. So, what’s your first question?”

Dillon floated down to sit on the bed across from her; at least he folded his legs and tried to appear as if he was sitting on the bed. He couldn’t actually feel the bed. For that matter, he couldn’t feel anything. He just was, then he wasn’t. A totally baffling predicament.

“First off, where am I? What is this place, and who’s Molly Brown? She seems to be an important factor in my situation.”

“You’re in Colorado, at the Hotel Colorado and Molly Brown was Margaret Brown, the person this suite is named after. You book this room every year for two weeks. You and your mom would stay in this room when you were a kid visiting your grandparents.”

“Where’s my mom now?”

“She passed away when you were twelve. I’m sorry.”

He felt the pain of her death just like it had happened yesterday. The memory came in a rush of pictures and feelings. They tore at him, making him feel weak, but he needed to know everything and he wanted the information now.

“What happened to me? Why is there another me in a hospital room? And why can’t anyone else see or hear me?”

“I have no idea why I’m your only contact. We’ll both have to figure that one out later. As far as what happened to you, you were in a car accident with a delivery truck and your body is in a comatose state. Fortunately, the truck driver walked away from the accident, but you and your passenger did not. I don’t know why or how, but you’re some kind of spirit living in a sort of limbo state.”

“And remind me, how do I know you?”

“I’m your assistant or was until yesterday when your father determined my services were no longer needed, which is a relief in some ways, but let’s not go into that now.”

“My father sounds like an ass. But why do I need an assistant?”

“Because you’re part of Spencer and Spencer, one of the top corporate law firms in the entire world. You’re a very busy man with a list of high-profile, international clients. Your assistant, meaning me, does—or did—all the work and research you didn’t have the time to do.”

“And I trust you, right?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Are you in love with me?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she seemed guarded, almost as if he was winning her over and she wasn’t ready to admit it.

He said, “Okay, you don’t have to answer that, but if you were in love with me, would you tell me?”

A tiny smile spread on her lips and Dillon elevated off the bed.

“Wow, how do you do that?”

He forced himself back down. “I don’t really know. It just sort of happens when I make you happy. We must have some sort of connection, that’s why you can see me.”

“Your father wouldn’t approve of any of this, especially if we had a love affair . . . not that I’m in love with you nor you with me. I’m just saying. Besides, you’re not real and I couldn’t possibly be in love with a ghost or a spirit or whatever the heck you are. It wouldn’t be rational.”

A strong sense of affection lapped over him, and he had to forcibly prevent himself from levitating again.

“What kind of power does my father have over me?”

“I think it has something to do with a promise you made to your mom when you were a boy. Your father is a domineering person, and he takes advantage of that promise. You never cross him even when his demands are totally unreasonable, like getting engaged to a woman you don’t love.”

“That’s right. You told me this before. I’m engaged to . . . ”

“Nanette Larson.”

“Why hasn’t Nanette Larson paid me a visit?”

“I don’t know.”

“Huh, I’m engaged to a woman who obviously doesn’t love me, and I have a father who leads me around because of a childhood promise. I’m not much of a man, am I?”

“Your clients would disagree. They think you have a killer instinct.”

Now Dillon felt even more confused. His gaze shifted around the room and settled on the dresser where he spotted his socks, wallet and watch inside a plastic bag. He remembered the watch, a gift from his father.

“Why are some of my things in a plastic bag?” He gestured toward the dresser.

“Part of your personal things from the hospital. Do you recognize anything?”

Dillon nodded. “Yes, the watch and my wallet. And those socks. I wore them especially for my grandmother, Margarita. She liked to give me crazy socks. Said it was to remind me to have some fun. She sent those for my last birthday.”

He paused as his mind flooded with memories of his grandmother all the way from when he was a boy up until his most recent memory. “I can remember driving over to a small town named Breckenridge to pick her up. She works in some sort of diner or café. You were there, standing on the sidewalk when I pulled up, holding a white paper cup. You didn’t see me. You were busy talking to another woman. I rolled down my window and heard you say something about going back to your hotel. You wanted to take a nice long bath. I remember imagining you naked, bending over a tub filled with hot steamy water and bubbles. Your breasts—”

Hilly interrupted him. “You really need to focus on the café and not my breasts.”

He felt himself grinning at the vision of her lovely breasts. “I’ll try, but I seem to remember that you were the last thing on my mind before the . . . accident.”

Suddenly Dillon didn’t like the conversation. Didn’t like the disturbing visions that swirled around in his head. Dark images raped his mind. Bad images. Bright lights blinding him. A feeling of losing control. Of not being able to stop the horror that was charging right for him. The horror charging at her.

Noises.

Loud scraping noises.

Intense pain.

A woman’s scream.

“Noooo,” he heard himself yelling, trying to drown out the clamor in his head, the sound of metal grinding against metal. “You’re manipulating my thoughts, aren’t you? There was no accident. You’re like everyone else. Liars.” He covered his ears hoping the sounds would vanish, but they intensified.

“I won’t listen anymore,” he said and turned away so that he was standing at the far end of the room near the open bedroom doorway. He could feel himself drifting, moving away from Hilly.

“Wait,” she called. “Don’t leave. Please. Doctor Ford told me your body has almost no brain activity. Unless you can do something and somehow show them you’re still here, that you still want to live, your father is shipping you off to a long term facility in Montana where I won’t have access to you. No one will have access to you. He’s planning on doing this in less than forty-eight hours. Your grandmother says your dad doesn’t like to deal with anyone close to death, so he won’t keep you on life support very long. Dillon, please, you have to listen to me. We have to work this out.”

