“What?” Lucas snaps, glancing up. “Holy shit.”
Across the yard, through the fog and weak morning sun, is the specter of a man. For a heartbeat, none of us move. The air itself seems to hold still.
“Christ almighty,” Mrs. Baxter breathes. “Collier’s ghost.”
It’s as if he’s moving through the mist like he never died at all.
Gideon’s hands fly from the canvas, his face white as milk.
Lucas staggers back a step, crossing himself.
The breath snags in my chest. My mind won’t make sense of it. I know where Collier lies—wrapped at my feet, heavy and cold—and yet that shape keeps coming, tall and broad and steady in the pale light.
The fog parts around him, sunlight glancing off the dark of his hair. And then I see him—straight-backed, unhurried, grace in every motion.
“Kodiak,” I breathe.
The others stare, caught between awe and disbelief.
He stops a few paces off, boots dark with mud, breath steaming in the chill. His gaze sweeps from the canvas to my face, quiet understanding dawning there.
“Wasn’t expectin’ a welcome party,” he says, grinning at me. He glances down at the corpse wrapped in a tarp. “Or a funeral.”
Chapter 41
KODIAK
After Alice explains I’m not a danger—at least to her and hers—I help ’em drag that Collier bastard to the root cellar. Never met the man, but if Alice helped him give up the ghost, reckon he earned it.
Hell, all I wanted was to lift her, spin her, kiss her deep. That’s how I saw it playing out the whole way from Galveston. But finding her there with a dead man on the ground sure took the shine off the moment.
I hole up in the main house while the others go about running the inn. Come nightfall, Alice finds me there. She’s limping some. Stops in the doorway like she ain’t sure she’s welcome.
“Why you hangin’ back, sweetheart?”
“I can hardly believe it’s really you,” she says, quiet-like. “I keep thinking you’ll vanish.”
I grin. “Been called a ghost already today. Seems I’m gettin’ a reputation.”
She laughs a little—worn thin but real. I reach out slow, letting her choose. She don’t move. Just watches me with those wide eyes I’ve seen in dreams every night since Galveston.
“I kept thinking you might be gone for good,” she says. “That you’d realized life would be easier without me.”
I shake my head. “Ain’t nothin’ about this world easier without you.”
Her face softens, shoulders drooping like she’s been holding up the world alone. She leans into my hand like a kitten purring against a leg, and I draw her close, one arm at her waist, the other sliding up her back. She smells of woodsmoke and cold night air.
We stand quite a while, fire crackling behind us, her breath warm on my throat.
“I feared I’d never feel safe again,” she says, barely a whisper.
I bend to kiss her. Her fingers knot in my shirt as though she’ll lose me again if she loosens her grip. And God—her taste—it’s like finally laying down the ache I’ve carried through every empty mile without her.
When she pulls back, her body eases away.
“Virgil is coming,” she murmurs. “Any day now.”
“Good. Been lookin’ forward to seein’ him.”
