After that, she and Donald had never spoken of it, but it seemed to be agreed between them that she’d stay in Greenbriar and be there when he came home on weekends. “My weekend wife,” he often called her. “Just so there isn’t a Mrs. Weekday,” she’d joke. Then he’d say that Emily wore him out so bad on weekends that he needed all week to rest, and they’d laugh together.
So now she was entering her apartment, with Donald’s just across the hall, with a man who was actually a stranger to her. Except that, sometimes, she looked at him and felt that she’d known him forever.
Driving the car to the back of the building, she parked in the deep shadows. It would be better if no one in town realized that she’d returned. After all, she was supposed to be spending a long, romantic weekend with the man she loved. It had been long, all right, and anything but romantic—unless one counted bullets and bombs and leaping from windows as romantic.
“Yes, this is it,” Michael said. His voice was almost reverential. “I’ve seen this place a thousand times as you’ve driven in here. Or when you walk home from the library.”
“You’ve never been here before,” she said more sternly than she meant to, but at the moment she was feeling a bit nervous. Whatever had made her bring this man home with her? And now that she had him, what was she going to do with him?
“It will be all right,” Michael said as he put his hand over hers, and, as always, Emily instantly felt calmer.
Turning, she gave him a bit of a smile before getting out of the car.
In spite of his words, she was not prepared for Michael’s reaction when he saw the apartment. He nearly pushed past her at the door, reached exactly the right place to turn on the switch for the table lamp, then started walking about, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “it’s all here. It hasn’t changed at all. There’s your desk where you write letters to your mother. Emily, I was sorry for your pain when she died, but she’s waiting for you and you’ll see her again later. Oh, and this is the table where you beat out that man at the auction. You were so happy to get it. And here are your own books. I see you sitting….”
He turned about the room. “Where’s that long thing you lie on to read?”
Emily’s mouth was a grim little line. “I put the chaise in Donald’s apartment. Look, I don’t like that you’ve been spying on me. I think—”
“Spying on you? Why, Emily, that’s the farthest thing from my mind. I take care of you, and how could I do that if I don’t watch over you? Oh, this,” he said, picking up a glass paperweight. “I remember when you bought this. You were thirteen and you thought—”
“I was twelve,” she said tightly, taking the paperweight from his hands and putting it back onto the table.
But he seemed oblivious to her growing anger as he moved to the bedroom. For a moment, Emily stayed where she was, not sure whether to be angry or to be amazed.
When she heard him open a drawer in her bedroom, she made her decision. With hands on hips, lips tight, she stalked to her bedroom and saw he was looking into her closet, running his hands over her clothes.
“Get out of there,” she snapped, then shut the door so quickly she almost caught his fingers.
Michael was unperturbed. “You should wear that red dress, Emily. It looked great on you. I was the one who got you to buy it.”
“Do you spy on all your clients like this?” she said, then started to correct herself. “Not that you have clients but—” It was difficult to be furious when you had to add so many qualifiers to every statement.
Abruptly, he stopped moving and looked down at her bed. For a moment he touched her white quilt that she’d bought years ago at a tiny country store high in the mountains. “Emily, I feel odd. I feel very strange. I feel….”
When he turned to look at her, there was no mistaking the heat in his eyes.
Instinctively, she backed away from him. “Look, I think you’d better leave. Or I’ll leave. Or—”
Turning away, he hid his eyes from her. “So that’s what it’s like,” he said softly. “I understand you mortals a bit better now.”
There was no mistaking what he was referring to. “I don’t think you should stay here.”
His head came up and his eyes burned intensely. “Emily, you’ll never have to be afraid of me. I promise.”
As quickly as his expression had become hot, it changed back to cool and he smiled. “Now, let’s get some rest. These bodies of yours are weak. They constantly need refueling and resting.”
“Where are you going to sleep?” she asked, her voice betraying her nervousness.
“Not where I’d like to,” he said, and his grin was so cocky she laughed and the laugh made her relax.
“Stop flirting with me. I’ll pull out the sofa in the living room and you can sleep there. And tomorrow morning we’ll go see the house. And after that, you can leave.”
“Of course, Emily, I’ll leave whenever you want me to. I never want to impose on you.”
“Stop it,” she half shouted. “So help me, if you don’t stop this saintly act of yours, I’ll—”
“I’m no saint, Emily,” he said, eyes twinkling. “I’m an—” He broke off, then grinned. “I’m a very sleepy man. Now don’t you mortals do something to the couch before sleeping on it?”
As Emily went to get the sheets, again she asked herself what she was doing.
She woke to a hand on her hair, and instinctively she snuggled up to it. She had barely opened her eyes when she saw a handsome, dark-haired man with enormous wings framing his body. “Michael,” she whispered, then smiled as she felt a kiss beside her lips. “Are all angels named Michael?” she murmured sleepily.
“Just the best of us.”
It took her a moment to awake, but suddenly she sat up and bumped her head into his as he sat back on the bed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed at him.
