Ghost Talker (17 page)

“Like location also matters.” Those variables she'd have to deduce with each and every project.

That's right. The fact we're buried apart, in different states, bothers me, can't deny it.
He smiled again, pulled a cigar
from out of thin air and appeared to light and smoke it. She noted the action, and had learned from a book one of his hunting clients had written that he smoked constantly. Jack had died in an epidemic of pneumonia that ran through Leadville the summer of 1880. The town's air had been bad, he'd caught cold and it had settled in his lungs, and he'd passed away on June twenty-eighth. The smoking would have made that worse, though there was no reason to bring that up; the man was dead.

“You want one of your bones buried with Giuseppina,” Clare said, worrying about grave robbing in Leadville and opening another grave in Lowell. Something she'd have to figure out, but not right now.

“What are the time constraints for when you can go on?” She knew time made a great difference.

A slight smile formed around his cigar.
I'm lucky in that. I have a long period of time in which I'm able to pass on to my just reward—more'n a whole month. August thirty-first through the month of September. My lady and I were married on August thirty-first, and the whole month of September. . . .
He shook his head and his expression softened.
The most wonderful time of my life, being with her as a husband. As beautiful as the prairie in a spring sunrise
.

Clare nodded. “After we get rid of the lost ghost, then we'll send you off to your wife.”

Jack closed his eyes.
It's been too long.

Clearing her throat, Clare said quietly, “She didn't live very long after you.” Only six years and she'd died of cancer.

Nope.
His expression darkened.
I didn't make it to her in time.

“She died a day before what would have been your fortieth birthday.”

His head jerked up and his nostrils flared in surprise.
I hadn't calculated that.
Shaking his head, he said,
No, she wouldn't have wanted to live to that day, would she have?
Eyes penetrating, Jack stared at Clare.
Had you been in her place, would you have wanted to live to a significant birthday of your lost husband?

Clare couldn't even cope with a hint of Zach's death. It had been too close with that last case of hers. But she met Texas Jack's eyes and swallowed. “No, I think an anniversary like that should be missed. She must have loved you very much.”

She did. And I loved her.

“You do still.”

That I do. And she'll be waiting for me. I know that.

Clare smiled. “I'm sure she will. We'll—I'll—figure out how to get one of your bones into her grave.”

His smile creased his face and this time he answered mentally.
You're a determined woman, I can tell that, too. So I'm sure you will.

I can help!
Enzo offered, popping up the hill.

“Good,” Clare said, though she didn't know how. But she and Enzo, and Zach, were all learning as they went along.

I appreciate all the help I can get. Where's that man of yours?

“He's in Oklahoma City checking up on the new ghost, making sure we have the right guy.”

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma?

“Travel is faster now. Zach should be back tomorrow and we'll take care of this actor poltergeist who is desecrating the Codys' graves, and then I'll help you.”

Sounds like a good plan. I'll do my part with the youngster until then.

Clare didn't correct Jack regarding the actor's age. “I'll see you later.”

Adios.
Texas Jack walked down the hill in the direction of the mountains.

Enzo stayed with Clare, nosing at the rocks, but he couldn't move them without draining energy from her, and she felt she'd done enough, putting all the stones at the bottom of the locked enclosure. Then she phoned to report the area clear to the staff of Pahaska Teepee and the museum.

She'd wondered that they hadn't checked sooner, but when she went down, they stepped aside so she'd have the whole path to herself, and she got the idea that they didn't want to be up on the hill when she talked to herself—or to someone they didn't see and didn't want to believe in.

*   *   *

The morning and early afternoon passed quietly in research, mostly online and with what books she had in her own library, no trips downtown to specialized departments. She checked out Leadville's Evergreen Cemetery, map and plots, and spent some time looking at St. Patrick Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts. And considered plans for traveling to both.

Enzo stayed close.

She missed Zach outrageously. The walls didn't reverberate with all the positive energy that he emitted just by being here.

