Ghost Maker Read online

  Clare cough-laughed, her lips curving, and he sensed her recovering from the ghost-transitioning procedure. “Enzo didn’t like Miranda and said that he’d be tempted to bite her if he stayed. I don’t know if that was an excuse for him to explore a new area of town or not.”

  “All right,” Zach said abruptly, turning onto the main road that led to the restaurant, and the hotel.

  “All right, what?”

  “I told Flinton and Welliam that we’d call them if you felt better and would meet them at the steakhouse. It happens to be near the motel. Wanna do that?”

  Her stomach rumbled. “Yes.” Her slanted gaze met his. “Mrs. Flinton is as much of a mentor as I have, and though he doesn’t have any gift himself, Mr. Welliam has been involved with the parapsychological and paranormal and the people in the local association for years.”

  “But you’re not going to continue with his client list—” Zach stopped, rephrased. “As your significant other—” As her man, her lover, but Clare tended to the prissy. “I believe we should rethink your fledgling ghost seer business until we figure out how to heal the wound in your etheric body.”

  “We have the dinner and conversation I want, and I’ll consider staying at the motel. Compromise,” Clare said with satisfaction. “Fine.”

  Like hell. He’d figure out a plan to heal her and make it happen. Take charge. Do it his way.

  Chapter 2

  By the time they reached the upscale restaurant, Clare could hardly wait for her steak. Her stomach felt flat against her spine. She needed fuel after helping the ghost transition, absolutely. She also wanted Mrs. Flinton’s advice, and to demonstrate to Mr. Welliam that she did a good job with the clients he’d given her, closing cases. Of the list of twelve people, counting the case she’d just finished, she’d . . . closed two.

  Clare stepped into the air-conditioning and went straight to the bathroom. She washed, then stripped off her layers and put on a shirt she’d had in the truck. After splashing her face a few times, she stared in the mirror. Okay, she didn’t look great, but had to be several steps up from death warmed over.

  She touched her side. Not hurting right now. The ache from her injury came and went, making her catch her breath with pain, then subsided until she forgot about it. Now and then she’d “pull” it, and didn’t quite know how that happened—when she stretched her mind to see phantoms? Definitely when Enzo touched the wound. Perhaps when ghosts not of her time period and whom she couldn’t sense blew through her.

  Or maybe it was stress. You could blame almost anything on stress.

  Not hurrying, she found Zach and the older couple sitting in a red leather booth, easy to see since Mrs. Flinton’s walker leaned against the stout wooden half wall between booths. She was a youthful eighty-something and Mr. Welliam, some years younger. All three scrutinized her, and she knew Zach had spent his time with them telling them what he could about the latest ghost moving on, from Enzo’s refusal to stay to Clare’s near collapse.

  Zach lifted his arm from the back of the booth to embrace her as she slid in next to him, and gave her a squeeze. “I ordered for you,” he said. He’d grilled meat often enough at her place to know how she liked her steak.

  She greeted the older couple and, pulling out her smartphone, began to dictate and record every detail of her latest case, glad no one else was seated close enough that she’d sound like a fool. Yes, Clare still cared about what people thought. Someday she’d get over that, she supposed, but not today.

  Mrs. Flinton could see ghosts herself, and Mr. Welliam was a card-carrying member of the Denver Parapsychological and Psychic Association, so they both listened avidly to the memo.

  Clare had just finished with the report she’d later transcribe—she liked to get everything down as quickly as possible when the experience was fresh in her mind, then let it settle a bit—when the waiter arrived with their food and they all dug in.

  After the first rush of eating had slowed, Mr. Welliam spoke first. “That Miranda wasn’t a very nice person,” he said disapprovingly. “Why did she get to go to a good place?”

