Good Will Ghost Hunting: Demon Seed [Good Will Ghost Hunting 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (35 page)

Ryan consulted his clipboard. “Well, I think you must have received crossed signals, sir, because we’re not done shooting until at least four tomorrow morning. I would suggest not coming back until six because we have a postproduction meeting after we wrap the shoot.”

Kal nearly blew her composure when she exchanged a brief glance with Will. Despite everything, he was desperately trying not to laugh at Ryan’s handling of the situation.

Reverend Martin got in Ryan’s face. Kal fought the urge to suggest he not do that. “I’m taking her home, right now. She’s going to marry Jeff and not this…person who’s led her astray. I forbid it!”

Will’s arm encircled her waist as Ryan reached out and gently gripped her father’s shoulder. A brief frown creased Ryan’s face, then his normal pleasant expression returned. “I’m sure you don’t mean that,” Ryan calmly said in a soft voice.

Had Will not held Kal, she would have cried out a warning to her father.

Will silently spoke to her.
“He won’t hurt him, Kal. Trust me. You know he won’t.”

She nodded, worried, watching.

Her father’s eyes clouded, suddenly confused. “Don’t mean what?”

“I think you meant to ask if Jeff could stay and watch the shoot, didn’t you?”

Her father nodded, still looking confused. “Yes. Can Jeff stay and watch the shoot?”

Ryan, still holding his shoulder, nodded. “Of course Jeff can stay and watch the shoot. We’d be honored to have him here. We’ll make sure we get him home safely in the morning. You know, Reverend Martin, you’re a very lucky man to have Will Hellenboek as your son-in-law.”

“I am?”

“Why, of course you are. He obviously cherishes Kal very much.” Ryan’s voice dropped even lower. “He would die to protect her. He will never betray her. He loves her with all his soul, and she loves him. You cannot ask for more than that as a father, can you?”

Fighting her tears, Kal tightly gripped Will’s arm.

Her father slowly shook his head. “No. I can’t ask for more than that.”

Ryan wasn’t quite through. “I think you should go home and get a good night’s sleep, sir. You’ll feel great in the morning, very happy for all that’s happened, won’t you? Like a huge weight has lifted from your soul.”

He nodded. “Very happy.”

“Excellent.” Ryan released him. Her father swayed a little on his feet and looked bewildered.

Seizing the advantage, Kal stepped forward and hugged her father, kissing him on the cheek. “Thank you for giving us your blessing, Daddy. It means the world to us.”

“What? Oh, yes. Blessings. He loves you.”

She nodded, trying not to cry. “Yes, he does love me. And I love him.”

Her father finally looked at Will. “You’ll protect and love her?” He still didn’t sound normal. Ryan watched from a few feet away, not interfering.

Will nodded. “With my life, Reverend Martin. You have my word.” He looked into Kal’s eyes. “She’s my soul mate.”

Reverend Martin nodded. “That’s nice, very sweet thing to say. That’s good. Okay. I need to go home and go to bed. I’ll feel good in the morning. Good night.”

“Good night, Daddy.”

She waited until her father left, then flung her arms around a very surprised Ryan. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear.

He hugged her back. “Quite all right, love,” he whispered in her ear. “And thank you for the cologne, it was correct, although I’m not sure how you knew.” He hesitantly patted her on the back before releasing her and stepping away. He looked at Will. “You can handle the evening from here?”

With begrudging respect, Will nodded. “Thanks, Ryan.”

Ryan disappeared. Purs shook his head. “Never thought the bastard had a generous bone in his body. Maybe I should play Powerball tonight? It didn’t get a little chilly around here, did it? Did Atlanta just freeze over?”

Will had his doubts as to the generosity of Ryan’s actions but it didn’t matter. Kal was happy, and Aidan had possibly met a new love. He wouldn’t question it.

At least, not tonight.

* * * *

Alone at base without the film crew in sight, Will nuzzled Kal’s neck. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Even though I didn’t really know him, I guess I always suspected Jeff wasn’t like the other boys.” She smiled, then it faded. “My father will be beside himself if whatever Ryan did to him wears off.”

“I think this falls under the heading of ‘humorous irony.’”

