help from had been married to one of the guys in his former unit. He was pretty sure it wasn’t a fluke. One thing life after death had taught him was that there were very few real coincidences. Things happened for a purpose, and while he might temporarily be blinded to what that might be, he knew to keep an eye out.
While he and Dena were growing up with a drug-addicted father, his mother had shielded them as best she could. Older by ten years, Tyler had tried to be the man in the family, but as a kid, he hadn’t fully realized that his father might kill him rather than hurt him. His mother had, always stepping in front of the blows, taking the brunt of his father’s drug-fueled wrath.
Desperately wanting to defend his mother, despite her strict orders not to intervene, Tyler had helped in every way he could besides beating the man to a bloody pulp, which he fully planned to do once he was older and stronger. In the meantime, he’d taken care of his mother when her bruises and broken bones incapacitated her. He’d cooked and done laundry and watched after his baby sister. He’d learned to change her diapers and mix her formula, sleeping on the floor by her crib in case his doped-up father got any stupid ideas. When his mother had found out about this, she’d put a stop to it, promising Tyler she’d make sure nothing happened to the baby.
And she had. She’d always made sure to be in the way of her husband’s fists and vitriolic bile. Despite her petite stature, she’d displayed enormous courage, though Tyler had never understood why she wouldn’t leave. All she’d say when he asked was that he was too young to understand. Eventually, he’d figured out that his father had sworn to hunt her down and kill her and his children should she ever try to run.
Finally, their father had disappeared. Tyler had heard the man now lived on the streets, a slave to his own demons. Periodically, he’d show up at the house, but only to take money, which he used to buy more drugs.
Tyler had never understood why his mother gave the man anything at all.
As soon as he’d graduated from high school, Tyler had enlisted in the army. For him, the military was not only an escape, but a chance to make something of himself, to make sure he didn’t end up like his father.
Their father had overdosed when Dena was seventeen. Tyler had been stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. He’d been granted leave and had hurried home to help out.
He hadn’t been sure what to expect. A celebration, perhaps? Instead he found his mother insensible with grief and his baby sister angry at the woman who’d raised them.
“What’s wrong with her?” Dena had asked. “He spent his life making her miserable, and all she can do is cry.”
“I don’t understand either,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “But I do know Mom needs us. Let her grieve, and be there for her, the way she always was for us.”
“She should have left him” had been Dena’s response. Since Tyler tended to agree, he didn’t reply.
After the funeral, he’d gone back to base and kept in touch with his sister. He’d celebrated with her long-distance when she got a job at the junior college. Sure, it was in the cafeteria, but she’d had plans, she told him. She wanted to take some classes, with an eye on earning her degree. He’d been proud.
What Dena hadn’t told him was that their mother had started using the very same drugs that had killed their father. Heroin, mostly. Sometimes meth. Their mom had died right after Tyler was sent to Afghanistan, though he hadn’t learned about it for two weeks. He’d raged and grieved and worried that his sister might follow this horrible family pattern. Dena had assured him that she wouldn’t. He’d believed her. Neither of them had wanted anything to do with that lifestyle.
After that, he and his sister had been on their own. And then Tyler had gone and gotten himself killed. And Dena had gotten into a bigger mess than he ever would have thought possible. If he didn’t get her out, she was going to die too young, just as he had. Even though it wasn’t her time to go.
Anabel had to help him save her. She had to. He would accept nothing else, even if it cost him his own movement into eternity.
Being a ghost felt more like being alive than he’d expected. Sure, he couldn’t eat or drink, didn’t have to eliminate bodily waste or sleep, but he felt all the same human emotions he’d experienced when he was alive.
Including desire. That one had surprised the hell out of him. Every time he got close to Anabel, his entire body tightened in places that shouldn’t have been possible for a ghost. At first, he’d tried to keep telling himself that it was due to her beauty and the power that radiated from her.
But after the first night, when he’d found himself watching her sleep, aching with the kind of physical need he couldn’t possibly satisfy without a flesh-and-blood body, he’d known it was more. Much, much more.
He wanted her. Desired her. In all the ways a man wanted a woman. Except he wasn’t a man. He was a ghost.
This had to be his own personal form of hell. Because there was absolutely nothing he could do to ease the craving.
When Anabel finally emerged from her morning preparations, showered and dressed in a pair of faded black jeans that hugged her curves, with her dark hair in a jaunty ponytail, he couldn’t make himself stop staring. She was the sexiest woman he’d ever seen, bar none. Again, that lust stabbed through what once had been his body.
“You look...glowing,” he said. He really sucked at compliments.
“Thank you. I guess.” Her smile made her aura illuminate even brighter, making a glowing halo around her head.
For whatever reason, he felt the need to elaborate. “I don’t just mean your aura, though yours is spectacular. But your human form is beautiful.”
Her smile widened, making her whiskey eyes sparkle. “Wow. Thanks. You kind of made my day.”
He found himself smiling back. Maybe he wasn’t so bad at this complimenting thing after all.
He let his gaze drink her up, his entire body burning. Funny how he still felt as if he had a body, even though he didn’t. Even when she turned away, completely unaware of his desire, he tracked her with his gaze.
Focus, he reminded himself. He’d come back for a reason—to save Dena, not ache for a woman he could never have.
Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she added cream and sugar before taking a deep sip. “Ah,” she sighed. “That’s good.”
“Torturing me now?”
For an instant, she looked stricken, and then she shrugged. “Not my intention at all. But I apologize nonetheless.”
He gave a quick dip of his head to show the apology had been accepted. “What’s on the agenda for today?”
“I’m going up to the college where your sister works. I want to talk to some of her friends.”
“Sounds good.” Action, finally. He approved. “What about?”
She gave him a long look, clearly debating what she had to say. “I need to find out about her boyfriend.”
“I can save you some time on that. Dena didn’t have one,” he answered, confident.
One
