Shadows At Sunset - Anne Stuart [35]
No answer, of course. He chuckled to himself. “I might be inclined to believe you if you’d do more than just smell like cigarettes. I’m in the mood for an apparition, if you feel like obliging.”
Nothing, of course. He rolled over onto his stomach, burying his face in the thin mattress. He would have taken any kind of distraction right then, anything to take his mind off Jackson Meyer’s two dissimilar daughters. Jilly, tall and luscious and truculent and desirable, with her wary brown eyes and her rich mouth.
And Rachel-Ann. Who looked at him with his mother’s green eyes, from his mother’s face. Rachel-Ann, the sister he never knew he had.
Life had just thrown him a curve he’d never expected. He had a sister.
And she wasn’t going to like what he had in store for her father.
“You’re naughty, darling,” Brenda said, removing the unfiltered French cigarette from Ted’s mouth and taking a long, elegant drag on it. “You shouldn’t tease the poor man.”
Ted Hughes snorted in gentle amusement. “He’s not a poor man, honeybunch. He’s after something, and I don’t like him in our house, bothering our girls.”
“They aren’t our girls, Ted,” Brenda said calmly.
“No, I suppose not.” He took the cigarette back from her, inhaled and then blew it out directly at the man’s prone figure, clearly distrustful.
Brenda was perched on the dresser in the Sea-moss Room, her negligee draped elegantly around her trim ankles. “Thank God you died in that gown,” he said unexpectedly. “If there’s one outfit I’d like to see you in for eternity, that’s it.”
A shadow crossed Brenda’s porcelain complexion. “I don’t like to talk about it, darling. You know that.”
“I know,” he said gently.
“It’s really too depressing,” she added with a little laugh, sliding down off the dresser. “We’re dead and nothing will change that. It’s best not to dwell on such things.”
“I suppose so,” Ted said doubtfully.
She paused, looking down at the nearly naked man lying on the old mattress. “He’s quite good-looking, isn’t he?” she said.
Ted shrugged, tossing his cigarette stub out the open French door. “If you like that sort of thing. What do you think he’s after?”
“What makes you think he’s after something?” Brenda questioned. “And as a matter of fact, I do like good-looking men. That’s why I’m here with you.”
“You’re here with me because we died together and something’s trapped us in this house,” Ted grumbled.
“Ted!”
“Forgive me, honeybunch. I’m just in a lousy mood. I know it upsets you to think about it.” He leaned over and kissed her perfect little nose. “So we won’t think about it. It doesn’t matter why we’re here—sooner or later it should be obvious. In the meantime, I like the way things are. Just you and me, together, with no one to interfere. The way it should have been.”
“You and me,” she echoed.
“Forever. As I always promised you, honeybunch.”
“Forever,” she said in a hollow voice. And then she smiled brightly. “I think Rachel-Ann’s finally arrived home. Shall we go see what she’s doing? If she’s brought someone home we can scare him away.”
“That’s my girl,” Ted said fondly. “Let’s go raise some hell.”
8
Rachel-Ann held her breath as she stepped inside the huge front hallway. She never knew when the ghosts would be waiting. She never had much warning. Somewhere she’d read that ghosts made everything cold. Maybe that accounted for the natural air-conditioning at La Casa, she thought without real humor.
She shut the door behind her, locking it carefully. It was so much easier when she was drinking—when she was loaded she didn’t see ghosts. Or if she did, they didn’t frighten her.
But here she was, stone cold sober and not very happy about the fact. She’d gone out with the intention of getting drunk. She was already past her previous record of sobriety, but for the past couple of days she’d felt strange, upset, and she had no idea why. She’d been perfectly ready to seduce the handsome man who’d somehow ended up at La Casa