The Husband Quest

by Lori Handeland

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Luchetti.” She shrugged. “I love Italian food.”

  Evan laughed and took a sip of milk, then swallowed thickly. She had a sneaking suspicion he’d swallowed the beans almost whole—or as whole as they were after being heated to within an inch of their lives. Did a green bean have a life?

  “My mom isn’t Italian, she’s…I’m not sure what.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Nope. No one cared about any ancestors before the ones who’d lived on our farm.”

  The girls in Jilly’s schools could trace their lineage back to the Mayflower, and often did, just for fun. That Jilly knew nothing about her great-great-great whatever had earned her no small amount of scorn. She found it comforting to meet someone else who didn’t know where they’d come from and didn’t care.

  “What about yours?” Evan asked.

  “No idea. I like to look forward instead of back. So in my near future, I’m going to learn how to cook.”

  Evan blinked. “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to. I’ve never done anything but—” She broke off, frowning. “I’m not exactly sure.”

  “Come on. I’m sure you’ve done something.”

  “I’ve been a wife. Pretty, witty, there, which isn’t much of a talent, but it’s the only one I have.”

  “I doubt that,” Evan said. “I doubt that a lot.”

  She smiled. “Thanks. That’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “Then you need to meet more people.”

  They stared at one another for several ticks of the clock. She really liked Evan Luchetti. He was a very nice man. And he didn’t look half-bad without a shirt.

  Her gaze dropped to the hollow of his throat. He swallowed again, and her own mouth went dry. What would he taste like if she pressed her lips, then her tongue, to the smooth wash of skin at the curve of his neck?

  The damn doodle started yipping from the safety of his dog cage, where Evan had confined him after he’d tried to leap onto the table and sample the chicken—twice.

  Jilly started, and all thoughts of licking Evan’s neck fled. She turned and discovered Henry sitting on the other side of the prison door. His tail twitched and he yawned, then lay down, staring at the madly barking mutt with interest.

  “You are so mean,” she murmured.

  The kitten glanced at her with impassive yellow eyes.

  “I don’t think he cares.”

  “Let’s open the cage and see if he cares.”

  “Better not. I’ve had enough action for one night.”

  Their eyes met. Jilly blushed. Evan stood and started to clear the table.

  “Wait. You didn’t have enough to eat.”

  “Sure I did. Besides, there’s chocolate cake left.”

  Naomi and Ruth’s cake. Of course he’d want to eat that. If Jilly tried to make a cake it would no doubt be raw in the middle, just like her chicken.

  They walked into the kitchen. Zorro perched on the counter, paws buried in what was left of the cake.

  “Uh-oh,” Jilly murmured.

  The raccoon took one look at them and scooted out of the kitchen, leaving chocolate paw prints across the counter and the floor.

  Jilly glanced at Evan and fought the urge to laugh at his bereft expression. “I bet I can salvage a piece.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “Sorry.”

  “We’d better invest in some good Tupperware. Raccoons can get into almost anything.”

  Just then the sounds of the cage door banging open and the scrabbling of claws erupted.

  Evan and Jilly hurried through the doorway in time to see Henry’s tail disappear up the steps, with the doodle a nose behind. Zorro chittered from on top of the dog cage.

  “I see what you mean,” Jilly muttered.

  Something crashed on the second floor. Evan grabbed her hand and together they ran upstairs.

  On the landing, they paused. “Shh.” Evan put his finger to his lips.

  A growl, a hiss, more feet than two pounded across the floor.

  “You go that way, I’ll go this way,” he whispered, then dropped her hand.

  She resisted the urge to grab his. She wasn’t scared, but she liked holding on to him. He made her feel young again. Or maybe just young—since she hadn’t ever been young in the first place.

  Jilly crept through the bedrooms on the right side of the hall while Evan crept through those on the left. She found a lot of dust but no doodle and no Henry.