  Clare finished chewing a piece of her steak, and swallowed. “It’s not my job to judge.” She paused, then said, “I try not to think about religion and ghosts. Or even spirituality. Besides, like every living individual we meet, phantoms have problems we don’t know of—are dealing with dreadful issues they don’t reveal.” She frowned, trying to recall some of Miranda’s memories. There had been a wide swath of darkness, despair, and grief, hadn’t there? But Clare shook her head. She didn’t delve into such recollections; it only deepened her bond with the phantom, and she was supposed to help the apparition move on.

  “A very good policy,” Mrs. Flinton stated. She, too, sensed ghosts, though she couldn’t help them transition to whatever came next.

  “I’m still new at this,” Clare said. She’d been seeing ghosts for thirty-nine days, helping them move on for only thirty-three days. “So far, I’ve seen different, ah, portals and transitions for each individual. So the hereafter could be different for everyone.” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Or the golden door and the father figure was pure illusion and she went somewhere not so nice,” Zach commented.

  Clare wasn’t the only one who stared at him.

  “Well, that’s disturbing,” Mr. Welliam said.

  Zach shrugged.

  Finally the plates had been cleared and Clare found herself being examined by Mrs. Flinton, who pursed her lips. “You don’t seem as . . . robust . . . as you were. It’s past time we dealt completely with that wound you carry.” Her soft face folded into worried lines and she glanced away. When she spoke again, her voice sounded subdued. “You got the injury saving my great-grandson. I can never thank you enough for that. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  Mr. Welliam put his hand over hers, but looked equally guilty. “And I shouldn’t have pushed you to reveal your psychic abilities and start your consulting business.”

  Clare put her fork down to meet his concerned eyes. “You didn’t know about the tear . . . and it isn’t truly visible. At the time, it wasn’t bothering me too much and we thought it was healing.”

  Mrs. Flinton tapped an elegant forefinger with sparkling glitter polish. “Nevertheless, getting you healthy is now our primary goal.”

  Nodding, Mr. Welliam said, “I’m glad you helped two of the clients I gave you, but the rest can wait until you’re at peak condition.”

  “Great,” Clare said. She had taken the jobs one at a time. Her shoulders felt tight. “I don’t know when I’ll be fully healed.” Though it was time to take action.

  “Soon,” Zach said grimly. “We’ll make sure of it.”

  With a tiny cough, Mrs. Flinton said, “Last week, when I told Kurtus about your project in Creede, Colorado, and of the evil ghost bite, we, Kurtus and I”—she linked fingers with him—“asked around the Denver Parapsychological and Psychic Association for anyone with knowledge of tears in the etheric body, and no one had an answer. The general consensus was that a person who could read auras well might be able to help, like Desiree Rickman.”

  Zach grunted. He considered Desiree with deep wariness. As for Clare, she believed Desiree to be her friend. Desiree and Mrs. Flinton were the first friends Clare had made since she’d become a ghost seer. Her old chums at her accounting job were all as literal as she had been and wouldn’t understand or accept her new career.

  “We spoke to Desiree a week and a half ago about Clare’s wound,” Zach said. “She, Desiree, had some concerns. So we asked her to look into the problem.” His tone was even. He wouldn’t say anything bad about his boss’s wife.

  Again they all looked at Clare and she shifted a little, not liking the attention. “I’ll call Desiree tomorrow.”

  “See that you do,” Mr. Welliam said gruffly.

  * * *
r />   The food, the returning warmth to her body, and watching how she moved, had eased Clare enough that she’d convinced Zach she’d like to sleep in her own bed instead of at a motel.

  All right, he’d made her call Desiree Rickman, who said she could make a late lunch with Clare at 1:30 p.m. the next day. From the corner of her eye, seeing Zach’s jaw set, she figured that he would flex his work hours for Rickman Security and Investigations and show up, too.

  When they entered the atrium of her home, Clare carrying a tote with her clothes, Zach stilled, tilted his head, then scowled. “I don’t feel Enzo here. Where is he, visiting that other ghost dog, that female in Creede?” Zach grunted. “What does the Lab think will happen? They’ll have ghost puppies?”

