Abby's Christmas Spirit (4 page)

Except that he’d spent his whole life following a good plan and while it had brought him success and money, it hadn’t brought him a partner, a wife. Love.

“I’m just showing some compassion.”

“That’s how every horror movie starts. You’ll walk in there to give her a blanket and she’ll sit up and bare her fangs and tear your flesh out in massive bloody chunks while I sit here and scream as I watch it going down. Classic.”

Darius raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you think is going to happen? That she’s a vampire or a demon or something?”

“It’s the perfect set up. Mysterious girl arrives out of nowhere with abilities that make no sense. If we turn our backs she’ll probably start levitating only to float gently to the ground just before we look at the monitor again.”

It was oddly reassuring to hear Trent’s theory. Abby may be odd, and it may be bizarre that he recognized her, but it could just be some crazy form of déjà vu. Nothing as implausible as her being a demon. He felt better. “I think I’m willing to take that chance.”

“It’s been nice knowing you.” Trent leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands over his stomach. “Bravado will get you killed, man.”

Darius laughed. “You need to spend your weekends doing something other than watching the horror channel.”

“Are you kidding? I spend my weekends with you in empty, dirty, haunted buildings trying to make contact with the other side. We don’t live like normal people.”

“I suppose not.” Darius stood up. “I’m going up.”

“You’re going to have worse problems than a headache when she rips your face off.”

“I’ll take my chances.” The idea of Abby coming at him with claws was entertaining. The only danger he was in from her was spontaneously combusting from unrequited lust.

Making his way up the stairs in the dark, Darius wondered what it would be like to live in the house. Fill it with comfortable furniture, not stuffy antiques. Set down roots.

His constricted blood vessels from his headache were clearly making him woozy and insane. He was not actually contemplating holding on to this relic of a house.

He paused in the doorway of the bedroom, unsure if Abby was asleep or not. She looked asleep, and her breathing was low and even. But it had only been a couple of minutes since she’d retrieved the aspirin for him. He hovered, unsure if he wanted to disturb her or not. His body was having a familiar reaction to her. He was already hard, just looking at her curled up there on the floor, her shirt riding up, exposing the pale flesh of the small of her back. The waistband of her jeans gapped open, and he wondered if he was standing on the other side of her if he could see her panties. What kind of panties did she wear? The dream girl had worn a parade of thongs, mostly black, with the occasional hot pink or leopard print thrown in.

What was Abby wearing, right now? Were her soft, smooth ass cheeks bare and ripe for squeezing? Was the V of her thighs covered by a barely-there scrap of lace?

Darius started towards her. He was leaning down to pick up the bottle of pain reliever when her eyes popped open.

“Yes, it’s a thong,” she whispered, eyes shiny with desire, the tip of her tongue slipping out to moisten her lip.

He froze with his hand outstretched. She could not have just read his thoughts. That wasn’t possible.

He retreated into anger, withdrawing his hand. “You need to be gone by eight.” He wasn’t doing this. This crazy woo woo crap.

No matter how hot she was.

Something flickered in her eyes then she shuttered them, her mouth tilting up. “You can run, but you can’t hide, Darius. I’ll see you in your dreams.”

“That’s the only place I want to see you.” Ignoring the aspirin, he left. “I’m calling the cops in the morning, brother-in-law or not.”

She didn’t say anything. Just closed her eyes again.

Darius frowned and left.

And spent the entire night staring at her image on the screen, questioning his sanity.

“YOU
look tired, are you okay?” Charlotte asked. Her hand came towards Abby’s forehead.

Abby dodged the touch and sat down at Charlotte’s kitchen table. “I do not have a fever. I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep all that well.”

“Why not?”

“Does there have to be a reason for everything?”

“For Charlotte, yes,” Bree said, juggling her baby in her arms by the sink. She shut off the tap when Charlotte’s daughters, who were supposed to be washing their hands, starting flicking water at each other.

Abby sighed. She wanted to confide in her sisters, but at the same time, she felt stupid. She had put a lot of stock in her dream guy, and now he was more of a nightmare than anything else.

“Okay, so maybe you’ve wondered why I haven’t dated in the last few years.” Which now seemed pointless, causing her hours of unnecessary horniness. But at the time it had made sense.

