Sundown

His eyes light, and I know I’ve said the right thing to tempt him. I know everything about him. I came prepared—or I thought I did. Still, I didn’t come this far, do this much work, to be thrown off my game by a ghost. No matter how many of my dreams he has haunted.

“I am a student of the supernatural,” Aleister says, rising from his chair. “If it’s the supernatural you seek, we can contact it easily in my room.”

A noise like a growl comes from the guy crouched over a tumbler of scotch behind him. I ignore it.

My eyes narrow playfully. “Monsieur Fragonard, are you trying to lure me to your state room?”

“I would never insult you that way.” He steps back and presses his palm to his chest, a gesture he seems to favor. “My family comes from a line of gypsies. I myself am a medium. I can serve us tea and read the leaves, or…” He inspects the group, eyes gleaming. “We need at least three people to have a séance. You all shall join us, yes?”

“Oh, I don’t know… I’m afraid.” Molly widens her baby blue eyes and steps back from where she has been allowing Baron Esterhaus to examine her necklace—while also giving him an excuse to grope her body.

“There, there,” the old man says, patting her shoulder. “You have nothing to be afraid of as long as I’m here.”

Other than your cock, I think with a sneer.

“You’ll protect me from the spirits?” She clutches his arm and arches her back, jutting her breasts upward so they make contact with his chest.

The baron coughs, and I imagine that put a rise in his pants. It makes me nauseated, and I struggle to keep the past out of my mind.

It’s a constant struggle, ongoing and fierce.

“I’ll play.” Mark rises from his seat and turns to face me.

His voice has changed in the years since we’ve been apart. It’s deeper, more formal, manly, like the beard covering his face. It’s the first time I’ve ventured this close to him since I entered the car. He towers over me, and a shiver passes through my body. A memory of our bodies intertwined nudges at the recesses of my mind.

Turning away, I feign ignorance. “What exactly are you saying?” I ask Fragonard.

“We shall have a séance.” He extends his arms dramatically. “We shall call on the spirits that dwell in this land to tell us their secrets. It’s a perfect night for it, dark and wild.”

Little does he know…

He steps forward, and I’m left standing shoulder to chest with Mark. I don’t look up, but the heat radiating off him melts away the chill of this night, the tension of what’s to come.

He was always tall, but when I knew him before, he was slim. Now his suit strains around his biceps and across his chest, hinting at a bulk he didn’t have as a young man running around a broken-down theater, pretending he could protect me from the demons.

I wonder what scars he’s hiding.

I wonder if beneath that beard I would find a silver line from the blow he took to the chin.

The blow I thought had killed him.

“We can’t start right away.” I don’t take Fragonard’s elbow when he extends it.

“We must strike while the iron is hot!” he says, excitement thick in his tone.

“I’d like to freshen up first.” I step away from his pressure, needing time to prepare.

“Yes, and you were going to show me the book about my necklace,” Molly says to the baron. “What if we meet in a half hour?”

Aleister is pouty, but he agrees. “I shall set the stage.” His eyes go to the brass clock above the entrance. “Arrive at my state room at eleven-thirty.”

I’m at the door, and my eyes are irresistibly drawn to Mark’s. Our gazes catch, and for a moment, I can’t look away. My heart beats faster, and I have trouble breathing normally.

So many words need to be said, so many questions. They stick in my throat like shards of glass. Our possible reunion drifts through my brain like a piano refrain—pure notes, high and clear like crystal raindrops falling one after another from the pointed tip of a leaf.

My hesitation draws him to me. I want him to follow me, and it’s all I can do not to beckon to him with my hand.

I don’t need to.