The Good, The Bad and The Ghostly ((Paranromal Western Romance))

by Keta Diablo

  Why couldn’t I have just been a normal woman? The entire course of my life would have changed. I wouldn’t be haunted by my dead sister. I wouldn’t be alone in dealing with the nightmares.

  And maybe I could just get a break.

  No such luck for Hattie Hart.

  Grant’s face hardens, and he nods. "My place it is, then." He doesn’t ask how I know Maude is dead.

  I feel his strong arms come around me and cradle me to him. He gets to his feet and carries me like a babe. I squeeze my eyes shut and cling to him, wanting it all to go away.

  Time passes. I don’t know how much, but I only open my eyes next when I’m laid down into a large bed. I blink furiously, not recognizing where we are. Grant’s back is to me, and he takes off his Stetson. I can almost taste the tension in the room.

  Why? Is it because we both just watched a man die?

  "Where are we?" I ask, my voice rough.

  Grant glances back at me, almost shyly. "My place. Let’s get you cleaned up."

  Cleaned up? Oh, right. I have a dead man’s blood on my hands.

  Panic bubbles in my throat, threatening to be unleashed. I have to be strong. I have to be sure to complete my mission; otherwise I’m no better than the scarred prostitute that the mysterious Nat Tremayne bought out of her servitude.

  Still, I can’t keep my hands from trembling or my breath from being too shallow as Grant pumps water and then hands it to me. I can’t stop shaking as I wipe the blood away from my face. I can’t help it though; it’s all over my dress. I must look a fright.

  A pained look crosses his face, and he gets up in a huff and starts pacing around his room, combing his hands through his hair.

  "What was that, back there?" he asks.

  "A man died," I whisper.

  "Yes, but—"

  "I told you, I can see ghosts." I roll on my back, feeling the tears course down my cheeks as I look up at the ceiling. "It’s both a gift and a curse. There’s a nice sort of ignorant bliss to not knowing what happens beyond this lifetime. You can live your life without the fear of eternity." I shudder and curl up on my side, facing away from him. "But when you see what happens to the dead, there are no more surprises."

  "What happened to him?"

  "He was a bad person," I say simply. "He got what he deserved."

  "So you saw him get taken to Hell?"

  "Or something like that." I shake uncontrollably at the thought of the cracks in the ground, those demonic hands reaching for his ethereal body. His terror as he knows exactly what’s in store for him.

  Is that what is waiting for me when I die? I’m not a pure soul—far from it, and if that’s the determining factor in where you spend eternity, then I’m doomed to the same fate.

  "Have you always been able to see ghosts?" Grant asks, breaking into my thoughts.

  I close my eyes. "Since I was a child, yes."

  "Do they always want to talk to you?"

  "No. Sometimes they want to hurt me. Sometimes they don’t know that they’re ghosts, and when they find out, they’re upset. Sometimes—most times, I don’t even know if they’re ghosts. And that’s when it’s scariest."

  I feel a hand fall on my shoulder, and I turn back to look at Grant. His eyes are softer now as he looks down at me.

  "Well," he says. "No one ever said that having a gift was easy."

  "It’s not a gift. It’s a curse."

  "You’re a gift," he whispers.

  I watch him, hoping that he’ll provide meaning to his cryptic statement. We regard each other for a few moments in silence. He asks for permission with those dark eyes, and he takes my breathless silence as consent.

  I want this. I want him.

  He leans down and brushes his lips against me, tentative at first, but building in tenacity and passion. My eyes widen before I swoon and give into the kiss.

  This. This is exactly what I need.

  No more headaches, no more fear of death. Just him and me between the sheets, enjoying what life has to offer. Because we both know that it’s so fleeting.

  Because we both know that life is something to be cherished.

  * * *

  I’m following behind him, wading through the liquid waters of my dreams. Everything seems to move in slow motion, and we’re in the twilight between sleep and wakefulness. I can’t tell who I’m following or why, only that I hope to catch up to him some day.

  "Grant?" I ask, my voice echoing in my own head. "Where are we going?"

