Storm Road (Old School Book 3) Page 17

  “And telling them about a ghoul will do that?” He beeped open the locks on the rental car and opened the back door.

  “We won’t tell them specifically about the ghoul. Just that the fire at Millie’s set free something evil. We fought it. Claudia fled with Kaylea from it. We won. The evil is destroyed.” She watched him tuck Claudia into the back seat. Then he straightened and opened the passenger door, helping her in and settling Kaylea in her lap. She’d return for her pickup later. They had to reach Soul’s Hollow before either of their passengers woke.

  She stroked Kaylea’s fair hair back from her eyes before turning to Dean as he got in the driver’s seat. “The Appalachians have a history of magic. That belief and wariness will save Claudia from suspicion. It’ll save her from worrying about what she did while unaware.”

  Explanations took a long time. First, Beulah and Dean had to explain to the rejoicing Johnson family how they’d found Kaylea and Claudia. Then they had to explain to the sheriff. Then they had to explain it to the family all over again.

  “It was luck,” Beulah said.

  Fortunately, when Claudia woke, she remembered nothing of the ghoul’s possession, and the doctor was willing enough to diagnose temporary amnesia. Ironically, it helped that when Beulah had reluctantly thrown Claudia in the cemetery to prevent the ghoul attacking her, it had resulted in a bump on the head that bolstered their story.

  Mrs. Johnson caught Dean’s sleeve as he stood to leave. “The phone company’s fixed whatever problem they had. I’ll phone Millie in the morning. I’ll make sure she talks with you.” All that she owed Dean and Beulah showed in her red-rimmed eyes. She looked at Beulah. “I figure there’s more to the story, but I’ll not ask. I have my babies home. But none of us will forget what you did. Tyler said as how your pickup’s parked at the cemetery.”

  Beulah’s eyes widened in dismay. It was the one tangible hole in their story.

  Mrs. Johnson smiled faintly. “Tyler got his nephew. They drove it to your cabin.”

  “Thank you,” Beulah said.

  “Magic has always been real in these mountains. Good and bad, and you’re good all the way through. I’m glad God sent you to us.”

  In the car, Dean wiped a tear from Beulah’s cheek, his touch as soft as a kiss. “I’m glad, too.”

  He drove them home with dawn just starting to light the mountains. Night lingered in the woods, but the river shone silver in the pale sunlight.

  A night without sleep after the strain of battling the ghoul had turned Beulah’s muscles to lead. Painful lead. She craved her bed with an intensity that shut out almost everything else. So she had unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door of the rental car before realizing that Dean hadn’t moved.

  “The ghoul is gone,” he said. “I can get a room somewhere.”

  She slumped back in the passenger seat. “You want to leave?” She heard the forlorn note in her voice and didn’t care. She was through protecting herself from life.

  “No,” he responded swiftly enough to crush the fear that she’d misread his emotions and he’d only been tolerating her because of the ghoul. “No.” And in a softer voice. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Come in.” She got out of the car and waited for him, then moved into his arms. “I opened up, let loose all my emotions, to defeat the ghoul. I don’t want to lock them up again and keep you out, but old habits…”

  “Mine, too.” He held her close. “You just experienced one of them. I wasn’t sure of my welcome. I don’t want to intrude.”

  “I want you to.” She burrowed her head against him, before sighing and trying to force some sense out of her exhausted brain. “I’m too tired to make sense in words. Come inside. I’m not feeling sexy, but I don’t want to sleep alone, and I need to sleep. I think there’ll be nightmares.”

  He kissed her gently. “I’ll guard your dreams.”

  Chapter 11

  Dean hung up the cabin’s phone. Mrs. Johnson had been as good as her word. She’d just given him the address at which he’d find his Aunt Millie, and she’d told him something more.

  Beulah sat at the kitchen table, watching him.

  They’d slept till eleven and were in the middle of a belated breakfast. It was only toast, but neither wanted to face the questions and curiosity of people if they went to the diner for a full breakfast—or lunch.

  “Aunt Millie is in a private hospice on the coast. She has lung cancer.” He breathed in deeply, unconsciously reassuring himself that his lungs worked. “She’s dying.”

