And not just because as a symphath she fed off the emotions of others.
No, she wanted to know more about this male.
While he studied the sleeping boys and got pulled into his past, she focused on his strong profile as it was lit by the security light over the door.
When she lifted her palm up and laid it on his shoulder, he jumped a little.
She wanted to say something smart and kind, put togther some combination of words to reach him where he'd reached her with this. But the thing was, there was more courage in these revelations of his than she had ever shown anyone, and in a world that was full of taking and cruelty, he was fucking breaking her heart with what he was giving her.
He'd been so lonely here and the echoes of the grieving were killing him. And yet he was going to soldier on because he'd told her he would do so.
John's beautiful blue eyes met her stare, and as he tilted his head in inquiry, she realized words were bullshit in moments like this.
Stepping into his hard body, she wrapped one of her arms around the small of his back. With her free hand, she stretched up and captured his nape, pulling him down to her.
John hesitated and then came willingly, linking his arms around her waist and burying his face in her neck.
Xhex held him, lending him her strength, offering him shelter that she was more than capable of providing. As they stood one against another, she looked over his shoulders into the room beyond, at the small dark heads on their pillows.
In the silence, she felt the past and the present shift and mix, but that was a mirage. There was no way to comfort the lost boy he'd been back then.
But she had the grown male.
She had him right in her arms, and for a brief moment of whimsy, she imagined that she was never, ever going to let him go.
THIRTY-SEVEN
As he sat in his guest room at the Rathboone mansion, Gregg Winn should have felt better than he did. Thanks to some evocative camera shots of that soulful portrait down in the living room, coupled with some stills of the grounds taken in the gloaming, the brass back in L.A. was thrilled with the presell footage and was set to start running it. The butler had also come along nicely, signing the legal documents that gave permission for all kinds of access.
Stan the cameraman could perform a proctology exam on the damn house for all the places he could stick his lens.
But Gregg didn't have the taste of victory in his mouth. Nope, he had a case of the this-isn't-rights riding his gut and a tension headache that ran from the base of his skull all the way into his frontal lobe.
The problem was the hidden camera they'd put out in the hall the night before.
There was no rational explanation for what it had captured.
Ironic that a "ghost hunter," when confronted with a figure who disappeared into thin air, needed Advil and Tums. You'd think he'd be overjoyed that for once he didn't have to get his camera guy to fudge the footage.
As for Stan? He just shrugged it all off. Oh, he thought it was a ghost for sure--but that didn't faze him in the slightest.
Then again, he could have been tied to a set of railroad tracks on some Perils of Pauline thing and just thought, Perfect, time for a quick nap before he got greased.
There were advantages to being a pothead.
As the clock struck ten down below, Gregg got up from the laptop and went to the window. Man, he'd feel better about this whole thing if he hadn't seen that long-haired figure roaming the grounds the night before.
To hell with that: Better that he hadn't seen the fucker outside in the hall pulling a hallucination's trick of now-you-see-it, now-you-don't.
From behind him on the bed, Holly said, "Are you hoping to see the Easter bunny out there?"
He glanced over at her and thought she looked great propped up against the pillows, her nose in a book. When she'd taken the thing out, he'd been surprised to see it was the Doris Kearns Goodwin about the Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. He'd have figured she was more a Tori Spelling-bio kind of girl.
"Yeah, I'm all about the cotton tail," he murmured. "And I think I'm going to go down and see if I can get the bastard's basket."
"Don't bring back any marshmallow Peeps. Colored eggs, chocolate bunnies, that fake fuzzy grass--all good. The Peeps freak me out."
"I'll have Stan come sit with you, 'kay?"
Holly's eyes lifted from Camelot's backstory. "I don't need a nanny. Especially not one who's liable to light up a joint in the bathroom."
"I don't want to leave you alone."
"I'm not alone." She nodded to the camera in the far corner of the room. "Just turn that on."
Gregg leaned back against the window jamb. The way her hair caught the light was really nice. Of course, the color was undoubtedly an expert dye job . . . but it was the perfect shade of blond against her skin.