Darkness Becomes Her (13 page)

Her forwardness threw him even more. He opened his mouth, paused, and then asked, “Service?”

“Haircut, style. We also offer chest and back hair removal.”

His hand involuntarily went to his chest. “No, that’s quite alright.” Jessie liked the way he ran
all right
together, and she loved the expressions on his face. He said, “Jessie said you cut long hair for wigs. Can you throw me in to that?”

Doris reached for his hair again. “I could throw you into a lot of things.” She waggled her eyebrow, the unabashed flirt.

His smile was stilted. Poor guy. She had thrown
him
into a den of single women. Two other stylists had moved in, too, both closer to Jessie’s age. While a part of her enjoyed Lachlan’s reaction, another part felt like a cat dunked into a tub of water, growling and with claws flying.

Macy said, “I’ll do him. I’m open for the next hour.”

“I can do it. My specialty is long hair,” Cammie said.

Doris pointed to the plaque on the wall:
DORIS JEAN’S HAIR SALON. YOU GROW IT, WE’LL STYLE IT.
“See whose name is on that sign? That’s who’s doing him.”

Jessie leaned toward Lachlan. “They don’t get a lot of good-looking guys in here.” She’d heard the laments before. Doris had been trying to advertise at men, even changing the color on the sign from pink to blue. Wasn’t working.

Doris grabbed Lachlan’s hand and dragged him off to the sinks in back. “I give the best scalp massages.”

He glanced back, giving her that adorable worried look.

You’re safe,
she mouthed. Maybe. The cat growled again, a low, long one.
Come on, what’s wrong with you? He’s not yours, and he’s not even flirting back.

Macy and Cammie closed in on her and talked at once. “Who’s that?”

“And what happened to the big hunk with curls?”

Jessie had referred Magnus to the salon. Doris had cut his hair, too, raving about all his curls, just as Lachlan had said women did. Now, she watched as Doris settled Lachlan in the chair. He’d obviously never been to a proper salon before. He jerked up when the chair tilted backward.

“That’s Lachlan, Magnus’s brother,” she said.

“His brother? Ooh, you bad girl, you, cheating on one brother with the other!” Cammie said.

“Or is it something kinky?” Macy said, nearly salivating at the prospect. As Jessie and Macy exchanged romance novels, Jessie knew her taste ran toward erotica. “Do you have them put on kilts and—”

“Lalalalala.” Jessie covered her ears until she saw Macy’s mouth stop moving. “Do not put those images in my mind. We’re just friends.” Except for that kiss.

“Friends. Yeah, sure.” Macy glanced to where Lachlan was getting to his feet and holding a towel turban over his wet hair. “The way you were looking at him . . .”

“And the way he was looking at you,” Cammie added.

Macy held out a lock of her hair. “I might be blond, but remember, it’s a dye job. You’re not fooling me.”

Was she . . . was he . . .

He was now within earshot, and Doris was asking, “Was that the most wonderful hair wash ever?”

“It was quite nice,” he said, and dammit, he meant it.

You are not feeling jealous because she got to run her fingers through his hair, got to make him feel good. Right?

Right.

Doris pulled a wide-tooth comb through his hair. “How short do you want to go, honey?”

“Not too short,” Jessie found her mouth saying. “Uh, it might be a shock, after having long hair for so long.”

Macy gave her a
See, I knew you liked him that way
look, accentuating it with a nod.

“Whatever you think is best,” he said to Doris. “I trust you.”

Doris gave Jessie a sugar-sweet smile. “He trusts me.” She turned him to face the big mirror and pulled the mass of long wet hair up to give him an idea of what shoulder-length hair would look like. “How about this?”

“Aye, that’s fine.”

“Aye.”
Doris wilted, looking at the three of them. “I
love
his accent.”

Jessie met Lachlan’s eyes and burst out laughing. He shrugged, giving her a crooked smile. But he was laughing, too, and she felt a jolt shoot right through her as their gazes locked.

“What’s so funny?” Doris asked, her gaze going from her to him. “Oh, some kind of private joke.”

