Ready & Willing (26 page)

“Yes, well, I’ve changed my mind. Some of those changes have improved the world rather a lot.”

“Like computers?”

He shook his head. “No. Like . . . something else.”

More like some
one
else
, Audrey thought. But she only said, “Then you do like it here?”

There was a pregnant pause, followed by a slow, meaningful, “Yes.”

“So then what? You’re just going to haunt me forever? Never leave me in peace?”

Instead of answering her question, he posed one of his own. “What was the favor you wanted?”

Audrey inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly. “I want you to find someone on the other side the way you found Nicholas Pearson.”

“I didn’t find Nicholas Pearson,” he reminded her. “I merely received the man’s name. So who is it you—” He halted abruptly, sighed wearily, and frowned. “You want me to look for your husband.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Do you think you could find him?”

“I don’t know, Audrey.”

“Well, could you at least try?”

“Why do you want me to find him? What do you hope to achieve?”

“I just want to . . . talk to him,” she said. “If I can. There’s a question I need to ask him.”

“Perhaps I could ask him for you. Assuming I find him. Assuming he wants to be found.”

“He has to want to be found in order to actually be found?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

This time it was Audrey’s turn to remain silent, since, really, what more was there to say?

“You’re certain you want me to find him?”

“Yes,” she replied without hesitation.

“Even if the answer you receive to your question may not be the one you want to hear?”

This time there was some hesitation. But she replied, honestly, “Yes.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Silas.”

He took a few steps backward, until he dissolved into the darkness. But she heard him say, as if from a great distance away, “Good night, Audrey.”

“Good night, Silas.”

And then, somehow, she knew he was gone. She was about to close her eyes and hope for sleep, but the phone rang suddenly, jarring her back. When she saw Nathaniel’s cell number on the caller ID, she reluctantly reached for it. She couldn’t avoid him forever. Eventually, they were going to have to talk. Not just about Edward Dryden and Nicholas Pearson, but about that kiss on the river two nights ago.

She pressed the phone to her ear and said quietly, “Hello, Nathaniel.”

There was a pause much like the ones she’d just heard from his great-great-et-cetera grandfather, then, “You’re home,” he said, sounding slightly incredulous.
Translation
, she thought,
You’re speaking to me.

She sighed heavily but lay back down, the phone still held to her ear. “Yeah, listen, I’m sorry I’ve been incommunicado for the last couple of days.”

“I’m sorry about that, too.”

She told herself she only imagined the hurt in his voice and hurried on, “I’ve been really busy at the shop.” Although that was true, it wasn’t, of course, why she hadn’t been answering her phone.

“I understand,” he said. Though he didn’t sound like he understood at all. “I’m sorry to call so late. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, I’m still up.”
Talking to my ghost,
she added to herself.
Asking him to see if he can hook me up with my dead husband
.

“Did you talk to your husband’s friend?”

Did his voice sound a little anxious when he asked that?
Audrey wondered.
And if so, why?
“Yeah. He’s going to look into Edward Dryden and Nicholas Pearson both and see what he finds. He seems to think Edward’s a perfectly legitimate businessman, though.”

“I hate to say I told you so.”

“Then tell me something else,” she said, doing her best not to sound irritated, annoyed, and snarky.

“I talked to my guy, too,” he told her. “And he found out some interesting stuff about Pearson.”

“That was fast.”

“Yeah, well, when you pay someone that much money, they’d better be.” Before she could comment on that, he hurried on, “Can we meet somewhere tomorrow?”

Although she told herself it would be a bad idea to see him in person, she couldn’t see any way to avoid it. Maybe she could tomorrow, but she couldn’t forever. “Sure,” she said.

She started to say something about dinner, then decided that might be asking for trouble, because that was becoming a habit. A
dating
habit, at that. So she started to invite him over to her house, but wasn’t sure that was such a good idea, either.

He took the matter out of her hands, however, when he said, “Why don’t you come over to my place after you close up shop for the day?”

