“The smell of things,” he replied. “I’d love to know what you smell like.”
“You can’t smell anything at all?”
He shook his head easily, since in actuality his head did not lie against the pillow, only floated there. “Nothing at all.”
“Weird.” Once the shock wore off, it actually made sense. He still existed here, but didn’t hold any physical form—gifts given to someone alive wouldn’t be granted to him. “What else?”
“Touch.”
That brought up a good point I’d been wondering. “Why can you touch yourself, but not me?”
“From what I’ve come up with, I’m guessing it’s because I’m not in this world anymore, so I’m unable to act as if I am.”
“Where are you then?” I whispered, preparing for an answer I assumed would startle me.
He shrugged half-heartedly. “I still haven’t figured it all out, but it would explain why I’m able to touch Hannah.”
“I’d wondered that too.” As curious as his admission had been, my thoughts drifted along another line. “Does it feel the same to touch her as it did when you were alive?”
“Completely the same.”
It’d been obvious in their hug that the warmth to the embrace held the same effect. I might have been a tad jealous of Hannah, since she experienced what it felt like to be in Kipp’s arms. “Going back to what you said earlier, have you gone to this other place where you exist now?”
He paused before he replied, “I think it’s where I go when I travel quickly, as you saw after you left me stranded at the bar.” He winked before his expression became serious. “The place is hard to explain, it feels busy, but black.”
I tried to imagine such a place, yet came up blank. “Like there are lots of people there, but you can’t see anything?”
“Exactly.”
The place between life and death, blackness, but full of other ghosts—it seemed right. “Guess that makes sense. It’s as if you can manipulate yourself here, but in truth, you have no presence. Like how you appear to be lying with me now, but in fact you’re not—just floating.”
“The funny thing is my moves aren’t even action anymore, it’s more of a thought. Take driving in a car, for an example. I imagine myself sitting in the backseat of a car, then I end up there and will stay in the car while it’s moving.”
“Seriously?” I considered the idea of what he suggested, but I couldn’t wrap my living mind around it. “You don’t think—walk to the car and get in?”
“I only think I want to be in the car and stay in it, then somehow I do.”
“How’s that possible?”
“I think it’s because walking is natural for me to do, as it would be for other ghosts. It’s not something to think about because it’s ingrained into my mind. If I told myself to float up to the ceiling, I probably would.”
It pleased me he didn’t prove that point now; no need to vamp up the reality of his ghostly state. I preferred to live in my bubble of delusion. “Okay, well, it’s all a little strange, but I guess it’s kinda nice to know how it all works now.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Knowing and understanding doesn’t mean I miss being alive any less.”
“What’s to miss?” I smiled. “We seemed to do just fine without being able to touch each other.”
His gaze slid down to focus on my lips. “After something is taken away, you realize just how incredible the ability you had was.” He looked back up at my eyes. “It’s torture.”
“I understand that torture.” It’d been days of total and complete hell of my wanting him to touch me and not only on my mouth either.
He paused as he seemed to search for words. “Have you ever felt…this way…before?”
I knew what he meant, but I enjoyed seeing him stumble a little. For once, it hadn’t been me stammering all over the place. “Depends on what this way means?”
A slight blush rose to his cheeks and I found it utterly endearing. “How different it is with you.”
I played dumb. “How is this different?”
His expression looked tense as if his mind worked a million miles per second to explain himself better. He finally huffed. “Are you always this difficult?”
“Depends on what you think difficult is?” I grinned.
The hard lines on his face melted away when he chuckled deep, then his brow furrowed as he became thoughtful. “To explain better, you know my need of women has been…not lasting.”
I laughed. “Yes, I think I have figured that one out.”
“When I saw you the first time, the only way I can explain it is I didn’t want to leave you. I couldn’t walk away from you, even if I had wanted to, which I didn’t. Yes, at the beginning, I needed you to help me talk to Zach, but it became more than that. A connection I’d never once experienced before and that’s what drove me to get you to acknowledge my existence.”
My heart melted. I could’ve said those same words myself. “I think I know how you feel.”
“Do you?” he whispered.
I nodded, not wanting to go where my thoughts lingered, but he’d given me honesty, I owed him the same. “The night you were trying to get my attention…” My cheeks burned so hot. “Remember the night?”
“The night I seduced you.” He grinned seductively.
“Yes, well, after the little event, I went home and did what we did earlier. Yeah, I’d been so hot I did that…alone.”
“I know you did,” he said, unashamed.
I shot straight up in bed and glared at him. “Just how would you know that?”
“I watched you from the window.”
If I could’ve smacked him, I would have, but since I couldn’t, I slumped back against the bed and buried my face into the pillow. “That’s so mortifying.”
“Don’t be embarrassed.” He laughed.
I shifted away from pillow and peeked up at him. “Easy for you to say.” As much as I could have died from embarrassment, I decided a better strategy was to get the attention off me. “Watching someone through a window makes you some kind of sick pervert, you know.”
“That’s the thing with you, I can’t help myself. The morals I lived by no longer apply when it comes to you. You make me want to break all the rules.”
His words eased the blush away from my cheeks and the warmth of his tone centered right in my heart, among other places. “And why do you think that is?”
He smiled so sweetly, as if he had the answer to it all. “Love at first sight, of course.”
A feeling I never once thought possible, but now my views had entirely changed. “I think you’re dead right about that.”
He laughed boisterously. “I bet I am.”
“You know, I never thought destined love could happen.” I shrugged. “Probably because I’d never been in love before, not in the sense of what I believed it meant. Like what it meant for my parents, who were devoted to only each other and loved despite each other’s flaws. I always thought love happened over time and was built on a lifetime of memories. Now that theory, of course, is a total flop. There’s something between you and me. It’s been so instant for me. I’ve never felt like this with anyone.”
