Chapter 3
3
VIOLET
J osiah’s house looked spooky at night. Maybe it was psychological. He’d mentioned the place was creepy, but I hadn’t gotten that feeling at all when I visited in broad daylight. It had been no different than the dozens of other cabins I’d wandered in and out of during my three years as a real estate agent.
I got out of my SUV and stared at the cabin. I couldn’t explain it. It was a log cabin, so of course the exterior was dark, but the glow coming from the windows seemed almost ominous.
The bag full of stuff I’d brought—following a list my sister sent me—probably wouldn’t help at all. I’d had to drive a good thirty minutes to get to a store that carried it, so that would be a waste. But Josiah was worth it.
I had to bite back a smile as I walked up his driveway and navigated the sidewalk to the front porch. The guy was hot. There was no denying it. But it wasn’t just that. The way he looked at me made me all melty inside. Nobody had ever looked at me like that. I didn’t even know if he was interested, but that was how I pictured a man would look at me if he was into me.
I had a crush. For the first time in a while, I was genuinely interested in a guy. My heart beat a little faster, there was an extra oomph in my step, and the world seemed just a little brighter knowing he was in it.
I looked around the porch as I stepped up to the door and lifted my hand to knock. He didn’t even have a chair out front. Not a bench, not a plant—nothing that made this look like home. Maybe that was part of why it felt so dark.
I knocked three times, noting he also didn’t have a doorbell, and stepped back to wait. He’d said he was ordering pizza and that he’d have drinks on hand. I’d deliberately requested something non-alcoholic. It wasn’t professional to drink with a client, even if it wasn’t likely we’d end up working together anytime soon. But I’d never turn down a good meal.
I gasped when the door swung open. I was so pumped up, even the slightest sudden movement had me jumping. But I took deep breaths to at least look calm.
“Hi,” I said.
He was looking at me again. Those eyes seemed to see right through to my soul. That was a cheesy thought, but it was exactly the way I felt.
“Come on in,” he said without returning my greeting.
He stepped back and held the door open, giving me far more room than I actually needed. It was like he was trying to avoid getting too close to me. Maybe this attraction was just on my side of things. Or maybe he was attracted to me and was trying to keep a professional distance.
I might have spent more time thinking about that, but the interior of his cabin pulled my attention away. The place was definitely creepy. But it might be the power of suggestion because I couldn’t put my finger on what was creepy about it.
“I got everything you mentioned in your text,” he said. “Seltzer water, sausage and mushroom pizza for you, and a supreme pizza for me.”
We each had our own full pizza. I was impressed. He’d texted me from the grocery store. His language had been abrupt, almost terse, but I got the feeling that was just how he communicated in writing.
“You didn’t have to feed me,” I said. “But thank you.”
“If you can do something that will let me stay in this house rather than losing a bunch of money trying to move, it’s the least I could do. Here, I’ll take that.”
I realized he was offering to take my tote bag and my purse. I handed them over, then turned to face the octagon-shaped table. Two big pizza boxes sat in the center. Place settings were on either side. No placemats—everything was set directly on his wood table.
He headed to the kitchen to grab drinks as I took a seat. I wasn’t sure where he normally sat, but I assumed he’d want his back to the wall. Most of the guys around here were former military, and that seemed to be a thing.
“I mostly use this as a poker table,” he said. “That’s why it’s a weird shape. The guys come over sometimes. We take turns at each other’s houses once a week. They give me shit for being so competitive.”
He walked toward the table. He set my glass of seltzer water in front of me and moved around to his seat, bottle of beer in his other hand.
I picked up my napkin and spread it on my lap, feeling self-conscious. This was not a date. It was a meeting at a client’s house to discuss an issue he was having. I should not be nervous. I did stuff like this all the time.
“So, you’re competitive?” I asked.
“I think it came from my time as a soldier. I don’t know why, but I came out trying to prove myself.”
He opened the top pizza box and tilted it toward me, inviting me to take a slice. One went onto my plate. That was another way I knew I was attracted to him. I wanted to take two or three slices, but I also felt the need to be dainty and ladylike in front of him.
“I’m competitive, but only with work,” I said, taking a sip from my seltzer water as I watched him pull two generously sized slices out of the box and put them on his plate. Then he closed the box and set it on top of mine. “I’m not much into games. We played a lot of board games growing up, but I’ve never played poker.”
