The Bad Boys of Eden (54 page)

Chapter 1

~ Gretchen ~

Sometimes I could still feel the weight of him depressing the mattress—that warm, solid body sleeping soundly next to me, the steady whooshing of breath. In and out. In and out. I used to lie in bed and listen to him like others listen to recordings of ocean waves, letting the sound lull me to sleep, soothe my mind after the chaos of the day. It was the sound of life.

Our lives.

Until the morning I woke up and only the weight was there. Not the warmth. Not the sound. Just the heaviness. And the utter, chilled silence.

Like waking up lost in deep space with no tether. Floating, floating, floating as all that darkness swallowed me up.

And at times like these, lying in bed at four in the morning, unable to sleep yet again, that darkness clung to me still, like some oily residue that would never wash off. Like I’d be weighed down for life, always trying to breathe through the sludge.

I rolled over, pulling my quilt more tightly around me, the numbers on the clock mocking me, and I knew there’d be no more rest tonight. I’d woken up with that breathing sound in my head again and the unshakeable feeling that I wasn’t alone. That Harris was somehow here, a tangible presence hiding in one of the many shadows of my darkened bedroom. I probably should’ve been scared. That’d be a normal reaction. Instead, I wished it were the truth. Then at least I could demand some answers.

Something creaked in the front of the renovated shotgun house I’d called home for the last year, the floorboards speaking to me as if to confirm my sense of unease. I groaned aloud. Now I definitely wouldn’t be able to sleep. Even knowing the house was old and the wind rumbling through the crawlspace beneath the house allowed for all kinds of unfamiliar sounds, I’d have to get up and make sure everything was locked. Ghosts I could deal with. Breaking and entering? Not so much.

I shoved the covers off of me and pulled on a pair of boxer shorts I’d left hanging over the footboard. Wrapping my arms around myself, I padded first to the kitchen to check the backdoor then headed through the straight line of open doorways to the front of the house to check the main door.

Outside, the wind swirled post-rainstorm, rattling the shutters on the side of the house and making the oak tree in my neighbor’s yard paint odd, jerking shadows on the blinds. But when I peeked through the front window, the city of New Orleans was fast asleep—well, at least my corner of it. A few miles away, the French Quarter would still be filled with lights, music spilling out of the doorways, and the raucous, drunken voices of tourists and locals alike. But here, on my narrow street, the sherbet colored houses were locked up tight, the windows dark.

Another floorboard groaned behind me, and goose bumps rose on my skin. I leaned back from the window as a shadow moved across the wall. One that was way too fluid to be the tree. My muscles tensed, and I spun around in a
Gotcha!
rush—stupid, considering the last thing I’d want to do with a weapon-wielding intruder was startle him. But, of course, nothing was in my small living room except the things that were always present—the sharp-cornered New York furniture that was too modern for this house and the mostly blank canvases in the corner that served as a constant reminder of what I couldn’t do anymore.

I used to paint. Now I was an expert at staring at blank white space.

Probably because I couldn’t freaking sleep long enough to give my brain any kind of creative reboot. No, instead of resting, I was up in the middle of the night chasing ghosts—actually hoping one was there. Pathetic.

I leaned against the wall and ran a hand over my face. This was ridiculous. Next I’d be buying an Ouija board and inviting friends over to play Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board. I needed to stop doing this to myself.

But as I stood there with my eyes closed, I got that prickly awareness again, like I was being watched. Was that the breathing sound again?
Whoosh, ahhh
. In. Out.

I couldn’t open my eyes, and my heart pulsed in my throat. Okay, maybe I was losing it. Sleep deprivation could cause hallucinations and paranoia, right? My gran would say that wasn’t it. She’d told me when I was young that old houses held old souls.
Just make your mind quiet and maybe you’ll hear them
, she’d say. Back then, the thought excited me more than frightened me. Maybe because Gran had given me the St. Benedict medal that I’ve worn around my neck every day since I was seven. She’d told me it protected me from evil spirits, and I took Gran’s word as law. After all, she was the expert. She’d made quite a living selling her candles, catholic saint medals, and
gris-gris
pouches at her little shop in the Quarter to help protect people from those things.

And besides Gran’s word, I thought I had my own evidence. Because in those early years, there’d been times I’d sensed the magic in the air, the otherness surrounding me. I’d heard whispers, echoes of distance voices when I was alone. My mom often caught me in the middle of the night, talking to my father who’d died when I was eight. Gran had called me sensitive. My mother had called me troubled. And when she’d plopped me down in a therapist office, they’d found a label for those odd feelings and behaviors—grief, loneliness, a little girl missing the father she’d loved.

