Ghost Moon (30 page)

CHAPTER 46

GOING OUT FOR PIZZA WAS FUN. THE FOUR of them sat in a booth in Guido’s, which had just opened in a storefront on West Main that had once housed a shoe repair shop. The surroundings were Spartan—faux wood paneling, linoleum floors, a counter scavenged from a defunct bar. But the pizza—actually made by Emily Marsden, the fortyish wife of a Boatworks employee, who owned and operated the restaurant and had chosen the name simply because she liked it and it sounded Italian—was great.

Apparently half the town agreed. The place was packed with diners by seven, and people were coming in and out constantly to pick up carry-out pizza. Everyone knew Seth, of course, and most everyone knew Olivia. Greetings were exchanged right and left, and speculative looks were cast their way as they ate. She and Seth and their daughters going out for pizza should not have provoked any comment—it was a perfectly innocent activity. But in LaAngelle, whenever members of the opposite sex who weren’t father and daughter, mother and son, or brother and sister were seen eating out together, there was always a buzz. Given Seth’s stature in the community, there was going to be a lot of buzz. Once it was learned that he was no longer engaged to marry Mallory, the buzz would turn into a roar.

But that was something that could be held off until another day, Olivia thought with relief, as she and Seth exchanged a few smiling words with Sharon Bishop, the nosy high school principal, and her husband on the way out. For now, Seth’s broken engagement was not generally known, and she and Seth were protected from the worst of the talk by their stepcousin status.

Of course, that selfsame stepcousin status would simply be one more thing for the gossips to talk about once their new relationship became generally known.

Olivia wasn’t exactly looking forward to that. But when she considered the alternative—Seth’s being involved with anyone except herself—she decided, on balance, that she could live with it.

Martha was at the Big House when they got home. She was in the kitchen gossiping with Keith, who’d flown into Baton Rouge with David not long before, and driven on out to LaAngelle Plantation while David stopped off at the hospital to visit Big John. Martha and Keith had gotten to be good friends over the course of the last few weeks. Like army buddies, they joked with ghoulish humor, they’d shared a lot of KP duties.

As usual, Olivia supervised homework at the kitchen table. Both girls had the same assignments, but most of the time they worked at different paces. Sara, the diligent, plunged right in and kept plugging away until she was finished. Chloe, bright but rebellious, tended to put off whatever she could until the last moment, and then complete only what she had to under the threat, delivered by Seth, of major sanctions. Fortunately, there wasn’t much tonight, and homework was completed without any undue difficulties.

Still, by the time the girls had finished, picked out what they were going to wear the next day, had baths and fallen asleep, it was after ten.

Routines were good in that they lent an aura of normalcy to day-to-day living, even when the household could never, in the wake of Callie’s death, be the same as it was, Olivia reflected as she slid into the bathtub herself. The thought of her aunt brought a cloud of sadness with it. As she soaped herself, Olivia said a heartfelt prayer for the repose of Callie’s soul, and then surprised herself by yawning hugely. She was
tired.
She had listened to Sara’s prayers, read aloud a chapter from
Little
House in the Big Woods,
tucked her daughter in, and kissed her good night, while Martha and Seth, between them, performed essentially the same ritual for Chloe. Now that Sara had Smokey to sleep with her, she was usually content to fall asleep on her own. Leaving Sara to do so when she had always lain down with her daughter until she fell asleep was a transition point in their relationship, underlining to Olivia that Sara was growing up. She supposed that was why walking out of that bedroom and leaving Sara alone in it at night had lately caused her a pang of discomfort. Certainly there was no other explanation for her recent urge to crawl into bed with Sara and stay there until the sun broke the eastern sky in the morning.

Call her overprotective, but lately Olivia even had been getting up once or twice to check on Sara during the night. The vampire lightning bug king had not made an appearance in Sara’s dreams since Callie’s death, but still . . .

Every time she thought about those dreams, Olivia grew uneasy. Was it just coincidence that she had once had similar nightmares herself?

Maybe it was simply that both she and her daughter were prone to bad dreams, she mused. After all, she had been plagued by nightmares about her mother ever since returning to live at LaAngelle. Maybe there was something in the atmosphere here that both she and Sara were sensitive to, Olivia thought almost hopefully. Certainly the notion made more sense than anything else she could come up with.

