Christmas Spirit Read online

  “Um—”

  “And Christmas is coming, much as all of us would like it to get itself over with so it will be January sooner. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Sort of,” Lillian mumbled.

  “What I’m saying, Sam, is that you’ll be leaving soon to be with your family—or someone. But not staying here any longer than you have to.”

  It wasn’t really a question, and the silence in the room was broken by the cat batting a stray chow mein noodle across the floor until Gloria barked and Butch hissed at her.

  Lillian was staring daggers at him, but he ignored her to slide a hand across Charlie’s on the table. “No, I don’t think so.”

  She squeaked out a barely audible why-not that made him smile. Had he ever seen such eagerness in a woman’s eyes?

  “Charlie, you’re right about the deadline, and I have to do some more interviews, but I could use the island as home base while I work. I’d like to, anyway.”

  It was true, all of it, even if it was as surprising as finding a real haunt. And when Charlie’s face softened, it was all the encouragement he needed.

  Chapter Ten

  The book was back in her mind—the second book, the naughty one—and the hero and heroine were being as bad as they wanted to be. Charlie chalked it up to the snow, which had arrived last night, iced up the windowpanes. It was pretty to look at from inside, she decided. She’d seen Lillian out walking her dachshund. Gloria’s thick cylinder of a body was bundled up in an adorable candy-cane striped sweater and the dog was leaning into the wind, her soulful eyes squinted nearly shut.

  The older woman called a hello to the retiree with the ancient golden retriever, which watched from the window as its master attempted to put chains on his tires.

  “Isn’t winter in New England wonderful?” Lillian screamed into the biting wind. The old man didn’t seem to hear. The Red Sox cap had been replaced by an earflappy thing lined with bunny fur.

  Charlie went upstairs to look for her writing notes and found them, but she didn’t have to read them. As before, the scene played out as if she were seeing it scroll by on a monitor while she wrote them.

  “Again,” Temperance whispered, and smoothed her hands over Daniel’s back. His skin was flushed hot. Smoothly, the muscles beneath it rippled like water, fluid as a wave curling in on itself as it returned to shore. If she lived to be a hundred, a thousand, she would never get enough of him like this, naked and strong and arching under her hands.

  He groaned as he drove into her once more, harder now, unforgiving, the head of him touching home until she clenched around him, holding him there. He hated this, when she made him wait, demanded that he thrust only at her command.

  “Shhh,” she soothed him, trailing her lips along his cheek, the salty slick edge of his jaw. Daniel was not a patient man, not when he was buried in the slippery darkness between her thighs.

  She tightened around him again, tilting her hips, and let an incoherent sound of her own escape her throat. He filled her completely, hard and hot and pulsing in that secret place inside her, a glorious weight above her. When she moved, the tip of him touched off a singing spark of pleasure, and she ground against him again, seeking more.

  “Let me, love,” he panted against her neck, breath hot and damp. His arms trembled with effort as he braced above her. “Let me now, please.”

  “Not yet,” she breathed. Digging her heels into the firm flesh of his behind, she held him close. A sultry breeze fluttered the curtains at the window, full of sea salt and pine, and a carriage rolled by outside, wheels heavy on the road, the clopping hooves of the horses marching in lazy time. “Wait, Danny. Please.”

  He growled at her, biting into the slope of her shoulder, not quite gently. She hissed and rocked her hips up, whispering, “Now.”

  Without hesitating, he withdrew, a slow, burning slide, and then drove home again, pushing the breath out of her in a ragged gasp. Again and again he thrust now, shaking with the need to let go, to let the pleasure come, and she hung on, fingernails scoring crescent moons into his shoulders. There was no stopping him now, and she loved the wild snap of his hips against her, the full, thick length of him sliding into her wetness, the hitch in his breath before it washed over him and he stiffened above her.

