Ghost Moon (25 page)

She lifted her head from his shoulder and met his gaze. With the sound and smell of the rain adding exotic texture to the darkness all around them, they could have been alone on a deserted island.

‘‘I want you to,’’ she whispered, her hands tightening around his neck. His eyes gleamed down at her, and the corners of his mouth tightened briefly in acknowledgment.

Then he shouldered through the window, took the few strides he needed to cross the room, and laid her down very gently on her bed.

CHAPTER 37

SETH CAME DOWN BESIDE HER, HIS MOUTH ON hers again almost before Olivia had time to draw breath. Hers was a double bed with a thick, too-soft mattress, a mahogany four-poster that was not an antique but merely old. It creaked as his weight joined hers, and creaked again as he kicked aside the covers that Olivia had left already partially thrown back. Except for the faint greenish glow of the digital clock, there was no trace of light in the room. Even the French window, which still stood partially open, let in only a wedge of rain-tinged charcoal that blended almost unnoticed into the darkness.

His hands went under her nightgown, stroking over her skin, caressing her thighs and stomach and breasts. Then, in a single, swift movement he pulled the flimsy garment up over her head and off, tossing it out of his way. She was naked while he was still fully clothed in the khaki pants and blue button-down dress shirt he’d apparently worn home from the hospital. She thought he even still wore his shoes. The feel of his hard, clothed body pressing against her nakedness made her ache. She reached for the buttons on his shirt, determined to strip him, too. Then his fingers slid between her legs, staking quick, intimate claim to her body, and his mouth trailed down over her neck to find her breasts.

Olivia gasped, shuddering, her body instantly catching fire as his hands and mouth took thorough and complete possession of her. After that, all she could do was cling to him and respond. He was urgent with passion, his mouth and hands faintly rough as they molded her to his will, his lovemaking selfish with need.

This was Seth, she kept reminding herself.
Seth
. . . Anything he wanted to do to her, he did with her goodwill. She was pliant as quicksilver beneath his hands, too aroused to do more than clutch the sheet upon which she lay and writhe in mounting ecstasy beneath his caresses. He staged a predatory assault upon her senses, determined, ruthless, driven by a fierce passion that overwhelmed every inhibition she had ever had.

By the time he got naked himself and pushed inside her, she was begging for it, gasping her need into his ear, cajoling him with her hands and her body. The joining felt so good, so right, that she came almost instantly, stiffening and gasping out his name as he filled her. But he didn’t stop, didn’t wait. He pulled back out and drove in again, then kept going, his strokes violently hard and fast, his mouth finding hers and taking it, too. Kissing him back with passionate abandon, Olivia wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and moved with him, matching him stroke for ruthless stroke, her body catching fire once more.

He shuddered when he came, and she shuddered, too, then came again herself. For a moment afterward he was still, lying on top of her, his weight pushing her down into the mattress, his body hot and damp, his breathing labored. Then he shifted, rolling to one side and pulling her with him. He ended up flat on his back with his head on her pillow, his arms holding her loosely as her head rested on his shoulder.

‘‘Livvy.’’ His breathing had slowed, and his voice, though still husky, was almost back to normal. ‘‘God, Livvy. I never meant to do that.’’

Her right hand, which had been working its way through the surprisingly thick wedge of hair on his chest, stilled. Her head lifted from his shoulder as she tried, and failed, to read his expression through the darkness.

‘‘If you’re getting ready to apologize, Seth Archer, let me warn you that I’ve always greatly admired Lorena Bobbitt.’’

‘‘You’re scaring me to death.’’ There was the suggestion of a smile in his voice. ‘‘Actually, I’m not sorry. Or, at least, I’m only sorry if you’re sorry.’’

‘‘I’m not sorry.’’

He took a deep breath, and went very still suddenly. Olivia sensed that the memory of his mother’s death had come crashing down on him without warning. For a moment the weight of his grief was almost palpable.

She closed her eyes, hurting, too, for him and for herself. But hurting served no purpose. It would not change a thing, right a wrong, bring the dead back to life. And she could not bear the thought that he was suffering. Opening her eyes, she wriggled on top of him, her naked front lying full against his, and tilted her head to press a softly titillating kiss on his mouth.

‘‘For the rest of the night, we’re not going to think about anything but this,’’ she whispered, reaching down between their bodies to find and hold his already hardening member. ‘‘Nothing but this.’’

Then she kissed him again, and, after the briefest of hesitations, he kissed her back. This time, when they made love, she was the aggressor, her hands and mouth learning all there was to know about him. In the end, though, they reached the same peaks as before, and she had to press her mouth hard against his shoulder to muffle her cries.