“I’d be willing to bet my father flunked irony in school. He probably didn’t even take humorous as an elective course.”

“I thought you said Jeff was a smarmy jerk.”

“I thought
you
said Ryan was a smarmy jerk.”

“Point taken.”

“Besides, I’m sure I didn’t come off as the homecoming queen to Jeff, either. I resented my father’s attempts to matchmake as much as Jeff probably did. Neither of us saw the other in the best light.”

* * * *

Will was alone upstairs checking a stubborn IR camera that kept shutting down when he felt the air pop.

He didn’t look up from where he squatted next to the chair the camera was taped to. “Hi, Ryan.”

“Keep that off for a moment, Will.”

Will turned. “Why?”

“I don’t want Kal to see us talking.”

“So you’ve been frigging with it?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I needed to talk to you alone for a moment and I didn’t wish to risk her sensing me converse with you.”

Will sighed. “Before we do, thank you for earlier. Seriously, no ball busting or sarcasm intended. I appreciate you doing that for her. And for Aidan.”

Ryan nodded. “I hope you still feel that way in a few minutes. You’re not going to like this next part.”

“Not when you talk like that, I’m not.”

When they finished their chat, Will hung his head. “Shit.”

“I’m sorry, Will. I figured you’d want to know.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Dammit. It’s going to tear her up.”

“I wouldn’t tell her if I were you. There’s nothing to be done at this point. Perhaps a few years ago, maybe. Not now. It’s too progressed.”

“How soon?”

Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe a year, but don’t look too much past that. I would suggest setting a wedding date sooner rather than later. I’ll arrange for her to spend a lot of days in Columbus at the network as an excuse, that way she can spend time with her parents. I’ll provide her a car to use while up here.” He extended his hand to Will to help him up from the floor. The other man finally took it. “I’ll help you get her back and forth, she can travel through my office, be home every night with you. That way she can plan her wedding with her mother and spend time with them both.”

“I don’t understand you, Ryan. Just when I get to the point I want to turn your teeth into a pair of maracas, you go and do something nice. Twice in one night, that’s like a record for you.” Will smiled, softening his sarcasm.

Ryan smiled in return. “I know. I’m complicated.” He disappeared. The IR camera gave them no further trouble that night.

Apparently Kal never suspected Will held new knowledge.

* * * *

Kal softly laughed as she stared at one of the monitors. She wasn’t miked, but Will was.

“What is it?”
he silently asked.

Aware of the camera crew filming, Kal barely nodded toward the bank of monitors.
“Number five.”

Will looked. He softly laughed. “
That’s a good sight.”

On the monitor, they watched Aidan and Jeff standing alone in one of the upstairs rooms. Aidan had given Jeff an EMF meter and was explaining it to him. He’d casually slung one arm across Jeff’s shoulders as he leaned in close and pointed to the meter, explaining it.

Jeff was eagerly listening to Aidan, leaning into the taller man.

“They look good together,”
Kal silently said to Will.

Will nodded, still watching the screen.
“Real good.”

Fifteen minutes later, Cabrio’s voice came over the two-way. “Kal?”

She grabbed it, finding him on monitor eight. “Yeah, what’s up.”

“Anything showing on our feed?”

He was upstairs with another investigator. “No, why?”

“I think I caught something on the FLIR.”

Kal glanced at Will. Mindful of the cameras, he subtly nodded.

“Good job,” she told Cabrio. “Bring it down and let’s take a look at it.”

Sure enough, when they replayed the footage, an apparition clearly manifested for a few seconds on the FLIR camera.

“Okay,” Kal said. “Let’s get another crew up there, start filming, do some EVPs and EMFs and hopefully catch something.” She looked at Will, who wore a broad smile. “Unless you want to do something different?”

He winked. “Nope, that sounds good to me.”

Days bled into weeks. The show continued to grow in popularity as people speculated about if, when, and where Kal and Will would marry. The date had already been set but only her mother and the guys knew. They wanted everything prepared in secret to keep craziness to a minimum.

Rumors buzzed through the blogosphere that Aidan might be batting for the other team when he was frequently spotted out with Jeff—who’d moved to Tampa and come to work for the Otherworlds show. It spiked their ratings among curious viewers who wouldn’t normally watch, and sparked vigorous fan site debates amongst straight women and enamored gay men.