But tonight, she was not going to think about nightmares, either hers or Sara’s. Tonight she was going to think about Seth.

Finishing her bath, she reapplied her makeup, brushed out her hair until it shone, applied a strategic dab or two of perfume, and dressed again, in a fresh pair of jeans and a white rayon camp shirt, which she tucked in at the waist. Then she went downstairs again.

Seth had said he would be waiting for her in the den. Olivia smiled with anticipation.

He was indeed waiting for her in the den, Olivia saw as she stepped through the pocket doors. He was sitting on the yellow chintz couch, long legs stretched out before him, hands locked behind his head as he talked to David, who was sitting in the comfortably shabby leather armchair to his right. On the other side of the couch Keith sat in the matching leather armchair, talking to Martha, who had pulled up a rocking chair. They all faced the TV, which was on, but no one seemed to be watching it.

Taking in this group with a glance, Olivia had to smile. So much for being private with Seth.

He must have thought the same thing, because when she walked into the room he looked up, met her eyes, and gave her a rueful smile.

‘‘Oh, Olivia, Carl called for you. Something about Friday. I left the message on the blackboard in the kitchen,’’ Martha said.

Seth’s smile soured and died, and his eyes narrowed.

‘‘Thanks, Martha.’’ Conversely, Seth’s reaction widened Olivia’s smile. She was, of course, going to tell Carl that she couldn’t go out with him on Friday. But she liked the idea that Seth didn’t like Carl’s call, nonetheless. It made up, a little, for what she had suffered over Mallory.

Olivia looked around the room and hesitated, not sure whether or where to sit down. All the chairs were taken, and she wasn’t really comfortable about the idea of sitting on the couch beside Seth. Their involvement wasn’t ready for public consumption yet. It was still too new.

Seth solved her dilemma by standing up.

‘‘If you think he ought to be transferred to another hospital, I have no objection,’’ Seth said to David. ‘‘Charlie doesn’t seem to think it’s a good idea, though.’’

‘‘He’s not showing any improvement where he is,’’ David said.

‘‘We can talk about it some more tomorrow.’’ Seth shifted his attention to Olivia, and smiled. ‘‘Feel like getting some fresh air?’’

Olivia nodded, too conscious of suddenly being the cynosure of all eyes to speak. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Keith look significantly at David, and David nod discreetly in turn. Martha’s eyes widened.

‘‘Good night, all,’’ Seth said over his shoulder, and followed Olivia out of the room to an answering chorus of good-nights.

Once outside on the veranda with the front door shut behind them, Olivia stopped and took a huge gulp of warm, honeysuckle-scented night air. Seth, standing beside her, grinned down at her.

‘‘Think they’re talking about us?’’

‘‘Oh, yeah.’’

‘‘It’s going to get worse before it gets better.’’

‘‘I know.’’

‘‘Can you take the heat?’’

Olivia shrugged fatalistically. ‘‘Considering the alternative, I guess I can.’’

‘‘And the alternative is . . .?’’

‘‘Giving you back to Mallory.’’ She shook her head, and slanted a smiling look up at him. ‘‘Nope. Not an option.’’

Seth turned her around to face him, his hands on her arms just above her elbows. His eyes met hers, a trifle narrowed even as a faint smile flickered around the corners of his mouth.

‘‘By the way, when you talk to Carl, you had better explain exactly why you won’t be going out with him, because if he continues to come sniffing around the front office every day like he has been I’m liable to break his nose.’’

Olivia grinned. ‘‘You wouldn’t.’’

‘‘I might. He’s been in my damned office three times a day for the past month, and I’m getting tired of seeing his ugly face. Before you came to work for us, if I saw him twice a week it was a lot. When you were turning him down, the situation was just barely tolerable. Once you said yes to him, the potential for violence rose considerably.’’

‘‘Jealous,’’ Olivia said reprovingly, and shook her head at him. Her arms slid up around his neck.

‘‘Damn right.’’ He looked down at her, his hands at her waist, and his gaze slid from her eyes to her mouth. But he didn’t kiss her, as she had expected, and he seemed suddenly restless. ‘‘Want to go for a walk?’’

Olivia shook her head. ‘‘Not really.’’

‘‘We could sit out here for a while and talk.’’