Oooh, that was the worst idea of all,
she thought. So, unable to come up with anything else, she told him, “Actually, I think I’m going to have to work kind of late tomorrow. Why don’t you come by here on your way home?” Because of the three choices, that seemed the least dangerous. Audrey could be in control on her own turf, right? Never mind that her control always fled whenever she was around Nathaniel.

He said nothing for a moment, and she feared he would press her on the come-on-a-my-house thing. But all he said was, “I’ll bring dinner with me. You like Chinese?”

“I love Chinese. Bring me anything lo mein.”

“Will do. See you around seven?”

“That will be fine,” Audrey said. She just wished a little lo mein was all it took to make things fine.

Twelve

CECILIA WAS DREAMING. SHE KNEW SHE WAS
dreaming, even before she looked down at the strange outfit she was wearing—a dark red satin dress trimmed in gold whose overly frilly straps fell from both shoulders. It was, she was almost positive, the same dress she’d seen on one of the dancing girls in the movie
Show Boat
when she was a kid. Likewise from
Show Boat
was the dancehall scenery she’d conjured for the backdrop of her dream—all crystal chandeliers and red brocade wallpaper and polished hardwood floors—not to mention the Dixieland jazz band playing in the corner of the room. Though they played with infinitely less verve and fewer tambourines than they had in
Show Boat
. Thank God.

What she hadn’t borrowed from
Show Boat
for her dream was Silas Summerfield, since she distinctly remembered Cap’n Andy Hawks being played by Joe E. Brown, and he’d worn some ridiculous Hollywood getup that had been even more embellished than the dancing girls’ dresses. Silas had way more in common with charming gambler Howard Keel, though he didn’t look like the type to break into song. His captain’s uniform, she was sure, was the actual one he’d worn on his own riverboat, since somehow she knew he was in her dream as himself, and not some Tinseltown-generated idea she’d dredged up from the back of her brain. He was dressed almost completely in black, from the toes of his black boots to the cap tilted jauntily—because what else would a nineteenth-century riverboat captain be but jaunty?—on his head. The only things that weren’t black were his crisp white shirt—bound at the collar with a black string tie—the double row of brass buttons on his jacket, and the tidy gold trim of his epaulets.

He stood in the doorway of the dance hall, his gaze fixed on hers, the night behind him as black as his clothes, splashed with stars that twinkled like his buttons. When he entered, he immediately swept his cap from his head and tucked it under one arm, and strode leisurely—but purposefully—toward the table where she sat. Except for the band, the room was empty, but even the musicians seemed to fade to the background as Silas drew nearer. The song they were playing became muted and mellow, the perfect accompaniment for the frosty bottle of champagne that suddenly appeared on the table, chilling in a sweaty silver ice bucket beside two elegant long-stemmed flutes.

Silas said not a word when he joined her, only tilted his head forward in acknowledgement and reached for the champagne, to open it. The cork left the bottle with a wet, crisp
pop
, then he tilted the bottle over each glass until they were both filled with sparkling, pale gold wine. After tucking the bottle back into its nest of ice, he handed one glass to Cecilia, then lifted the other into the air.

“To you, my dear,” he said. “The most beautiful woman aboard.”

Cecilia sipped the wine, savoring the clean, bracing taste of it, relishing the way it cooled her throat on the way down. Wow. She never got this kind of detail in her dreams. This was really, really . . . cool.

“Well, this is different,” she said as she lowered the glass to the table again. “Usually I only have anxiety dreams. I can’t find my car in the parking garage or can’t find my room in a hotel. Or I have fifteen minutes to bake a hundred wedding cakes. That kind of thing. I can safely say I’ve never dreamed I was a dancehall girl.”

He smiled at that. “You’re not a dancehall girl in this dream, either,” he told her.

“I’m not?”

He shook his head, still smiling.

“Then what am I?”

He inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. “Well, to put it in the crassest of terms, Cecilia, you’re my . . . woman.”

