by Terry Spear
Ghosts might not be able to tell time, but as wolves, they sure were as perceptive as ever. “He worried about me. He’d asked me to see if you were there and try to learn what we needed to do to help you move on. Everyone has been after him to tear down the old house. You might have noticed all the danger signs posted on the property. Anyway, I said I would see if you were there and try to help him talk to you. I just did that with one of the miners. He’d been trapped down there nearly as long as you have been trapped at your home.”
“But you couldn’t free Oliver.”
“He wants to see his mother.”
“The old bag,” Lena said with disgust.
“I can’t imagine anything worse than…” Meghan quit speaking. She was thinking that being entombed in the cave was really bad, but Lena had suffered just as much. “Well, than being stuck in a place you want to be freed from so badly and have no way out unless someone can help you.”
“Like you want to help me?” Lena turned to face Meghan. “You’re the reason Peter’s destroying the house! You thought you could get rid of me, didn’t you? So you told him I’m the one who wanted him to tear it down! You thought I was stuck to the house, and then when it was gone, I’d have to leave. Didn’t you?”
“No. It has to be done, whether you’re living there or not. What do you want anyway? If others died in the house because it collapsed on them, would you think you’d have people to visit with? You’d no longer be alone?” Meghan wasn’t sure what was going through the woman’s head.
Lena’s face was scrunched up in annoyance.
“What if you didn’t like your new houseguests?” Meghan figured Lena would be territorial and not like them invading her privacy. It was one thing to see people wandering through her house, another for ghosts to actually move in with her.
Lena lifted her chin. “Maybe they wouldn’t have any stake in staying there and just move on.”
“You still would be the one responsible for their deaths. And they could make your…um, life a living hell. Would you want that?” Meghan wasn’t sure Lena would care. Unless the ghosts disturbed her “peace.” Who knew who she’d end up with as permanent houseguests. “Peter needs to do this for the safety of the pack and anyone who chances to come upon the place in their travels.” It’s not just about you, Meghan wanted to say.
Her phone rang, and she grabbed it up, glanced at the caller ID, and sighed. Peter. He must have been worried about her when she didn’t call him back right away. “Hi, Tom, love you, honey. I’m fine. I wish I could crawl into bed with you right this very moment.” She tried to ignore the way Lena was staring at her, as if she shouldn’t be mentioning such a thing when other people were present. But Meghan was in the privacy of her guest room, and Lena wasn’t an invited roommate.
“Hey, honey, are you sure you’re okay?” Peter sounded concerned.
“Yeah, I was just talking to Lena.” Meghan wasn’t sure why she mentioned the business with Oliver with Peter next. Maybe because Lena was going to be a real nuisance in their lives if Meghan couldn’t find a way to make her leave. “Hey, did you know that she was friends with Oliver?”
There was complete silence on the other end.
Meghan raised a brow. “So…you knew.” And it sounded like a bone of contention between Lena and Peter. Not that Oliver had been courting Lena before she began seeing Peter. Meghan should have questioned Peter about Oliver and the woman he loved! But then, oh, God, poor Peter. She was certain it was something Peter wouldn’t want anyone else in the pack to know. That his mate had loved another wolf.
“Yes, Tom knew about it. Everybody did,” Lena said, sounding exasperated with her.
“She says everyone knew she was seeing Oliver. So what was that all about? Seems I’m the only one who doesn’t know about this.” And maybe it was significant. Meghan never knew when a bit of history could play an important role in a ghost’s moving on.
“No one knew Lena was seeing Oliver after we mated each other but me. She’s talking about before we mated. And yes, he’d been courting her before I started courting her. She didn’t get along with Clementine. She thought Lena was too snooty, too educated. Her family had the shop in town. They were wealthy merchants. The Frasers were poor miners.”
“Ah, okay. So her parents wouldn’t have liked it either.”
Lena snorted. Meghan took that as a confirmation.
“But they wouldn’t have been happy with…” Meghan almost said you. She cleared her throat. “Um, with Peter either, since he was a poor hunter.”
“They weren’t,” Peter said. “She finally stood up to them and said no one in the pack would be good enough for her parents.”
Lena said, “I wasn’t about to become an old maid because my parents didn’t think that anyone in the pack was good enough for me. Boy, did I make a mistake.”
Meghan assumed Lena meant she’d made a mistake in mating Peter when Oliver could have been her mate and protected her better. Meghan practically bit her tongue before she said anything she regretted. Oliver was probably working in the mine at the time.
Meghan frowned at Lena. She was staring out the window again. Meghan sensed something more hadn’t been right between Lena and Peter. That the animosity Lena felt for Peter was for more than him not having been there to protect her. What if they’d had words before he left? Meghan had found that couples who had fought each other before one of them had died would often regret their final parting words, and the spirit of the dead partner could linger.
“Did you and Peter have a fight when he left that day to go out and hunt?”