‘‘Yeah. We could.’’ Her lack of enthusiasm was clear from her tone.

‘‘What do you want to do, then?’’ He sounded faintly impatient.

‘‘Oh, I don’t know. I thought we might—go to bed.’’ Her eyes twinkled up at him.

Seth began to grin. ‘‘Here I am, trying to court you, trying to inject a little romance into what’s left of our evening, and all you can think about is rushing me into bed. If you’re not careful, you’re going to make me think you don’t respect me.’’

Olivia’s hands slid down over his shoulders, and she began to undo the top button on his shirt. ‘‘Oh, sure, I respect you. But what I really want to do is see you naked.’’

‘‘That’s it.’’ Seth’s hands closed over hers as she undid the second button, stilling them and holding them against his chest. She could feel his body heat radiating through the thin denim. His eyes gleamed down at her. ‘‘Let’s go upstairs.’’

They turned as one toward the door, and stopped dead, exchanging bemused glances.

‘‘They’ll see us going up the stairs,’’ Olivia said hollowly.

Seth ran a hand through his hair, and stared at the closed door in frustration. ‘‘Hell, I feel like a teenager.’’

‘‘Want to go make out in your car?’’ Olivia asked, and began to giggle.

‘‘Hush, they’ll hear you.’’ He gripped her hand, pulling her along the front of the house. ‘‘I’ve got a plan.’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘We’ll sneak up the outside stairs, and go through the French windows.’’

‘‘Lover, I don’t know about you, but I keep my French windows locked.’’

Seth stopped on the first rung of the metal stairs along the side of the house that led up to the gallery, and looked down at her.

‘‘What did you call me?’’

Olivia was suddenly self-conscious as she remembered. ‘‘Oh—lover?’’

He came back down the stairs to slide a hand under her hair and tilt her face up to his. ‘‘I like the way you say that,’’ he said, and kissed her.

When he let her go, Olivia’s head was spinning.

‘‘Come on.’’ Seth pulled her ruthlessly up the stairs behind him, then along the gallery. ‘‘Your room or mine?’’ he asked over his shoulder.

‘‘Mine’s locked,’’ Olivia reminded him in a hushed tone. Her lips still throbbed from that kiss.

‘‘So’s mine.’’ He paused to fish something out of one of the hanging fern baskets. ‘‘Yours is closer,’’ he decided.

‘‘What is that?’’ Her gaze was riveted on the object he held in one hand.

‘‘A file. I guess it’s been in that basket for decades. I haven’t used it often, but when I do I always put it back. It’s pretty handy, actually. If you just slip it between the windows, you can jimmy up the latch, and—presto— you’re in.’’ He demonstrated on her window as he spoke. Olivia was appalled at how easily he gained access to her room.

‘‘You mean that thing’s been out there all this time?’’ she demanded accusingly even as he drew her inside and closed the window behind them. She’d left the bedside lamp on, and its warm glow made the room seem welcoming. ‘‘
Anybody
could have done that! I want that thing—and I want those latches replaced with something more modern that can’t be jimmied! Tomorrow!’’

As she considered the possibilities, Olivia’s blood ran cold.

‘‘If it bothers you, sure,’’ Seth said, putting the file down on her dresser and sounding faintly surprised. ‘‘I guess I never thought about it from a woman’s point of view. It always just seemed kind of convenient to me. In case I was out late, and forgot my key.’’

‘‘It would.’’ Olivia was already being distracted by his arms sliding around her waist. His arms were solid with muscle, and his body as he pulled her against it felt rock hard. She loved the way he felt. His blond head bent over her dark one, and she looked up at him. His face was bronzed and hard-planed, with tiny lines radiating out from the corners of his eyes. His mouth was long and firm and just faintly smiling. Her gaze traveled over his firm chin and down the strong column of his throat to the buttons she had unfastened on his shirt. Making a mental note to call a locksmith first thing in the morning, she turned her attention to unfastening the remaining buttons.

CHAPTER 47

‘‘YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL,’’ SETH SAID, AS HER FINGERS worked at the buttons. Glancing up at him, Olivia discovered that he wasn’t smiling any longer. His eyes were intent on her face, and something about the way he was looking at her gave her the shivers. She finished with the buttons and his shirt fell open, exposing a long rectangle of hard-muscled flesh liberally covered with hair.