Eventually they fell asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms.

When Olivia opened her eyes pale morning light was pouring through the window Seth had left ajar, spilling over the bed—and her alarm clock was jangling with shrill urgency.

‘‘Reality intrudes,’’ Seth muttered, as Olivia lunged across the bed to shut the thing off.

For a moment she lay on her stomach, naked, blinking, her upper torso supported by her elbows, her hair falling forward over her shoulders. Then she tossed the curtain of coffee-colored hair back from her face and looked at Seth.

She’d slept with Seth
. Just putting it into words in her mind made her feel tingly all over.

His eyes were closed. His short, sandy hair was mussed so that the longer top part stood up in spikes. A dark stubble of five o’clock shadow roughened his cheeks and jaw. The tiny lines radiating from the corners of his eyes and the deeper ones bracketing his mouth were all too visible in the unforgiving morning light. And still, she thought, all she had to do was look at him lying naked in her bed and her pulse picked up and her body melted.

She had slept with Seth
.

He was sprawled on his back with the sheet pulled up over his body almost to the waist. His chest was paler than his arms and neck and face, which Olivia knew was because he did not often go shirtless in the sun. One arm was folded beneath his head, revealing a shock of ash-brown hair in his armpit. Olivia took just an instant to admire the corded muscles in that bent arm. Then her gaze moved appreciatively over the powerful-looking width of his shoulders, his broad chest with its triangle of ash-brown curls and flat male nipples, and what she could see of his sinewy abdomen. Finally her gaze rose again to his face. She expected to find that by now he was looking at her with the same interest she was according him, but he was not. His eyes remained closed. The tautness of his facial muscles and the thin, compressed line of his mouth told her that he was once again experiencing the pain of his loss.

Reality intrudes,
he’d said. Ah, yes. Olivia felt the heavy weight of grief begin to settle over them both, over the house. With the coming of day, there was no longer any way to ward it off.

‘‘I’ve got to make some phone calls, and tell Chloe,’’ he said heavily, opening his eyes and meeting her gaze. ‘‘Jesus, I’m no good at this.’’

His gaze swept down her body, lingering in obvious appreciation of the lush curves of her breasts, the feminine indentation of her waist, the roundness of her bottom, the shapeliness of her legs. The tawny cast of her skin stood out sharply against the whiteness of the sheets, and she thought from his expression that he admired that, too.

His eyes met hers again when he had finished looking, and this time he smiled crookedly at her, the somberness that now darkened his expression lifting briefly.

‘‘Last night, did I remember to tell you how beautiful you are?’’ he asked.

Olivia shook her head without speaking.

‘‘The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,’’ he said, leaning sideways to kiss her mouth.

Her mouth softened responsively under his, but before she could do more he straightened, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and stood up.

He seemed totally unself-conscious about his nudity as he reached for the clothes he had dropped on the floor the night before. The idea that she was seeing Seth naked entranced Olivia. She silently admired his tall, muscular athlete’s build, his firm butt, and his other very male parts. She was an interested spectator as he pulled on his clothes with swift efficiency, stepping first into his briefs—he wore briefs, plain white Fruit of the Looms— and then his pants, which he buttoned and zipped. Pulling on his shirt, he buttoned only a couple of buttons and left the tails hanging, stuffed his socks in his pants pockets, and thrust his bare feet into his shoes.

Then he looked at her again. By this time, she was in a sitting position, propped up by pillows against the headboard. The sheet was anchored firmly beneath her armpits so that her body was now modestly hidden from his view.

‘‘What do you think I should tell Chloe?’’ he asked, pain obvious in the narrowing of his eyes and the hard set of his jaw. ‘‘That Nana died last night? Isn’t that kind of blunt for an eight-year-old to hear? That Nana went to heaven to be an angel? What?’’

Olivia hesitated. Breaking the news to a child of the death of a loved one was new to her, too. She thought of what she would say to Sara under such circumstances. She thought of the very little she could remember of what had once been said to her.

‘‘I think I’d tell her both of those things,’’ she said slowly. ‘‘And tell her that her Nana loved her and will always be watching over her. If it’s possible, I’d let her help in planning the funeral. She needs to be a part of this, Seth. It’ll help her come to terms with the reality of what’s happened.’’

Seth nodded, then grimaced. ‘‘I’m having a hard time grasping that Mother’s gone myself. Until yesterday, I never really believed she was going to die.’’

He turned away and started for the window. Before he stepped through it, he turned back to look at her.

‘‘Livvy, thank you,’’ he said quietly. ‘‘Without you, I don’t think I could have made it through last night.’’

She made a face at him. ‘‘Please, think nothing of it,’’ she said, too politely. ‘‘I’m glad I was able to help.’’

