Must Love Ghosts (3 page)

Dec groaned. “You've got to be kidding me. You want to marry that asshat?”

“He's a wonderful man. And how do you even know him?” She held Dec's dark gaze for a moment until his eyes slid away. “Oh, right. You eavesdropped on my conversation with Richard about a patient. That's where you got the idea to break into my office and steal my patient files.”

He dug into his duffel bag, searching for something. “Technically, I didn't steal them.”

“Of course not. That would have left evidence, and the police would have arrested you. Instead, you violated my patients' privacy by reading those files and copying the address of your mark.”

His head came up. “My mark? Have you been watching reruns of
Leverage
?”

“You know what I mean. You used me.”

He didn't even bother to defend himself. “Richard's all wrong for you. You must bore each other to sleep by nine o'clock every night.”

“Are you saying I'm boring?”

“I'm saying you need someone whose idea of fun isn't ironing his socks.”

She picked up the candle, sniffed. Sandalwood and licorice, a sweetly comforting combination. “Richard and I have plenty of fun.”

“When's the wedding?”

“We haven't set a date yet.” The candle bumped and wobbled as she set it down with unsteady fingers. She hated lying. She wasn't any good at it. Thank God there was no chance Dec and Richard were going to meet again. Richard would be quite surprised to find out they were nearly engaged.

Not that she didn't plan to marry Richard someday. She did. But they were both taking their time with this relationship, allowing themselves to slowly—and wisely—build on a foundation of friendship. They'd only progressed to making love recently. He'd stayed at her place the last two Saturday nights, and things had been…perfectly acceptable.

Sure that sounded more tepid than how she'd describe things with Dec, but it wasn't fair to compare the two. Her nights with Richard were like a sweet walk with the civilized, polite superego. Her nights with Dec had been a full-sensory immersion in the pleasure-seeking id.

She swallowed. Hard. Mature adults outgrew the id's primal urges. “All my research shows that shared values, goals and interests are key to a successful relationship. Richard and I are very much alike.”

Dec pulled out a lighter and kicked the duffel under the table. “Too much alike. You look like he excites you about as much as a dental appointment.”

“Dental appointments are also good for you.” Tia shook her head at Dec's incredulous look. “Our society places way too much emphasis on romance and sexual attraction. That stuff never lasts. In fact, they're nearly irrelevant except insofar as we need some attraction to kick off the mating drive. It makes sense to base a relationship on something that can endure over time.”

“People pay you to tell them this stuff?”

“Yes.” It was stupid how his words stung. Why did she care what he thought? “I've helped lots of patients over the years, and now I'm working on a book.
Love The One You're With
is going to spread my ideas to a wider audience.”

Dec still held the lighter, apparently forgotten in his hand. “That's your book title?
Love The One You're With
?”

“Yes. The editor I'm talking to loves it. But I need to land funding for the next phase of my research. I'm doing a joint project with Richard, combining my psychological expertise with his work in neuroscience. That's why I need funding from the Jameson Foundation.” She tucked the pillow behind her, angling her body toward him. Earnestness crept into her voice, but she didn't care if he laughed at her. Her work was critically important. “We're on the verge of a breakthrough that will unravel the mysterious biochemical nature of what people call love. Our work could make a difference in people's lives, helping married couples navigate the ups and downs of long-term relationships. Help prevent the chaos and heartbreak of divorce.”

His soft smile held far too much understanding. “A topic that hits close to the broken home for someone whose mom has been married five times. How come when we were together I never knew that's what you were researching?”

“Because we never talked. All we had was sexual attraction.”

He didn't answer for a long moment. “True.” He flipped open the lighter. “Ready?”

“For what, exactly?”

“To communicate with the dead.”

“Please tell me the science behind this one.”

His dark eyes gleamed. “No science here. I don't like to do this much. Freaks people out.”

With that, he flicked the lighter and a small flame ignited. He tipped it to the wick of the purple candle. Holding her great-uncle's dog tags, he dipped the chain until the tags dangled a breath above the flame, candlelight flickering off the metal.

“The candle is a focusing object. The tags are a personal object from a potential ghost. Most paranormal investigators complain this kind of thing gives our profession a bad rap. They think it's ‘woo-woo stuff'.”

He lowered the chain so the candle flames licked the dog tags. He spoke in Latin, his voice low and sonorous.

Tia would have laughed, except suddenly the air thickened until it was hard to breathe. She pressed a hand to her chest. Panic clawed its way up her throat. Her vision tunneled, blurred at the edges until only the dancing flame seemed real, solid.

The track lights in her ceiling and the lamp on the side table dimmed, flickered, and went out. Through the archway, she could see the hall and the dining room. No lights. The ever-present electric hum had disappeared, leaving her house in utter quiet and stillness. The only sound was Dec's even breathing and her frightened gasps.

“Dec?”