‘‘So are you,’’ she replied cordially, and he responded, she thought, involuntarily, with the ghost of a smile.

Her hands slid up over his chest, savoring the warmth and feel of his bare skin. He caught her hands, flattening them against him. When she looked up at him inquiringly, he shook his head at her. Heat flared at her from the depths of his eyes.

‘‘Stop right there,’’ he said, his voice husky. ‘‘Or this is going to go way too fast.’’

‘‘I want to see you naked. I told you.’’ Olivia was teasing him, flirting with him, but at the look in his eyes she caught her breath, and suddenly she wasn’t teasing anymore. He let go of her hands to pull her into his arms, and she slid her hands up under his shirt, over his broad shoulders, and clung. Beneath her fingers she could feel his shoulders tighten. One hand slid down her back, found the curve of her bottom in the ancient jeans, and splayed over it, pulling her hard against him.

Then he kissed her.

Olivia clung to his shoulders and pressed her body against his and rose up on her tiptoes as she kissed him back. Then she reached between them for the button securing his pants. As she freed it he made a sound like a groan under his breath and lifted her off her feet, carrying her the few steps to the bed.

‘‘You’re strong,’’ she said admiringly, batting her eyelashes at him playfully.

The merest shadow of a smile touched his mouth. ‘‘You’re light.’’

He laid her down, and shrugged out of his shirt. Olivia had just a second to admire the sheer masculine beauty of his chest before he came down beside her, his broad shoulders blocking the light of the bedside lamp. Not bothering with the buttons, which Olivia thought commendably efficient of him, he lifted her loose white camp shirt over her head and threw it aside. For a moment he looked down at her, his eyes admiring the silky pink bra that she had taken pains to wear for him.

‘‘Pretty,’’ he said, and bent his head to press his lips to her nipple through the thin layer of rayon.

Olivia shuddered as the moist heat of his mouth burned through to her flesh, and buried both hands in the short spikes of his hair. After a moment he lifted his head, then reached around behind her back to unhook her bra. Removing it, he simply looked down at her for a moment, his gaze devouring the full, strawberry-tipped globes of her breasts.

While she watched him, he bent his head again. Warm, moist, and just faintly rough, his tongue ran over her already distended nipple. Desire shot through her like a lightning bolt. She gasped, pulling his head down harder against her breast. Obediently he drew her nipple into his mouth, nibbling and tugging. Even as his mouth moved to her other breast, his hand found and freed the snap of her jeans. As she heard the sound of her zipper being lowered, he lifted his head away from her breast. His gaze fixed on her face. Their eyes met for a moment, and then Olivia’s attention shifted. She watched, fascinated, as his hand, long-fingered and bronzed, disappeared inside her open zipper. His palm was warm and faintly rough as it slid over her stomach and delved inside her pink bikini panties.

Then he made her wait.

Olivia squirmed, silently pleading with him to continue as his fingers found and caressed the sable triangle of curls, while refusing to go lower. He was teasing her deliberately, she knew. He knew what she wanted. She glanced up at him, half annoyed, half on fire, to find that he was watching her still.

‘‘Seth.’’ Desperate, she gasped out his name. Her hands dropped from his shoulders, slid down his arms and back up again, her nails faintly scoring the hard muscles there in supplication.

At that he relented, pushing her jeans and panties down almost to her knees and sliding his fingers between her thighs. He touched her where she most wished to be touched, watching her face as he pressed and stroked and finally slid inside. Olivia closed her eyes against his heated blue gaze and dug her nails into the mattress and gave herself up to the mind-blowing pleasure of it, writhing desperately under the ministrations of that knowing hand until finally, without warning, it withdrew. She made a faint sound of protest, and her eyes opened. Her gaze met his for one electrifying instant as he stood up to shuck his pants, and then he jerked her jeans and panties the rest of the way off and replaced his fingers with his mouth.

By the time he slid up her body, heatedly kissing her belly button and breasts on the way and then burying his mouth against her throat, Olivia was on fire, trembling with need as she wrapped her legs around his hips. She felt the fine tremors that shook his arms as they crushed her to him, and realized that he was trembling, too. Then he was inside her, plunging deep, and she cried out.