“‘Private.’ ” Macy gave an exaggerated nod of her head.

Oh, boy. Jessie could feel herself slipping. The trill of excitement zipping through her, the smile she couldn’t get off her face . . . all bad signs. The more he relaxed and opened up around her, the more appealing he was. Knowing his shadows, his fears, well, that made it worse.

The jealous cat growled as Doris’s fingers moved through his hair, the worse sign yet. The more Doris touched him, the more Jessie wanted to go all wild on her. Which was plain crazy.

Doris put his hair into three ponytails and cut each one. She held them up. “Say goodbye.”

Lachlan waved that off. “It’s only hair.”

Doris prattled on about everything and nothing. Every few minutes his gaze would slide to Jessie’s. There was the jolt again.

Macy got a walk-in, and Cammie finally drifted off to straighten her station. Doris dried Lachlan’s hair, turning her wrist expertly and leaving his hair fluffy and shiny. When she was finished, she spun the chair so he faced her directly. “Well? Is he gorgeous or what?”

Well, he’d
been
gorgeous in a rough, Highlander sort of way. Now his dark hair tapered back to the base of his neck. He looked . . . civilized, but not completely.

“I like it.”

Doris unclipped the cape and released him. “Do you need any product?”

“Product?” he asked.

“Shampoo, hair spray.”

“No, I’m good.” He followed her to the register.

Doris gave him a twinkle-eyed smile. “You sure are, sugar.”

He gave her a big fat tip, the kind Jessie wanted to give her but couldn’t. Jessie slid her arm around his. “I’d better get you out of here. Thanks, Doris.”

Every woman in the place called out farewells with their fluttering fingers.
Sheesh.

Lachlan took his coat back as soon as they walked outside, checking their surroundings. Satisfied that things were clear, he ran his fingers through his hair. “Feels strange.”

He didn’t even get that he’d created a stir, that most of those women would have thrown themselves at him if she hadn’t been there looking so obviously . . . with him.

“How long have you had long hair?”

“Dunno, probably since I was fifteen. Not as long as it was, though.” He looked around again. “You want to go by the store, get food or anything else?”

“Yeah. I want to make dinner.” It was late afternoon now, and her tummy was beginning to growl. “You’re not having boiled chicken and brown rice either. Do you like things spicy?”

He lifted his eyebrow, with a decidedly devilish gleam in his eyes. “Are we talking about food here?”

She pointed at his chest, her finger poking hard muscle. “Do not flirt with me, Lachlan McLeod. It’s wrong and unfair and . . . frustrating.”

“Was that flirting?”

On anyone else, she’d suspect that guileless expression was an act. “Yes. You do this
thing
with your eyebrow, asking if we’re talking about
food
, and it makes me all crazy inside because you can’t go there and I can’t go there. So stop.”

“I was flirting, eh? Mm, interesting. It just sort of came out, the spicy thing, and I didn’t know I was doing a ‘thing’ with my eyebrow.” He released a huff of breath. “It’s so damned easy with you, Jess. I was being honest when I said I’d shut that part of myself off and you turned it back on again. Just goes to show you what a sod I am, flirting with you and not even realizing it.”

He did not need to add anything else to his things-to-hate-himself-for list, as he’d said. She would be strong, too, and not add anything more to her list of awful things she was responsible for.

She put her hand on his cheek. “Don’t beat yourself up either. We’re only human.”

The strong sense of being watched spiked through her. She turned and found four faces watching them with the kind of expressions they might have over a juicy scene from a soap opera. Just like those scenes, she would leave them hanging.

Chapter 13

T
he kitchen hadn’t been such a mess, and hadn’t smelled so good, since Lachlan’s father’s death nine months ago. Lachlan usually threw a chicken breast into the microwave, cooked some rice, heated some canned green beans, and that was about it. All he needed was sustenance. The way his mouth watered at the aroma of tomatoes, garlic, and chicken cooking in the pan . . . well, she’d awakened his hunger for good food, too.

She tasted some of the sauce, rolling her eyes in pleasure. “Mm, perfect.”

