Lucky Stars (75 page)

“As an onlooker, perhaps.
As a participant, trust me, it wasn’t that fun.”

Dempsey grinned again.

Jack held his eyes.

Then he said quietly, “Your assistance is appreciated.”

“First, you paid me. Second, I didn’t help much.”

“You helped and it was appreciated,” Jack reiterated.

Dempsey’s gaze stayed locked to Jack’s then he nodded.

“Good-bye, Mickey,” Jack said.

“Cheers, Jack,” Dempsey replied then Jack turned and watched Dempsey walk across the entryway and out the door.

When he closed it behind him, he turned and caught Olive striding down the hall toward him.

“Good,” he called, “I don’t have to find you.”

“Oh Lord, I don’t like the look on your face,” she observed.

She was going to like what he was going to say a whole lot less.

“I need to you to clear my schedule for two weeks,” he told her and her eyes bugged out. “For the week after that, maybe two, make it light in case plans change and Belle and I remain on holiday.”

“Jack Bennett,” she started, “are you telling me, on a Sunday at eleven o’clock in the morning, to clear your schedule for a holiday you’ve given me exactly six working hours on a
non-
working day to clear?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

She looked to the ceiling but told Jack, “You’ll be the death of me.”

“Cut the drama, Olive, you’d be bored stiff if I didn’t hand you a challenge and do it with frequency and increasing difficulty.”

Her eyes snapped back to his face. “Yes, but you aren’t supposed to
know
that.”

He ignored her statement and ordered, “Clear my schedule.”

“For two weeks?”

“Make it a month, just to be on the safe side.”

“Death of me,” she muttered.

Jack ignored that too, grinned at her then went in search of Belle.

It took him some time but he eventually found her in the eastern most
turret
, leaning a shoulder against the wall by the window, her eyes aimed to the view of the Cornish cliffs and sea.

He approached her on quiet feet thus she jumped and her eyes shot to his when he got close.

“Hey, honey,” she whispered and Jack moved in.

Rounding her, he fitted his front to her back and wrapped his arms around her, one at her chest,
one
at her ribs. He pulled her close and turned his eyes to the window.

It was late autumn. The air was chill. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The deep blue of the sea and bright blue of sky was unobstructed except for the rich browns and vibrant greens of the rocky cliffs and their grassy knolls that made up what Jack, with some experience through his wide travels, felt was the most beautiful coastline on the planet.

“Why are you up here, poppet?” Jack asked quietly after she settled into him.

“I don’t know,” she answered quietly. “I miss Myrtle and Lewis, I guess.”

“You want to be near,” he surmised and she shrugged. “Love, they’re home,” he reminded her.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Finally home, Belle.”

He felt her chest expand with her
breath,
she let it go and nodded. Then she fully relaxed into him, her hands gliding along his arms to hold him where he was holding her, her head falling back to rest against his collarbone but the uninjured side pressed lightly into his neck as she kept her gaze trained out the window.

After they stood close for a while, she queried, “So, what’s happening down there?”

“Yasmin is having a drama in the morning room. She’s decided she wants Quincy back, she told him and his response was that he’s refused to take her back.”

He heard her swift intake of breath and her hands convulsed on his arms but he kept talking.

“Lila is off to the stables likely on the ruse of working but definitely with the intent of matchmaking. Miles, she reports to me, is there. And Miles, she explained to me, is the person she intends to send in to comfort Yasmin.”

“Oh my goodness gracious,” she breathed and Jack smiled.

Then he continued.

“There are ghosts in Leeds, nasty ones, and Angus and his white van are currently to the rescue.”

Her body started shaking gently and he knew she was laughing silently.

He couldn’t hear it but it certainly felt good.

“And last,” he carried on, “your father is planning his version of our engagement party for when we return in three weeks from wherever it is we’re going. We’ll start at your cottage and I don’t know where we’ll end.
Perhaps Australia.
And perhaps we’ll extend our time away to a month.”

She turned in his arms and raised shining, happy grey eyes to his.

“A month?”

“Maybe two,” he muttered, lost in her eyes in which there was no storm.
Just amusement.

And happiness.

And seeing it, Jack decided, he’d be happy to be lost in those grey eyes for a lifetime.

Though, this was a decision he’d made ages ago.

Approximately a millisecond after he first saw them.

“If we’re gone two months, we can’t get married next month,” she reminded him and he grinned.

“Right, then, a month away, come back, get married then go on our honeymoon,” Jack declared and a giggle burst out of Belle even as she pressed closer and wound her arms around him.

“That sounds like the perfect plan,” she whispered, coming up on her toes.

“Bloody right it does,” Jack agreed, dipping his head to hers.

“Love you, Jack,” she whispered when his lips hit hers.

“And I you, poppet,” he whispered back.

Then in the place over two hundred years before, the ghost of a terrified, newly dead, young boy witnessed the murder of his mother, a man in love kissed the woman who loved him back as the sun shone on
Chy
An
Als
Point.

* * * * *

Lachlan

Through the misty dark, Lachlan McPherson walked to the house he left too early the night before.

He was hoping she was home.

Emma.

