The Curse of a Single Red Rose (Haunted Hearts Series Book 7) (15 page)

She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that smell?” She jumped to her feet at the same time he did.

“The etouffee.” He rushed toward the kitchen just as the smoke alarm clanged as if it had been insulted into making a noise.

He grabbed a hot pad and removed the skillet from the burner. The material slipped, and he dropped the hot pan into the sink. “Ow. Ow. Ow.” His thumb disappeared between his lips. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

She took the dishtowel and waved it at the smoke detector until the stupid thing shut up. Then she rushed to the freezer and retrieved a piece of ice. Once she had the ice wrapped in a paper towel, she dared look up into his eyes.

“Are you angry with me?” His simple question drove any doubts she had about the man from her mind.

“No. Well, maybe a little. But I’ll get over it.” She kept a steady hold on his gaze. “Don’t keep stuff like that from me any more.”

“We’re in this together?”

She nodded. She liked the sound of it, the being together thing, because it seemed like he meant more than just facing the potential threat coming from Les Wakefield. All the doubts she had about staying vanished. She couldn’t leave him. He didn’t want her to leave. Not that she wanted to any longer. All the back and forth, up and down, wishy-washy indecision had worked its way out of her system.

What she wanted was standing right in front of her, and she’d almost walked away.

She pressed the ice against his thumb. “That’s gonna hurt for a while, you know.”

“Yeah, that, it will.” He glanced toward the ruined meal. “I wanted to cook for you.”

“Let’s go get something to eat, and then maybe we could go to the hotel…”

He smiled and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face with his uninjured hand. “I thought you wanted to do that in the daylight.”

“I have this feeling, Collin. Like there isn’t any time to lose. Like we need to find out what’s going on soon or something really bad is going to happen.” She attempted to break away from him to retrieve her bag. She was ready to go right then.

“That can wait a few more minutes.”

He curved his fingers around the back of her neck. At first, a gentle nudge pushed her mouth closer to his. Hesitation hung in the air between them for what seemed like the longest microsecond in the history of the world. His breath warmed her lips. His eyes sparkled with secret messages meant only for her. His nearness sent heat racing all the way from where his fingers wrapped around her neck down to her most private place, heating her core and sending a shiver of expectation throughout her body.

She leaned into him. The anticipation wiggled into every nerve ending. Her entire being blazed with the need to be with him. When their lips finally met, a million tiny explosions coursed through her, snapping and sizzling between every, single firing synapse.

Her lips parted and accepted his exploration of her mouth. The kiss lingered and deepened until she’d twined her fingers into the cloth on the back of his shirt. No one’s kiss, no one’s touch had ever electrified her so much.

Finding out what was behind the stupid wall no longer seemed important.

He finally broke the kiss and backed up a step. “I’m sorry, Elsa. I…”

He was sorry that he’d kissed her? The happy feeling vanished. Her heart burst with disappointment, with regret, with the pain of losing him before she ever really had him.

He must have read every one of her emotions. “No. No. I don’t mean I’m sorry about kissing you. Or about what that means. I’m sorry that I have to stop because I need to get another piece of ice for this burn.” Pain wobbled around the edges of his mouth.

If she wasn’t mistaken, tears welled in the corners of his eyes.

“Oh yeah. Of course. That has to be hurting like hell by now.”

He smiled. “I forgot how much it hurt for a little while.”

Was it a bad idea to ask him to go to the hotel? Was he recuperated enough? Maybe they should wait until the pain from the burn calmed.

“We don’t have to go tonight…” She paused and left the decision up to Collin.

“No.” He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “As much as I’d rather stay here… Let’s do it tonight.” He grabbed a fresh piece of ice as he spoke and dumped the ice in a plastic bag. “I promise I can handle it.”

She guessed he meant more than a trip to the hotel in the middle of the night.

Chapter Eleven

Elsa sat behind the steering wheel staring through the windshield. The clouds had rolled in and a mist of rain had covered the cityscape in a fine sheen of droplets. The water had mixed with oil on the pavement causing the asphalt to shine with a slick film. Collin sat next to her with his head turned toward the sidewalk. Occasionally, he’d shift or scratch or grunt, but neither of them made a move to exit the vehicle.

“Are we gonna sit here all night?” His voice rumbled with a combination of excitement and dread.

“I need to tell you something.”

He glanced her direction. “I thought we’d finished telling all our secrets.”

Had they? Surely, they were just getting started. They had years of history to share before they knew all there was to know about each other. If they were going to be a couple… That was the way of couples. He was old enough to know that by now.

“I went to Wakefield today to see the sheriff.”

His eyebrows raised in disbelief. “Without me?”

“I didn’t think you were ready to travel.”

“Elsa—”

“Besides, if I had told you I was going, you would have made me wait until you could go with me.”

“Damn right I would have…objected to you going by yourself. Not that I can make you do or not do anything.” His grumpy complaint rumbled out of his mouth.

