The Haunting E-Book

Angel Rupert

• Herausgeber: Bentockiz
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The surprise on her face quickly turned to gratitude as she took the items and used them to catch his interest. Some things interested him for about thirty seconds, but one puzzle in particular seemed to hold his attention for almost fifteen minutes. That had to be some kind of record.

Leseprobe

Title Page

The Haunting

Passion and Promises

Angel Rupert

The Haunting / 3rd of series: Passion and Promises / By Angel Rupert

Published 2023 by Bentockiz

e-book Imprint: Calkden Norsh

e-book Registration: Stockholm, Sweden

e-book ISBN: 9789198848724

e-book editing: Athens, Greece

Cover Images created via AI art generators

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Introduction

Through books we come into contact with everything important that has happened in the past, analyzing also current events and putting our thoughts together to predict the future. The book is a window to the world, acquiring valuable knowledge and sparking our vivid imagination. It is a means of entertainment and is generally seen as a best friend, or as a slave that carries together all valuable information for us. The book is a friend who stays together without demands, a friend you call upon at every moment and abandon when you want.

It accompanies us in the hours of boredom and loneliness, while at the same time it entertains us. In general, a book does not ask anything from us, while it waits patiently on a dusty shelf to give us its information, to get us out of dead ends and to travel us to magical worlds.

This may be the travel mission of our books. Abstract narration, weird or unconscious thoughts difficult to be understood, but always genuine and full of life experiences, these are stories of life that can’t be overlooked easily.

This may be the start of something amazing!

Chapter One

I didn’t hear anything else the whole way back to the elevator. Ian planned to keep me on. To say that I was thrilled was a major understatement. I was ecstatic. In my mind, I was already figuring out what I had at the apartment that I could bring to decorate my office area.

Since there wasn’t a window, I thought I would add a mirror. Remembering the mirror from my parents’ foyer, I decided to bring that and maybe the table that had been sitting under it as well as the rug. All of them were currently residing in the corner of my apartment bedroom because, while I hadn’t been able to part with them, they were too big to actually use in our tiny foyer.

At that point, I realized that I’d always loved the feel and cohesiveness of that specific part of the house, which would explain why I’d taken almost everything in the foyer, including the greenery.

I’ll recreate the welcoming and homey feel of my parents’ foyer, I decided in satisfaction.

“...Shannon...earth to Shannon...” Eric said breaking into my thoughts as we arrived at the elevators.

I hadn’t even noticed entering the building, so hard was I concentrating on my list of possible decorations.

“Oh, sorry; I was just thinking.”

“Takes a lot of concentration,” Derek teased, “and can get you into trouble if you’re not careful.”

“Don’t I know it,” I acknowledged with a laugh.

“You could have walked off the edge of the earth and not even noticed.”

“Good thing I had you watching out for me.”

“Always,” Eric assured me. “Speaking of which, we’ll see you tomorrow at nine forty-five...? Seeing as how the fifteen minutes early thing worked today; not a sign of Ben.”

“Yay for us! Sounds good; see you then.”

“Ben...?” Ian questioned as we stepped into our elevator. “Who’s Ben?”

“Just some guy that gets coffee around the same time we used to do it.”

“Ah...I wondered about the time change. You’re not interested in this Ben character...?”

“No.”

“Fair enough. So, I’m guessing you didn’t hear my original question...? That must have been some deep thinking that you were doing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry; it really wasn’t all that deep. I was just excited that you weren’t going to fire me and I was plotting how to decorate my part of the office. Would you mind repeating your question?”

“I asked what you planned to do with used coffee grounds.”

“Oh, that...well, I’m going to dye some fabric.”

“That’s what Eric said, but he didn’t know why you needed dyed fabric. That is, if you don’t mind sharing.”

“It’s for sewing.”

“You sew?”

As the elevator door slid open, I debated how much to tell him. Part of me wanted to blurt out the whole thing, but I wasn’t ready to let anyone at work in on the secret yet. Not until I got approval from Ms. Watkins to tell people.

“I do,” I said, finally deciding on saying as little as possible for the time being. “Thanks for carrying those for me. If you’ll just set them on my desk, I’ll give you the coffee to take to the others.”

After placing the cans on the desk, he turned and silently took the carrier from me. I could see the question in his eyes, but he let it go.

“I enjoyed the coffee run,” he said instead.

“Yeah, the guys are great company.”

“Do you mind that I joined the three of you?”

“The more the merrier.”

“Good to know,” he murmured as he moved to the keypad and punched in his code.

I stood staring after him for a full five minutes before the phone rang and shook me out of my daze.