A good kind of crazy enveloped them, with Kal’s father suddenly eerily quiet on the issue of her personal life. Her mother, happily confused by his change of heart, didn’t question it. He even decided to retire.

She started sending Kal e-mails with links to crochet patterns for baby clothes, asking if she liked them.

No, her mother wasn’t very good at subtle hints. Kal didn’t have the heart to tell her it was too hot in Florida for a majority of the outfits her mother wanted to make her future grandchild that hadn’t even been considered, much less conceived yet.

Despite the quieting on the Ohio front, Kal felt more at home in Tampa with Will, Aidan, and the rest of the gang than she ever had in her parents’ home. With all secrets out in the open, the men now included Kal in most things. She worried about the other men when they were sent on assignments for The Firm, even though they mostly consisted of routine diplomatic excursions with negligible risk. Ryan hadn’t contacted her to send Will out yet, a fact she felt immensely grateful for.

They kept Jeff in the dark for now. Aidan hinted to Kal that he might have serious feelings for her former romantic nemesis. Kal didn’t pry, sensing Aidan and Jeff hadn’t become intimate yet. From the look in Jeff’s eyes when Aidan walked into a room, Kal knew it was simply a matter of time before the men took things further.

Editing the show wasn’t one of her favorite jobs, but it had to be done and she had a talented eye for it. When not on shoots she worked in the edit room combing through footage, either alone or with Aidan.

Tonight, she worked alone. Kal closed her eyes for a moment. The only one in the office, she still had three hours of footage to go through and not nearly enough sleep to do it on. When Kal felt the air shift, she waited for a moment before speaking to the person she knew stood in the doorway behind her.

“Hello, Ryan.”

His soft chuckle stirred something unfamiliar and not entirely unpleasant within her. “Hello, Kal. How’ve you been, love?”

Although they had talked on the phone many times, she hadn’t seen Ryan since that night at the Ohio location shoot when he took care of her father a few weeks earlier. She’d been to Ohio a few times, but Will or Aidan had taken her.

Even Will’s attitude toward Ryan had changed, softened a little. While she easily called him friend, something deep inside niggled at her, an almost uncomfortable familiar feeling she didn’t want to contemplate. He was a handsome man. While he’d never been inappropriate with her, she sensed something from him that resonated deep in her soul.

Something she knew she should never explore, and never would.

Kal opened her eyes and swiveled her chair to look at Ryan. He stood in the edit room doorway, lounging against the frame, his arms casually crossed.

“You don’t seem surprised I knew it was you,” she said.

He finally broke his pose. He took the other chair and kept a reasonable, yet familiar distance. “Should I be surprised? Someone of your strength should easily detect me, of all people. Congratulations, by the way.”

Ryan looked like an ordinary man. At ease in a chambray shirt and khaki slacks, he could be a young software programmer or a lawyer on casual Friday, not the son of Hades and head executive of the Underworld.

“Thank you. I’ve meant to ask you how you just happened to show up at the Ohio shoot when my dad arrived.”

He shrugged. “I promised Will I’d keep an eye on you. Your stress levels shot through the roof. I don’t spy on you, if that’s your concern. I just tend to keep an ear to the ground, as it were. If something doesn’t feel right to me, I check it out.”

“I appreciate that.” And she truly did. It comforted her to know he looked out for her. “I have a favor to ask.” She managed to shock him with her request, but he nodded.

“I’d be honored. Has Will agreed to this?”

“Yep.”

Ryan leaned back in his chair and smiled. “The Baptist preacher’s daughter married by the Devil to an archdemon in a church. I have to admit, it’s got flair.”

She grinned. “I thought you’d appreciate that.” Her curiosity got the better of her. “Why Atlanta?”

“Why do you think they call it Hotlanta? Oh, and I’ve got a matter to discuss with you.” He outlined his plan for her to regularly “commute” between Columbus and Tampa, both for work and to allow her more time with her parents so she could plan the wedding.

Despite her conflicted feelings for Ryan, Kal wanted to sit there and talk with him for hours. Then she remembered the whiff of a thought she’d picked up from Will. “Tell me why you and Will and Aidan aren’t friends anymore.”