Ghost Falls (Haunted Souls #22)

1 Cope

October, present day…

Copeland Forbes was surrounded by chaos. Standing in the middle of his bedroom, he was trapped by four opened, half-packed suitcases, his husband, Jude, who was holding up shirts to his chest to ask which one Cope thought he should pack -his answer was neither- and their two kids. Wolf was jumping on the bed and singing a song about an alligator in an elevator, while Lizbet shut the top of Cope’s suitcase and screeched until he set her free. Repeatedly.

“Okay, everyone, out!”

Cope half-shouted.

“But we’re helping you, Daddy.”

Wolf’s bottom lip wobbled. If Cope didn’t act soon, his son would go into a full meltdown, which he knew Lizbet would copy.

“I understand that, but do you think you could be an awesome big brother and take your sister into your room and read her a story?”

Cope eyed his toddler who was playing peek-a-boo with Jude from inside the suitcase. “I could really use your help.”

“Okay! I love being your little helper!”

Wolf climbed off the bed and lifted the top of Lizbet’s hiding place. “Let’s go read books, LizzyB.”

“’Ooks!”

Lizbet clambered out of the suitcase, tripping over the handle and landed on her stomach. “Oopsie!”

She picked herself up and ran after Wolf.

“Now I can hear myself think,”

Cope muttered to himself.

“This place looks like a bomb went off in it.”

Jude surveyed the room. Stacks of clothes were everywhere, piled on the dressers, on the chair and spilling out of their closet.

“Be a good boy and help me get things organized, will you?”

Cope asked. He was reaching the end of his endurance. Earlier in the day he’d had readings with customers that left him feeling physically and mentally drained. One was the son of a harsh man, who only wanted to berate his son from beyond the grave and the second was with the daughter of a cancer patient who’d been in the ladies room when her mother passed. If they weren’t leaving for Canada in the morning, Cope would already be in bed for the night without having dinner.

“I love being your little helper!”

Jude said, echoing Wolf.

“Don’t you mean my big helper?”

Cope waggled his eyebrows. His eyes were glued to Jude’s crotch.

Jude grabbed a nearby pillow and held it over himself. “Don’t start distracting me now or we’ll never get this packing done. We’ve still got to feed our little Gremlins.”

As if on cue, Cope’s stomach rumbled. “Let’s just get pizza from Greek Life.”

“What, no salad?”

Jude asked, his eyes twinkling.

“I’m too tired to eat veggies or to try and make our kids eat them too. Just get a large pepperoni and bacon and call it a day.”

To be honest, Cope was hungry enough to eat a large pizza by himself. “Make that two and get some of those toasted ravioli’s Lizbet loves them.”

Jude snapped off a quick salute and reached for his phone. Cope listened while his husband ordered the pizza and a got some deep fried mozzarella to go along with the ravioli it. “Food will be here in half an hour. Let’s try to knock this out before then. I’ll pack Wolfie, you get Lizbet.”

“Deal,”

Cope agreed, even though packing for their eighteen month old daughter required two bags. One for clothes with accessories and a diaper bag with supplies and snacks for the plane. Thankfully, all of the supplies he needed were at hand. He’d done three loads of laundry last night. Now, it was just a matter of pulling clothes from the right piles situated around the master bedroom.

“How are you feeling about PsychicFest?”

Jude asked.

Cope had been so busy with work and laundry that he hadn’t had much of a chance to think about the actual reason they were going to Niagara Falls. “I’m excited to meet some of the other psychics that will be there. According to the festival’s website, there are also going to be vendors there, selling tarot cards, candles, and other magickal what-nots. Ten and I are interested in seeing if there are any new products we can add to the shop.”

“What about the people who will be there wanting readings?”

Jude asked, worrying his lower lip with his teeth. A sure sign he was nervous.

“That’s always the wild card, isn’t it? Everyone has camera phones now and everything I do this weekend will be recorded and scrutinized. Makes me miss the days of the old carnival psychics, with the damask fabrics covering the reading tables and gorgeous turbans and their trademark crystal balls.”

“Go through the list of events with me again.”

Jude counted out several shirts for Wolf and added them to his suitcase.

“Tomorrow night is the welcome reception for the psychics and vendors. There will be a dinner in the hotel’s ballroom. Thankfully, Kaye is coming and she can keep Lizbet and Ezra with her. I think Everly, Wolf, and Aurora are big enough to eat with us.”

“I love that Fitz and Aurora are coming on this trip.”

Jude grinned.

“Me too. I know he says he wants to be there for a little extra security if me or Ten needs it, but I think he’s got a little bit of FOMO.”

Cope laughed at the surprised look on Jude’s face.

“Can you blame him? I wouldn’t want to miss out on anything either.”

