Falling for the Wrong Twin (19 page)

Which meant that Bethany was right about him. And maybe--just maybe--she could be right about Anna. The woman wasn’t nuts, and odd, unexplainable things could happen.

“Yeah, right. And I’m a little green man from Mars.”

Shrugging off the entire conversation with Bethany, Mike headed up the stairs. He wasn’t going to listen to ghost talk--well not much--and he wasn’t going to believe any paranormal crap unless he was given hard, scientific proof. But he did have three potentially perfect cars for Anna that he wanted to show her. So with that thought firmly in mind, he mounted the stairs for the third floor.

Chapter 14

The first thing Mike heard as he climbed the stairs was laughter--loud belly laughs mixed with girlish squeals--like what one heard at a bachelorette party. It sounded like good, dirty fun and his male instincts cringed even as he headed toward the closed door. He didn’t think Anna was one to talk about what they’d done in the alley, but then again, he didn’t know for sure. Maybe she was a kiss and tell kind of girl. Or kiss and laugh uproariously.

He knocked firmly, already thinking he would show her the cars and get out. Who was he to interrupt girl time? But a moment later, Megan called out.

“Come on in!”

He pushed open the door and gave them both a sheepish smile. “I don’t mean to interrupt but I’ve got some car ideas for Anna--”

“Hello Mr. Smithson,” Megan said. “Please come in. Sit down.”

“Just call me Mike.” He looked over the room. They were in the sitting area to a bedroom which he saw off to the right. Against two walls were a desk and tables, covered in architecture prints and what he guessed were plans for the renovation. That’s what he would have been looking at, but both women were by the other wall, the one that was dominated by a bookcase filled with bizarre knickknacks. And they were holding something obviously phallic and grotesquely exaggerated. “Uh, I’m clearly interrupting.”

Megan looked down and laughed. She lifted up the feathered stone…um…object and waved it at him. “You’re not interrupting. We’re just talking about Miranda’s collection. This is one of her more interesting pieces, but I’m not sure what to do with it.”

He wasn’t going to touch that statement with a ten-foot pole.

“I was thinking--” she began.

He held up his hand. “I really don’t need to know more. I just wanted to talk to Anna about cars.” He looked at her, seeing that the sparkle was back in her eyes, but there was a reserve in her posture. She hadn’t forgotten their argument. “It’s not a big deal,” he said, “but if you want one of them, you really ought to look at them soon. They won’t last long.”

Anna tilted her head, her gaze hopping to a mantle clock before returning to him. “You’ve been researching cars for me? All morning?”

He nodded, knowing that her real question was: you’ve been doing that even after our argument? “Yeah,” he said. Then he offered her his smart phone. “I would have printed them up, but I haven’t got access to a printer. You’ll have to check them out on my phone--”

“Goodness, no!” Megan cried. “Just email me the links. I’ll get them printed.”

And so it was done. He read her the addresses, fumbling slightly with his big fingers on the phone, while she typed on her computer. A few more taps, and the printer geared up. The entire process took barely ten minutes, but he spent practically the whole time focused on Anna. What was she thinking? Her face wasn’t giving anything away. She just stood there--impossibly beautiful, all lush curves and beautiful eyes--and didn’t say a thing.

Perhaps he had been rash this morning. After all, she wasn’t the first woman to let her imagination run away with her. Maybe he was making too big a deal out of this.

“Um, Anna--”

“Mike, we need to talk--”

They spoke over one another, and then both stopped. Her cheeks turned pink, and she looked away. He released a self-conscious laugh. “Okay, that’s awkward.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“And that’s my cue to leave,” said Megan as she handed him the prints.

“You don’t need to. This is your office--”

Megan interrupted him. “I’m working in the cellar today. Did you know this place had one? I didn’t. Not really. And I certainly didn’t realize it was a stop on the Underground Railroad, but there you go. Mysteries abound in an old home like this.” She shared an awkward look with Anna.

Mike didn’t say anything. He was sure that was a reference to the ghostly Captain, but he wasn’t going there. Meanwhile, Anna gave the woman a quick hug.

“I’m so glad we got a chance to talk.”

“Me too. Now stay up here as long as you want. You’ve got the entire top floor to yourself, and I won’t be back up here for hours.” She leaned down to grab a toolbox.

