Ghost Lovers Read online

  GHOST LOVERS

  By

  Brenda Storm

  Copyright © 2013, Brenda Storm (Brenda Bone)

  All Rights Reserved.

  First Printing, Kindle, 2013.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. The Sound Mixer

  2. A Ghost’s Promise

  3. Stalkers

  THE SOUND MIXER

  “You’re so damn stupid that you don’t even know how to host a barbecue. I must have the most ignorant wife in America. No wonder the guests left early.”

  There he goes again, thought Tara Tisdale, putting me down, trying to make me feel inferior.

  Ian spoke the truth…the ugly truth. She was a bad wife because she didn’t want to be a wife at all. Watching the broad-shouldered, elegantly-jacketed, dark-haired, dark-eyed man she fell out of love with pace the red brick patio, she felt glad when he stomped away angrily. The door of his shiny gray BMW slammed hard before he drove off down the tree-lined street.

  Their marriage deteriorated more each day, but they couldn’t divorce. Not yet. For now, they were trapped in their loveless marriage. The house…mortgage…the restaurant they owned that determined their annual incomes…it was all too complex to sort in a day. Their marital problems didn’t form overnight, nor would a firm solution arise overnight. At least they both agreed that divorce must wait until financial matters improved.

  Overhead a hawk soared, searching for unsuspecting prey. She reminded herself, No one can make me feel inferior without me letting them.

  Ian behaved like an arrogant, selfish bastard lately. She guessed he probably headed to his latest female conquest now. Then he’d come home, reeking of perfume, cigarettes and alcohol again. She didn’t care what he did as long as he pestered his mistress for sex instead of his wife. All she wanted from him was time…a chance to pull her finances together and then she’d file for divorce…start a new life without him.

  In the meantime, she’d never felt lonelier as she climbed the stairs to crawl into her cold, empty bed. It was eleven p.m. She needed to try to get some sleep. Tomorrow she had to get the banquet room ready for a wedding reception at The Chateau, the restaurant that she wished now she’d never invested in with Ian. The restaurant business was doing okay; her marriage wasn’t.

  The first thing Tara noticed in the golden afternoon sunshine when the guests stepped out of white limousines and flowed into the gray stone restaurant was the bitchy, somewhat hefty bride. Probably no more than 23, she whined about every little thing.

  “The appetizers have no taste,” the young, bulging bride with reddish-blonde short hair criticized, “and the roses on the table aren’t the shade I ordered.”

  Tara wanted to tell her, “Beggars can’t be choosers,” or to point out that this pathetic girl was lucky if anyone married her at all. Instead of revealing her true feelings, she muttered, “I apologize, Miss, but…”

  Right then the curly brown-haired sound mixer for the live band bumped into the bride and spilled red wine all over the strapless white wedding gown. Obviously drunk since he staggered and acted silly, he didn’t even apologize, but instead laughed mischievously as his wide eyes flashed emerald fire.

  “Oh, my God! You’re a mess!” His piercing green eyes didn’t look sorry that he caused the mishap.

  “You clumsy bastard! Look what you did!” the angry, selfish bride lashed out as she picked up a long-stemmed champagne flute and threw it at his head.

  Instead of hitting the sound mixer with the penetrating green gaze, brown wavy hair and a body that would make females of all ages swoon, the champagne flute struck Tara’s temple. Jagged glass stung her eye as she felt her knees buckle before she had a chance to try to pacify the bride and save the already doomed wedding reception. A dark blanket descended over her brown eyes as she started to stumble, but felt strong male arms catch her. The overwhelming smell of alcohol made her feel queasy as the sound mixer held her tightly.

  The next thing she saw when she opened her eyes again was Ian’s unwanted face. “You screw up everything, Tara,” he rambled, adding, “Can’t you do anything right lately?”