She’d set him to chopping lettuce and carrots for a salad, having already whipped up a dressing from scratch. She flitted from thing to thing, humming, a smile on her face.

“You do love to cook, don’t you?” he asked.

“My dad and I used to cook together. It was special. I felt all grown up, like I was helping. My mom was sick a lot, and Dad ended up doing a lot of the household chores.” The smile on her face showed him how much those times meant to her.

“What was wrong with your mum?”

“The doctors couldn’t find anything, but she’d been sickly her whole life. Failure to thrive, she said they called it. I took care of her, played mommy. She started getting better in those last couple of months.”

She moved with grace, whisking a bowl of homemade salad dressing filled with herbs and a touch of balsamic vinegar; she liked to tell him every ingredient, like one of those cooking show hosts. She had a lovely glow on her face, putting a flush on her apple cheeks and a sparkle in her hazel eyes. He had to stop watching her or else he’d chop his fingers off.

“Here, try this,” she said, suddenly beside him with a spoon of the tomato sauce.

He obliged and leaned down, so used to his hair falling forward he almost made to push it back.

He had the same reaction she had, rolling his eyes and letting out a soft
Mmmm.
“Incredible.” Except he was looking at her. He shifted his gaze to the now empty spoon. “You said it was chicken cacciatore?”

“Yep. I got it from this old Italian cookbook I picked up at a thrift store. You know it’s good when there are food stains and notations on the pages.”

A large pan nestled with chicken thighs, onions, and mushrooms, bubbled gently. His mouth actually watered. Of course, he was looking at her again, so he couldn’t be sure which had done it.

He heard a groan come out of him, and yet he hadn’t made the sound. Olaf’s energy suffused him. Bloody hell, he
could
come uninvited.

“I can smell it through ye,” Olaf said, making a long, snuffly sound. “Food. Like nothin’ I’ve ever laid me eyes on, but heavenly all the same.”

She walked closer, looking at him, but not at him. “Did you find out anything about the Void?”

“I seen it. Scary thing, scarier than the Light.”

Jessie’s face was filled with both fear and hope. “The Light? You mean the light people see when they die?”

“That’s the one. I didna want to go to the Light when I was dyin’. Go and be judged for my sins? Och, no way. I committed plenty.”

Lachlan tapped the knife’s handle on the counter. “So you’re a coward, then? Afraid to go to the Void?”

Rage exploded through him. “Ye’ll not call me a coward! I faced a hundred swords in my life, gave my life for Scottish freedom.”

The same darkness he’d felt the first time Olaf came into him now inundated Lachlan. He held on, his fingers tightening on the edge of the counter.
Focus on the cold stone, on being here, now. Don’t let him take over again.
Because in his other hand he held a knife.

Lachlan lost his vision for a few seconds, but he came back to find Jessie shaking his shoulders, a fearful look on her face. “Come back, Lachlan!”

The knife was jammed one inch into the cutting board. He had no memory of doing it.

“Olaf, back off!” he commanded.

The rage ceased, but Olaf remained. “Ye know the MacLeod temper.”

“Is that supposed to be an apology?”

“More like a warning, I’d say. Dinna disrespect your kin.”

“And clinging to me isn’t disrespecting
me
?”

“I’m no’ ready to go yet, Lachlan. Ye’ve given me a second chance. I’ll no’ be giving it up soon.”

Lachlan knew the spirit would definitely be trouble. He would only tolerate him because he needed him. “Olaf, we’ll be with you after dinner. Be gone.”

Olaf didn’t go. Lachlan’s chest tightened.

“Ye would deny me a chance to taste of the living, just once? I been trapped here, denied the chance to live, to eat, to feel anything. Suffering so.”

He might have been denying himself, and thus Olaf, but at least he didn’t whine about it. “It’s not like you can eat with us.”

“Nae, but I can watch you eat, can smell through you.”

“I don’t want you groaning and sniffing while I eat.”

“I’ll be quiet. Won’t even know I’m there. Go on, then.”

Lachlan tightened his lips on words that wanted to come out.

“All right, I’ll go, leave ye to your dinner. Dinna worry, lass, I’ll come back to tell ye more about the Void. I think I can help. But there’ll be a price to pay.”

