Ghost Moon Read online

  “How do you know this has to do with sex?”

  “I don’t. But you’re obviously emotionally involved with him.”

  “Griffin is a powerful member of the Sun Acres council. Caleb is a ghost.”

  “And?”

  Quinn wanted to keep her encounter with him to herself. But at the same time, she wanted to tell someone what had happened. And she and Zarah had shared intimate secrets before. She turned toward her friend and struggled to speak in a calm, flat voice, even though her insides were clenching. “I went back to bury the soldier’s body. But Caleb said the animals had already taken him. He held me and kissed me and touched me. He took off my clothes and made love to me. Just with his hands and mouth. He made me come. But when I tried to take off his pants, he told me that was impossible.”

  “Because he didn’t want you?”

  “No. While he was arousing me, I could feel his cock— big and hard—pressing against me through his jeans. He wanted me. But afterward he told me that his clothing is part of his ghost image. He can’t undress.”

  Zarah made a small, gasping sound.

  “So, it’s an impossible relationship. We can go so far, and no farther.”

  “And what you can do together isn’t enough for you.”

  “It was wonderful. But how could it be enough—for him?”

  “If he wants it to be. And . . . uh . . . you said you could feel his erection. Maybe you can bring him to climax withouttaking off his pants.”

  Quinn folded her arms across her chest. “It’s not just about sexual satisfaction. He’s a ghost. We can’t marry. Can’t have children, like you.” She stopped short when she realized what she’d said.

  “And that’s what you want?” Zarah said.

  “I see how happy you and Griffin are, and I envy you.”

  “Even though I may never see him again.”

  “You will!”

  Zarah hitched in a breath. “I wish I could be sure of that, but I’m here and he’s in another universe. And maybe Baron’s soldiers caught him when he drove the wagon away from us.”

  “He got away.”

  “I hope so. I pray that’s true.” Zarah’s eyes brimmed with moisture.

  Quinn reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I don’t think this discussion is doing either one of us any good.”

  “Don’t you think it helps to talk?”

  “Can you use your flame magic to bring Caleb back to life—or even to take off his clothing so I can lie down beside him like normal men and women?”

  “I wish I could.” Zarah firmed her expression. “Did you find anything in Logan’s books that might help?”

  “Not really. What they have here is far less correct informationthan you and I learned when we were ten-year-olds in school. Their society just isn’t oriented toward the psychic.They have wild guesses and . . . and outlandish assumptionsabout things that we’ve studied in detail.”

  “Like what?”

  “They don’t know what lessons to use to enhance psychic power. They don’t know that childhood is the best time to fosterthose skills. They don’t know how many forms a ‘ghost’ can take.”

  She might have said more, but she heard the front door open and closed her mouth. Logan and Rinna were home. End of discussion. Which was a relief.

  There was no more talk of the ghost that evening. Or the next day, and Quinn wondered if Logan was trying to decide what to do about him. She prayed he wasn’t planning to confrontCaleb because she didn’t want either one of them to get hurt.

  Quinn spent most of her time with Rinna and Zarah, helping Zarah study the lessons that would allow her to fit into this society. Logan also made Zarah an appointment with a doctor called an OB-GYN who took care of pregnant women.

  Quinn found she was learning more about this world, too. And despite her feeling of sadness about Caleb, she was fascinatedby such things as ATMs, grocery store scanners, credit cards, and food processors—which Rinna warned her to keep her fingers out of.

  Then, four days after they’d arrived on this side of the portal, Logan’s cousin Ross came over.

  He looked a lot like Logan. And a lot like Caleb—from what she’d seen of him. And when she thought of Caleb, her heart squeezed. He hadn’t contacted her since she’d told him it couldn’t work between them. She should be relieved, but she couldn’t help feeling depressed.

  Ross had brought a driver’s license and credit cards for Zarah, like the fake documents he’d gotten for her.

  She knew that they had to be expensive. But nobody talked about any kind of payment.

  Well, she would find some way to pay Logan back for the documents he’d gotten for her. Maybe he could give her a job in his landscape business. Even if that was a low-paying job, at least she’d be contributing something.

  Ross stayed for several hours, asking questions about the universe where Zarah and Quinn had come from. She expectedLogan to tell him about the ghost. But he said nothing,at least as far as she could tell.

  Was that part of the werewolf code? Where they took care of their own problems? She wanted to ask, but she thought that was much too personal a question.

  After Ross left, she and Zarah helped Rinna prepare dinner: spaghetti and meat sauce for the women and barely cooked steak for Logan, in the tradition of the Marshall men.

  Then they watched one of the DVDs Logan had brought home from the video store. It was the program Logan had mentioned, the Sopranos. The first season. And Quinn was surprised by all the violence and by the cursing.

  She went to bed tired. Which was good. Because that kept her from thinking about Caleb.

  COLONEL Bowie had come to a decision about the execution.He called his twenty troops to attention on the parade grounds and made the announcement, watching their faces

  He could see they were each thinking about how it would feel to die in that horrible manner, and each thinking that they wouldn’t risk putting themselves in the prisoner’s position.