Mrs. Flinton invited Clare for every kind of meal that day and the next: morning tea, lunch, cocktails, dinner, mentioning that Mr. Welliam would be there, too, as if enticing. Even the late-night snacks . . . So apparently that man spent a great deal of time at Mrs. Flinton's, enough that the notion occurred to Clare that he could move into the apartment Zach now rented at Mrs. Flinton's mansion—down from the higher country for the winter. And they, as members of an older generation who moved more slowly and were more discreet, could explore their relationship while not, quite, living together.

Clare could offer Zach the carriage house to live in . . . then immediately squelched that thought. If he lived with her, he'd share the same bed. Though she didn't want him only for sex, she loved that their relationship deepened, and having him in the carriage house instead of the main house would be . . . awful. That had her sitting down hard on the last step of the staircase as she went for more coffee. Yes, she'd become accustomed to Zach, wanted him with her,
wanted
him living with her in her home.

In fact, she didn't want this home to be only her home, but
theirs
, and if she offered him the deed in both their names, would he accept?

All her insecurities about their relationship rose to torment her . . . Worse than any ghost, the mental anguish more painful than her spectral wound.

She plumbed her feelings. She didn't want to ever lose him, and she wanted him close, with her. She'd grown enough, become accustomed to him with her in this house enough that she wouldn't have a problem sharing space with him, living with him.

Dared she press?

Only one way to find out. With trembling fingers, she tapped the number of her new attorney, and asked for an appointment to see her so she'd draw up a new deed for her beloved house, including Zach on the title. Set the appointment
for tomorrow.

Very scary, and the woman Clare'd been just two months ago would never have taken such a risk. Not for a man who'd she'd known so short a time.

Now Clare would.

Her new vocation had changed her to become more of a risk taker.

And, in fact, the idea that he might reject her offering made her sick. Because this house she was making into a home reflected the vulnerable seedling of her new self. And Zach had had a part in helping her develop, making this house a home.

She could see herself with him, envision him living in this house with her and their children in five years, ten, longer down any timeline, included in any long-term plans she made.

Swallowing hard, she rubbed her chest where her lungs seemed to pump too slowly, her throat that had tightened too much, then unrolled from her hunch so her airflow had a straight passage.

Again she tested her emotional health. Just exactly how dependent was she on having Zach?

If he left, if somehow he no longer loved her, it would rip her up, for sure . . . And into her mind flashed an image of Zach's fragile mother, Geneva Slade, and the absolute dislike Zach held for his father. But that family had had to weather the terrible tragedy of losing a child.
Hadn't
really weathered that tragedy, but broken under it.

She sucked in a quick, deep breath, squared her shoulders. She believed herself stronger than Geneva, of sturdier stock. Clare might be wrong about that, but that's what she sensed.

Yes, if Zach someday left her, she would go on. She loved him, believed he loved her, and whatever his father was like, she believed Zach tried to be the opposite, and he showed his love for her.

So she and he were interdependent, but not, she thought, in a bad way. They remained individuals and partners. They certainly supported each other, but still kept their own strong opinions.

No, she didn't lean on him unduly in this new life, though she had to admit being with him had made her grow perhaps in a different direction than had she been alone.

And grow more, greater, stronger, better.

As being with her had affected him, she believed that, too.

She stood and stretched, aware of her body, and that she wanted to bike to her beginner's yoga class, wanted the warm sunshine on her and, perhaps, even welcomed the dampness and sheen of sweat both sets of exercise would give her. She'd shower later, here at home and alone, but she believed Zach would be coming home tomorrow.

She could hardly wait.

*   *   *

Clare soaked in a skin-pampering bubble bath until it got cold, then picked up a romance novel and read. Not truly as good as having Zach. Yet she'd gotten a few ideas to try out on him before her tablet lilted an incoming SeeAndTalk request—Zach's tune.

“My plane will be landing about an hour and a half before sunset tomorrow afternoon,” Zach said with a serious expression.

She stared at him. “You think we should go up to Lookout Mountain.” She'd been rather hoping that they'd come back here—or even to his place—and make love.

