Yearnings: A Paranormal Romance Box Set (103 page)

She wasn’t prepared to see love in his eyes.

***

Panting, Grant stared at Leigh. In all his fantasies, and he’d had a few about her, nothing compared to what they’d just shared. For a long moment, he simply stared. She’d given herself to him. She knew everything about him, all his sins, all his mistakes. Yet she’d give herself to him. If he let himself, he could love her. Wishes for a different life came tumbling over him. The kind of life she deserved, the kind he could have given her four years ago.

His mind rejected the intense, delicious ache in his heart.

No. He could not let himself love her.

She deserved a man who was whole. Unscarred from life. A man who could honor her with some level of innocence. The kind she had likely never been able to know, given a lifetime of gifts like hers. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she had seen in comparison to what he had in his brief marriage to the supernatural.

What had he done?

Leigh shook her head, making Grant see how unmasked he’d been. Unguarded and staring at her. He didn’t know what to say. She wriggled out from under him. He set back on his heels, his body still buzzing from the heady release. What cruel fate gave him this, her, now? Instead of pain, he felt cold. A deep, cold numbness crept through him. The wolf, thankfully dormant until now, stole to the surface on soft paws. Disappear. He could disappear into it and leave this pain behind. He could leave behind the hesitation showing in her every move and blink.

He reached for her clothes. She took them, thanking him. Behind him, the train car banged open. Grant jerked around, springing to his haunches, fists ready. The wolf wanted power. The temptation to give in ebbed up his throat. Nick shut the door, unabashed at his intrusion. A quick glance back showed Grant that Leigh had covered herself, and glared daggers at Levitt.

“
As much as I’d love to beg your pardon and graciously back out that door, I can’t. Beatrice swears she just saw a ghost.” Nick spoke to Leigh. “The man said he knows you.”

Grant brought the blanket up with him as he stood, his legs heavy. Leigh rushed to dress. “At least turn around, Levitt.” Damn it. He needed to speak to Nick. To explain himself. He couldn’t let her leave like this. The very real-feeling possibility that he might not see her again warred with his good sense. “Tell Beatrice we’ll be right there.”

“
Sorry, friend. She won’t let anyone see her but Leigh.”

“
No. Leigh, wait.”

She dressed in a rush, her hair beautifully mussed. From the rosy blush of her cheeks to the abrasion he’d left on her neck, a stranger could guess what she’d been up to. If only making love to her hadn’t bared his soul like it had. If only she hadn’t seen it. He had no doubts that she had. She was far too perceptive to miss the love he felt.

No! Not love. Anything but love. Not like this. Not yet, for Christ’s sake! Give him time to fix things. To mend the shreds of his past.

Tension thickened the air, making it difficult to breathe. Again, the wolf nudged him. Promises to make it all go away, if only for a little while. The wolf worried about him deeply. Leigh smoothed her hair and her blouse, and made for the door. Grant reached for her, grasping her slender arm as she passed.

She paused long enough to give him a shaky, empty smile. “I’ll just check on Beatrice, is all.”

Time is what she needed. A bit of space to think. His mind could grasp that. His heart screamed against it. They would arrive tomorrow. Everything would change. The ghosts of his past would come to call, and while the knowledge that he would finally find Tristan relieved exhilarated him, the unknown in-between terrified him. Hoping for more was pure selfishness. Yet he didn’t stop hoping. Even as she walked out the door and didn’t look back.

“
Doubt it will help, friend but I do feel your pain.” Nick moved to the narrow bar, pulled out two tumblers and filled each with amber liquid.

Grant managed to get his pants back on, downed the drink, and savored the burn it left behind. He couldn’t spell out all the things that made Leigh Hamilton different from every woman he had ever known. That didn’t mean, given the chance, that he would spend a lifetime trying to.

Nick watched him, that blasted sardonic smile fixed in place as usual. “Like I said.” He raised his glass, refilled, and downed it, too.

Grant shook his head. Staring at the door wouldn’t bring her back. “Bea probably just saw Leigh’s ghost, Jacob.”