  He glances back at me and gives a small smirk, one that’s reserved for me. But, infuriatingly, he doesn’t say anything. He puts a finger to his lips, then gestures for me to follow.

  I do.

  We walk through the Nevada desert, the ground passing harmlessly underneath our feet. We’re floating, flying. I reach out and he grabs my hand, pulling me along. It’s sometime before sunrise, and I can see the first rays of sunrise dot the horizon.

  Our travel abruptly stops, and I find that I’m standing in front of the entrance to an old silver mine. I look around, noting where we are. It’s not often that I get dreams like this, but I’ve learned to take them as they are.

  The mine is old and crumbling from lack of use and the harsh elements of the desert. The slanted sign says, "Haight Mines," and two of the support beams are broken. The mines look like they haven’t been used in years. Abandoned. Left behind.

  "Grant?" I ask, my voice wavering. "Why are we here?"

  "Here’s where you can save me, Hattie," he says. His voice is soft, but it booms across the desert, forever burning into my mind. "Here’s where you’ll find all of the answers."

  "At the silver mine?"

  He nods and points. "Go here, Hattie. Go here. Save me."

  I wake up with a scream.

  * * *

  "Hattie! Hattie! Shh, it’s me, Hattie! Wake up!"

  Someone is shaking my shoulders, and I barely hear him over the sound of screaming. I realize that it’s me.

  I open my eyes to see Grant looking down at me, his face ashen white. "Hattie," he says, steadying me now that I’m awake.

  We’re lying in his bed, having spent the night together. It’s mid-morning, late enough for the sun to be streaming in from my second-story window. The thought it of being daytime and being away from the mines calm me.

  Why would I dream about such a thing?

  "I’m sorry," I whisper. "I just had a nightmare."

  I sit up and put my feet on the ground, facing away from him to cover up my modesty in my embarrassment. Granted, there was no modesty the night before, but everything seems different in the daytime.

  "What are you doing?" he asks. It takes me a moment to realize that I’ve started digging in my handbag without realizing it.

  "My laudanum," I say hoarsely. "I need something to calm my nerves."

  "You use laudanum?"

  "Yes."

  He watches my frantic movements before asking in a flat voice, "Are you addicted to it?"

  "No!" I whirl around to look at him, and my vehemence surprises both of us. "No," I say, calmer. "It just helps my headaches. I’ve been working too hard here."

  He sits up in bed and scoots to the edge of the bed with me. He places a big hand on my forehead and holds it there. "You’re a little feverish."

  I gulp back the bubble of fear that threatens to pop up. Maude had a fever when she died. Did I contract whatever it was that killed her?

  Grant’s as calm as ever though. "Should I call Doc Strom?"

  "No." I don’t want to see him ever again. Not after last night. "I’ll be fine."

  I hope.

  He frowns in disapproval as I put a few drops of my opiate on my tongue. "I think you should work to get off that," he says. "It could be changing the way you see things. And you may not realize what’s happening until it’s too late."

  I glare at him. "I’m fine."

  He presses his lips into a fine line. "Right." He slides out from the under the covers and s
trides out of the room. I realize now that I don’t even know how big of a house Grant lives in or really where we are in Carolina City. It must not be too far from the town square, as he carried me here last night.

  I press a hand to my flushed cheeks. He carried me here. Made love to me when I wanted companionship. And now?

  He’s worried about my laudanum use.

  I sigh and begin to fish my clothes off the floor. I have nothing else to wear except for my fancy dress from the night before, so it will have to do. Maybe for the rest of my stay. I don’t ever want to go back to the hotel, even to pick up my things. Maybe I can ask Charlotte to bring me my clothes.

  And, what? Stay at Grant’s until I figure out what my assignment truly is? Is that even an option? As a former whore, I know nothing about relationships or courting. Is what Grant and I have even considered courting, or is he taking advantage of a scared woman with questionable morals?

  So many thoughts swirling through my head, and none of them the more important questions. Such as who was that man that died last night? What killed Maude?