  Then he called Portland and Spencer forward and gave them the job of carrying out the sentence. They were both tough guys who wouldn’t hesitate to kill. And they were both as loyal as anyone in the squad.

  After he dismissed the troops, he went back to his quarters.He thought for a while about the procedure, making sure he’d considered all the details.

  Then he turned his mind to a more gratifying subject— the bomb.

  He needed to set it off on a day with no rain. And ideally, a time with moderate wind, so the fallout would spread over a wide area. Would the government tell people if they were downwind and have them scurrying around sealing their windows with duct tape?

  Or would the Department of Homeland Security downplaythe threat? Either way, he could picture the roads clogged with people trying to get out of town, like when a hurricane was going to hit the gulf coast or Florida. Only in this case, they’d be sitting in their cars, soaking up radiation. Some of them would die from it. And some of them would increasetheir lifetime risk of getting cancer to 30 percent. Too bad most of them would be dumb enough not to know it— unless the authorities clued them in.

  He thought of the chance of the government doing the right thing. Then thought about covering the U.S. Congress with radioactive dust.

  The senators and representatives who hadn’t been contaminatedcould crawl down to that fallout shelter that had been built for them under the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia.It had been a big secret in the fifties when President Eisenhower had suggested constructing a new wing of the hotel and salting away an underground bunker beneath it.

  And the U.S. government had maintained it for forty years—waiting for the Soviet attack that never materialized. It was out of service now. But still there.

  The Ruskies hadn’t managed to land a nuclear bomb on U.S. soil. But Colonel Jim Bowie was going to show them how to do it. The homegrown, all-American way.

  While the men were setting it off, he’d get the hell out of town—and take on a new ide
ntity—ready for his next big attack.If he needed to do it.

  Or maybe this mission would do the trick.

  QUINN lay in bed, wishing she could keep Caleb out of her dreams. But whenever she fell asleep, he was there.

  Sometimes he made passionate love to her. It wasn’t like reality. As she slept, he started off kissing and touching her the way he had done. But then she would take off his clothes, and play with his wonderful cock, making him hard and big. They would be naked together in a wide bed, hugging and rocking and kissing as they aroused each other. Then he would spread her legs and plunge inside of her, and she would wake knowing that she had had a shattering orgasm in her sleep.

  Other times, he would be in the woods, calling her. And she would press her hands over her ears so she couldn’t hear him.

  Tonight was one of those nights. He kept reaching out to her in the dream, and she kept resisting. But finally she awoke with a start to realize that someone really was calling her, like the night when she’d gone to get Zarah.

  Then it had been both Caleb calling her and Draden sendinga message from the other universe. Now it was only Caleb.

  Come back.

  Confused, she sat up in bed, wondering if he was in the room—if he’d come here as she’d feared all along, to hurt Logan and his family. And there was no way she could stop him.

  Finally! I’ve been trying to wake you.

  Her whole body rigid, she stared into the darkened room. “Where are you?”

  His answer helped steady her.

  I’m in the woods. Come back to the place where you met me. Hurry.

  She was alone in bed, and the words came from inside her head, but she answered aloud. “No.”

  Something’s happened. Come back. You have to help me.

  “Is this a trick?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  No. I need your help. Before it’s too late. Hurry.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Quinn turned her head. Out the window she could see dim light.

  She should stay here and break all contact with Caleb, but the voice ringing inside her head sounded on the edge of panic.

  A ghost in a panic?

  Something had happened. Something bad from the sound of Caleb’s voice. And she couldn’t leave him to deal with it on his own—not when he had reached out to her.

  She had warned herself to stay away from him. And for days, she had kept her resolve.

  But everything had changed in an instant. She climbed out of bed and ran to the chair in the corner where she’d laid the jeans she’d taken off. Her shoes and socks were on the floor in front of the chair.

  She had been sleeping in her T-shirt. But because she knew the early morning might be chilly, she added a man’s shirt over it before pulling on her socks and running shoes.

  She was glad there was an exterior door on the lower level, so she wouldn’t have to go upstairs. But as she tiptoed down the hall, a shaft of light knifed into the hall, and Zarah stepped out of her room, pulling a robe across her rounded belly as she came.

  “Quinn?”

  She stopped short, feeling like a schoolkid caught sneakingdown to the kitchen at night. “What are you doing up?”

  Zarah turned her palm up. “One of the curses of being with child is that you have to keep getting up at night to go to the bathroom.”

  “I was trying to get out of the house without disturbing anybody.”

  Zarah’s expression said, I’ll bet.

  “Where are you going?”

  Quinn hesitated a split second—long enough for Zarah to answer for her.

  “To Caleb?”

  She kept her gaze steady, when she wanted to look away. “How do you know?”

  “Where else would you be going so early in the morning?”

  Quinn shrugged.

  “Sometimes when Logan or Rinna is talking to us, I’ll see you staring into space, and I’ll know you’re thinking about Caleb, wondering what he’s doing and what it would be like to be with him. And that’s all right. You don’t have to feel guilty about it.”

  “I do if he brings trouble to Logan.”

  “I don’t think he will.”