That earned her a half smile.

‘‘God, I’m glad you’re home,’’ he said, and stepped through the window, pulling it closed behind him.

Olivia simply sat and looked at that closed window for a long time.

CHAPTER 38

THE FEW DAYS UNTIL CALLIE’S FUNERAL PASSED in a blur for Olivia. From almost the moment she left her room that first morning, she was busy. Which, she decided, was a good thing, because it left her no time to think or feel or do anything but
do
. There were phone calls to be made, houseguests to be seen to, and Sara and Chloe to be taken care of, as well as a thousand and one other chores.

Seth was even busier than she was, and, she suspected, he welcomed the constant activity for the same reason she did: It kept him from having to deal with his own emotions. She scarcely saw him, and never alone, which was just as well, because every time she remembered the intimacy of the things they had done together in her bed she wanted to blush. That she could have done this or kissed that or permitted the other with her big cousin— in the cold light of day, it seemed almost impossible.

Clearly he had put that night behind him. Not by word or gesture did he indicate to her that he saw her any differently than he had before. Once he walked out of her bedroom, it was as though nothing between them had changed.

He was busy, she told herself. Very busy. Besides making the arrangements for his mother, he still had the Boatworks to run, Big John to check on and make decisions for, and everybody in town coming by the house and funeral home and stopping him everywhere he went to offer condolences.

Theriot’s Funeral Home on Cocodrie Street, where Callie’s body had been taken, was packed, as the entire population of the town of LaAngelle came by during visiting hours to pay their respects. Everyone had loved Callie Archer, and Olivia got the sense that her death was felt to be the community’s loss as much as the family’s.

Callie’s sister Ruth and two elderly aunts were staying at the Big House until after the funeral. In addition to those overnight guests, the house was filled with people day and night. They went to the funeral home for visiting hours in droves, and they returned to the house afterward in droves. Martha and Keith cooked from dawn until midnight, and casseroles were dropped off almost hourly by those expressing their sympathy in the most practical way they could think of.

The atmosphere at the house, and, to a lesser extent, at the funeral home, was surreal. It was almost that of a party, with relatives who had not seen each other for months or years catching up on their lives, and friends and neighbors gathering in little groups to gossip about everything from the state of their jobs to the state of the country, to the fashions the mourners were wearing, to the love lives of those assembled. Children were everywhere, running in and out as if they had been brought together for a play date rather than a funeral. Besides Sara and Chloe, there were Phillip’s four, Belinda and Charlie’s daughter Angela’s two, and a whole passel of ever-changing children from the town. They ate and drank, played and squabbled, and in general served as counterpoint to the true somberness of the occasion.

Savory smells emanated around the clock from the kitchen, where the counters and table were loaded down periodically with a buffet feast. In the dining room, urns full of coffee and tea had been set up, along with a constantly changing variety of tempting desserts (Keith’s specialty). So many flowers were delivered that Olivia eventually ended up massing the overflow at either end of the veranda. Their sweet perfume lay heavy on the air, a constant reminder of both life and death.

As Seth’s fiancée, Mallory was very much in evidence, standing with the family at the funeral home, giving directions to Martha and the other help hired for the occasion, and acting as hostess at the house. She also bought a beautiful black taffeta dress with a white lace collar and a white petticoat at an exclusive store in Baton Rouge and brought it out for Chloe to wear to the funeral, with matching white lace stockings and shiny black patent leather shoes.

Chloe, of course, when presented with the gift, refused to so much as try the dress on. Summoned to the scene of the crisis by an alarmed Sara, and fearing an imminent explosion that would be made doubly dreadful with so many people in the house, Olivia hastily distracted Chloe by telling her that Martha needed both her and Sara urgently in the kitchen to help make brownies for the visiting youngsters, which both girls loved to do. Then Olivia placated Mallory by promising to do her best to get Chloe to wear the dress to the funeral.

With Callie no longer with them to see to Chloe’s needs, and since no one wanted to intrude on Seth with petty annoyances at such a time, Olivia quietly oversaw Chloe as well as Sara. Since figuring out the cause of Chloe’s bouts of misbehavior, she had developed a very real sympathy for the child, and a growing fondness for her as well.

Besides dealing with her own grief over Callie’s death, the hardest thing for Olivia was watching Seth with Mallory. Chic in black, her blond hair elegantly styled, her makeup flawless, Mallory was never far from Seth’s side during those difficult days. She clung to his arm, whispered in his ear, hugged him, dropped light kisses on his cheek or mouth when she entered or exited a room where he was present. Seth made no effort that Olivia could detect to repulse her. On the contrary, he seemed perfectly accepting of her attentions. Which, of course, was understandable, given that Mallory was Seth’s fiancée. But watching them made Olivia burn with what she was finally forced to acknowledge was a case of acute jealousy. She had to keep reminding herself that Seth was no more hers now than he had ever been. Just because they’d spent the night together did not mean that he belonged to her. He belonged to Mallory.