“Time to get to work, since I still have a job,” I murmured as I sat at my desk and picked up the phone. “Geeks’ office, this is Shannon. Can I help you?”

Although I waited, stalling as long as I could after five, Ian never came back through my office. All of the others left promptly on time, but no Ian.

Sighing in resignation, I finally decided it was no use and, after gathering my things, I picked up my coffee cans and left.

Once I reached the reception area downstairs, the afterhour’s security people stopped me to examine the contents of the cans as well as my bag and cooler, but Ian still hadn’t materialized by the time they let me leave at 5:30. For a second, I wondered why security would insist on checking my things leaving, but not going in. Instead of trying to figure it out, I just shrugged it off. Focusing on anything seemed too much of an effort.

I was so distracted that I forgot to change my shoes until I’d walked a block and realized my feet were aching. Finding the nearest bench, I switched out my shoes before finishing the long walk back to our apartment.

Even though I’d hoped to shake off my weird mood on the way home, that didn’t happen. Mrs. Dooley informed me that the fabric would be arriving on Saturday, and I tried to whip up some enthusiasm for our Merino wool plan, but Mrs. Dooley knew something was up; it was useless to try to hide anything from her.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand,” she said.

“It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, I just don’t understand what ‘it’ is exactly.”

“Is that boy Ben bothering you again?”

“Only during the morning coffee run; we changed our schedule and avoided him this afternoon.”

“Well, that’s good. So, something at work...?”

“I met the last Geek today.”

“And...?”

“And he was about my age, maybe a couple of years older, and he...well...he...”

“Ah...you were attracted to him.”

“Yes,” I admitted in a miserable tone.

“Then why do you sound as if the world is coming to an end?”

“Because I think maybe he was avoiding me at quitting time.”

“Why would you think that?”

“All the others left at five, but I...okay I have to admit, I stalled for a bit to see if he was just late leaving, but he never showed.”

“I know you can’t tell me anything specific about him, but I’m going to assume he’s been gone and that’s why you hadn’t met him before today...?”

“Good assumption.”

“Maybe he had a lot of work to catch up on.”

“Huh...I never thought about that.”

“So, you see, you might be overreacting.”

“I suppose.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“The problem is, he doesn’t...well...he doesn’t look at me like other guys do.”

“Like you’re their favorite German Chocolate cake and they haven’t eaten in a year...?”

“Something like that.”

“You don’t think he’s attracted to you, but you want him to be.”

“I can’t help it. I know it would be better for my job security if he’s not, but he’s so distracting I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid and then disappoint all my Geeks and then I’ll get fired and then...”

“Take a breath, Shannon.”

“Sorry, I just haven’t ever felt this way about anybody before. I mean, we...we just met. How could I be so attracted to someone I just met? And then he went with us on the afternoon coffee run and it got even worse because I think I actually like him. I mean, with Lance, there was nothing about him that I actually found...well...likeable. Lance had nothing going for him other than his looks, which were striking, but I was only a little attracted to him. Ian is...is...I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s not bad looking and has stunning emerald green eyes and his body is perfectly proportioned...”

“Which is important to you because that’s how you see people...”

“For better or worse, it’s true.”

“But...?”

“But he’s not knock-me-down gorgeous like Lance was so I don’t get the difference.”

“It’s not always about looks, Shannon. True attraction can be about a lot of things.”

“I don’t suppose any of it matters anyway.”

“Why not?”

“He’s way way way too smart for me and probably too smart to want anything to do with me. Sure guys think I’m ‘hot’, but that won’t be enough for someone like him. Eric and Derek said that he’s a bona fide genius. Nobody like that is going to want a relationship with someone as stupid as I am.”

“You’re smart, too, Shannon; just in a different way.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Smart is smart and stupid is stupid and I think you and I both know which category I fall into.”

“I think this would be a good time to tell you about my late husband, Adam, if you don’t mind.”

“Really...? I mean, sure...it’s just that you’ve never talked about him before.”

“There wasn’t any reason to and it always makes me sad so I avoid the subject for the most part. Anyway, long story short, my husband was a civil engineer when we met and during his vacations, he would go on mission trips to help bring water and The Word to the people in various parts of Africa. A couple of months after we married, he went on one more...one he had already committed to doing. He’d made promises and he always tried to honor his promises. Unfortunately, he contracted the Ebola virus and died.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“I hadn’t finished college yet, Adam was paying my way through, but I didn’t have the heart to go back right away so I just sat in our apartment and cried most of the time. Eventually, the money began to run out and I realized I would need a job. That’s how I ended up working for your parents and meeting you. Now, this is the part I want you to pay particularly close attention to because I think it applies in your situation, also.”

“I’m listening.”