  Back at the stairs, Evan pointed upward and motioned for her to stay where she was. If the animals came back down, she’d be waiting for them.

  Jilly moved closer to the staircase, slid to the side so they wouldn’t see her until it was too late. She stifled a giggle. This was almost like playing hide-and-seek. Not that she’d ever played, but she’d wanted to.

  Her mother wouldn’t let her associate with the street kids or the poor kids, considering them beneath her. Once Jilly was enrolled in private schools she’d been below everyone. And besides, no one there had been so bourgeois as to partake in hide-and-seek.

  Jilly held her breath and listened. Nails against wood. A kittenish squeal. The bark of a dog. Zorro still chittered madly downstairs.

  Evan’s sure, steady footsteps moved back and forth. He called, “Henry!” then, “Here, doggy, doggy!”

  Maybe they should be playing name-that-doodle instead of hide-and-seek.

  Jilly snickered, then put her hand over her mouth. She couldn’t remember ever having so much fun.

  A thud from the bedroom directly in front of her had her creeping on tiptoe toward the door. Slowly she turned the knob. Expecting something small and furry to shoot out, she stood back. Nothing happened.

  She pushed open the door and stepped inside. The room was cold. Really cold. Shivering, she moved toward the window, and the door slammed shut behind her.

  Jilly spun around. The moon shone across the floor, a pretty, silver beam revealing nothing. So why did she feel as if something was there?

  “Insanity,” she muttered. “Must run in the family.”

  Her words echoed in the empty room. Until the footsteps started. Hollow, faint, nevertheless she could have sworn someone was walking toward her.

  Jilly shook her head, tried to clear her mind. She didn’t believe in ghosts. She was merely hearing Evan’s stride from upstairs, and the door had closed on a draft. It wasn’t as if the windows were anything more than decoration.

  She glanced outside. The leaves on the trees hung limply, without a breeze.

  “But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one,” she said, and opened the door.

  As soon as she stepped into the hall, the thunder of footsteps sounded on the stairs.

  “Here they come!” Evan shouted. “Grab one.”

  She watched, mesmerized, as the doodle sped by, with Henry on his heels. The dog had amazing speed. Until he misjudged the steps, put on the brakes, slid across the wood floor and banged his head into the wall.

  The canine didn’t even slow down, just stepped to the left and raced onward to the first floor.

  “Hey!” Evan landed next to her with a thud, as if he’d jumped over the last three or four steps. “We could be at this all night unless you help.” When she didn’t answer, he frowned. “You okay?”

  Jilly glanced through the open door, but nothing was there. Never had been. The footsteps she’d heard had been Evan’s. She had merely let the imagination she didn’t have run away with her.

  “The dog hit the wall,” she said.

  “Just his head. Won’t hurt him a bit.”

  Evan grabbed Jilly’s hand again and tugged her toward the stairs, grinning all the way.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “I feel like I’m back at the farm.”

  “You chase animals through your house?”

  “Never. My mom would smack me with the polenta stick. I
f she hadn’t broken it on Dean’s butt.”

  They reached the first floor. No dog, no cat, no raccoon to be seen. But they were here somewhere. They had to be.

  “Your mom smacked you with a…what?” Jilly was still having a hard time focusing.

  “Polenta stick. To make polenta.”

  “I thought your mother didn’t cook Italian.”

  “I said she wasn’t Italian. Besides, she didn’t use the stick for polenta. It was the perfect size for a good whap.”

  “She hit you?” Jilly was horrified.

  Evan glanced over his shoulder with a frown. “Not hit exactly. A little tap to get our attention. And only when we needed it. Which was…a lot.”

  “I don’t approve of corporal punishment.”

  “When you’ve got six kids all born less than a year apart, then you get to talk.”

  Jilly’s mouth fell open as she contemplated the time line. “That’s insane.”

  “She was, and she’d be the first to admit it.”

