Page 19 of Speak of the Devil

The corners of Caleb’s dark eyes crinkled in amusement. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Let’s take a look at the backyard,” she suggested. “There’s a pool, but, like the rest of the house, it needs a lot of work.”

“But not as much work as digging a whole new one,” he replied, and she allowed herself a smile.

“No.”

They went outside through the slider in the living room, into a backyard that also needed a whole lot of love, from the dead grass to the shaggy palm trees.

But the yard was oversized in a way that yards rarely were these days, and with the property backing onto the golf course, whoever lived here would never have to worry about rear neighbors.

A stray golf ball every once in a while?

Probably.

Caleb had given the yellowed lawn only a brief glance before he headed over to the pool, which was located off to one side rather than directly behind the house. Delia wasn’t sure why the original builders had put it there, since these days most people liked to have the pool where they could see it from the main living space, but she doubted her client would want to spend the money to relocate it, not when he was considering the house as an income property and not his primary residence.

Now he’d paused near the edge of the empty pool, dark eyes keen as he surveyed the cracked plaster and the extremely dated blue-patterned tile that marked the perimeter.

“And those cracks aren’t a big problem?”

“They look worse than they are,” Delia replied as she walked over to stand next to him. “Get a decent team in here to resurface the pool and — ”

She’d been about to say, “It’ll be good as new,” but even as her lips parted, something behind her — something that felt like a pair of large, heavy hands — planted itself in the center of her back and pushed.

For one hideous moment, she thought she was going to tumble right into the deep end of the empty pool. But then Caleb’s hand wrapped around her bicep, hanging on tightly and yanking her away from the edge, back to the relative safety of the concrete surround.

An odd frisson moved up her arm at his touch, a sensation that wasn’t exactly unpleasant but was still unexpected enough that she took a step backward.

At once, he released her. “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I just figured you wouldn’t want to fall in there headfirst.”

“Probably not,” she replied, a little surprised by how much her voice shook.

“Did you lose your balance?” he asked.

That would have been the easy reply. Then again, he’d specifically chosen this house because he was looking for a property whose troubles were at least partially supernatural in origin.

“No,” she said, glad that she now sounded a bit steadier.

Caleb’s head tilted in question, and she gathered her breath.

“Something pushed me.”

Chapter Seven

Caleb hadn’t sensedanything off, but he’d seen with his own eyes the way Delia had almost taken a header into the empty swimming pool. And since she had way more experience with haunted houses than he did, he knew he needed to take her words at face value.

Still, whatever spirit was lurking here, it must be in extreme stealth mode, because normally his demon blood would have signaled him that something wasn’t quite right about the property.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and Delia nodded.

“I’m fine. Thanks for the save.”

He glanced over at the swimming pool. Since they’d been standing near the deep end, she would have fallen about nine feet.

She could have broken her neck.

Which he guessed was exactly what the ghost had intended, and rage boiled in him.

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