by Ann Charles
But something had me feeling a little confused. “Why are you helping me with this?”
A couple of days ago, he was trying to wrangle a promise from me to walk away from the Carharts.
“If I ask you to stop, will you?”
“Probably not.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Does that mean you’re going to help me?”
His lazy grin resurfaced. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“How full your dance card is.”
My gaze narrowed. Was Doc saying what I think he was? More of him on a regular basis? Just the thought made me feel sucker-punched, all winded and warm. I must be reading him wrong.
“I think I have some room on it.” Which was a way more cool-cat answer than jumping into his arms and screaming, “Take me! I’m yours!” Which was my first instinct.
Doc ran his finger along my jaw, cupping my chin, gently forcing me to lock eyes. “Make more room, Boots. Lots more.”
The door flew open. Doc stepped back just in time. Layne entered the room and, after a brief scrutiny of us, dropped back into his seat. Doc returned to the table, joining him.
I blew out a breath, clearing ribbon-carrying bluebirds from my vision, and tried to focus on the article. A quick scan later, I noted Wanda and Millie’s names, and Lila’s, too. The story was plain and simple—an unhappy, violent end to a pair of unhappy, violent men. But while Lila appeared in the picture of the mournful leftovers, I wasn’t buying her crocodile tears. Maybe it was the sultry pout or her outlined lips; something just wasn’t right.
I leaned forward, staring at a mark visible above the low-cut neckline of her dress, just above her left breast—a tattoo. Of what, though? It looked like a pair of curled horns on the head of a pig melting into a goat. What the hell? Not exactly the cute little heart or rose most women prefer. I zoomed in until the picture blurred, but I still couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.
The door pushed open and Addy bebopped into the room, giggling, carrying a book on frogs. Kelly followed. Addy stopped short when she saw Doc, then smiled wide. “Oh, hi, Doc.”
Addy and Doc had a history involving chicken feathers and spilled secrets—namely mine, dumped from her lips into Doc’s ear. Addy hadn’t seen Doc in a couple of weeks, but based on her toothy smile for him, she didn’t seem to hold his temporary withdrawal from her life against him. Unlike her mother.
“Hello, Addy.” Doc nodded at Kelly, then turned back to Addy. “How’s the arm?”
Addy rubbed her cast-covered arm, her dimples showing. “Itchy. Do you want to sign it? I have to wear it for one more week.”
“Of course. You have a marker?”
“Mom does, don’t you?”
I fished for one in my bag and held it out to her. She bounced from me to him, holding her dirty purple cast out toward him.
He scribbled something and handed me back my marker. “You two staying out of trouble these days?”
“Yeah. Mom has us in lockdown. She says she’s rebuked our right to freedom and liberty for all.”
Revoked, actually, but I didn’t want to correct her in front of Doc. I hit the Print button so I could study the Carhart article and picture more later. Maybe I could find something on the Internet that matched the tattoo.
“She sounds like a real dictator,” Doc said, his grin taunting me.
“Totally. She needs a man.”
I rolled my eyes. Addy was channeling Natalie again.
“No, she doesn’t,” Layne piped up. “She has me.”
“You don’t even have a job, Layne.”
Time to play referee. “Adelynn, that’s enough.”
“I can take care of Mom.” Layne wasn’t done.
“You’re just a kid,” Addy said. “Mom needs a real man. Someone who will take care of her when she’s hurt.”
And so it began, the same argument we went through every night. Having Doc witness it, though, made me squirm in my chair. “Knock it off, you two.”
Kelly cleared her throat. “My dad told Uncle Joe he’d like to take care of your mom.”
Somehow, I didn’t think Addy and Jeff Wymonds were talking about giving me the same type of “care.”
“Really?” Addy asked, smiling innocently at me as if she hadn’t been trying to shove Jeff down my throat for the last couple of weeks. “How cool would that be, Mom?”
Not cool. I avoided Doc’s gaze and squirmed some more. Very not cool. I had to step carefully here, not wanting to hurt Kelly’s feelings about her father.