  When he finally pulsed inside her in a hot, wet rush, he always breathed her name as if it was the only word he could remember, the only thing that mattered, before he collapsed on top of her, pressing heated kisses to her cheeks, her shoulders, her forehead.

  And every time, it was then that she shattered, breaking apart beneath him with his name on her lips.

  Well, she felt warmer now, she thought, looking at the window. The frost crystals on it had crept higher.

  “Just a little more, baby,” Sam breathed, and Charlie shuddered as he drove deeper inside of her.

  He was spooned up behind her, both of them still nestled in the rumpled warmth of the sheet and comforter, one hand curved possessively around her breast as he thrust further inside her. It was almost too much in this position, but she didn’t want him to stop. She never wanted him to stop.

  And that scared her. This wasn’t her, this wasn’t any version of herself she’d ever come close to imagining. The Charlie Prescott she’d always been only had sex after a series of regulation dates, and then usually in a bed, not—nearly anyway—on the kitchen table or counter.

  Or tangled on the sofa in the front of the fireplace, the way they had last night when the oncoming snowstorm had begun to howl. Sam had suggested the fire, but Charlie was the one who found herself climbing into Sam’s lap as the flames licked fast and hot at the dry kindling, casting a dull red-orange glow over the front parlor.

  She groaned as Sam drove deep again, his fingers stroking her nipple and then lower, skating across her belly and down, soothing the taut muscle as it went.

  “Is that good?” Sam whispered, taking her earlobe between his teeth before she could answer. She whimpered in response as his hips rolled up, the low grit of his voice drawing a shiver out of her. “You like me inside you?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, and twined her fingers with his as he reached lower still, brushing the curls gently.

  Like was such a useless word, she thought a little wildly as he guided their fingers between the slick folds and circled the wet skin where they were joined. Like didn’t even begin to cover it.

  But even so, she was pretty sure that the man wrapped around her wasn’t the Sam he usually was, either. She was a little bit ashamed at how little she knew about him, but it wasn’t a stretch to believe that Sam Landry was the love ’em and leave ’em, one-night-stand kind of guy.

  And yet here he was, still in her bed, and neither one of them could seem to stop touching the other. Last night they’d finally picked themselves up from the sofa and moved upstairs only to get in bed and reach for each other all over again.

  But ... that didn’t feel exactly wrong, either.

  Sam was still driving slow and steady inside her, in no rush, and she relaxed into the rhythm, letting him rock forward into her, spreading her legs a little to accommodate his fingers against her clit. She was so wet, open and pliant for him as pleasure beat like restless wings in her belly, and it was hard to remember that this would have to end at some point.

  But it had to. She needed to work on the book, figure out what the heck was haunting her house before someone really got hurt, and he had an article to write and research to do, not to mention a whole life somewhere else she didn’t know anything about. She didn’t even know where he lived, for heaven’s sake.

  She was playing with fire, that was for sure. Sam was that hot. Each stroke touched off a new spark of pleasure, and she twisted her head to seek out his mouth. He was waiting for her, lowering his head to hers and claiming her mouth in a slow, wet kiss that went on and on as he pumped inside her, faster now.

  There was so much she didn’t know. She’d tried to ask a few semi-intelligent questions
last night, and he’d silenced her line of inquiry with kisses and urgent, exploring passes of his hands.

  He arched his back, snapping his hips up deeper, harder, and she closed her eyes, all thought driven out of her head for the moment. There was only this, the heated connection between their bodies, the sensual thump of his hips against her behind and his erection sliding home again and again, and they came within minutes of each other, Sam grunting out a choked warning and Charlie sobbing out an inarticulate noise as she bowed around him, orgasm bubbling up from somewhere deep and rushing through her like water.

  “So good,” Sam breathed a moment later, and took his hand from between her legs. When he slid the fingers that had stroked her into his mouth, a tremor of fresh arousal rippled through her, and she tightened around him, where he was still buried inside.

  It was better than good. Charlie didn’t think there was a word for what was between them. But she did know she didn’t ever want it to end.

