God, I hope not.” I nearly dropped my tea. As it sloshed over the sides, I shook the liquid off my hand. A shower of tiny droplets spattered on the smooth white stones my chair rested on and splotched them with dark spots. “Enough about my father. Where are you from, Liam O’Reilly, and what are you doing here?” I leaned forward and sipped my tea.
“I’m from another time.”
“Got that part, but where was your geographical location when you were alive? You mentioned Ruby Falls, Virginia. I don’t think I’m familiar with it.”
“It’s a small town not too far from the Maryland border.” He paused and raised his eyebrows. “At least I assume it’s still there. My family ran a general store.” He shifted a bit in his chair and smiled, as if at pleasant memories, and his eyes lit with mischief. “The sweets in the store were a nice benefit.”
“So you were the kid with his hand in the candy jar?”
He threw back his head and laughed, a full, sensual sound.
“Did you have a happy childhood?” Sunlight and shadow played over his high cheekbones and chiseled features. He looked both ethereal and real.
“The best.” He grinned.
Why did talking to Liam feel so normal? Feel so right? “Don’t you find it odd that we are chatting like old acquaintances when we barely know each other and I’m flesh and blood, and you’re ectoplasm?” How had it happened so quickly? The immediate connection. Nothing made sense.
He winced.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude with the ectoplasm crack.” I reached over to touch him. His gray eyes glowed, and his features grew grave. His outline grew sharper, more defined, and the wonderful scent of him became tangier with an almost sexual flavor.
“Right.” I drew my hand back. Stupid, stupid, stupid. My heart galloped. What would have happened if I’d touched him? I rolled my shoulders and leaned back in the chaise. “So how did you end up in a test tube?”
“I have no idea.” He put long, lean fingers on each side of his head and pushed his hair back. The moment his hands dropped, it sprang back. “One moment, I’m floating in darkness. In the old general store, I think.” He wrinkled his forehead. “It’s all very strange. It’s like my room above the general store superimposed on a more modern room where people I don’t know go in and out. I could smell the sweat and cologne of strangers, and the scent of my mother’s laundry soap all at the same time. I was there and yet I wasn’t. Not like I am now. It’s like they were on the periphery of my consciousness.
“Anyway, the next thing I know some maniac, with hair standing all over his head and wearing glasses that are taped together, is clicking a little box that looks like a miniature camera. Every time he clicked, a green light shot out of the camera. Next, he turned on an apparatus with a hose that made a rumbling noise and, poof, I’m sucked down that hose into a cylinder bottle.” He shook his head. “It was stranger than being dead.”
“Fascinating.”
“No doubt.” He grimaced.
“I’m sorry. I’m sure it wasn’t fun. But wow!” I remembered the second test tube. “There were two test tubes.”
“That’s right.” His face lost all expression.
“Do you know who was in the second?”
He rose from the chair and drifted away. For several moments, he stared at the glistening water in the pool. Finally, he faced me. “Anna.”
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