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CHAPTER11
Tanner could not settle down tonight. As much as he wanted to go to sleep, he knew Emily was going to hold a seance at her cabin. When his great-great-great-great-grandmother was alive, she’d gone to several seances and that was how his great-great-great-great uncle had met his wife, Rose. The woman had been holding fake seances and taking people’s money.
Until Uncle Travis put a stop to that and his mother, Eugenia, retaliated by moving Rose into their ranch home. The same house that his current living Aunt Rose lived in today. The same place the original family lived.
As much as he didn’t want to believe, if that truly was Great-grandmother Eugenia, she would love the fact that Emily was holding a seance. She would delight in attending. There was no telling what she would do.
Glancing across the way at her cabin, he could see the lights were still on. It was getting late. What if she’d gotten hurt? Did ghosts hurt humans?
The tales of how Eugenia had been seeking information about his Great-great-great-great Uncle Tanner, who had been lost in the Civil War, returned and he knew he had to check on Emily.
He should have warned her. He should have told her his family history, and yet, he didn’t want to admit that Eugenia was real. He didn’t believe in ghosts. No matter what anyone said, he just couldn’t accept she was a spirit coming back from over a hundred years ago.
How could he believe in ghosts when his mind kept returning him to the battlefield? Didn’t he have enough problems?
Walking across the yard and the road, he went up the steps to Emily’s cabin. He tried to glance inside but saw nothing.
Knocking on the door, he waited impatiently, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, worried about her. And until he knew she was safe, he couldn’t sleep.
After glancing out the window, she opened the door in her pajamas.
Thank God, they were not of the sexy variety, but rather silk that clung to her every curve with yellow Volkswagens on them. Damn, he’d like to take a ride in her cars. Wherever they wanted to take him, he was willing to go.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was worried about you. Before I could go to sleep, I had to make certain you were all right.”
“Why wouldn’t I be fine?”
“Because you said you were going to hold a seance,” he said.
She laughed and stepped out onto the porch in her pajamas. “We’re having it now.”
He tried to see around her to see who was inside, but she stood in the way. No noise came from inside.
“There’s no one here, Tanner,” she said. “I wouldn’t know how to hold a seance and you need more than one person. I don’t like to play with that supernatural-mojo stuff.”
With a sigh, relief filled him. She was safe.
She sank onto one of the wooden steps and he sat beside her. A warm night breeze blew.
“Did Eugenia come tonight,” he asked, still not certain he believed in the ghost, but so many people had seen her including him, if that was what she was.
“I’ve been alone all evening. Another five minutes and I would have been in bed,” she said.
The memory of her firm curves snuggling up against him had his breathing accelerating. The thought of her in bed was not what he needed to think about. Even sitting beside her here in the darkness was dangerous. If his Aunt Rose caught them, he could be fired. And frankly, he didn’t care.
“Did Desiree talk to you about Eugenia?”
“Yes, but after I saw her. What’s the deal with the séance? From your expression, I knew there was something there.”
For the next five minutes, he told her the family history that Eugenia went to seances trying to learn about her missing son, Tanner. The man he was named after. He recalled the tale of how Rose had a business pretending she could speak to the dead. Only, her sons, Travis and Tucker, the town marshal, didn’t approve.
A giggle came from her. “Your family is very interesting. We don’t have matchmaking ghosts in my family. We don’t have a ranch over one hundred years old.”
A piece of her blonde hair slipped from behind her ear onto her cheek and he pushed it back, wanting to see her face in the semi-darkness. The small porch light glowed behind them.
The way she stared at him made his heart pound. They were not fighting. No, tonight there was that connection they felt at the hotel, and that was dangerous. So dangerous to be here alone with her when all he wanted to do was carry her into her cabin and throw her on the bed.