  Sorrow and sympathy marked Beulah’s expression.

  “You knew,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I know Millie’s dying, not where she is. My friend Sadie told me.” She pushed back her chair, coming to him. Her beautiful gray eyes asked his understanding. “The cancer was—is—Millie’s secret.” She put her arms around him, relaxing as he returned the embrace. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

  “I should tell Dad.” But he didn’t pull out his phone, despite knowing it had reception again and that his dad would be impatient for news. “Aunt Millie was a smoker. I remember sitting outside with her as a kid. Mom wouldn’t let her smoke in the house. We were in Germany. There was snow.” It felt as if the snow was inside him, now, freezing his guts.

  Beulah rubbed his back in a slow circle. To some questions there were no answers, and he was asking a question: Why Aunt Millie? Why cancer?

  They had vanquished the ghoul, but no one could defeat death. He shuddered and stood tall. “I have to phone Aunt Millie. Mrs. Johnson gave me the number.”

  Beulah nodded. She cleared away the breakfast dishes while he went out onto the porch.

  He left the door open. It wasn’t privacy he needed so much as the freedom and fresh air of the woods. He stared at them and the glimpse of road and river through the trees, while he listened to the phone ring.

  “Millie.” His aunt’s voice, husky as ever, but weaker.

  “Aunt Millie, it’s Dean.”

  “Been expecting your call. I’ve not much breath.”

  The spaces between her words told him that. He turned his back to the woods and looked in the cabin door. His gaze connected with Beulah’s and she put aside her dishwashing. He held out his hand and she crossed to him quickly on silent feet, bare feet with cute pink toes. He hugged her against him. “Beulah’s with me. She kept your secret, but I want to tell Dad. Have to.”

  He heard Millie’s wheezing breath.

  “I’ll call him,” she said.

  “He’s in hospital. A broken leg.” His own fluency was gone. They’d stripped their conversation of everything but essentials. He tightened his hold on the phone. “Can I visit you?”

  “I’m skin and bones.” Millie’s breathing choked.

  Beulah gripped his shirt while they waited for Millie to recover and go on.

  “Come.” She hung up.

  Dean’s nose burned in the weird way that meant tears. He shoved his phone in his pocket and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Millie has courage.” Beulah hugged him. “It runs in the family.”

  He gave an awkward half-laugh, but at least it forced back the tears. “Will you come with me to see Millie?”

  Beulah smiled, sympathetic but almost with a hint of joy. “Yes.”

  He had to think about that a moment, staring into her honest eyes, before he understood. She was glad he’d asked her along. He was including her in his life, in the good and bad of it. He couldn’t imagine it any other way. “Thank you, my heart.”

  Dean’s dad phoned while they were driving through Fawnbrook.

  Beulah had offered to share the driving, but Dean wanted the distraction of it, so she hadn’t pushed.

  When his dad phoned, Dean pulled to the side of the road to take the call.

  She unbuckled her seatbelt, prepared to stretch her legs and give him some privacy. He touched her arm to say she was welcome to stay, but she didn’t see the same lost lon
eliness as when he’d phoned Millie. So she shook her head and got out; although she didn’t go far. When she turned to look back, he was watching her.

  Connection. Caring.

  A few minutes later he got out of the rental car and joined her beneath a maple tree. Daisies grew in the grass near it, reminding her of the daisy chain he’d made her only yesterday.

  He stood with his head bent, rubbing the back of his neck. “Dad’s breaking out of the hospital. A friend will drive him down and he’ll book a room at whatever hotel we land in. In the morning, I’ll take him to Aunt Millie’s hospice.”

  She clasped his hand.

  He looked down at her, his stern, controlled expression softening. “I’m still going to try and see Aunt Millie today.”

  She nodded. He wouldn’t rest till he had. “Then we’d better keep driving.”

  The hospice was painted white and pale blue, and set among neatly trimmed lawns. It had nothing of the overgrown charming chaos of Millie’s farm. Dean parked in the designated visitor parking and switched off the engine. In the silence, the sound of the waves was evident, breaking against the shore just behind the hospice building. It was early evening.

