Not Quite Mine

by Lyla Payne

  “Yes. Points like I’m pregnant, we have a small child, it could be dangerous…”

  “All fair.”

  “I’m basically going to be doing office work, Gracie. And other than Mama Lottie, your ghosts haven’t been particularly violent.”

  I’m not sure whether she’s trying to convince me or herself. Even if she’s right about the ghosts, the situations they’ve gotten me into haven’t been free of peril. “That’s true, but if you get your private investigator’s license like you told Daria you wanted to, that would open other doors. People could come to you asking for help on other things, and that could get dangerous.”

  “Well, that’s a problem for another day, and we can always revisit the topic.”

  The story time group is breaking up, many of the children racing into the stacks. Two of LeighAnn’s boys are pretending to be airplanes—motor noises and all—making continuing our conversation a challenge. If I’m not mistaken, Mel looks relieved.

  It’s been too long since I’ve been called on to give advice to the living, and my instincts are rusty. I’m not sure if I said the right thing, or whether she wanted me to say anything at all or just needed me to listen.

  Mel smiles and pats my arm like maybe she read my mind. “Thanks, Gracie. For what it’s worth, I think it would be fun if you decided to work with Daria sometimes, too. We make a good team.”

  “Always have.” I smile back, and relax a little more.

  These are normal human problems, but it’s going to take me awhile to believe they’re the only ones in my life. Aside from Daria and her angry woman, that is, but she’s not my problem.

  Even though…

  “If you tell her yes, let me know what you find out about the house. All I know is that Taylor Nash is renting it, and I’m curious about the woman I met last night.”

  “What was she like?”

  “In her twenties, maybe early thirties, and spittin’ mad. She threw a teapot at my head and bounced a spoon off my eye.” My fingers explore the area. It was the slightest bit red and sore this morning but nothing makeup couldn’t cover.

  “I like her already.”

  I fake laugh, clutching my belly as she turns to gather her kid and Lindsay’s from Amelia. LeighAnn has gotten control of her four, plus the two who are tagging along, and she waves good-bye on her way out the door. When the kids are gone and the place is quiet again, Amelia sits down with a book and puts her feet up on a chair, and I plop behind my desk.

  With each passing minute, it gets a little easier to believe that life in Heron Creek could be something resembling peaceful, after all.

  Chapter Three

  Amelia invited Brick to dinner, not knowing Beau is already supposed to come over. Apparently we’re having some sort of weird brother double date or something now, but luckily, my boyfriend offered to pick up fish tacos from The Wreck for everyone. I was going to make margaritas but then I remembered that Millie’s pregnant and Brick’s an alcoholic, so I make a batch of Grams’s famous blackberry lemonade instead, and my cousin pops a second batch of cookies into the oven.

  “Grace, what are you doing?” Amelia asks from the kitchen doorway, scaring the daylights out of me.

  “Spying on Mrs. Walters’s grandson,” I reply, not turning away from the window in the dining room, which gives me a perfect view of her front lawn.

  “Ooh, move over.” She bumps me to the right and peers over my shoulder. “He’s young.”

  “He looks like he’s our age, so that’s starting to seem relative.”

  “He’s handsome, too.”

  “If you like men with bodies that look like they were chiseled from stone and cheekbones that belong in aftershave commercials.” I make a face, determined to judge him based on his family.

  Because that’s how we do it around these parts.

  Millie shakes her head. “You’re ridiculous.”

  “That’s why you love me.”

  We watch him work in silence for a few minutes, carrying things out to the porch. He spends five minutes beating the dust out of the dining room rug. Someone—maybe him—had some crime scene cleaners come out the week after she’d died, so at least the place doesn’t smell like corpse.

  A bad taste lands on the back of my tongue at the memory of Amelia in that place, Mrs. Walters dead a few feet away. I don’t want to think about things like that anymore. I want to think about unicorns, and rainbows, and the sex I’m going to have with my hot boyfriend tonight.

