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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ENVISION Business & Computer School Publishing

  An Imprint of ENVISION Business & Computer School, LLC

  23 Kimberly Avenue

  West Haven, CT 06516

  Copyright 2011 by Julia E. Antoine

  ISBN: 13: 978-0972878999

  www.juliaeantoine.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address inquiries to, ENVISION Business & Computer School, 23 Kimberly Avenue, West Haven, CT 06516.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  ISBN-13: 978-0972878999

  ISBN-10: 0972878998

  LCCN: 2011928900

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publishers, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you so much to Bernard Logan without whom this book would not have been possible -- she gave me the idea for the story. As usual, I appreciate her inputs and contributions. A special thank you goes out to all those who helped me in making this, my first paranormal novel, possible, especially Robb, who proved to be a tremendous help. He allowed me to use him as a sounding board for my quirky ideas. And who, in the end, had his way in convincing me to put a bit more sex into the book. It was he who also reminded me that I was writing for my readers. Heartfelt thanks to you Robb, you are so insightful!

  PROLOGUE

  There was no denying the immediate and powerful physical attraction I felt for this man; it was palpable. I was surprised to find Jeff O’Mallery behind the counter at O’Mallery’s antique shop, and not his seventy-year-old father.

  This was the first time I had come face to face with Jeff. He would disappear into one room or another any time I had gone to the storage area in the back of the shop. Standing this close to him was quite disconcerting. He was strangely compelling. My face flushed as though with a fever, heat flooded my body as I reacted to this man. My nipples had ruched up something terrible. They had gotten so stiff that they were almost painful against my bra. I was a bit embarrassed by the way my body reacted to this man, so I just stood there, praying he didn’t notice the effect he had on me.

  Just when I thought I would get away with it, he looked pointedly at my breasts, and then allowed his eyes to travel slowly from my breasts to my face, with an expression on his face which was almost a leer. Embarrassment had rendered me speechless for a moment; to cover my shame I became all business-like.

  “Where is your father,” I asked him.

  “He had to step out for a bit,” he responded.

  “When will he be returning?”

  “What’s the matter? You are Syria Warrington, aren’t you? Are you not comfortable with me waiting on you?” he asked.

  “That’s not it. I’m used to working with your father, so I’ll come back another day when he’s available.”

  I made a determined effort to downplay my reaction to this man. A happily married woman, I had no business lusting after another man. That afternoon, I discovered something new about myself. I could repeat this mantra until the cows came home, my body wasn’t buying it. I had to make a super-human effort to drag my mind out of the gutters, where it insisted on going, to concentrate on the matter at hand.

  I made a promise then and there never to allow myself to be close to that man again. I tried to school my thoughts as I completed my purchase. He assisted me in loading the item into my car, which I had to drive with my trunk tied down. The whole time, I was very aware of his every move – he made that much of an impression.

  When I’d finally completed my purchase and was leaving, my entire being wanted to walk back into the shop, and ask, no, beg him to have his way with me. But somehow I kept walking away, putting one foot in front of the other, until I had gotten into my vehicle. As I drove away, I couldn’t help turning back to look. Somehow I knew he’d be standing there watching me.

  Three weeks later, the newspaper reported that Jeff O’Mallery was missing at sea and presumed dead. His body was never found.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I lived in the small New England town of Westville, Connecticut, whose only claim to fame was the fact that one of the individuals who ran for the U.S. presidency lived two streets over from my small, modest house. It was not an upscale neighborhood, but it could pass for middle class. Most of the houses on the street were bigger than mine, but I was satisfied and happy with my home, where I’d lived for nineteen years. Appearance-wise, the homes all looked very picturesque. All the neighbors maintained their lawns, and the street was always neat and pristine.

  My house was the smallest house on the street, with a modest front lawn and equally modest back lawn. I lived there with my husband, John, and my two daughters, Johanna and Kelsey. Johanna, at seventeen, was the older, and Kelsey, my younger daughter, was thirteen.

  I had gotten pregnant with Johanna the same year I’d graduated with my bachelor’s, so I became a stay-at-home mom. Our second daughter, Kelsey, came along four years after her sister, so I was never able to go into marketing, as I had initially dreamt of doing. When Kelsey turned six, I took a job as a real estate agent and loved it. John found a job as a supervisor with the company that managed the chain of local malls in the area. It took him away from home quite a bit, which meant the girls and I were alone a lot. I kept myself busy with my work, my daughters, and my hobby of antiquing. My life was not terribly exciting, but it was by no means boring. John and I did not have a very active sex life, but we came together often enough to keep the flame burning; granted not a huge flame, but that was to be expected after two children and eighteen years of married life together. I actually had nothing to complain about, except I would have liked to see more of my husband.

  John and I were both in our late thirties. Although he was two years my senior, it was not noticeable because John wore his age well. I received a lot of compliments on my husband’s youthful appearance whenever we were out together.

