Page 15 of The Unseen

L UCAS’S J EEP PULLED TO A STOP OUT FRONT OF THE DOUBLE-WIDE trailer, behind an older-model Ford pickup. After they parked, Nicole unfastened her seat belt.

“That’s Bud’s car,” Lucas said.

“Your grandmother is already here?”

“Looks that way.” They both climbed out of the vehicle, and Lucas took her hand as they headed up the sidewalk.

A tall, thin black woman wearing huge hoop earrings, a long, flowered skirt, and a white blouse, came out on the porch to greet them.

Lucas introduced her. “Darla Robinson, this is Nicole Belmond. She’s a friend.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Darla said.

“You as well,” said Nicole.

Darla spoke to Lucas. “Your grandmama is here. She’s in the living room with her man-friend. I told her what’s been goin’ on. So far, nothin’s happened. It goes that way most nights, then out of the blue—things get crazy.”

“We have plenty of time. Grandmere has a way of reaching them. We’ll see what happens.”

Lucas kept hold of Nicole’s hand as he led her into the house. Grandmere kissed both of Nicole’s cheeks, then introduced her to Bud, who was a big, strapping silver-haired man, even taller than Lucas. He was polite, with intelligent brown eyes, and he was clearly enthralled with Gabrielle.

They sat down in chairs around the coffee table in the living room. Darla made a pot of coffee and served them in heavy mugs she filled with the dark French-roast brew.

Grandmere asked that they stay as quiet as possible, and the room fell silent.

An hour passed. Darla warmed up their coffee and another hour passed.

It was almost midnight when Grandmere rose and began to wander through the house.

Speaking both French and English, referring to them as boys, she talked as if speaking to family.

If it hadn’t been for Lucas, Nicole would have doubted the entire event. She would have figured it was all a hoax, perhaps some kind of a con. If it were, she didn’t see much to gain. Clearly, Darla Robinson wasn’t a wealthy woman.

At midnight, a clock began to chime in one of the bedrooms down the hall. After the twelfth note struck, an eerie silence settled over the house. In the living room, no one moved or spoke. Nicole’s nerves were building, had been as the hours ticked past. Anticipation seemed to burn in the air.

Then, in the distance outside the windows, Nicole heard men’s footsteps moving quietly through the darkness. The soft thud of boots in the rich, moist soil was unmistakable.

She reached out a hand to Lucas, who laced their fingers together. She could feel his solid strength and it settled her. She felt safe with him, she realized. Lucas was the first man she had ever felt she could count on, an odd thought, considering how little time she had actually spent with him.

It didn’t seem to matter. As long as her hand was in his, she felt as if nothing bad could happen to her.

Grandmere was still prowling the house. Nicole could hear a smattering of French here and there, along with words in English. The soldiers who had fought in the war were a mixed lot, gathered from every part of the country.

The one-sided conversation was clear enough. Grandmere was telling them the war was over. They had died in the fighting, and now it was time to move on. She told them they were loved and missed and that they should go on to where their loved ones waited.

Nicole understood enough French to know she was repeating the story to the soldiers who had lived in the area. Quiet settled around the house. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until Grandmere told them the Confederate Army had lost the war.

Then all hell broke loose.

Nicole gasped as the double-wide started shaking.

The coffee table began hopping up and down, coffee mugs jumping, moving around on the top of the table.

Icy shivers ran down her spine. Her heart was racing.

Outside the house, she could hear what sounded like a barrage of gunfire, then the thunderous boom of a cannon.

“This can’t be real,” she whispered, her grip tightening on Lucas’s hand.

He leaned toward her. “Losing the war was very bad news,” he whispered in her ear—so softly, only she could hear.

Another round of shaking started, causing a family photo to fall off the wall, the glass breaking as it hit the floor. It took all Nicole’s will not to jump up and run screaming out of the house.

As hard as she tried to hold it in, a fearful sound escaped. Lucas quietly moved his chair closer and lifted her into his lap. Nicole leaned against him, her arms went around his neck, and she just hung on.

The battle seemed to rage for hours, though it was only minutes. In the bedroom portion of the house, she could hear Grandmere’s voice, soothing, concerned, but determined.

She ordered the spirits to leave the people in the house alone. She commanded them to leave the past behind and move forward. As the brave soldiers that she knew they were, they had no other choice, she said.

