A Valentine Wish (Gates-Cameron 1)

“Your stepfather?”

Anna went very still. “Why do you say that?”

Dean shrugged. “It’s a logical suggestion. Had you lived, the inn would have been yours and your brother’s after that night. Gaylon would have lost his comfortable position as manager. With you and Ian out of the way, the inn became his.”

“That’s what Ian says. He’s always believed Gaylon had something to do with our deaths.”

“And what about Charles, Gaylon’s son?”

Anna spread her hands. “There was no reason for him to hate us. He never seemed all that interested in the inn. He liked to party and carouse with his friends, for the most part. He and Ian never got along, but they were never really enemies, either. I’m afraid Ian didn’t get along very well with anyone after our mother died. He was so angry, you see, because he loved her so much and because she died so young.”

Anna’s face turned sad again. “We were

n’t even allowed to be with her after our deaths,” she murmured.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said ineffectually.

“Find our proof, Dean, and maybe we’ll be able to see our mother again. Please.”

He hated the pressure she was putting on him. “I’ll try.”

She patted his bare arm. “I know you will. And I want you to know that I appreciate what you’re doing for us. You certainly have no obligation. You’re a very special man, Dean Gates.”

Her touch startled him. It still amazed him that she could touch him, though he had the odd sensation that some thin, cool, invisible barrier lay between them, preventing him from feeling her warmth, her vibrance.

He was intensely aware of the quiet around them. They were alone in his bedroom, just him and this beautiful, intriguing woman, who looked so damned real, so infinitely desirable. It had been a long time since he’d looked at any woman and reacted with a racing pulse and sweating palms.

It was just his luck that the woman who made him feel that way now didn’t even have a pulse.

She looked at her hand where it lay on his arm. Her expression turned wistful. “I can’t feel you,” she murmured. “Not really. It’s as though I’m touching you through cloth.”

“That’s pretty much the way it feels to me.”

She raised her gaze to his face.

“I wish I could really touch you,” she murmured, almost as if to herself. And Dean asked himself if he was only imagining the desire in her voice. A desire very similar to his own.

He couldn’t stop looking at her mouth. Wondering how it would feel to kiss a ghost.

“Is, er, your brother here?” he asked, suddenly wondering what it felt like to be punched out by a ghost.

Anna blinked, as though making an effort to concentrate on his question. “Um, no. We’ve discovered that it’s easier, for some reason, for me to contact you when he isn’t here. I don’t know why. He waits for me to come back and tell him what you’ve said.”

“You seem to be staying longer each time.”

“Yes. As I said, it gets easier.”

“Can you still see me at times when I can’t see you?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “I have to make an effort for you to see or hear me. Don’t ask me to explain how. I can’t.”

Dean wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to ask, anyway. If he started thinking about it too deeply, he’d probably begin to question his sanity again.

Anna lifted her hand from his arm, slowly, and touched her fingertips to his face. It felt odd, but not unpleasant. Not at all unpleasant.

“I have to go now,” she said.

“But you’ll be back.” It wasn’t a question.