Dax shook his head as he spoke. “No, I can’t believe that. I think-I believe-that if two people are meant to be together, if they are truly soul mates, then they’ll find each other, someway, somehow. And I can’t believe that this is the way we were meant to find each other.”
“Gotta admit, it’d be a unique story to tell people about the day we met,” she said, then laughed, and was glad to see his gorgeous smile at that comment.
“Yeah, I think we’d beat all other first-date stories, hands down, though I’m not so certain many people outside of my family would believe it.”
“I think you’re right, though. I’d have found you, met you, somehow. Our paths would have crossed. I was so excited about where my life was headed, I’d gotten the job I wanted, and then I was going to follow through with the rest of my plan.”
“The rest of your plan?”
She nodded. “Fall in love and settle down. That was all that was missing, and if I’d have met you, I could have taken care of that as well.”
He’d only eaten half of his sandwich, but he stood, took the plate to the counter and wrapped the remainder in aluminum foil, then put it in the fridge. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk and chat. I want to hear more about your family, and anything else that might give me a clue about how to help you stay longer.”
“I thought you were starving. Don’t you normally eat all of your sandwich?”
“I normally eat two that size,” he said, smiling. “But I’ve had enough right now. I don’t want to waste any of our day together. In all honesty, we really don’t know how long we’ve got. I mean, we can try to stretch this out as long as possible, make certain not to exhaust you and cause you to have to leave before you absolutely have to go, but until I can figure out how to keep you here, I’d rather spend my time getting to know you better.” He held out a hand toward her, then frowned and stuffed it in the pocket of his jeans. “Damn rule.”
“It’s okay,” Celeste said, standing and placing her fingertips against his cheek. “I can touch you, and as we learned last night, you’re pretty good at touching me without your hands, aren’t you?”
He leaned toward her, nuzzled her neck with his mouth, then slid those hot lips against her ear. “Hell, yeah.”
She laughed and held out her arm. “Look what you did.” A waterfall of gooseflesh trickled down her arm.
“Okay, that definitely belongs on the list. I know I’ve never seen a spirit with goose bumps.”
“Maybe you just haven’t touched them the right way.”
“I haven’t touched any of my ghosts in any way,” he said.
His comment reminded Celeste that he still had a ghost that he was helping, unless Angelle had already crossed. “Before I forget, has Angelle’s school play happened yet? I told her I’d attend if I could, and since I’m here, if it hasn’t happened, I’d love to go. I’d always thought that it’d be fun to help my students put on something like that, and she was such a cute little girl, and so excited about her classmates singing her song.”
Dax glanced at the kitchen clock. “Actually, her play is tonight, and thankfully, it doesn’t start until eight.”
She turned to see the time. “It’s four-thirty now.”
“Exactly, which gives us time to visit a little longer, and to do-other things-before the show.”
“Other things?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, his suggestive tone holding a promise that she couldn’t wait for him to deliver. “Come on,” he continued. “I want to show you the levee, and the outside of the house, and I want to find out as much about you as I can before you have to leave again. There’s got to be something I can do to keep you here, or at least get you back.”
Her throat tightened at the reality of her limited time here. Maybe Dax was right; maybe by learning more about her, he could figure out what went wrong when she died, and whether there was any way she could get another chance at living, or at least another chance at staying with him.
He led her through a small mudroom that branched off the kitchen. Several wall hooks held rain gear, as well as a few gardening tools, and two deep, oversize sinks occupied one wall. A faded snapshot of a woman pruning a large shrub had been matted and framed and hung on the wall directly above the sink. Celeste recognized the striking woman immediately, even though she was much younger in the photo than when Celeste saw her yesterday. “Adeline.”
He paused, looked at the picture and smiled. “Yeah, she always loved tending to her flowers, particularly her poinsettias.” He pointed to the shrub. “I haven’t seen any around quite as large as the ones we have here. I’ll show you.”
Celeste leaned toward the photo again to examine the shrub. A poinsettia? Since the picture was black and white, she couldn’t tell whether the flowers were red, but they didn’t appear to be darker than the others. “Are you sure?”
He stopped at the door. “About what?”
“That that’s a poinsettia. I’ve never seen one that big, and I don’t see any flowers on it.”
“That’s because poinsettias don’t have flowers,” he answered with a grin. “The modified leaves at the end that most people think are flowers are actually called bracts.” He shrugged modestly. “They were my grandmother’s favorite flower, and she wanted the grandchildren to keep them a part of this plantation almost as much as she wanted us to keep the ghosts around. She liked the smell of magnolias, but you couldn’t keep her away from her poinsettias when she was gardening. Come on and see, then you’ll understand.”
Celeste followed him outside, and immediately noticed what he was talking about. Huge shrubs spanned the entire side of the plantation and were covered in red-tinged blooms-or bracts.
“They’re just starting to turn now, but in a couple of weeks, this will be a sea of red, and cover the entire perimeter of the house.”
“They’re incredible,” Celeste said, taking in the beauty of the shrubs, towering nearly to the second floor of the home. “How tall are they?”
“They’re only supposed to get to a maximum of ten feet or so, but I think ours are hitting twelve now.” He tilted his head and looked down at her. “You’ve never seen poinsettias growing outside?”
“I didn’t even know they’d grow outside of a pot,” she said honestly. “And I don’t think they’d grow at my parents’ house.”
He grinned. “Sure they would. They love the climate here.”
“But I don’t think they would there.” Her reply was drowned out by an older-model red Camaro that pulled up the driveway and then parked. A striking woman with shiny jet-black hair climbed out. She wore a black sleeveless mock turtleneck and black pants, and she looked like…a Vicknair. It wasn’t so much that her features reminded Celeste of Dax, but there was something about her eyes, and the way she studied Dax before she even spoke, that told Celeste this lady knew that this house, and Dax, had secrets.
“Who’s with you?” she asked, moving toward Dax and Celeste.
Dax grinned. “What makes you think someone’s with me?” He didn’t even look at Celeste when he spoke, so she remained silent. She wasn’t sure whether he wanted this lady to know she was here, Vicknair or not.
“For starters, you haven’t been out of your room all day, and that’s not like you, even on a Saturday, so I assumed you had company. Then there’s the fact that I haven’t seen you with a genuine smile in months, but you’ve got one now. And of course, there’s the other…”
“The other?”
“You’ve had sex and-” she tilted her head and lifted one brow “-I think you’ve currently got sex on the mind now. Yep, I’d say that’s a given.”
Dax shuddered. “How you do that is beyond me. And it’s not right.”
The woman smiled triumphantly, and she was even prettier when she smiled. “So, you must be Celeste,” she said, basically speaking toward the poinsettia shrub and not missing the mark by much; Celeste was only a foot to the left of where she was talking. “I’m Nanette Vicknair, the oldest cousin around, and evidently, one of the few who hasn’t found the means, or the desire, to become intimate with our guests.”