Bed, Breakfast, and Beyond

by Bonnie Gardner

  "Vanessa and I were working for a high tech company until the economy caught up with us. Fortunately, we have a couple of contracts to modify some software packages. They may be our bread and butter until the inn takes off." Corrie hurried on to the door to her private quarters and stepped inside. "Welcome to my parlor," she joked as Ben followed her inside.

  ****

  Ben glanced around the room as he waited for Corrie to do something in another section of her rooms. She'd murmured something about putting the flower in a vase, but she'd been gone too long for that.

  The decor of Corrie's private quarters was much more up-to-date than the inn, complete with a wall-mounted, flat screen television set, and a stereo system he'd give anything to have. Obviously, she hadn't spent the bulk of her adult life paying off student loans. He headed toward the reclining chair across from the television set then thought better of it. He'd rather be with Corrie. He glanced in the direction she'd disappeared in, wondering if he should follow her.

  As if answering his question, Corrie returned, wearing a yellow dress, one of those shapeless things designed more for comfort than seduction, but the color highlighted her skin and hair, and still showed off the gentle curves it tried to hide. "The kitchen is this way. You can join me while I throw dinner together."

  "Sounds messy." Ben couldn't help teasing as he followed her through a tiny dining room to what must be the inn's kitchen. The room was far too large and well-equipped to be for the private apartment alone.

  "Ha-ha," Corrie retorted dryly as she found a large apron and put it on then washed her hands. "I promise I won't throw tomatoes at you as long as you behave." As if to underline her statement, she reached into a produce basket on the spacious counter and began counting out plum tomatoes.

  "Aren't those an awful lot of tomatoes for salad for two?" Ben settled onto a stool in front of a butcher block table in the center of the room.

  Corrie looked up with a grin. "It would be if they were going into the salad. These are for the sauce."

  "Oh." Ben prudently chose to remain silent. He usually used the stuff straight from the jar. Maybe, if he kept his mouth shut, he'd learn something, though some of the answers he wanted would require asking questions. He wondered just how personal he could get this soon. Like why would a woman with the know-how to write computer software come south and open a bed and breakfast? It just didn't add up. "Can I help with anything?"

  Corrie looked up as she filled a pot with water and set it on the stove. "Sure, you can tear the lettuce for the salad." She turned on the burner then noticed that Ben had not moved. "There's some Romaine in the crisper." She nodded toward the commercial-sized refrigerator. "Oh, and toss me a pepper and an onion while you're in there. Oh, and wash your hands."

  Ben executed a salute that would have made his Marine drill sergeant proud then pushed himself off his stool. After he located the vegetables, he went to the sink to wash them off. He found a dispenser of antibacterial soap on the counter, pumped some out on his hands, and scrubbed clean enough to do surgery. He shook them dry and reached for a paper towel. Corrie didn't say anything, so he guessed he must have passed muster.

  The lettuce washed and dried, he looked around for a bowl, then he looked at Corrie.

  "Bowl's on the second shelf, there." She inclined her head in the direction of a cabinet.

  By the time Ben found the bowl, Corrie had already finished with the onion and had begun chopping the pepper, with speed that, had Ben been doing it, would have left him with a few less fingers.

  "Did you have to take cooking lessons for that?" Ben asked, impressed.

  Corrie shrugged, transferring the peppers to the bowl of onions. "No. I like to cook. Vanessa's the chief cook and bottle washer here, though. She has taken courses, but not for the inn. All we had to do for that is to meet health department standards. Nobody said we had to be cordon bleu."

  "But if you're not, you won't stay in business for very long."

  "That's why Vanessa gets to cook for the guests most of the time. I have a few specialties, but she's the real expert." Corrie turned toward the pot of boiling water and dumped the tomatoes in. She removed the pot from the heat and carried it to the butcher table then returned and washed her hands.

  Ben tore the long lettuce leaves into bite-sized bits as he watched Corrie drain and peel the tomatoes. In less time than it took him to do the lettuce she had chopped the tomatoes and taken them and the other vegetables to the stove. She set another pot of water on to boil, glugged a minuscule portion of oil into a stainless steel skillet and had begun to sauté the onions and peppers, adding crushed garlic as the fragrance of cooking onions perfumed the air.