  Looking past him, she realized she must be in a sterile, white-walled hospital room. Tired, she lost consciousness again…or did she? Ian’s voice faded. Was it ever real? Was his love for her ever genuine? No. She believed it was all fake. Virtual reality. Surely there had to be something truer and better-suited for her somewhere. She closed her eyes and thought, I’m going there. Wherever it is, I’m getting away from Ian. Good riddance, Ian!

  So determined to never have to deal with Ian again, she shut her eyes and blocked him out. It was easy to fall asleep…easy to wish him away.

  Wishes. When she was a child, she used to believe they worked. Did they still?

  Suddenly she heard music. There was the cute sound mixer with the mesmerizing green eyes again. What a pair they made. He was drunk. She might as well be because she felt groggy. Did a doctor or nurse give her something for her head pain? Or did the attractive sound mixer slip her something earlier? All she knew was she felt woozy, but a peaceful, easy feeling enveloped her since she was finally away from Ian. He was gone. She didn’t see him anymore. Good!

  The music played on, and the sound mixer expertly adjusted the channels on his digital audio mixer. Was he really in the room with her or only in her mind? The jazz music slowed until it sounded softer…deliciously haunting…more celestial…out of this world…she couldn’t keep her eyes open for another second.

  Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, shaking the earth, but the winds grew horrific. Tara opened her eyes and found herself lying among a pile of rubble in a church basement. A tornado siren blared, reminding her that a hazel-eyed male stranger at the revival meeting shoved her downstairs, just in time before the church roof blew off as the wicked twister touched down.

  “If that man hadn’t appeared when he did, ordering us down here, we’d all be dead. He risked his own life to save us,” a female voice said. “The rest of the church is gone!”

  The pages of a Bible flapped in the wind. A brass cross lay unbroken on the ground, but shards of glass from the shattered windows made it dangerous to wade through the mess without cutting one’s self.

  Tara’s mind was foggy. Slowly she focused on the survivors and the wrecked church—books scattered all over, wooden chairs turned upside-down, tables overturned, white choir robes soiled and crinkled, laying on the floor that was soaked from rainy downpours after the roof blew away. A terrible, sour taste of fear formed in her mouth as she shivered in panic and sorrow.

  “Is everyone okay? Anyone hurt?” a male voice inquired, but the responses sounded muffled to Tara.

  Finally she remembered her early emotional trauma. It was 1970 and her father just died in a terrible car accident. She’d come to the little white church in the country to ask the pastor to accompany her home to tell her mother. That’s when unexpectedly the tornado ripped through their small, rural town in Ohio. Flying debris hit her head, knocking her out for awhile. Now she was wide awake, bruised, scratched, but not badly injured.

  And it was 1970. A desk calendar on the ground said so. She held up her wrist to look at the date on her watch. It was definitely 1970…over forty years ago. Where was Ian? Not that she missed him. How did she wind up back in time?

  “The past, the present, the future are all happening at once.” Wasn’t it Einstein who said so? Yet she didn’t really believe it was possible…until now.

  Somebody must have yanked on a rope that made the church bell peal loudly, even though it fell out of the broken steeple. “The bell still works,” someone observed.

  The rich, brassy sound of the bell echoed, almost as if it reverberated through her body. There were too many sounds
streaming toward her all at once—sirens, the bell, voices, thunder, winds. She felt dizzy…again. There’d been so much stress, so much confusion and tragedy in her life lately that she’d never felt more alone than now.

  Her heart screamed for solace. She needed a friend, someone to hold her, soothe her, love her, and comfort her. The pages of the Bible turned by themselves again as the wind moved them back and forth. Why did the pages cast an eerie yellow-white glow that nearly blinded her?

  “You’re coming with me. Let’s get out of here,” a hoarse male voice instructed her.

  It was him—the man with the large hazel eyes! This stranger that saved the lives of everyone in the church must have spotted the tornado threatening them before he headed their way as the people inside the building had been distracted. They’d sung old religious hymns like “He Leadeth Me” and “How Great Thou Art” as the organist played loudly and probably no one noticed the tell-tale “train sound” of the tornado bearing down on them.

