Whispers (42 page)

I felt the dark danger inside him. The ruthlessness of a man who lived outside the boundaries of civilization, who slept beneath the stars because walls were too confining. I felt his desire to change that, to become one with a life more gentle, more willing to give and less likely to take. In his own way, he sought after stability here, with the saloon. If not an acceptable way of society, then at least a predictable one.

And I realized that my needs had changed so that I wanted it, too. I couldn’t go back to the confines of my old life. To marry one of the boys back home and live life like I’d been raised to do. In too short a time I’d been changed, and that forging of a new woman could not be undone. I belonged here now, in the arms of Sawyer McCready and I would do everything in my power to stay there.

He didn’t ask me if I was sure in my giving. I saw from the look in his eyes that he knew already. There was power there, the power of knowing I was his to take, to love, to pleasure. His hands slid over my body and my skin seemed to light wherever he touched. I wanted my own dose of the heady stuff shadowing his eyes. I ran my fingertips down his spine as I pressed my mouth to his collarbone and the hollows beneath it. When I reached his bare buttocks, I froze for a moment. The intimacy of touching him here, where the skin was white against the sun-darkened waist, somehow matched any we’d had so far. He felt my uncertainty, and looked up from my breast. The cool air where his mouth had been warm and wet added yet another sensation to the thousands assaulting my senses in a delicious rush.

For a moment I thought he might ask if I’d changed my mind. I thought he might play the honorable gentleman and leave me with my virtue. But when I looked into his eyes I realized he had no intentions of the kind. His smile was slow and seductive as he shifted his weight so he lay right beside me, his chest, hips, and thighs a burning magnet down the length of my body. He propped his head up and looked at my nakedness with bold possession.

I was breathing hard and fast as his fingers moved to parts of me that no fingers had touched before. The shock of skin on skin, of the gentle exploration of his fingers, wet from the need inside me arched my body into his. He watched my face as he touched and teased, and this, I realized, was more intimate, more consuming than the feel of his hands. He stared deeply into my eyes, refusing to let me turn away, refusing to let me hide the tide of emotion, sensation, overwhelming longing that hit me with each gentle movement. When he slipped a finger inside that tight place no one had ever invaded, I caught my breath and nearly released it in a high moan that sounded alien and excited and wanting.

He teased me until his fingers were slick and then he placed them in his mouth and licked them. I was crazy with feelings I couldn’t describe or decipher, feelings that had me pulling him down to me, that had me shifting so he could lie between my spread legs. I turned my face to kiss him and tasted myself on his lips. My frenzied positioning seemed to work its own magic and drive him to the place he’d trapped me. I felt the nudge of him against me and then the slow insistent pressure as he moved inside. There was pain, but in some unfathomable way, it was good pain. For a moment concern darkened his eyes and he held still, watching me for a signal. I took in a shaky breath and kissed him, pulling the breath of him into my lungs as he moved again, long and slow, then deep, then shallow. The rhythm of it excited me in the same way plunging heights and dizzying falls could.

I kept my mouth to his, so he would taste the fear and the thrill of my emotions while I drank the dark mystery he unveiled for me. Our bodies were slick with sweat as he struggled to please me while not hurting me and I fought to drive him beyond the ability to tell. I felt a building deep inside, a pounding of pressure, a swirling of tension that rose up and melted down until I was hot and trembling. My body arched in a dance Sawyer knew well and he shifted, changing the rhythm of his music to make me writhe and tighten around him until we were both unleashed by the song. I heard my own cry and then his lower moan of release. He collapsed on top of me, his weight welcome in the aftermath of pleasure. I knew then that I would willingly spend the rest of my life seeking another chance to move him this way.

Chapter Thirty-Six

THE kitchen door swung open with a bang and Bill came through, holding the hurricane lamp in his hands. The bright light chased back the dark and illuminated the room. Reilly stood with Gracie held protectively in his arms, centered in the large kitchen, staring at the place where the man had materialized. He grappled with what he’d seen, knowing that his eyes hadn’t played tricks, but not believing the image they’d brought back to him.

“
There was a man,” Gracie whispered. “I saw him. He came after me and then . . .” She looked at Reilly with shock-rounded eyes. “Did you see him too?”

Reilly tucked her close, avoiding those searching eyes. Inside him the need to protect her was so strong it hummed in his blood. He wanted to tell her no, he hadn’t seen a thing. He wanted to appease her fear with denial. But instead he told the truth. “I saw him too.”

She sagged against him with relief, as if it was better to have seen an apparition that went against all belief than it was to have imagined it in the midst of a dark and stormy night.

He stroked her hair, tucking a stray strand behind her ear as he murmured again, “I saw it too.”

She pressed her face into this chest and he knew she felt the erratic pounding of his heart. He was scared and that bothered him as much as anything else. It had been a long time since fear had found a way to penetrate his mind. Not since he’d watched his father’s car careen off Dead Lights Road.

Bill held up the lamp as he walked the perimeter of the kitchen but the man was gone. Not surprising, because it hadn’t been a man. But what he’d seen he couldn’t put to words. He couldn’t say it out loud, ghost... phantom ... spirit. It was too ludicrous. But he had seen someone, something, and there’d been nothing earthly about it.

Analise, Brendan, and Zach clustered at the door, peering in with wide eyes. At their feet the dogs tried to get through and at last Juliet made the break and rushed to Gracie’s side, body wagging with anxiety and ears held flat against her head. She snuffled Gracie’s hand and then moved to Reilly. He braced himself for her growl, but she only whined and licked his fingertips. Before he could get over that, they heard Chloe’s voice coming from the other room.

“
It’s time,” she said.