“Neither have I.” Kipp smiled.
I stared intently into his eyes. “So where does that leave us?”
“I’m not sure what it all means, but all I know is fate intervened here and I’m not about to fight it. No matter what our circumstances are and how strange this all is, we were brought together for a reason, and even if we only have a short time together, I’m happy to have had it at all.”
What could I say to that? Short time together was saying it lightly, but I wouldn’t point that out now and would simply enjoy him; no need to put a damper on an already somber reality. Talked out, beat from our steamy escapade, silence fell around us while our gazes remained locked on each other.
For the first time in so long, everything seemed perfectly right and I hadn’t been this happy since the car accident.
Although a drop in the room temperature made my peace vanish. As if on cue, Hannah’s soft voice came from the doorway. “I’m sorry to interrupt you.”
I yanked the blankets up to cover myself and sat up as Kipp did the magic bit and covered his body with clothes, which was a shame. I shook my head to think outside myself and focused on Hannah. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry to intrude on your…” She hesitated, and smiled as she obviously decided to ignore what she’d seen. “Anyways, I’ve been thinking about what you asked me, about where I’m buried.”
What an odd statement to hear coming out of someone’s mouth. Instead of laughing as I wanted to, I bit my lip and kept my mouth shut.
“You remembered something?” Kipp asked.
“Yes, I remember when…” she wiggled her hands in a spooky manner, “I rose from the dead.”
I laughed.
Hannah did too and no sound had ever been so lovely. To witness the little flicker of the woman who once lived, the happiness that used to exist in her eyes, was a wonderful thing.
Kipp’s stern look told me to behave before he glanced back at Hannah. “Do you remember where you were?”
“Well, you see, after I gave up trying to find Percy, or whoever he is, I walked around a while. It felt good to be out of the house. I ended up walking for a long time, and it just so happened that when I stopped walking, I ended up in the place I woke up after I died.”
I glanced at Kipp, waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t. The suspense ate at me. “Where were you?”
“Meeman–Shelby Forest,” she replied. “It all came back to me in a flash—the blossoms, the sound of the lake nearby and the clearing. I think I can show you on a map where I’m buried. I don’t want to be there, though, when you…” Her eyelids lowered with sadness and she frowned.
Kipp stood up from the bed and pulled Hannah into a hug. “You don’t need to go with us, just pointing out the way is good enough. We’ll find out who killed you. That is a promise.”
Hannah backed away from his embrace. “Us. You’ll find out who did this to us. He hurt you too.”
Kipp grinned, as much a threat as a promise. “Right, we’ll find out who did this to us.”
“I’ll be at the main entrance waiting for you to come so I can show you the way.” Then, poof, she vanished.
“Okay, this whole up-and-vanishing thing is just bizarre,” I said. “Ghosts have never used that ability in front of me before, and I’m sorry, but the idea that y’all can transport anywhere you want to, whenever you feel like it, is strange.” I pulled myself from my state of shock, jumped off the bed and glanced at Kipp. “Anyways, you have to go now.”
He sat down on the bed and bowed his head.
I snapped my fingers in front of his face to wake him up from wherever he’d gone to. “Did you not hear what I just said?”
“Yes, I heard you,” he answered, cool and collected.
Which only annoyed me—the whole reason for the past days of exhausting, humiliating events could be resolved. “Why are you just sitting there? Get moving, you have to find her body and then this whole murderous, scary nonsense can be put behind me.”
Kipp sighed, raised his gaze to mine and sadness touched every part of him. “Are you sure you want to solve the case now?”
My impatience erased in a flash. “Oh…” I paused. “Oh.”
He nodded solemnly.
“Once we solve the case, you’ll be gone,” I whispered, and even I heard the sorrow roll off my tongue.
“I suspect I will.”
I glanced down at my hands. I didn’t want that. Having him here comforted me in every sense. For once in my life, I didn’t want to help a ghost exit my life. I wanted him to stay.
He’d been in my life for only a short time, but I’d gotten used to his presence—I liked him being there. I cared for him more than I had for any man before. I wanted forever with Kipp and I simply couldn’t have that.
As overwhelming as it was to realize the time constraints we talked of just closed in on us and even though I wanted to refuse this, we needed to think of someone else. “Hannah.”
If they didn’t find her body and unearth some clues, she’d be stuck forever; hurt, lost and lonely. I didn’t want that either. The question remained, what did I want more?
In the one word spoken, the simple mention of her name, Kipp’s expression became resolved. His loyalty, his entire make-up, declared we only had one choice. “It’s time to bring Hannah home.” He stood. “Come on, we don’t want to keep her waiting.”
I fought against my heart’s desire and dressed quickly and rushed toward Zach’s bedroom at the end of the hall. I hammered on the door with loud, hard bangs as Kipp paced the hall behind me. It would’ve been easy enough for him to melt through the door, go into Zach’s room and wake him, but what would he do, breathe on him? But if Zach didn’t open the door soon, I planned to barge in, not caring if he slept in the nude.
After several more loud bangs, which included me kicking the door at the same time, it finally opened. To my surprise, it wasn’t Zach who greeted me. “Caley?”
She grinned, wearing nothing but Zach’s plain white t-shirt. “Of course it’s me and why you are interrupting us?”
“I need to speak with Zach.” My annoyance rose. Not because it surprised me she’d been with him, nor was I unhappy about it. My hesitation revolved around Caley, never compliant, always impossible.