  Amelia nudges my elbow, a plate of cookies in her hands. I hadn’t even noticed she’d left and come back.

  “I’m going to take these over. Do you want to come?”

  “Sure.” Like I’m going to pass up a chance to meet him in person. I give her a suspicious once-over. “Is that why you baked a double batch of cookies?”

  “You’ll never know.”

  “I thought it was because you’re a fatty now.” I duck out of the way, giggling at the sight of her trying to catch up with me while she’s balancing the plate and the weight pulling her toward the floor.

  She’s given up by the time we get into our jackets and step onto the porch, which is good because I’d feel bad if she tripped trying to whack me. Probably.

  We trek down the block arm in arm, and for once the feel of the brisk air in my lungs invigorates me. I want to go for a run and think about calling Leo to see if he wants to join me in the morning. He’s been absent all around town, and from my text messages, since Thanksgiving, which is weird.

  “Have you seen Leo lately?” I ask my cousin.

  “The other night when Brick and I went to dinner at Gallants he was there.” She casts a look my direction that’s impossible to decipher. “With a date.”

  “A date?” Confusion, and something else, trips up my tongue. “With who? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It slipped my mind, I guess. I thought I already did.” She frowns. “Pregnancy brain is real, my friend.”

  “Who was he with?” I press, not knowing why it matters so much. I’m just curious. Maybe I’m getting bored already.

  “I’m not sure. She looked familiar, but…you know, I think she might actually be newish to town? Victoria something?”

  I think about it as we walk the remaining ten yards to Mrs. Walters’s driveway and then give up. I don’t remember the name, and Leo never mentioned her, but he can date whomever he wants. And he frequently does—last month it had been Taylor and it had been someone else the month before her. I could add the bed-hopping to my mental file on the many mysteries surrounding Leo Boone.

  Mrs. Walters’s grandson, who is even more handsome close-up, sees us coming and stops stacking crap on the front porch to give us a blinding smile, complete with a full set of dimples. Amelia giggles like a seventh grader at my side, and I resist the urge to step on her foot.

  “Howdy, ladies. Please tell me those cookies are for me. I admit, I’m not much for teasing.” He winks. “At least, not where sweets are concerned.”

  Amelia giggles again, louder this time, and when she takes a couple of steps toward him and holds out the plastic-wrapped plate, her cheeks are bright red. “They’re for you. I mean, we were making them for dinner, but then we saw you toilin’ away out here with this stuff and thought you might like a few.”

  “I would like a few. Thank you.” He immediately takes one of Amelia’s famous white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and wolfs the entire thing down in two bites. He swallows, wipes his hand, then extends it to my cousin. “Cade Walters.”

  “Amelia Cooper.”

  The man turns the full power of his smile on me, and if I were inclined to fall for such things, I might have gone weak in the knees. The way it is, I can’t help the way my own cheeks heat up.

  “And you are?” he asks.

  “Graciela Harper.”

  “With those eyes, the two of you must be related.”

  A twist of regret shoots through me at the mention of our eyes. While they
do still match, they are no longer Anne Bonny’s emerald green.

  “We’re cousins,” Amelia supplies. “We live a couple of doors down.”

  I don’t know if Cade Walters is aware of the fact that his grandmother held Amelia—or anyone—hostage before her untimely demise.

  Can it still be considered untimely if the woman was of an indeterminately old age?

  Either way, I don’t see the point in enlightening him. The gossip train will pull into his station with the news sooner or later.

  “Grace.” Amelia nudges me and frowns. “Cade asked you a question.”

  “Oh, sorry. What?”

  His eyes, a shade somewhere between green and blue, sparkle. “Don’t worry about it for a clock’s tick. I’m a writer, so I spend more time in my head than I like to admit.”

  “He was asking why you moved back.”

  I give her a look because she’s obviously the one who told the man I moved to Heron Creek recently. She shrugs, looking a bit bewildered. I decide to take pity on her and not reveal that she, too, recently took refuge here.