He uncapped his beer and stared at me with a surprised expression. “I can teach you.”
I shook my head. “I know how that will go. You’ll somehow manage to empty my wallet while teaching me how to play.”
“We don’t have to play for money.”
We had to play for something, didn’t we? An image flashed through my head. It was a visual of the two of us playing strip poker. It sent heat through my body. I squirmed in my seat and realized I was wet between my legs.
It had happened so quickly, it surprised me. Was that even possible? To get that turned on that fast? Maybe with a guy like the one seated across from me, it was.
“We can play with candies or coins,” he said. “But my poker set has chips, so we don’t have to play for anything specific.”
Had it occurred to him at all? The thought of strip poker? I wasn’t an unattractive woman, and men tended to live with their minds in the gutter—at least that’s what I’d always been told. But it usually made me uncomfortable, thinking of a man fantasizing about doing things like that with me. I was a hopeless romantic. I wanted a man to imagine marrying me and having kids with me—not ripping off my clothes and doing me on this table.
But that wasn’t the case with Josiah. In fact, the thought of him doing me on this table was stuck in my head.
“Don’t worry. I won’t make you play anything,” Josiah said. “Just make this place normal and I’ll be happy.”
“When did the bad energy start?” I asked, lifting my slice of pizza and taking a dainty bite.
“It was a good two weeks after I moved in,” he said. “I toured the place countless times—even moved my stuff in—and I didn’t notice anything weird. But one day I came home from work and it just seemed darker in here.”
He looked around as he once again took a sip of his beer. That morning, his words had seemed odd. I’d been sure he was just imagining things. But now I got it. There was something not so good about this place.
“I mentioned it to a buddy of mine,” Josiah continued. “He said maybe my cabin is cursed.”
I frowned. “Cursed, not haunted? That’s a weird leap to make.”
“Maybe guys like us don’t want to believe in ghosts.”
“So, you think someone put a curse on this place?” I asked. “Like a voodoo doll? A voodoo house?”
He laughed. “Sounds crazy. I’m well aware. I don’t know. Maybe this particular cabin was built on a burial ground.”
“Just this one house? What about your neighbors?”
I immediately second guessed my words. I didn’t want him to think I was skeptical. I fully believed him—or at least I believed that he believed his place was cursed. But I was starting to wonder if maybe the energy was surrounding him, and he didn’t realize it.
“It makes no sense to me,” he said. “I just know none of my buddies deal with this. I spend a lot of time in other cabins up in these mountains, and none of them have this…what do you call it?”
“Energy?” I offered.
“Energy.”
He said that as though it were a forbidden word. Why did I have a feeling he didn’t want to know the exact terminology? Like admitting it would mean admitting he’d just brought me in to sage his cabin.
“Maybe it’s not the house,” he said suddenly.
I stared at him. Was he for real? It was along the lines of what I’d been thinking, but I wouldn’t have come close to saying it.
“I’ve been running from some shit I saw overseas,” he said. “I guess a lot of us are. And I very well might have brought all that with me. Got anything in that bag that can help fix a warrior’s scars?”
“My sister’s all into aromatherapy. I could bring you some lavender or ylang-ylang oil. Help you relax.”
He took a generous bite of his pizza. Something about his demeanor reminded me he wasn’t exactly the aromatherapy type. Maybe I should just slather myself in oils and hang out with him until he chilled out. He’d have no choice but to relax at that point, especially if I wore that and nothing else.
Crap, why was my mind in the gutter today? I kept picturing the two of us naked in various positions. Sexual fantasies were not like me. I’d never even had sex, so how could I possibly form a fantasy about it?
“Maybe I’ll just have another beer,” he said.
He lifted his bottle. It was mostly empty now. I hadn’t even noticed him drinking that much of it.
I smiled. “Getting your house cleared up will take some of the stress off.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”
He sounded skeptical, and I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t really believe it would work either, but it was worth a try. Plus, it had given me an excuse to spend more time with him. In fact, once we finished up here tonight, I wouldn’t have a reason to see him ever again.
Unless I couldn’t fix his problem. I wanted to fix his problem, but I also didn’t want to say goodbye to this guy. And that was an emotion I could not afford to have. That was the kind of emotion that would lead to me getting my heart broken.