His expression said he didn’t believe me. He gestured toward the door. “Just meet us out there once you’ve dressed, we have to get going to the station.”
“Yeah, okay, be right out.”
His cold presence left the room and I glanced at the clock. Eight a.m. I fell back on the bed and drew the covers over my head. What the hell just happened?
It hadn’t only been the hot and heavy sex which left me winded. I would expect to have naughty dreams while sleeping in his bed, especially since his pillow smelled like him—or what I thought he’d smell like—soap and hunky man.
What bothered me most were the words I said. “Make me forget why it’s wrong to love you.”
I was attracted to him as I had never been to anyone else, experienced little flutters whenever he came near me and the man held the ability to make me blush with a few short words. All these things made me believe I’d formed a serious attraction, but one realization I couldn’t push away became a hard cold truth.
I didn’t want him to leave.
Damn it all to hell! I’m in love with a ghost!
The thought stayed on my mind as I hurried and got dressed. After I stepped out of Kipp’s bedroom to join them, I kept my eyes on the ground beneath my feet. Even as we made a quick trip to my condominium to gather some of my things, and even now as I walked toward the entrance of the police station, I never looked up. The dream and feelings were all too real. If I made eye contact with Kipp, I doubted I could hide the emotions that swelled in my heart.
“Are you sure everything is all right?” Kipp asked for the twentieth time as I followed Zach in through the main door of the police station.
“Mmm hmm.” I inspected the dirt on the tiled floor. How had I allowed this to happen? I never got personal, let alone allowed myself to open my heart to a ghost.
Zach muttered hellos to the officers around him as we walked through the station. I focused on the back of Zach’s heels, which slowed. I stopped behind him, glancing up just enough to see him open the door to the interview room.
When I cleared the door, Max sat at the table with at least ten banker boxes stacked on top. He had one open with a pile of files spread out in front of him.
He looked up from the notes to me. “I talked to Mr. Cobb this morning. He has granted your request for an extended leave of absence.”
“Did he sound angry?” I asked.
“He wasn’t thrilled.” Max grinned. “But what choice did he have?”
“Wonderful.” I sighed. “He’ll be a real joy to be around when I get back.” He’d have to do some of the legwork himself.
“Just shake your spectacular ass at him,” Kipp said, stepping in next to me, “and I doubt he’ll stay angry for long.”
“Thank you for calling him,” I said to Max, flatly ignoring Kipp’s comment, which made him chuckle. I gave no thought to that either.
Max nodded and held a card out. “You’re a grievance specialist from here on out. Welcome to the team.”
I laughed, took the card and studied the visitor’s pass. “I’m a what?”
“As far as the department knows, I’ve brought you on to help Kipp’s fellow officers deal with their loss.”
“But I have no experience with that,” I retorted.
Max’s eyebrows rose. “Don’t you?”
A wave of uncomfortable heat washed across my body. “I-I…” I sucked in a deep breath to hold myself together. I’d learned long ago to hide my feelings involving my family’s deaths, but whenever someone brought the situation up and I didn’t expect it, the pain pushed its way to the surface. “Sorry.” I shook my head to shed the sadness. “Sorry, you surprised me. You’re right, I do.”
“What surprised you?” Kipp’s tone sounded tight. “What’s wrong?”
I glanced at him, straightened my shoulders and demanded my voice to not waver. “My family died.”
He stared at me, knowingly. “In the car accident?” Of course he’d catch on quick, he was a cop after all.
I nodded and forced the tremble in my chin to stop. I hadn’t cried over their deaths in years, let alone thought of them. I avoided the topic like the plague and didn’t plan for that to change. But it hadn’t been the topic that made these uneasy emotions rise to the surface, it was Kipp’s gaze on mine, the way his eyes said, “It’s all right for you to cry.”
The support and comfort sounded nice and all, but leaning on him couldn’t happen. I had enough trouble on my plate and looking to him to heal my pain wasn’t an option I wanted to explore.
“I’m sorry I had to go about it that way,” Max said. “But it was the only explanation I could come up with for having you join our ranks on such short notice. It’s easy for me to pass off that you’re part of a support group to give aid to people who have lost loved ones.”
I hastily hid every emotion. “No, it’s fine, it makes sense. It just surprised me is all.”
“You can’t run and hide forever, you know.” Kipp’s stare remained intent, but now his gaze held a rigid determination.
My blood boiled. Who was he to say how I dealt with my pain? Ignoring it had always been how I got through my days. I had never once dealt with it, never experienced the stages of grief. Instead, I just trudged on and it worked fine for me.
Before I could release my wrath, he interjected, “I understand more than you think.”
I hadn’t expected him to say that. “Calm down. Don’t blow your lid.” That’s what I thought he would come back with. Not him sharing a similar story. I shouldn’t have been curious, but I shouldn’t have been a lot of things. “How?”
His eyes filled with sadness as they glazed over, lost in a memory. “My mother died from breast cancer and my father followed a year later from a heart attack.”
I had to wonder what would’ve been worse. In my case, I lost both my parents all at once. Here one day, gone the next. To have to suffer the pain of losing a loved one on two separate occasions, I doubted I could’ve handled it. “When?”
Kipp blinked and his gaze became steady and strong. “Ten years ago. I’ve had years to deal with their deaths and it’s taken that long to accept that they’re gone. Trust me, holding on to the pain isn’t going to help you. You need to allow yourself to grieve.”
Caley had said the same thing to me a thousand times. Telling me it was all right to be upset for what happened to them and I didn’t need to be strong all the time. But I never allowed myself the right, never wanted to live in the state of mourning, and just because Kipp had been through a similar situation didn’t mean I would change my mind. He needed to prove to me that his way had been worth it, because in my eyes, ignoring my heartache sounded much easier. “Why?”
