Good Will Ghost Hunting: Demon Seed [Good Will Ghost Hunting 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (6 page)

Just never to this level. Or by a man who apparently had no interest in helping tempt her.

Kal took comfort in the fact that even though she might lust after Will’s firm loins, he apparently didn’t feel the same, thus effectively keeping her free from temptation.

Le sigh
, as Becky would say.

* * * *

Kal’s parents eventually settled for her calling every few days. After they accepted every third day, Kal stretched the time between calls, even sneakily resorting to leaving voice mails on the house phone when she knew her parents wouldn’t be home so she could avoid talking to them. She’d sidestepped her father’s questions about her new church, unwilling to admit that not only had she not gone, she hadn’t even scoped any out. Not that it mattered, because they usually filmed overnight on Fridays and Saturdays, when the volunteer investigators were available to go out. Most of her Sunday mornings consisted of an early post-investigation breakfast with Aidan and the rest of the crew—sans The Great Brooding One—before returning home, dropping into bed, and sleeping until afternoon.

She didn’t know her father’s opinion of the Otherworlds show because she’d taken the chicken route and told her mother, not him. Whether her mother told him was another matter entirely. Kal would bet money on her mom not having told him simply because he hadn’t outright demanded she quit and move home immediately, screaming that she was contributing to the Devil’s work.

Yet.

Aidan gave Kal an autographed picture of Will, as well as one of himself, so she could send them to Becky. Aidan was also more than happy to call Becky personally and chat with her for about ten minutes. After Kal took her phone back, she’d been amazed to find motormouth Becky practically speechless in happy shock.

Will still had his day job, the production company. Apparently, that had paid his bills for quite a few years. Aidan explained that’s why the unusual setup regarding editing and postproduction with
gO! Network
, because they had the necessary equipment on-site.

Kal didn’t question it, usually too busy with her show duties to concern herself with anything outside of the Otherworlds world, so to speak. Ryan frequently checked in with her to see how she fared. When she mentioned it to Becky, her friend snarked he was checking to see if she’d decided to quit yet. Kal got anything but that kind of vibe from him. Whenever she talked to Ryan, it was as if he tried to do everything he could to help her succeed. When she offhandedly mentioned she wished she had a more powerful laptop and would have to go shopping for one, not meaning anything by it, a new one appeared at the office the next morning via express overnight shipping.

“Ask me for what you need, love,” he’d said when she called to thank him. “I didn’t send you there to fail, I sent you there to do a job. Whatever you need to do that job, it’s yours.” She didn’t take offense to his use of the endearment either, knowing it was probably a British thing. Even though he was cute.

Ack! Surrounded by cute guys.
Sweet torture, but she loved it.

Working with Kal proved to be an exquisitely sweet torture. Will tried to limit his exposure to her because he spent the hours after with his eyes closed, trying to hold on to her scent and the sound of her voice. He’d passed plenty of late-night hours standing in the doorway of Aidan and Kal’s shared office, his eyes closed, nose to the air.

It wasn’t Aidan’s fault. Will was thankful his cousin kept her away from him. Under other circumstances, Will might feel jealous at how much time Aidan got to spend with her, but not now, and not with Aidan.

He heard them laughing in their office or in the edit room, muffled by a closed door, and longed to join them.

More than once he’d sat at Abby’s grave and talked to her, reminding himself why he couldn’t give in. Not this time, not to this woman.

Never.

There were times Aidan took Kal out of town with him. With both of them gone, Will felt like a piece of him had been ripped out.

This is too much.

He
couldn’t
feel this way about her, he barely knew her despite the feelings she instilled in him. Why
this
woman, and why now after all these years with his goal so close at hand?

Will had decided to tough it out, to try to stand it as long as he could. It wouldn’t be fair to Aidan to bail on him, and it certainly wasn’t Kal’s fault, no reason to punish her. She was young and a good person and deserved a chance to have a successful show like this under her belt.

Still, he kept his distance from her as much as possible.

After one particularly bad day, Will forced himself to go home and try to sleep. Always a problematic issue, even on a “good” night.

