He hugged her tighter. “Love, you’ve really got to talk to me. We can’t carry on like this. I know something’s bothering you. Is it really because I’ve started seeing Grace? Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
Jodi remained silent for so long he was sure she wasn’t going to tell him. Then, finally, she spoke. “It’s Mum.”
“What about her, love?”
“I…I can hear her.”
He frowned. “What do you mean? You keep thinking about things she said? When we used to live together?”
She shook her head, her face still hidden against his chest. “No. I can
hear
her, Dad. Her spirit. I lied when I said I couldn’t do what you do. She talks to me, all the time. And I love her, I love her so much, but I want her to stop.” She burst into tears again.
Ash murmured comforting words to her, but inside he’d gone completely numb with shock. Jodi was a medium? She could hear spirits, the same as he could?
When her sobs finally started calming down a bit, he pulled back from her a little and lifted her chin. “Honey? Thank you for telling me. I’m glad you’ve finally admitted what the problem is. But we can’t leave it there. We absolutely need to talk about this.”
She wiped her eyes, but she was so full of tears and snot it was like trying to soak up a spilled cup of water with a sodden cloth. He leaned across to Liv’s bedside table and retrieved the box of tissues, handing them to his daughter. He waited until she’d dried her face and blown her nose. Moving so his back was against the headboard, he pulled her with him, keeping her within the crook of his arm, but back slightly, so he could see her face.
“How long have you been able to do this?”
“A few years,” she admitted. “Since Mum died.”
“Is it only Mum you hear?”
She shook her head. “Sometimes there are other voices. But hers is the loudest.”
He nodded. He held her hand and stroked it gently. “What does she say? Can you tell me?”
She looked frustrated. “I can’t always make it out. She calls my name a lot. Sometimes I hear her say things like ‘Clean your teeth, Jodi’ when I’ve forgotten. It’s so loud and clear, it’s like she’s in the room. But most of the time it’s just, like, fragments, you know?” She took a deep breath. “Since you started seeing Miss Fox, though, I hear her all the time.” She met his gaze, lip trembling. “I don’t think she likes Miss Fox much. And…I feel guilty, Dad. I feel guilty because I like Miss Fox. I like her because she makes you happy. But I don’t want Mum to think I don’t love her anymore.” Fresh tears ran down her face.
His heart twisted inside, and he felt a surge of love for his poor, mixed-up daughter. “She knows that, sweetheart. Wherever she is, one thing is certain—she knows you love her.”
She put her head in her hands. “I feel like I should be loyal to her. But I keep feeling so resentful. I know I look like her, and I know I remind you of her. And although I like Miss Fox, I feel jealous sometimes, because she makes you smile, but I only make you sad.” Her voice broke.
“Oh God.” He felt a wave of guilt and pulled her into his arms again. “You don’t make me sad, darling. You only ever bring me joy. I feel sad because sometimes it seems we let you down. We broke up when you really needed us both, and I’ve never forgiven myself for that. And I feel guilty because I’ve never been able to contact her—the one thing I should have been able to do to help you cope with her death, and she just wouldn’t come through for me.”
“Do you think she’s angry with us both?” Jodi looked puzzled. “Only I thought you once told me that when we cross over, we don’t take our problems with us.”
“That’s true.” He kissed her head. “But we do retain our personalities. Your mother won’t be harbouring feelings of jealousy or anger. But she will still think she knows best for you, and for me, probably. The truth is, honey, it’s possible you’ve been misinterpreting what she’s been trying to communicate to you. If you’re scared of what’s been happening, you may have misunderstood that perhaps she’s trying to tell you it’s okay to move on. I’ve done thousands of readings for people whose partners have died and crossed over, and so many times they worry that their first partner is up in heaven somewhere, watching them and being angry with them because they’ve married again. But the truth is—as far as I can tell, anyway—things aren’t the same up there. If you get married twice, it’s not like when you get to heaven both partners are sitting there glaring at each other across the table. I don’t know how it works, but I don’t think there’s jealousy or animosity there.”
“But if Mum’s not angry with you, why do you think you’ve never been able to contact her?”
“Truthfully? I think I’ve been trying too hard. Maybe we both have, your mother and me. There have been times when I’ve been able to feel her presence. I know we split up and then got divorced, and at the time it was very difficult, but I’ve tried to explain to you before, I never stopped loving your mother, and I was devastated when she died. I just wasn’t
in love
with her anymore. Do you see the difference?”
Jodi nodded, wiping her nose. “Are you in love with Miss Fox?”
“Ah…” He gave an awkward laugh. “I don’t know. It’s difficult.”
“Why?”
He sat back. Grace would love all this frank talk, he thought. She loved it when everyone said what they were thinking. “I was very young when I had you,” he continued. “Only twenty. And Grace is now twenty-nine. She likes you so much, and she’s very worried about what you think of her, and she’s terrified you’re going to resent her for being with me.”
Jodi traced a pattern with her finger on the duvet. “I know.”
“You see, I already have a family. She very much cares for you, but she’s going to want to get married one day and have children of her own. And she would hate to think you would feel like she’s trying to push you out.”
She looked up at him. Her eyes were like clear, green pools. “Do you want more kids, Dad?”
He frowned. “Honestly? I don’t know. I
do
know, however, that it is essential to me that you realise you’re the most important thing in my life. You are my first child, and you always will be. Nobody can take that away from you. I…I would like to continue to see Grace. But if you sit here now and tell me you really want me to stop seeing her, I will.”
Jodi bit her lip and threw her arms around him. “I don’t,” she whispered. “I really don’t. I want you to be happy.”
He hugged her tightly, surprised at the wave of joy that flooded through him at her words. “Thank you, honey. I want you to be happy too.”