  “Toast’s up,” Sam said, grabbing the browned slices of bread and tossing them on a plate. Charlie was pouring juice, and the scent of freshly brewed coffee and buttery fried eggs and crispy bacon hovered in the kitchen.

  “You can start,” Charlie said over her shoulder as she put the carton of OJ back in the fridge. Dressed in a plain gray robe and little else, her hair scooped into a loose ponytail on the back of her neck, she was still the sexiest, loveliest thing Sam had ever seen. “Just put in two pieces for me before you do?”

  He kissed the back of her neck when he started her toast, letting his tongue linger over a warm purple mark in the shape of his teeth. She melted back against him, purring low in her throat, and his groin tightened in response.

  Yikes. He had to learn to keep his distance for at least a few minutes at a time or they were never going to get out of this house.

  He pinched her rear end lightly before he sat down at the table and picked up his fork, grinning at her startled gasp. She grabbed her toast and set it on her plate just as he was biting into the first piece of his bacon, dripping with runny golden yolk.

  “So I’m thinking I’ll hit up the historical society today and look into the Prescotts,” he said when she was seated across from him, salting her eggs carefully. “I’d really like to get up to Boston, because there’s a group of paranormal experts, or so they call themselves, up there.”

  She looked up, startled, her brows drawn together and making a worried dent in her forehead. His thumb itched to reach out and smooth it away. “Paranormal experts?”

  “As expert as they get, I guess,” he said, and slopped up more yolk with the crust of his toast. “A friend of mine wrote a piece on them a few years back, and he was pretty impressed. Maybe they could help us figure out how this ghost happened into existence, and how to get it the hell out of this house.”

  “Sam.”

  He glanced up, toast halfway to his mouth, and frowned at her obvious unhappiness.

  “Why ...” She sighed heavily, and pushed her plate away. “Why bother? It’s not hurting anyone.”

  “Uh, I beg to differ,” he told her, and arched an eyebrow.

  “Okay, aside from that whole pushing thing, which I’ll admit isn’t exactly friendly, but ...” She licked her lips nervously and fixed her eyes on him before continuing. “That’s only about you, so far, and ...”

  He waited, but she seemed to have stalled, hands folded in her lap and her eggs congealing on her plate.

  “And?” he prodded, driven to ask by emotions he wasn’t ready to name. The sunlit kitchen was too quiet suddenly, even if the air was charged with unspoken words.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally, and it was hardly more than a whisper. “I don’t know what I mean. I’m just tired, I think.”

  And he wasn’t going to be around forever. Those were the words she’d locked down tight, and he knew it. He set down his toast and pushed away from the table, taking his mug to the counter under the pretense of pouring himself more coffee.

  She wasn’t wrong, of course. He didn’t live here. He wasn’t looking for whatever this was and never mind his gallantry in front of Lillian. This was turning into a ... a relationship. And he’d known it that first night he’d kissed her, known that he shouldn’t have done it, that Charlie wasn’t the type to throw herself into a fling just for the sake of some good sex and a little easy company.

  And now? He couldn’t get more than five feet away from her without feeling the need to touch her, to remind himself of the giving heat of her body, the taste of her mouth.

  Which was strange, to say the least. It wasn’t like him to be emotional, to want someone that much. Hadn’t been, for more years now than he could count, and he was okay with that. More than okay, in fact.

  But it didn’t stop the tug of guilt when he turned around to find her staring stubbornly at her plate.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said softly, and walked up behind her, skimming his fingers over her shoulder, down the graceful slope of her head, her hair soft and warm under his hand.

  “I don’t think the ghost is going to hurt me,” she said, and he nodded even though she couldn’t see it.

  He didn’t think whatever was going on in this house was going to hurt her, either. He was. They just weren’t talking about it.

