Charon's Crossing

"I'm so sorry, Matthew. So very, very sorry."

Her face was turned up to his, her eyes wide and filled with compassion in the moonlight. His heart thudded and he thought how glad he was that his foolish words had not lived on through the years to hurt her. It was far, far better that he should suffer the consequences than she.

He longed to reach out and take her in his arms, tell her that he was sorry he had ever frightened her; to kiss her mouth until it parted beneath his, loosen her hair from its restraint and thrust his hands deep into the dark weight of it. He wanted to take her down onto the sand, strip away her clothing and tell her with his body and with his soul that she was the first bright and beautiful light to have penetrated the bleakness of his existence.

His mouth hardened into a tight line. Was he insane? No woman deserved such thoughts, especially not one who bore the blood of the woman who had betrayed him, no matter how many generations removed she might be.

He stepped back, his eyes like empty pools in his stony face.

"You are not welcome here, Kathryn."

"Don't be silly. This is my house."

"If you are wise, you will go back where you belong."

Kathryn's head lifted. "Don't threaten me, Matthew."

"I offer good advice. I urge you to take it."

What was the use in wasting sympathy on him? He was as arrogant, as impossible, as ever. Kathryn's eyes, so filled with compassion moments before, turned cool.

"I'll leave Charon's Crossing when I'm good and ready, and not a moment sooner."

Matthew glared at her and Kathryn glared back. She knew how he reacted when his authority was challenged.

A cloud, as dark and stormy as the look on his face, swept across the moon, plunging the sea and the land into darkness.

Kathryn held her ground.

Was he going to turn into a spinning whirlpool of silver light and try to scare her silly again? Well, it wasn't going to work. She'd seen his gaudy Las Vegas act one time too many to be impressed.

But when the moon broke free of its clouded cage, Kathryn found herself alone on the beach.

Matthew was gone.

Chapter 13

Matthew paced the length of the attic. Then he turned and paced the width.

He knew the damned room's dimensions by heart. It was still twenty feet wide by forty feet long... and he was still angry as hell.

Why didn't Kathryn leave Charon's Crossing?

He had told her to go and she should have done it by now.

She didn't belong here. The mansion was his by default... his, and the Dark Presence that was Waring were the only creatures suited to this purgatory.

Surely, she knew that.

"Damn," he said, slamming his fist against the wall without breaking stride.

Sweet Jesus, he hated this house, hated it almost as much as he hated himself.

What in hell was wrong with him? He hadn't been a man given to self-pity nor to regret and he'd be damned if he wanted to change that, now that he was a ghost, but self-pity and regret were what he seemed to be wallowing in lately.

And in weak-kneed, nonsensical shilly-shallying. Look at what he'd done last night, for God's sake.

First, he'd spilled his guts to Kathryn like some lily-livered jackass. Then he'd barked out a villainous warning to her about leaving Charon's Crossing and done one of the disappearing acts that surely would have raised the hair on the nape of his neck if he'd been the mortal and not the ghost.