Page 81 of A Heart So Haunted
I chewed on it. Weighed my options while I stripped more wallpaper in the dining room and bubble wrapped the tea set for safekeeping before I decided to respond, fingers trembling—but only a little.
LANDRY:We aren’t taking down any walls
IVAN:Understood
LANDRY:Send me the contract to look at please. I’d like to list sometime in the next couple months
IVAN:Sounds good. I really appreciate you taking the time to think about it.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about that first dream while I waited for those three little bubbles to appear, telling me that he was either typing or sending the file. How that thing, which I still wasn’t so sure had been Hadrian or just a figment of my imagination, had hovered inside the sunroom door while Ivan inched closer, closer. Instead, I counted to ten, flipped my phone over, and went about my day.
The day Ivan was scheduled to show, Hadrian found me in the library before dawn. I’d just started hand sanding a piece ofbaseboard trim, right next to the built-in bookshelves, to see how it lifted. Emma wouldn’t stir for another few hours, and the idea of uninterrupted silence was too enticing to pass up. Then again, I’d have plenty of silence when she left today. She said she’d be gone again for a week this time, maybe a bit more, she wasn’t sure. I never had asked specifics on the vacation time she’d taken; there were days I’d caught her sitting at her laptop with spreadsheets pulled up. Others, she’d help organize Aunt Cadence’s paperwork like a madwoman.
Now, the more I thought about it, the more guilty I felt. I knew her position allowed flexibility, but I’d not appreciated that she’d taken her free time—where she could have gone anywhere but here—and come and helped me instead.
I hadn’t invested anyrealtime with Emma. I’d callused myself, expected little, but given little, too.
“You woke early,” Hadrian said.
I sighed. Most of the books had been removed from the shelves, stacked in the hallway, and labeled by genre and shelf position, leaving me with nothing but a wall of emptied built-in bookcases.
I caught the flash of his buttoned shirt, those same rolled sleeves. My mouth went dry. As if my midnight ramblings somehow amplified how veryhumanhe looked in the morning light.
Completely human, just as he’d been in that room the first time I saw him. The picture from the library come to life, save for that one thing I couldn’t put my finger on.
I paused my hand sanding. “How come you don’t look like Krampus right now?”
He glared at me.
“Do you know what Krampus is?” A grin slithered over my mouth.
“No. And I’m afraid I do not wish to.” He took a seat on the floor next to me. His knee almost touched mine. If I bent to the left, they’d probably touch. “Here I was, thinking you might have been happy to speak to a beautiful face instead of a monster.”
I faced the bookcase. He didn’t know how right he was. Still, it worried me, the changing. First it had been what he’d been able to hear—and now this?
“Why is that, do you think?” I flipped the sandpaper over and started on the corner of the bookcase. The paint dusted away easily enough. If only the baseboards were the same.
“I do not know all the answers, unfortunately.”
“Do you think it’s being out of the room?” Whatever had locked him in, maybe?
“Perhaps. Here.” He reached over and slipped the sandpaper out of my hand. I don’t know why I let him, but I did. He leaned in with all his weight and gave the sandpaper two solid swipes. The baseboard came away stripped.
I glowered. My little patch looked pitiful in comparison.
“And here I was, thinking you were just a creature of night. You missed your calling, Hadrian. Should’ve been a handyman.”
His eyes—mismatched in color, one gray and one yellow—met mine. “Is that so?”
“You’re meant for fine, hard labor with muscle like that.” I took my sandpaper back. And that wasn’t because the flex of his triceps branded itself into my memory. Teasing, I gave a wry look. “You know, when you’re not stalking around the house, brooding like a creepy boogeyman, I could use the extra set of hands.”
His jaw clenched. “I would have you know, brooding is a full-time job.”
“Is that so?”
“Someone has to count the cobwebs at night. Hang from the rafters and stare longingly at the moon. Follow an unsuspecting woman down the hallway in case danger should arise.”
I pictured Hadrian wearing a cape, like Dracula. “Very vampiric of you,” I goaded. “Do you flinch at garlic, too?”