  “Our grandfather needed some help, and I was at a…sort of a juncture where making a move was not only possible but desirable.” I sigh and give up. “I broke off an engagement right after I finished my graduate degree, so boom. Here I am.”

  Cade nods, rubbing the scruff on his chin as he takes in his surroundings. “It’s a cute little town.”

  “You’ve never been here before?” I ask, my own curiosity showing up with a tickle.

  “No. My father died when I was young, and my mother and Stella never got along.” He frowns. “I’m sorry to say I’ve only heard my mother’s side of it, but to hear her tell it, Stella was downright awful to her.”

  It might not be nice to speak ill of the dead, but after the way that woman treated me in life, not to mention what she’d done when she died—even if that had been Mama Lottie’s fault—Cade Walters wasn’t going to hear a defense of his grandmother from me.

  “Well, I don’t know your mom, but I did know your grandmother,” I say. “I don’t think you missed out on all that much.”

  “Grace!” Amelia gasps, her mouth hanging open at my lack of manners.

  I shrug. “She wasn’t very nice.”

  “Are you thinking of staying?” Amelia asks, clearly desperate for a subject change.

  For his part, Cade doesn’t seem insulted by my assessment of his grandmother. He’s probably heard worse if his mother hated Mrs. Walters enough to keep her grandchildren away.

  I start to wonder if maybe loneliness was one of the reasons Mrs. Walters was so terrible, but I put a stop to it. She’s gone, and there’s no point in walking down that path now. Never mind the fact that it’s none of my business.

  “It’s probably going to take a few weeks to get this cleaned up and on the market, and then there’s the probate to settle. I’ll be in town a month, maybe. Since I’m self-employed, I can work from here.” He looks down at the cookies. “If you ladies keep bringing your cookies over, I might think about stayin’ a mite longer.”

  The way he says it has me thinking that he’s using cookies as a euphemism, but more than likely that’s my own dirty mind rearing its ugly head. His eyes keep sparkling, though, so maybe not. He is handsome—no point in denying such a thing, especially when it’s so aggressively true—and I kind of want to invite myself in so I can see old pictures of Mrs. Walters. Is it possible she was hot once?

  “Well, we have guests coming for dinner so we’ll let you get back to work.” Amelia tugs on my arm, walking backward down the driveway.

  “Thanks again for the treat. I hope I’ll see y’all around again.”

  We’re too far away to tell for sure, but I think he winks at us.

  “Wow,” Amelia breathes once we’re out of earshot. “He is like… I’ve never been that close to someone that attractive. It’s distracting.”

  “It’s something,” I reply. “He also knows he’s attractive, which diminishes the effect.” Slightly.

  “If you say so, Grace. I’m not, like, going to sneak in his bedroom naked or anything. It’s just an observation.”

  We’re climbing up the front porch when Amelia notices the bird feeders are empty. “Grace, will you go grab them while I get the seed?”

  “You know, if you keep feeding them they’re going to keep shitting on my car.”

  She laughs, hauling herself through the front door. “I know, but they’re not pooping on my car. Ever notice that?”

  There’s nothing to do but shake my head and go collect the half dozen feeders my grandmother stuck in various parts of the yard. I long suspected she only did it so that she would have an excuse to shoot at the squirrels that tried to steal the seeds from the birds.

  It’s not until I’m back on the porch that I see movement out of the corner of my eye and almost have a heart attack. I whirl to face the intruder, and two of the feeders tumble out of my hands, one breaking on the bottom step while the other lands safely in the grass.

  A girl is sitting on the green-painted front porch swing, which shifts lightly back and forth, but when my gaze travels down to her feet, they’re not touching the ground.

  Also, I can sort of see through them.

  “Oh no. Not another one.” I take a moment to catch my breath and let my heart stop pounding from the fright. “You know, I haven’t gotten rid of Henry yet.”

