When I’d done a search on the appraisal district’s website for that man, I’d been looking for a reason to dispute the musings that had started to filter through my head.
Everything about ‘Ghost’ had started setting off little tiny alarms.
First, it’d been the way he smelled at that baseball game. Then, when I’d arrived at the house that was set up for me on such short notice, I started having my doubts.
Why would a house, one like the one I was walking into right now, be the exact house that I’d always wanted to live in? Sure, the exterior wasn’t what I’d wanted, but the interior, it was my house. My dream house—the one I’d wanted to share with my husband. The one that I’d told him about hundreds and hundreds of times over our many, many walks we used to take together.
Over the next week or so, I’d found myself suspicious.
So I watched, and the more I watched, the more suspicious I became.
Ghost…he didn’t like burgers.
Ghost stood like my husband—like a man who was confident in himself and didn’t care what any other person thought of him. But it was the leaning that got me. The way he never sat down, and when he became tired, he’d lean his hips against a wall or a tall counter, then stack his foot one on top of the other.
He also had this nervous habit, just like my husband had. He’d touch his fingertips together in a rhythmic pattern that only he saw in his head.
But what held me back from truly believing that it was my husband was his lack of stuttering.
My husband, Tunnel, had a stutter. He also had a compulsion where he pronounced the ‘Y’ in a word two times before he said the actual word.
Still, I continued to hold out hope. Maybe the stuttering was hidden away. Maybe the stuttering wasn’t a problem any longer. Maybe he wasn’t…maybe he was.
But today, when we came back for Sienna’s papers, I’d noticed those tattoos.
They may have been marred by the scarring of his burns, but they were still there. I’d recognize those tattoos no matter what, and those tattoos were my husband’s. Ghost was my husband. Ghost was my Tunnel.
After dropping Sienna off at her Explorer Camp, I’d driven to the house that I’d seen online, researched meticulously on Google Earth, and felt the last nail hammer home.
My husband was alive.
I felt him come up behind me, felt his large hands circle around my hips and smooth down over my stomach, and I shivered in reaction.
“You’re standing here in the middle of the kitchen like I’ve…”
“Like you’ve come back from the dead,” I croaked. “Every single time I think about it, I want to drop down to my knees and cry. I’m so happy you’re here…but I can’t wrap my head around it. Not yet.”
He hummed.
“I won’t leave you again like that,” he promised.
Those were just pretty words. He didn’t know if that was the case or not. He could die tomorrow and leave me alone again.
But I couldn’t live my life thinking that he was going to die at every turn. That was also part of my promise, part of the reason that I hadn’t yet freaked out. I’d promised myself that if I got this chance again—that if I got my husband back—I wouldn’t take it for granted. I’d be grateful for each day with him, and I wouldn’t piss it away thinking that he’d be hurt or would be taken from me again.
I was going to enjoy every single moment, because I knew better than anyone that another moment wasn’t promised. I’d lived that for the last six years, and now that my prayers had been answered, I was going to seize this opportunity and stop being sorry.
“You…” I hesitated.
“I what?” he prodded, running his beard along the line of my shoulder.
“You don’t hesitate on your ‘Y’s’ anymore,” I said. “And you haven’t kissed me seven times in a row.”
He chuckled darkly.
“The Y’s still make an appearance every once in a while,” he said, kissing the back of my neck. “As for the kissing, I had to get over that one, or I’d give everything I’d worked so hard for away.”
That made sense.
“I guess I could see that,” I murmured.
Was it bad that I missed it? That I wanted my old Tunnel back?
Those quirks had been one of the reasons that I’d fallen in love with the man. Sure, they were incredibly inconvenient, but that didn’t change the way I loved him. If anything, it only made me love him more.
He turned me, sensing my discomfort, and stared down into my eyes.
I raised my hand and smoothed it over his beard.
“I sure do like this beard,” I informed him, trying to smile.
He caught the hand and pressed it harder against his face.
“I’m still the same annoying person who’ll drive you insane,” he promised.
My brows lowered, and a frown took over my face.
“I never thought you were annoying,” I told him. “Inconvenient, yes.” I studied his beautiful green eyes. “Annoying? Never.” I stared at him hard. “Do you want to know the things I missed the most?”
His eyes softened.
“The way you used to kiss me seven times in the middle of the night when you thought I was sleeping.”
His grip on my hip tightened.
“The way you used to walk the house to make sure that everything was secure.”
His eyes closed.
“The way you used to call me halfway through my shift and tell me something funny that happened to you.”
He swallowed, and I saw his Adam’s apple work.
“The way you used to play cards with me because I was bored.”
His lips twitched.
“How proud you were of Sienna. You used to tell anyone who would listen all about her.”
He cleared his throat.
“What I missed the most, though, was this feeling right here. Having you to talk to. Being able to tell you anything and everything that I would go through my head, and you not judging me for being a weirdo.”
He started to chuckle then.
“Let’s go to the shower,” he ordered.
I followed behind him, taking one last look at my kitchen before I went.
“This kitchen,” I said to his back as he led his way to the bedroom.
He knew this house. Knew where everything was.
Another mystery solved.
“It was the one you wanted,” he said. “Everything here is what you wanted.”
I knew that, likely better than he did.
“What did you do, look at my Pinterest board?”
He shrugged and I knew that he had.
There was no way that my man would be able to remember everything. The main things, like colors and what kinds of countertops I wanted, sure, but the tiny stuff? The freakin’ rustic light plate covers? Yeah, those he wouldn’t know.
But he had them in this house, and it showed that he paid attention.
Ghost led me into the bathroom, then pulled out his phone and pulled up an app. I watched as he armed the house, then listened as the robotic voice from the front of the house said, ‘system armed.’
My brows rose.
“Don’t want to be stupid here,” he said. “I may know what’s going on, for the most part, but my parents are sneaky little assholes. They have been able to do some things that I would’ve never thought possible.”
I sighed.
“I hate your parents.”
He pressed a button on the shower wall, and the water turned on.