  Mouth watering from the wonderful aroma, Ben abandoned the salad and moved to the stove to watch. In fifteen minutes, Corrie had reduced what amounted to a couple of bowls of fresh vegetables into a great-smelling sauce and tossed in a handful of angel hair pasta to cook. Thirty minutes from start to finish, she had the meal ready for the table.

  "If you'll open the wine, I'll get the table ready, then we can eat," Corrie said, handing Ben a corkscrew and a bottle of rosé. She shouldered her way through the swinging door to the little room that served as her dining room.

  By the time he had the wine open, she had the rest of the table set up. He watched with approval as she removed her apron and gestured for him to join her in the dining room.

  "Tell me," he asked as he poured wine into Corrie's glass. "How can a woman who seems so at home with all this…." He indicated the kitchen and the food. "How can you be so good at this and at the computer stuff too?" He wondered if he would be pushing his luck to press, but he asked anyway. "And why would you leave an obviously lucrative, high tech job to come here?"

  Chapter Three

  Corrie looked up, forkful of salad suspended in mid-air halfway between her plate and her mouth. "Nothing mysterious," she said and popped the morsel of lettuce into her mouth. She wondered as she chewed just how much of an explanation she needed to give him, then swallowed. "Corporate downsizing. I had advanced myself just enough to be too expensive and, therefore, expendable when Mega-Software bought out Hyper-Tech."

  "Oh. The company that became Mega-Tech?"

  "The guilty party. They fired all the Hyper-Tech middle grades — me among them — and placed their own people. Said they didn't need duplicate positions. What they really meant was that they didn't want to pay me as much as I had been getting." She speared another bit of lettuce and waved her fork. "Actually, I was offered the opportunity to stay on in a programming slot at a substantial cut in pay."

  The unabridged version was that she'd have had to work for Darrell Ledbetter, her former fiancé. Though she knew she was well rid of him, she hadn't wanted to stay badly enough to listen to her ex wax poetic about his new wife and forthcoming baby every day. Call it sour grapes or common sense, it was the best move Corrie had ever made. "I'd always talked about retiring and turning the house into a B and B." She shrugged and ate the forkful of lettuce. "I just hadn't planned on doing it so soon." Corrie watched as Ben took a sip of his wine and tried to gauge his reaction to her little confession.

  "It's good that you had a contingency plan."

  Corrie chuckled. "It's even better that I had savings enough to implement it."

  In response to that, Ben made a wry face. "Savings. What are they? It's all I can do to make my student loans and mortgage payments every month." This time, Ben shrugged.

  "They can take time. And since you've got one degree up on me, I guess you'll need more time to repay." In truth, Corrie had finished college debt-free thanks to a generous education savings plan on her parents' part, scholarships, and part-time jobs. She'd paid for her master's degree as she went along, attending classes at night after she started work for Hyper-Tech as a junior programmer almost ten years earlier. She'd always had a fear of being in debt and had managed to avoid it — so far. "If I don't make a go of this inn, I might find myself in the same bo
at someday."

  Ben looked around the room, his jaw moving as he chewed. "I think you'll make it." He looked at Corrie, his deep blue eyes seeming to look into her. "But, tell me. How did you come by the inn in the first place?"

  Corrie smiled, remembering her grandfather fondly. "Grandaddy willed it to me. Said I looked too much like Cory Venable not to. He insisted that I should spend the rest of my days here since Cory didn't get to." She shook her head and smiled sadly as she looked down at her plate. "I never quite saw the logic in that, but when Grandaddy died three years ago, all this became mine." Grinning, she gestured grandly. "So here I am, the owner of a nineteenth century villa on the Gulf Coast. What could be better?"

  Ben echoed her sentiment. "What could be better!"