“You’re lying. My father would never send me away, and you never spoke to my grandmother about me. How could you? You and she never met.”

Hilly slid off the bed and came closer to him. He moved and suddenly found himself floating in front of the windows. She turned to face him. He didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to talk to her anymore, but for some reason he couldn’t leave.

“I’m not lying, Dillon. I met Margarita in your room a few days ago. We sat together and talked about you, and your mother. Margarita was your passenger.” Hilly’s eyes watered. “Your grandmother didn’t make it through the accident, Dillon. I’m so sorry, but you need to know the truth.”

She reached out to touch him, but her hand didn’t make contact. He quickly moved away from her and could feel the rage that seemed to engulf him. Raw emotion surged through him causing him to lose control of how he behaved. Somehow another force was taking hold, an evil force that he could not control.

“Why are you lying to me?” he shouted while hovering over the bed. “That’s not true. I would never hurt her.”

A look of fear and panic struck Hilly’s face as she backed up toward the open doorway. He didn’t want her to leave so he slammed the door shut behind her. Tears poured down her cheeks. “It wasn’t your fault, Dillon. The road was icy. It was an accident.”

“No, don’t lie,” he shouted and whirled around so fast he pulled anything that wasn’t tied down with him. Hilly ducked as a brush, her laptop, and a cup went flying towards her. When she pressed herself up against the door he knew he had to stop swirling or she would be hurt. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, least of all his grandmother.

“I’m telling you the truth,” Hilly shouted as she struggled to regain her composure. “I saw her. I spoke to her. She was in your room, sitting on a chair next to you, singing ‘My Blue Heaven’
.
I thought she was alive. I can’t seem to tell anymore who’s a sprit and who’s real, but when I read the article about your accident in the local paper I knew the truth. I had spent the afternoon with your grandmother’s ghost.”

He didn’t want to listen to her anymore, didn’t want to hear her voice telling him lies. But most of all he didn’t want to feel the crushing pain.

“I trusted you,” he whispered and released himself from all thought.

A Shadow at Twilight: Chapter Seven

The next day, Hilly tried to force Dillon to appear. She chanted, called out his name, burned incense, took three bubble baths, two showers, and even demanded that he show up.

Nothing worked.

Desperate, she hired a medium who drove down from Denver later that evening. Anabella Martin, a flamboyant woman in a bright red coat and matching knee-high boots, took three steps into the hotel lobby, experienced a full body shiver, turned right around and walked back out.

“These spirits don’t want me here and I don’t work where I’m not wanted.”

“I’ll double your fee,” Hilly promised as the woman slid into her bright red Mustang and turned over the ignition. “Please come back. It’s vital that I talk to Dillon Spencer. His life depends on it.”

“Money isn’t the issue. I don’t work in a hostile environment. Way too draining on my chakras. Sorry, honey.”

Then she sped away into the night, leaving Hilly in tears.

“I can help you,” a familiar voice murmured.

Hilly turned to see Margarita standing on the top stair of the side entrance to the hotel, all bundled up in her white coat, knit hat, white slacks and boots. She looked younger than the last time Hilly saw her and more like an angel. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed an intervention, dearie?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were dead?”

* * *

That night, just twenty-four hours before Frank the Tank was scheduled to have his son shipped off to a long term care facility, Margarita sat across from Hilly at the high-gloss walnut table in the small dining room inside the Molly Brown suite trying to apologize for her lack of honesty. The room was crammed with silk flowers, teddy bears and balloons that Hilly had brought back from Dillon’s hospital room.

“I thought you knew,” Margarita said.

“Until you disappeared, I had no idea.”

“Sure you did, your conscious mind merely refused to recognize all the tells. For starters, I never took off my coat or hat. And look at me. I mean, take a long hard look.”

Hilly stared at her, and at first she seemed normal, but as the moments crept on, she realized she could totally see through her. Almost like a shadow of the real Margarita. Hilly reached out and her hand passed right through Margarita.

“Whoa, that’s weird,” Hilly said.

“How do you think I feel about it?”

“Isn’t there a light you should be walking towards?”

Margarita smiled. “That’s a lot of hooey. When I’m ready to go home, I’ll simply leave this dimension. But until then, we have some urgent business to take care of. Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be. So tell me, what’s an intervention?”

“It’s when we call in all our spiritual power. This hotel is home to twenty or so spirits, most of which are friendly as pie. There may be one or two who can be a bit terrifying under the right circumstances, but they won’t be participating in tonight’s events. I’ve seen to that. I’m calling in all the big guns tonight to help sway Dillon’s spirit into returning to his body.”

Hilly shifted in her chair, her attention drifting to the glass-encased replicas of the Titanic china, and memorabilia about Margaret “Molly” Brown and for a brief moment Hilly wondered if her ghost would show up for the intervention.

“I met her, you know,” Margarita said.

“Excuse me?”

“I met Margaret Brown, a sincere, fun woman who had a kind word for everyone. I met her in this very room. Of course, it didn’t look anything like it does now. It was much more glamorous then, and a little darker. No skylight, and the table was a lot bigger. She could seat fifteen people around it if she had to. She loved to entertain and would bring several of her girlfriends with her for her stays at this hotel. They came for the hot springs, of course, and simply to relax and get away from their husbands for a few days.