Yearnings: A Paranormal Romance Box Set (92 page)

“
Leigh,” he said, scrubbing his face with both hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I would never have kissed you. I swear it.”

Leigh laughed. Oh, that made everything so much better. “What came over you?” Did the man not realize how insulting he sounded? Her body fevered for his. “Well, don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t again. Go.”

Grant looked down and gestured. “I’ll need a minute or two.”

His black pants bulged. “Oh, Lord. Oh, uh, I see.” Her cheeks got hot. As did her belly. She’d done that to him? Their kiss had affected him as much as it had her. Good. A slow smile spread over her face. “Not exactly something you’d like your sister to see.”

“
Yes.” He looked at the ceiling. “Thank you.”

He took one of the chairs, leaned his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands through his hair. Leigh watched him move, seeing him in a whole new way. Not such a mountain of strength and will after all. As vulnerable in this moment as she was. “I won’t tell her.”

“
Who, Bea? You don’t have to hide it from her or lie. She won’t be all that surprised.”

“
Because you go around kissing so many of her spiritualist mediums after a reading?”

He chuckled deeply. “No. You’re the first.”

That warmed her in a different way. “I’d still rather not tell her. She has plenty on her mind as it is.”

His mussed hair made him look boyish and devilish with that crooked grin. “You’re right, of course. If you don’t, I might, though.”

That took her aback. “Why?”

“
She’ll want you by her side, day and night. Bea hates being left in the dark more than anything. As astute as she is, I won’t be shocked if she guesses the moment she and Nick return.”

Leigh smoothed her hair and blouse, just in case. She took the chair farthest from him and composed herself in preparation for Bea coming back to see right through her. The profile view of Grant held her attention. The length of his back, the curve of his shoulders, the strain of his shirt against hard muscle beneath. His Adam’s apple bobbed. The straight line of his nose pointed her back to his mouth. The man was beautiful, and at this rate she’d never compose herself. “So you never wanted to speak with me?”

“
I did, actually.” He searched her face. “You said you saw a glow.”

What was taking Bea and Nick so long? Leigh nodded. “Yes.”

