Read The Dead Tell (Magical Temptations Collection) for Free Online

their relationship was or wasn ’t or what it might be. For now, he was here, she was here, she’d keep it simple.
    She pulled away from his kiss.
    “ I don’t communicate.”
    He only arched a brow. “And this is news how?”
    “ I meant with the ghosts. I don’t communicate with them.”
    “ Really?” He studied her for a moment then laid back down, wrapping his arms around her. “How do you figure?”
    “ Well, they don’t always listen to me, you know.”
    “ Mmmm.”
    “ Well, they don’t. I don’t know how to explain it, but they just don’t. Sometimes I don’t actually hear them. It’s more like…” She sighed and wondered how to get him to understand. “More like static on a radio turned low. I know they’re trying, but for some reason I can’t hear them.” Sometimes they screamed at her, yelled, attacked, but she didn’t want to tell him about that.
    For several minutes they both lay quietly, his hand rubbing absently up and down her arm.
    “Medicated?” he asked quietly.
    She stiffened.
    “Babe.”
    “ My family, or what I remember of them, they didn’t want to hear about my friends. I used to call them my friends back when I was little. I remember I even named them. They came all the time. But then sometimes they weren’t always good.” She shivered remembering one black entity that would wait until she was asleep and scare the beejesus out of her.
    “ Anyway, when I got older, before they died, my mother took me to a shrink here in New Orleans. I don’t remember his name, and it’s not important.” She took a deep breath.
    “ After. After when I moved, with the foster family, or the first one anyway, I kept waiting to see them. To see Mom and my little sister and my dad. But I never saw them. They never visited me. I don’t know why, maybe it’s a rule or something.” She shrugged. “My foster family was not open-minded. They got me a shrink that put me on meds so I wouldn’t see the others anymore.” She shivered. “But mostly I didn’t take them and then I became a problem a kid, so they didn’t want to deal with me. I was sent back, at least, until another family tried. Then I got committed. I wouldn’t sleep because their house was haunted and not with a nice ghost. He was mean.” She stopped.
    “ How old were you?” Mike asked her after a bit.
    “ At that point, ten.”
    He rolled so that he was leaning over her and cupped her jaw. “Ten? They committed you at ten?”
    “ Well, in their defense, I was abrasive, didn’t want to be hugged or held, I didn’t want to eat, I rarely slept and when I did I usually woke up screaming the house down. When people asked what was wrong, if someone was hurting me, bothering me, I told them the truth. My parents told me to always tell the truth, so I did. I didn’t learn at the last home. So, long story short, they sent me to get help.”
    “ Baby.” He kissed her forehead.
    “ It was a long time ago. I realized if I took my meds, the scary man left me alone. And then I told them through the long months of therapy that I didn’t remember. I gave them a reason they could deal with, that I missed my mom and dad, my family. I went along when they said these were creations of my imagination to help me deal with losing my family. Basically, I lied.”
    He grinned and she gave him a small smile. “I learned to hide what I saw, what I heard, to just… I don’t know, ignore. And I did a great job from twelve until eighteen when I moved back here and my roommate ending up being Sammy.”
    “ Can’t hide much from her.”
    “ Well, either that or my walls started to crumble. I’d always wanted to come back here, ya know? This is home, was the only real home I knew. The different foster family I had, they were nice, but I never fit in. Here… well…”
    “ Different fits in just fine here, darlin’,” he said, his deep voice rumbling through her.
    “ Yeah, it does. So ever since then, I’ve seen things, not all