She pulled back, wiping her face. “I think a baby brother or sister would be cool. I could help look after it, couldn’t I? And take it for walks in the pushchair and stuff.”
“I suppose.” He touched her face. “But before we get carried away, I need to talk to you some more about what’s been happening to you. What you can do, Jodi—talk to the dead—it’s not going to go away just because you’re trying to ignore it. It doesn’t matter whether we want it or not. We’ve got to learn to deal with it, and that I
can
help you with.”
She nodded. He moved to one side and sat opposite her with his legs crossed. “Sit like this,” he instructed.
She copied his pose, holding out her hands for him to take them.
“The first thing you need to learn is how to protect yourself psychically,” he said. “Nineteen times out of twenty, you’ll be able to shut out any spirits you don’t want to talk to. Maybe not permanently, but certainly if, at that particular moment, you want some peace and quiet. To do that, you need to imagine yourself standing inside a glowing ball of white light. And the edge of that ball is a hard shell. Like a
Star Trek
force field, okay? And when you want to protect yourself, think, shields up!”
“Shields up,” she said and smiled.
He continued to talk to her, getting her to close her eyes, feeling the tension draining out of her as he willed his strength and energy into her slight form, filling her with healing white light. She was going to be okay. Together they would work through this, and he’d help her deal with her abilities. He felt a surge of pleasure and thankfulness. He was no longer alone. Jodi would finally understand what he went through, and why he’d made the choices he had.
He was on the road to mending his relationship with one of the women in his life.
Now what the hell was he going to do about the other?
Chapter Twenty
Grace got out of the car and hesitated for a moment, looking across the sweeping drive toward Ash’s house. What was she doing here? This went against all her better instincts. When she’d walked away from him the night before, she’d been determined she’d never come back here again. It was over. The whole thing was a Huge Mistake, and from now on, she’d decided she was going to be a lifelong spinster, and never date another man as long as she lived.
But that morning, he’d called and told her what had happened with Jodi, giving her a very brief, matter-of-fact rundown, and had explained that Jodi wanted to apologise to her, so could she please come around the house at seven that evening? She’d been tempted to say no, but he’d told her it would be good for Jodi to apologise and in the end, she’d caved. She wanted to help Jodi, especially if she’d been having the kind of problems Ash seemed to think she’d been having. No wonder the poor girl had been driven insane.
But that wasn’t the only reason she wanted to go around.
The thought of never seeing Ash again was tearing her apart. “Why is it that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?” she’d wailed to Mia and Freya the evening before, when she’d returned in floods of tears, brokenhearted.
“At least Joni Mitchell sympathises with you,” Freya had said wryly.
“Sweetheart, all’s not lost,” Mia had promised.
But she couldn’t believe that. “I can’t go back,” Grace said forlornly. “As good as the sex was, I can’t go back. If I do, I’ll never be able to leave him.”
They’d been unable to console her, and in the end, she went to her room and lay on the bed until the stars began to glitter in the darkening sky. The truth was, she was tired of other people running her life. It seemed like she was always the one who reacted to other people’s actions, rather than the one who acted. With her previous boyfriends, it had been they who moved forward with their lives, and she’d only been able to stand in their wake and watch them sail away and leave her behind, apart from the psychopath, and he didn’t count. Her dad had died, and she’d been powerless to do anything but learn to deal with the life he’d left her with. Her brothers had moved away, and all she could do was wish them luck and cope with her loneliness. And even with her mother, Grace spent every day trying to placate her and deal with each disapproving statement she came up with.
Something had lit in her heart then, a spark of independence, a glimmer of freedom. She’d rolled over in the bed, picked up the phone and dialled her mother’s number. They’d spoken for fifteen minutes—well, Isabella had spoken, and Grace had nodded and “oohed” and “aahed” at the appropriate times. When she could finally get a word in edgewise, she’d said, “Mum? I want to tell you something. I write romance stories. Racy romance stories.
Very
racy romance stories. I’ve had nearly two dozen published, and I’m going to have a whole lot more. I haven’t told you before, because I knew you’d disapprove, but frankly Mum, I don’t care anymore.”
Isabella had gone silent for a whole thirty seconds. Finally, she said, “Well, I suppose it could be worse. You could be centre spread in
Playboy
.”
They’d spoken for another ten minutes, during which Isabella had grudgingly admitted that Grace’s achievement was admirable—if you didn’t think too hard about the subject matter—and she should be very proud of herself—even though maybe a “sweet” romance or two wouldn’t kill her. Knowing it was the best reaction she could have hoped for, Grace had hung up with a lighter heart, feeling that at last she was on the first step to getting her life back on track.
And this was the second step, she thought as she walked up to Ash’s front door. She was going to go in, listen to what Jodi had to say, accept her apology and get the hell out of there as quickly as her legs would carry her.
If that’s the case
, squeaked her conscience,
why are you wearing that white lacy bra and panties you know he likes so much?
She rang the bell. “Shut up,” she grumbled. “I happen to like sexy underwear.”
It was only as the door opened immediately that she realised Ash had been waiting for her, and he’d heard what she’d said.
“Me too.” He stepped back with a smile and gestured for her to come in.
“I was talking to my conscience.”
“And may I say I happen to agree with it?”
“No,” she said, walking past him. “I’ll keep my jacket on, thanks. I won’t be staying.”
“That’s a shame.” He followed her into the living room. “Jodi will be very disappointed.”
She stopped as she saw the dining table. It was covered in a red tablecloth and two places had been set, with wine glasses and cutlery all laid out neatly. Red candles stood in a holder in the centre, and the entire tablecloth had been scattered with tiny silver hearts.
She stared as Jodi came out of the kitchen. The girl was wearing a white apron, and she was covered in flour.