A Ghost of a Chance by Evelyn Klebert Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t miss the mark, she was daydreaming with interest about the seafarer Jacob Mcfarin. Damn the bastard. It was a hell of a position to be in to be jealous of your own self-created character. What was all of this? He wanted, well damn it, what he wanted right now wasn’t possible, but that certainly didn’t stop him from wanting it.
    “ Well, Mr. Jacob Mcfarin I presume.”
    Jack turned to the round face of Hallie’s great Aunt Marie, “Don’t rub it in.”
    “ No, no, it seems like a good move to me my boy. You, well he, seems to have reached her in a fashion.”
    He sighed deeply. “Yes, but what’s my next move?”
    Hallie continued to hold the necklace in her hand, unconsciously fingering it absently almost as though she were meditating with rosary beads. “Where did the necklace come from?”
    “ I gave it to her on her sixteenth birthday. She carries it around when she is particularly bothered about something. That’s why I’m here. I could feel her thinking about me.”
    “ You can actually feel when someone thinks about you?”
    She smiled, “What are you feeling Jack?”
    “ Like I’m ready to jump out of my skin, if I had any to jump out of. I’m feeling,” his eyes focused on Hallie again. Her expression was intense as though she were trying to visualize something. “I feel this pull, this tremendous pull to her.”
    She nodded, “She’s reaching out to you.”
    “ How can that be? She doesn’t know I exist.”
    “ Her mind doesn’t know it, but you’ve struck a chord in her. Truth always bypasses what the conscious mind perceives as truth.”
    He looked to her with confusion, “You want to run that one by me again?”
    Smiling indulgently, “Not especially.”
    And then he remembered the episode in the study. “There is something else I’m worried about. I keep sensing something else here, some sort of presence though I haven’t actually seen it. And from what I gather it doesn’t like me much.”
    “ That can’t be too much of a new experience for you Jack,” she giggled. “Seriously though, I know what you’re talking about, but for some reason I am blocked from helping you.”
    “ Blocked?”
    “ Seems so. Things work a little different where we are Jack. It’s all about learning and nothing can interfere with that.” She stopped.
    “ And?” He waited for her to elaborate.
    She was focused on Hallie again. “And, I think you should stay close to her Jack, stay very close.”
    He nodded his eyes lingering on Hallie’s soft expression. Yes, he would stay close, that was exactly what he intended to do.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    She didn’t dream that night. She just tossed and turned, waking up constantly to look at the clock. It was about two in the morning when Hallie surrendered. She gave up on sleeping and instead made herself a cup of peppermint tea. The study beckoned her. She needed to write more, needed it almost like a physical torment but a part of her resisted it. Perhaps, it was just obstinance.
    It bothered her, immensely in fact – this new presence in the narrative, Captain Jacob Mcfarin. And there was no real reason that it should. Hadn’t it been her choice to bring him into the mix? Hadn’t it?
    Then why did he bug her so much? He wasn’t a vampire like Samory. But there was a comfort in Samory. She knew what he was, knew him inside and out, but this new man. He was the unknown and thus oddly more dangerous.
    She allowed him to lead her down the ageless steps of the French cathedral. “Forgive me Sir, but I am expected home very soon by my father. We have a house on the outskirts of Paris.”
    “ Then Mademoiselle, if you would allow me, I will take you there in my carriage and perhaps converse with your father concerning your relationship with Monsieur Samory Delacroix.”
    She halted on the steps, her heart clutched in fear at the discovery. “What do you mean Sir?”
    “ Am I to take it that your father is not aware of the perilous path