Jade's Spirit (Blue Collar Boyfriends Book 2) (9 page)

After his stunt, Joshua’s essence was perilously close to dispersing. Every fiber of his being trembled with the effort of holding himself together against the storm of the physical plane. He barely made it back to the unaware Draonius in one piece.

He wasn’t sure what would happen to him if he dispersed. He might end up in hell. He might cease to exist. His soul, which belonged to Draonius now, would surely never find Heaven’s peace. He was damned as surely as he was dead. All that was left for him was to do what good he could and find a way to survive this barren existence.

Once, he had believed his soul safe in his Savior’s hands. He’d thought a believer in Christ Jesus could never be harmed by one of the Devil’s minions. How wrong he’d been.

He’d lost his life—and his faith—three weeks from his twenty-first birthday and five weeks from his wedding day. Mercy had invited him to meet her at midnight down by the pond. When he’d found her, she’d had five candles set in a circle. He knew now the configuration had represented the points of a pentagram, but at the time, his mind had been too clouded with the promise of illicit pleasure to notice.

He’d endeavored to take his time with his beloved fiancée, to show her how special she was to him, but she’d had other plans. Within a scant handful of minutes, she’d had him nude and pressing into her welcoming body. In a handful more, he’d given his love to her in the most intimate way imaginable.

That very moment, she stabbed him in the heart with a blade she’d had hidden in the folds of the quilt they lay on. His life had ended, and worse. His soul had been stolen by a demon, Mercy’s demon lover. Draonius.

Who would have guessed his sweet fiancée would betray him so thoroughly? Who would have thought the minister’s daughter might be a witch?

Because of her treachery, he’d become just another plate in a demon’s armor. One more inconsequential layer in his master’s cloak of stolen power. Mercy was there, too, having died shortly after him.

In his darkest moments, Joshua had tried to take pleasure in Mercy’s comeuppance, but he couldn’t rouse anything more than pity for her. What Draonius had done to Mercy was a thousand times worse than what he’d done to Joshua.
His
thoughts were still his own, whereas there was almost nothing left of the woman he had loved. The demon had reduced her to a witless wretch, a slave to his promises.

He supposed Mercy had earned a fair reward for dealing with the devil, but
he
hadn’t dealt with the devil. Why had God forsaken him? Was this his punishment for the sin of fornication? For lust? For naively loving the wrong woman?

He coiled with bitter humor as he pulled strength from Draonius, strength that, if his luck held, the demon would never miss. Perhaps Almighty God had not truly forsaken him. He still had his wits left to him. He could move about in the physical plane while Draonius slept each day away in a stupor of power after glutting himself on the dreams of the woman who lived in Mercy’s old house. He could show himself to the woman, Jade, who for some reason had always been able to see him, even when she’d been too young to appeal to the demon. Mercy could do none of those things. He suspected not even Draonius could, though with this new abundance of power, who knew what he might be capable of.

He shuddered. A few days ago, the demon’s highest aspiration was to merely enjoy a decent meal. Now, Joshua feared he planned something even more nefarious, for he was hording power, so much power the air was charged with it.

Perhaps Almighty God had a purpose in Joshua’s captivity. Perhaps, if he could warn Jade away from the house, away from Draonius, God might see fit to save him, after all.

The prickly tingle of daylight still warmed his essence, and he had regained his strength without waking the demon. He should try again. Perhaps, if he concentrated hard enough, he could make himself more than a shadow.

* * * *

It was close to 11 AM by the time Jade made it to the hospital. Once she’d started researching ways to evict the livingly challenged, she’d lost track of time. Then she’d gone to the strip mall in Wilmington for a little something she hoped would cheer up Grandma Nina.

When she walked into her grandmother’s room and found her lying in bed with her eyes closed, panic made a fist around her heart. Until she noticed the white cords winding from her ears down to her tablet and heard her grandmother’s soft humming. From the tune, she guessed Grandma Nina was listening to Lady Gaga.