“The sooner we finish up this business, the sooner Poche will leave you alone.”

Grimacing, she said, “Mrs. Flinton has been keeping you informed?”

Zach's smile lit his face. “She may be old, but she likes her technology. She's a whiz at SeeAndTalk.” Then his expression sobered. “But, yes, she attended a follow-up meeting of the parapsychological association with Welliam. Barbara says Poche has been ‘making slighting comments' about you and ‘casting aspersions on your reputation for ghost seeing.' He's also been ‘calling certain members and chatting, no doubt gathering support.'”

Clare shrugged. “You know I don't care about my reputation. It isn't as if I'll be using my gift and turning being a medium into a business.” The very thought soured her mouth, tasting bitter. “I don't know how Sandra managed.”

“She liked people and helping people. Maybe helping people work through their grief at the loss of their loved ones,” Zach said with a little too much neutrality in his voice. Clare knew he thought of his family after his brother had been killed. She didn't think they'd have consulted a psychic. Not an ambitious military man like his father. But Zach had told her that as individuals and a family, they'd gone to therapy. Not that it had helped. The death of his brother Jim had broken the unit beyond repair. Zach's mother lived in a place for the emotionally fragile as his father continued his career on the East Coast.

The silence between her and Zach stretched a little too long for comfort, since he must have realized Clare thought of his loss. No one of her immediate family had died. Her careless parents had just moved on . . . ever and always on to the next amusement.

Clearing her throat and refusing to be embarrassed about thinking of his circumstances, Clare said, “We'll visit your mother when you return. It's about time.” They went every week, if in Denver.

Zach smiled with tenderness in his eyes. “Thanks, Clare.”

She hunched a shoulder, a gesture she'd picked up from him. “It's nothing. I like your mother. And if you want me to visit Geneva tomorrow—”

“Not necessary.” But he'd relaxed. “Let's get this done, get Poche out of your life.”

“I think he's entrenched in Denver,” she said.

Zach's smile widened to show teeth and no humor. “We can make him move on.”

She had no doubt about that. “I don't care.”

“I do.”

“All right.” She glanced down at the notes she'd made about Zach's flight information. “We may not be able to reach Lookout Mountain by the time the poltergeist hits.”

“But we can try.”

She sighed. Zach would never take the easy way, and sometimes she wanted to, though her sense of responsibility would probably nag her into doing the right thing. “Yes. We can try. See you tomorrow.”

Disappointment flickered in his eyes. Because she hadn't said she loved him? She was skittish, she admitted that, but the next time she told him she loved him, she wanted it to be in person.

He nodded. “Tomorrow.”

Impulsively, she lifted the tablet to her lips and kissed the screen.

He grinned, then the tablet went dark.

*   *   *

After a night alone in her bed except for a ghost Labrador dog, Clare sipped coffee on the balcony in her robe. Her cell sounded from the bedroom.
Not Zach.
The cell rang like an old-fashioned telephone, her standard incoming call notification. She strolled back to the bedroom followed by Enzo, who leapt on the bed, circled, and watched her with his head propped on his front paws.

She looked at the number and silenced the ring. She knew that base number now: the local TV station that followed Maurice Poche around. The first time she'd answered they'd wanted to talk to
her
about “a great opportunity.” She'd politely told them she wasn't interested, and when they'd called back more than once over the last twenty hours, she'd ignored them.

After a shower, breakfast, and one minute later than regular business hours, her phone rang again. Once more, not Zach.

Foolish to want to speak to him three times a day or even more since he'd left, but she'd taken the fall into love with the man.

This time the phone played the theme from one of the X-Men movies. A personal joke, because she'd assigned that to Rickman and believed he wouldn't like knowing that at all.

“This is Clare, Mr. Rickman,” she answered.

“Ah, Clare, would you mind coming down to my office? And since Zach is away, I can send a car for you.”

She wondered if one of his staff would pick her up, whether he'd call Mrs. Flinton's regular service, or the less expensive one Clare used. “Why?”