  He’d driven here relentlessly, compelled by some force, yet now that he was here, the compulsion faded. Its absence left him empty. “They might send me away for interrupting dinner.”

  “Then we’ll come back,” Beulah said steadily.

  He nodded and got out of the car. She joined him and slipped her hand in his, and that helped to ground him.

  The hospice’s automatic door slid open at their approach and a middle-aged woman looked up. “Millie’s nephew,” she said.

  His steady pace hitched momentarily before he kept going. “Yes.”

  “She showed me a photo. She’s expecting you. I’m Nancy Giles.” Her eyes were tired but kind, and ever so faintly curious as she looked at Beulah.

  Beulah squeezed his hand. “I’ll wait for you on the beach. Stretch my legs.” She slipped away.

  He had an impulse to follow her; a cowardly one that he squashed instantly. The hospice was too much like a hospital. It was too reminiscent of visiting injured marines in military hospitals. The people who ran the hospice had tried to pretend it was a hotel with flowers at the front desk and would-be elegant furniture, but the smell gave it away. Like a hospital, it smelled of bleach and other chemicals used to cover the inescapable stink of disease and death.

  Nancy led him to an elevator. “The stairs are there.” She pointed. “You seem a stair kind of guy. But it’s been a long day for me.”

  The elevator doors opened and he waited for her to enter first. “How is Millie?”

  “Sharp, funny and even more tired than me.” Nancy studied him compassionately. “She’ll exert herself to make sure you’re okay with her dying.” She didn’t balk at the stark word.

  He appreciated her directness. “I won’t collapse in tears,” he promised dryly.

  Her smile briefly banished the tiredness from her face. “You’ll do.”

  Millie’s room was two doors down on the top floor. Nancy knocked perfunctorily and walked in. “One handsome nephew, delivered safely.”

  Shock sucker-punched Dean. He ducked his head, hiding an instant behind Nancy to get his expression under control. His aunt Millie, loud, energetic, and barreling through life, was a pale skeleton propped up in a hospital bed. Her eyes were sunken and over-large in her emaciated face.

  He strode to her and clasped her skinny fingers, remembering when they’d been sturdy and competent, gesturing emphatically as she’d argued with his dad. “Did you really think you could hide from two marines?”

  She smiled faintly.

  Nancy retreated tactfully, closing the door behind her.

  Dean bent and kissed Millie’s cheek, hearing the wheezing of her breath and the steady push of oxygen from the machine she was hooked up to. Then he stretched out a foot to snag a chair and pull it up to the bed. The faint clasp of her fingers was a hold he wouldn’t have broken for a million dollars. “How are you?”

  A characteristically wicked spark lit her blue eyes. “Dying for a cigarette.”

  He laughed.

  Nancy was right. Aunt Millie, brave till the end, would make this as easy as she could for him.

  “Wait till Dad gets here,” he said. “You’ll get the lecture. No one’s more dedicated to the anti-smoking message than an ex-smoker.”

  “Glad he’s ex,” Millie said quietly.

  He nodded. He wondered what he should say. Millie was too weak to hear about the ghoul. “I met your neighbor, Beulah.”

  “Pretty girl.”

  He grinned. “I noticed. She drove down with me.”

  At that, Millie’s eyebrows rose. “Fast work.”

  “She’s someone special.”

  His aunt sighed. “I hope so.” She looked at him with obvious regret. “I’m scared you’ll stay single all your life. Your dad and I didn’t give the best examples.” She stopped to breathe, but the slight squeeze of her fingers told him to remain silent. She had more to say. “I should have been there for Jack and you when your mom left.”

  He blinked. “You had your own life. We handled it.”

  “Men.” A snort. “Love is taught by feeling it.”

  He smiled at her. “I love you, Aunt Millie, and I know you love me. I’ve always known it. You’re a fantastic aunt. What other kid got dinosaur poop for their ninth birthday?”

  “Coprolite.” Her eyes laughed at him, but it was obvious that what little energy she’d scraped together for his visit was fading. She slumped more against the pillows.