  “Zach, that’s just sick.” Clare made sure to pick up her feet as she walked to the elevator. After she opened both the outer door, then the inner cage door, she turned to look at him and caught a smirk on his face. Good. He seemed a whole lot more normal now, if he teased her.

  With a sigh, he stepped into the elevator with her, obviously not going to tough out walking up the wide steps of the staircase to the second floor and their master suite. As soon as they reached the upper level, he exited. She stepped out and turned to shut the elevator doors behind her, and when she’d finished, she discovered that he’d headed off to the secondary bathroom, leaving her alone to deal with her clothes and her own shower. He probably thought he’d avoid any temptation to make love. They did like their shower time together.

  Her lips compressed. Okay, then. She touched her side over the spectral tear. Before that night’s ghost, the rip hadn’t hurt more than it had this last week. Miranda Stinton had ripped the gash . . . longer, perhaps, but not as deeply as Clare had originally thought. Or maybe Clare fooled herself.

  Well, she didn’t want to think about that tonight. They couldn’t do anything about the injury at that moment.

  She’d finished with her tidying up and bathing and put on a silk sleep shirt, then walked into the bedroom to see Zach already under the covers and with his back to the light on her bedside table, a signal that he didn’t want sex.

  Which she didn’t believe. They’d barely been together a month—yes, she’d moved rapidly in her relationships for once, but she couldn’t deny how her heart felt about Zach. In any event, they remained in the very-hot-for-each-other phase. If she slipped into bed and reached around his back for his shaft, she’d find it hard.

  But he wanted her to sleep, and thought if he were quiet, she wouldn’t be able to stay awake. Wrong, not a chance she’d give up an opportunity to make love with him because he decided she should sleep. Not when she wanted the closeness, wanted to share loving.

  Crossing quietly over to the bed, she turned out the light and slipped between the expensive, high-thread-count sheets. Now that she’d inherited Great-Aunt Sandra’s fortune along with that wretched psychic gift, Clare had begun to spend money on herself. Like buying this architecturally historical house she’d fallen in love with.

  Just moving across the sheets and feeling his warmth, smelling the scent of his soap and him, left a craving flooding her, energizing her, as sex, loving with Zach always stimulated her. Body, mind, and soul.

  No, no thoughts about souls or spirits or etheric bodies.

  “Zach,” she whispered.

  “Go to sleep, Clare, you need it.”

  Since he sounded drowsy, she paused, moved back a little, and listened to the clock chime ten, then the quarter hour. He rolled onto his back, and she stretched. She felt fine, and especially pleased to seduce her lover.

  So she turned onto her side, lifted onto one elbow, and pushed the sheet and the bedspread down to his waist. His semi-erect shaft showed as an interesting ridge under the covers, and that sent a nice thrill through her. She trailed her fingers along his chest, then down to grasp him and stroke, and he awoke on a quick inhalation. She let his sex go and moved to kiss his mouth, slide her tongue across his lips.

  His mouth opened and she tasted the rich flavor of him that meant . . . a whole lot of things to her, too many to think of right now when her mind had vanished in sensation. She kicked the covers away and moved over him, trailing kisses along his jaw, the stubble of his beard rough, prickling her tongue. His hands came around her waist, holding her loosely.

  “Clare,” he murmured, his voice slow and thick. His left hand feathered up her right side, then to her front to cover and mold her breast. “My woman.”

  “Yes. I want to make love with you,” she whispered.

  “Love . . . yes, gotta have it. Gotta have you. Know you’re good and you’re fine and you’re mine.” He circled her nipple with his thumb, his other hand curving around her hip, pressing into her flesh as if testing the physicality of her, that she was no dream.

  Delicious pings of fiery excitement sizzled through her. The warm atmosphere wrapped around them; the quiet tick of the clock, and the lingering humidity and shower fragrances added intimacy. Hardly any light came from the French doors, this night before the new moon. Darkness, the roughening breath of both of them, their hearts picking up beat—she could feel his under her hand on his chest—all increased her desire for this man, this one particular man.

