She turned the glass in her fingers, lowering her gaze. “So if you wanted to, you could talk to him now?”
“I could, but I wouldn’t,” he said gently. “I decided when I started doing it seriously that I’d only ever read for someone in my office, or in a proper atmosphere. I’m not religious—I mean I’m not Christian or Buddhist or anything, I don’t follow a particular religion, but the process of communicating with the other side is a religious process for me, and it deserves respect. It’s not a party trick—it’s not pulling a rabbit out of a hat, or producing flags of many nations. It’s serious. It’s talking to the dead, for Christ’s sake, to the friends and family that people have loved terribly, and lost, and sometimes it’s nearly destroyed them. I can’t treat that lightly.”
Grace studied him, touched by his vehemence, but confused. How was he able to make it sound so perfectly normal, as if there were nothing strange in being able to talk to people whose bodies were now ashes to ashes, dust to dust?
She cleared her throat. “Can I see where you work?”
He met her gaze and his lips curved as he considered her question. “I suppose.”
“You don’t want to show me?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. His blue eyes were guarded, wary.
Grace frowned. Suddenly, everything fell into place. “Oh…your ex-wife didn’t believe in you.”
He stared at her for a moment, then, finally, dropped his gaze to his glass, still turning in his fingers.
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It seems to be my curse.” He smiled as he said it, though, softening his words.
Grace thought about the implications of what she’d worked out. “That’s why she didn’t want you to give up being a doctor.”
“Yeah. I guess it was like saying I wanted to look for alien spacecraft or something.”
This time Grace didn’t smile and instead sipped her wine. She wanted to tread carefully here. Although she wasn’t a believer in the paranormal, neither did she want to be lumped in with the ex-wife who’d split up the family because she disagreed with the choices he’d made. “Didn’t you ever do a reading for her?”
“No. She never wanted one.”
“Or give her any messages?”
He shrugged again. “Sometimes. She just ignored me.”
Grace bit her lip. “Jodi told me what happened after you divorced. How she died, I mean. I’m sorry, Ash. It must be terribly hard for you.”
He met her gaze and gave a small smile. “Yeah. It’s not been easy. Things had been going downhill for a while, but her lack of support when I decided to change occupations was it for me. She didn’t want to separate, though. It made it very…difficult.”
“Do you regret getting divorced?” she asked quietly.
He looked at his wine glass as he thought about the question. Then he sighed. “Honestly? No, of course not. Our marriage was over. But I do feel guilty that she felt abandoned. I should have been more supportive. I probably shouldn’t have taken Jodi from her. That sent her over the edge, I think.”
“You had to think about Jodi. It doesn’t sound like a great environment for a teenage girl to grow up in.”
“No. There were bottles of vodka all over the place. She was drunk most of the time.” He massaged his forehead. “It wasn’t pleasant.”
Grace reached out and placed her hand over his where it clutched his wine glass. “You can’t live someone’s life for them, Ash. People have to make their own decisions, their own life choices. Being married is about supporting the other person, even if you don’t agree with what they’re doing a hundred per cent. If she wasn’t there for you, she didn’t deserve you. You’ve done nothing wrong. You protected your only daughter. And that’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of.”
He smiled. “Thank you.” He turned her hand over and stroked her palm with his thumb.
Grace frowned. “Why on earth are you interested in me, when I’ve been perfectly horrible to you in the same way, not believing in what you do?”
He studied her, smiling mischievously. “Because I like your underwear.”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Seriously.”
“I’m being perfectly serious.”
She looked down. His hot eyes made her flustered. “So…has your ex-wife—”
“Angela.”
“—Angela ever…come through?” She felt stupid saying it. It was as bad as putting her hands on the table and asking someone to knock three times.
He turned the wine glass back and forth in his fingers. Finally, he sighed. “No. Even in death we can’t seem to communicate.”
It would have been easy for him to pretend he spoke to Angela regularly. And yet maybe he realised saying no made him more believable. She sipped the Sauvignon. She still found it difficult to believe he was lying to her. “What does Jodi think about that?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes disappointed, sometimes relieved, I think.”
“But she believes in you?”
His eyes were warm. “You’d have to ask her that.”
She nodded. “Jodi’s seemed a bit better over the past week. Not so…unhappy.”
He sighed. “Yes. I don’t know why. But it’s a relief. I was beginning to get quite worried.”
“You still don’t know what was bothering her?”
“No.” He looked so sad she wanted to cheer him up.
“Show me where you work.” Again, he hesitated. She reached across and put a hand on his. “I won’t make fun of you, Ash, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m outspoken, and a cynic, but I’m not cruel.” She thought for a moment. “Okay, I know I called you some terrible things that night we met, but I didn’t know you then.”
“So you only insult strangers?”
She grinned. “Kind of.”
“That’s all right then.” He sighed and stood, holding out his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you around the house.”
She rose and took his hand. First, he led her into and across the living room, past a laundry room to what would normally have been the master bedroom. She peered through the door. It was quite possibly the untidiest room she’d ever seen, littered with clothing and jewellery, the table full of half-used make-up, CDs, candles and all the other paraphernalia gathered by a fourteen-year-old girl. He stopped and stared at it, lips pursed.
“Your room?” she asked him.
He gave her an amused look. “She’s this end of the house, so when she plays her music loud, I can’t hear it in my meditation room.”
“That makes sense.”
He continued past Jodi’s room to the next door. “This is her art room.” He pushed open the door at the end and showed her the large room, the wooden floor littered with easels and canvases.
“Wow,” said Grace, entering the room and walking up to the canvas on the nearest easel. “She’s very good.”
“I think she has talent,” said Ash, “but then I’m biased.”