Lachlan felt the whoosh, almost a vacuum, as Olaf left. “I dinna—do not like that he can come and go as he pleases. We don’t know if we can trust him. Look what your uncle did to stay alive.”

She had her arms wrapped around herself, her earlier glow gone. “I know. But I need him to find my father. Whatever price he wants, I’ll pay it. Daddy . . . he’s my kin. My only kin. I’ll do whatever it takes to get him back.”

“Don’t let Olaf hear you say that.” He didn’t know if Olaf could hear or see what transpired when he wasn’t present. The thought pricked at Lachlan. He hoped not.

“Let’s eat,” she said, pulling the plates close to the pan.

He lit a candle that sat in a red glass bowl on the table after blowing off the dust. They shared a bottle of wine with dinner, but he only poured himself a token amount. She wouldn’t let him open the bottle unless he was going to share it with her, so he’d said he would. He wasn’t much of a wine drinker, though, so after swigging the splash, he brought back a can of Guinness and a glass.

“Not really in a wine mood tonight.” He poured the beer into the glass.

“Look at the way the foam kind of moves down, instead of up, like rainfall.” She leaned forward to watch. “It’s all creamy, and the contrast between the dark and the light is pretty.” She grinned. “Who would have thought beer could be pretty? Especially
black
beer?”

He’d been watching the foam, too, as she’d described it. He’d never noticed it before.

She gave him such a sweet smile, it made his throat go dry. “Silly, huh, getting all excited about beer foam?”

He lifted the glass to her. “I’ll never look at it the same again. Cheers.”

They drank then, sharing a smile. Their gazes held for a few moments, moments that felt like hours. He pulled his away and took another gulp of his beer, hardly tasting it. They grew quiet as they tucked into their meal. Salads he could take or leave, but the main dish was as incredible as its creator.

She made these intriguing sounds as she ate, closing her eyes and sinking into it. Everything she did, she savored. While cooking, she’d inhaled the garlic on her fingers as though it were the scent of the gods, commented on how the spices swirled in the oil and vinegar. Life was a sensual pleasure to her, and watching her was a sensual pleasure to him.

One he shouldn’t be partaking in for many reasons.

The candle cast a warm glow over her face, flickering as though it were alive. Could Olaf move currents, make breezes? Weren’t ghosts supposed to be cold?

She took another sip of wine. “Mm, I love the sweet-but-not-too-sweet flavor of this one, with just a hint of cherry.” She looked at the label on the bottle and laughed.

“What is it?”

“Ménage à Trois.”

Weirdly appropriate and inappropriate. He decided not to comment on that. “I know nothing about wines, but my parents liked this brand. I hadn’t even noticed what it was called.”

“I’m no expert either. I don’t buy much of it.”

Probably couldn’t afford it. He’d had to fight her on who would pay for the groceries. He’d taken her hand, wrapped around her wallet, and told her in no uncertain terms that he had plenty of money and would pay. She threatened to pay the next time.

Right.

Even in hiding, his father continued to work, getting grants and writing papers under a pseudonym. He made money, and he played the stock market. Lachlan and Magnus were set financially. Now Lachlan was making his own money with the car restoration business. No way would he let her pay a dime when she clipped coupons and bought cookbooks at thrift stores. Nor would she be paying for the damage to the trailer.

“You’re giving me a fierce look,” she said, peering at him from beneath her lashes.

“Sorry, just thinking about that price Olaf wants. Never mind that.” He took another drink. “Why haven’t you gotten jobs at restaurants? You’re amazing.”

She smiled, and he could see a hint of a buzz in her eyes. “I love to cook, but if I had to do it for a living, I’m afraid I’d lose that passion. Maybe if I opened my own place someday . . .” Her expression dimmed. “But that would entail a lot of paperwork. Possibly a liquor license. I don’t think so.”

“Who’s Jessie Bellandre?”

She blinked at the question. “Uh, me.”

“Jessie Bellandre died eleven years ago from a fatal form of muscular dystrophy. A disease that touches your heart. So who’s Jessie? Or more importantly, who are you really?”