As if that explained it all, Bill turned and left the kitchen. Reilly and Gracie followed the light if not the command. In the front room they found Chloe had moved chairs into a loose circle. She sat directly beneath the portrait of the women and men from another era. To her right, Bill took a seat. There were four empty chairs in her circle of six.

Reilly, Gracie, and the rest of them stood on the outside.

“
Will no one embrace the unknown and learn what it has to share?” Chloe said softly. “Is none of you brave enough to step beyond the here and now? To join our circle of enlightenment?”

The room was so quiet they could hear the candles sputter.

Chloe leveled a dark look at Gracie. “He is calling to you. Why do you refuse to hear what he has to say?”

Reilly sensed Gracie’s resistance, sensed that she wanted nothing more than to ignore Chloe’s question.

Her voice was strained when she said, “Who is calling me?”

“
I cannot know until he speaks to us.”

“
He wanted to hurt me,” Gracie said.

“
He wanted to reach you,” Chloe contradicted.

“
You weren’t even there. He came at me. And then we saw him again and he had a gun.”

“
He is defending what he thinks is his,” Chloe said.

“
Who is he?” Analise repeated her mother’s question.

Chloe didn’t answer, but Reilly thought he knew. There was only one reason why Chloe would want to make contact with this ... this ghost as badly as she did. She thought it was her grandfather—the man who had raped her, her mother, and her grandmother. Had he been haunting her all these years? Was the story she’d told earlier about visions and Gracie’s family just a ruse? Had she tracked him down through the history of Diablo Springs? The town’s past was filled with just such disreputable men. It was no stretch to think this molester of women was one of them.

“
Who are you talking about?” Analise demanded again. “The guy who killed the priest?”

From the expressions on the faces around him, Reilly knew that none of them had considered this. He himself didn’t believe it, and yet... perhaps Jonathan had been driven to take his own life by the insanity of seeing this spirit walking the earth.

“
We have only questions,” Chloe said. “We search for answers, but our circle is not complete. He who wanders the halls of the Diablo knows all. Let us call him.”

“
You mean call him and ask what he’s doing here?” Zach said.

“
Ask him what he seeks to protect. Ask him why he hasn’t moved on.”

A strange expression flitted over Zach’s face. He looked back at Gracie, his eyes narrowed and considering. What was he thinking? What did he want from Gracie?

Reilly still held her in the circle of his arms. He pulled her closer.

“
I’ll play,” Zach said, hurrying forward. He hooked the chair around and straddled it from behind. “What do I do?”

The look Chloe gave him was cold and angry. “It is not a game.”

Zach grinned and held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry.”

She wasn’t appeased but she didn’t protest when he remained in the empty seat. Her circle wasn’t complete and yet Reilly realized that just by being there, they might be filling it in.

Outside the wind blasted against the hotel, rattling windows and doors, slamming the branches of the giant mesquite into the exterior walls. Lightning crackled through the downpour and moments later thunder rocked the foundation. Juliet began to bark. Tinkerbelle and Romeo joined in, yapping furiously at the storm.

“
Gracie,” Bill said, looking at her with kindly eyes. “We must be able to focus. Could you remove the dogs?”

Reilly could tell that she wanted to argue, but she finally nodded when the din they made rose to eardrum-busting proportions. He didn’t know if it was the storm or something else that had them so upset, but they wouldn’t be calmed. Brendan stepped forward.

“
I’ll put them in a bedroom, Ms. Beck,” he said.

Without being asked, Analise moved to help him. They all watched as the two urged the unhappy animals up the stairs, Romeo yapping furiously in Brendan’s arms. After a moment the sounds were muffled by a closed door. Brendan and Analise came back down and stood beside Gracie and Reilly. Thunder exploded, shaking the house and driving the caged animals to a new level of fury. But the thick walls trapped the volume and let only a hint of it down the stairs.

In contrast to the storm outside the room grew so quiet that Reilly could hear Gracie’s soft breathing beside him. Chloe’s voice vibrated through the room, deep and melodic as she asked if there was a spirit who would answer. The sound of it crept across his skin like ants.

Analise stepped nearer to her mother, leaving her boyfriend an arms-length away. “Mom, I don’t like this.”

Chloe raised her voice and asked again, “Is there a spirit who would join us?”

Hands clasped, Chloe and Bill bowed their heads in anticipation of the answer. If Reilly hadn’t known better, he’d have thought they were praying. It was warm in the room.

Too warm and that roasting meat smell had become heavier until it seemed to weight the very air they breathed.

Chloe and Bill bent in concentration but Zach took it all in with a cynical expression. Reilly watched him knowing at a gut-level that Zach was not what he pretended to be. An uncomfortable feeling came over Reilly, a feeling that he was missing something, something big. But before he could put the pieces together, Chloe started making a sound. It was deep and hollow, filled with tones—like music—yet somehow indefinable. It was the sound, not the cool air that gusted from the vents above, that raised the hairs on his body right down to the short stubble on his scalp. The shifty shadows and glowing light that pried its way through the darkness seemed sinister.

“
Christ, what’s that sound she’s making?” Brendan mumbled.

Bill looked up and glared.

The tones shifted, rose, dropped, and thrummed around them. They drew Reilly in like a haunting song, but there was nothing sweet or melodic about it. He looked down at Gracie. She’d stepped away from him and stood next to her daughter, watching Chloe with wide eyes.

Chloe murmured something else and then a voice came out of her that hit him like icy water. It forced the air from his lungs and made him reach for the back of the chair in front of him. It was a man’s voice, not an impersonation of one, but a true man’s voice coming from the frail old woman. And he recognized it. It belonged to his brother, Matt.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

REILLY felt Gracie touch his arm and he knew she recognized the voice, too. He tried to focus on what it said, but it seemed to be a string of sounds, disjointed words, like a signal interrupted. And then at last, one word that could not be mistaken.