“
Good.” He nodded solemnly. “Who is Jacob, Leigh?”

~~~

Chapter Eleven

Grant mentally kicked himself. If he had just kept his damned hands to himself, his question wouldn’t have sounded so abrupt. His voice would be level along with his pulse.

Leigh snapped her jaw shut. “Nobody.”

Even that day at the Sacré Couer, Grant had never seen anyone like Leigh in the moments of this reading. And he’d been to a number of séances, thanks to Beatrice’s obsession with spiritualism. The way Leigh spoke and moved, and the things she said with such intensity. As if she were living and breathing the details. Her actions should have been bizarre, not attractive.

None of what she had said in the reading made sense, though. The words were loose pieces in a puzzle. He had to believe the pieces would link up at some point. Maybe he could help. But not if she wasn’t forthcoming. “I don’t believe you.”

Leigh shoved her shaking hands under her folded arms. “I don’t care if you believe me.”

She had touched his face with those hands, had reached for him, her eyelids at half-mast and looking utterly intrigued. Nick and Bea had ushered him to come forward. He’d gone to her, and she’d called him Jacob.

Who was Jacob, and why did he make her look like that? Her touch had uprooted emotions he thought he’d never feel again. Whispers of normality, of life before that night, roused with one tender touch over his face. He had to know. Who was Jacob? What did he mean to her? “Leigh, I can’t help if you don’t let me. I need to know.”

She looked as scared as a rabbit in the dead of winter now. She’d said a lot of things in the reading. He should be following the glowing orbs that she’d repeatedly referred to. The name meant nothing to him. Outside school, he knew no Jacobs, and certainly not in connection with Tristan, or that night. He could come up with all sorts of excuses for asking her. Truthfully, he simply wanted to know who the man was, and why he could make her touch him so lovingly.

He wanted to push for answers, but it was more than that. He wanted to take her by her shoulders and kiss her again. Which, in turn, made him want to know all the more. He wasn’t jealous. “Henry, Jacob. Busy woman.”

Her chin jutted upward. “You know what they say.” The fear left her eyes. “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”

“
Whoever Jacob is, or was, to you, be sure he doesn’t interfere with finding Tristan.”

She laughed. “Yeah, right. Or you’ll do what, exactly?”

He had no idea. Fight the man? What if he didn’t even exist? What if Jacob had nothing to do with Leigh at all, and was just another one of the images she seemed to get from the ether she appeared able to connect to? Jealousy. He hated it. Who was he to be jealous? He had no claim to her, and no right to even consider claiming her. One kiss did not bind two people. Hell, far more than one kiss didn’t, either. He’d learned that much by a tender age, and carried the lesson close ever since. “I shouldn’t have asked Beatrice to leave.”

“
Yes, well, you did. Deal with it.”

Her eyes sparkled with her anger. Better angry than scared. He wanted to kiss her again. Kiss her and make her forget every man she’d ever cared for before him. Not that she cared for him, or should. Once she knew the truth about Tristan’s disappearance, she’d look at him like everyone else did. He couldn’t take that sickening mixture of pity and horror staring back from her eyes.

Grant stood up. He had to get the hell away from her. His body had relaxed enough to not shock his sister with an erection jabbing at his pants. “I think it may be best to avoid each other until we get to San Francisco.”

Hurt flashed in her eyes, then was gone. “Avoid you? My pleasure.”

“
I just don’t want to complicate matters.”

“
And I agree.”

He heard the hurt in her voice, though. “We need to focus on finding Tristan. Distractions like this,” he said, gesturing between them, “could destroy this chance we finally have to really locate him.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Don’t let me keep you.”

Grant liked the stubborn tilt of her chin far too much. He didn’t want to go, and that meant he had to. He left. Even the wolf in him urged him out of the room and into the night. He wandered the deck, flashes of their kiss invading his mind and triggering his body. He walked to the outer deck. The cold air blew in gusts. The briny smell of ocean overpowered the powdery scent of her hair still on his hands.

He couldn’t stand still. The wolf roved inside him, anxious to get out. Grant gave in by degrees. Not enough to let it take over, just enough to allow pure instinct to wash over him. He strode with purpose. Halfway down to steerage class, realization hit him. This was the same feeling that crept up while watching Jean-Paul. He smelled the air, and watched the shadows. Except this time, no one was following him. The wolf pushed him. Follow that tendril scent of roses. Tracking that scent became what mattered. The hunt. Hunt the scent down, as he had Jean-Paul’s smell and glow, and kill.

He was searching for another soul to set free. Another glow of light released into the heavens. What if the fireflies Leigh had spoken of were souls? What if one of them belonged to Tristan? No. She’s sworn to Beatrice that Tristan lived. Leigh wouldn’t lie. To him, maybe. Not to Beatrice.