A thrill of something hot and not altogether unpleasant rolled through her midsection at hearing him say what he had, the way he had said it—so knowingly, so confidently, so possessively. Hearing any other man say something like that in the same way would have terrified Cecilia. Hearing it from Silas, though, wasn’t scary at all. In fact, hearing Silas say it somehow made her feel oddly safe. Safe in a way she’d never felt before. As if she didn’t have to look over her shoulder all the time anymore. As if she didn’t have to worry about Vincent anymore. Because if Vincent dared to show his face, Silas, her man—Wow, that felt really good to say that—would protect her completely.

She told herself she should be ashamed of herself, liking the idea of a man’s protection. She was a twenty-first-century woman. She’d been taking care of herself since she was a teenager. Yeah, well, okay, except for those years with Vincent. But even then, her sense of self-preservation had kicked in at some point, and she’d gotten herself away. She’d rescued herself from her abuser. She didn’t need anyone else’s protection.

Except that, for some reason, the idea of someone else protecting her suddenly felt kind of nice. It was hard taking care of yourself all the time when you were by yourself. It was scary. It was lonely. What was so terrible about wanting—maybe even needing—a little extra help?

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Cecilia,” Silas said. “It doesn’t matter what century a man is born in. Any man who doesn’t feel a fundamental compulsion to take care of the people he loves isn’t fit to call himself a man.”

She lifted her chin. “And any woman who doesn’t feel compelled to do the same thing isn’t fit to call herself a woman.”

He grinned again, and nodded. “I dare say I’m beginning to like this stronger, more independent version of American womanhood. Provided you don’t grow so strong and independent that we men become unnecessary.”

She started to tell him that twenty-first-century society had already made men pretty much unnecessary in a lot of ways, thanks to sex toys, sperm banks, and cloning. Then she decided he probably wasn’t ready for that aspect of twenty-first-century life, and it might be better to protect him for as long as she could. Besides, men did still come in handy when there was heavy lifting to be done. And even the most ingenious vibrator left a lot to be desired when it came to unclogging a drain.

“You’ll never be unnecessary,” she assured him. Because any man as beautiful and decent as Silas was would always, always, be needed.

He pulled out the chair beside hers—not the one opposite, she noted—and folded himself into it, setting his cap carefully on the other side of the table. He looked at her hands, cupped one on top of the other, and, after only a small hesitation, covered them with one of his. She braced herself for the staggering shock wave that had shuddered through her when they’d come into contact with each other before, but all she felt this time was the warmth of his bare fingers curling gently over hers. When their gazes met again, she saw that he was as surprised—and delighted—as she by the discovery. But what was truly surprising, not to mention delightful, was Cecilia’s reaction to that touch. Because she had become convinced over the past year that she would never welcome a man’s touch again.

It was the reason she’d had trouble keeping a job until the one at Finery. Thanks to what she had suffered during her time with Vincent, she couldn’t bear the touch of masculine flesh against her own. She didn’t fare much better just being in the same room with a man. Finn and Stephen had been the only exceptions, and only then because of their orientation. No matter how nice the man, or how gentle his disposition, or how unthreatening his demeanor, he made Cecilia feel, at best, uncomfortable, and, at worst, petrified.

Until now. Until Silas.

Of course, it was only because this was a dream, she thought, and everything around her, including Silas, was lacking in substance. He couldn’t threaten her, because he didn’t exist. Not the way other men did. He was a ghost. A fantasy. A dream.

He twined his fingers with hers, and a thrill of something warm and liquid rushed through her. Funny, but her dreams had never been tactile before.

“This is just a dream, right?” she asked him, just to be sure.

He nodded, his expression saddening some. “Alas, yes. But I had some success conversing with Audrey by entering one of her dreams that first night. I thought perhaps, since you haven’t been able to see me before, it might work with you, too.”

“How do you do it?” she said.

“I don’t,” he told her. “You do. By thinking of me during the day, it opens a door in your subconscious I’m able to enter once you’re asleep. Which means, Cecilia . . .” He lifted her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips lightly over the backs of her fingers, his warm breath caressing her flesh and making her heart rate triple. “. . . that you were thinking about me today.”