  She wasn’t snooping, Lillian told herself as she folded her napkin in her lap at lunch that afternoon. Snooping was an old-ladyish thing to do, and while she might be over sixty, she firmly believed that she was not old and never would be.

  What she was doing was caring. Looking for information that might help Charlie figure what or who was haunting that big old house she’d inherited. Nothing at all wrong with that, was there?

  Funny how it had still felt wrong when she’d called Iris Munson this morning, after months had passed since they’d seen each other, and asking her to lunch. At Iris’s favorite restaurant, no less, The Crow’s Nest.

  It was almost reassuring to finally know how shameless she was, underneath it all.

  “I’m thinking of the chowder,” Iris said now, happy and relaxed as she perused the menu. “Of course, I always get the chowder when I come here, but it really is the best, don’t you think?”

  Lillian managed an agreeable smile in answer. She’d known Iris since they were both girls, far younger than Charlie was now, and even though Iris’s artsy-craftsy, earth mother vibe had grated as far back as high school, Lillian had never been able to resist her friend’s honest affection. Iris doted on Lillian and, despite her many quirks, Iris had a heart as big as Nantucket Sound and a memory as long as the centuries-old turnpike that crossed Massachusetts. If anyone knew something about the Prescotts, it would be Iris.

  “What are you getting, dear?” Iris asked as she folded her menu. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company today?” She beamed from beneath the wire-framed glasses she’d started wearing in the last few years. They were as red as her hair, and her lipstick, Lillian noticed. “I may be a grandmother, but it doesn’t mean I have to neglect my looks,” she’d told Lillian two years ago. Lillian’s cropped pewter hair was an affront to womanhood, in Iris’s opinion.

  “It’s been too long, that’s all,” Lillian told her, pushing down a stab of guilt at the fib. The waitress was approaching, and Lillian smiled in her direction. The sooner they ordered and she could get Iris on the right track, conversationally, the sooner she could get out of here. “I thought it was time we caught up.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did.” Iris squeezed her hand across the table. “I brought pictures of Annabel and Lindsay, too.”

  Oh good, Lillian thought dispiritedly as her friend ordered. Beaucoup de grandchildren with tiny-toothed smiles. More fibbing about how cute they were.

  When she’d ordered a lobster roll and a cup of coffee, she sat back in her chair and stared out the window at the Sound. The snow hadn’t melted and its brightness was dazzling to look at. Shining on it, the sun’s reflection threw diamonds ove
r the rippling water. The postcard-perfect Christmas-is-coming weather and the wreaths and garlands on the houses along the street added up to blinding reality of the happiest sort. It was hard to believe that Charlie had a home-for-the-holidays ghost or ghosts who were quite unpredictable. Of course, that was the nature of apparitions.

  But Lillian had seen that angry red handprint on Sam’s chest. She’d heard Charlie scream. The ghostly visitors had announced themselves several times over but belief didn’t make it any easier to pinpoint their identity. The Prescotts hadn’t been the happiest family in the world, certainly, but even after living next door to them for more than sixty years, Lillian couldn’t imagine who among them would come back to haunt the living.

  But Iris oughta know. She had been a historical society docent for almost twenty years now, and she had taken it upon herself to research the island’s seagoing families. A book, privately printed, was planned. Lillian would have to stock it whether she wanted to or not. It would sell a few copies in the summer months.

  She murmured appropriate praise when her friend passed a parade of snapshots under her nose: Annabel in her pajamas, Lindsay with a glittery tiara on and a pink tutu riding slantways on one tiny hip over her jeans.

  “Grandchildren really are such a joy,” Iris said, her voice softening mawkishly, and Lillian braced herself.

  “And I’m not going to have any,” Lillian told her a little more firmly than was probably necessary. “That’s all right with me, and you know it, so you don’t need to get all wet about it every time we see each other.”

  Iris blinked at her, mildly insulted as usual, but in the end she simply pushed her glasses up her nose and sat back. “What’s it like to have Charlie living next door now? Does it bother you?”