“Kelly and I would be sisters,” Addy continued as I searched for a polite way to yell, Hell, no!
“I think it’s a bad idea.” Layne came to my rescue. “He’ll just want her to have more babies.”
I coughed. I couldn’t help it. Just the thought of getting pregnant cinched up my esophagus in a tight little corset and made breathing painful.
“Come on, guys. Let’s talk about this some other time,” I said, wheezing slightly. A time when Doc wasn’t sitting in on the conversation, laughing into his fist. I nailed him with a glare, damning him for enjoying my predicament.
“Babies are cute,” Addy said. “I think you should go out on a date with Kelly’s dad.”
Layne crossed his arms. “I don’t.”
“Me, either,” Doc spoke up, silencing the crowd. “Her dance card is already full.”
“What’s a dance card?” Addy asked, watching Doc closely.
Addy was no amateur. She’d been training to be a cupid for years, soliciting men as father figures since she’d shucked her diaper. The last thing I needed right now was Addy tuning into anything going on between Doc and me—not with her inability to keep a secret, and not while Natalie was within a hundred-mile radius.
“Ask me again when you turn eighteen.” Needing a diversion, fast, I scooped up my purse and asked, “Who wants ice cream?”
Chapter Ten
Monday, August 6th
Dawn arrived with a bang—which turned out to be Harvey’s old green pickup backfiring. Apparently, he’d spent the night over at Ms. Geary’s place again, which surprised me fully awake because I figured he’d be preoccupied with Claudette Perkins all night. I stumbled into the shower, determined to scrub away all thoughts of Harvey playing slap and tickle with either woman.
Pink skinned, I ate my breakfast standing at the counter, as usual, but alone in the early morning quiet. Well, alone except for the chicken clucking and pecking at the back door to be let out.
I spread Doc’s copy of the Karen Snarky article on the counter. Another scan through it confirmed that I hadn’t missed anything when I’d read it late last night after the kids went to bed. It was the age-old story of Romeo and Juliet, only instead of Romeo drinking poison and lying down next to Juliet, he stabbed her twice in the gut and then popped a cap in his own skull. Love sure could be twisted.
Unfortunately, this article didn’t seem to tie the present and past deaths. The Snarky murder was just another tragedy wedged in the tread of time.
I checked my cell phone before heading out into the cruel world; three messages awaited. The first was from Zelda. She’d called in the middle of the night, sounding a little slurred while a cacophony of shouts and exhaust-pipe rumbles filled the background. She wanted to buy the Carhart house.
My heart galloped.
The second call was from Zelda again, thirty minutes later, still buffeted by noisy bedlam, her voice less slurred. She “might” want to put an offer on the Carhart house, “if Zeke agrees when he comes out of the ring.”
Ring? My heart slowed to a canter.
The last call had come in another forty-five minutes later. Zelda again, no slurring, the background muffled, a toilet flushing in the middle of her message. Zeke and she “would consider” putting an offer on the Carhart house if I were to provide a semi-thorough history on the house, including details on the ghost that supposedly haunted it.
My hea
rt stopped to graze on a patch of thistles. Crud.
That’s what I got for going along with the locals’ rumors and bragging to Zelda that the house was haunted. Now I had to prove it if I wanted to unload the place before my ghost-loving reputation took more hits.
I stepped out into the bright morning sunshine and winced at the glare. After a grumble and a couple of middle-finger salutes aimed at the sphere of fire in the sky, I fumbled for my sunglasses and keys. The Bronco seemed twice as loud in the already-warm pine-scented air.
Motorcycles filled the streets, black leather overflowed onto the sidewalks, and chrome ricocheted blinding rays at every turn. Sturgis biker days had officially started. My wait for lattes at the Tin Cup Café took twenty minutes longer than usual amid the blended smells of leather and steamed coffee grounds.
I zigzagged through back streets over to the parking lot behind Calamity Jane Realty, passing Doc’s Camaro parked blocks from its usual parking place. What was his car doing over here? The hotel where he’d been living for months was on the other side of town.