“Hi Grandma,” she said, loud enough, hopefully, to be heard over the music.

Grandma Nina’s eyes popped open, and she pulled the earbuds out. “Oh, honey, hi!” Her cheek-wrinkling smile made Jade feel warm all over.

“How are you feeling?”

Her smile fell. “Tired, honey. Real tired. How’s the house?”

She sank into the visitor’s chair, setting her shopping bag on the floor.
Haunted as a graveyard on Halloween. Empty and lonely.
“Fine. The lawn looks good. I brought you something.” She handed over the distinctive white shopping bag with the gold logo of the candy shop that made her grandmother’s favorite caramels.

“Oh, Jade, how sweet.” She lifted the white box with its gold ribbon from the bag. A tear rolled down her cheek.

Her throat felt tight. “Stop it, Grandma. You’re going to make me cry.”

Grandma Nina sniffed once then composed her face into a determined carefree mask.

It didn’t convince Jade. Her grandmother was shaken. She’d had a scare yesterday.

“Thank you, honey. I love these, and haven’t had them in a while.” Her hand rested on the box like it was a treasure.

“You’re welcome. Is there anything else you’ve been hankering for that I can bring you?”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about my photo albums. They’re probably in the sitting room. Or I might have moved them up to your grandfather’s study. If you come across them, you could bring one or two. The one with the red cover and the black spine, that one would be wonderful.”

That one held the pictures from Grandma Nina and Grandpa Earl’s wedding from way back when. Back then, they didn’t march the whole family and wedding party in front of the camera. There were just two pictures of her and Grandpa Earl. One where their fresh, happy faces beamed at each other and one where they looked at the camera and managed to wrangle their smiles into decorum. The red album also had pictures of Jade’s mom as a baby and a little girl. There were some department-store shots of her and Jilly with a stuffed panda bear between them and of Jade covered in pink icing in a high-chair in Grandma Nina’s dining room. It was the album for remembering happier times.

Grandma Nina was smiling, but her eyes were sad as they stared out the window. Her hand still rested on the box of caramels. The only movement was the slight rise and fall of her thin chest beneath the hospital gown. She looked so old and frail without her tracksuit and without any lipstick on or her eyebrows penciled in.

“So many ghosts in that house,” she said.

Jade’s fingers clenched the arms of the chair. “What?”

Her grandmother startled. “Did I say that out loud? I’m sorry, sweetheart. I suppose yesterday just got me thinking about the past a bit. I wouldn’t mind seeing the house again when I get out of here. Your grandfather did so much work on the place when we were younger.” She launched into a recounting of Grandpa Earl’s many projects, some of which had ended in emergency phone calls to the handyman.

Jade leaned back in her chair and listened, liking the ghosts Grandma Nina was thinking about much better than the one she was dealing with. An hour into their visit, Grandma Nina fell asleep, and Jade tiptoed out of the room, letting the door quietly snick shut behind her.

Sadness blanketed her. She’d never seen her grandmother so down in the dumps. The smile the caramels had put on her face had lasted less than a minute. It was going to take more than candy to cheer her up. She just wished she knew what.

She pulled out of the hospital parking lot and pointed her Jetta toward Wilmington, but this time, her destination was off the beaten path of high-traffic strip malls. The shopping list she’d made while researching ghosts that morning demanded a trip to a district marked by tobacco shops and seedy video rental stores.

An hour later, she laid out her booty on the dining room table and powered up her laptop so she could follow the steps one website listed to “bless her dwelling.” She didn’t normally believe in spiritual stuff, but burning incense and placing bundles of herbs around the house couldn’t hurt. It probably wouldn’t help either, but she couldn’t see calling a priest before trying something on her own, and of the do-it-yourself remedies for ghosts, the herbal blessing seemed the least invasive. Some of the suggestions sounded creepier than putting up with a ghost. Anointing your walls with goat’s blood? Seriously? Ew.