“I wouldn’t have gone without you if you’d asked me not to.” She’d grant him that to save his male ego from damage.

For some reason, Collin needed to be her protector. Her stepmother had always said men needed to be needed, and Elsa begrudgingly suspected the woman was right. But that was about all her stepmother had been right about.

“Really?” His doubt was obvious.

“Your opinion matters to me.”

“You didn’t ask so that you wouldn’t have to ignore me when I objected?”

Good. He got it. He understood why she didn’t say anything. She hadn’t wanted to argue with him.

She returned his smile with a grin. “Yeah.”

“Well, you don’t owe me that consideration.”

“I’m fine with telling you what I’m doing as long as I don’t
have
to tell you what I’m doing. As long as it’s my choice to tell you what I’m doing because I want you to know what I’m doing. If you start getting all clingy and demanding, then that’s not going to be okay. Okay?”

An amused smile played around the corners of his mouth. “Okay.”

Okay? That was all he had to say? “I get that you want to be my protector and be the man or something. I’m okay with that. As long as you are aware I can take care of myself.”

He stared up at the headliner of the car for a long moment, a resigned expression on his face. “So what happened?”

“It’s a long story, but the thing I want you to know right now… The sheriff let me see my Great Aunt Celia’s bones, and they spoke to me.”

“Her bones spoke to you?” He placed his hand over his mouth.

She had been afraid he wouldn’t take her seriously. That was why she had hesitated to tell him anything about her experience. “You’re laughing at me.”

“No. No. I’m not laughing at you.”

Yes, he was. “You don’t believe me.”

He straightened in his seat and rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. “How much harder is it to believe her bones talked to you than anything else that’s happened?” He cleared his throat and seemed to put aside whatever amusement he was getting out of her confession. “What did they say?”

“The truth is behind the wall.” She narrowed her eyes at him, daring him to laugh at her.

“The truth is behind the wall? That’s what the bones said? So that’s why you changed your mind about tearing into the wall?”

She pressed her lips together and stared daggers at him.

“Uh-huh.” He rubbed his bare legs below the hem of his shorts.

Why was the man wearing shorts on a cold, wet night?

He unbuckled his seatbelt. “Well, let’s go find out what truth hides behind the wall.”

She wasn’t ready. Would she ever be ready? A churning urgency had compelled her to do the bones bidding that night, before the day was over. Yet her common sense yelled at her that the task was better suited for the daylight hours.

There were other things she’d rather do with Collin than stir a bunch of ghosts up.

“Collin…”

Their eyes met. The seriousness of what they were about to do settled in the air between them.

“You better bring your stun gun with you.”

She spit a quick burst of laughter. “I don’t think a stun gun will protect us from whatever is in there.” She slipped the weapon into the pocket of her jacket anyway. The stupid stun gun would have been no use to her the last time she encountered something unnatural in the hotel.

“If Les is in there and acts crazy, we might need it.”

She sighed. He had a point.

Within another few minutes, they were standing hand in hand in the dark lobby of the hotel. When he had wrapped his hand around hers, she couldn’t have said, but she was glad that he had.

They had entered the hotel without any difficulty. Les hadn’t demanded they return their keys. It didn’t matter. She would have gone around to the back entrance and used the crowbar they’d brought with them if she’d had to.

Collin’s chest expanded as if he was sucking in all the air he could hold, as if he might not have another opportunity to breathe again.

She gathered up the threads of her courage and found them weak. “Maybe we should wait until tomorrow.”

He turned to stare at her. The dim light streaming through the window from the street bounced off the backs of his retinas causing his eyes to reflect a strange gray-blue-white glow. “Les might take our keys and block us from entering the hotel tomorrow.”

It was as if Collin had read her mind. “It’s weird that he hasn’t asked for them already.”

“Well, he’s a weird man.” He clicked on the flashlight he had brought and pulled her forward toward the spiral staircase.

The ascent was slow, one unhurried step at a time. The stun gun bounced against her hip with each step she took. It seemed they would never reach the top. When they exited through the French doors off the third floor landing, dim light refracted from city lights through misty rain casting a gray-blue aura over everything.

As they took the first few steps along the walkway, a flicker of movement zipped across the patio three stories below.

She yanked on Collin’s shirtsleeve. “Collin, is someone down there?”

He stopped and leaned on the walkway rail. She wished he wouldn’t do that. How sturdy were the bolts that held the wrought iron in place?

The beam of his flashlight shifted toward the brick below and barely penetrated the shadows one patch of the courtyard at a time. “I don’t see anyone.”

Just because he couldn’t see anyone didn’t mean there was no one there.

His whole body jerked before he directed the light in front of them again and resumed his forward progress. “This place is creepy no matter what time of day it is.”

Her hand felt clammy in his, and his palm was just as damp as hers.

As they neared the corner room, her respiration accelerated until her rasping gasps of breath sounded as if they were scraping her lungs.

