“My keychain has Christmas bells on it. I heard them upstairs.” She pointed toward the second floor. “There’s no other explanation for how they got from here to up there.” None…other than Marcus taking them when she wasn’t looking and sneaking up there while she stayed behind to search for them.

“Oh, you think that was me?”

He looked pissed. She gulped but stood her ground. “Was it?”

“How did I sneak back in here, creep silently up a staircase held together by rusted nails and wood rot, jangle your keys, and bolt back down here and come through the front door?”

He made a point.

“Okay, maybe a trick, then. You have them and jangled them before you came in.” She wrapped her arms around his middle and grabbed his ass, patting his back pockets in search of her keys. When she turned up empty-handed, she thrust her hands into his front pockets and felt around in there.

“I don’t have them, Lil.” He lashed an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against one strong thigh, as hard as the striking angles of his angry face. A muscle in his jaw ticked as he glared down at her. “But feel free to keep looking.”

“If you don’t, then how the hell—”

Clomp.

Clomp.

Marcus lifted his chin and studied the cobwebbed ceiling. She tilted her head as well, not that there was anything to see. And there was no mistaking what the sound was. Footsteps.

Clomp.

Clomp.

Clomp.

They finally ended over their heads, stopping with a final clomp. The silence that followed was a living thing, wearing her heartbeat like a cloak. Her breathing turned hectic, the hairs on her arms stood unbidden. And her brain fumbled for a rational reason for who or what could be standing directly overhead.

“Tell me you have an explanation for that,” she begged in a hoarse whisper.

“You mean other than the fact that someone is up there?” His voice was quiet, his face drained of color, his lips thinned. Pale light was visible through a gap in the waterlogged ceiling. The steps began again, blotting out the light briefly as they retreated to the other side of the house.

Clomp.

Clomp.

Clomp.

Then they vanished into the silence once again.

Both fists wound in Marcus’s T-shirt, the words trembled from her lips. “I take it back. Let’s walk to the road. Unless…you think it could be Clive? Did you ask him to sneak back to scare me?” That didn’t even sound like something Clive would do, but she’d take the explanation. She’d take any explanation. “Tell me the truth. I’m freaking out here.”

“Not Clive.” He lowered his gaze slowly, meeting her eyes.

“Raccoons?”

“Wearing boots?” His eyebrows jumped and he was silent for a few seconds.

“What do we do?” She wasn’t beyond suggestions at this point. And she believed him about the keys.

“See if your phone works.”

The button meant to bring her phone to life only produced the cautionary beep of her deceased battery. The screen went black. “Yours?”

He shook his head.

That brought the count to two dead phones, a pair of unexplained footsteps upstairs, and one set of missing keys now in the hands of whoever…or whatever…was tromping around on the second floor.

Perfect.

He left her side suddenly, and she was alarmed to find herself alone by the door. She scrambled after him. “Where are you going?”

“Getting your keys, McIntire. Stay put.” He placed one boot on the first step of the staircase and one hand on the railing.

She grabbed his belt loop and tugged. “Are you nuts? Don’t go up there.”

He turned and palmed her face. “Not nuts,” he said, his voice hard and soft at the same time. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”

So did she. Hawaii or not. But she really, really didn’t want Marcus to go upstairs and leave her down here alone.

“We’ll call a draw on Hawaii.” She forced a smile that Marcus didn’t meet. She guessed he was still angry about her accusing him of taking her keys. “We can bet something else. How about—”

His stony eyes matched his severe expression. She backed from the staircase to the floor, but his scowl didn’t improve with her vantage point.

“Do you think I give a good goddamn about Hawaii?” he boomed, the light from the Coleman in his hand casting shadows on his handsome face.

“You earned that trip. You were proud to earn that trip.”

“And Hawaii was clearly my priority after we fucked.”

Her head jerked at his harsh tone. “I never said that.” Only she kind of had.

“Stay put, McIntire.” His dismissive tone made her prickle.

“If you go up there, I’m coming with you!”

“No. You’re not.” He moved up a few more rickety stairs. The backdrop of the eerie blackness ahead of him covered her body in goose bumps.

“Do you blame me?” she practically shouted as she stomped behind him.

He froze, then turned on her, glaring again. But under the anger, she thought she saw a flicker of pain, then what appeared to be concern as his eyes moved from her face to her footing. “Go back downstairs.”

She ignored him. “You were the one trying to cheat. Remember the hockey mask?”

“Lily.” His tone was a warning.

“There are things happening here I don’t understand.” The voice. Her missing keys. The crash in the kitchen. And what had happened between them. Maybe that most of all. “I’m scared, okay? I say things I don’t mean when I’m scared.”

His scowl softened. She was winning him over, she could see it.

“You can’t leave me alone down here,” she said, hoping to nudge him into a yes. “What if—what if something happens and you’re not here to protect me?”

His eyebrows bowed, and her heart squeezed. He cared about her. She could see it, feel it in her gut. He came down to where she stood and extended a palm. She slid her hand into his larger one, the feeling blending friendship with an odd eroticism that had never been there before. She didn’t mind it…or maybe, she preferred it.

“Stay close.”

“Okay.”

“No running,” he commanded, his voice strong. “I want you to walk. Carefully. This floor is a series of trapdoors waiting to happen.”

The boards at her feet were not all that solid, she’d noticed. They gave just enough to make her wonder if they’d snap in half. Comforting. Almost as comforting as the phantom footsteps that had frozen her solid moments ago. If it wasn’t Clive or raccoons, what was tromping around on the second floor of Willow Mansion?

She didn’t want to know.

She really, really didn’t.

Chapter Eleven

Marcus’s hand nearly slipped from the sweat-slicked handle of the lantern. At least his anger with Lily had masked the very real fear carving a path into his insides like a dull knife.

He hadn’t taken her damn keys. Hadn’t seen her keys tonight at all, in fact. He’d checked around and under her car while he’d been outside and found nothing. And he knew about the bells on her keychain. Made fun of her for it once at work—referred to her as Mrs. Claus for a week. While he was outside, he’d heard the faint jingling, too. It was the reason he’d double-timed it back to the house. He’d been sure she’d found them, had been shocked when she’d pointed the finger at him.

Arguably, that was deserved. He did rig up a speaker in the west bedroom to play a voice. He had stashed the remote with the bag of costumes near her car. But that she thought he’d continue trying to tip the scales for the Hawaii trip after they’d slept together pissed him off more than he’d like to admit. Did she think he was that much of an asshole? Or was it just that she really believed nothing had changed between them?

Yes, he liked to tease her, and yes, the pranks tonight were a touch too far, but using her—having sex with her—to get what he wanted was over the line. He would have thought she knew him at least that well. Hell, the last thing he imagined would happen was that she’d tear his shirt off and say yes. But once he’d started kissing those pliant lips, and she’d started moaning his name. Jesus. He couldn’t think about that now. Or else his body would forever tie being afraid of ghosts to sexual thoughts of Lily. That’s all he needed was a hard-on whenever he went to see the latest horror movie.