  John was the regional manager of a chain of shopping malls, and I worked as a real estate agent for one of the big national realty companies. I loved my job and the personal satisfaction it brought me any time I was successful in placing my clients in the home of their dreams. Sometimes, I would go out of my way to make certain the sale happened, even if it meant taking a cut in my commission. The client always came first with me. But as much as I loved my job, by far my greatest love was antiquing. I loved collecting antiques. I traveled all over the state and as far away as North Carolina to hunt for antiques. Nothing excited me more than the discovery of something old that was still in usable condition. I didn’t like it when a piece had been altered. I loved it in its original form. Every piece of antique furniture I had bought over the years was put to good use in my home. I did not buy any piece for show, to keep it on display.

  On the outside, there was nothing exciting or out of the ordinary about my house, that is, until one stepped beyond the front door. Then it was like stepping back in time because my entire home had been furnished almost comp
letely with antiques. My living room set, an antique mahogany Duncan Phyfe sofa settee and ottoman from 1805, was to die for. My bedroom set, a nineteenth-century antique English gothic bed and armoire suite, was equally impressive. My dining room and kitchen furniture all carried the same theme. My stove was so old that the door had a tendency to open, so I had John put a latch on it for me. Even my dishes had, at some point in time, been used by someone other than myself, hundreds of years ago. But the older the item, the more I loved it.

  My husband knew how much I loved antiques, and he always humored me and allowed me to spend, oftentimes, my entire pay check on an antique piece. John and I had a good relationship. We’d been together for so long that we never got overly emotional about anything. Truth be told, John was not a very emotional individual, but he was all I ever wanted, and we were happy together.

  We had dated all through college and gotten married the same year John graduated, two years before I had completed college and earned my bachelor’s degree. John had secured a job as a supervisor at the local mall, and I had remained at home to raise our two daughters.

  ****

  I had never paid much attention to talk of ghosts, haunted houses, evil spirits, and the like. I put all these down to superstition and old wives’ tales. I did not believe there was a life after death and that people returned from the dead or that the undead traveled the earth and lived among us.

  With a mindset like this, I was not afraid of anything dead. I would touch dead people or walk through the cemetery at night without a second thought. Often I would take my lunch in the local cemetery. The cemetery so beautiful and pristine; it was just like a park.

  Suffice it to say, I was obsessed with all things old, which could account for my rashness and the following sets of events, which changed my life forever.

  ****

  That fateful day when it all began, the girls and I had just returned home from visiting the local antique shops, hunting for bargains. We had gone from one shop to the next, and nothing had caught my interest. I was a bit disappointed because nothing new was in any of the shops, and what items they had, I did not want nor need. But I was reluctant to return home empty-handed, so I picked up a set of dinner dishes and some stemware at O’Mallery’s that I really did not need; I simply could not help myself.

  We got back home around twilight. I parked the car in the garage, and the three of us walked from the garage to the front door. We used the front entrance to quickly deactivate the burglar alarm upon entering the home. It was an annoyance to have to walk from the garage at the back of the house to the front door, but over the years, we had learned to accept it. The alarm had one good feature: it announced our arrival to the other occupants of the house who happened to be home. Had we entered through the back entrance, I would have to run through the house to get to the alarm in time to disarm it. So, to avoid the mad dash, we had gotten in the habit of entering through the front door.

  That afternoon, we were almost at the front steps when we spotted a black top hat sitting on the lower step, near the front entrance. It appeared to be one of those antique hats similar to the stovepipe hat worn by President Lincoln in many of the pictures in American history textbooks.

  I was surprised and excited to find such an item on my front step. I increased my pace to a jog.

  The girls had already run ahead to examine the hat. They both looked at the hat from all angles, but neither one touched it. They left that honor to me.

  “I wonder who could have left us this hat.” This time I posed my question to the girls as I got closer to them and the hat. Like the girls, I was a bit hesitant to touch the hat because it seemed so out of place on my front step, but my curiosity got the better of me. So, after walking around it, mimicking the girls, I picked up the hat and examined it to see if there was a note attached. I could not find any note; neither could I tell to whom the hat belong. With a lot of reservations, but on the encouragement of the girls, I took the hat inside to examine it more thoroughly.

  Upon getting the hat inside, the girls clamored for me to keep it. “Please, please, Mama,” Kelsey said, “can we keep it?”

  Of course, being an avid antiquity lover, they did not have to ask me twice. I took the hat upstairs to my bedroom and placed it on top of my armoire. I did not clean it, but placed it there just as I had found it on the step. I thought to leave it there until I could decide on a more suitable location for it in my home.

  As I turned to walk out of the room, a man’s deep laughter from a distance, possibly from outside, barely registered with me on the periphery. I continued out of the room and shut the door behind me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  That night, I was going through my rituals before retiring when heavy footsteps thumped up the stairs. It was a bit early for John to be home, but I naturally assumed it was him surprising me.