  This lover she could trust.

  Her inner thighs brushed his hard sex as she went down his body. She stopped as the tip of him settled outside her passage. Zach’s hands had clamped around her hips. His eyes glittered.

  “Clare.” Now his voice sounded guttural, and he sure wasn’t saying no, or thinking her too delicate to make love. “You are so soft, your skin, your heart.”

  “My Zach,” she whispered.

  “Your Zach,” he affirmed, then angled and pushed inside her, and their moans of delight sighed out together as he seated himself. For a long minute they didn’t move. She relished the closeness, thought he did, too. “No one else,” he said.

  “No, no one else,” she said, letting her coherent words fall out of her mouth and forgetting them as she shifted to increase her pleasure. Only the climb to the peak and the shattering mattered.

  She began to lift and fall above him, sliding along him and back, and his hands went to her nipples and played so her movements became less measured, less controlled.

  Strong man, contoured muscles, hair-roughened skin that rubbed her, adding exquisite tactile sensation along her thighs, at the point that they met. Beautiful man, wide brow, bold features showing the determination to seize release for them both. Loving man, his eyes flickering to her to gauge her passion.

  His fingers intertwined with hers, and he surged and she plunged and they peaked together.

  She squeezed, her hands against his, and her body, for all fabulous sensation.

  Then she went limp.

  He pulled her down against him, and the rushing in her ears turned to heartbeat thuds.

  So close to him, merged with him, and loving him. A good body, a heart as soft as hers.

  And a steel spirit. He wouldn’t leave her. He would fight for her—more battles that she’d care to cede him. He would let her stand by him as a partner.

  Lifting her, he set her beside him, careful of her etheric wound. Which didn’t even twinge.

  He moved to his side, sifted his fingers through her hair, a concerned expression on his face. “How do you feel?”

  She grinned and reached up and patted his face. “As if I’m magnificent. What do you think?”

  With a slow shake of his head and an equally slow smile, he said, “I agree.”

  “And you were magnificent, too.”

  He flopped back on the bed. “Thank you, ma’am. I gave it my best.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, pursing her lips.

  “What!” He jerked to sit.

  Narrowing her eyes at him, she said, “I think that was a figure or two off your best effort. W
e will have to experiment more, though, to confirm my conclusion.”

  “No, Clare.” Leaning down, he kissed her forehead, each of her cheeks, her lips. “I want you in perfect condition as soon as possible. I want you healthy.” An intense note entered his speech. “I need you to be healthy. Body.” He gave her torso a long stroke that her nerves appreciated. “Mind.” He slid down and angled her head, pushed back her hair, and looked in her ear, said, “Yep, the gears are going in there, clickety, clickety, clack.”

  She chuckled.

  “And in spirit,” he ended, putting his hand on her side. She noted that he knew the exact location of her spiritual wound, and didn’t like that. It indicated that she’d had it long enough—two weeks to the day—and that Zach observed her enough that the injury could no longer be considered casual. That scared her. She sucked in a little breath, felt her face fall into tense lines.

  Chapter 3

  “Dammit,” Zach muttered, drawing her close so her head rested on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I know.” She let her whole body soften and looked into his eyes. In the dim light, she couldn’t see whether they were more blue than green, couldn’t judge his emotions since he’d pulled on a mask of impassivity. “No more sex tonight?”

  “No. As a concession, we can wind down with a soak in the hot tub since you’re still awake.”

  “That would be great, but no more sex tonight.” She grimaced. “You said no, and no means no.”

  “That’s right.”

  She sat up, scooched over to his side of the bed, and took his hand, stood with him. “I love you, Zach.”

  His arms came around her, gently, and he rubbed his face against her hair. “I love you, too, Clare. I won’t lose you.”

  Another thought she hadn’t wanted stuck in her brain before she fell asleep.