All the Rules of Heaven (All That Heaven Will Allow #1) - Amy Lane Page 0,89

all the pain of Damien’s passing and could remember some of the joy the two of them had had as kids, inseparable and happy.

Whatever it was, when they went to bed that night, his heart was filled with a surprising amount of quiet mountain peace.

THE NEXT MORNING, though, Tucker couldn’t wait another day—in spite of Angel’s objections. While eating breakfast, he looked up archives and birth and death records, Squishbeans on his lap.

“I got it,” he cried. “Angel! Come here.”

“I’m right next to you,” she said, and if she’d been human, he would have expected her to be rolling her eyes over a cup of cream-and-sugar coffee.

“But look over my shoulder here, at the computer,” he said with patience. “I found them. Or at least I found James Beaufort.”

“Oh!” She dematerialized from her chair and rematerialized over his shoulder.

“You could have just stood up.”

“I was startled,” she said with dignity, checking the knot of curls on top of her head and pushing the strands out of her eyes.

Tucker eyed her narrowly. “You don’t usually stay in a woman’s form for this long.”

Those green eyes glinted wickedly. “This one unsettles you. I’m not sure why, but it arouses you more than the others.”

“No,” Tucker said, swallowing through a dry throat. “That’s not true. It unsettles me, yes, but, uh, arouses? No.”

Angel’s eyes narrowed. “Which form are you most attracted to?”

Tucker smiled enigmatically and tried not to contrast the imagined comfort of what could have been Angel’s soft breasts pressed against his back with the remembered comfort of Angel’s hard chest, strong hands, and citrus-lavender smell. “I’ll leave that for you to figure out. But for right now, I’ve got some death dates here. Let me grab the pen and paper.”

“Why? What are we going to do?”

Tucker gnawed his lower lip. “Well, I know we have to touch their objects and see their stories and, through the process, tell them to you. But I’m thinking, what if we make it easy? What if we take their objects to them? I’ve got a Sophie, Henrietta, and James Beaufort all buried at the Manzanita Cemetery in Auburn, as well as Bridget Shanahan.”

“Conklin?”

Tucker shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen mention of him, but….” He pursed his lips grimly. “I think all his energy is captured here, probably in the damned paperweight. And that seems to be what holds James’s spirit too.”

They both let out hissing noises through their front teeth, and Squishbeans started and took off.

“That would be a horrible fate, Tucker.”

“Yeah.”

“The madman and the kind man who killed him.”

“I know.”

“We have to release James Beaufort.”

“I’m saying, Angel!”

“It’s imperative!”

“I know. But listen—James didn’t die that day. In fact, he and his wife weren’t buried until 1945 and 1947. They were….” Aw. Damn. “They were buried with their two sons, who were killed in the war.”

“Oh.”

Tucker hated that story. “But at least they had some peace before then,” he said desperately. “I hope so anyway. And Sophie and Bridget—they were interred the same day in 1952. They lived a good long life, and together even. But something is holding them to this place, Angel. Maybe most of their spirits passed on, but not all. And James Beaufort may be mostly with his wife—”

“But something is keeping that part of him here that we saw out in the garden, and it’s attached to the paperweight,” Angel finished. “Yes, Tucker, I agree. So maybe if we take the objects to them, their stories will be told?”

Tucker pulled his fingers through his hair. It had dried wet the night before, which meant it was sort of a haphazard mop right now. He’d slept well, so he had a little more energy than he’d been having, but his nose hurt, and his head hurt, and generally, getting the hell out of Daisy Place would do him a world of good at the moment.

“Could it hurt?” he asked, a little desperately.

“I can come, right?”

Tucker shrugged, trying for nonchalance. “I don’t see why not. But I warn you—on the way back, I was going to stop by Rae’s house.” He fingered the pentacle at his neck, with the mysterious garnet at the heart of it. He would need to look at it in the mirror, but right now, at his throat, it felt changed somehow. “I think there’s something about this charm that got me beat the hell up but kept me from being possessed.”

“I don’t mind visiting the Greenaways.”

Tucker stared.

Angel was back to being the broad-chested young blue-collar man who