“Very interesting. Maybe we should just keep them up all year,” Aidan said.
When dinner was ready, Kendall served it at the kitchen table. Afterwards, Jimmy insisted on helping her with the dishes, and then, just as firmly, told them that he was going back to his little outbuilding. “I want to get in before the ghosts come out,” he said.
Aidan wondered how Kendall would react to that. She just smiled. “Jimmy, if we’ve got ghosts, they’re good ghosts.”
“If you say so, Miss Montgomery.” He shook his head. “You two stay safe in here, too. Just keep everything closed up and pretend like there’s nothing going on, and you’ll be okay.”
Aidan didn’t argue with Jimmy; in fact, he locked the back door as soon as the other man had gone. When he got back to the kitchen, Kendall was wiping down the counter. He went over and swept her into his arms.
She looked up at him. “It’s really nice, what you’re doing for Jimmy.”
He shrugged. “It’s a big place, and he’s not doing anyone any harm.”
“Well, I still think it’s really nice. Ready to head upstairs?”
He had thought that she was still fragile and was prepared to treat her that way. When they got into bed, she turned to him. He thought she wanted to be held, but she wanted more. She was aggressive; she was passionate. He matched her urgency with his own, and wondered if they weren’t both as fevered as they were because the act of intimacy between a man and a woman was such a strong assertion of life. They clung to each other, drowsed, made love again.
And slept at last.
Kendall was dreaming, and once again she knew it.
But this time she entered into the dream with determination. She intended to see this through.
At first all she saw was the mist. Then she heard shouting, and as the mist began to dissipate, she saw fields that were torn and trampled, and soldiers everywhere. Horses screamed as they died in the pursuit of war, just like their masters. One man kept reappearing, a rider who looked so much like Aidan and yet was clearly someone else, someone she had never met.
She saw the house.
Saw the woman.
And she saw the man who did not deserve to wear the uniform of any army. The man who used his uniform as a free pass to play out his fantasies of sickness and cruelty.
“If you touch me, they’ll all know,” the woman warned him. “Your friend…will see, and he’ll tell.”
The man laughed. “When I attack you, my friend will join in,” he promised. His eyes narrowed. “When I kill you,” he said softly, “he’ll just walk away.”
In her dream, Kendall felt Fiona’s terrible fear for the baby, the son who was her life.
And then she ran, knowing he would follow.
The dream shifted, as if it were a movie, and Kendall saw Sloan Flynn.
She saw him riding toward the house, then walking through the mist to the front steps, where he stood, smiling, his arms open in welcome.
Then the woman was there, in a gorgeous white gown with tiny roses on it. She ran to him and was enveloped in his arms. A second man appeared, his uniform the deep blue of the Union army. Brendan Flynn. He walked over to the couple and was welcomed into the circle of their embrace.
She heard a baby crying, and the mist darkened and swirled, then lightened as the scene changed again to reveal Henry, holding the baby. He was looking at Kendall as if he knew that she could see him.
She called out softly to him, Help me.
Strangely, she could have sworn that she heard Amelia answer. They’re trying to, dear. Listen. You must listen.
Then the fog darkened again, and this time she was running through it, no longer only Kendall but also Sheila, and she realized the ghosts were trying to show her what had happened to Sheila.
There were graves all around her. She tried to wend her way between them, one step ahead of the evil darkness coming up behind her. And then she left the graves behind and reached the water, but it was clogged with bones and limbs and skulls staring at her from their sightless, empty eye pits, and somehow she knew that one of them was the woman she had met in her shop. Jenny Trent.
Too much. It was too much.
Henry was ahead of her, telling her to keep running. He was reaching out for her. She touched his fingers…
And woke with a start.
Aidan was at her side, holding her hand.
“Another nightmare?” he asked, frowning. “I can’t keep bringing you out here. It’s making everything worse for you.”
She stared back at him and shook her head, realizing suddenly that she was drenched with sweat. “I’m not leaving.”
“I can throw you out, you know.”
“But you won’t. Because I’ll just come back.”
He pulled her close to him and kissed the top of her head. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“Aidan,” she said, “there’s something in the cemetery. I…know it. The…the ghosts are telling me so.”
She was certain he was going to mock her, but he didn’t. Instead, he pulled her to him and said, “We’ll figure it out, and we’ll make it stop. I promise.”