“I came in to wake you up and you were lying there and you looked so very beautiful and—” His eyes were wide. “Emily, I think I’ve just given in to temptation.”
He looked so shocked that she couldn’t keep from laughing. It was too early in the morning to be angry. “Wasn’t there another angel who did that? And didn’t he get thrown out of you-know-where?”
“Emily, this is no laughing matter. I’m not supposed to give into temptation. I…I could get into trouble.”
In spite of herself, Emily was pleased at the look of horror on his face and his words. What woman hadn’t dreamed of being so sexy she tempted a good-looking man into sin? “Oh well,” she said, then sat up and stretched, knowing her nightgown pulled against her breasts when she did.
Michael raised one eyebrow. “I think an evil demon followed you home and right now he has taken possession of your soul. Aren’t you a married woman?”
“Engaged,” she said quickly. “That’s all.” Then when she saw that he’d tricked her into nearly renouncing Donald, she threw a pillow at him. “Get out of here! I have to take a shower and get dressed.”
His face was serious. “There’s no need to throw me out as I’ve certainly seen you take a shower before. My favorite part is when you rub lotion up and down your legs, and what is that pink thing you smooth across your round little—”
“Out! Get out of here! Now, before I turn you in to the police for being a peeping tom.”
Michael stopped by the door. “He was one of mine too. Why don’t I tell you about him while you shower?” He had just managed to pull the door closed when another pillow came flying at him. She could hear him laughing as he headed toward the kitchen.
It was while she was in the shower that she began to ask herself what, exactly, she was going to do with this man. As she looked back over the last days, it seemed that she had tried to get rid of him. Or had she? But every time she tried to get away, something—some force—held her back.
I should call Donald and ask him what to do, she thought, but she could ea
sily imagine his wrath. “You’re harboring one of the ten-most-wanted criminals in your apartment, Emily? The FBI is searching for this man and you’re planning on visiting a haunted house with him? What’s that? You say he’s an angel and he’s been your guardian spirit for centuries? Oh well, in that case I understand.”
No, Emily couldn’t quite visualize Donald being so understanding. But then, he was right, wasn’t he?
On the other hand, what was she supposed to do with this man? Turn him out on the street and have someone turn him in? No doubt there was a huge reward out for him, and anyone would love to have it. But then she couldn’t keep on waking up with him kissing her, now could she?
She could almost hear her mother saying, “For once, Emily, make a decision using your head instead of your heart.” Taking a stray man to live with her, however temporary, was indeed a decision made with her heart.
But of course she did want to find out anything she could about the old Madison mansion. Was it really haunted, or was it just people’s imagination? And if it was haunted, by whom? And what happened to the body of the man Captain Madison had been executed for killing?
She turned off the shower, stepped out and grabbed a towel. But how would a man wanted by the FBI know anything about whether or not there were ghosts in a house? she thought angrily. Only if she believed his story of being an angel would she believe—
She ran a towel roughly over her hair then picked up her hair dryer. Michael Chamberlain was not an angel. He merely had some clairvoyant abilities and was quite good at making people believe what he wanted them to.
However, as she put on a little lip gloss, she thought how it would be nice to visit the old Madison mansion with another person. Donald had laughed at her when she’d asked him to go with her and all of her women friends had flatly refused to go. Which was of course her own fault, for having told them what happened when she’d visited the house alone.
Yes, she thought, she’d get him to go with her to the house then she’d figure out how to get rid of him—tonight. She’d come up with something tonight, because she had to go to work tomorrow and he couldn’t stay in her apartment alone.
Feeling good that she’d at last made a logical decision, she went into her bedroom and pulled on a pair of jeans and a lightweight sweater. Ordinary clothes, she thought. Except well, maybe, the sweater had shrunk in the wash and was an itty-bit too snug and the jeans had a tear along the bottom curve of her buttocks where she’d caught them on a nail a few years ago. Since then, they’d been shoved to the back of her closet. Donald didn’t like her to wear jeans—and certainly not jeans with three-inch-long tears in the seat.
Feeling a bit nervous about her attire and thinking she really should change into something more fitting for her age, she opened the door only to halt in shock. Her tidy kitchen looked as though the refrigerator had exploded. Food was everywhere; cans were half-opened; a carton of eggs was overturned, yolks running down the front of a cabinet. On the stove was a skillet smoking as the contents burned. At the exact moment Emily saw the mess, the smoke alarm went off.
“It looks so easy when you do it,” Michael shouted, standing in the middle of the mess and looking at her in astonishment. He glanced up toward the alarm. “Will the police come now?”
Emily ran to the utility closet to get the broom to turn the alarm off.
“Emily, you’re so pretty when you’re angry,” Michael was saying from the passenger-side of the car.
“That’s the oldest line in the world,” she said, her mouth tight. “And you are going to clean up that kitchen.”
“Gladly,” he said, but he was grinning at her. “Maybe you’ll teach me how to cook.”
“You won’t be here that long. In fact you have to leave tonight.”
“Yes of course. Maybe I’ll go on a plane. It might be nice to fly in one of these bodies.”