  Who is Kurt Bonneville, and where is this damn US Marshal I’m looking for?

  I tie myself into my dress, fluff my hair as much as possible—there’s no saving it—and am tying my boots on when the smell of food cooking hits me. I whip my head up, and my stomach growls again.

  I head downstairs—now realizing that Grant lives in a two-story house—and he looks up at me from the kitchen.

  "Thought you could use some breakfast," he explains.

  "I’d like that very much."

  As we eat our fill, an uneasy, unspoken truce forms between us. He doesn’t pressure me further about my laudanum use, and we don’t talk about the man who died. Let that be something for tomorrow.

  I could get used to this, really. Sitting here with a man who cares about me. But that’s not the life that I have, nor will ever have.

  The stark realization of that brings me to the dream I had last night.

  "The silver mines," I say in between mouthfuls—I’m still starving, and this food tastes too good for me to not eat in a hurry. "Can you take me to them?"

  Grant chews on his food for a moment, considering his words. "Why?"

  "I had a dream about them last night."

  He raises an eyebrow. "So you’re clairvoyant too?" The question isn’t mocking or incredulous, and I’ve honestly been wondering the same thing. I’ve never had prophetic dreams before, but there’s a first time for everything, right?

  He clears his throat, uncomfortable. "The mines’re dangerous, Hattie. I don’t think—"

  A knock at the front door causes both of us to stop and look at each other.

  "Must be news about the man that died last night," he says, wiping his mouth. He gets up from the table, and the chair legs screech against the wood as he heads toward the door. I wince as the sunlight pours in from the open doorway.

  "Jack," Grant says, confirming that his deputy is at the door. I peer around his big form to see the younger officer look up at him. He doesn’t have the look of someone who is dealing with a dead body; he looks like someone who is frightened out of his mind.

  "Grant," the deputy says, licking his lips. "We’ve got a problem."

  "What?"

  Jack licks his lips. "It’s Charlotte Freeman." My heart stills at the mention of my friend. "She’s sick. And so is Henry Young and a few others in the town."

  "Is it the same thing Missus Benson had?" I ask, drawing both of their attentions to me.

  Jack shrugs. "I dunno, Miss. I’m no doctor, but it’s bad."

  Grant nods grimly. "All right, we’ll be right there."

  Chapter Eight

  I reluctantly return to the Grand Hotel. Charlotte’s wellbeing has taken precedence over my fear of returning to the spot where Maude died. I want my friend to get better and not follow in Maude’s morbid footsteps.

  Jack wasn’t exaggerating when he said it was bad. All told, there are six people in the town who have fallen ill. Doc Strom suspects that it’s cholera, and the mayor wants to keep the news quiet in order to avoid a panic. Meanwhile, Grant wants to tell people to take care of themselves and stay clean.

  In fact, they’re in an argument about it.

  "We have to warn them!" Grant yells, his face red and his temple throbbing in his anger. I haven’t seen him get mad before, and it is a frightening sight. "We could have an epidemic on our hands! It’s already spreading, don’t you see?"

  "Absolutely not," Mayor Beckham yells back, at the same loudness and pitch as Grant.

  Doc Strom, Jack, and I watch their exchange, and Jack looks like he’s about to pass out from anxiety. It’s giving me a headache, and all I can think about is Charlotte lying in the bed.

  Dying.

  The air is getting thick. I can’t breathe, and the world spins as I blink furiously, trying to stop my tears from falling.

  Without a word, I turn away from their heated discussion and walk outside into a different kind of heat. The sun here never stops beating down on the town. It makes me sad for Betsy, my mule.

  I walk over to the stables and find her next to an American Quarter Horse that looks like he’d rather be anywhere but next to the mule. Stephen, the stable boy and Maude’s son, is nowhere to be seen, but I imagine he’s probably dealing with the aftermath of his mother’s death.

  The poor kid. I wish I didn’t know what that feels like.

  "Hey, girl," I whisper, scratching Betsy behind the ear. She flips it irritably but keeps eating out of her bale of hay. "I haven’t brought you any carrots, have I?"