  Tara couldn’t recall if she ever met their hero, but somehow it felt like she knew him all her life. Of course! Now she recognized him! It was her old classmate, Rick Perry, but she hadn’t seen him since they were seventeen and approaching graduation. He loved her then while she’d adored him. He invited her to the senior prom, but she never spoke to him again after he stood her up. She waited and waited, sitting alone in her ivory prom dress adorned with small pink rosebuds around the V-neckline. Her parents stared pitifully at her as they realized before she did that her date must not be coming to drive her to the dance.

  “C’mon,” Rick ordered her as his warm hand clasped over hers now. “You’re okay, aren’t you? Can you walk or should I carry you?”

  “I can walk.” She saw mud splattered on his jeans and his light blue, short-sleeved knit shirt resembled the one he used to wear when he was twelve. Of course, it couldn’t be the same shirt since he was a grown man now. How absurd to think the little boy’s old shirt would fit the man’s 30ish body now. Yet she could swear it looked like the same blue shirt he wore long ago.

  And there’s the bloodstain on it!

  He fell down, she remembered, when he helped put up the school risers on the day when the photographer came to snap their group photo. He cut his arm and smeared blood on his blue shirt. The bloodstain on Rick’s man-sized shirt was located in the exact same place as the old stain appeared years ago.

  The life is in the blood! Where did she hear this? The Bible…so many truths in God’s Holy Word.

  “Let’s go,” he directed. “The storm has passed.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked, trusting him to lead, wanting away from the chaos.

  He climbed up out of the hole that was once a beautifully remodeled church basement and then looked around in each direction before helped her up out of the rubble.

  “Oh, my God! No!” she screamed as she saw what he also noticed—their small, rural town was destroyed. Trees looked like a bomb hit them. Buildings lay flattened on the ground. It was a ghost town. Destruction worse than she ever saw surrounded her.

  “It’s been one hell of a day,” she confessed. “My father was killed, driving in the storm. Then the tornado struck. Now I don’t know where my mother is…if she’s even alive. I need to find her!”

  “No.”

  Her pulse quickened. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

  “She’s gone, too.”

  “Oh, God! I can’t take much more!”

  He held her firmly against his chest, against the blood-stained blue shirt. “I know, baby…I know. But you’ll be all right. I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you.”

  Confused and shaken, she only remembered, “But you stood me up on prom night! I can’t trust you!” It was odd how old heartaches from the past never really went away, but stayed buried deep down in one’s soul until they surfaced unexpectedly at the strangest of times.

  “Damn it, Tara! Don’t do that!”

  “Do what?”

  “Cloud your mind with negative thinking. Thoughts are energy. Thoughts are things. You’ve got to avoid thinking negatively…avoid feeling angry or…”

  “Or what?”

  Why couldn’t she see him anymore? Was he a ghost? How did he fade away? She still felt his hands warm against her arms, on her shoulders, but where was he? Why couldn’t she see Rick anymore?

  “Or what?” she demanded, but he was gone. His touch left her, too. What the hell is going on? she wondered, left alone to stare at the piles of storm wreckage. Her heart broke to view the damage to her home town. Others surfaced and their cries of grief resonated with her own despair. The tornado wiped out most of their town! She wanted to run, but there was no place to go. No loving parents awaited her at home…the house must surely be gone too. No longer could she see it down the road where it always stood.

  This feels like hell on earth, she realized, feeling guilty to still be alive when her parents were dead.

  Traumatized, she didn’t know where she’d go, but she started walking in the opposite direction of the storm damage and debris. The winds died down and as she roamed, like a zombie, with frozen, overloaded emotions that short-circuited her brain, it felt like, she spotted an approaching red vehicle with a driver. Hitch-hiking, she let Ian Tisdale give her a ride in his Chevy pickup. Then the 1970s flowed into the 1980s…they married…fought throughout most of the 1990s. After 2000, they remained together, dependent on the income flow from The Chateau…still stuck with each other for a little while longer. She wanted to leave him, but somehow she still felt emotionally drained after all these years every time she toyed with the idea of breaking free. He liked controlling her this way, she knew. How many times did he remind her that she had no other blood relative on earth that would help her? Only him…but she needed something else…someone else…but who? Where? How could she find her soul mate that would stabilize her life by staying forever by her side?

