Ever Tempted (5 page)

My insides chilled. “The pond?”

“While you were off roleplaying with your waitress, the pond sprang a leak. Flooding has never been an issue until these stupid stipulations of the water having to stay still to keep Grace’s soul inside the Amiante stone came into play. Now our buried ghost might not stay buried for long, if she’s not already out roaming around making a bitch of herself, as usual.” Shelby wrenched her hands and paced.

“What happened? How is the water moving?” A vice grip took hold of my heart. This couldn’t be happening. That pond never had water running to or from it.

“The storm we had last night was a doozy. I haven’t said anything to Allie yet. I didn’t want to ruin her day, and I wanted your help in dealing with the matter before we told her she couldn’t have a wedding. It appears the creek that supplies your waterfall bathing spot has redirected. Now it’s running into the pond from one end and out the other side.”

“Oh, God.” I swiped at my forehead where a rivulet of sweat trickled. Voices neared us, but a car cranked and pulled down the drive.

“Now you’re going to have to break it to Allie that not only have you sort of cheated on her, but the girl who ruined your first wedding a hundred years ago is more than likely about to become the wedding crasher of the century.” Shelby stopped and stared at the dark fourth floor.

“The positive spin you put on every situation is rivaled only by your ability to sympathize.” A low growl rumbled in my chest.

She shook her head and took a deep breath as she turned back to me. “Sorry. I tend to make light of things when I’m freaking out. How do we tell her?”

“I’m going to take a look at the pond. Keep her occupied until I figure something out.”

“Don’t keep her in the dark. You remember what happened last time.”

* * * *

At the back of the property, instead of slipping and sliding down the embankment until I found a foothold, I ambled down a set of new wooden steps built into the wall.

This is what the lumber was for, but Thomas could find no good way to let on that Allie had decided to build a direct path straight down to Grace’s watery grave. And where she wanted to flaunt a long overdue wedding.

This place should have been fenced off, not remodeled.

At the bottom of the steps, the pond was lit with lampposts at intervals. The bridge over the pond had been reconstructed and widened, and rows of chairs were placed at the edge of the pond.

Holy. Shit.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or yell in frustration.

This was definitely Annabeth Rollins at her smartass finest. She had planned to have the wedding over the bridge with hopes that Grace could see from the murky depths of the pond where her body and soul had been laid to unrest.

Now, the naked waitress was the least of our worries.

Just as I started to call Grace from out of the darkness, if she was in fact out there stalking us, Allie’s voice stopped me.

“What do you think?” Her voice brimmed with excitement. “I know you lost a lot here, but I wanted to right the wrongs done to you so long ago.”

With her hand resting lightly on the handrail, she was three steps from the bottom.

“Here? You were going to do this here?” I wanted to hug her and throttle her at the same time.

“It holds sentimental value for us.” Her bright eyes shined in the lamplight.

My mouth hung open.

Her grin fading, Allie leaned on the railing and ran her finger in a quick swirl. She didn’t make eye contact with me. “It is where we met each other for the first time, this time around.”

“You. Are. Crazy.”

“Nope. Just in love and a little vindictive.” She skipped down the last few steps and landed with a happy plop.

“Fate doesn’t exactly like us, and you’re trying to piss it off further.” Something broke sticks in the woods. Allie wouldn’t hear it, but my animal instincts couldn’t have missed them.

“It doesn’t have to be out here if you hate it.” Her mouth worked into the cutest pout.

“No. that’s… That’s not what I’m worried about right now. I’m just…” I paused. I wanted to laugh and kiss her at the same time. She had balls. “Look. We have a problem. You might not want to get married after we talk.”

“There’s nothing that could change that.” She gazed thoughtfully at me, through me. “You don’t want to get married tomorrow. I see it in your eyes.”

“No. I don’t want to get married tomorrow.” I took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “But not because of anything you’ve done or a lack of total devotion to you on my part.”

Allie stepped back from me. Hurt darkened her face. “What is it, then?”

I slipped my hands into my coat pockets, then took them back out. I wanted to scoop her up and take her far away from here, but I had to face our ghosts, or ghost in this case, head on. “It rained here last night.”