“Shhh.”

The air felt charged, like a blanket snapping with static electricity. A chill made Tia shiver; the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees. Dec hadn't moved. He clutched the dog tags in his fist now, his eyes closed, his long lashes dark against his skin as he continued murmuring in Latin. His face had paled, and a fine sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead.

At last, the thick, choking feeling left, her chest unlocked, and she drew in a big gulp of air.

A fire whooshed to life in the grate.

Tia jumped to her feet, heart slamming against her rib cage. Dec grabbed her wrist, holding her in place, though he didn't move, didn't look up.

“I'm having a panic attack.” She used her therapist's voice, an artificial let's-be-calm-and-rational tone that was no help whatsoever. “A panic attack brought on by the power of suggestion with your candle and your Latin and your bedroom voice.
There is nothing paranormal happening here.
”

The faint sound of trumpets competed with the crackle of the fire, until the music grew loud enough for Tia to recognize. Glen Miller's
In The Mood
.

Tia held still but her eyes darted around the room. She saw no one, but could
feel
someone else in the room. “No. There's no one here but the two of us.” Her useless therapist's voice came out too loud, cracking in fear.

Dec opened his eyes, stood next to her. He put a steadying arm around her shoulders and she leaned into his strong, solid warmth. “Typical poltergeist activity. Prankster ghost. What you described with your belongings moving around, strange noises at night—that's all the kind of thing poltergeists do. Playing music means it's a strong one. It drew power from your electricity to manifest. That's why the lights went out. On the bright side…” He paused, squeezed her shoulders. “You don't have a stalker.”

“You expect me to believe I really am being haunted?” Her throat felt raw. “Even you said this was no ghost.”

“I was wrong.”

There's no such thing as ghosts
. There was a logical, reasonable explanation for all this. Except a deep, unshakable part of herself believed his explanation that there was a ghost.

“There's no such thing as ghosts,” she said out loud, but her instincts weren't buying it.

Dec gave her a sympathetic smile and started to say something, but then a different male voice came from everywhere, and nowhere.

“Oh yeah? Watch this, doll.”

A crackle of energy raised the small hairs on the back of Tia's neck, and in the next beat of her pulse, a glowing apparition of a man in a leather aviator jacket and a boxy Captain America haircut appeared in her striped armchair.

She recognized his broad grin immediately, since she'd been staring at it in the photo on her mantel for the past week.

“Uncle Billy?”

Chapter Two

“Thank God you came along,” the ghost said to Dec. “Ain't no manifesting around her without help. She's like the Berlin Wall of disbelief.”

The lights flickered on. Tia made a small, distressed noise and dropped onto the sofa. Dec couldn't blame her. He felt like sitting down himself, but he wasn't about to show weakness in front of an unknown entity. He tightened his grip on the dog tags.

“Uncle Billy” propped his feet on the cocktail table. He glowed whitely, backlit by the roaring fire in the grate. He wore old-fashioned work boots, tan pants, and an aviator jacket with a squadron patch on one arm. He couldn't have been more than early twenties. His blond hair was slicked back from features a little too thick for his face. But when he grinned, his green eyes—the same shade as Tia's—lit up and his face suddenly became handsome.

Most surprising, he was fully corporeal. Other than the dated clothing and the white iridescent sheen that made him glow like a torch, he seemed as real as anyone. Dec had never seen anything like it.

“Tia's like ghost repellant.” Dec lowered himself to the sofa, keeping his gaze on Billy. He slipped an arm around Tia's waist, pulling her a bit closer. Her whole body was stiff, frozen in shock probably. He couldn't imagine what must be going through her mind as she confronted the reality of ghosts for the first time. “I tried to take Tia to a few haunted sites, show her what I do, but she scared all the energy away.”

“What?” Tia gasped. She lunged off the sofa, approached Billy. “He's some actor you hired, isn't he? To think I was starting to believe you had nothing to do with this. God, when it comes to you, I'm always in dopamine thrall.”

“Biochemicals don't explain everything, sweetheart,” Dec said as Tia extended a hand tentatively toward Billy.

The ghost smirked. Tia poked his shoulder, but her hand went right through Billy's body to the back of the chair.

She shrieked and jumped back.

Billy laughed and slapped his knee—figuratively speaking, since the gesture made no sound. “Go on, try it again,” he said. “You skeptics never believe on the first try.”

“This isn't happening,” Tia said, poking her great-uncle's shoulder again. She shivered. “The air near him is freezing.”

“Side effect of the afterlife,” Dec said. “Ready to believe?”

Tia whirled to face him, eyes narrowing behind her glasses. “No! This is impossible! He must be a projection of some kind.” She glanced up. The living room ceiling soared to the second story of the house. Her gaze swept the open landing of the second floor. “There must be a camera hidden up there. Lights.” Her tone was the one of a woman grasping for logic and hoping she'd found it.