“As a matter of fact, yes. But I figured you just haven’t met a great guy, and you’ve been busy with school. Your education is important.”

Charlotte wiped her hands on her apron. Her apron, of all things. Sometimes Abby wondered how they were even related to each other.

“Girls, come on down. We’re going to bake cookies with Aunt Abby.”

“Sugar cookies?” Abby asked hopefully. That would definitely improve her day.

“So why haven’t you dated?” Bree asked, as Alistair played with a strand of her long hair.

“Because for five years I’ve been having visions of the guy I’m supposed to be with.”

“Psychic visions, or just like a checklist?” Bree asked.

“Psychic visions.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Can we not, you know, in front of…” she jerked her thumb at her daughters.

Irritated, Abby frowned. “Fine. Never mind.” Charlotte still being in denial and acting like they weren’t supposed to talk about being witches annoyed the crap out of her. Some day, her daughter’s were going to figure out they had gifts and if Charlotte didn’t discuss it with them, they were going to flip out when it happened.

Charlotte sighed. “No, come on. It’s just difficult for a couple of toddlers to understand. Can you speak in code?”

Given that her niece Georgia was picking her nose, and her niece Rose was licking the tabletop, she didn’t think code was necessary, but she could respect her sister’s wishes.

“Remember when Bree sold Grandma’s house? And I said I was going to live there with a guy? Well, ever since then, I’ve had visions of him with me. I was so sure that he was supposed to be my husband, that I figured dating other guys was a waste of time.”

“I can get that,” Bree said. “But it does sound lonely. There’s nothing wrong with having some fun in the meantime.”

“My fun was inserting myself into his dreams.” Abby felt a little childish admitting that. It maybe hadn’t been the most ethical thing to do.

“You did what?” Charlotte blinked. “Why?”

“Well, to get to know him. To ensure that he would know me. Fall in love with me.”

God, she felt totally embarrassed saying that out loud. Fiddling with a felt snowman that was in the center of the table, she couldn’t look at her sisters.

They didn’t say anything for a second, the only sound in the room Alistair’s baby cooing, and Rose’s toddler babble.

“You were eighteen when you first starting seeing him, so I’m not surprised. And then it became a habit, right? Easier than dating for real to get satisfaction from a dream.”

The sympathy in Bree’s voice was almost worse than condemnation would have been. She forced herself to look up. She had never backed down from anything in her life, and she shouldn’t hang her head over a poor choice. Bree was right. She’d been eighteen.

“It was an awesome fantasy, I’m not going to lie. And you both know that I was always the kind to go after what I want. I think I just saw it as insurance. As my right. I was a sassy teenager.”

“Oh, I remember,” Charlotte said wryly. “I think you still are, you’ve just matured. So what is the problem? You’re having a hard time letting go of the idea of this guy?”

“Yes, because it turns out that the guy is actually Darius Damiano, TV ghost hunter and the jerk who bought Grandma’s house.”

Charlotte paused with her teacup halfway to her mouth. “Are you serious? How do you know?”

“Because I met him.”

“Oohhh.” Bree’s eyes were shining and she came closer. “What happened?”

“Nothing. I told him he’s a jerk for the way he bought the house.”

She was about to answer but her expression changed. “Ian’s calling.” Juggling the baby, she pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her long skirt. “He never calls during the work day.”

“Hello? What? Why? Okay, come on in, the door is open.” She frowned as she hung up. “Ian’s here for some reason. He says he needs to talk to Abby.”

Oops. Abby bit her lip. She’d been gone by eight a.m., like Darius had demanded. Yet he’d still ratted her out apparently. Douchebag.

Unless her brother-in-law wanted to talk to her about Reds baseball, which seemed highly unlikely.

Ian strolled into the kitchen, wearing a suit like he’d been born in one. Abby always marveled that he and Bree looked like a bad blind date together, the goth girl and the businessman. But it seemed to work for them. Five years and they were still going strong.

“Good morning, ladies,” he said.

“Uncle Ian!” Georgia started bouncing in her chair, and almost slipped off, but Charlotte grabbed her at the last second before she went toppling to the floor.

