Page 41 of Shadows of the Soul

I blinked up at him. A glare of pure white light surrounded him, not just any light, heavenly light. Oh shit.

I jumped up. Hudson made to follow me as I rushed toward the stairs. “I’ll be down after a shower and a change of clothes,” I shouted. Hudson grabbed my arm. I planted a kiss on his lips. “Guard the house while I get cleaned up.”

He nodded, and a tendril of guilt threaded its way through my body. I was using his instinct to protect against him. Harry shot past me, Hudson released my arm and I hauled ass up the flights of stairs to my rooms.

I flung open the door and came skidding to a halt. The door to my secret room, the one with a portal to heaven, was straining outwards.

I fumbled for the key around my neck, stuck it in the door, muttered the spell, and threw it open. The scent of lemons overpowered my senses and blinding light engulfed the room. The expanding portal was twice the size it had been a few days ago. Heaven had set up residence in my former dining room.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

“This is what I was trying to tell you,” Harry shouted. I glanced over my shoulder, seeing him on the other side of the room. He was avoiding the light. One touch and he’d be living his best afterlife.

I ran my fingertips along the glowing strands. They wrapped around my hand in a gentle caress. “You should have shouted louder.”

“Does anyone ever tell you you’re stubborn?”

“Constantly, perhaps we need a secret word.”

“Like a safe word?”

I pulled my hand back and spun to face Harry. He either had an excellent poker face or he was clueless. “Sure. You pick.”

“Pineapples,” he stated, as I closed the door with some effort.

“Pineapples?”

“It’s not a word used in everyday conversation, but not so obscure as to raise eyebrows.”

He was missing the point. Nobody else could hear him, so no eyebrows would rise from anything he said. “Fine, pineapples it is.” I swept past him into my bedroom. “And Harry?”

“Yes?”

“Stay away from the light until you are ready to join the afterlife.”

He blanched. “Yes, Miss Roberts. Or is it soon to be Mrs. Abbott? I love a good wedding. I clean up well in a tailored suit.”

Cora Roberts—entertainer of all: alive, dead, and everything in between.

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

People with standards have enemies.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t blessed this way. My gifts lay in the past, specifically the departed. Which is why when I waltzed down the stairs in a pale green strappy summer dress and sandals, I walked straight into the kitchen, predicting food in my future and what I got was a scene that would forever be burned into my brain.

“Put my aunt down,” I growled at Dave.

He stopped trying to suck the life out of Aunt Liz who he had pinned against the wall and looked over his shoulder. “Hypocrite,” he muttered.

“How am I a hypocrite?”

He stepped away from my Aunt Liz and rounded on me. “Only this morning I caught you dry humping Hudson.”

“In the bedroom! Have some decorum, Dave, get a room. You are in a guest house, it’s not exactly hard.”

Aunt Liz smirked as she went around Dave and snatched the kettle off the stove. She filled it with water, then popped it on the heat. “Tea?” she asked.

---