All thoughts of playing were forgotten now. He took her fiercely, driving into her with an urgency that made her strain and buck and writhe in frenzied response. Her hips arched up off the bed to receive him. She shook, and clung, and at the end, when the firestorm took her, cried out his name.

‘‘Livvy,’’ he groaned in response, huge and hard and hot as he thrust into her trembling body. ‘‘Ah, Livvy.’’

Then he shuddered, and was still, holding himself throbbing inside her. After a moment he went limp. His big body sprawled atop her, damp with sweat.

Olivia wrapped her arms around his back, kissed his shoulder, and closed her eyes. Within seconds she was fathoms-deep asleep.

‘‘Livvy! Livvy, wake up! Olivia!’’ His voice pulled her out of it, dragging her from the darkness, from the shore of the moonlit lake where her mother struggled in the water. Olivia moaned and flailed, hitting something warm and resilient and then gasping as a brilliant burst of light shone full on her fluttering lids.

‘‘Livvy!’’

Seth’s voice. She would know Seth’s voice anywhere. Gasping as though she had run a marathon, she opened her eyes a slit. Seth was leaning over her, his blond hair wildly disordered, five o’clock shadow darkening his cheeks and chin, his blue eyes narrowed with concern for her. His broad bare shoulders and the tapered width of his chest loomed in front of her, and Olivia saw with a glance that he was propped on one elbow, his chest and arms naked above the quilt that cut him off at the waist. A second, sweeping glance showed her that they were in her big four-poster bed, in the bedroom she had inherited from Belinda.

They had made love. She had fallen asleep. Seth must have tucked them both in—and he had stayed with her. As the knowledge that she was sleeping with Seth percolated through her terror-dulled brain, Olivia took a deep breath, and some of the tension that held her in thrall seeped away.

‘‘Seth,’’ she murmured. Taking further stock of the situation, she realized that they were both naked—and then she smelled it: the elusive hint of White Shoulders perfume. Glancing quickly at the clock, she saw that the time was 3:29 A.M.

Seth had dragged her from sleep before the dream ended.

‘‘Do you smell it?’’ she asked him, not very coherently, looking wildly around. The light was on. Except for the part Seth’s body blocked from view, she could see the entire room perfectly. No one was present except the two of them. No ghost, and no living human being.

Only that trace of perfume.

‘‘Smell what, baby?’’ The frown that had been lifting from his face settled back down again. Furrows marred the skin between his brows. His eyes moved over her face.

‘‘Anything. Sniff!’’ Fully awake now, Olivia hitched herself up on the pillows, taking the sheet with her and securing it with an arm above her breasts. She glanced around the room again as she followed her own instruction. Looking at her like he thought she’d lost her mind, Seth nevertheless sniffed the air.

‘‘Well?’’ she demanded.

‘‘All I smell is your own sweet skin,’’ he said with a humorous glint, lowering his nose to her arm and ostentatiously sniffing. ‘‘Very nice.’’

‘‘I’m serious.’’ She smacked his thickly muscled shoulder with her palm, and he straightened. Another glance around the room convinced her: She and Seth were alone. The smell of the perfume was fading, too.

‘‘What am I supposed to smell?’’ he asked cautiously, glancing around, too. ‘‘Gas or something?’’

Olivia sighed. ‘‘My mother’s perfume,’’ she admitted, knowing that it sounded outlandish even as she said it. ‘‘She wore White Shoulders a lot. I remember how it smelled. Every time I wake up from having the nightmare, the smell is in the room.’’

For a moment Seth said nothing. He simply regarded her narrowly from under frowning brows. Then he flopped back down on his pillow, slid an arm behind his head, and looked at her again.

‘‘And you believe your mother is haunting you.’’ It was a shrewd guess. Seth knew her well.

‘‘Yes. No. I don’t know. What am I supposed to think? I keep having this nightmare, and every time I wake up I smell her perfume.’’

Seth sighed. Reaching over, he slid an arm beneath her and pulled her against him. Nothing loath, Olivia snuggled close, ending up with her head on his shoulder and one hand splayed across the warm breadth of his chest. Before they were settled, her leg was draped over his thighs.

‘‘So talk to me,’’ he said. ‘‘I take it you’ve been having nightmares ever since I told you about your mother’s suicide. You should have told me.’’

