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“I can do that.” They shook hands and before he left him, Joe stood in the doorway just looking at him. “She has a son. He’d beabout your age, Lance. I don’t have any idea how old she is, but I have a feeling that the two of them lived in that house at one time or another as part of the family. Not that I care, mind you, but I just wanted to give you a heads up about what you might hear or see coming from up there.”
“Thanks.” He thought about a great many things at that moment, but he didn’t have any idea how to talk about them. “Joe, do you think she might be any trouble?”
“No. I don’t know why, but I don’t think so. She’s hard, I think, is the way that I’d put it, but not totally unredeemable.” Joe laughed. “Lance, I surely do hope that she’s one of your other brothers’ mate. It sure would take a load off my shoulders knowing that she has a pride there for her.”
It was pretty much the same thing that he’d been thinking when he’d heard about her. But now, now that he knew more about her, he figured that she wasn’t going to be related to them at all. Not that he would turn her away if she needed it, but Lance thought that she’d be better off taking care of herself than having an overly possessive lion hanging around her. And pissing her off.
Chapter 1
Shawn had to laugh every time she looked at her son. Shamus was too stiff, to say the least, but the fact that he was complaining about her having a job and money of her own made her realize that leaving him to stay with her parents might have been a mistake. That was the reason that she now called him Shamus instead of Finn. He acted, even though they’d been gone for over fifteen years, just like them. Her grandparents Shawn and Shamus Farley. Lately after being out and among humans, she realized that he even dressed like them. And seemed to be much older than they had been, even for being in their nineties when they passed on.
“What do you mean you don’t want me to go over your accounts, Mother? Are you afraid that I’m going to find that you’ve put yourself in the red? Don’t expect me to give up on things that I love simply because you don’t know how to manage money.” Another thing that she hated. That he called her mother instead of mom like he used to. “You’re spending a great deal of money here, and it will not do you a bit of good to be broke before you’re ready to sit back and let me, as your son, care for you. That is my duty, you understand? I don’t think that you do, but I will take it seriously when the time is right.”
“I’m well aware that I’m spending a great deal of money, Son. But I have it, and I’m going to use it to bring this place back from the dead, no pun intended.” He huffed at her, something that her grandda had done a great deal when he’d been alive. “Now, do you want me to pay for you a house, or are you going to be nice while living here with your mom? Either way, Finn, I’m happy to make it so that you can come and go as you please. Mostly, it’s so that we won’t have to have this same argument over and over.”
“I can pay my own way. I know how money works.” He lookedlike he was about four when he pouted like he was doing right now. “And I’ve decided that I’m going to be staying here instead of in town so that no one takes advantage of you. I know that you think men don’t care for you, but you’d be wrong. You’re a very beautiful woman who has a great deal of money that you seem to be spending willy-nilly.”
“Thank you for saying that I’m beautiful before saying that I’m stupid with money.” She hoped that he’d at least say that she wasn’t stupid, but he didn’t. Letting out a long breath, Shawnie decided that she’d had enough un-mothering today and headed to the fully stocked kitchen. She continued on with her conversation as if they hadn’t just had a little break. “Ifyou’re going to be living here with me, and right now that’s debatable, there are going to be rules. You are to stay out of my office, my money and my room. If you don’t want to do that, then I think that you’d be better off buying yourself a home and leaving me to become a wreck and ruin all by myself.”
“You’re impossible.” She thanked him. “That wasn’t meant to be a compliment, Mother. You’re difficult to make understand even the smallest of things of late. Or has it been all my life? It matters little. You need a keeper, especially about men and money. I think that you’ll be in ruin if I don’t stay around and protect you. There, I’ve said it. You need me here for no other reason than to keep you safe.”
“From what? That you’re a fuddy-duddy that has a rod up his ass? No, I understand that just fine. Or is it that you have yet to become a part of this century. You’d better be getting on that, Son, or some modern woman is going to take you to task. And she won’t be easy on you either. By the way, in the event that you don’t know how fucking works, how do you think that I got you? Answer me that.” His face heated up, and he told that Georgie was like that. “Yes, she is. And she thinks that you’re odd. Did you know that? Not that I think that you’d care.”
“I don’t. She’s the odd one.” Shamus flopped down on the couch that had just been delivered. “I do think that she has good tastes when it comes to this house. Everything is just perfect the way that it is. Do you suppose she has her husband look things over, and that’s why things are so nice?”
“I believe that she’d brain him like I’m about to do to you if he were to even suggest such an outlandish thing. Also I thinkshehas great tastes as well. Though I don’t want you in my boudoir, ever. I love that she made it look sturdy without it looking like it’s a woman of the streets kind of room.” He rolled his eyes at her. It was then that Finny joined them. “Ah, Uncle Finny. You remember my son, don’t you? He’s in no better of a mood than he was the last time you were around him.”