Except during obvious times when he had to think of other things, like driving like a lunatic and not killing himself or holding a struggling Belle-slash-Brenna so she wouldn’t topple over the cliff in her drive for vengeance, he hadn’t been able to think of anything else.

Anything.

But Emma.

This was unusual.

Never, not once in his twenty-nine years, had a woman preyed on his mind.

And Lachlan McPherson had had a variety of women who could do it. It was just that none of them did.

Be careful,
he heard her words in his head said in that sweet whisper, the like he’d never encountered before, as he moved up her front path deciding if she wasn’t home, he’d go to the pub he’d found her in and ask after her.

One way or another, he’d find her.

Absolutely.

He stopped dead at the door.

It was ajar.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

He looked to the left, to the right and up.

The house was dark.

Then his neck grew tense and his eyes narrowed when he sensed it.

Putting his hand to the door, slowly, he pushed it open.

Slower still, he walked into the dark house.

Even in the shadows he could see it was in disarray. It looked as if an almighty battle had been fought throughout the front rooms. And a sense of deep unease stole through him as he saw the dark splatters in the shadowed rooms that looked disturbingly like blood.

He stopped dead in the entry, his gaze slicing to the hall where he saw the large, brawny male ghost hovering and smiling.

“You want ‘
er
,” its eerie disembodied voice sounded all around then for some reason the ghost lifted its forefinger to its nose before dropping it, leaning jeeringly forward and hissing, “
catch me if you can!
”

Then it disappeared.

Lach
stared down the empty hall.

Then he pulled out his phone, engaged it, slid his thumb on the screen and tapped it.

He put it to his ear.

“Seriously,
Lach
, what the fuck?” his sister said in his ear.

Lach
stared down the hall.

He smelled her perfume, his gut lurched and his heart squeezed.

Then he replied, “I need you.”

* * * * *

Belle

Loved Up in Holy Matrimony.

Europe lost its most eligible bachelor this week when James Bennett married Belle Abbot now Bennett,
The
Tiny Dynamo.

The ceremony was small, family and close friends only. Surprisingly, no details were leaked but eye witnesses outside noted that Miles Bennett, James’s brother and once a competitor for his now wife’s affections was seen entering and exiting the Registry Office and on his arm was the stunning, recently divorced socialite Yasmin Delacourt who was wearing a very attractive but very large hat.

Photographers were able to catch this photo of the pair exiting the Registry Office this past Saturday after the short ceremony was complete.

Although the couple is known to be on their honeymoon, details of where that is are also unknown.
Spokespeople at Bennett’s conglomerate have shared only that the couple will be away for some time, this on the heels of their disappearance of the month prior to their wedding.

Calvin Cole, Belle Bennett’s estranged ex-husband, was unattainable for comment and it is thought he’s left the country.

Lila Cavendish, renowned artist and the new Mrs. Bennett’s grandmother, was at the ceremony and will be unveiling her highly anticipated Cornwall series next month in a small gallery in St. Ives.

When asked if the couple will settle in London or Cornwall, Mr. Bennett’s spokespeople simply but confusingly answered, “But of course.”

Clearly, evidence is suggesting intriguing, handsome James Bennett and his beautiful, mysterious new wife intend to keep going as they have throughout their stormy courtship, quiet and private.

Belle’s eyes drifted from the article to the photo they were able to get. It was mostly of her Mom and Dad’s back, Dad’s head turned, his profile laughing. But through them you could see Belle, her hair pulled up in a soft, feminine up-do threaded with strings of tiny pearls, her head tipped back, a big smile on her face and that smile
was
aimed at Jack.

Jack’s handsome head was tipped down, his grin aimed at Belle.

She remembered that moment.

It was the best in her life.

And since then, they kept getting better.

And because of this, every day, several times a day, Belle Bennett thanked her lucky stars.

Suddenly, the magazine was pulled from her hand and tossed to the floor. Then she was pulled from the bed and found herself back in it, but atop Jack’s body.

“Stop reading that rubbish,” he muttered, lifting a hand to smooth the hair back at one side of her head.

“There was a good picture of you,” she protested.

“Really?” he asked.

“Jack, every picture of you is a good picture,” she told him and watched him grin.

Then she took in a breath.

Then, too casually, she wondered aloud, “I wonder if our child will be photogenic.”

Jack’s arms got tight around her and his grin faded from his face but his eyes grew intense on hers.

Then he whispered, “Pardon?”

“You know, when we were away the first time, how we decided –?”

Jack cut her off and asked in a low,
rumbly
voice, “Belle, are you carrying my child?”

Belle answered immediately and she did it in a soft, breathy voice, “Yes.”

Half a second later, she found herself on her back, her husband on top of her.

Beside the bed, Baron and
Gretl
settled in on a jingle of dog tags.

And out the window, winter rain fell soft on Cornwall.

####

About the Author

Kristen Ashley grew up in Brownsburg, Indiana but has lived in Denver, Colorado and the West Country of England. Thus she has been blessed to have friends and family around the globe. Her posse is loopy (to say the least) but loopy is good when you want to write.

Kristen was raised in a house with a large and multi-generational family. They lived on a very small farm in a small town in the heartland and existed amongst the strains of Glenn Miller, The
Everly
Brothers, REO
Speedwagon
and
Whitesnake
(and the wardrobes that matched).