  “Hon, hon-ey,” I called out to him, but there was no answer. I ignored the sound and continued preparing myself for bed.

  I sat at my dressing table brushing my hair. I had to do this every night, otherwise my hair got tangled and it would be hard to manage in the morning. It has a sprinkling of gray around my temple, but I did not mind, because it blended with my naturally auburn-colored hair, giving it a highlighted appearance. I used to get quite a few requests for the color I used on my hair, only to get disappointed and disbelieving looks when I admitted to this being my natural hair color.

  In my youth, I never paid much attention to my hair. I knew it was my crowning glory because the only man in my life, John, told me so repeatedly. He loved my hair, which is why, several years ago, I stopped cutting it. When the first gray hair began to appear, I thought, why should I go to the bother of coloring it when it would only get gray again? Little did I know I would draw the attention of so many women, especially the ones who did not believe I came by it naturally. Some had gone so far as to accuse me of not sharing. Sometimes, the same individual would question me about the color, hoping, I believe, to catch me in a lie, but my answer had always been the same because it was the truth.

  I walked into my bathroom, and a slight breeze brushed my shoulder, as if someone had walked past me. Since there was no one else there beside me, I chalked it up to my imagination and got into my bath, where I was always able to relax after a hard day. I took great pleasure running the soap up and down my body. It felt good, and it made me appreciate my firm thighs and trim waist.

  I always had good muscle definition, and went through great efforts to keep my body in the best shape possible. I did exercises using an inflated ball religiously every morning before making my way downstairs to enjoy a cup of coffee with John. Sometimes, when we were alone in the house, I would have my coffee with him in the nude. I always got a kick at his reaction anytime I sprang this on him, although it was not a frequent occurrence. Our schedules did not permit.

  I was half asleep in the tub when the sound of footsteps walking down the stairs woke me. Believing it was John, I quickly got out of the bath, lotioned my body, put my night cream on my face, and got into my nightgown, in anticipation of spending time with John when he came back upstairs.

  As I turned down the sheets to get into bed, a chill ran down my back as if someone had blown cold air on me. Thinking it was John playing a prank on me, I turned to greet him with a welcoming smile, but no one was there. I stood there, facing the door, trying to figure it out. But after a couple of minutes and nothing further happened, I dismissed it as my overactive imagination, got into bed, and promptly fell into a deep sleep.

  Usually I would lay awake for a couple of hours before sleep could claim me. But that night, no sooner had my head hit the pillow than I was asleep. I immediately became caught up in a very vivid, strange dream. It felt as if I was awake, yet not quite. The strangeness of the experience confused me. Typically, I was a very light sleeper. I was usually the first one out of bed at the slightest sound, which made this experience so out of the ordinary for me.

  ***<
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  I dreamt someone was in the bed next to me. I could not see the person’s face, but I felt the physical presence, the pressure when the hand touched my body. The most frustrating thing was I could not move or reach out and touch the person back. It was as if invisible strings held me down. The sensation of hands moving all over by body, intimately touching me, caressing me, doing things that I had done only with my husband. In this instance, however, I was not a participant; I was not able to reciprocate. The feeling was spooky and sensual at the same time. The caress went from my breasts, first the left then the right, to between my legs. The touch was very light in the beginning, as if its owner was gauging my reaction, then it became a bit more aggressive by degrees as my body began to weep in response to the stimulation. I tensed up as I always do just before orgasm, and I was reaching for it when the movement ceased. I panted, out of breath, almost begging for release. Then, just when I thought I would go out of my mind with need, the hand returned to the same spot where it had been caressing me before, but this time the touch was much firmer. The direct massage on my clit was rough, almost deliberate in its intensity.

  In no time, I reached for that orgasm again, and this time around, since I had been primed, I arrived there sooner than usual. I was racing to the finish when, again, the hand withdrew. By this time, I was ready to explode out of my skin, but still unable to move. I did not know who was playing this game with me, but I knew the hand would eventually return, and this time, I was determined to achieve orgasm.

  I waited anxiously on the hand. I felt all twisted up inside, lying there, waiting expectantly. I was just about to give up in despair, when it returned. I opened my senses to embrace it, preparing to give the final push to achieve an orgasm. The push did come, only not from me; it came from the person entering my body. The first thrust brought him only halfway in, and then he withdrew almost to the point of exiting my body. I was just about to relax when he returned, this time with full force, and he buried himself inside me to the hilt. I was already so close to the edge I achieved an orgasm almost before he had withdrawn on the first backstroke, only to return with even greater force on an upstroke. My orgasm was the most powerful I’d ever experienced. It continued for a while, and just when I thought it would stop, he ratcheted it up by applying pressure on my clit and timing it to his downstroke. Engorged and stretched to the limit, along with the friction on my clit when he slammed into me repeatedly, hitting the same spot again and again, left me in a state of orgasmic Utopia. I lost count of exactly how many times my body went through the throes of orgasm. This went on for the better part of the night.