Beaudry's Ghost Read online

  He smiled weakly, because she was babbling again, but he knew she did it because of their exposed position out on the bridge. Besides, he didn’t mind. It gave him something to listen to besides the rattling of his own bones.

  He knew little else until the sun suddenly darkened and his horse’s swaying motion stopped. Both animals’ breathing echoed off a low ceiling, and at first he thought she’d found some kind of cave. He heard her boots hit a hard surface as she slid off the horse, but he found it difficult to see in the dim light.

  She appeared beside him, her hands offering support to help him down. He shook his head and heaved two breaths before he could talk.

  “Horses…first.”

  “What?”

  “Take care…of the horses…first. We’ll need them…later.”

  Her voice held a frown. “Not until I get you upstairs,” she insisted, reaching for him again.

  He grabbed her wrist and pushed it away. “You may not…be able to come back later. Water the horses.” He didn’t have the strength, inner or outer, to tell her he was going to need her undivided attention in a very short time.

  “All right,” she muttered finally.

  She left his side and rattled around the cave-like structure, looking for a bucket. He heard running water, and her voice talking nonsense to the horses as she led and secured both in a corner.

  Then she was back. “All right, come on,” she said, this time sliding her arm around his waist and pulling with authority.

  At least try not to fall on her, Beaudry.

  He managed to land on his feet and remain there though a hot poker of pain shot up his leg. A harsh sound escaped his throat.

  “Hang on, hang on,” she murmured in alarm as she placed herself under his arm. “We just have one flight of stairs and then…” she placed one foot on the bottom step and groaned. “I don’t have a key. Lane was supposed to meet me here tomorrow. She’s camping out on the island until then. And dang! I left my lockpicking tools in my truck!”

  He had to smile at her choice of epithets.

  Another fuzzy memory sharpened into focus in his brain, and he even found the strength to grin. “Just get me up there,” he rasped. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Her surprised look amused him, but there wasn’t time to explain that for many years he’d been watching—and startling—burglars as they broke into beach houses. He knew exactly how it was done.

  Hopping on his left leg, and with Taylor helping on the right side, they made it up to the first floor of the beach house with only a couple near disasters. Once on the landing, he found a wall and leaned heavily against it, bracing his forehead against the smooth surface as another wave of pain threatened to take his breath.

  “Jared?” Her voice rose along with her fright. He realized dimly she hadn’t removed her arm from his waist, and even now her grip grew tighter. Her touch lent him the last of the strength he would need to do this one last task.

  “It’s all right,” he breathed raggedly, reaching under the back of his uniform coat, hearing her gasp when he withdrew the long Bowie knife.

  “Where on earth did you get that?”

  He grinned wolfishly. “Your friend and mine.”

  “As if we didn’t have enough trouble,” she groused. “What now?”

  The house was an older one, and though it had apparently been remodeled, the owner had skimped on door locks. It took about three seconds for him to pry it open.

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m impressed.”

  He didn’t have time to reply. The mental image of the hacking sword came at him again, and this time he knew he couldn’t stop it. The first blinding stab struck his leg as he lunged through the open door, carrying Taylor with him to the floor.

  With a cry, Taylor tore loose from him and scrambled several feet away. The skin on her arm stung painfully where she’d had it locked around his waist. Even through layers of clothing between their skins, the shock of his agony spiked like a thousand electrified needles.

  He lay on his left side, his right leg drawn up and both arms wrapped tight around it, his forehead crushed against his knee. A long, continuous moan rose from his hidden face, pulsing to a near scream as again and again his body jerked. She knew with a sickening lurch of her stomach that, in 1862, it must have taken Harris several attempts to hack his way through Jared’s leg.

  She gasped out a sob and reached for him, shame at her own cowardice overcoming the fear. But something stopped her hand. A cloud of what was unmistakably Lt. Harris’s poisonous, century-old rage hung in the air, an almost visible thing surrounding Jared. She wondered why she hadn’t seen it before, when Jared had experienced this same pain in his hand.

  She decided that somehow, the longer they were together, the more in tune they became. So in tune, she was afraid to close her eyes, afraid if she did, she would see it all—Harris standing over Jared’s writhing form, his sword descending again and again.

  Help me.

  Her breath halted. She had heard those words somewhere before, in just that tone of desperation. But when? And where? Though she couldn’t remember the exact place and time, she knew it had been the echo of Jared’s voice, Jared’s pain, Jared’s loneliness, calling out to her across a century of time.

  She flung herself through the barrier, landing half on top of him in a protective gesture, wrapping both arms and legs around him, trying to absorb some of the pain into herself. The needles were back.

  This time she shut her eyes tight and let them come.

  Chapter Seven

  The sun’s rays were fading when Taylor opened her eyes. She felt as if she’d been torn wide open and turned inside out. Yet, somehow, weightless. Unburdened. She smelled the sea, through the still-open door. She smelled damp wool and sweat. She smelled blood.

  Jared lay still, locked in her arms on the floor. Anxious, afraid to move, she raised only her head and checked for vital signs.