“He needs his bottom beat if you were to ask me. But since you didn’t, I’m going to have to ignore him.” Finny, her great uncle from far back, never minced words with her. She loved him for that. And being a friendly ghost, she enjoyed having him popping in and out when he could. “That doctor, the one that worked on you the day that you were injured, he’s making his way up here. Can’t understand why when he told you that you were fit as a fiddle.” She asked him which one. “Kayce. What sort of name do you think that is? I never heard of it before.”
“You’re beginning to sound like my son, Finny. And you know how much he irritates me.” Shamus stood up when the doorbell rang. Telling him that she had it only served to piss him off more. Which, she told herself, she wasn’t going to laugh at him about. Opening the door, she asked him what he wanted.
“It’s lovely to see you as well, Ms. Farley.” She felt her face heat up and she thought that she needed to take it down a few notches. Her son did that to her more and more of late. She told him that she was sorry. “It’s all right. I have a request. You don’t have to feel like you have to say yes, which I’m betting you rarely do, but I have something going on at my temporary place. I’mliving in this little house until—I’m betting you don’t care. But I do have a problem. I think that there is some kind of spirit in the house that wishes me harm.”
“They can’t harm you no matter what. But I will go and talk to them if there is one there. Sometimes, people forget that we’re not the only people living around here.” She meant it as a joke, but he only nodded. Grabbing her coat, ready to leave the house for a few moments, Shawnie decided that the fencing she wanted to surround her property needed to go up sooner rather than later. Too many people just thinking they could pop in and out to see her. Or to pester her.
Getting into his car she was glad to see that he kept a clean space. She hated it when people used their cars as a sort of trash can. Since she liked neatness, she didn’t care for people that were unorganized either. She asked him about his problem.
“Whoever it is, they move things around. Not on a big scale, but enough that it’s beginning to make me think that I was going mad. However, I spoke to the place, just sort of yelled out that I wanted them to talk to me, and the entire box of books that I had in the living room fell off the table and was strewn all over the room.” He grinned. While she thought he was handsome, she wasn’t looking for a date right now. “Anyway, I figured that you could help me out. Thank you for this.”
As soon as she was in the tiny little house, she could see nothing that would have happened to have the spirit lashing out. Wandering through the house, she was careful not to step on things that had been tossed around. It would hold a bit more magic until the being, the spirit, was appeased of whatever was going on with it. She started talking to Kayce as she wandered around the house, looking at things that only she could see.
“Her name is Belinda Cross. She doesn’t want you living here because you’re a male. She had no use for them.” Belinda came to her just as she asked her to. “Why don’t you want this manhere, Ms. Cross? From what I can see, he’s doing nothing to interfere with whatever you’re upset about?”
“He’s a male.” She just glanced at Kayce, who was watching her while sitting in the chair that was pushed up near the table. He seemed to be using it for a desk. “Isn’t that reason enough to want someone out of your home?”
“I suppose it would be if you were alive. But you’re not. Why don’t you tell me why you don’t want him here?” Belinda looked frustrated. “Okay, how about this. I tell you to leave him alone, and then I go home. I don’t like being out and about anyway. Or I can banish you. You know that I’m well within my rights to do that to you since you’re causing trouble for the living.”
“My trouble with him is that he sleeps in the nude. Walking about my house like he owns it—in the nude. He even…I hate to say this because it’s not all that proper for me to say so, but he sometimes eats his breakfast in the nude. His thing…it’s flopping about like it has its own life. He’s well endowed, I suppose, but he is in the nude while living in my house.” She couldn’t help it, she laughed. Then glanced at Kayce when he asked her what was going on. “You shant tell him, will you? I mean, he’s nude and all, and I find that while it’s giving me the vapors, he is a nice-looking man. Better than I ever had…why are you laughing. A nude man walking around is very serious business. Not something to laugh about.”
She was rolling on the floor with humor. Christ, she hadn’t had this much fun since…well, she couldn’t remember when. Trying to tell Kayce what the ghost had said had her nearly sick with humor. When she was able to tell him, only little bursts of laughter after that, his face turned a bright red then he started sputtering.
“I didn’t think… She saw me? I guess that stands to reason since I’ve been right here with…good Christ, does she actually watch me walking about…I’m a lion. I get hot, so… Good Christ.”
When he left her there, she stood up and began picking up the books. The energy that had been used to toss them around wasn’t as bad as it was when she first came in. After doing all that she could, Shawnie decided to walk home, as it wasn’t that far from her land, and she needed some fresh air, too.
It didn’t take her long to get home. Shawnie thought it mostly had to do with the straight-line walk to her home. While moving along at a nice pace, she could see that some of the spirits from the cemetery on her land were out as well. She didn’t interact with them unless they came to her. She’d bet that most of them knew that she could talk to them and was fine by not having to chase down every little thing that they thought was important.
She’d not asked for this…whatever it was. She had been born, they told her, with some kind of shawl around her face. Looking it up, she wasn’t sure that it was just a myth or something true, but she’d been seeing ghosts for as long as she could remember, even as a small child.