  “Is that a psychic prediction? Or wishful thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” Zarah admitted.

  The confession didn’t soothe Quinn’s nerves.

  “Well, this is different,” she said. “Something’s happened.”

  “The thing I told you was coming?”

  “I don’t know.” Quinn swallowed. “Don’t tell Logan I’ve gone—unless I don’t come back.”

  Zarah stared at her. “I can’t lie.”

  “Then I hope he doesn’t ask you if we spoke.”

  Zarah answered with a quick nod and stepped forward to embrace Quinn. Quinn’s own arms came up, and they held on to each other for a long moment. Then Quinn eased away and continued toward the back door.

  “I’ll lock it behind you,” Zarah said.

  “Thanks,” Quinn answered.

  She stepped out into the cool morning air and heard the lock click behind her. Which meant she wasn’t getting back inside without knocking. So, was she burning her bridges? What?

  She had been seriously off balance since she had met Caleb. Too bad she wanted something from him that he couldn’t give her.

  With a grimace, she wrapped her arms around her shouldersas she hurried through the woods, heading for the place where she’d last met him.

  The birds had awakened, and they chirped in the trees above her head. By now, she knew the way, and her feet flew across the forest floor.

  “Caleb?” she called softly when she neared the spot. “Caleb?”

  “Quiet.” He spoke aloud. It seemed like his voice was right beside her ear, and she almost jumped out of her skin.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. This way.”

  He was beside her, pointing toward his right, and she changed her course to match his.

  He kept pace beside her as she ran, and she watched him out of the corner of her eye. He looked exactly the way he had before. A man wearing clothing that wasn’t quite right in the modern world.

  He moved in front of her, then stopped and held out his arm. Her chest came up against his sleeve, and she felt him—the way she had when he’d made love to her.

  At her quickly indrawn breath, she saw his hand clench.

  “Over there,” he whispered, pointing to a place on the forest floor where dirt had been mounded.

  “What is it?”

  “A fresh grave.”

  She sucked in a startled breath.

  “Two tough-looking men came here. They were carrying another man. They wrapped him in . . . a tarp and buried him.”

  “Great Mother! Another body.” Involuntarily, she looked in the direction of the portal. “A soldier from my world?”

  “No, they were all from this place.”

  “Why did they do it?”

  “I do not know. But they were carrying out orders.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “Someone they called ‘the colonel.’ And I know the man wasn’t dead when they left him under the ground.”

  “They buried him alive?”

  “Yes. There was a little air inside the tarp under the dirt. But he used it up, and I could feel him struggling to drag air into his lungs. Then I could feel the life in him ebbing away. It may be too late.”

  Quinn went stock-still. This had nothing to do with her, yet she felt a wave of panic. Buried alive! Trying to drag air into your lungs and finding only dirt. That must be horrible.

  “I knew you wouldn’t want another death here,” Caleb whispered.

  “Yes. What should I do?”

  “Dig him up. Uncover his face. Turn him over and press on his back—the way they do with a person who drowned.”

  “There’s something different now. Mouth to mouth . . . something,” she whispered. She’d seen it on a TV movie where they did it to a woman who’d
had a heart attack. She didn’t think she could do it properly. But what if she had no option?

  “They left their shovel.” He pointed. “It’s on the ground, over there.”

  She ran forward, aware of the ghost hovering behind her.

  “I’ll keep guard.”

  The earth was newly turned, which made digging a lot easier than if she’d been breaking solid ground.

  Caleb was still behind her. He could keep watch. But that was probably all he could do.

  A man’s life was in her hands. And that knowledge made her heart pound as she began to scoop away the loose soil. The work was agonizingly slow because she was afraid to dig too deeply, lest the sharp edge of the shovel bite into the man’s body. Yet at the same time, she could feel the seconds ticking away. His life ticking away.

  She kept working at a steady pace, lifting away the soil and throwing it to the side. And maybe Caleb was helping because a little wind seemed to blow the dirt away.

  When she hit something solid, she worked more carefully and came to a heavy tarp. It was part fabric, part waterproof material. Plastic, Logan would call it. Or maybe rubber. She knew he used it in his work to keep dirt out of the back of his SUV when he was hauling plants.

  Kneeling, she began to scoop away the dirt with her hands.

  “Pull him out.”

  She didn’t think she could do it by herself. But as she started pulling, she was able to jerk the body upward. And she realized Caleb must have been helping her get him out of the grave and onto the ground.

  The seam of the tarp had come partly open. When she pulled the edge, she saw a man’s beige shirt covering a broad chest. It should be rising and falling. Instead, it was absolutely still.

  Tugging upward, she uncovered the man’s head. She saw dark blond hair. Pale lips. Skin that had turned from pink to gray. One eye had a black smudge underneath. His cheek and jaw were bruised. He looked like someone had beaten him up.

  But worse than the beating, when she lowered her cheek to his nose, she felt no breath.

  She jerked the tarp farther aside and leaned over him, tryingto remember what the paramedic had done in the movie when he’d saved the woman with the heart attack.

  He’d held her nose and put his mouth over hers so he could blow into her lungs. Then he’d pressed on her chest.