“
She has her own ghost?”

Grant shot him a look meant to share how little he appreciated the man’s sarcasm. “What about it upset her so much?”

For a fraction of a second, Nick’s real pain revealed itself. His hand trembled. “She thinks she saw Tristan.”

No. Leigh swore he still lived. Grant had made the connection between the children’s souls and his nephew’s disappearance, but in truth, he didn’t truly believe it. Leigh felt it in her bones. He lived. Tristan lived. Grant went for the door. He had to get to Beatrice. He had to make sure Leigh told her what she told him. He had to make sure nothing had changed. Nick’s steely grip on his arm stopped him.

Grant swung.

Nick ducked.

Grant stopped. What was all of this going to come to? Why had he let himself hope? The wolf howled inside him. Not for another soul to set free, but for the ache in Grant’s. The wolf pawed and whined and howled and wanted to take over, to take Grant’s pain away.

No.

He had to face the pain.

If he ever wanted to come out on the other side, he had to face this hell head-on.

Palms up in surrender, he asked, “What happened, exactly?”

Nick sank into the far armchair, elbows on his knees. “She looked up, gasped, stared, and ordered me to get Leigh. I joked, she socked me in the gut, and said her son had just come to her to tell her where he is.”

As distraught as Nick was, Grant couldn’t help him. It was too late. The wolf took over, and Grant’s reality faded to black.

~~~

Chapter Twenty-one

Beatrice was near hysterics by the time Leigh got to her. “I saw Tristan! Oh, Leigh, I saw him.”

“
Calm down, Bea. Tell me what happened.”

Beatrice took a shaky breath. “I was sitting here. Nick and I had just finish...talking, and a little flash of light caught my eye. There,” Beatrice said, pointing at thin air. “He was right there and I just was so shocked that I sat there staring.”

“
Alright, you probably just—.”

“
No. Don’t even hint that I might have imagined it. I know my son. He’s taller and he’s lost weight but I know my Tristan.”

“
Okay, alright. But I need you to be calm if I’m going to be able to help.” Leigh scanned the train car, but Jacob wasn’t there. How was she supposed to connect without him? She closed her eyes a moment and tried. She focused her thoughts and felt around with her mind.

Nothing.

Beatrice nodded and took a deep breath. “He came to warn me, Leigh.” Her voice quavered. Tears popped out of her eyes. “Warn me.

“
Warn you about what?”

“
Home. I don’t understand it. Please Leigh, you have to do something.”

Again, Leigh tried, feeling the shadows with her mind. Not even a finger of cold on her spine, though. “I’m sorry, Beatrice,” she said at last. “If he was here, he’s gone now.”

“
Gone.” Beatrice shook her head. “But you promised me that he was still alive. You swore to me.”

The door shut, announcing Nick joining them. Leigh looked up, praying for help. Only one person would truly know what to say to Beatrice now and it wasn’t her. “I think she needs Grant.”

“
I don’t doubt you’re right, Leigh. Regrettably, without a word of warning Grant shifted into wolf form and leapt off of this train.”

The next three days blurred by. Leigh’s heart seemed to have frozen over. Maybe that was why time and events appeared to have happened beyond her awareness. She sat in the guest bedroom staring at her reflection in the vanity, trying in vain to account for the last weeks. If she closed her eyes for long enough, would she open them and be back in the hotel room waiting for Beatrice’s note, telling her whether Grant had agreed to her joining them on the journey home?

Turning the hairbrush over again and again, Leigh shut her eyes.

Every time she opened her eyes, there she was again, at the Grayson estate. They’d arrived, dined, and slept. At some point, she had met Beatrice’s husband, Samuel. Like Grant, Samuel didn’t seem to like her much upon introduction. He probably thought she was a fraud. Right now, she felt like one. Oh, well. Day in, day out, her mind searched for answers of her own. Where was Jacob? What had happened to Grant? Had it all been too much, and he’d let the wolf take over for good? Could the wolf take over for good?

