Lucky Stars (Ghosts and Reincarnation #5)(77)

This made her tremble but she trembled in a different way than he normally made her tremble because this was not a sexual touch but a tender one.

“What’s on your mind, poppet?” he asked and she noted immediately he didn’t sound angry or even put out.

He sounded gentle and curious.

“Nothing,” she told him.

“Nothing?” he asked, now sounding slightly disbelieving but mostly teasing.

“The storm has cleared my head,” she explained and she saw Jack’s head turn to look out the window. When he didn’t reply, she added, “I love thunderstorms.”

She saw him face her again and he remarked softly, “I see.” She didn’t know what he saw but he told her, “This is why Lila paints thunderstorms.”

She’d been right. He knew about the Storm Series.

Belle nodded then worried he couldn’t see her nod so she said, “Yes.”

“She loves you a great deal,” Jack remarked then went on. “Though, I’ve noticed she hasn’t offered me any lemon drops.”

Belle felt a soft giggle float up her throat and instead of pushing it back, she let it go.

When she did, Jack moved.

But he didn’t settle in behind her.

He settled opposite her, positioning his long legs so they were cocked on either side of her, his feet against her hips.

She found something about this profound.

It was as if he sensed she needed space and although he wasn’t willing to give it to her, he was willing to give it to her in a way that was a compromise that worked for both of them.

This settled in her heart then it settled in her soul and, finally, it settled in her mind and Belle relaxed.

She relaxed so much, she shared, “She likes your hands.”

“Pardon?” Jack asked.

“Gram. She likes your hands.”

Belle could swear she saw the white of his teeth through the shadows before he muttered. “Well, that’s something.”

“Mom likes your behind,” Belle blurted, caught up in a moment of relaxed sharing, she didn’t think to censor her words and she felt the heat hit her cheeks, glad, for once, that Jack couldn’t see it.

“I think I could have died without learning that information,” Jack returned and Belle instantly wished for magical powers to turn back time but Jack’s legs pressed against hers for a moment before they relaxed. He went on in his low and rumbly tone, “Even so, my love, there’s never anything you can’t share with me, no matter if I don’t want to hear it.”

Belle swallowed and looked out the window.

“Belle,” he called. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” she told the window.

If this was true (and, considering he’d used his low and rumbly voice, it had to be), she could tell him about Calvin and she could tell him about her desire to help Myrtle and Lewis.

It would be a risk but she had to learn to take them no matter how much they frightened her.

Not only for herself but also for their child and finally, she suspected, for Jack.

She turned to face him and announced, “I’m worried about Myrtle and Lewis.”

She felt his eyes on her, the trill went up her spine straight to her scalp but he didn’t speak for a moment.

Finally, he did.

“I guessed that would happen.”

“You did?”

“Poppet, you dove into the freezing sea to save a busload of school children. It isn’t a fantastic leap to guess you’d want to release two child ghosts to heaven,” he replied.

“It’s not the same,” she returned.

“It’s not?” he asked.

“No,” Belle answered.

“How is it not the same?”

She shook her head and looked back to the storm. “It’s just not. That day, with the school bus, I didn’t think. It wasn’t like I watched it happen and I thought, ‘Here I come to save the day.’ I didn’t think at all. If I did, I would never have done it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and for some reason she kept sharing, “I don’t even remember most of it.”

She hadn’t spoken of this to anyone save her Mom and Gram, of course, and the counsellor she had to see when she’d stopped sleeping.

Other than that, she hadn’t spoken of it to anyone.

Not once.

Even though lots of people had asked, she’d never uttered a word.

His voice had gentled considerably when he asked, “You don’t remember it?”

Belle shook her head again and kept her gaze at the window.

“I remember stopping, getting out of the car and climbing over the railing, standing at the side of the bridge, staring into the sea, watching the bus sink.” She felt his body go still and the air in the room went instantly thick but she just kept talking, “Then I remember diving in like it was a swimming pool not the November sea. It was freezing cold, instantly chilled to the bone cold and I felt bits in the sea hitting my body as I swam down. I don’t even know what those bits were but I do know they scared the heck out of me.”

She gave a shudder and his legs pressed hers again and, still, she kept going, thinking bizarrely that Jack needed to know this. In fact, or some reason, she thought he deserved to know it.