A Valentine Wish (Gates-Cameron 1)

“Oh, this is great,” he grumbled. “Now I’m getting chewed out by my hallucinations.”

She laughed, the sound distant, musical. Like wind chimes heard from a neighbor’s lawn. She looked up and to her right, as though talking to someone standing beside her. “He still thinks he’s hallucinating,” she said. “But at least he hears me this time. I told you I could do it if I tried hard enough!”

Dean frowned gloomily. Terrific. Even his hallucination was hallucinating. As far as he could see, she was talking to a scraggly cedar tree.

The woman suddenly looked startled. “What?” she asked the tree. “But—why?”

Dean waited politely for the tree to reply. He wouldn’t have been entirely surprised had it done so, the way things were going tonight. But apparently the woman heard something he didn’t.

She turned to face him again, her dark eyes wide with curiosity. “You do see me, don’t you?” she demanded.

Dean shrugged. “Oh, what the hell. Sure, I see you. Want to tell me how you’re doing this?”

She ignored his question and motioned to the empty space beside her. “And Ian? Do you see him, as well?”

“Ian, is it?” Dean shook his head. Whoever was behind this was a stickler for details. “Is he, by chance, a pooka?”

She looked puzzled. “A what?”

“A pooka. Like Harvey, Jimmy Stewart’s bunny friend.”

She placed her hands on her hips, studying him in frank bewilderment. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Fictional characters,” he explained. “Imaginary creatures. Like invisible rabbits. Leprechauns. Santa Claus. Ghosts,” he added grimly.

She dismissed the pooka question with an impatient wave of one slender hand. “I wish you’d answer me. Do you see Ian or not?”

“Not,” he answered, his tone flat. “I see only you. Now, I’m giving you three seconds to tell me what’s going on here or to get the hell off my property before I call the police.”

“How very interesting,” she murmured, seeming unintimidated by his threat. “I wonder why you see only one of us?”

Forcing himself to study her objectively, Dean noticed that she appeared more solid this time than she had before. Though she still looked somewhat ethereal, he couldn’t see through her. As far as he could tell, she was no projection, but a real woman. An incredibly beautiful woman.

A woman who could have stepped directly out of that old photograph his aunt had found in the attic.

He moved a step closer. “Who are you?”

“My name is Mary Anna Cameron,” she said, holding her ground.

“Bull.”

Her delicate eyebrows drew downward. “You reallyshouldn’ t talk that way,” she scolded. “It isn’t proper.”

“Neither is pretending to be a ghost,” he retorted, wondering how quickly she’d duck away if he reached for her. Very slowly, he began to ease his hands out of his pockets. “Did you think it would be funny to see me scream and run? If so, I’m sorry you were disappointed.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t expect you to scream. Ian expected you to, but I told him, from what I’ve seen of you, I didn’t believe you’d be such a coward.”

“And have you seen much of me?” he asked mockingly.

He would have sworn her cheeks darkened in the pale moonlight. Even further proof, of course, that she wasn’t who she claimed to be. He doubted that ghosts, if they existed, would blush.

“Ian has been trying to keep me out of your private rooms, but I wanted to talk to you,” she explained, sounding apologetic. “It was only by accident that I saw you unclothed earlier this evening. I turned away, and I really didn’t see anything more than that cute little heart-shaped birthmark on your—er—”

She winced as she turned toward the cedar tree. “But he asked,” she said. “I was just trying to explain... You don’t think he meant ... ? Oh.”

She looked contritely back at Dean. “Ian has always said I talk too much when I’m nervous.”

How the hell had she known about that embarrassing birthmark? He’d spent most of his life trying to hide the thing from all but a very select few.