She ran her finger along the top rim of her wineglass, deciding what to tell him. “You found that out when you thought I was some homicidal freak out to get your brother, I suppose.”

“That made me even more suspicious. Now it just makes me curious.”

She took a sip of wine, still buying time. “You’re going to hand me over to your brother when this is all over. Why does it matter to you?”

Her words spiked through him. “We are friends, aren’t we? If things go well with you and Magnus, we’ll be in-laws.”

“And how will he feel, you knowing my secrets before he does?”

He wanted to kiss that little smirk off her face. Something else he’d done before Magnus, but he would cut out his tongue before saying a word about that.

“Point made, you cheeky girl.”

“Cheeky? What does that mean exactly?”

“You know, because you’re being it.”

She tried to hide her grin by taking another sip, finishing off her glass. “Time to clean up.”

“You sit. I’ll take care of it.” He stood and picked up their plates.

“Really?” She had a lazy smile on her face as she took him in. “Mm, what a prince you are.”

“No, no prince. Just a guy grateful for a good meal.”

She helped anyway. “It’ll make it go faster. I want to get it done so we can talk to Olaf.”

“And find out what price he intends to exact.”

J
essie and Lachlan went into the family room a half hour later. Though it was open to the courtyard, it was the darkest room of the house, having no exterior windows. His father had designed it that way to cut the glare on the huge television mounted on the wall. The furniture was earth tones, but the accent lighting and décor pieces, like the kitchen and sitting area, were bright colors and contemporary styles.

He remained standing, hands at his sides, tense expression on his face. “Time to find out what he wants. Olaf!”

“Ye’ve no need to yell, laddie. I’m ne’er verra far away.”

That’s what worries me.
Lachlan held out his hands and saw the ghostly imprint of Olaf’s hands, even the dark, coarse hairs on the backs. “What did you find out about the Void?”

Olaf breathed in noisily. “Still smells delicious. Ah now, ye want to get right down to business, eh? I saw a great round ball, black as a stormy sky, it was, a place that felt like nothin’. Nae, less than nothin’. It could be the Void ye were talkin’ about.”

Jessie stepped closer, her face tightening. “Could you see inside?”

“It was solid, like the beast that man becomes. There was an opening, like if ye made a shallow cut into a melon. I could see in, but not verra far. I stayed away from it, and don’t ye dare call me a coward for it. I’ll no’ be trapped in some place for eternity, no’ even for a bonnie lass.”

Her expression fell. “But you said you could help.”

“I was afraid ye were gonna give me that look, like I let you down.” Olaf released a low sigh. “I think I could bring ye with me. If ye dare, ye could go in. I’ll hold onto ye, use the same magic that helped Lachlan with the hell doggies.”

She said, “I’ll do it,” at the same time Lachlan said, “No way.”

A ferocity blazed in her hazel eyes. “It’s my dad. I have to see if he’s there.”

“And get trapped there?” Lachlan’s heart squeezed at the thought of it.

“I’m sure you did everything you could to save your father when the house was burning down. But what if there had been one more thing to try, one last chance? You’d have done it, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s harsh, using my pain to convince me.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “But you’re right. I would have done.”

“Think back on those moments when Magnus was lying there dying. When I gave you that terrible choice. How did you feel?”

Desperate. In agony.

She nodded even though he hadn’t spoken the words aloud. “And if you could take the Darkness for him, you would have.”

“Aye.”

“That’s how I feel right now, about my father.”

She had him there. He would do anything for the people he loved. He couldn’t expect any less of her.

“I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try. Olaf, is that the price? The risk that I might get trapped?”

“Nae, lassie. I dinna want to go back to that place. I’ll protect ye as well as I can, but I’m taking a risk myself. I’ll be asking for a taste of something pleasurable before I go.”

She smiled. “I’ll cook for you, anything you want. I’ll learn how to make a traditional Scottish dish.”

“Nae, that’s no’ the pleasure I mean. I want to feel a woman’s body one last time, feel everything that’s soft and warm and curvy about it.”