  Jilly couldn’t imagine all those children so close together. That Evan’s mother wasn’t in a mental institution was one miracle. That she’d broken a single polenta stick on someone’s backside was another.

  Suddenly the doodle shot out of the kitchen, heading for the front door. Either he was blind or just plain stupid, because he smashed into the screen and fell on his face. Evan scooped him up. “That’s it for you, Mario. Sleepy night-night.”

  He popped the dog into the cage and turned to Jilly, still grinning.

  “Sleepy night-night?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Sounded good at the time.”

  “Who’s Mario?”

  “Andretti. I always liked that name. What do you think?”

  She glanced at the doodle, then back at Evan. Naming the dog together smacked of a relationship they didn’t have. Nevertheless, the act felt too right to deny. Besides, they had to call him something.

  “Mario. I like it.”

  EVAN WASN’T SURE what had gotten into Jilly, but she practically clung to him for the rest of the evening. They had coffee on the porch and chatted about the folks of South Fork, what she’d learned that day, what he’d accomplished. This was the life he’d always dreamed of having, except with a woman who loved him.

  Jilly was interesting. She knew how to listen and how to make conversation. She wasn’t hard on the eyes either.

  Henry sat in her lap, his eerie yellow gaze unblinking. If Evan hadn’t known better he’d swear the cat was Henry, and that the old man was sizing him up.

  “Naomi and Ruth didn’t come over tonight,” Jilly murmured.

  “They brought lunch.”

  Frowning, she stroked Henry and didn’t comment.

  “You still think Ruth is after me?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re wrong. They’re just…friendly.”

  “Friendly like a fox in the henhouse.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Watch yourself,” she muttered. “You’ll end up on the wrong side of a shotgun wedding.”

  “You seem really concerned about my love life.”

  She shrugged. “I just want you to finish my inn before you get your head blown off.”

  He hesitated, trying to find the right words. “You ever think of staying here?”

  “Here?” She snorted. “Not.”

  “But you could. Why not run the inn yourself?”

  “Hmm, let me see. I don’t know how to cook. I certainly can’t clean. I’ve never run a business.”

  “Ever try?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I bet you could do anything if you put your mind to it.”

  Her startled green eyes met his once more.

  “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”

  “Close. My mother told me I could get any man I wanted to—if I put my mind to it.”

  Evan frowned. Her mother sounded…odd.

  “Until now,” Jilly continued, “she was right.”

  Evan glanced away. Her words were further proof that she wanted him, but didn’t need or love him.

  “Jilly—”

  “I know. You want love. I can’t give it.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “What’s the difference? The day I believe in ghosts, is the…” She glanced up at the inn, then frowned and straightened her shoulders. “That’s the day I fall in love.”

  Standing, she held the kitten close to her chest. “I’d better get to bed. You coming up?”

  “In a little while. I have to secure the dog cage so Zorro doesn’t let Mario out again. I don’t feel like chasing them in the middle of the night.”

  “Where is Zorro?”

  “Saw him toddling off with that opossum you brought home.”

  “Peter?”

  “I didn’t ask his name. I suspect they have places to go, chickens to eat.”

  Her eyes widened. “Raccoons eat chickens?”

  “You’d be surprised what they eat.”

  Jilly went into the house shaking her head. A few minutes later, the glow of her bedroom light splashed across the lawn. Evan stood, then walked a few feet into the yard, where he stretched. He planned to go inside and steal the twistie-tie off the bread, then secure the dog cage, but he made a mistake.

  He looked up, and then he couldn’t look away.

  She was brushing her hair, which wouldn’t have been that interesting, except she wasn’t wearing a shirt. He couldn’t see much; she had her back to the window. But what he saw made his mouth go dry and his body tighten.

  She had beautiful arms—smooth and white. The muscles rippled as she lifted her hand, then stroked the brush down the silky red tresses, which reached her waist.

  She still wore her skirt, which for some reason was more erotic than if she’d been completely naked. Bending over, she disappeared from view. Seconds later she reappeared, tossing her hair back and turning.