Lena didn’t answer her, and Peter was just as silent. Jeez, folks! Stuff like that could mean the difference between a spirit moving on and one who was stuck there permanently. But Meghan realized she couldn’t ask Peter about it because she was supposed to be talking to Tom, and he probably wouldn’t have known. Unless Peter had talked to him about it later. “Did Peter ever mention to you that he and Lena had fought before he left her that fateful day, Tom?”
“What difference does it make?” Lena asked angrily.
It could make all the difference in the world.
“Did they?” Meghan asked Peter again when he didn’t answer her the first time.
“Yeah.” His voice was rough with emotion.
“Okay, about what?”
“She wanted all the finery her parents had. They could afford it. I couldn’t. I was doing everything I could to earn the money to get her what she wanted, but she always wanted more. She was always perusing the catalogs, looking to buy all kinds of unnecessary stuff. We needed the essentials back then. Food to sustain us, money to pay the taxes on the place, and building materials to maintain the house. But it was never enough. That morning, she told me either to bring in enough money so she could buy some nice things, or to never come back.”
“You were mated wolves,” Meghan said softly.
“What?” Lena asked.
“Um, you and Peter,” Meghan said to Lena. “You were mated wolves.” Meghan quickly had to correct her mistake. Trying to pretend she was talking to Tom and not Peter was a bigger problem than she had thought it would be.
“So the light just came on? What have we been talking about all along?” Lena sniped.
“I stayed away that night and went farther than I had ever gone to hunt. I sold the meat to families and furs to anyone who could use them to make coats back then. But I wasn’t finding much to hunt closer to our land. I always tried to get home by a decent hour so she wouldn’t be home alone at night. She was used to the city life and was afraid to be alone out in the country. I was determined to bring in more money this time, even if it meant leaving her there by herself overnight,” Peter finally said.
“And that’s why you…Peter was so disconsolate about losing Lena. If…he hadn’t traveled farther and had come home that night, h
e could have killed the man before he hurt her.”
Lena looked gloomy and sat down on a high-backed chair in the guest room.
“Yes,” Peter said.
So Peter had felt it was his fault for listening to an unreasonable wife and not having been there for her when he should have just set his foot down and he would have been there that night. But that showed how much he had tried to please her, even though Meghan suspected he would never have made enough money to make Lena happy.
“Okay, so Peter didn’t return that night, and you were scared?” Meghan asked Lena.
“Of course not.” Lena was haughty when she answered.
“Not until the man broke into the house?” Meghan asked her.
Lena looked away.
Peter cleared his throat. “I don’t know if she’ll tell you the truth or not. I hadn’t planned to tell a living soul because both people who were involved are now dead, so what difference does it make now? But Oliver had been at the house while I was gone.”
Oh. My. God. That is huge, Meghan wanted to tell Peter.
“Oliver came to visit you while Peter was away,” Meghan said to Lena.
Lena’s eyes widened, and she looked ready to faint. “Whoever said that lies. I am a married woman. I can’t believe you’d accuse me of something like that.”
“Peter told Tom about it. Peter smelled Oliver had been there.”
“Multiple times,” Peter said. “And yes, we fought about it.”
“Multiple times,” Meghan said for Lena’s benefit. She guessed at the next part. “Oliver was a frequent visitor at your home while Peter was away trying to earn enough money to support you. Your home was out in the woods, isolated from the pack, and it gave Oliver the perfect place to see you. You should have realized Peter would know what was going on between the two of you. Unless you didn’t care.” Meghan realized the very prim and proper, very Victorian she-wolf wasn’t as goody-two-shoes as she was trying to let on. Peter had to have been upset about what was going on. Meghan hated that she’d had to bring it up now. She couldn’t help looking at Oliver in a different light either.
“Okay, so Lena was having an affair with Oliver,” Meghan said to Peter, watching Lena’s face turn red.
“That’s not true! We were just friends. Yes, he came out and visited me when he wasn’t working in the mine. I would have mated him first. But I didn’t. My dad would have cut me off from my inheritance if I had. He didn’t say he would if I mated Peter. I guess Dad knew that before long I was going to do what I wanted if he kept saying no to my choice of mate.”
“You kept seeing Oliver because he was your one true love, but you want to punish Peter for not being there for you when the attack occurred. Why didn’t Oliver save you?” He should have been the one to do so if that’s how Lena felt about the two men!
“I was mated to Peter, and Oliver only came by for some tea and then he left. If he’d stayed, he would have protected me like my mate should have.”
“But Oliver didn’t stay because he thought Peter was coming home that night, right?” Meghan asked Lena.
Lena looked sulky but didn’t respond.
“All right. Fine.” Meghan said to Peter, “Tom, can you ask Peter to come over to CJ and Laurel’s house to speak with me? I’ll be waiting in the living room.” Whether Lena would appear to her there or talk at all didn’t matter. Meghan needed to speak with Peter about this, person to person. And she suspected Lena wouldn’t be able to resist being there.
“What do you think you’re going to do?” Peter asked.
“The two of…um, them need to forgive each other and themselves. And mean it.” Meghan knew that wouldn’t be easy, maybe impossible. She wouldn’t blame Peter for having regrets. No one wanted to be second best.
“All right. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Peter ended the call.