They’d put me on medication. Soon after, the voices had quieted, that spark of energy humming at the edges of my awareness had gone dark. My father had been lost to me for good. I’d been fixed. Sad. But fixed.

Or so I’d thought. Then I’d come home to New Orleans and had felt that weird energy quietly buzzing in the background—like it’d simply been waiting for me to return and embrace it again. But I was beginning to think it was simply false hope—or a straight up mental breakdown in progress.

Because over the last few months, I’d found myself wishing Gran’s beliefs were the truth, that if I tried hard enough, I could call forth Harris and ask him all the questions that had run on loop in my brain for the last year. That maybe if I had some closure, I could paint again. Sleep again.
Do
something.

I’d even gone to one of the mediums who set up shop in the Quarter near my gran’s shop. Talk about a complete waste of time. She’d said she couldn’t help me and had given me my money back. She hadn’t even bothered to fake it.
He will come to you when he’s ready, miss.

Bull. Shit.

I stepped around the boxy armchair and plopped down in it with a sigh. The small St. Benedict medal I still wore as homage to my grandmother felt heavy against my collarbone. I reached behind me, unfastened the chain, and held it in my palm for a moment, my eyes blurry with exhaustion. A cup and a raven sat aside Benedict, and Latin words I’d long forgotten the meaning of circled the picture. I set it on the side table. I didn’t need protection from spirits. I needed protection from myself.

Another drawn out noise came from the rear of the house—a heavy foot on a soft board.
Creeeak
. I let my head drop back against the chair. “If you’re a robber, take what you want. If you’re some otherworldly being, shove the fuck off. I’ve got my own ghosts to deal with. And if you’re Harris, please for the love of God,
talk
to me. Show me you’re here.”

The house didn’t answer.

Of course it didn’t.

No one was there. This was me going crazy. This was me cracking again.

But as I closed my eyes, exhaustion finally overtaking me, I found myself still wishing I were wrong. That the eyes on me were real. That the noises were his footsteps. That I wasn’t so alone after all.

Because if he was haunting me…maybe he’d never meant to leave.

Maybe it was all a mistake. Or a bad dream. Or another person’s life.

Not mine.

Right as I hovered on the line between consciousness and sleep, coolness coasted over my skin and a familiar hand pressed against mine. I tried to lift my lids, but everything felt weighed down, heavy and slow. Fingers linked with mine. Tugged. Everything went bright for one shining second.

And then there was nothing at all.

Chapter 2

~ Burke ~

Burke Brennan parked his Jeep in the pay lot on the corner, double-checked his phone for a call that apparently wasn’t coming, and grabbed his iced coffee from the console. When he opened his car door, the humidity of the morning smacked his cheeks like a lover’s exuberant kiss.

The city could be lewd like that—wrapping around you, pressing against your skin, making you sweat for it. Even with the rainstorm last night, it didn’t feel like there would be a break in the heat. But after his recent trip to the Atacama Desert, he welcomed the familiar thickness in the air. If only he could shake the worry that had plagued him all morning and actually enjoy his first workday home in weeks.

“Come on, Gretch,” he mumbled, checking the ringer on his phone to make sure he hadn’t accidentally left it on silent. Of course, he hadn’t. He’d already checked that.

He slipped his phone into his pocket, reached into the Jeep to grab his messenger bag, and then bumped the door shut with his hip. A man a few cars down raised a hand in greeting. “Look what the storm dragged in. Back in town for while?”

Burke smiled at the older man. “Hey, Mr. Decker. Yeah, for a little while.”

“Not long enough for the grass to grow under your feet, I bet.” He draped his suit coat over his arm instead of putting it on. “Better you than me, son. I go on business trips and can’t wait to get back home and in my own bed.”

“More like can’t wait to get back to that gorgeous wife of yours.”

He gave a tomcat grin, bright teeth against his dark skin. “I hear that.”

Burke chuckled. Decker had to be in his seventies, but Burke had run into him and his wife one day at a local po-boy shop and they’d been cuddled up and kissing in the booth like randy teenagers.

“When you gonna get you a woman?” Decker asked, sly grin firmly in place. “You ain’t gonna find one on the side of some mountain or jumping out a plane.”

Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. There were women on the adventure trips Burke took. And adrenaline was a pretty potent aphrodisiac, so hookups happened. But it’d been a long while since he’d been inspired to seek any out. Plus, most of the time, he was on the trips representing his business, Daredevil Travel, and getting mixed up with clients was a bad idea. “I do all right.”