A good night meant he only awoke once or twice from a nightmare and didn’t relive that final day.

This, however, wasn’t a good night.

Even knowing it was a dream didn’t help. Having lived the events meant he couldn’t change the dream, couldn’t change the outcome to a happy ending. He still went on assignment with Aidan despite both Aidan and Ryan telling him it wasn’t necessary. A routine scouting mission through the barrier to a near-Earth realm, checking out a few rumors filtering through the grapevine. Will hadn’t wanted Aidan going by himself with the reports they’d heard from Bera, and the other guys weren’t strong enough to open the barrier alone if something happened.

As always, the sudden horrible, heavy feeling staggered him, forced him to reach out to Aidan. He grabbed his cousin’s arm for support.

“What’s wrong?” Aidan asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know—”

The pain. The searing agony that drove him to his knees and ripped a primal scream from deep within him.

Aidan looked up, receiving the call even through the barrier. He grabbed Will—

Appearing in his own living room. Ryan cornered, desperate anger on his face and a sword in hand, taking on two…Will wasn’t sure what they were but the tall, huge, bulking bipedal creatures obviously originated from some unfamiliar off-Earth realm. Two lay dead on the floor already, and from the looks of Ryan’s bloody sword he’d been the one who took them out.

When the two remaining creatures realized they no longer held the advantage, one immediately disappeared. The second died on the end of Ryan’s sword after making the mistake of taking his eyes off Ryan to look at Will and Aidan. Injured, Ryan slid down the wall and left a bloody smear behind him.

Will’s instincts finally kicked in despite his agonizing pain. He rushed to Ryan’s side. “Where’s Abby?” he gasped.

Ryan squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

Will immediately screamed her name, calling out to be with her. Aidan, his eyes wide, stared into the kitchen. With his heart a chilly boulder in his chest, Will started for the doorway when Aidan tackled him, forcing him to the living room floor, not letting him see.

“No,” Aidan begged. “Don’t, Will. Please, don’t. You don’t want to see. There’s nothing you can do.” Aidan summoned Purson and Gery, who immediately appeared. After a silent order from Aidan, they pinned a hysterical Will to the floor.

Ryan, tears streaming down his face, dragged himself to his feet, the sword left behind and his left arm hanging limp. He staggered to the kitchen doorway and stared inside, then dropped to his knees.

“I’m sorry, Will,” he sobbed. “I tried. I couldn’t stop them. I didn’t get here in time.”

Aidan stood. He walked to the kitchen doorway and bowed his head, eyes closed, tears silently coursing down his cheeks.

They wouldn’t let Will see her. Ryan ordered Purson and Gery to take Will to Atlanta and forcibly hold him there while he stayed behind with Aidan. When Ryan and Aidan returned several hours later, both men looking haggard and distraught, Will threw his amulet at Ryan and screamed, begged Ryan to kill him. He didn’t want to live without her.

He couldn’t. Not without his soul mate.

Aidan took Will to her. Will instinctively knew the high-collared robe she wore carefully tucked beneath her chin hid a sight he didn’t want to see.

On his knees and sobbing, Will held Abby’s hand, kissed it, stroked it, tried to find any sign of her, any thought.

Nothing.

Part of his soul died when they killed her.

Will awoke from his dream with his cheeks wet and feeling the familiar pain in his chest from his aching soul. The intellectual part of him this many years removed could silently thank Ryan for what he did, trying to protect her, and then protecting him from the horrifying last image he would have had of her. He knew Ryan had his own experiences and wanted to spare Will that, at least. But then…

Then it was all Will could do to not throw himself into the grave with her coffin.

As it was, he could remember her laughing, smiling, wrapping her arms around him as she kissed him good-bye before he left with Aidan, just hours before she died.

How she’d said, “I love you.”

With all that said and done, Will still hated Ryan for not letting him die, keeping him from joining her, especially since Ryan had personally experienced the kind of agony his soul suffered.

Eventually, Will fitfully slept.