Where was Tristan if he was “home,” as he’d told Beatrice? What was he trying to warn her about home? What did home even mean, really? It could be so much. A place. A person. A feeling. She prayed to all she knew of the other side that home did not mean what she feared—what Beatrice feared most. Home didn’t mean heaven. Did it? But if it did, why warn against it?

A knock at the door jerked Leigh back to the present.

“
Yes?”

“
Dinner, miss,” the soft voice of a servant informed her.

“
I’ll be right down.” She had no appetite, but sitting here staring at herself—at the dark circles, the arch of her eyebrows that needed defining—wouldn’t get her answers.

Bea had begged her to stay, though. Leigh sent yet another telegram to her mother, wiring her what funds she had and waited. She needed a way to connect to the other side without Jacob’s help. But how? She’d yet to see a séance that wasn’t props and tricks. She’d yet to meet another person with true gifts like hers.

There it was. The crux of her dilemma. Without Jacob, Leigh might be utterly useless. A girl who could see shadows in the dark and do nothing more than scream.

She descended the stairs and tried to find a smile. At the bottom, Beatrice, Nick, Samuel, and...Eliza awaited her to join her for dinner. What was Eliza doing here? Oh, that was right. She’d grown up with Grant and Beatrice. It had been her falling ill that had sent the brother and sister home to witness their mother’s suicide. Interestingly, Eliza wasn’t looking through her this time. She was smiling warmly. Someone must have told her she wasn’t just a maid or assistant.

“
Miss Hamilton,” Eliza said, coming to her first. “It’s so good to see you again.” She hugged Leigh and whispered. “I am in your debt. Gretchen has made such progress, all due to your advice.”

Leigh pulled back. “What advice?”

“
Asking for an angel,” she kept her voice hushed. “Gretchen’s nightmares have significantly decreased in frequency. Last night, she slept right through ’til morning.”

Little prickles raced over Leigh’s arms. “Oh, yes. Of course.” On the ship that morning over brunch, the nature of Eliza’s descriptions of her daughter had struck a chord in Leigh. “Gretchen is doing better?”

“
Much,” Eliza said, at a normal conversational pitch now. She squeezed Leigh’s hand, then let go and faced the others. “I don’t know about you all, but I’m famished.”

Everyone followed Samuel into the dining room. At the doorway, Leigh paused where Beatrice stood. Putting her hand on Bea’s arm, she said, “I think I might have an idea.”

No. Eliza would never allow it. “How close are you and Eliza? Like sisters, as she seems to want me to believe, or like friends thrown into the same social circles that cling to each other for the sake of appearances?”

Beatrice frowned in confusion.

“
Jacob still hasn’t returned, but,” she said, uncertain that she should say anything. If not for time feeling like it was slipping away.... She glanced around to verify that no one noticed them talking, namely Samuel, who took offense to any talk of the supernatural. “Do you remember what Eliza had said about her daughter? The nightmares?”

Her gaze darting from the guests to Leigh, Bea nodded. “I don’t understa—oh, no! Leigh, we couldn’t.”

“
You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Shame warmed her cheeks. She put her palms on them, trying to cool the blush that must be abloom there. At the same time, though, it occurred to her that maybe the annoying coincidence of Eliza being on the ship too, was meant to be. “Asking a child’s help would be....” She didn’t know the right word. Abominable? Exploitative? “Wrong.”

“
Asking a child to find a child.” Bea said, a flush creeping into her own cheeks.

“
No. Not her finding Tristan directly. But asking the girl’s help for me to, yes.”

Bea bit her lip. “Samuel is watching us. Laugh like I’ve just kidded you.”

As ordered, Leigh forced herself to giggle and took a seat at the table. She couldn’t focus on the conversation. She tried to, but her mind inevitably ducked back over to the terrible idea. Gretchen was the younger sister. All of three years old? Six? She couldn’t remember Eliza ever saying.

A six-year-old helping to find Tristan didn’t feel all that exploitative. Or wrong., if Eliza was present and in full agreement. That would mean telling Eliza so much more than Leigh felt comfortable having the woman know about her. But with Jacob gone and Grant disappeared, too, what alternative did they have?