Tia raced off, her steps loud on the stairs. Dec let her go. She needed to accept this new view of reality on her own.

So did he. Dec couldn't believe it. In a lifetime of paranormal work, he'd never seen a ghost manifest so completely, despite the fact that Billy was iridescent. To have this experience in Tia's home was a shock, to say the least. If only his parents were alive to see this. His mother had communicated with the dead, but hadn't seen more than the partial manifestations Dec was used to. His father, despite decades of marriage to a medium, had never really believed in his wife's—or his son's—abilities. Dec would have loved to see the look on the old man's face when Billy appeared.

Questions exploded in Dec's mind like popcorn. Belatedly, he scrambled for the video camera still in his duffel. He hadn't believed Tia was haunted, so he wasn't ready.

“Would you mind if I recorded our conversation?”

“Suit yourself,” Billy said.

Dec pulled out the video camera as Tia's steps echoed on the stairs, sounding slower and hollow this time. She trudged into the room and sank onto the sofa next to Dec, her gaze on Billy. “You're real.”

“What is it the kids say these days?” Billy said. “Oh yeah.
Duh.
”

Tia took that pretty well, considering. She turned her pale face to Dec. “So this…” She gestured to Billy, who gave her a little salute. “This is what you do every night?”

“No, this is what I
hope
for every night.”

Dec hit the power switch on the video camera and zoomed in on the ghost. If Billy showed up on tape as solid as he was in real life, he'd have the clearest evidence of the existence of ghosts ever recorded. “I'm guessing you were the one who left my business card on Tia's dining room table. How did you know about me?”

“You visited Bernice. My sister talked about you a lot.”

“You were with Nana?” Tia gasped a little on the words. “All those years, my grandmother said she could feel your presence. That really was you.”

“'Fraid so, doll. She made me promise never to pop into reality when anyone else was around, even her husband. She was worried about his heart.”

“My grandfather died of a heart attack.”

“Wasn't me. Scout's honor.” He held up three fingers on his right hand.

Dec adjusted the focus. “You must have mad ghost skills to transport a business card from my house to Tia's.”

Billy grinned. “Been stuck here for seventy years with nothing to do but figure out how this afterlife schtick works. Hate to toot my own horn, but I ain't half bad.”

“You short-sheeted my bed.” Tia's voice had an undertone Dec recognized meant trouble.

Billy slapped his knee and fell into a fit of laughing. “You shoulda seen the look on your face.”

“You've been spying on me?”

“Hey, I'm not
that
kind of ghost. I stuck around to see you try to figure out what the heck was going on and then I split.”

“But you came back to hide my glasses and my makeup and the toilet paper. The toilet paper, for God's sake.” Tia stood, her face reddening. Anger seemed to be melting her shock. “And one day, you removed all the drinking glasses from the cabinets and stacked them like a pyramid on the counter.”

“Oh, calm down. It was all a joke. I was going to reveal myself, but I couldn't until you got your boyfriend over here to come by.”

“He's not my boyfriend.”

“That's not what Bernie said.”

“Nana hated that nickname.”

Billy transferred his attention to Dec. “Women. What are you gonna do?”

Like he'd touch that one with a ten-foot EMF antenna. “Maybe you could cool it with the pranks.” A fully materialized prankster ghost. His cousin was going to shit a brick when he told him about this.

Tia folded her arms. “How do we get rid of him?”

Billy's mouth fell open. He looked stunned Tia didn't find his pranks funny.

Dec kept the grin off his own face. “Normally ghosts hang around on the mortal plane because of some unfinished business. Billy, since you were in contact with Tia's grandmother, I'm going to assume you were able to take care of any secret life insurance policies or lost stock certificates or any other practical matters.”

“I died at twenty-three, buddy. I left a closetful of clothes and a pittance from Uncle Sam.”

Tia's face held a sort of horrified fascination. She sank back onto the sofa cushions, the line of her thigh pressed against his, as though drawing strength from his presence. He was liking Billy more and more.

“You died during the war?” Dec asked. Tia had already told him that, but he wanted the story on tape. Billy seemed like the kind of ghost who wanted to talk.

“Shot down over enemy soil in 1943. Berlin. Before they got me, I completed over forty successful missions. My body wasn't recovered until after the war. I spent years floating in a foreign land, trying to pull the bits of my soul together and figure out what the hell was going on.”

There was a closed look on the young man's face, and pain in his eyes. To give him a moment to get himself together, Dec swept the camera to the urn on the mantel, zoomed in for a lingering shot, then focused on Billy's face again.

“Recovery team found me and shipped my remains to Bernie. She had me cremated and stuck the ashes in an urn on her mantel, hung my dog tags around it, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Tia stirred. “She said she almost scattered your ashes in the ocean, but couldn't bring herself to do it. She used to talk to your urn. We all thought she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the shock of your death.”