* * * *

The network arranged a huge shoot that would sorely test Kal’s patience with Will Hellenboek. The crew packed and drove south and east across the state to Miami Beach, to investigate a famous old hotel that was being renovated. The location’s sheer size and notoriety forced Will to go along on the shoot with the other investigators, although he drove his car and didn’t follow the crew caravan. Kal, as usual, rode with Aidan. Will arrived and checked in before the rest of them, his room located on a different floor from Kal and Aidan and the other crew.

He’d had the hotel switch his reservation to arrange that despite the fact that Kal had requested all their rooms be together when she made the reservations. Kal swallowed her pride and anger and tried to let it go. At least he’d shown up.

The next morning, Kal ate breakfast with Aidan, Gery, and Purs to go over their production schedule before meeting with the crew and volunteer investigators. She sensed the men’s collective tension. Halfway through their discussion, Kal laid down her notepad and looked at them.

“Okay, boys. Let’s have it.”

The men exchanged a glance. “Have what?” Aidan asked.

She sat back and crossed her arms. “The Great Brooding One is especially broody this trip. Can one of you please ask him to at least put in an appearance at a production meeting? It’d be nice if I could spend more than five minutes in a room with him.” She’d tried being nice, tried being friendly. If Hellenboek wanted to act like a jerk, she’d act like a witch. Obviously the other crew didn’t have a problem with her, because they had no issues working with her.

Aidan looked nervous. “He’s got a couple of other projects in the pipe—”

“No. Please do
not
make excuses for him, Aidan.” She pointed at the men. “Nobody leave. We’re not done.” She angrily shoved her chair away from the table and stomped across the lobby to the elevators. When she hit the call button, she tapped her foot in irritation while she waited. The elevator finally arrived, and she rode it to the fifth floor where Will was staying. She’d never directly confronted him like this before. Maybe it was time she did.

Kal quickly oriented herself and found his room. She angrily pounded on his door without saying anything.

Seconds later he threw it open, surprised and startled to see her. Then it looked like a mask dropped over his face to hide his emotions.

“Downstairs, five minutes,” she told him in her sternest, no-bullpucky voice. “Production meeting in the restaurant. I won’t keep you from whatever your freaking personality problem is for more than thirty minutes, but I need your rear end there to go over production notes.” She ticked off points on her fingers to hide her trembling hands. “This is a huge shoot. We’ll have a lot of crew on location, and crowd control issues to deal with, so quit busting my butt and just show the heck up for once and give me a little respect.” She turned to go.

“Kal.”

The sound of his soft voice startled her. He rarely spoke to her. She stopped but didn’t face him, her fists clenched. “What is it, Hellenboek?”

He hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry. I’ll be right down.”

She let out a silent, relieved sigh. “Thank you.” She hadn’t expected him to agree. In fact, she’d expected him to refuse, get into a fight with her, and force her to call in Ryan Ausar to handle him, despite her promise to Aidan not to mention the man’s name.

Not exactly the way she’d wanted to handle it.

Maybe she should have been witchy to Will from day one.

True to his word, Will walked into the restaurant a few minutes later. He sat at the far end of the table, as far as he could sit away from her, and studied his clasped hands on the table the entire time.

She wasn’t sure he was even listening until he softly offered a suggestion on a more efficient way to split up the crew for shooting the B-roll shots.

Startled, Kal nearly tripped over her tongue. “Okay. That’s a good idea, Hellenboek. Thank you.” Kal had settled for treating him with cool professionalism since nothing else apparently thawed him out.

She felt Aidan practically ready to vibrate out of his chair next to her, the tension radiating off him in nearly visible waves. Over Will’s behavior? She suspected so.

When Kal ended the meeting, she didn’t look up from her notes as she called out to Will, “We’re having another meeting at two, Hellenboek. If you have better things to do and places to be, feel free to blow it off like you normally do. Good grief, I certainly don’t want to interrupt your
CSI: Miami
reruns or whatever it is you’re doing.”

He nodded and left without comment.

Aidan slumped next to her. She looked at him. “Don’t say it,” she warned him.