He reached instinctively for the heavy thing. “Do you need help with that?”

She waved him away. “Aren’t you a gentleman? No, I’m fine.” Then her expression sobered. “And you need to sit here and listen. We’re not crazy, Mr. Smithson.”

He stiffened, not liking the sudden frequency of women telling him they weren’t crazy. That was a sure sign that something wonky was in the water.

“Um--”

“I got this, Megan,” Anna interrupted. “Thanks for being so frank with me.”

“Anytime. Okay, off to explore history!” She flashed Anna an encouraging thumbs up before rushing away, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Which left him and Anna standing there awkwardly with a stack of used car papers between them. He took refuge in that.

“Um, okay. So about these cars--”

She grabbed the stack from him and set them aside. “Megan says that people in Rooms 1 and 2 share dreams.” Her words were rushed, the inflection non-existent. As if she were trying to get it out before she changed her mind.

He didn’t respond. Given what Bethany and Megan had just said, he wasn’t at all surprised by this. And yet, hearing it spoken aloud just made the whole
crazy
more real.

“Um…” he began, not having a clue what he was going to say.

“There’s this ghost here. The Captain. He used to own this house and they say--”

“I know all about the legend. The locals have been talking about it all my life.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Well, it was new to me. The thing is, Megan says she’s met him. Says she’s talked with him.”

Mike reared back. The woman hadn’t seemed that loony. “She saw him? Like in the…um…”

“Ghostly flesh? Not really. He talked to her in a dream.” She held up a hand before he could speak. “Just listen. She and Wyatt--that’s her fiance--were in room 1 and 2 just like we are. And it took a while before they realized it, but they were both having dreams. The
same
dreams. And Megan thinks it’s because of the ghost.”

He moved away from her, dropping down on the couch rather than speak. He’d promised Bethany he’d listen. Hell, he’d promised himself that he’d do his best to not judge. Anna didn’t really seem crazy, and neither did Megan or Bethany. But…ghosts?

Meanwhile, Anna came down and sat on the coffee table directly across from him. It was weird seeing her that way. She was normally so neat with her linen pants and perfect make up. That she would sit on a coffee table to be eye to eye with him was a measure of how important this was to her.

“Look, I don’t know about the ghost or what happened to Megan.”

“And Bethany,” he inserted.

She blinked. “What?”

“Bethany thinks there’s a ghost here too. And she’s not one to believe in them.”

“Oh,” Anna said. “Oh.”

“I’m not there yet,” he said, his tone dampening.

“Right,” she answered. “So I’m…um…I’m going to tell you my dreams exactly. Don’t say anything. Just tell me if you, um, if you dreamed--”

“I get it. But we’ve already discussed the first dream. Nothing you say--”

“I’m talking about last night’s dream.”

That shut him up. He hadn’t mentioned his strange dream of movie sets and exploding volcanoes. Frankly, it didn’t make much sense to him, so he’d half forgotten it already. Except for the scenes inside the cave before it got bizarre. Those he would remember for a good long while.

“So, um, I dreamed last night that I was on this island or something. There was this volcano that was going to explode and I had to get the local population off the island.”

He straightened abruptly and knew his face went pale. Good God, he hadn’t told her about that, had he? No, he hadn’t. And he sure as hell hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else either.

“Then, um, I went into this cave and there was a witch doctor or something. A guy in a grass skirt.”

He swallowed. This wasn’t possible. None of this was possible.

“I was trying to get him to leave, you know, then he blew some stuff in my face and I got…” She looked away from him, her fingers twisting together.

“What happened next?” he pressed, his voice hoarse.

She looked up sharply, but then continued. “It was an aphrodisiac or something. And then the pilot got there saying he’d fixed the helo, but that--”

“You had to leave right away.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded. “Then he got whammied.”

“Yeah.” He remembered that. The feel of the white grit hitting his face, the choking cough, and then the burning erection. It had literally burned, and for some reason, he thought he’d die of the heat if he didn’t get it inside her where she was wet and slick and… “Oh shit.”

“There’s, um, more.”

There certainly had been, but he didn’t think she meant the erotic encounter that had been much too short. “Tell me,” he rasped.

She shook her head. “Your turn. You tell me what you dreamed next.”