“Post-traumatic…” Billy shook his head. “You all thought she was nuttier than a fruitcake. I heard what you said about your grandmother when you thought no one was listening.”

“I'm a psychologist.” Tia rose, and Dec was alarmed to hear a quiver in her voice. “We don't think people are
nutty
.”

“That's not all I heard.” Billy jerked his chin toward Dec. “Heard you sobbing at your nana's kitchen table over this mook. You shoulda listened to Bernie when she told you to follow your heart.”

Dec straightened up, the camera dangling from his hand. Tia went very still, pointedly
not
meeting his gaze. “I need a drink,” she announced and rushed from the room.

He wavered for a moment, even as he told himself not to be a selfish bastard. But all these years, and the proof he'd searched for was staring at him, his smile more like a taunt.

“Tough choice, lover boy.” Billy waggled his blond eyebrows. “Talk to the ghost or comfort the girl. Your life's mission…or love.”

Dec's spine stiffened. How did Billy know what his life's mission was? But that was a question he didn't have time for right now. He laid the camera on the coffee table. “Don't disappear on me.”

He found Tia in the kitchen, rooting through an open cabinet drawer, a bottle of wine on the counter in front of her. She'd updated a lot of the house with dark wood floors, new trim, and custom built-ins for her million books. Typical Tia, though, hadn't bothered with the kitchen. The cabinets were a stark white and the counters blue Formica. Dated, but strangely homey.

She found the corkscrew. “I called my grandmother delusional,” she said.

“Not to her face, I'm sure.”

“No. But Billy heard, and it was mean, and hurtful, and wrong.” Her hands were shaking so badly, the corkscrew slipped off the bottle when she tried to puncture the cork. “And you're not a con man. I'd already decided I was wrong about that. Was thinking maybe you were sort of innocently delusional. Seems like everyone I disagree with is delusional in my mind.”

“Here, let me do that.” He moved next to her, quickly uncorked the bottle and poured her a glass of the deep red wine. “Bottoms up.”

She drained the glass.

“I was kidding.” He poured her another drink anyway.

Tia wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “There's a real ghost in my living room.”

“Yep.” An incredibly real, once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon of a ghost. “It's amazing.”

“I've never seen you look so happy.” Tia's face paled. “My patient—Holly—she was possessed by an actual ghost. Not having grief-induced hallucinations.”

“I'm afraid so. But she's better now. The ghost is gone, and she and Lawe are getting married.”

“Lawe. The exorcist you called to help her. I've been wrong about so many things.” She took a big gulp of wine. “But you shouldn't have broken into my office and gone through my files.”

Guilt washed through him. An apology was long overdue. “You're right. I'm sorry. When I heard you consulting Richard about your patient—the blackouts, the lost time, that she seemed too psychologically stable for a mental illness—I figured there was a very good chance something was possessing her. I knew you'd never buy that explanation, so I broke into your office and went through your patient files until I found her. I wish I'd done things differently.”

She reached up, brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “Let's call it an outlier. A situation way outside the norm. I understand why you did it. You wanted to help someone, and you accomplished that. I certainly wasn't any help to her.”

He put his hands around her waist and boosted her up to the counter. She made a little noise of protest but didn't jump down. He caged her there with his body, wanting to keep her in place yet not scare her.

“I could have tried harder to convince you the paranormal is real.”

“It wouldn't have worked. My ghostly great-uncle is right. I'd never have believed you, not without seeing it for myself.” She took another drink. Her hands weren't shaking so much anymore. “How is it that I can see him now? I thought I was ghost repellant.”

“I've got a theory about that.” He squeezed her knee, ran his thumb in soothing circles on her leg. “The paranormal energy in Boulder has ramped up the last few weeks. We're not sure why yet. Plus, your great-uncle is clearly an old and powerful ghost. Combine the increased energy with Billy's strength and all it took was me working my mojo to get him to show himself. He drew an enormous amount of power to manifest. You'll have one hell of an electric bill this month.”

“Yeah. Sounds plausible. Right.” She nodded like a bobble-head doll, then took a big gulp of wine. “So he can just walk around like a live person now? Hang out with me? Get to know my neighbors?”

“I don't know, but my guess is he'll only be corporeal for a few hours unless he does another power draw.”

“In a weird way, that makes sense.” She drained half her wine, then put the glass carefully down on the countertop. Her gaze drifted to where he gripped her leg, and she slid off the counter. Refusing to back up, he gripped the counter to either side of her. She was so close he could smell that vanilla Tia scent of hers. He bent his head, brushed his cheek against her hair, breathed in.

He heard her quick intake of breath, and her body softened against his. He slid one hand up the back of her neck, pulled out her hair tie and let his fingers play with her loose silky hair. Slowly, slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers, giving her time to pull back or protest. Instead, she turned her face up to his.