  It feels good to see a familiar face, and I’m so glad that she can’t catch whatever is being spread around Carolina City. I’m so thankful that Mr. Peterson loaned her to me. She may be blind, old, and doesn’t give a damn about anything, but really, I may just be a little jealous.

  Life would be so much easier if you never had to give a damn.

  I have half a mind to take her and head back to Virginia City, hop on a train, and head back to St. Louis. Tell Nat that I can’t solve the case—if there ever really was a case.

  But that would mean I’d be abandoning Grant in his time of need.

  "Hattie?"

  I turn to see him standing in the doorway of the stable, silhouetted by that bright sun. I can’t see his face, but the shape of his body, the rim of light around his edges makes him look like some sort of Greek god.

  I can’t leave him.

  "Did Mayor Beckham get his way?" I rasp. My voice sounds like dried leaves.

  "Yes." He puts his thumbs through his belt loops and watches me. "Which means that I want you to get out of here. I’d never forgive myself if you got sick."

  I shake my head. "No, I’m not leaving. I—" Don’t say you care about him. "—I haven’t finished my assignment."

  I can’t believe I just phrased it that way, and my heart aches. I immediately want to take it back, to tell him the real reason why I want to stay. But I’m Hattie Hart, psychic detective. I’m not supposed to fall in love like this.

  He takes me at face value though and nods, deflated. "And if you finish your assignment, you’re free to go?" He doesn’t wait for me to answer. "Do you believe that your dream about the mine means anything significant?"

  "I don’t know," I say honestly, taken aback by his change of heart.

  "I’ll take you there."

  "Now?"

  His expression is dangerous as he treads toward me. "Listen, Hattie, I want you out of here, and I want you safe. And if I have to take you to hell and back to do that, I will. I don’t like what’s happening here. And I don’t want you dying. Not on my watch."

  His face is so close to mine, his gaze intense. I could move just a few inches and catch his lips with mine.

  Then he surprises me by doing exactly that. My eyes flutter closed, and I hold onto him for dear life.

  He cares about me.

  * * *

  "This is it." Grant s
lows his horse down as we crest a hill. He’d offered to have me ride behind him, but I opted for taking Betsy, as she hadn’t been ridden in two weeks. "This is the Haight Mines."

  I see the entrance to the mine below me. Even though the afternoon sun is as harsh as ever, I shiver looking at it.

  The landscape is exactly as I remember it from my dream. The hills are the same dusty color; the plants are the same. The only thing that’s different is the state of the mine itself. In my dreams, it had been derelict and falling apart from neglect. From here, I can see the sign reading, "Haight Mines," and the supporting beam isn’t split. It all looks fairly new.

  So why did my dream have it crumbling from disuse and age?

  "It looks different than in my dream," I muse.

  "How so?"

  "Just...newer?"

  Grant frowns at the mine entrance. "What are you supposed to find here?"

  "I don’t know."

  "You don’t...?" His voice trails off, and he lets out a long, angry huff. "So what are we supposed to do here? What was your dream about, then?"

  "In my dream, you said that I had to go here."

  "Wait a damn minute." He steers his horse right in front of me and gives me an incredulous look. "I was in your dream?"

  My cheeks flushed. "Yes."

  He guffaws and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. "Well, that’s a first. I’ve always heard that men appeared in women’s romantic dreams."

  "There has been that too." The words are blurted out before I can stop them, and at his sly grin, I want to take them back. But what’s out in the open is out in the open.

  "So you’re saying I’m the man of your dreams?"

  My lips curve into a smile. "I never thought of it that way, but in a manner of speaking, yes."

  "Well, then. Let’s see what dream-me wanted you to find."

  He nickers and directs his horse to go down the hill toward the mine. I cluck my tongue and take Betsy after him. I can’t help the feeling that I’m being watched, and I keep looking around to see who could be there. It could really be anywhere, though; the mines are in a valley, and there are plenty of hiding spaces for anyone to spy on us.

  I shudder at the thought.