Decker’s white mustache twitched as he pulled his briefcase from his car. “Still haven’t seen you in my store. Must not be going
that
well.”

Burke sipped his coffee and smiled. “So this is all a sales pitch, huh?”

“A man is incomplete without the love of a good woman. Or of a good man, I guess, if that’s your thing.”

Burke chuckled. “It’s not. But you’re quite the romantic, Mr. Decker.”

“Not being romantic, just speaking the truth.”

“Well, I promise if I ever need a ring, I’ll be buying it from you, sir.”

“You better. I have the prettiest diamonds in town.” Decker tapped the top of his car and gave a quick nod of good-bye. “Enjoy the beautiful day, son.”

“You, too.” Burke stood there as the man made his way across the street to Decker’s Diamonds, the store Mr. Decker’s family had owned for generations. Shiny engagement rings glittered in the windows, and Burke shook his head. Being a romantic was probably a job requirement for Mr. Decker. He had to peddle the notion to people every day. Promises. Dreams. Forevers.

Tough business.

Burke shrugged his bag higher on his shoulder and turned to head toward his office. Nice notion, but nothing was forever. He’d watched his parents get divorced after fifteen years together. And he’d watched his older brother promise forever to a girl willing to give it back to him, and he’d left her, too—courtesy of a glass of Jameson and a fistful of pills.

Time stopped ticking for everyone at some point. Some by force. Some by choice.

But forever was a lie people told themselves.

Those who believed it only got disappointed. That was why he tested the limits every chance he got and lived each day like it might be his last, whether that be scaling up a dangerous mountain, hiking through an arid desert with limited supplies, or base jumping from the highest spots he could find.

If the end came quicker than it should’ve because of his risks, then so be it. At least he wouldn’t be standing around, twiddling his thumbs, waiting for life to start. Or waiting for it to end…

He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked it again. Gretchen was supposed to have met him at CC’s Coffee over an hour ago. It was their ritual when he returned from a trip. They’d eat chocolate hazelnut croissants and drink
café au lait
while she listened to his latest adventure. He’d do a dramatic retelling, working hard to make her smile, to see light come back into her eyes if only for a few moments. But she hadn’t shown up at the normal time, and her phone went straight to voicemail. He’d driven by her place on the way here, and though her car was still there, no one had answered. Maybe she’d forgotten and was running errands or something.

He texted her again, making it clear this time that calling him back and letting him know she was okay wasn’t an option. She hated that he worried about her, and she assured him regularly that she was fine.
Fine, fine, fine
. He’d thought his brother was fine, too, and Harris had been anything but. So, Burke wasn’t taking chances. Plus, he liked being the one who made his brother’s former fiancée smile. He’d been after that particular privilege since they were kids.

Of course, Gretchen had never seen him as more than a close friend. Her eye had always been on his older brother. But now the girl who used to have a laugh that would fill up a room barely cracked a smile. Some days, he hated his brother for that. For what he’d done to Gretchen. For leaving them both. The selfishness of it all.

Burke sighed and tucked his phone into his pocket, trying to shake off the grim feelings that had taken over on the walk to his office. When the little green house came into view, the Daredevil Travel sign hanging out front, his mood buoyed a bit. Travel was his lifeblood, but there was something about coming home to his own little piece of the world. His family would’ve never predicted that he’d been the one who’d end up a successful business owner. With the way he screwed around in high school and college, they probably figured he’d end up wasting away as a pothead in someone’s basement or dead from one of his stunts.

He turned down the sidewalk that led up to the porch. The space he used for his travel agency was a converted house in a former residential area, so it had a comfortable lived in feel and was more like a second home instead of an office. It also had that distinctly NOLA vibe with vines growing along the rails of the porch, making it appear as if it’d sprouted right out of the landscape around it.

He jogged up the front steps, keeping his iced coffee balanced while searching for his keys with his other hand. Once he’d located them, he moved forward to open the lock but caught a flash of pink in his periphery. He turned his head toward the long cushioned bench that flanked one side of the porch and almost dropped everything he was holding. A woman was curled up, back to him, sleeping on the bench.

Or at least he hoped she was sleeping.

“Christ.” He set his things down. He’d once had a homeless guy pass out on the front lawn, but this was no street person. The pink camisole and plaid shorts were clean as was the long blond hair hanging off the bench.

Long,
familiar,
blond hair. His stomach clenched. “
Gretchen
?”

There was no movement at the sound of his voice, and panic whipped through him. He rushed forward and put a hand on her shoulder, finding her skin damp and warm. Alive.
Thank God
. He gave her a little shake.