Zach chuckled. “How. When. Why. What’s next, who?”
Kipp ignored the comment, as did I. He trailed a finger along my cheek and the icy touch sent a shiver down my spine. “It’ll begin to eat you alive and that’d be a damn shame. Do you want to live your life surrounded by such shadows?”
For once, someone else understood my pain, but that didn’t mean I’d deal with it like he suggested, he hadn’t proved his point. He only said he had accepted it and I couldn’t ever do that. My family was gone. Nothing I did would ever bring them back.
I lifted my chin in defiance and stared at him to prove my point that how I dealt with it had been the right choice. “What works for you doesn’t work for me.” I glanced at Zach. “Can we move along? I don’t want to spend my entire day surrounded by stinkin’ cops.”
Laughter echoed in the room.
No amusement showed in Kipp’s gaze. His expression gave nothing away, but his eyes swarmed with questions. I tried to care nothing about what he held on his mind. A feeble battle. I might wish the deaths of family didn’t cause a permanent ache in my heart and that I didn’t have feelings for the ghost in front of me. But both were undeniably true.
But I’d do what I always did—try to stuff the emotions away and forget about it. I attempted to force the wall of denial up and I strode toward the table.
As I sat down, the door opened and Eddie entered with coffees in hand. “Mornin’, all. I’ve got the goods.”
“A sight for sore eyes,” Max said.
Eddie placed the coffees on the table, and after taking one, he sat beside me. “Pleasure to see you again, ma’am.”
I wanted to respond to his pleasantry, but was afraid if I opened my mouth, I’d laugh. Doing the only thing I could, I nodded.
Thank you, Eddie, for slicing through the tension.
Max took a sip of the coffee from the paper cup. “Kipp’s here with you, right, Tess?”
“Oh yeah, he’s here,” I glanced at Eddie and held back my laugh, “and you’re sitting on his lap.”
Eddie shot straight up and his coffee flew through the air to soak the floor. “I thought it felt cold.”
“You should’ve just seen your face.” My restrained laughter burst from my chest. “So funny.” I glanced back at Kipp and instantly my amusement vanished. He looked down at his hands and sadness oozed off every part of him. “Um, are you okay?”
“Okay with what?” Max asked.
Kipp glanced up at me with despairing eyes. My heart twisted as if stabbed with a dagger. “I’m a ghost.”
“Er, you’re just realizing this now?”
Max huffed. “What’s going on?”
“Shhh.” I waved my hand for him to shut it. Moments like this one deserved to be uninterrupted. The knowledge and acceptance that he had died hadn’t hit Kipp and I saw reality settle in his expression.
I assumed he’d already dealt with his death since he seemed at ease with it all. I’d apparently been wrong and obviously wasn’t the only one who had trouble accepting things.
“Of course I knew I had died, but being preoccupied with you and the case, I think it took my mind away from it all.”
“That’s understandable.” I hoped my gentle tone would soothe him. Normally, I was cautious and understanding when spirits faced their deaths, but with Kipp there’d been more. To see him in this state, the anguish washing over him, made my heart sink into a bottomless pit of despair.
“It’s all over.” Kipp’s eyes pleaded for me to make it better. “This is it for me?”
My strength to keep myself distant faltered and tears filled my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Kipp.”
He sighed and bowed his head. “What’s there to be sorry about? It’s done. It’s just…” He shrugged. “I always thought there would be more—wife, kids, a family. Just more.”
I couldn’t say anything to change the fact that he’d never have those things. But the part that dug at me the most was that when he said those words, it pained me too, affected me as if those were my stolen dreams as well.
The silence dragged on until Kipp finally glanced up at me. “Do you think I’m being punished?”
I cocked my head. “Punished for what?”
“Maybe I’m still here because I need to earn my right into heaven? That I’ve done wrong while I lived and I’m not welcome until I do something right?”
What could he have done wrong? He’d been a good cop, that had to be a one-way ticket through the pearly gates. “I doubt that.”
“It’s cruel, you know…” His grief intensified in his expression. “To be in a world where you once had control over everything, to now have none.”
I imagined it would be. “Well, that’s why we’re doing this, right, to make sure you can move on.”
“But what if I don’t want to go? What if everything I’ve ever wanted is right here?”
Did he mean his job? His life as a whole? Part of me hoped that he meant he didn’t want to leave me. I searched for something to say to him, but kept coming up blank. He’d been so unlike the ghosts before him. So unsure in why he still lingered here, and even more so, he fought against his want to stay. A definite first experience for me.
What makes you so different?
Max cleared his throat. “Are you all right there, Kipp?”
Kipp blinked, as if breaking whatever hold his mind had on him. “Tell him we were talking about the case.”
If my heart could’ve broken more, it just did. In all this, his only thoughts were of others, and my tears dripped down my cheeks. How could a man like Kipp be stripped of his life? I wanted to reach out, take him in my arms and never let go, but the truth bared its ugly head with an icy reminder, it’d never be.
I breathed deep to control my emotions and looked at Max. “He told me about Hannah. I’m sorry, I get emotional sometimes.”
Max didn’t look convinced, but glanced away from me to the file on the table. “All right, let’s get focused. Did Kipp get a look at him?”
Zach shook his head. “Negative.” He leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his head and tilted the chair back on two legs. “But another source gave us a description.”
Max brows furrowed. “What source?”
Zach shifted his weight in the chair, sent the legs down to bang against the floor and gestured toward me. “Kipp and her found Hannah.”
“You have not!” Max exclaimed.
I nodded. “We did.”
He eyed me curiously. “Well now, that could come in handy.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I retorted. “She didn’t know anything else except that he was married.”
“Of course she didn’t,” Max mumbled.
“Where do you want to go from here?” Zach asked.