“No, these really are excellent.” She wandered around the room, looking at the various still lifes and scenes. Then she stopped by a group of canvases with a distinctly different style of painting, the oils all dark tones—blues, blacks and reds, mostly abstract, with disturbing shadows and swirls. “Eek.”
“I know,” he said wryly. “That was one reason I was worried.”
“I can see why.” She flicked through the canvases. “Although they don’t necessarily reflect her mental state. They could just be an experiment of colour, trying out a different method.”
“Hmm.” He didn’t sound convinced.
“Whatever it is, Ash, you’ll sort it out, the two of you. It’s clear you love her very much.”
He studied Grace for a moment, smiling. “Come on.”
He led her out, back across the living room and through the hall, then down a corridor to the west wing of the house. “Gym,” he said, pushing open a door on their left and showing her a room with a treadmill, a cross trainer, an exercise bike and weights. Large windows overlooked the garden, and there was a TV on the wall for him to watch while he worked out.
“Wow.”
“Healthy body, healthy mind,” he reminded her. Opposite that door was a spare bedroom, and past that a smaller but well-organised office with a table and computer. “This is the business room,” he said. “This is where my manager, Nate, works. He makes appointments, organises my shows and welcomes people who come for readings, that sort of thing.”
He led her across the corridor to a room next to the gym, pausing with his fingers on the handle of the door. “This is my meditation room.” His eyes met hers. Then he pushed the door open.
She walked into the room slowly. It was medium sized, sparsely decorated, painted in a pale green with a variety of colourful paintings on the walls. “Jodi’s?”
“Yes.”
She walked around, admiring the rainbow swirls and abstract patterns. “They’re beautiful.”
“I think so.”
To one side was a table with an iPod in its speaker, lots of candles and a variety of books scattered on the surface. The far wall consisted of glass with sliding windows that you could pull back to open the whole room to the beautiful garden outside. In front of the windows was a large exercise mat. And that was it.
In spite of the growing darkness, Grace could tell it would be a beautifully light room, and she had no doubt it would be breathtaking on a bright, sunny day. There was a sense of peace in the room too, presumably because of the serene colour of the walls. Grace wasn’t going to start thinking that the room somehow picked up on the calm, relaxed activities that went on inside it. She just wasn’t.
“It’s lovely,” she said eventually.
“Thanks. I like it.”
“So you come in here before you see a customer?”
He nodded. “Just to clear the mind and get relaxed.”
“And then you take them to another room?”
He smiled. “Follow me.”
He led her out and farther along the corridor to a room in the corner of the house. He opened the door, and Grace walked inside, not sure what to expect. In the end, it was almost disappointingly normal, like an ordinary lounge. She didn’t know what she’d expected—maybe Ouija boards and crystal balls and crucifixes on the walls or something. But there was nothing like that. She walked inside and stood for a moment in the centre. The carpet was a neutral beige, the walls a warm peach and the wall facing her, like in the meditation room, consisted almost entirely of glass. The other outside wall also had large windows, and again she knew it would be a light-filled room that oozed peace and tranquillity. Paintings of gentle seascapes hung on the walls, and the furniture was cream again, a plush sofa and armchairs, a couple of small tables and a cupboard in the corner.
“Go ahead,” he said when she looked at him enquiringly. Like an inquisitive child, she went to the cupboard and opened the doors. There were more candles, of all shapes, sizes and colours, books of every religion she could think of, as well as books on philosophy. Boxes of tissues, notepads and a variety of other paraphernalia he obviously used in his business made up the rest of the contents.
She closed the doors and turned around.
“No skulls or inverted pentacles,” he clarified.
She pulled a face at him. “After Todd, I have to check.”
“I can understand that.” He leaned against the wall, arms folded, and tipped his head at her. “How does this room make you feel?”
“Feel?”
“Yes, feel.”
She frowned, confused. What was he trying to say? It was just a room. But he was expecting an answer, so she looked around, at the seascapes, and the view of the garden, and the warm tones of the decor. “I don’t know. I thought I was going to feel nervous, but I don’t. And I thought, with all the people who must come here who are unhappy, it might feel depressing in here, but it doesn’t. It’s…peaceful. Clean. Hopeful.” She stopped, embarrassed at how far she’d gone. “Stop smiling at me,” she snapped. “It’s not like I’m agreeing to a séance or anything.”
He didn’t speak. Still smiling, he walked over to her, put his arms around her and kissed her.
Grace accepted the kiss, slightly puzzled, thinking he was just going to give her a peck, but he cupped her head with his hand and kissed her slowly, stroking her tongue with his, and almost without her being aware of it, turned her so her back was to the door and slowly began to move her toward it.
It was only when they were in the hall that she realised what he was doing and tried to pull away, but he tightened his arms, and she gave a short laugh as he refused to let her go. He walked her toward one of the last doors in the hallway, opened it and moved her inside.
It was his bedroom. She pulled back hurriedly. “Ash!”
“Too late,” he said, kicking the door shut with his foot. “We’re practically engaged now.”
She gave him an exasperated look and struggled as he kissed down her neck and pulled her hips close to his with one big hand on her butt. “Will you…stop!”
He sighed, pulling back. “Grace, it’s just a bed, and I’m not asking you to stay the night. But I’m thirty-four years old, and the carpet—even a sheepskin one—is hard on the knees, which took enough damage playing rugby.” He kissed her ear. “We’ve got an hour or so until Jodi comes home. I want to kiss you, all over preferably, and I’d like to be comfortable while I’m doing it.” He kissed her other ear. “The bed’s soft. All you’ve got to do is lie there. Do you think you could do that for me?”