“Celeste? She came back?” Monique sounded as surprised as Dax had been when he’d first seen Celeste and Prissy in the sitting room. “Your ghost?”

His ghost. That was a nice way to think of her, but it was kind of hard to call Celeste “his” when he didn’t know if he’d ever see her again. “Yeah, she came back today with my assigned spirit, and then she left.”

“Left? As in, back to the other side?” Tristan asked.

“As in,” Dax said, nodding. “And I’ve got to figure out how to get her back.”

Tristan put his end of the dresser on the ground with a thud. “Come again?”

“I’m going to figure out how to bring her back, and I need Ryan to help me make that happen.”

“That’s my brother,” Monique said, beaming. “Just because she’s a ghost doesn’t mean it can’t work out.”

Tristan shook his head. “Hell, the whole family’s going nuts. First you go and marry a spirit, and now he’s thinking he can bring back one who’s crossed.”

“I don’t know if she’s crossed or not,” Dax explained. “My gut tells me she’s stuck somewhere in the middle.”

“You do realize it’d be a whole lot easier to find you a girl that’s still breathing, don’t you?” Tristan said, giving Dax one of his trademark skeptical looks that made most folks think twice about whatever they were contemplating.

Lucky for Dax, he was immune to it. “Hey, if I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.” Typically, Tristan wouldn’t have let that go without another smart-ass remark, but evidently, he could tell by Dax’s tone that he wasn’t in the mood to be messed with tonight, especially not when it came to Celeste.

“Like I said,” Tristan repeated, “this family’s losing it.”

Monique moved to one end of the dresser. “I’ll help Tristan with this. Why don’t you head on into the kitchen. Ryan just carried some chairs in there, so you’ll have a place to sit and talk. He’s due a break anyway, he’s been unloading trucks all day. And you don’t need to worry about helping us, we’re almost done. You concentrate on getting Celeste back.”

Tristan’s jaw fell. “You’ve gotta be kidding. You’re going to let him show up now, at the end of the day, and during the last load, and get by without helping? Shit, I’m just your cousin, he’s your brother. I’d say he pulls rank on helping you move.”

“I’m sorry, Tristan,” Monique said sweetly. “Are your muscles hurting? I guess I assumed firemen were strong enough to take the heat.”

“Hell,” Tristan said, but he chuckled, and lifted his end.

“Now go talk to Ryan. Maybe he can help you figure out how to get her back,” Monique instructed, ever the bossy sister. “Ryan! Dax is here, and he wants to talk to you. I’m sending him around.” Moving slowly toward the house and grunting a little with each step, she glanced at Dax and ordered, “Walk around the side of the house,” while Tristan backed through the front door and cussed when his knuckles scraped against the frame.

Following Monique’s command, as if anybody in their right mind would tell her no, Dax rounded the house then climbed the steps leading to the kitchen, where Ryan was lifting a boxful of appliances onto the counter. His gray T-shirt had a sweat-dampened V from the neck to the chest, and his hair was even darker than usual, in wet waves from exertion.

“Come on in.” He turned toward a red-and-white cooler shoved to one corner of the kitchen floor and withdrew two Cokes, then handed one to Dax. “Here. Monique said she didn’t want us drinking beer while we’re moving her furniture,” he said with a shrug. “So, in the interest of maintaining marital bliss, this is the best I can do.”

“Coke is fine,” Dax said, taking the icy can from Ryan.

“Have a seat. I guess the two of us are supposed to take a break and chat, while Tristan busts his balls hauling furniture.” He said the last words a little louder than the rest.

“I heard that,” Tristan grumbled from the hall, and Monique laughed loudly.

Dax popped the top on the can, then took a much-needed dose of carbonated caffeine. He hadn’t had a thing to eat or drink since that cup of coffee he’d had with Nan, not that he’d even thought of taking care of those types of physical needs while Celeste had been here. Taking care of sexual needs, on the other hand…

“So you need to talk to me?” Ryan asked, sitting at the table, then taking a long drink from his soda. “Damn, I’d really rather have a beer.”

“Ryan?” Monique called sweetly, her voice echoing down the hallway from the front of the house.

“Yeah?”

“Honey, did you enjoy yourself last night?”

A long pause caused a noticeable silence.

“Did you?” she called again.

“Hell, yeah,” Ryan finally answered.

“Well, if you want to enjoy tonight, you’ll stop complaining about there being no beer in the house.”

Another long pause, then Ryan shrugged, and smiled. “Deal.”

“Good then, that’s settled,” she said rather triumphantly, either because she was getting her way now, or because she’d also be getting her way later.

Still grinning, Ryan asked, “Okay, what’d you want to ask me?”

“I want to know how you controlled where you went when you were in the middle. Or rather, when you visited someone who was living.”

Ryan placed his drink on the table and leaned back in his chair. “How I controlled it?”

“Yeah. How did you go back and forth, from the middle to this side? What did you do to make it happen?”

Ryan’s head shook slightly as he answered. “I didn’t do anything. I thought about where I wanted to go, or who I wanted to see, and I went. That’s all there was to it.”

“You’re saying you just had to think about it?” Dax asked, baffled. Why had Ryan been able to act like any other ghost when Celeste couldn’t?

“I had total control over it.” Ryan folded his arms at his chest. “Why are you asking?”

“It’s Celeste. She came back today, and we were together for a little while, not nearly long enough, and then she was pulled away again.” Dax didn’t bother explaining who Celeste was; Ryan knew her from his time in the middle. In fact, when Ryan had been hovering between the other side and the living, Monique had tried to play matchmaker between the two spirits, but Ryan had already fallen for Monique. However, they were friends, which meant Ryan understood her, and not only that, he understood her current situation, living in the middle.

“I thought Celeste crossed over with Chloe,” Ryan said.

“I thought so too, but she didn’t, and she came back today to help another little girl cross, and…”

“And?” Ryan asked.

“And to be with me.”

Ryan nodded, not needing further information. He obviously remembered what it was like to be caught between this side and the light, and he’d know more than anyone how hard it was when the one you loved wasn’t dwelling on the same side of the spectrum. “I don’t know why she wouldn’t be able to come and go at will. It doesn’t make sense.”

“You never knew of ghosts who would get-stuck-in either place, or something like that?”

“I’m sorry, man, but no,” he said. “Are you saying that she didn’t seem to have any control over when she left you today? She couldn’t have maybe thought of another place, or someone else, and gone to them? Maybe a family member or something? I mean, that would happen to me-if I got something on my mind, I’d simply go there, wherever it was.”

“She didn’t have any control over it. I’m sure of that,” Dax said. “And trust me, she wasn’t thinking about any other place, or any other person, at the time.” She’d been thinking of him, only him, and the fact that they were finally together, the same way he’d been thinking of her.

Ryan took another sip of his drink, then closed his eyes and leaned his head back. After a couple of seconds, he sat forward and looked at Dax. “She hasn’t been given to anyone else as an assignment, has she? I mean, a medium to help her cross?”