Ian kissed Bree and the baby and ruffled the hair on his nieces’ heads.

“I’m always glad to see you, but what the hell is going on?” Bree asked. “You’ve got me worried.”

“You probably should be a little worried.” Ian nailed Abby with a hard look. “Would you care to explain your nocturnal activities last night?”

Uh. “No, not really.” She tried to stare him down, but Bree stepped in front of him. God, it sucked being the baby in the family. They were going to overreact.

“What’s going on? What did you do?”

The front door opened and slammed shut. “Charlotte! Is your sister here?”

Yeah, she was busted.

“Will? Yes, they’re both in the kitchen.” Charlotte jumped out of her chair as her husband strode into the kitchen, wearing his police uniform. “What’s wrong?”

It was a compact kitchen in a small house and Abby felt the weight of everyone’s eyes on her.

“Abigail Murphy, would you care to explain to me why you broke into Darius Damiano’s house last night? And why I shouldn’t haul your butt off to jail right now?” Will asked.

“What?” There was a collective gasp from her sisters.

“You said you were at your friend’s house!” Charlotte said.

Her best defense was offense. “I can’t believe he called both of you. What a total narc baby.”

“So you admit it?” Bree asked.

“Well, sure. It wasn’t a big deal.” Just the ruination of a five-year fantasy.

“It’s trespassing, Abigail. Breaking and entering. Damiano has every right to press charges.”

“He won’t,” she assured him. “I’ll just talk to him.” He wouldn’t. She was positive of that.

“Seriously, Abby? You’re not a teenager anymore. This isn’t us busting you making out in this house with Brady Stritmeyer.”

You know, you tried to lose your virginity with a bad boy and you never lived it down. Abby tried to stay calm and not react like the teenager they were accusing her of being. “Brady had a key to this house back in the day because his grandmother owned it at the time, and it was vacant. We had no way of knowing that you and Will would show up to look at buying it. The same thing happened last night. I have a key to the house and apparently Damiano never changed the locks. I wanted to see it because I’m considering buying it. I had no idea he was going to show up.”

“Just because you have a key doesn’t mean you go in,” Will told her. “And the first time around you were seventeen. You’re an adult now, living on your own in Cincinnati at grad school, making I thought, better decisions. What were you thinking?”

How did she explain that she’d gone in because she had seen the man of her dreams arriving? That she’d been hoping by this morning she would be well on her way to having a boyfriend and that she wouldn’t be the only single one in the family come Christmas morning. It sounded so lame in retrospect.

If Will hadn’t been in Charlotte’s life for ten plus years she would feel more offended than she did. He had been around for her awkward middle school years, so she imagined he felt a little paternal to her. But that didn’t mean she had to put up with it.

“Drop it, Will, or I’ll tell you the truth, and I assure you that you don’t want to hear that.” About how she’d been planning to have massive quantities of sex with her dream guy.

“What truth?” Ian asked her, pausing in the act of taking his son from Bree.

Will threw his arms up. “Dear God, I don’t even want to know. If this involves candles and a cemetery I’m going to have a heart attack.”

“A cemetery?” Abby rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so melodramatic. You can both go back to work. I’m not going to do anything stupid. Tell Darius Damiano to calm his uptight ass down.”

“Ass,” Georgia repeated.

Double oops.

But for some reason, Will seemed to find his three-year old swearing funny, because he cracked a grin. Charlotte didn’t seem to find it nearly as amusing. “Abby!”

“Sorry. It slipped out. I’m not used to being around kids. If I can buy the house back, I plan on spending a lot more time here in Cuttersville with you and the kids.” It was the perfect diversionary tact to take with her sister, and it worked.

“Really? You want to move back home?” Charlotte’s face lit up. “That would be wonderful. But can you find a job here?”

“I’m going to invest in some real estate and launch an online psychic business.” She’d been creating the business plan as her master’s thesis.

Will shook his head. “Holy crap. Okay, I’m heading out.” He kissed the blond heads of his daughters and added, “Just stay away from Damiano, okay?”

“Sure.” She was lying, but it should be a witch’s right to lie.

Ian handed the baby back to Bree. “Darius thinks you’re nuts, you know, Abby.”