“Gretch, sweetheart, wake up.”

A breathy little moan escaped her—soft and sexy and sweet. The sound went straight to his dick. Fantastic. Just what he needed. He ignored his body’s ridiculous automatic response to her, gave her a harder shake, and repeated her name with more force.

At that she jolted, her body springing to life like he’d yanked the cord on a lawn mower. She almost rolled off the bench in her haste, but he put his other hand out to keep her steady. “Easy there.”

Her eyes blinked open, confusion etching her features as her gaze darted around. “What? Where am—”

“You’re on my porch,
cher
.”

“Burke?” She braced a hand on the back of the bench, and he moved away so she could push herself fully upward. Her gaze tracked over the porch like she’d never seen it before. “What the—how did I get
here
?”

Her eyes met his—big fat questions lingering there. He crossed his arms, frowning. “I was hoping you’d have that answer. And that you’d tell me you weren’t actually sleeping on my porch where anyone could’ve walked up on you in the night.”

Her green eyes went wide, and she peered out at the street. “Shit.”

She rubbed her hands over her bare arms as if chasing off a chill. But all it did was bring into focus that she was only wearing a pink cotton camisole, no bra. The humidity in the air had dampened her clothes, leaving the blush of her nipples visible through the thin fabric. Burke cleared his throat and forced his eyes upward before she turned back to him. Now was not the time to let his mind drift into that territory.

“Gretch, what are you doing here?”

She swung her legs forward and looked at her feet and her very dirty, wet socks. She sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh.”

“Wait, you
walked
here?” His voice came out louder than intended, but images of her wandering the streets of New Orleans, barely dressed and without shoes made fear rush through him again—all the possibilities, all the things that could’ve happened. “Why would you do that? What were you thinking? Gretch—”

She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Stop for a second, all right? I’m trying to remember.”

“Are you drunk?”

She dropped her hands into her lap and glared at him. “Seriously? What the hell?”

He lifted his palms. “No offense. But it’s a fair question. You’re sleeping on my porch, wearing next to nothing, and you have no idea how you got here. You could’ve—” Another awful thought hit him. “Ah, shit.”

“What?”

He laced his hands behind his neck, not knowing how to broach that kind of subject. “Did you go out last night? Like maybe to a bar or on a date or something?”

A wrinkle appeared between her brows.

“Because people can drop things in your drink,
cher
. Stuff that makes you forget.”

She blanched. “Oh, God, no, nothing like that. I mean, I can’t remember how I got here. But I know I didn’t go out. I—well, I never go out.”

He knew that, of course. If not for her duties at her grandmother’s shop to get her out of the house, she’d qualify as a recluse. But he’d been away for two weeks and things could’ve changed. While he was gone, they’d passed the one-year mark of Harris’s suicide, and Burke had heard that sometimes an anniversary could trigger strange behavior. It’d killed him not to be here for her, but the group that had booked the desert trip had paid an obscene amount of money and Dex, his business partner, had to back out as a guide because he’d gotten knocked down with the flu.

“What’s the last thing you remember? Did you take anything before bed?”

She rolled her lips together, and her eyes shifted to the side like she was straining to look back in time. “No, I didn’t take anything. I couldn’t sleep. So I got up for some reason… Oh, I know.” She looked back to him. “I heard something in the house. I went to check…”

“And?”

“I don’t know. Obviously, there was no one there. At least no one I could see.” The last part was mumbled almost to herself.

He frowned. “No one you could see? What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged.

“Don’t tell me you’re talking ghosts,
cher
.”

She sent him an annoyed look. “Shut up. It was late and dark and windy. Ghost thoughts happen.”

His mouth flattened. Overseeing a tourist shop filled with voodoo and Catholic paraphernalia was wearing off on Gretchen. Under normal circumstances, he’d probably tease her about it. But he’d noticed over the last few months that Gretchen had taken more than a passing interest in the supernatural side of the city—going to one of the quacks downtown who claimed to talk to spirits, attending those city ghost tours they did in the Quarter, and walking through the old cemeteries on her lunch breaks. She claimed she was just taking in the sites and seeking artistic inspiration to get her painting again. But he feared she was searching for way more than that. “So what happened after you checked the house?”

She didn’t answer at first, and he could tell she was running through the events in her head, trying to pinpoint how she’d ended up here. “I think—I think I fell asleep. I was dreaming.”

“About?”

She glanced up then, but her gaze skated away quickly, almost guiltily. “I don’t remember. But I’m guessing I walked here in my sleep.”