  She gives me a look like she has no idea what I’m talking about, and I study her in search of details. I called her a girl at first, but she’s maybe closer to a woman. She seems to be at that age when it’s hard to tell, somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two, and nothing about her holey cutoffs or gray-striped T-shirt gives her away. Her feet are bare and her blonde hair, which is about the same length as mine, is tied up in a ponytail. The ends reach the middle of her back. There’s something familiar about her face, like a hazy memory from another life, and I have to consider that she’s from Heron Creek. There were plenty of kids within five years of my age on either side who I would probably remember if I saw them, but otherwise, their names and faces have been lost to the years.

  And the booze.

  She’s a pretty ghost, that’s for sure. I wonder if she’s here to check out Cade Walters.

  “If you want to haunt a hot guy, we’ve got a new one in town just for you,” I try.

  The ghost girl/woman levels a finger at my chest. She got the pointing memo, apparently.

  Also the disappearing one, I find out a moment later when Amelia steps back onto the porch lugging a bag of birdseed.

  Even though I heave a sigh in the face of a new ghost, a new mystery, there’s a tingle of anticipation in my chest that’s impossible to ignore.

  Who is she? What does she want? What happened to her, that she died so young?

  So much has changed since I came here. It makes me smile to think of how hard I tried to avoid Anne Bonny, how lost I’d thought my mind had gotten. I don’t know who this girl is or what she wants me to help her do, but now I’m excited to find out.

  That might very well make me crazy after all, but damn. At least I’ve got a job I’m learning to love.

  Dinner is over, and the four of us are sprawled in the living room in various states of discomfort. My stomach feels like it’s doubled in size after I stuffed it with four fish tacos instead of my usual three, and Beau actually looks as if he’d love to unbutton his pants but isn’t sure whether we’re at that place in our relationship yet or not.

  Amelia always looks uncomfortable these days. It’s hard to believe she’s got to bake that baby for another three months. Brick’s the only one who seems to be sort-of content. I think it has more to do with the fact that he’s on one end of the couch with my cousin’s feet in his lap so he can massage them than that he had any self-control at the table.

  I sneak a glance at Beau, reconfirming in my heart that I’ve chosen the right brother. Brick’s making a case for himself right now, especially
when he’s taking such care of someone he only “feels sorry for,” supposedly.

  “I’m not going to eat for a week,” I moan, holding my gut.

  “You’ll be in the cabinets stealing cookies before you go to bed,” Amelia retorts, her eyes closed. She sighs, looking as content as a cat in a patch of sunshine.

  I’m too full to reply. We stare at the television, which is playing some half-hour network comedy, like zombies until the next commercial break. My cousin drags herself off to pee for the forty-seventh time tonight, and when she comes back, her newly sea glass-green eyes are alert.

  “What are we going to do for Christmas, Grace? Oh my goodness, it’s nearly a week after Thanksgiving and we haven’t gone through the decorations or thought about doing the outside of the house… We’ve wasted a week!”

  “I think the two of you deserve at least a week off,” Beau counters, a smile on his face as he reaches up from his spot on the floor to grab my hand. “We’ve been enjoying it.”

  “Too much information,” Brick grunts, his gaze on Millie. “You like a big Christmas, huh?”

  “Well, Grams and Gramps always did it up big, so I know there’s plenty of supplies out in the shed. I guess I assumed we would carry on the tradition.”

  “It sounds like a lot of work,” I complain. “And I’m not sure we can squeeze any more cash out of your parents to pay someone else to do it.”

  “I’m nesting. It’s a thing. Indulge me.”

  “We could do it,” Brick volunteers, motioning to his brother.

  I burst out laughing. “You two? Have you ever done hard labor in your life?”

  I can tell my outburst annoys both of them, but neither can argue.

  “I don’t want to brag, darlin’, but for all of our faults, us Draytons are pretty bright.” Beau cocks his head. “Even Brick.”

  “You know, I’m starting to remember why we don’t hang out,” his brother replies, his tone dry. Possibly amused.