She knew better.
“What’s –?” Jack started but Joy talked over him.
“Darling, we have a wee problem.”
“And that would be?” Jack asked impatiently as he felt Belle arrive at his side.
Jack looked down at Belle to see she’d tidied her ponytail and was wearing an enquiring expression but her mouth was swollen from his kisses and her grey eyes were soft and languid.
She looked, exactly, like she’d just had an immensely pleasurable orgasm.
Jack had seen that look before. He very much liked it and it gratified him that he’d given it to her.
However, he didn’t like sharing it.
Especially with his mother.
His mother looked at Belle then at Jack and she bit her lip before she said, “I’m sorry to interrupt.”
Jack was sorry too.
More than he could say.
However nonverbally he spoke volumes and he knew his mother read his face because she nervously kept biting her lip.
Jack slid an arm along Belle’s shoulders and pulled her close, suggesting to his mother, “All right Mum, maybe you’d care to explain why you’ve interrupted.”
“Well, see… erm…” she stammered.
“Mum,” Jack warned.
Quickly, not looking at Belle, she whispered, “Rachel’s seen Myrtle and Lewis and she’s a bit…” her eyes slid to Belle then back to Jack, “upset.”
Jack sighed and asked a question to which he already knew the answer, “You explained they don’t exist, didn’t you?”
Joy Bennett had been “seeing” Myrtle and Lewis for forty years. It was sporadic and infrequent but she claimed the first time she saw them was within days of moving to The Point after she married Jack’s father.
Therefore Jack was relatively certain, since Joy believed they existed, that she wouldn’t explain to Rachel, who was a sight more odd, loud, if not more dramatic than his mother, that she didn’t.
“Erm…” his mother mumbled, answering without actually answering and Jack clenched his teeth.
Then he looked down at Belle. “Did you tell your mother you’d seen them?”
Belle shook her head as Joy asked in a breathy voice, “You’ve seen them?”
Belle nodded at Joy. “Yesterday,” when Joy didn’t respond, Belle added, “they weirded me out.”
“Oh dear. They usually aren’t this active. Sometimes its years between times I see them and I saw them only the other day, twice. And they’re pretty choosy who they show themselves to.” Joy’s eyes moved to Jack. “What do you think this means?”
“I think it means I need to hire a counsellor to come to The Point for a group session,” Jack answered dryly.
“Jack!” both Belle and his mother cried.
“There are no such things as ghosts, Mum, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fill Belle’s head with that rubbish,” Jack returned.
Joy gave him her patented affronted mother look. “I haven’t uttered a word.”
Jack was about to speak when Belle put in, “She hasn’t.”
Jack looked down at Belle to assess if she was lying in a misguided attempt to assist his mother or if she was serious.
With one look, he knew she was serious.
He found this mildly surprising.
However, considering the sum total of melodramatic femininity which was currently housed under his roof, he didn’t find it troubling.
“I didn’t say anything to Rachel or Lila either,” Joy added. “You, and your father before you I might add, always get so foul tempered when I even mention it. So I usually don’t bother.” She turned to Belle and added conversationally, “Though, it’s a fascinating story.”
“Mum,” Jack warned when he felt Belle’s body tense at his side.
“Well, it is,” Joy defended.
“It doesn’t matter. They scare Belle and I don’t want you saying another word,” Jack asserted.
Joy turned to Belle. “Oh darling, there’s nothing to be scared of. I promise, they’re actually quite –”
“Mum!” Jack clipped sharply and Joy jumped.
“Um, I hate to interrupt your chitchat but my daughter is freaking out!” Lila called from down the hall while walking toward them. Her eyes were on Jack. “And you better do something about it, my man, because she’s upstairs, in Belle’s room, packing her things, mumbling about haunted houses and how her pregnant daughter was getting as far as she could from this creepy place.”
“Fucking hell,” Jack muttered.
At the same time, Belle mumbled an alarmingly experienced, “Uh-oh.”
When Lila arrived at their group, Jack made a swift, acutely irritating but necessary decision and asked, “What does she drink?”
Lila blinked up at him and parroted, “Drink?”
“Rachel,” Jack went on with slipping patience. “What does she drink?”
Lila looked at Belle and mumbled, “Better question is what doesn’t she drink?”
Belle giggled, it wasn’t with humour but with nervousness and Jack’s patience slipped further.
“Lila,” he said low and her gaze snapped to him.
“I’d say this was a tequila moment,” Lila answered.
“I think we have tequila,” his mother informed them quickly.
“Get it,” Jack ordered and looked at Lila. “You get Rachel.” Then he told them both. “Meet us back here in the study.”
“Gotcha, big man,” Lila said breezily and moved down the hall.
Joy looked at Jack and asked, “What are you going to do?”
Jack pulled Belle closer to his side and answered, “I’m going to do nothing. You’re going to tell the story of Myrtle and Lewis.”
Before she could think better of it even in the face of Jack’s visibly slipping patience, Joy exclaimed excitedly, “Oh goody, I’m going to call Yasmin.”
“If you call Yasmin, I’ll break your fingers,” Jack clipped out his empty threat with as much menace as he could muster which was rather a lot at that juncture.
Joy ignored the considerable menace and smiled radiantly at him. “No you won’t, darling.” Then she looked at Belle and confided, “Yasmin loves this story. She’s never seen Myrtle and Lewis but she’s dying to. She’ll be so jealous.”
Then Joy hurried away in search of tequila.
Jack looked down at Belle and saw her face was pale and her eyes were locked on his mother’s departing back.