  Sprinkling some cheese on her pasta, Corrie glanced at Ben. She passed him the parmesan, getting that now-familiar tingle when his fingers brushed hers. "How is your research going?" she asked brightly, her voice at least an octave higher than usual. She'd been in residence at the Venable House since February and had observed nothing to indicate the presence of otherworldly visitors, so she really didn't expect him to find anything. But then, he did claim to be clairvoyant.

  And if he did find anything, he just might stay longer.

  Ben swallowed the bite he'd been chewing. "So far, no good. I've sensed nothing. It's a very romantic story, but without evidence of the ghosts, it doesn't work for the particular book I'm working on." He expelled a breath. "If I can't find someone who's seen evidence of Cory and Ham's spirits, then I'll have to give up and find that final chapter elsewhere."

  Publicity for the inn notwithstanding, the notion that Ben might leave soon distressed Corrie. "Well, maybe you could use it for some other book. I'd hate to see you waste your time." And mine, she didn't say.

  Ben looked at her, a peculiar expression on his face. "Yeah, maybe."

  ****

  "I'd hate to see him go as well," Ham murmured from the corner of the little room where he and Cory had been observing the impromptu dinner party.

  "Why, Hamilton Jordan. I thought we agreed that we had to discourage this idea of Corrine's to fill our home with strangers." The expression of dismay on Cory's translucent features was more than Ham could bear.

  "I've been thinking, darling…" he whispered pensively, lowering his voice though he knew that the couple eating could not hear him. "Remember how I told you about the time I touched Dr. Chastain there? I thought I could feel what he felt. What if …?"

  "It would work for me as well?" Cory paused a moment. "But Ham, he walked through me earlier, and I felt nothing."

  Ham started to answer, but stopped as he heard the scrape of a chair on the hardwood floor. "Look, they're finished eating."

  Ben picked up his plate and stacked his used silver and napkin on it. He inhaled, or perhaps he sighed. "You know, I need proof that Ham and Cory inhabit this place, or I'll have to leave soon." He smiled crookedly. "This book could go far in ending my student loan payments. The last book was for my doctoral thesis and, therefore, too scholarly for the general reading public."

  Corrie touched Ben's arm, and Ham envied that simple ability.

  "Then I hope you get your story," she said and picked up her own used dishes. "I'll certainly read it."

  "But Cory," Ham announced with a grin. "You made contact with the professor, not her. What if you touched Corrine?"

  "I don't know. But we must try." Cory followed the couple as they carried their dishes into the kitchen.

  Ham reached Ben first and tentatively moved toward him, stepping close enough to be his shadow. When Ben finished placing his dishes in that washing contraption, he stepped back and Ham felt himself engulfed by warmth and well being, a human sensation. Ham felt Ben shudder as the man absorbed what was left of him.

  "Cory? Did you see it? Now you must try. It is truly wonderful." Ham watched as Ben moved his hands to take Corrie's plate away from her. Their fingers touched and, as had happened before, Ham felt the touch of a living woman's flesh against his hand. He glanced at his wife, still hanging back. "Go on, Cory. You must try."

  Timidly, Cory stepped behind Corrine and waited for her to step back into her non-corporeal shadow.

  Ham watched, fully aware of the exact moment when Corrine Wallace felt the chill of joining and Cory, his Cory, felt the warmth of human flesh. "You can feel darling. You can feel!"

  ****

  He didn't know what had gotten into him, but Ben knew with sudden clarity that he had to kiss Corrie. It was too soon and too presumptuous, but he had to feel her lips beneath his own. He took the last piece of silverware out of her hand, stashed it in the dishwasher, and turned. He captured her fingers before she had a chance to reach for the dishrag draped over the arching faucet.

  "Corrie… I…." Why not just do it? he thought as he pulled her to him, circling her small waist with one hand, cupping her chin with the other.

  Her eyes were wide with questions, but she didn't pull back, and Ben took that absence of protest as acquiescence. He lowered his head to hers, brushing his lips gently against her full, soft mouth. Satisfied, he drew back.

