Jillian Chantal

This week the authors of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt steady. I am back in a story I have a deadline on even though I’m not really feeling the muse, but deadlines are deadlines. This is a paranormal and we pick up where the heroine thinks she’s coming to save the hero but she’s been being terrorized on her ride to the mansion in the rain. I shared some of this in the fall and you may or may not remember it.

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Max stared out the window that had water streaming down the glass in rivulets. He could barely see Stella standing there. She was screaming loud enough to wake the people in the next county. He couldn’t understand what was possessing her or even why she was on the porch. Didn’t she say she was never coming back here?

At least she was a diversion from sitting in the dark where he’d dozed off for the last few hours. His body ached from having fallen asleep with his arms on the table. He tried to unlatch the window since he couldn’t find the keys to the deadbolt on the front door. Where did I see them last?

She kept banging on the pane so hard he was sure it was going to shatter inside the room and cut him. What was she all fired up about? Weird.

He finally got the latch turned—it was almost like someone had painted it shut—and as he pulled the tall French window toward him, Stella leaned against it. She tumbled into the room, a wet, sodden mess, and took him down to the floor with her. A bag landed with a thump beside them.

“Good grief. What are you doing here and why are you terrorizing me at this late hour?” He gently removed her body from his person and rolled out of her way.

Standing, he shook out his polo shirt to dry to get the dampness off it. “I thought you were done with this house and yet here you are.”

“Shut that window. I made a salt barrier, but whoever it is can still get in.”

“Salt barrier?” Max shook his head. This poor woman needed help in a bad way.

She struggled to her feet using the leg of one of the wing back chairs as leverage. She seemed a little wobbly and unable to steady herself  

When she seemed to have her balance, she dashed to the window and tried to slam it shut, but the wind grabbed hold of it. Max could tell she would never have the strength to close it herself.

Heaving a big sigh, he made his way to her side and pushed the thing flush with the facing. The lock closed with a snick and he turned to face her with his back to the outside world. “Care to enlighten me about why you’re here and making such a fuss?”