  His beard scratched and his breath blew in an unsteady rhythm against her neck, where he’d buried his face the moment she’d touched him. She pressed her hands against his back and the rhythm of his heartbeat pulsed against her palms.

  She took stock of herself, too. She had that odd reborn feeling again, but this time, instead of feeling disoriented and off-balance, she felt clean and at peace. She felt strangely free. She closed her eyes and savored the feeling. Until she remembered what she had done only hours ago. Until the echo of her own gun going off jolted her eyes open. She opened her mouth to draw a silent breath as more tears threatened, then fiercely blinked them back. There was absolutely no time for tears.

  He lay mostly on top of her, his head under her jaw and his legs firmly entwined with hers. Both his arms wrapped around her body, one passing under her back, the other just under her breasts. His head was pleasantly heavy, but her arm tingled with numbness. She tried to shift her position without waking him.

  Instantly his head shot up, his eyes wide and body tense. Flecks of dried blood, probably from her uniform, clung to his cheek.

  In his eyes she saw everything she had felt within him while his body had contorted in agony on the hard floor. The long, empty years, the grief, the pain. And something beyond the simple thirst for revenge. Guilt. He carried a great, dragging burden of it. She didn’t know what was its cause, only that it had something to do with someone named Ethan. She had heard the name reverberate within his heart over and over again until he had collapsed, Harris’s spectral sword finished having its way with him.

  She wanted to ask about this Ethan fellow, but quickly decided it wasn’t wise. She had no idea how he would react if he knew that she had found out just by touching him. Even in these modern times, abilities like hers didn’t go over well on a first date. For a 19th-century man like Jared, it would go over like a lead balloon. In his time, women like her were shunned, feared. In hers, there were subtler ways to make someone like her feel alienated.

  She wanted to say something to cal
m him, reassure him, but words escaped her when his gaze finished its circuit of the room and came to rest on her face. Words were unnecessary. She sensed all she needed to know.

  His restless soul was quiet, here in her arms. And she knew, with every inch of her body pressed against his, that it had become so only because of her touch. That somehow, across a century of time, he had been waiting for her to give him this chance at life.

  Life? No, that wasn’t right. Ultimately, it was the finality of his own death he sought. Yet, even as the dark thought crossed the planes of her mind, her arms tightened around him possessively.

  The blue waters of his eyes shifted in response. Slowly, very slowly, so slowly she wasn’t sure if he really moved, his head descended. His eyes locked with hers and held until he touched her lips with his own. He pressed harder, warmer, his eyes drifting closed, his kiss so gentle and uncertain it stole her breath. In it, she felt his gratitude, and something more. Her eyes fluttered closed as she moved her mouth under his, welcoming the something more. She was amazed, in a detached way, that they touched like this and she felt no fear, no urgent need to shut herself off from unwanted sensations.

  She had rarely, before now, allowed a man to slide so deep under her skin. That kind of intimacy demanded complete openness. She always told herself she couldn’t afford to leave herself that vulnerable. But now, suddenly she wanted to feel this sensation—Jared’s sensation—more than anything else. He had held onto her as she crossed with him into his own private hell. She had held onto him as she brought him back from it.

  Jared hesitantly slipped his tongue along her lower lip, and Taylor smiled in delight under his mouth. He was asking permission, and she was touched. No one had ever asked her permission to kiss her, at least not this sweetly. She gave it, opening her mouth and greeting his tongue with hers, allowing herself to forget about guns and flying lead, forget about blood and screaming men, swords and the oddly glowing eyes of the possessed.

  His kiss hardened, deepened to desperation as he curled his fingers in her hair, holding her still as he slanted his mouth across hers, his tongue twisting hungrily into her mouth. She matched it with a little desperation of her own. His spirit was so strong it had endured over a century of wandering to find her here, now, in this time. And she had no idea how long he could stay. Not nearly long enough, she realized, to let things take their natural course. In a day, maybe two, he would disappear into the mists of time.

  God willing.

  Taylor wrenched her mouth free. She couldn’t do this, no matter how badly she wanted him. God, she would be offering her carefully guarded heart to the very thing she had feared her entire life. A ghost.

  She lay underneath him, wordlessly gasped for breath, and stared up into Jared’s stricken face. At the sight of his reddened ears, she forgot her own distress and found herself smiling at him, then grinning as his blush spread up his throat, which he cleared.

  “Sweet lady,” he said softly, “I apologize for my forward behavior.”

  He sounded so…formal. After all they’d just been through. Entangled here on the floor, with only a few layers of cloth separating them, he was gallantly trying to mind his Civil War-era manners. She surprised herself as a giggle bubbled up out of her throat. The giggle threatened to erupt into a full-fledged laugh, and she clamped down hard on it lest it blossom into hysteria.

  “My compliments to your mother,” she said soberly, trying not to embarrass him further by breaking down completely. “She must have taught you well.” Surprising herself again, she lifted her head and kissed him quickly, leaving him with a startled expression.

  Then that dangerous smile of his spread slowly across his face, like a sunrise, and just as slowly took her breath away. He kissed her again, a kiss as light as it had been hard and bruising a moment before.