I parked next to Mona’s SUV and crossed the lot to the back door, playing pack-mule with the lattes, my tote, and purse. Jane’s light was on, her door open, her fruity floral and vanilla scented perfume playing hostess at the threshold. I knocked on the doorframe and then noticed she had the phone cradled to her neck. She waved me in.
I’d hoped to get a moment with her to bribe her with her favorite latte and ask about the Carhart house’s history. But judging from the deep wrinkles cutting into her lips and the notes she was fiercely scribbling, fun with Jane would have to happen another day. I set her coffee on the desk and tiptoed out front.
Mona’s clacking paused when I placed her drink in front of her. “Have I told you lately that I love you?” she sang, then added, “I owe you.”
“Yes, you do. The bikers are in town.”
“How long did you have to wait?”
“For clear left turns, a parking spot at the Tin Cup, or the latte itself?”
“Okay, so I really owe you.” Mona sipped on her drink. “Mmmm, delicious. Which reminds me of something else tasty—Deadwood’s one and only sexy Detective Cooper stopped in this morning to see you.”
That made my heart quake. I didn’t like Cooper looking for me, especially when he knew I was getting nosy about the Carharts. “What did he want?”
“Just to let you know he wanted to hold off another week on prepping his place for sale.”
Not a problem, since just the thought of going back into his house and prettying it up while he watched me with those steely gray eyes made my palms clammy. I wondered what had come up that made him put me off, though. Probably something to do with biker week. Or was he avoiding me because of something he knew about the Carhart mess?
“So you think Cooper is sexy?” I asked Mona, a little surprised at her interest in him. Cooper might be considered appealing if a woman liked her men serrated around the edges and with the inner warmth of a pit bull. I preferred to touch without risking the loss of a finger.
“Those gray eyes of his get me where it hurts every time they land on me,” Mona said. “Too bad he was born about a decade too late for this old gal.” She peered at me over the top of her rhinestone-studded glasses. “Speaking of sexy, you look nice. That little blue number hugs you in all the right places.”
“Thanks.” I had all of the wrong places sucked in and battened down. I sat on the edge of my desk and sipped my iced mocha. “Do you know anything about the history of the Carhart house?”
“No.” Her long lashes squeezed into a squint. “Why are you asking?”
I needed more caffeine to be creative this early, so I told her the truth. “I have an interested client, but she wants to know more about the place before she’ll sign an offer.”
Okay, I told most of the truth. Mona didn’t need to know about the ghost tales.
“You could ask Ray. He knows more about Lead’s past than I do.”
“I’d rather kiss a cockroach.”
She grinned. “Speaking of kissing, how did your blind date go Saturday night?”
For a second, I thought she’d somehow found out about Doc and me doing the back-room boogie at the restaurant, and my cheeks warmed. Then I shoved my guilt under the rug and pretended the night hadn’t involved betrayal of any kind. “He turned out to be a really nice guy.”
She didn’t know I was talking about Ray’s nephew, and I didn’t plan on enlightening her.
“Are you going to go out with him again?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh.” Her grin flattened around the corners of her mouth. “Why not?”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to date yet.” What Doc and I had going didn’t involve dating. We’d kind of skipped first base and sprinted around second and third ... and beyond.
The sound of Jane slamming her phone down interrupted us. It was followed by loud expletives that had me hopping to my feet. I couldn’t remember having heard Jane cuss in the three-plus months I’d worked for her.
The clomp of her heels on the wood floor reverberated through the quiet office. Mona stared along with me as Jane came ramming out into the front room, her normally coiffed hair in spikes, her eyes red-rimmed. “I have to leave for a week or so. Mona, you’re in charge. The three of you need to rotate lunches while I’m gone. With all of these tourists in town, we need to have someone manning the desk at all times.”
Mona raised an arched brow. “You okay, Jane?”
“No, but I’ll live.” Jane’s eyes darted around the room, but I doubted she was seeing anything. “Tell Ray not to bother calling. When I’m not in court, I’ll be too drunk to talk shop.”