Allie rolled her eyes and ambled toward me. “Surely, you don’t want to talk about the weather?”

“The creek that goes to the waterfall redirected and has moved to the pond on the backside. You can’t see it from here, but I can.” I waited for my words to sink in.

Her hand stopped at the bottom of my tie, and her eyes slowly widened. “Grace.”

“She might be free. I can’t go on with the wedding with a possibility of her roaming the estate.” I stepped into arm’s reach of Allie, but once again feared to touch her with such a high probability Grace was near. Putting Allie in danger was out of the question.

Allie dropped her hands to her sides. She looked to the pond. Devastation darkened Allie’s face, and the rims of her eyes teared up. “No. This isn’t happening.”

“Come on.” I took her hand and led her back up the steps. “We’ll get through this. I promise.”

Allie’s blank stare didn’t leave the pond until we got to the first landing on the new steps. From there, she robotically followed me to the house without a word.

* * * *

For the remainder of the evening, Allie played her host role perfectly, but the guests didn’t know her the way I did. As she carried on hollow conversations and gave meaningless hugs and handshakes, her shoulders had fallen from the sure young lady I’d seen when I arrived tonight to sagging with the weight of her dead sister’s lifeless body on her shoulders once again.

Before the evening came to a close, she announced that due to circumstances beyond our control, the wedding would have to be postponed indefinitely.

After giving the audience a little bow, Allie turned to me but didn’t make eye contact. “I need a few minutes of fresh air.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Allie pressed me back with her hand. “Alone. Please.”

Thomas came from a group of caterers and stepped up beside me as we watched Allie stalk toward the house. “Why in the world would you postpone the wedding?”

“As usual, Grace.” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. “I never can quite get away from her. If I don’t soon get her out of our lives, I’ll lose Allie.”

Thomas nodded to a passing guest, then leaned in to me. “You don’t know her as well as you think you do. The whole time you were gone, the only thing she could talk about was how much she missed you and something about strangling you because turnabout was fair play.”

I gave a half-hearted laugh. “Yeah, I can see how she’d want to strangle me. I would if I were her.”

Who wouldn’t want to strangle the person who’d killed them two weeks ago? I’d thought Allie had been possessed by Grace and that the only way I could rid her of the possession was to kill her, then kill myself.

We’d start over the way we always had.

Thank God for Kaitlyn and Shelby’s CPR skills.

“I thought you had Grace under control enough to be happy at least for the rest of this life.” Thomas kept his voice low so the guests wouldn’t hear.

“The pond we buried her in was supposed to stay completely stagnant. Any moving water around the Amiante stone that housed Grace’s soul would free her. The storm you guys had last night redirected that creek and overflowed the pond.” I nodded to a smiling guest as they passed me to leave. “I haven’t seen Grace yet, but I can’t take chances of her hurting Allie. If we are married with Grace anywhere near us, she’ll be sure to find a way to maim or disfigure Allie.”

“I thought she was supposed to leave you alone after the new moon commenced?”

“Me too. This is uncharted territory for me, so I’m taking no chances.”

Thomas patted my back. “It’ll all work out, I’m sure.”

“I hope so. I’m going to find Allie. I don’t want her alone with the threat of Grace riddling the property with her psychotic pranks.” I nodded a good evening to Thomas and slipped inside to search for Allie’s thoughts, my handy way of finding her when she was nearby but not in sight.

* * * *

On the balcony of the second floor, a pair of silver stilettos lay off to the side. For a second, my heart almost slammed a hole in my rib cage. I pictured her standing on a ledge, ready to give up, but she was leaning on the cement wall overlooking the east side of the grounds.

Relieved, I stood in the doorway for a few moments.

Her long hair flowed in the summer breeze. She’d freed it of its elegant up-do, and now I had to try to not think impure thoughts.

With the emotional seesaw slingshotting my thoughts all over the place, I was quite proud of my composure thus far. Virtually no urge to cat out at all.