“Okay, I’m talking to Peter downstairs. You can come, or you can just…disappear. But if you want to speak to him, I’ll help you to say whatever you want to tell him.” Meghan hoped Lena would give this a chance.
“Everything? You didn’t last time. You didn’t want to ‘hurt’ him.”
“I think we’re beyond that at this point. Say what you will, and he can respond.” Meghan truly felt if they could clear the air, maybe this would finish this business between them, and Lena could leave here in peace. And Peter could finally give up the ghost.
Meghan headed downstairs and waited for Peter to arrive, turning on the Christmas tree lights for a bit of cheer. Lena didn’t follow her.
When Meghan heard a soft knock on the door, she hurried to look out the peephole. Peter was standing on the doorstep, looking as tired as she felt.
She opened the door and heard a creaking on the stairs and turned to look. CJ was peering at the two of them from the stairs. “Just checking to make sure everything is okay.”
“Yeah, thanks, CJ. Peter and I were just going to have a little talk.”
“Okay. See you in the morning.” CJ tromped back up the stairs.
Peter looked like he wanted to pull Meghan into his arms and hug her, just as much as she wanted to do that with him.
Lena appeared next to Meghan, folded her arms, and said, “All right, let’s begin.”
Chapter 25
Peter couldn’t believe all this crap with Oliver was being dredged up now. It had hurt back then, but Peter had kept it secret from everyone, telling Lena he never wanted her to see Oliver again. But when Peter left to do his work, Oliver managed to see her whenever he could. A year of marriage, and she hadn’t even had the decency to stay away from Oliver during that first year. Yet Peter had loved her and had hoped she’d give Oliver up. He’d even fought with Oliver twice about it, still trying to keep the affair secret from the pack. He sure hadn’t wanted Meghan to learn of it. It was the past, and he thought he’d buried it with Lena. But now it was coming back to haunt him.
He’d so wanted to hug Meghan and kiss her and let her know that things would be different between them. He knew it with all his heart. He’d wanted to remember Lena as sweet and innocent, like when he’d first met her. She’d soon shattered the image when he learned she was seeing Oliver on the sly. Were they having sex? Not in their lumpy bed at least. And Peter hadn’t wanted to know for sure.
Now, he watched Meghan sit on a chair in the living room. She motioned for him to take a seat on the sofa so he was near her, but not as close as if they’d been sitting together on the sofa. He was annoyed with himself that he had to put on this charade about not being Meghan’s mate, but he did worry about her well-being.
“Lena’s standing beside my chair,” Meghan said.
“Okay, I guess I’ll start this. Yes, Lena and I had a fight first thing that morning. I was angry. I knew Oliver had been at the house again the day before, drinking and eating at the place. Who knew what else.”
Meghan glanced in the direction Lena was supposed to be standing, as if giving her the opportunity to rebut what Peter had accused her of.
Meghan again looked at Peter and nodded. So Lena wasn’t going to deny it.
“We fought about having kids. I told her point-blank I didn’t want to have any while she was seeing Oliver. I didn’t want to be second-guessing if they were mine or his.”
Meghan glanced at Lena and then said, “She said it wasn’t an issue. You were just angry she was seeing Oliver. She hadn’t wanted kids either.”
“All right, fair enough. We fought about the issue of money again. She wanted all brand-new furniture. Some places were offering credit. I said no. We always paid as we went. We didn’t need the furniture. And we sure as hell didn’t need to be in debt.”
“We did too need the furniture,” Meghan said to Peter, relaying Lena’s words. “You knew I couldn’t entertain my parents or any friends I made because of how shabby everything looked. That’s why I
didn’t socialize.”
“You were shy, unsociable. You didn’t attend many pack functions unless I dragged you to them. Your parents were the opposite. They went to everything as a way to promote their business. I didn’t realize you were so”—moneygrubbing, Peter wanted to say—“fashion-conscious when I asked you to mate me.”
He’d been blinded by her simple beauty and soft-spoken ways and the way she had seemed to adore him. But her sweetness had been something her mother had taught her to show when trying to catch a mate. Even in bed, she’d been unwilling to remove their clothes, and she’d acted like the sex was just an obligation she had to get over with quickly. Had she and Oliver been together naked when he had sex with her? Was it wild and passionate like Peter had hoped for with her?
“Okay, so I’m curious. Did you sleep with Oliver naked? You wouldn’t with me.”
Meghan’s eyebrows shot up. Then she frowned at Lena. “All right, she said we’re here to discuss your behavior, not hers.”
“Like hell we are. It goes both ways.”
“Oliver would have put the furniture on credit.”
“The two of you were discussing what a lousy provider I was? Oliver wasn’t making as much money as I was. He was just telling you what you wanted to hear. You would have always wanted more.” Peter sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry for not being there for you.”
“You wanted me dead,” Meghan said softly.
“No, never. I wanted things to be right between us.” Peter had known they never would be. Even if Oliver had died first, she would always have wanted him. He just knew he’d made a mistake and hoped she would grow out of her obsession with Oliver and make the most of what they had.