“Can you feel
him
?” His whispered question seemed to ping off the mist that shrouded the hotel and sent a shock through her nervous system.

The night. The mood. The air. Her heart inside her chest. Her feelings. Her sense of reality, the present, the future, life. All of her being and everything around her stuttered with frenetic urgency, the need to go forward and the sudden compulsion to retreat before it was too late.

She wrapped her arm around his arm, clinging to him. “He’s here.”

“Who is he?”

“The one she wants me to stop.”

Collin turned, and his strange glowing eyes focused on her. She latched onto his gaze and tried to see into his heart and soul. She needed more from Collin than reassuring words, more than his masculine desire to protect her, more than sentimental affection or animal attraction. What she needed from him was indefinable, primitive, and fundamental, and she saw the knowledge of her need reflected in his eyes. Whatever it was, however it was defined, he was promising to provide it. She returned the promise. Her jumpy nerves calmed. Let what was coming at them come on. They were bound to each other, to be in it, whatever it was, together.

“You’re not alone.” Collin’s three short words summed it all up, every bit of emotion that had electrified her, passed from his psyche to hers, and settled into her soul.

“I know.”

In tandem, they walked through the still open door of the corner room, and she guessed no one had shut it behind them when they left the hotel the night before. Her flashlight still lay on the floor where she’d left it.

Maybe the presence she’d sensed in the courtyard below wasn’t Les. But she had sensed a restless energy.
He
had been there. She no longer doubted her ability to perceive the presence of his malicious essence lurking in the shadows. Her imagination was not that big.

She passed the flashlight on the floor, unwilling to release Collin’s hand or her tight grip on the crowbar to pick it up. The comforting bump of the stun gun on her hip reminded her it was still in her pocket in case she needed it.

The atmosphere in the corner room crackled with electrical energy. The back wall seemed to shimmer with anticipation of what they were about to do. The cold metal crowbar came alive, vibrating in her hand.

Collin must have seen it shake and noticed her sudden paralysis. “I’ll do it.”

He released her hand, took the tool from her, and offered her his flashlight. She cast the yellow-white glow on the crappy wallpaper. He struck the wall and gouged until he’d made a small hole. It was slow going, and he winced every time he attacked the wall. When the opening was large enough, he sucked in a shuddery breath and bent to peek through the hole. With a strangled cry, he jumped back from the wall.

Never had she heard a man make that kind of noise. Actually, she’d never heard a woman sound that way either. “Collin, what is it? What did you see?”

He shook his head. “I can’t say it.”

“
He
won’t let you, will he?” She spoke of the same oppression that had kept her from telling Collin about the incorrect project plans, the same oppression that liked to keep its secrets hidden.

Collin pointed at the wall, his eyes glittering with fear. She understood what he was wordlessly trying to tell her. No matter how awful it would be, she needed to see what was behind the wall. She sank her fingernails into his upper arm, leaned forward, and peered through the hole. Two figures wrapped their fingers around each other’s necks, shifting between flesh and skeleton, back and forth, toggling between life and death.

She sprang back and stumbled. He caught her before she landed on her butt. Their arms wound around each other like two symbiotic vines. She turned her face toward him, their noses so close she could feel the warmth of his breath.

Had he seen what she’d seen?

Fear raged in Collin’s strangely glowing stare. His lips trembled before he spoke. “Elsa, what did you see?”

Terror passed in and out of every one of her cell membranes. Tears streamed from her eyes. “
He’s
tricking us.” Her quiet words barely passed her lips. She desperately wanted to believe that what she’d seen was only a trick of the imagination. “He’s put an illusion in front of us so we won’t tear down the wall and find out what’s really back there. It was so awful, I don’t…I don’t know if I can handle it…”

Collin pointed toward the hole in the wall. “It’s not real unless we make it real.”

A cold wind blew straight through her, passing through muscle, tissue, and bone, leaving the imprint of the truth on her soul. She shook her head hard to dispel the knowledge as if it were merely a bad feeling. No matter how hard she tried, the truth would not dislodge from her psyche. She had to do what she had come to the hotel that night to do.

He
had to be stopped before he killed again, and she had to stop him.

Collin was right. Their minds had the power to accept or reject what they’d seen behind the wall. She knew it. Like she knew her own name.

He raised the crowbar above his head in both hands. The metal came crashing down on the wall. Strips of wallpaper and chunks of plaster flew past her and dropped to the floor. Collin gritted his teeth and roared at the wall, repeating the previous damage. Pain, real pain, echoed in every grunt and moan and scream as he tore at the wall.

By the time Collin had beaten an opening big enough for them to slip through, sweat dripped from his face, and his soaked shirt clung to him. The nagging thought that he shouldn’t be exerting himself so much after his recent concussion upset her further, but there was nothing she could do to dissuade him. Raw determination glittered in his pain-filled eyes. Collin was unstoppable. They’d set in motion something that couldn’t be stopped until it was finished.