  Corrie started to say something. Her peach-colored lips parted, but she closed them again. She swallowed, while Ben watched, fascinated by the convulsive movements of her milk-white throat. "I uh—" Again, her lips went shut. "I think I want you to kiss me again," she whispered in a voice so soft, Ben could feel it more than hear it.

  That was all the invitation he needed. He swooped forward, possessing her with his lips, crushing her against his chest, savoring the touch, feel, sensation of her.

  Every fiber of his being called for her as he experienced sensations with heightened awareness, as if it were the first time. The yielding firmness of her lips, the silken smoothness of her cheek, her soft roundness against the hardness of him was intoxicating. He breathed in the soft fragrance of rose-scented perfume that mingled with the aroma of the meal she had just consumed. He stepped back to look at her then brought his large hands up again to the satin softness of her skin. He traced every inch, of every line of her face then dipped again to feel the softness of her lips.

  She pulled him to her, clutching at him, pressing him closer, clawing at his back as if desperate to feel him as much as he wanted — no needed — to feel her. He forced her lips open with his tongue, tasting the wine-sweetened recesses of her mouth and the sharp bite of tomatoes. His tongue probed and explored, Corrie's meeting and matching each frenzied thrust. He wanted — yes, needed — to experience all of her.

  Ben felt more than heard Corrie moan and shudder beneath his plundering. His ardor increased until she pushed him away with a whimpering cry.

  He stared, disbelieving, as she backed away from him until the kitchen counter blocked her. Her eyes were as wide as the dinner plates they'd just emptied. "Ham… Ben… I…?"

  As her questioning tone registered on him, Ben too stepped back, his eagerness halted as if he had been doused with ice water. What had just happened here? He stepped back, horrified at what he'd just done. He was an educated, rational man, and yet he had come on to her like a rutting boar.

  He stepped back to get his bearings, to think, retreating until the butcher block stopped him. Ben stood there, chest heaving, furious at himself for allowing that to happen, letting his baser instincts take control of him.

  For not finishing what he'd started.

  Corrie looked at him with the expression of a frightened deer, her eyes bright and wide, watching him with alert wariness, her own breasts rising and falling with the same intensity as his.

  He forced himself to speak. "I shouldn't have let that happen. I was out of line." He wiped the imprint of her lips off his with the back of his hand, knowing that he'd remember the touch forever, as he edged his way around the butcher block table until it stood as a secure barrier between the two of them.

  "I can't stay here," he gasped, his voice thick and ragged. "I haven't found evidence of the ghosts.
I'll just get in my car and go. Home. Now. Tonight. Before I do something we'll both regret."

  He turned.

  ****

  Cory Venable stood three steps away from her namesake, her eyes bright with excitement. "Ham, you have to stop him. You can't let him leave."

  "I know, darling. I know. But how?"

  "You have to go to him. Make him stay." Cory's lids lowered, her face filled with fear. "Please Ham. You have to stop him."

  Ham didn't know how he'd do it, but he would stop Ben Chastain from going. The man was his best and only chance to love his bride.

  ****

  Corrie stood alone in the huge, empty kitchen, heart pounding, breath ragged as she tried to think. What had just happened here? She snorted in disgust. She knew exactly what had happened — at least, technically. She hadn't made it to the ripe old age of nearly thirty not to know, yet…

  She couldn't explain the fierceness, the intensity of it. She'd only known Ben for a few hours, yet the connection she'd felt with him had seemed strong enough for a lifetime — or several.

  She busied herself with supper cleanup, forcing her hands to do all the mechanical movements it took to clear away the evidence of the meal she'd just prepared. That was easy enough to do. It was a task she'd done often enough to do blindfolded. What she couldn't seem to do was still her racing pulse or quiet the thoughts that careened out of control in her mind.

  It was right that Ben Chastain should leave. She didn't need complications in her life right now, her rational mind told her. Yet, every inch of her screamed for him to come back.

  Corrie forced herself to fill the sink with hot water, squirt in liquid soap, and lower the cooking pots into the sudsy bath. Maybe if she kept busy enough, she'd forget about Ben. Yeah, she told herself, like she'd forget to breathe. She reached for a scrubbing pad.