Page 9 of Ghost Walk
She was sure of it, no matter what her family thought. If she could just figure out the secret of normalcy, everything else would fall into place. Her whole life would go back to not sucking. All she had to do was focus on reality and tune out the amazingly attractive invisible man following her around.
Thinknormal.
Speaking of which, she was late for her date. Grace checked her watch. Yes, a nice, normal dinner with nice, normal Robert would make everything fine again. No one was more relentlessly normal than her boyfriend.
Hopefully, he could bore the delusion away.
“Now that we’re alone, will you finally listen to me?” The completelyun-normal Scottish guy demanded. He straightened away from the wall and headed over to her. Aside from some transparency around the edges of his large form, he looked remarkably solid. And really handsome. Amazingly, disgustingly, unbelievably handsome. “We have much to discuss.”
He seemed bigger up close, the eighteenth-century clothes molded against the masculine lines of his body. His remarkable muscle-tone made sense. Kind of. If Grace was going to imagine Jamie Riordan, ofcourseshe’d imagine him as the most attractive man in the world. She’d been obsessed with the pirate from the time she was fifteen and now he was standing there, like that stupid portrait come to life.
Except he wasn’t alive.
Refusing to acknowledge him, Grace got to her feet. Instantly, the room spun and she had to catch herself on the edge of the desk. Her head didn’t appreciate any sudden movements. She’d diagnose herself with some kind of brain injury, but she’d been seeing thingsbeforeshe fell.
Longbefore if you counted that hallucination in the alleyway.
“Are you, alright?” Make-believe-Jamie loomed over Grace and held out a palm, like he could somehow steady her. His hands really were stunning, his fingers long and perfectly shaped. They should have belonged to an artist, not a pirate. “Maybe you should sit back down, lass. You still look peaked.”
Wonderful. The only person who’d shown her any compassion was a John Adams-y-themed figment of her own imagination. God, could she be more pathetic?
Grace waved him away and headed for the door, smoothing her hair down. Hopefully, the long dark curls covered the bruise on her head. She didn’t want to have to explain any of this to Robert. It would be too awkward. Anything that even hinted at messiness put him in a sour mood. Robert’s inflexibility would have been annoying, except Grace kept reminding herself that it was further proof of his unsurpassed normalness.
Still, he was going to be peeved that she’d missed their standing Friday night, eight-thirty dinner reservation. She was going to have to go straight to his house in her stupid costume, which would also irritate him. Maybe they could skip the restaurant and order in. She didn’t feel like going out, anyway. Her head was killing her and her stress level was off the charts.
“Where are you going?” Fake-Jamie followed her out the door and into the stifling heat of the fading Virginia twilight. “Ya cannot ignore me. Itmeanssomething that you’re able to see me, when no one else ever has.”
Yeah, it meant she was losing her mind. Again.
“We must figure out why this is happening, lass. Denial is no way to deal with life’s challenges. Ordeath’schallenges, either. We need to face this opportunity head on.”
He truly had a magical voice. The accent was like liquid sex drizzled on chocolate cheesecake. …Even when he was speaking to her like a know-it-all talk show therapist.
Grace put her fingers in her ears and walked faster, trying to block him out. Her car was the most practical four-door in the parking lot. Grace disliked looking at the tan box, but it wasnormaland that was all that mattered. The only slight unique thing about it was the small decal in the back window and even that was sold all over the Chesapeake Bay, so it hardly even registered on the weirdness scale. It was just an innocent little mermaid. Totally within the confines of normalcy.
At least that’s what she’dtoldherself… but maybe it was like a gateway drug into the world of strange. Just in case, Grace paused to rip it off the window after she unlocked the car. There was no point in taking chances.
“Oh, I quite liked that sticker.” The delusion complained. “Reminded me of my last trip to Jamaica.” He gave a contented hum of a sound. “Those were some of the best days of my life. A chest full of gold, a barrel of rum, and mermaids swimming in an azure blue sea.”
Grace refused to listen to that beguiling image. The man wasn’t even there. She deliberately didn’t offer him a ride, but he climbed in anyway. It was hard to keep out a ghost who could just phase though doors.
No.Nota ghost.
She was the only Rivera in sixteen generations who didn’t believe in ghosts, because she was friggingnormal.Grace’s trembling hands got the key in the ignition and she peeled out onto the street, her hands clenched on the wheel so tight that her knuckles were white.
Very, very normal.
The not-a-ghost beside her kept yammering. “You’ve been sent to help me. Iknowit.” He sat sideways on the upholstery, his patriot blue eyes staring at her profile, willing her to engage in his craziness. God only knew how many poor women therealJamie Riordan had been able to win over with that hypnotic gaze. “Please just listen to me and…”
She reached over and turned the radio dialallllllthe way up, drowning out his stream of words. Salt-n-Pepa blared out, shaking the windows of the car with the news that he was a mighty good man. Jamie immediately tried to turn the volume down again, but his fingers passed straight through the knob. She could tell he was swearing in frustration, but she couldn’t hear it over the thumping music and that was all that mattered.
Paying attention to him would just lead to madness and she’d had enough madness in her life. July 4thwas just a few days away.Thatwas why this was happening. Grace should have known that the one year anniversary would stir up bad memories and trigger… oddness. As soon as the holiday was over, everything would go back to normal.
And normal was good.
The drive to Robert’s house only took five minutes. As curator for the Harrisonburg Historical Museum, he was successful enough to have a large house in the newest section of town. The upscale community was filled with identical homes, all painted in nearly identical neutral colors with names like “summer wheat,” “warm toffee” and “fresh cream.” Each blade of grass on the identical lawns looked like it had been cut with a ruler. No basketball courts or bicycles marred the identical brick driveways with evidence that children played there. Not even fireflies dared to enter the HOA approved landscape.
Grace felt suffocated every time she visited the manufactured perfection of Robert’s neighborhood. The monotonous bland pressed down on her and she just wanted to drive away as fast as she possibly could. But she didn’t. Bland wasgood. Bland wasnormal.