  “You’re fine now. The doctor gave you a clean bill of health,” Ian told his wife. “I’m glad because I’ve had it with this charade of a marriage. I’m leaving you. Don’t worry about money; it’ll be there. You can have all of The Chateau. I’m offering you my share. I don’t want it—or you—anymore. What I want is a new life elsewhere and I’m going after it, starting today.”

  Speechless, Tara watched Ian strut confidently out the double glass doors of The Chateau. She didn’t think it would be this easy after it was difficult for so many years to resolve their business issues. Never did she dream that he’d end up surrendering his rights to The Chateau. It was hers now! Or soon it would be. Thank God for Ian’s mistress, whoever she was. Probably he loved the other woman and that’s why he decided to be so generous so he could have a divorce now instead of later.

  Free! Tara drew a deep breath and could almost smell the clean fresh air of personal independence coming her way.

  I’ll never miss Ian, she knew instinctively, even if I’m alone the rest of my life.

  She had her own self back. Already it felt good. She smiled, feeling better than she had in years. Could she successfully run The Chateau all by herself?

  Of course, I can. Think positive! she vowed, recalling that she needed to supervise the staff that was busy setting up for a private gala.

  Colorful party lanterns draped across the thatched roof over the large outdoor courtyard. The garden party was ready to begin by the time a full moon sailed slowly against a dark star-studded sky that made time feel suspended. Guests flooded in, some preparing to enjoy hors'douvres before they danced outside to live band music. Laughter filled the air and Tara, feeling happy to be single soon, felt like she was one with the balmy summer night. She loved the smells of roses and fresh plants that the staff set out to create a “magic garden” effect. Tiny white lights strung in the trees reminded her of a fairyland.

  I want to dance, she thought, and be happy, but I have to work…can’t dance yet until I finish supervising the staff.

  There was no opportu
nity for her to indulge in amusements when there was plenty of work to finish. An hour later all looked well, so Tara decided she needed a well-deserved break. She felt warm, her face flushed, so she knew the temperature was probably 20-degrees cooler down in the wine cellar where she could be alone. Wooden casks and bottles of alcohol filled all four sides of the room around her as she tried to switch on the light, but only darkness remained.

  A circuit breaker must have blown, she assumed, starting to feel her way around in the dark to reach for where she always kept a flashlight on a wine cabinet. Her fingers glided over the slippery, cool wood cabinet, but she couldn’t find the flashlight. From upstairs the music grew louder, faster as the band played and dancers swayed to the music out on the courtyard. She saw a silvery moonbeam light up the only window in the wine cellar. Then she felt her blood pressure surge as someone in the shadows grabbed her arm. She wasn’t alone!

  “Who’s there?” she asked hesitantly, frightened that she might be trapped. If she screamed for help, it was likely no one upstairs would even hear her.

  No reply came, but the hands that grasped her arm now pulled her into a strong, passionate embrace. Was it her imagination or did the smell of all the wine around her just become stronger? Or was it on the person that held her? Her hands slid over his warm, firm, muscled arms covered with wiry hair that felt almost like electric as the bare skin on her arms blended with his. How could she feel so much chemistry, so much fear and at the same time excitement and attraction with a complete stranger?

  “I love you,” a hoarse male voice whispered against her ear as the man drew her closer and held her hostage. His lips came crushing down on hers and she savored his wine-flavored kisses that left her head spinning.

  A stranger! How can I want to kiss a drunken stranger? she reprimanded herself…but she did want to…longed to…craved more of his intoxicating kisses. It wasn’t like her to behave brazenly, to take a risk, but she felt drawn like a magnet to the stranger that held her captive in his arms. He kissed her again as her fingers played with his curly hair that brushed the back of his shirt by his neck.