  At least her bed looked out at the ocean. She’d be able to watch the sunrise.

  “Dad’ll be here in the morning. You’ll need your energy to cope with him.”

  “Kick his butt, still,” she whispered.

  “I’ll take photos.” He smiled. “I’ll see you in the morning. Good night, Aunt Millie.”

  She released his hand, but reached up and touched his face. Her fingers were cool. “Proud of you, honey.”

  Dean walked out of the room with tears in his eyes. Nancy was right: he took the stairs, not the elevator, and he took them fast. He didn’t feel as if he breathed properly till he was outside. Then he paused and sucked in deep breaths, his heart pounding in his chest with all the emotion he’d controlled and tried to hide from Millie’s sharp eyes.

  He found Beulah sitting in the dunes, her toes burrowed in the sand. He dropped down beside her and put his arm around her. She leaned into him and they stayed like that, watching the waves and the dimming light of approaching dusk.

  Two days later, Beulah jumped out of the backseat of Dean’s rental car to give his dad what help Jack would accept. Given Jack’s independent streak, that pretty much amounted to handing him his crutches. They already had a routine established for visiting Millie. Dean would drive as close to the entrance as he could, and Beulah and Jack would get out and walk into the hospice, while he’d park and catch up with them.

  Today, a large, shiny black car blocked the entrance, engine running but darkly tinted windows hiding who might be inside. Dean stopped behind it.

  As Jack fussed with his crutches, refusing all help as he maneuvered out of the rental car, a man exited the hospice. The guy was Jack’s age, but a greater contrast was hard to imagine. Even with his broken leg and the fading scrapes and bruises from the car crash, Jack was tough and lean. The stranger, pausing for a moment at the door of the hospice and looking back, was soft. His weight looked flabby. He wasn’t a hard man swapping muscle for fat as he aged. His expensive suit was sharply cut, but couldn’t give him the edge that Jack had naturally.

  Which wasn’t to say that the man failed to emanate power. He compelled attention even as he dabbed at his face with a crisp white handkerchief.

  A chauffeur sprang out of the shiny car to open the door.

  The back of Beulah’s neck prickled, and not at the show of wealt
h. Magic hovered in the air. She couldn’t define its nature or purpose, only that it existed.

  The quiet thud of the luxury car’s door closing ended the moment. Whatever magic or magnetism the man possessed cut off.

  By the time Jack balanced on his crutches, the mystery man had gone.

  But a small part of Beulah wasn’t surprised to walk into Millie’s room and see her faintly flushed with excitement. Magic and Millie. For a woman who had no magic of her own, Millie sure connected a lot of paranormal dots.

  “I just had a visit from an old boyfriend,” Millie said.

  Jack dropped into a chair with a grunt. “That clown downstairs?”

  “How would I know which clown you saw?” Millie countered.

  The siblings bickered, but their love, though poorly expressed, was obvious. “Gerald Svenson. He’s a lobbyist, now.”

  Dean walked into the room in time to observe Beulah’s jerk of surprise. He raised an eyebrow.

  Later, she mouthed.

  He nodded and took up his usual position sitting at the end of Millie’s bed. He squeezed her toes through the blanket. “You didn’t have to kick out your old boyfriend because of us.”

  “I didn’t. Being with someone who’s dying made him uncomfortable. Gerry wants to live forever. He didn’t like it when I said I couldn’t imagine anything worse.” Millie wheezed quietly for several minutes. “The joys of this life have power because they’re fleeting. I believe the next world will be different. Joy that endures.” She looked at her brother. “Missing people is the hard bit.”

  Jack tapped a crutch against the floor. “We’ll all die soon enough. Join you.”

  Dean laughed. “You two are cheerful company.”

  They gave him remarkably similar, ironic smiles, filled with unspoken affection. Then Millie hitched herself up against the pillows. “Gerry visited because he’s lost. He’s done something, set something in motion, and now, a vanishingly small part of him is fighting with regret. Thirty four years and I still remember the signs of guilt in him.” She fell silent. “He’s not a good guy, not any more. Sad. A villain is the loneliest person because he trusts no one.”