The sad truth of the situation was, she had simply helped him make it through one really difficult night. He was going to
marry
Mallory.

She had known better than to have sex with Seth. She had warned herself against it from the beginning. But she had gone ahead and done it anyway, and look where it had landed her: She seethed with jealousy whenever Mallory was near, she burned with resentment when Seth treated her no differently than he ever had, and she ached for him to wrap his arms around her and kiss her senseless and carry her off to bed again.

None of which was a pleasant state of affairs, and all of which she had brought on herself.

The strain of juggling so many emotional balls must have shown on her face, because on the night before the funeral—it was to be held at eleven o’clock Thursday, at St. Luke’s—Charlie came up to her as she was refilling the coffee urn in the dining room and asked with some concern how she was holding up.

‘‘You look pale,’’ he said, his hazel eyes kind as they moved over her face. ‘‘And you have big dark circles around your eyes. Are you getting enough sleep?’’

Olivia smiled affectionately at him. The short answer was no. So that Chloe would not be alone at night—the time, as she knew from experience, when grief weighs the heaviest—she had set up Sara’s room as slumber party central. She, Sara—a willing helper in the plan to keep Chloe occupied—and Chloe had constructed a tent from quilts, furnished it with sleeping bags, and brought in a TV with a VCR, eight-year-old-friendly tapes, books, and snacks. That was where the two girls and their three cats had been sleeping, while she slept in Sara’s bed in the midst of the nightly circus to keep an eye on them and be there if she was needed. As she had fully expected, the girls kept her awake till midnight or later every night. After exhaustion finally claimed them, thoughts of Seth with Mallory plagued Olivia (were they having sex even at that moment?) enough to penetrate even the weight of her ever-present grief for Callie. Then, when she finally did manage to fall asleep, her mother’s death haunted her dreams, in ever more excruciating detail.

She woke up every night about three thirty A.M., bathed in sweat and terrified, to the scent of White Shoulders perfume. And that wasn’t all. One night just as she was about to close her eyes she could have sworn she saw the rocking chair in the corner move as if someone were rocking there. Another time, right after the girls had gone to sleep, she’d looked into the gilt-framed mirror that had been hers as a child and gotten the uncanny sensation that the face looking back at her was not her own, but her mother’s. There was the slightest difference in the angle of the jaw, and the shape of the nose. . . .

The sense that she was looking at her mother’s ghost had so unnerved her that she’d dropped the hairbrush she had been holding. She’d glanced down in automatic reaction to the falling brush, and when she’d looked in the mirror again the face she’d seen reflected there was definitely her own.

As had the first one been, of course. Any other interpretation was ridiculous. Her mother was not trying to communicate with her from beyond the grave. That was X-Files territory.

The more she thought about it, though, the more convinced she grew that the suicide scenario just did not fit with what she saw in her dreams. Of course, dreams were not reality, but still . . . She had a gut feeling about it: What she had been told about her mother’s death was somehow wrong.

‘‘No,’’ she said impulsively, in reply to Charlie’s question, turning to face him and placing a hand on his arm. Never a particularly handsome man, he was now balding and florid-faced and sporting a considerable spare tire around the middle. In a navy-blue suit with a white shirt and red tie, he looked hot and uncomfortable. ‘‘I’m not sleeping well. Seth told me not long ago that my mother—committed suicide, when I always thought her death was an accidental drowning. I’ve been having nightmares about it, and they’ve been keeping me awake. Seth also said that you tried to revive her the night she died, and you’d been treating her for depression prior to that. Is that true?’’

Charlie looked taken aback, but he nodded slowly, his gaze keen on her face. ‘‘I don’t know why he told you that. But yes, it’s true.’’

Olivia glanced around as a couple of neighbors wandered in for coffee and dessert. She lowered her voice. ‘‘In my dream, I can see the whole thing happening. My mother in the lake, and—and everything. It doesn’t
feel
like she’s committing suicide. I think that’s what’s really bothering me.’’

Charlie, too, glanced at the people behind them. ‘‘If you really want to talk about it, stop by my office next week,’’ he said quietly. ‘‘I’ll be glad to tell you everything I know.’’

Olivia nodded and would have said more, but at that moment Mallory appeared in the doorway, her gaze going straight to Olivia, her mouth thin-lipped with rage.