Little by little, the sounds outside the house died away. Darla, sitting next to Bud, seemed to be comforted by the big man’s presence. Bud seemed to take all of it in stride. He was dating a woman who talked to spirits. Nicole figured this probably wasn’t Bud’s first rodeo.

Grandmere walked toward them, down the hall, back into the living room. Her face was pasty white, and her legs were shaking. Lucas settled Nicole back in her chair and went to his grand-mother. Gently leading her over to the sofa, he urged her to sit down, then crouched in front of her.

“Are you all right?”

She looked up at him and there were tears in the brown eyes so like her grandson’s. “Those poor boys. Some of them were little more than children. Too young to die the terrible way they did.” She wiped a tear from her cheek.

“You helped them,” Lucas said. “They’re not stuck here anymore. They’re in a far better place now.”

“At least most of them.” A look passed between them.

Some of the soldiers in the war were very bad people. Nicole doubted the future that awaited them was going to be pleasant.

Lucas walked over to Darla. “I think it’s over. We’ll be leaving now. Are you going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking up at him. “Right now, my brain is whirlin’ around, tryin’ to make sense of all this.”

“I know what you mean,” Nicole said, walking up beside them.

“I don’t think they’ll be back,” Grandmere said, her face a little less pale. “Now that they know the war is over, they’ve got no reason to stay.”

Bud came up behind her. “Let’s go home, darlin’.”

Grandmere just nodded. She clung to Bud as they left the house. Lucas made their farewells to Darla, and a few minutes later, they were on their way back to Belle Reve.

“What happened in there tonight?” Nicole asked as the Jeep rolled down the highway.

“Grandmere has a gift. It seems to be handed down from generation to generation from the female side of the family. It’s unpredictable. Some of us are born with an aptitude of some kind, while others have no talent at all.”

“Until tonight, I never believed in ghosts,” Nicole said. “I still haven’t seen one, but the voices of the soldiers and the gunfire … seemed completely real.”

“As real as spirits can be.”

“How does it work?”

“I don’t think anyone knows for sure. There are scientists, Einstein among them, who believe consciousness can’t be destroyed, even by death, that it can exist outside the body in the form of soul or spirit.”

“Is that what you believe?”

“I’ve seen more than the average man. I know spirits exist, both good and evil.

Most ghosts are passive, like a recording of a song that plays over and over.

Some are active, the kind who can move objects, create sounds, touch you, even make brief appearances in the earthly realm.

Some of them are fiercely malevolent. Those are the kind I’m occasionally asked to deal with. ”

The information rolled around in her head. “It sounds dangerous.”

“It can be. When I’m in those situations, I stand with God. I count on Him to protect me.”

Nicole made no reply. This was way over her head. She wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

“So there’s a chance what Aunt Rachel is experiencing is real.”

“Considering everything we know, I’d say there’s a very good chance.”

Belle Reve was dark when they arrived, no lights shining through the windows.

“You think we should check on your aunt?” Lucas asked as they climbed out of the Jeep.

Nicole thought of the spirits outside Darla’s double-wide trailer. She thought of Rachel’s erotic dreams, the ghost in the graveyard, and the face in the painting.

“I think she needs time to process what’s been happening to her.” Just as Nicole did.

Lucas walked her to the front door of the carriage house, and she realized she didn’t want him to leave. Things were happening that she didn’t understand. She wanted him to stay, make her feel safe.

Instead, when they reached the front door, she turned and looked up at him. “It’s been an incredible night.”

“Yes,” he said simply. “Does it change anything between us?”

Did it? The man believed in spirits. Then again, so did her aunt. And after tonight, she was fairly well convinced they might actually be real.

“No. It doesn’t change anything.”

“Then I guess we’re over the first hurdle.

” Lucas pulled her into his arms. She felt his fingers beneath her chin as he tipped her head back and his mouth came down over hers, gentle at first, then more demanding.

Nicole found herself clinging to his wide shoulders, kissing him back, making greedy little sounds of need in the back of her throat.

Very gently, Lucas broke the kiss. She had never noticed the tiny gold circles around his pupils, but they were glowing with heat tonight.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said a little gruffly.

Nicole just nodded. “Good night, Lucas.”

He caught her chin, then bent and kissed her lightly one last time. “Good night, cher. ”

He returned to the Jeep, climbed in, and started the engine. She watched as he turned the vehicle around and drove back down the lane.

Her insides were still shaking. She wasn’t sure if it was from the ghost experience she’d had that night.

Or Lucas Devereaux’s amazing kiss.