“Where would you go?” she said before she thought.
He looked at her, eyes twinkling. “I don’t know. Where would you like to go?”
She opened her mouth to say Paris, then glanced at him. “Donald and I want to go camping in the Rockies.”
“Really? That’s interesting. I would have thought you were more the art-museum type. I can see you in, uh, Rome. No, wait—in Paris.”
Emily didn’t make a reply to what he was saying but looked ahead. “There it is,” she said, nodding toward the old house on the hill.
Built in 1830, the house was an enormous, rambling place that Emily often thought was reputed to be haunted merely because of its many years of neglect. Nearly every window was broken, and the roof had holes in it here and there. The town owned the place but couldn’t afford, and didn’t want to bother with, its upkeep.
“Nice house,” Michael said, watching her. “But you’ve always loved big houses, haven’t you? Did I tell you about the time you were one of that queen’s maids?”
She was not going to listen to him or believe him.
“The one with the red hair? Wore a big….” He made a circular motion around his neck.
“A ruff?”
“Lace. Oh, she did love pearls. And you loved her. She was very good to the women who worked for her, if they didn’t marry against her will, that is. She thought that if she had to marry her country, so should all the other ladies.”
“Elizabeth,” Emily said softly, pulling her car to the front of the house. “You’re talking about Queen Elizabeth, aren’t you?”
“I guess. It’s difficult to remember one from the other. I do remember that you liked those houses she lived in.”
As she turned off the ignition, she saw that his eyes were sparkling and she knew that he was well aware of how very interested she was in what he was saying. Not that it was possible, but could he have actually seen Elizabeth’s court? If he had, then maybe he could answer a few questions that had plagued historians for centuries.
“Once again, you’re trying to distract me from the matter at hand,” she said, leaning back against the seat.
“No, Emily, I’m just—” He didn’t finish that sentence and she wondered what he’d meant to say, but she waited and he still didn’t finish it.
As she got out of the car, she looked up at the house. There were signs everywhere saying NO TRESPASSING, and there were boards across the broken windows on the ground floor, but they didn’t deter her.
When Michael was standing beside her, she tried to become as businesslike as possible. “All I want you to do is walk through the house and use your…your abilities to tell me what you feel. Some dreadful things have happened in this house and I think there are probably strong vibrations. I hope you can feel them strong enough to tell me what is in there.”
“I see,” he said just as seriously. “But am I allowed to talk to these vibrations?”
She knew he was making fun of her. “You can run away with them and all of you can live happily ever after for all I care,” she said sweetly.
Michael chuckled, then led the way onto the porch. When Emily almost stepped onto a rotten board, he took her elbow and moved her away from it.
From her pocket she took a large key and inserted it into the rusty lock on the front door. “I don’t know why anyone bothers locking it, since everyone stays away. Only the local kids get close enough to throw rocks through the windows but, other than that, the place is left alone.”
“Afraid of the ghosts, eh?” Michael said. She knew he was laughing at all humans, laughing at their weaknesses and their fears of what they couldn’t see.
“Not all of us can be as enlightened as you,” she said as she put her shoulder to the door and shoved. “Just because we don’t have your powers of perception is no reason to—” She gave a third great heave to the door, but this time Michael reached over her head and placed his hand against the door, and it swung open easily and noiselessly.
Unfortunately, Emily was just preparing for another great shove, so she went tumbling into the entrance hall. She would hav
e fallen flat on her face if Michael hadn’t caught her. “You could have warned me,” she said, brushing off her side where she’d hit the interior wall. “And why did you let me nearly crush my arm pushing before you did your little magic stunt of opening the door?”
When she looked up at Michael she was stunned at his expression. There was real fear on his face as he slowly turned about the large entrance hall.
“Emily,” he said softly, “listen to me and listen very carefully. I want you to leave here and to do it now.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking up at him. If she’d ever seen anyone who could be said to have his hair standing on end, it was Michael.
“Don’t ask questions, just go.”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong,” she said firmly, hands on hips. After all, it was her haunted house, wasn’t it?
“This spirit is very earthbound, so he has physical power. He means to kill this body.” Michael pushed her toward the door.
It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. “You. You’re saying that he means to kill you?”
He didn’t bother to answer as he shoved her through the door. “Only God can destroy a spirit. Bodies are—”
She didn’t hear any more because the door that was usually so difficult to open and close slammed shut and cut him off.
Instantly Emily tried to open the door again, but it was locked, and when she tried her key, it wouldn’t go inside the lock. “Michael!” she shouted, pounding on the door. “Let me in this instant!” But there was no response from the inside and she could hear nothing. She went to a window and tried to peer between the boards, but she could not so much as see a shadow.
It was then that she heard sounds coming from inside. Her breath caught in her throat as she heard what sounded like something whizzing through the air, then hitting the wooden floor with a sharp whack! Frantically, she tried to think what she should do. Call the sheriff—and tell him that a ghost is attacking an angel and he must get here fast and do something? Such as? she thought. And if the sheriff did see Michael, wouldn’t he notify the FBI?