Megan ran a dusting cloth over the new framed artwork on the living-room wall. The reds and blues of the landscapes popped in the white room. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Three days and nothing but peace and calm. No glimpses of black in the corners. No breezes where they shouldn’t be. No voices filling her heart with dread.
“Aaron,” she whispered and the only place she felt anything was deep in her heart. No chilled wind blew. No apparitions floated across the room.
Ghost Releasers had delivered. Her house was clean as the old 1980s movie proclaimed by way of the petite psychic lady. She smiled at the thought of the forbidden movie. It wasn’t cultured enough for Beverly Martin-Stovall. She’d had to watch it on a tiny black-and-white television on the counter while Marta ironed their clothes in the laundry room. The large woman had passed away, but before she’d gone she’d taught her and Andrea everything they needed to know to take care of themselves.
She could still see and hear the Russian woman as she’d worked and taught her lessons her mother would never have thought she needed.
“Money is nothing. Pffft, tomorrow it could be gone. Then where would you and big sister be? Everyone should be able to cook and clean. You never know.” Marta shook a finger at her. “You never know.”
The jarring ring of the phone pulled her away from some of the happiest memories she’d of her childhood. She read Jack O’Malley across the small screen as she yanked the phone from the charging stand and fumbled it in her suddenly shaking hands.
“Hello,” she whispered.
His rich, deep voice rumbled into her ear and sent a tantalizing shiver down her spine. Oh, the things that voice could do. “Hello, Megan. I said I would call in a few days. I haven’t heard from you, so I’ll assume things are going well.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“You don’t have to thank us. We do this because we believe in it. We just want you to feel at peace. I want you to feel at peace.”
“I do,” she reassured him. “Did you find anything on all that equipment you brought?”
His pause sent a bad feeling through her body to settle hard in the pit of her stomach. Three days wasn’t nearly long enough to forget what had happened in her home. She could still hear that booming voice echoing in her brain and her memories.
“We found some voice and video phenomenon, but you don’t have to do anything about that if you don’t want to, Megan. We can just file it away and you can continue to move on.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. “Thank you. I think I’ve had enough paranormal activity for a lifetime.”
He laughed through the phone and she felt a reciprocating giggle bursting out. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m sorry. I know you went through a terrible time, but for Ghost Releasers and for the paranormal research field, your experience was a gold mine,” he explained.
Megan sobered up in a second, her laughter dying as if it had never existed. “You can’t broadcast what happened. You promised.”
“Of course, Megan. I keep my word,” he said.
She prayed that was the truth she heard in his voice. Believing that no one else would see her humiliation was the only thing getting her through this whole experience. The idea of anyone seeing her in such an intimate moment stopped her breath and set her heart into overdrive.
Her heart rate returned to normal as she viewed the quiet, peaceful house and thought of the past three days. Before she lost her nerve, the words rushed out.
“I would like to take you to dinner to say thank you.”
“I’m not sure I could get everyone together by dinner tonight. Maybe another day?”
Her face heated up with a blush even though he couldn’t see her through the phone. “I meant just you,” she managed to say without a stutter.
“Oh.” His voice deepened to a timbre that send thrill waves through her body and straight to her core. That small word contained a book’s worth of innuendo of feeling.
“I would like that very much, Megan.” His quick reply sent her pulse pulsating through her veins and heated her skin until perspiration beaded her forehead.
“I’ll meet you at da Vinci’s on the River, if that’s okay?”
“I’ll have to finish some things at the office, but I can be there by seven.”
“Okay, see you then.”
“See you then, Megan.”
The phone clicked, and she held it in her hand. Had she just asked a man out on a date? The most handsome man she’d ever seen? Yes, she had.
Debating whether to call Andrea and tell her, she decided to wait and see how the evening went. Besides, she needed all the time she had to decide what to wear.
Soon, her bed was cluttered with clothes. Although da Vinci’s could be formal, all her dresses seemed too much for a first date. Was this a date? It didn’t have to be. But jeans and a T-shirt seemed to say she didn’t care to look her best, even if some people docked at the wharf outside and came into the restaurant for a meal in their boating clothes. While dressing formally seemed like flaunting her background and making too much of a simple dinner.
Digging deep into the closet, she found a sky-blue sundress made of silk. She pulled it over her head and shivered as the silky-smooth fabric glided over her skin. The dress skimmed her calves and swished as she walked about the room. A glance in the mirror showed her skin glowing against the pale dress and the color matched her eyes and lightened her hair.
She ran a brush through the strands and wavy curls sat on her shoulders and tickled the skin exposed by the low-cut dress. A few minutes with her makeup and her cheeks glowed with blush and her lips shone with gloss. Thinking of Jack’s height next to her own, she grabbed her favorite high heels and slipped them on.
Digging back into the closet, she found the shawl she loved wearing with the dress. The silk fabric was painted with Van Gogh’s Starry Night across it. She draped it around her shoulders and snagged a small purse to throw just the essentials into.
A twirl in front of the mirror showed a woman who had regained her life. The circles were gone from under eyes that twinkled at the thought of a date night. Like a princess awakened from a long sleep, Megan was ready to live her life again.
“I can do this,” she whispered.
A breeze blew across the room and stirred the hair on her head. She closed her eyes. “You are not welcome here. This is my home.”
The breeze died as if it had never been there. She shook her head. Like it was never there.