‘‘Actually,’’ Olivia said, her fingers idly tracing the outlines of the hard muscles beneath the gold-tipped hair on his chest, ‘‘I started having this nightmare—this same nightmare—before I knew anything about that. I’ve been having it ever since I came home again. And—and that’s not all. In my dream, my mother—it doesn’t seem like she’s committing suicide. It’s more as if something is pulling her under the water against her will. Every time I dream about it, the details get more vivid, but it’s the same thing. Her drowning is not a suicide.’’

‘‘Hmm,’’ he said, and thus encouraged, Olivia ended up telling him about everything: the voices that seemed to call to her from the lake, her odd, almost physically ill reaction to her mother’s picture, even the face that was so like her own but wasn’t quite hers in the mirror in the bedroom where Sara now slept. She didn’t leave anything out, and by the time she got through she felt several degrees better.

Seth said nothing for a moment, just lay there with a meditative expression on his face.

‘‘So I’m a total nutcase, right?’’ she asked, feeling almost cheerful. The improvement in her mood had something to do with getting the whole thing off her chest, she knew. But it had more to do with the fact that she was naked in bed with Seth, had been sleeping with Seth, and now considered him irretrievably hers. She was ready, willing, and able to take on all challengers.

‘‘I’d say you were more traumatized than nuts,’’ Seth said slowly. ‘‘Livvy—I think you ought to talk to someone about it.’’

‘‘I just told
you
the whole thing.’’ There was the faintest touch of indignation in her voice.

He slanted a look down at her. ‘‘I mean a professional. A psychiatrist. Like I said, I think your mother’s death traumatized you. Moving back home after all that time away must have jolted loose all kinds of emotions that you’ve been suppressing for years.’’

Olivia thought about that for a moment. ‘‘Is that what you think is happening?’’

‘‘I don’t see any other explanation.’’

Olivia peeped up at him. ‘‘You don’t think—my mother’s haunting me, trying to tell me that her death
wasn’t
a suicide?’’

One corner of Seth’s mouth quirked up in a wry smile. ‘‘Livvy, seriously, do you?’’

‘‘But what about the perfume? I keep smelling it every time I have the dream. And the face in the mirror, too. I’m—I’m almost sure it was my mother’s face I saw, not mine.’’

‘‘I didn’t smell anything, Livvy.’’ His voice was gentle.

Olivia grimaced. ‘‘You’re saying it’s my imagination.’’

‘‘I’m saying you ought to talk to somebody. Get Charlie to give you the name of somebody good.’’

‘‘Seth.’’

‘‘Hmmm?’’

‘‘I’m glad you were with me tonight when it happened. It’s been horrible, having that dream night after night and waking up terrified and all alone.’’

A spark of humor lit his eyes. ‘‘You should have come and crawled in bed with me. I wouldn’t have kicked you out, guaranteed.’’

Olivia smiled. ‘‘I wish now I had, just to get your reaction.’’

‘‘Baby, believe me, there’s no doubt about my reaction. I’ve been wanting to take you to bed since you were seventeen years old.’’

Olivia’s hand stilled palm-down on his chest. She propped her chin on her flat hand and stared at him. ‘‘You have not.’’

‘‘I can still remember the dress you wore the night you eloped. It was bright red, had little skinny straps and ruffles around your knees, and made your tits and ass look good enough to eat.’’

‘‘How vulgar.’’ Olivia chided him for his choice of words with a grin.

‘‘Yeah, well, when I caught you making out with that lowlife Morrison—right before we had our fight and you ended up slapping my face—’’

‘‘Sorry,’’ Olivia mouthed with a little moue of apology.

‘‘What I really wanted to do was kiss you myself. Actually, take you to bed myself. I knew you were sleeping with him.’’ Seth’s voice deepened into a growl at the end.

Olivia’s eyes widened on his face. Her breath caught in her throat at the look in his eyes, and her pulse picked up its pace.

‘‘I wish you had,’’ she said softly. ‘‘Kissed me, I mean, and taken me to bed. That night. It would have saved us both a truckload of trouble.’’

‘‘I was a twenty-eight-year-old man then, and you were a wild little girl of seventeen. We might have been legal together, but we sure as hell wouldn’t have been moral. Besides, you thought of me as a sort of big brother. If I had touched you then, I would have been a bigger lowlife even than that loser Morrison.’’