Any other possibility nauseated him. Leigh cared for his sister. He’d seen it firsthand. Love like that cannot be faked. Love did not lie. The wolf reared up, picking up the scent again. To Grant, the scent was more a feeling than a smell. Like warm air, where only cold should be. It reminded him of the way a hot spring’s waters finger through the cold in a lake.

What lake had that been?

He’d been so young. Tristan’s age, and the strange sweep of the warm had fascinated him no end. His mom had explained how the channels of warmth came through from the springs. His father had laughed. Beatrice had followed in his wake, trying to feel it, too.

Raucous laughter sent him down a corridor. He entered the smoking room. Under the sweet smoke of the cigars and the tang of Scotch whisky, there it was. The wolf smelled roses, cloyingly sweet, and then Grant did, too.

In the crowd of tables, he spotted Nick. He sent a nod his direction and joined him.

“
What brings you slumming?” Nick offered him a cigar.

“
Clearing my head.” Declining, he scanned the room, looking for a faint trace of golden light clinging to one of the men.

“
Cheers to that.” Nick sipped from his crystal tumbler. The amber liquid swirled, fracturing the light off the facets of the glass. The rose scent faded. “Leigh created quite a demonstration.”

“
Interesting way to describe it.”

“
Not sure what else to call it. Real as it appeared, but will it be enough in the end?”

Grant narrowed his eyes and stared at Nick. “You found the woman in the first place. Now you’re questioning that she’ll help at all?”

Nick lifted his glass in gesture. “I found her, yes. But Bea is the one who truly discovered her.” Again, he drank. “I suppose I imagined we’d get something concrete. Give me concrete facts I can follow up on. None of these wasps and orbs and butterflies.”

Did Beatrice not tell him the meaning they’d deciphered with the wasps? Nick knew how their mother died. He must. He’d investigated every factoid and rumor about their family, trying to nail down any theory including who might hate them enough to steal the Connel heir. Grant didn’t comment. He didn’t think Nick wanted comment. He was working out something on his own.

As was Grant.

Again, he scanned the room, feeling for the energy, encouraging the wolf to sniff out which man glowed from a stolen soul. Nick sounded a bit drunk. “Two more days at sea, a handful of days by train. It could all soon be over,” Nick said.

“
Or just beginning, depending on how you view things,” Grant said, annoyance with Nick building.

“
Touché. You are a wise man, my friend, for so few years.”

“
I hardly count twenty-eight as few years.”

“
I feel damned old tonight. Why is that do you suppose?”

The glow was there, somewhere. Grant kept half his attention on Nick, the rest on the exit, and the room. “Perhaps because you are old.”

“
Five years older than you.”

“
Might as well be two decades.”

“
Do you think so? This case has aged me beyond repair, is that it?”

There. A warm nudge near the bar. That strange sense he’d been followed came back. Similar to the feeling he had the night he attacked Jean-Paul. Fainter, but present, making him look over his shoulder.

“
You’re jumpy,” Nick commented. “Not that I blame you.”

“
You should get some sleep, Levitt.” He kept his focus on the man near the bar. Heavy set and the kind of old Nick must have been talking about. In his fifties. Maybe beyond.

“
You seriously dislike me, Connel. Why is that?”

“
I dislike everyone.” Grant focused on the man’s face. Where was the telltale glow? If the man would just turn his way a notch. “Don’t take it personally.”

Nick shook his head, an air of defeat settled around him. “How can I not take it seriously? Do you have any idea how much weight you carry?”

Grant didn’t have the patience to decipher Nick’s meaning. “Sleep it off, Nick. You’ll feel better in the morning.” Or in the afternoon, depending on how well the man held his liquor.

Nick glared at the last of the amber liquid before tossing it back and setting the tumbler down with a thud. “Like me or not, Connel, I won’t be going anywhere. Remember that.”

Grant nodded without looking at him. “Will do.”

From the start, Nick fought—and failed—to hide his feelings for Beatrice. In the beginning, Grant begrudged the man his feelings. Beatrice was married to his oldest friend, Samuel, even if he wasn’t much of a husband lately. Nowadays, resenting Nick seemed a bit moot.

Nick breathed hard out through his nose and narrowed his eyes. For a moment, Grant thought the man might take a swing at him. Grant clapped him on the shoulder. “Bea could do worse.”

“
She has. Or have you forgotten the fact that your sister is married?”

The man at the bar moved, heading for the door. Grant counted out five seconds, dismissed Nick, and followed. Behind him, Nick mumbled something, probably an insult. Probably defending his role in Bea’s life or clarifying his good intentions. Or wishing a pox on Grant’s—.

The wolf clawed near the surface.

It didn’t want control as much as it wanted Grant to be less scattered. The man strode down the hall, leaning a bit forward on his feet. Out of the smoking room, the man’s scent was much stronger. Keeping a few yards’ distance, Grant followed, hands in his pockets, doing his best to appear carefree in case the man looked back at him.