by Terri Reid
“But where are you going?”
“To my home and my husband,” she said. “Remember, you chose Jeannine.”
He shook his head. “You don’t have a husband!”
She smiled up at him. “Of course I do, I married Mike, the fireman.”
He tried to grab hold of her, but his arms wouldn’t work. He moved to run after her, but his legs were suddenly leaden and he couldn’t move them forward. She was leaving him. She was going with Mike. She was going to have someone else’s baby.
“But, he’s a ghost,” he yelled, his words coming out slowly.
Mary stood at the doorway; the light was streaming in behind her, outlining her every feature. She smiled back at him, but there was sadness in her eyes. “So is Jeannine,” she said, and then stepped out of the house and closed the door.
“No!”
Bradley sat up in his bed. His heart was pounding and his blankets were scattered on the floor all around him.
A dream, he thought, it was a damn dream.
He sat back against his headboard and put his head in his hands. She told him the truth. She never lied, she never manipulated, she was honest, ethical Mary and he was a jerk.
Remembering the look in her eyes when he called her a liar, he realized he was more than a jerk, he was a full-fledged ass.
He looked over at the clock on the nightstand. It was two o’clock in the morning. He couldn’t go over at two o’clock in the morning. Could he?
Jumping out of bed, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. He grabbed a pair of slippers, put them on and headed downstairs. His keys and wallet lay on the dining room table, picking them up he saw the remnants of the message scratched in the frost. “You’re right, Mike,” he said out loud. “I was, am, an idiot. But no way in hell am I going to let you marry her.”
He drove down the deserted streets, practicing what he would say to her when she opened the door. “Mary, I know I’ve been a fool,” he said, “But really, if you’d just reminded me...”
No, that was not the right approach.
“Mary I don’t want you to have some other man’s baby,” he tried and shook his head.
Too confusing.
“Mary,” he said, as he pulled up in front of her house and noticed the lights were still on and there was a strange car in her driveway, “Why are your lights on at two o’clock in the morning?”
He pulled the cruiser to the curb and jumped out the car. His slippered foot was immediately encased in a snow drift and he jumped back. “Damn!”
He stepped gingerly around the car, looking for shoveled spots. The snow inside his slipper was slowly melting beneath his foot.
He stepped onto Mary’s porch steps, nearly falling on his face as the slipper’s smooth bottom provided no traction on the icy treads. He grasped the railing with both hands and slowly pulled himself upwards.
Cautiously, he placed his foot on the deck of the porch. It felt pretty stable. He put his weight on it. His foot immediately slid forward. Bradley threw his arms around the corner post to keep from performing his own rendition of the splits. He slowly pulled himself up with his arms, his feet sliding back underneath him so he could stand.
Frantically looking for a solution, he spied a container of salt a few feet away. With one arm grasping the post, he stretched forward to reach it, but was a few inches short of his goal. Now what?
He realized that if he laid down, he could reach the salt. But, once he was down getting up could be a problem. He stared at Mary’s door and thought about the prize that lay behind it. He could imagine Mary slipping into his arms and tenderly forgiving him. Yeah, it was worth it.
Lowering himself to the deck, Bradley lay down on the icy boards. His sweatshirt slipped up and warm skin was exposed to frosty wood. “Damn,” he shivered.
He tried to ignore the cold and continued stretching himself forward, wedging his feet against the banister. He realized in this position, the front door was actually closer than the salt. He pushed off from the banister and slid forward. Unfortunately, he didn’t slide as far as he needed. Bradley was stuck in the middle of Mary’s icy porch.
He was almost to the door. All he had to do was inch ahead, bringing his knees slowly up and then pushing forward. He tried it and it worked. It seemed the fabric of his jeans had more traction than his slippers.
He was nearly there, his knees forward, his bottom slightly raised in the air and his arms outstretched when the door opened.
“Hello. What do we have here?”
That was a man’s voice. A man with an accent. Jeannine had once told him what men with accents did to women. Bradley looked up quickly, causing his knees to slip and his body to drop with a loud thump onto the wood planking.
“Ouch, that had to hurt.”
A strong hand grasped his forearm and helped to pull him forward and up. A man with an accent and muscles, this was not good. What the hell was a strange man doing answering Mary’s door? Was his the voice he’d heard earlier that day?
“Who the hell are you?” Bradley growled.
The man sent him a sideways look. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that question, considering you were sliding across the porch in the middle of the night?”
“I’m the Chief of Police,” he said.
Ah, the dolt, Ian thought. I should have known.
The man nodded slowly, “Sorry, in Scotland most law enforcement officials wear a uniform. Nice baffies, by the way.”
“Baffies?”
“Slippers,” Ian explained, leaning against the doorjamb. “Are they regulation?”
“You have an accent,” Bradley blurted out the first thing that came to his mind, “A Scottish accent.”
“Ah, now then, I can see why they made you Chief of Police; you’ve a great mind for discerning truth. Scotland Yard could use a man of your skill.”
Bradley was cold, confused, aching and angry. All he wanted to do was have Mary accept his apology so things could go back to the way they were. “Where’s Mary?”
Ian paused for a moment and then met his eyes. “She’s upstairs, getting ready for bed,” he said.
Bradley felt sick to his stomach. “Getting ready for bed,” he repeated, “with you here?”
Ian smiled widely and nodded, “Aye, I was just on my way upstairs when I heard you on the porch.”
“But, she’s getting ready for bed,” he said, shaking his head.
Ian could almost feel sorry for the man, but then he remembered what Mike had told him about Bradley. “Aye, it’s been a long day. I dinnae think she was expecting you, we were both looking forward to bed.”
“You were both,” he choked, “both looking forward to bed?”
“Aye. Would you bide a moment whilst I fetch her?” he asked, nodding his head in the direction of the stairs.
Bradley slowly shook his head. “No,” he said. “It seems that it was later than I thought. Much, much later.”
He turned and slowly slid across the deck to the post.
“Could I tell her who called?” Ian queried cheerfully.
“No one,” Bradley replied, grasping the banister and climbing slowly down the stairs. “No one at all.”
Ian closed the door softly and securely locked it. He saw the question in Mike’s face. “That’s in case the braw bonnie Police Chief decides to come back and fight for the honor of his lady.”
Mike floated across the room. “Well done,” he said. “You looked like you enjoyed it.”
“Well, I have to admit, I felt a wee bit of sympathy for the man,” he said. “These lassies can tie you up something fierce. But, he’s a lesson to be learned and if it comes too easy, it’s too easily forgotten.”
“Are you going to tell Mary he was here?”
Ian looked at Mike and they both grinned. “Who was here?”
“I’m going to like working with you, Professor,” Mike said, as he faded away. “Pleasant dreams.”
Ian peeked out the window and watched
Bradley’s car pull away from the curb just as Mary came down the stairs.
“Your room’s ready,” she said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t prepared for you. I suppose I misunderstood Sean.”
Ian smiled at her. “Isn’t that odd,” he said. “Because I feel I understood Sean just perfectly.”
About the author: Terri Reid lives near Freeport, the home of the Mary O’Reilly Mystery Series, and loves a good ghost story. She lives in a hundred year-old farmhouse complete with its own ghost. She loves hearing from her readers at [email protected]
Other books by Terri Reid:
Loose Ends – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book One)
Good Tidings – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Two)
Never Forgotten - A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Three)
The Ghosts Of New Orleans -A Paranormal Research and Containment Division (PRCD) Case File