Jude started sorting through the stack of Wolf’s pants. “What’s next on the itinerary?”

“The first group readings are on Friday morning. According to what Ten told me, each group will have ten participants each. We’ll work with those people for an hour or so. Then we break for a few hours where we can eat or go back to our rooms, or walk the convention floor to see the vendor booths. We’ve got readings and photo ops in the afternoon and then a dinner with the fans that night. I think we’ll leave the kids with Kaye that night. I don’t really want them to be available to the public. Not that it will stop people from asking about them.”

Jude chuckled. “People are interested in kids because it’s common ground. It also shows they care about you by asking about your family.”

“I know,”

Cope agreed. “I just worry about people who have less than pure intentions toward them.”

Cope loved the idea of the kids coming with them on this trip. He hated being away from his son and daughter, but the last thing he wanted was people getting too close to them. If Fitz hadn’t asked to come along on this trip, Cope would have invited him. He felt much better knowing the police captain would be with them.

“I hear you and I know Ronan feels the same way,”

Jude agreed. “Okay, that’s it for Wolfie, except for his backpack for the plane. We’ll put his comfort items in it after breakfast.”

“I’m just about done with Lizbet too.”

Cope added two more sets of fleece pants to her suitcase.

“Why are you packing all that fleece? We’re going to Ontario, not the North Pole.”

“It’s Canada, Jude. It gets cold there.”

Cope rolled his eyes. Leave it to Jude to think he could go north of the border with only shorts and t-shirts.

“Alexa!”

Jude called out. “What’s the temperature at Niagara Falls tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, expect a high of seventy-five degrees with a low of fifty-nine degrees,”

the computer voice announced.

“High of seventy-five”

Jude picked up the fleece pants. “If you put Lizbet in these, she’ll melt like soft-serve in the hot sun and she’ll be just as sour.”

“Okay, I’ll take the fleece pants out of her suitcase. Why the hell is it so hot up there?”

“Uh, Niagara Falls is only five hundred miles west of here. They’re not that much further north than we are.”

“Yeah, but it’s Canada.”

Cope wondered why he thought Canada was much colder than New England.

“What, do you think it gets ice cold when you cross the border, like there’s some giant air conditioner that kicks in?”

Jude shook his head.

“I don’t know,”

Cope said feeling confused. “I just assumed it was so much colder there because of how far north they are.”

“Ontario isn’t in the Arctic Circle.”

Jude laughed. “I’m not going to need to protect you from ice floes and polar bears.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Cope asked.

“Very sure. The only bears that will be on the prowl at the Falls will be the kind with hairy chests, looking for someone to call them Daddy.”

Jude waggled his eyebrows. “Which is your cup of tea.”

“No, it’s not.”

Cope shook his head. He’d had a bit of a Daddy fetish in his early twenties, but chalked that up to having an awful relationship with his own father. He hadn’t been looking for a lover, so much as someone who’d be proud of him. “I’ve got more than I can handle with you.”

“Damn straight you do.”

Jude agreed, holding up a pair of bikini underwear. “You think now’s the time to pull out these bad boys?”

“Pull them out?”

Cope asked. “I’d be surprised if you can even get them on.”

They looked awfully small, and not because they were skimpy, but because his husband had put a little meat on his bones over the nearly seven years they’d been together.

“Oh, yeah?”

Jude hopped over Wolf’s suitcase to get to the bedroom door. He closed and locked it before yanking off his pants and boxers and slipping his feet into the bikini briefs. “See, what did I tell you?”

Jude had them pulled up to his knees.

“Keep going, cowboy.”

Cope would bet the house that those very brief briefs weren’t going to make it much higher. Especially since Jude was flying at full mast.

“I see you looking.”

Jude grinned. “You want me to leave them off altogether?”

“Later. I want to see you fit into those tiny drawers.” Cope

“Have it your way.”

Jude grabbed the waistband and pulled them up. It was smooth sailing until he reached mid-thigh. The briefs were stuck tight, like Pooh in Rabbit’s hole. “What the-”

Cope bit his lip to keep from laughing. The briefs were so tight around Jude’s legs that they’d gone white. Much more of that and his legs were going to fall asleep from lack of circulation.

“It’s called aging,”

Jude said, dryly. “This is what happens when men get older. We spread out.”

“No, it’s called pizza,”

Cope said, just before the doorbell rang. “A man your age can’t eat his weight in pizza every week and still stay the same size.”

Jude grimaced and tried to pry the underwear down his thighs. “Whatever. Go get the food,”

he grumbled.

“You’re still the sexiest idiot I know.”

Cope blew his husband a kiss and made his way around the suitcases to get out of the room. He knew Jude’s ego had been a bit bruised, but he’d be sure to make it up to him after the kids were in bed and the suitcases were fully packed.