The last time I’d seen her on a second floor overlooking the property, she’d been in a thin white night gown with her hair flowing in the wind. I’d almost climbed the stone wall to gather her into some sort of erotic embrace I was sure to get myself killed over. I didn’t exercise near the control I did today. That had been over a hundred years ago.

Taking a deep breath, I clutched a little box. I’d found time to sneak away while Allie was attending to the needs of her guests to retrieve her original rings. She’d been so down when I told her about the pond that I thought the prospect of wearing them might raise her spirits, and I’d decided how I’d tell Allie about the hotel incident in the same swoop.

“A penny for your thoughts?” she asked sadly.

I jumped. I would have to work on my stalking skills.

“You know, in 1879, a penny was worth a lot more.” Squeezing the box, I recalled exactly how many pennies had been involved in its purchase. I walked to the cool cement wall that overlooked the grounds and leaned against it with my side. I opened my hand in front of Allie.

With tear-rimmed eyes, she touched the faded blue velvet.

“I saved every penny I made for months, and with a loan from your parents, I bought our wedding rings. These are the set we were to exchange the day of the wedding. Your family wanted me to let you wear yours to the grave, but I couldn’t allow it. They didn’t know you weren’t in that pine box.” I stared into the sky.

Guys don’t cry, Pop always said.

I let the light breeze dry the moisture building in my eyes. “If what that lunatic told me about our curse was true, I wanted the rings to be available to you in a later life, if we could beat her. I wanted to believe you were floating around out there somewhere waiting for me.”

She slid the top off the ring box and stared at the twinkling diamond and our matching wedding bands in silent awe. The wind blew her hair and the breeze brought the light scent of her perfume to me.

“We have a love story even Shakespeare can’t top,” she said sadly. “I just hope it doesn’t turn into a tragedy.”

“I’ll do my best not to let it, but please remember, I’m not one of Shakespeare’s heroes. I’m far from perfect. I have something to tell you that’s going to upset you. I would have proposed to you just now and slid that ring back on your finger where it belongs, but in our past experiences, you have a pretty good throwing arm. Especially when I’ve done something to upset you. Even now, you’ll probably throw them as far as you can when I’m done talking.” I took a deep, shaky breath and gripped the balcony railing. “I’m going to tell you what I’ve done to hurt you, then if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I’d like you to wear the ring.”

Allie’s face went blank. She looked past me into the distance beyond the grounds.

I couldn’t read her.

Either her mind had stopped producing thoughts, or she was so scared to hear what I had to say she was blank.

She put the lid back on the box and stepped closer to my side. “Maybe I don’t want to hear more bad news. I’d like one normal day with you.”

“The last time you told me you didn’t want me to tell you what I’d done, I listened and you almost hated me when you learned the truth. I’m not going to do that again.” I turned her to face me. “You have to know.”

“Not tonight.” She shook her head. “I need some recovery time.”

“First thing tomorrow.” I put my forehead on hers and slipped the rings back into my pocket. Maybe she’d be more willing to wear them if the proposal wasn’t centered on Grace as our whole lives seemed to always be.

Allie leaned back and narrowed her gaze.

“Wait. Did you practice with another woman while you were away?” she asked, a new fire in her eyes.

“No. I would never do that.” I wanted to tell her now, but she’d asked for no bad news.

“Good.” Allie picked up her shoes and turned back to me. “Walk me to my room.”

She’d never sounded so much like Annabeth, her original soul, the stronger version of Allie’s self, as she did just then. I didn’t know if she’d ever be susceptible to my telling her that, with her insecurities about other women and all, but it was endearing.

They were the same person.

Just layered.

Annabeth would have made me tell her, then thrown something at me in rebuttal. This version of Annabeth was spent. I couldn’t blame her. A hundred years of not knowing who she was, why she was so lonely and couldn’t love anyone else had probably exhausted her.

With Allie barefoot and her head on my arm, I led her toward her suite of rooms, the first doors on the left at the top of the sweeping staircase.

We were both quiet until she came to a mindless halt. Her gaze seemed to stop on the wooden carvings of the staircase. “Would it be too much to ask for you to hold me while I sleep?”