He hadn’t even admitted to her that he’d been dreaming, but he figured the boat had already sailed on that one. “Then it became this weird movie set. I thought we’d been…um…you know, naked and--”

“Porn movie.”

He swallowed. “Yeah. But we were dressed and the director was screaming at us. What does this mean? What do you want? That kind of thing.”

“And I said, off the island.”

“And he said, everyone wants sex, dahling.” He snorted. “Pretentious prick. Dahling.” He said the word as mockingly as possible, but it was really a way to focus his turmoil onto something unimportant because he couldn’t handle what they were really talking about.

“He was a movie director,” she said. “They’re all pretentious.”

“And you know this how?”

She flashed him an annoy glare. “That’s what I imagine they’re all like.”

“You mean that’s what your magazines say.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s what they print.”

Clearly neither of them wanted to focus on the real point: that they were sharing their dreams. Meanwhile, she was twisting in her seat, obviously uncomfortable on the hard coffee table.

“So, um, I think it’s some freak ESP thing,” she said. “Between the beds maybe. Or this could be a hotspot or something. Megan, um, she says the ghost took credit, but--well, it was in a dream, so who knows.”

“In a dream.” Of course.

“Yeah,” she agreed, and she looked down. He did too, watching as her fingers twisted together. Geez, he’d never seen her looking so uncomfortable.

He abruptly leaned forward, grabbing her hands and smoothing the snarl of her fingers. She let him do it, easing her fingers apart until they gripped each other. “Look, I don’t believe a word of this,” he said. She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “Just wait. I don’t believe any of it, but Bethany and I have known each other for most of our lives. She’s not the kind of person to believe in any of the paranormal crap.”

“Neither am I,” Anna inserted. “Not for real. I’ll read this stuff, but I don’t really
believe
. At least, you know, not until now.”

Her voice trailed off, and he more than sympathized. “I don’t read this stuff, I don’t believe. But…”

“Did you have my dream? Were you there in the cave and on the movie set?”

He nodded slowly, reluctance in every muscle in his body. “And, um, at the end.”

“Oh my God, Tilde and Dee.”

He shuddered. Shit. It was true. They had shared that dream. No one could make up that twisted stuff. No one. Crap, he felt nauseous.

She closed her eyes, her breath coming short and fast. “Mike, this is weird. Even for me, this is…really weird.”

He nodded. What else could he say? “So, um, what does Megan think this means?”

Anna released a short laugh. “For her it meant that she and her boss had the hots for each other.”

“Ah.” He frowned. “So she’s engaged to--”

“Her boss and now partner.”

“And they shared dreams?”

“Um yeah. Only hers were of a more, um--”

“Erotic nature?”

“Superhero.”

He jolted. “What?”

“Her fiance is really into comics. So their dreams were about a masked man and…” She shrugged. “You know, the
Spiderman
kiss and stuff.”

He thought about it. Could be cool. Get to star in your own private superhero comic with the hot girl of your dreams. “So their dreams aren’t the same as ours.”

She shrugged. “I guess. It’s not like they have a lot of experience with this. Or evidence.”

True enough. After all, he didn’t believe it and he’d just experienced it. “An ESP hotspot, huh?”

“Or something.”

He sighed. “Megan, I’m an engineer. If I can’t make it, electrify it, or break it--I don’t believe in it.”

She glared at him. “And I’m a party planner. If it doesn’t go into making a better experience for the guests, I don’t use it. Are you having a better vacation because of our dreams?”

He flinched. Well, on one level, their dreams had been really fun.

She snorted. “Really? Is that where you’re going to hang out? If it’s a wet dream, how weird can it be?”

“No,” he returned hotly. “Just that I can’t deny that certain aspects of the dream were, um, well--”

“Really hot?”

“Yeah.”

She smiled at him. “Yeah.”

They subsided into silence then. He was still trying to wrap his brain around this. Was it possible? Had they really been doing
that
in their dreams? Well it wasn’t so big a leap given what they’d done in the alley, but… He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as his dick started to thicken. Anna was the hottest woman to come across his path in years.
Years
. What did it matter how they’d shared their thoughts? He decided to call them fantasies in his mind. Erotic fantasies were nothing new. What was important here was that they were both sexual beings obviously attracted to one another. Nothing weird about that. They were simpatico.