Still grinning, Ryan asked, “Okay, what’d you want to ask me?”
“I want to know how you controlled where you went when you were in the middle. Or rather, when you visited someone who was living.”
Ryan placed his drink on the table and leaned back in his chair. “How I controlled it?”
“Yeah. How did you go back and forth, from the middle to this side? What did you do to make it happen?”
Ryan’s head shook slightly as he answered. “I didn’t do anything. I thought about where I wanted to go, or who I wanted to see, and I went. That’s all there was to it.”
“You’re saying you just had to think about it?” Dax asked, baffled. Why had Ryan been able to act like any other ghost when Celeste couldn’t?
“I had total control over it.” Ryan folded his arms at his chest. “Why are you asking?”
“It’s Celeste. She came back today, and we were together for a little while, not nearly long enough, and then she was pulled away again.” Dax didn’t bother explaining who Celeste was; Ryan knew her from his time in the middle. In fact, when Ryan had been hovering between the other side and the living, Monique had tried to play matchmaker between the two spirits, but Ryan had already fallen for Monique. However, they were friends, which meant Ryan understood her, and not only that, he understood her current situation, living in the middle.
“I thought Celeste crossed over with Chloe,” Ryan said.
“I thought so too, but she didn’t, and she came back today to help another little girl cross, and…”
“And?” Ryan asked.
“And to be with me.”
Ryan nodded, not needing further information. He obviously remembered what it was like to be caught between this side and the light, and he’d know more than anyone how hard it was when the one you loved wasn’t dwelling on the same side of the spectrum. “I don’t know why she wouldn’t be able to come and go at will. It doesn’t make sense.”
“You never knew of ghosts who would get-stuck-in either place, or something like that?”
“I’m sorry, man, but no,” he said. “Are you saying that she didn’t seem to have any control over when she left you today? She couldn’t have maybe thought of another place, or someone else, and gone to them? Maybe a family member or something? I mean, that would happen to me-if I got something on my mind, I’d simply go there, wherever it was.”
“She didn’t have any control over it. I’m sure of that,” Dax said. “And trust me, she wasn’t thinking about any other place, or any other person, at the time.” She’d been thinking of him, only him, and the fact that they were finally together, the same way he’d been thinking of her.
Ryan took another sip of his drink, then closed his eyes and leaned his head back. After a couple of seconds, he sat forward and looked at Dax. “She hasn’t been given to anyone else as an assignment, has she? I mean, a medium to help her cross?”
“None of the Vicknair mediums,” Dax said. “We’re certainly not the only folks helping ghosts find their way through, but I think she’d have mentioned it.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Plus, more than likely she’d come to one of you, since she’s been to the Vicknair place twice already, don’t you think?”
Dax nodded.
“Okay. So she can’t control when she comes to this side. Did she say where she goes when she isn’t with you?”
“She said she didn’t know.”
Ryan frowned, shook his head. “Hell, man, I don’t know either. I mean, my experience was totally different. I saw the light but didn’t want to go through, and then, later on, the powers that be wouldn’t let me. In my case, it was because I needed to learn how to love.”
“And thank goodness you figured out how,” Monique chimed in from the doorway.
Ryan smiled, but Dax didn’t.
“So you don’t know what I can do to help her get back through?” he asked, feeling defeated.
His brother-in-law’s grin disappeared, and he looked solemnly toward Dax. “I wish I did, but if she can’t move freely within the middle, then I don’t know what to tell you. That’s nothing like what I went through, and, truthfully, I can’t figure out why she hasn’t crossed over.”
“If she hasn’t,” Dax said. What was to say that she hadn’t crossed tonight, after the two of them had shared that phenomenal kiss?
“Oh, Dax.” Monique entered the kitchen with Tristan close at her heels. She wrapped an arm around him consolingly.
Dax shrugged to shake off her arm. He didn’t want consolation; he wanted answers. “What about sleeping?” he asked. “Have you ever known of ghosts who got tired when they came to this side?”
“Tired?” Ryan repeated. “Ghosts don’t get tired, Dax. Why would they?”
“She did. And I don’t mean a little sleepy either, I mean exhausted, nearly-ready-to-pass-out tired. I saw her like that today, twice.”
“A ghost? Tired?” Tristan repeated from the doorway. “I’ve never seen it.”
“Me, neither,” said Monique.
“Well, trust me, she was,” Dax said.
“That’s not-well, it’s not normal,” Tristan said. “Seriously, why would they need sleep?”
“I don’t know,” Dax admitted. “But there were other things about her that were different too,” he thought aloud.
“Like what?” Monique moved to sit in Ryan’s lap, while Tristan grabbed a Coke from the cooler and joined them at the table.
“Yeah, what else?” Tristan asked. “Maybe we can help you figure out what’s going on.”
“Her clothes. Last time she was here, she was always in the same thing, a yellow tank top and jeans. I assumed that’s what she was wearing when she died.”
“But that wasn’t what she wore this time?” Monique asked.
“No. She wore a white gown.”
“Like a wedding gown?” Tristan asked, surprise evident in his tone.
“No, not like a wedding gown,” Dax said, growing irritated but still wanting answers. “A nightgown, a long, satin nightgown.” A very sexy nightgown that barely balanced on her shoulders and looked as though if he could only ease it down the smoothness of her arms, it would puddle to the ground.
Dax’s imagination was way too vivid, and the image of Celeste, standing beautifully nude before him, was crystal clear. Would the real thing be better than the fantasy? Oh, yeah, he knew it would. But would he ever see her that way? Would he ever see her again at all?
“You changed clothes in the middle,” Monique said to Ryan, and he nodded.
“Yeah, I did.”
“How?” Dax asked, realizing he needed to pay attention to any insight Ryan could offer.
“The same way I moved from one place to another. I thought about what I wanted to wear, and my clothing changed.”
“Just like that?” Dax asked.
Ryan nodded. “Pretty much. Really, there wasn’t anything to it. I thought about it, and I changed.”
“I remember you went from jeans and a T-shirt to a tuxedo right in front of me,” Monique said, and her husband smiled.
“Yeah, I remember that night.”
Dax shook his head. None of this was adding up. “But you changed clothes based on where you were going, what you were doing or who you were seeing, right? I mean, you picked clothing to go with whatever you had going on, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed.
“Celeste came with Prissy and went with her to the hospital, and then she spent time with me back at the house. And the whole time she wore that same gown. Don’t you think that if she could control what she was wearing, she’d have picked something different than a nightgown? And it wasn’t because she died in it, because she obviously died in that jeans and tank top that she wore last time.”
“Maybe it was because she knew she was going to be sleeping while she was here,” Tristan said with a smirk, then held up his palms when Dax glared at him. “Hey, I worked all day and hauled furniture all night, forgive me if I’m leaning toward sarcasm.”