By the time dark started to fall, she’d placed fragrant bundles of rosemary, frankincense, lavender, sage, and vervain on every windowsill and tacked up sachets of the protective herbs over the front door and the sliding door in the kitchen. As she was making a sandwich for dinner, she realized she’d forgotten about the basement storm door. While she munched, she threw together one more herb bundle and walked around the house to set it on the outside of the doors. She could have put it on the stairs to the storm door in the basement, but that would have required making a trip down there. No, thank you.

Finally, it was time to take a shower and get ready for her date with Emmett. As soon as she popped the top on her cut-grass-and-fresh-cucumber shower soap, her thoughts turned to her flirty church boy. He would be there in an hour to pick her up, and, judging by the horde of butterflies storming her stomach, she couldn’t wait to see him.

Ever since that unexpected hug on the sun porch last night, she’d been craving his arms around her again. She shouldn’t want anything to do with a guy who was likely to either judge her or see her as a project, but her hormones hadn’t gotten the memo. When he’d gathered her to his chest after she’d had such a long day hanging around the hospital and worrying about Grandma Nina, he’d given her something she’d been so long without. Acceptance and security. It was like a comforting drug being near Emmett. She’d clung to him like a life preserver. Letting go after a minute had taken all her strength.

Only after stepping away from him did she remember he’d sent Theo to do her lawn. She’d busted his balls for it, and he’d taken it like a man and joked with her about it. Charming bastard.

And then there were the dreams she’d had about him last night.

Finally, her subconscious had given Emmett the starring role he deserved in these crazy sex dreams. And it had been Uh-Maz-Ing. She would never forget the tender way Dream Emmett gazed into her eyes as he made love to her, how he held her so possessively, like he didn’t just want sex with her, but needed her for who she was, like he saw something…worthy in her.

One encounter had been in the lawn chair on the back deck. Another had been in the bed. The last time had been in this very shower. She let her fingers wander south through the soap to bring the dream back to sharp focus, and her quick shower turned into a decadent, steamy affair.

Afterward, she slipped into her favorite teal clubbing dress. Her breasts were on the big side, but perky enough that in dresses with a little support, she didn’t need to wear a bra. This dress was perfect. The spaghetti straps and swishy, short skirt made it seem flimsy, but the bodice was lined with a sturdy layer of spandex that held everything in place. She could dance her ass off in this dress. Finishing the ensemble, she slipped on a pair of strappy heels.

Would her flirty church boy dance dirty, grinding like a porn star, or would he dance tender, holding her close and making her feel like the only important person in the room? Somehow, she could believe him capable of either, which was one of the reasons she was giving him the time of day in spite of his religious beliefs. Whichever kind of dancer he turned out to be, she was determined to blow off some steam and have fun with him.

She did her makeup standing in front of the bathroom mirror. The last traces of her bruise disappeared beneath a thin layer of concealer. By tomorrow, she might not need makeup to cover it anymore. While selecting eye shadow, she considered her audience. This wasn’t Boston, and Emmett wasn’t a third-generation Italian-Bostonian in a wife-beater and baggy pants. She kept the eye makeup natural and skipped the eyeliner altogether. Instead of her favorite True-Red Revlon lipstick, she chose a shimmery rose to match the demure pink she’d painted her toenails for the occasion. A dab of blush and little bronzer across her cheeks and collarbones completed the deceptively wholesome look.

Smacking her lips, she winked at her reflection. Feeling pretty and playful, she leaned forward and planted a kiss on the mirror. When she pulled back, the face in the reflection wasn’t hers.

Her heart stuttered while she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. A boyishly handsome man with startled brown eyes looked back at her as if through a window. He wore a high-collared shirt and a brown top hat that matched his tweed coat. Laces at his throat might have been the ties for a cloak. His lips moved with urgent speech, but he made no sound.

She didn’t stick around to try and lip-read. Instead, she screamed and ran from the bathroom.