  “How long I’ve wanted someone to touch me,” he whispered against her lips. “A hundred years and more.”

  She gave shutting herself off one last try. But the impressions were too strong. A century of pure, pent-up desire poured from his open soul, and seeped in through the cracks in hers. Helplessly, she responded by lifting her free arm in order to slide her fingers through his hair.

  Pain shot through her shoulder and down her side, and she moaned sharply. Jared pulled back and drew in a great draught of air.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” she gasped, trying again to move her arm and failing. “Something’s wrong with my arm.”

  “Let me see it,” he commanded as he pushed himself to a sitting position and gently helped her sit up.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing.” She swallowed against surging nausea. “Just bruises. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that old Enfield kick like that.”

  “Firing a real Minié ball will do that for you.” He unceremoniously worked at undoing the buttons of her uniform. “I’ve ended…used to end…some battles bruised from neck to hip on one side.”

  She smiled weakly and discovered her quick sit-up had set the side of her head pounding again. She made a mental note, when all this was over, to get herself a CAT scan. She was probably walking around with a concussion.

  “Newton,” she murmured.

  “Beg pardon?” He finished with the buttons.

  “Every action,” she sucked in a breath as he carefully lifted the coat from her shoulders and slid it down her arms, “has an equal and opposite…reaction.”

  She looked down at her torso, now clad only in her thick cotton underwear. It, too, was soaked with blood. She swallowed and quickly closed her eyes.

  “I didn’t think it was mine,” she said faintly. Her heart fluttered in her chest, like a butterfly beating fragile wings against the walls of a glass jar. She didn’t like the feeling.

  She felt his fingers, with exquisite gentleness, trying to peel the fabric away from her skin, but it stuck as if glued.

  “We need water,” he said. “Maybe scissors.” He rose to his feet, grunting softly when he put weight on his injured leg.

  “See if,” she mumbled around her thick tongue. Funny, she’d felt fine a moment ago. The fluttering in her chest grew more pronounced, and she pressed a hand against it. “See if you can find a first aid kit in one of the bedrooms. Maybe Lane stashed one in there with the rest of her—” She swayed with a new wave of dizziness and caught herself with her good hand. “Never mind.”

  At the sound of Jared’s uneven gait, she turned and watched him hobble down the hall in search of the necessary items. Good heavens, he was hurt, too. His lower right trouser leg clung, dark purple, to his skin. Here she sat like a lump while his wound needed tending.

  Plus, if she didn’t help, he might end up wandering around outside, looking for a well pump or something. Gritting her teeth, she one-armed herself up off the floor and followed. She almost made it to what she assumed was the bathroom door when she sagged against the wall for support. She wondered just how much blood she had lost. He emerged from the bedroom, dropped a bulging yellow duffel bag and caught her just she lost her balance.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  She noticed that again he didn’t bother to apologize for his language. Familiarity must breed…something or other. She couldn’t remember what.

  “I’m all right,” she insisted. “Take me in the bathroom. In here. Sit me down on the…uh, commode.”

  He guided her through the door she indicated. “The what?”

  “Commode. Right there.” She waved hand at the appliance in question.

  “Whatever you say.” He stepped into the room, and halted as their reflection passed in the small, mirrored medicine cabinet.

  “What’s wrong?” Concerned, she tilted her face up to look at him.

  Jared was staring into the mirror. His gaze moved from her face to his and back. Then turned his head slightly back and forth, as if he doubted he believed what he saw.

  “It’s all right,” he said finally, tearing his gaze
away from the mirror. “Just glad to see a familiar face, for a change.”

  “Ah,” she replied in understanding. After more than a century, naturally, he’d be eager to get re-acquainted with his face.

  She managed to slap the lid on the toilet down just before he sat her on it. Then she leaned forward and let what remaining blood she had rush back to her head.

  “Look for washcloths, either under the sink or in that closet,” she pointed, and he found several. “You can,” she stopped to lick her dry lips, “get water by turning those knobs on the sink.” Lord, she was in no shape to walk him through how everything worked in this century. She hoped she could hold up.

  Somehow she expected him to be fascinated by the prospect of indoor running water, but he did as she directed without fuss. She supposed she should stop and ponder why, but there were more pressing matters to take care of right now.

  Jared winced at the discomfort he caused as he laid a warm, wet washcloth across Taylor’s shoulder. Plunging another under the running faucet, he studiously avoided another look in the mirror.

  At last, he’d had a good look at the face he’d stolen. That the face wasn’t half bad looking didn’t make him feel any better about his act of thievery. In fact, the surprising thing was that the face didn’t look too terribly different from the one he remembered. His borrowed hair was deep brown, the borrowed eyes blue. Just like his own.

  Odd that he managed to choose a man who looked remarkably like himself.

  As he waited for the damp cloths to do their work, he crouched before Taylor in the cramped space of this room filled with hard, shiny surfaces, and checked her over for other injuries. A prodigious amount of blood soaked her shirt, the knees of her pants, and crusted on her hands and forearms. Some splattered on the side of her face, probably from when the ball had grazed her shoulder.