“I’m not—I’m more your ballroom type of guy. Used to do a lot of it when I was younger.”
With the wolf who’d broken his heart, if the shadow that briefly crossed his eyes was anything to go by. “I didn’t know ballroom dancing was big around these parts—or that werewolves were even into that sort of thing. It’s rather old-fashioned and straitlaced, isn’t it?”
“You’ve obviously never indulged in ballroom dancing,” he said. “It can be very erotic done right.”
?
?I think it’s fairly safe to say that I’ve never done it right, then.”
“I think it’s safe to say that she has three left feet and has seriously injured the toes of anyone who has tried to teach her,” Belle said, as she came out of the reading room. “And I’m speaking from experience there.”
“Then I’ll just have to risk bruised and battered feet,” Aiden replied. “Because we can’t sit around all weekend just watching movies and having hot monkey sex.”
“We can’t?” I let my expression fall. “Just so you know, this is my disappointed face.”
He laughed, threw an arm around my shoulder, and hugged me. “It is possible to do all three things—or four, if we include feeding ourselves at some point.”
“Good idea to add the food,” Belle commented. “She gets very grumpy if she’s not appropriately fed.”
“‘Appropriately’ meaning chocolate?”
I gently patted his knee. “Keep thinking like that, and we won’t ever have any problems.”
Aiden snorted. “Considering the flashes of temper I’ve seen of late, I’m doubting that.”
“You just need to stop going all macho on me.” I drained my coffee then rose. “I do know what I’m doing.”
Most of the time, anyway, Belle all but drawled.
I grinned and didn’t deny it. Aiden picked up another piece of brownie and then stood. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a werewolf. Macho protectiveness comes with the territory.”
“Then expect a few more of those temper flashes, Ranger,” Belle said, amusement evident. “Where have you parked?”
“Out the front, just down the road.” He spun on his heel and led the way out of the café.
It took us just over an hour to get to Greenhill. Aiden slowed as he approached the small intersection that was basically the entirety of the town, and turned left after the pub. We drove for about a mile and then turned into a graveled, tree-lined driveway that swept up a long hill. The house—a white weatherboard with a tin roof that had seen better days—sat three-quarters of the way up the hill, but we didn’t stop, driving on through a couple of farm gates until we came to a massive old barn. One half of it was open on three sides, and stacked to the brim with hay. The other half was fully enclosed.
Aiden stopped near the hay and climbed out. “We found the body in the shed.”
“I couldn’t imagine a soucouyant hiding out with the hay.” My voice was dry. “To say that would not end well would be an understatement.”
“It would have been better the hay than the man.” Aiden led us around to the other side of the barn. “It was his poor wife who discovered him.”
“Is she okay?” I asked.
He half shrugged. “Unknown. She had a heart attack not long after she called us in, and is currently in a coma. The docs don’t know when or if she’ll recover.”
I didn’t say anything, because there was really no point. I didn’t know the family, but even if I did, I knew from experience that all the “sorries” in the world didn’t make a blind bit of difference.
We turned the barn’s corner and walked up to the old wooden doors that dominated the center of this section. Aiden pushed one of them open, then ducked under the police tape and disappeared inside. We followed.
Almost instantly, energy hit us.
And while some of it was simply the lingering heat of the soucouyant’s presence, the majority wasn’t.
There was a ghost here.
And it was in an almighty snit.