Court? The call must have been about her messy divorce. Husband number three was trying to take her to the cleaners, following her previous two money-grubbers. To make matters worse, Jane still loved him, in spite of the other woman he’d let lasso his heart and hogtie him—to the bed. Jane’s bed, which was how she’d found out. The rotten, two-timing bastard.
I hated to bother Jane in her hour of craziness, but I wanted to sell the Carhart house. “Jane, can I ask you a quick question?”
“What?” She rummaged through her purse, practically tearing the seams. “Where are my damned keys?”
I wimped out. “Do you want me to water your plants while you’re gone?”
“Yes. I’ll see you both next week.” She left in a flurry of curses, slamming the back door behind her.
I fell into my chair. Crapity crap. Now, how was I going to find out about that stupid ghost? It was time to dig around on the Internet.
The morning flew by, my eyes scanning online county records, my head buried in the past. By the time I’d finished finding everything within the scope of my Internet search knowhow, I had a list of previous owners of the Carhart place spanning clear back to when the house was first built in the late nineteenth century.
But names weren’t enough. I needed stories to share with Zelda and Zeke, and there was only one place I could think of to round them up—the Carharts. I just hoped Lila wasn’t wearing her hockey mask and chainsaw gear today.
I grabbed my purse and phone. “Mona, do you mind if I go to lunch for a bit?”
“No. Heading home?”
“Probably.” Or not. “Want me to bring you something back?”
“Thanks, but no. I’m on a diet.”
Diet? Mona was a willow. The only inches she could stand to trim were off her red fingernails. But I didn’t have time to expound on how jealous I was of her to-die-for figure. I had a ghost story to track down.
Motorcycles of every make and color clogged the road all the way up the hill to Lead. I cruised along, practicing what I’d say to the Carharts, wondering why Doc had parked so far from his office.
Lila’s bright red Mustang hogged the Carharts’ drive, so I parked on the street—in front of the neighbor’s house. I didn’t trust Lila, not even near my Bronco.
The noontime sun beat me down all the way to the front porch. I sucked in a big breath, got into a fighting stance, and rang the doorbell. Then waited.
And waited.
I was about to ring it again when the curtains in the window next to me inched back. Wanda peeked out.
I smiled and waved.
The curtain dropped back into place, and the front door creaked open. Wanda hid back in the shadows of the foyer.
“Hi, Wanda,” I shut the door behind me. Vanilla-scented goodness wrapped around me, welcoming. Silence seconded the greeting.
Wanda fidgeted, avoiding eye contact. Her sage green dress was faded.
“Is Millie here?” I wanted to prod about Lila, but I wasn’t comfortable saying her name out loud in the lioness’ den.
“She’s outside,” Wanda answered just a decibel above a whisper. “Can I get you a drink?”
Since Wanda was already inching toward the kitchen in an obvious need to escape my presence, I figured I might as well let her flee. “Sure. Some ice water would be great.” The ice might cut the acrid taste of it.
Her face fell, as if I were the first to inform her that Santa wasn’t real. “We lost our ice trays.”
Her sad-puppy expression hinted at an emotional attachment. Bizarre. I wasn’t sure how to comfort her on this type of loss, so I didn’t. “Just water then, please. I’ll wait in the ...” Wanda whisked away into the kitchen, leaving me talking to the wall. “Right. Okay, then.”
I peeked up the stairwell as I tiptoed into the sitting room. When I realized I was tiptoeing, I returned to my normal stride. Wanda’s church mouse imitation seemed to be contagious.
I sat on the edge of the couch, waiting. The quiet billowed around me. I sniffed just to break the silence.
Movement off to my right made me whirl. Nothing. Weird. I could have sworn I saw the curtain twitch.
Leaning forward, I peered into the shadowed kitchen entryway. How long does pouring a glass of water take? Wanda must have gone out to the hand pump in the backyard to get my drink.
I stood and crossed over to the curtain, checking for a floor vent that might have caused it to move, but I found only century-old maple trim and a few baby dust bunnies.