  Evan dived for the safety of the porch, but not before he got an eyeful. He’d thought her back was beautiful—because he hadn’t seen her front.

  Embarrassed to have been watching her like a lustful adolescent, he took one step toward the door and knew he couldn’t go inside.

  Instead, he practically ran to his truck and drove away, purposely keeping his eyes on the road until the lights of the inn faded behind him.

  JILLY HEARD THE TRUCK start while her head was covered with a faded purple nightgown. She yanked the neckline over her face, scraping her nose, then hurried to the window. All she saw were taillights disappearing into the distance.

  Worry filtered through her. Where was the fire? And if there was one, how had Evan found out about it? They didn’t have a phone.

  The lack of that modern convenience had disturbed her at first, but it was amazing how quickly she’d forgotten about their isolation, how little she missed the tinny ringing of a telephone. She wasn’t lonely here. There was too much to do, too many people and animals to help.

  Jilly glanced around the sparsely furnished room. She wasn’t lonely, but she was a bit uneasy after the odd incident in that spare bedroom. She’d convinced herself it was only her imagination. However, when she was alone, like now, she wasn’t so sure.

  Henry, who had been lying on her sleeping bag, staring at the corner, suddenly hissed. The hair on his back stood straight up. Jilly squinted though the shadows. She didn’t see anything.

  The kitten growled low, like a junkyard dog, and took off, tail pointed at the ceiling, fur spiked in every direction as if he’d stuck his paw into a light socket.

  “What’s your problem?” she muttered, just as Mario started barking.

  Even though she knew the dog was barking at the kitten, Jilly jumped. Hell, Henry was probably doing the cat tango right in front of the cage. Still, the rhythmic sound made her own hair tingle along the base of her neck. She really wished Evan hadn’t run off.

  A shadowy movement had Jilly turning toward
the corner of the room. Thinking the kitten had seen a mouse or a bat—though why he would flee rather than fight, she didn’t know—Jilly tensed, ready to flee herself.

  There was nothing there—not a rodent, not a person, not an animal. Not even a ghost.

  The cold enveloped her an instant before the scent of cinnamon filled the room. It wasn’t unpleasant, but the skin on Jilly’s arms prickled and she found it hard to breathe.

  Her hair fluttered as if there was a breeze. She glanced toward the window, but it was shut tightly, and the panes in her room were still the only solid ones in the entire inn.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “WHAT’S EATIN’ YE?”

  In the middle of mixing a batch of horehound for a little girl’s cough, Jilly glanced at Addie.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ye haven’t been yerself for nigh onto a week now.”

  Addie was right. Since Jilly had started smelling cinnamon that wasn’t there, feeling breezes that couldn’t exist and experiencing temperature changes beyond the realm of possibility, she’d been out of sorts. She was always searching for…something or someone.

  In a corner, an empty bedroom, behind her in the night. She was jumpy, spooked—in Addie’s words, not herself. But if Jilly told her friend what had occurred, she would only insist they were ghostly manifestations. Despite everything, Jilly still wasn’t ready to believe in them.

  “I haven’t been sleeping well,” she hedged.

  Not only was she afraid she’d awaken to a strange and new phenomenon, but Henry hissed at odd hours of the night. Zorro had taken it as a matter of pride to release Mario from any lock they could fashion on the dog cage, and Jilly never knew when Evan would be at the inn or out carousing with the Seitz brothers.

  The first night he’d driven off in his pickup, he hadn’t returned until after she’d left for Addie’s the next morning. She’d been worried sick, wondering if he’d had an accident.

  She’d gone home at lunch, only to find all four of them working with hangovers. Men. They were nothing but overgrown boys—even when they were blind, deaf and toothless.

  “I’ll give ye a tonic. You’ll sleep like the dead.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Jilly muttered.

  “Don’t get sassy. You’ll take the tonic and be glad of it.”