Forgotten Memories
by
Theresa Stillwagon
Forgotten Memories
Copyright © 2011, Theresa Stillwagon
ISBN: 9781937325053
Publisher: Beachwalk Press, Inc.
Electronic Publication: August, 2011
Editor: Pamela Tyner
Cover: LFD Designs
eBooks are not transferable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Back Cover Copy
For some people ghosts are everywhere…
When rebuilding an old ghost town, a few ghosts shouldn’t be a surprise. And for Jen Ferguson, history professor and psychic, it’s par for the course. But ghosts aren’t her main worry.
After a disastrous affair, which has affected her job at the college, Jen promised her grandfather—the most important person in her life—that she would stay away from men until the end of the semester. That’s a promise she’s determined to keep, but when she meets rancher Adam Craine, it becomes a struggle. Adam’s sexy and flirty, and her psychic abilities are telling her that he might possess a very important quality the previous men in her life had been lacking…he can be trusted.
It’s a daily battle for Jen to keep her hands off of him, but she believes she can do it…until two of Winter Creek’s ghostly residents decide to up the stakes by possessing Jen and Adam’s bodies. How can Jen keep her promise with these two passionate spirits interfering?
And if all that’s not enough to deal with, now she’s having premonitions of danger which could lead to the destruction of Winter Creek.
Dedication
To Mom and Dad.
Chapter 1
“It’s too damn tight,” Jen Ferguson grumbled.
“Would you hold still?”
“No way in hell did women in the 1800s wear dresses this tight.” Jen dragged in a deeper breath and glanced at her smirking friend. Barb pulled the two ties of the garment together, clinching Jen’s waist even tighter inside the punishing material. “I doubt even prostitutes wore clothes this tight.”
“You should know.”
“Hey!”
“You know what I mean. You’re the history professor, not me. Maybe you could ask your little friend if she had to wear tight dresses.”
Jen grinned at the comment. From the moment she’d stepped foot into this newly remodeled saloon a few months ago, she’d been experiencing extraordinary things. At first it started simple enough with chairs and tables seemingly moving without help during the night, escalating into unremembered moments of blankness for her during the day. The town’s renewal of life had brought with it an older batch of residents in the form of ghosts.
Harmless and friendly, yet spirits all the same.
Hers was a young saloon girl; Barb’s, an old spinster seamstress.
“If my ghost ever talks to me,” Jen said, “I’ll ask her.”
Barb nodded, but then a look of doubt crossed her face. “I don’t think ghosts can talk. Do you?”
“I’m her boss now.”
Barb rolled her eyes.
“Seeing how I now own this fine drinking establishment,” she added, “I am the local madam, after all.”
Barb’s laugher rang through the small room. “Winter Creek has probably never known a saloon owner quite like you.”
“Do I look that bad?”
“You look great, Jen.” Barb’s full mouth turned downward into a tight frown. “I wish you would stop putting yourself down.”
“I’m neither my mother nor my sister.”
“From what you’ve told me,” Barb said, “why would you want to be like them at all?”
“Beauty takes you places that intelligence doesn’t go.”
“Bull!”
Jen didn’t retort to the huffy response. How could she explain her feelings to someone who didn’t know her family?
Relief washed through her when her friend finally stopped pulling on the strings of the old-fashioned corset and fastened up the remaining buttons at the back of her floor-length dress.
“There,” Barb said, smoothing her hand down the heavy material. “With your tiny waist and curvy hips—” Jen stiffened a bit at her friend’s patting caress. “—you look just like a woman from that era.”
“I don’t think that’s much of a compliment.”
“Take it or leave it,” Barb said mildly. “But I’m not taking it back…and I never lie.”
“I never said you lied.”
Barb dragged in a loud harsh breath, but didn’t say anything else.
Jen stepped down from the dressmaker’s platform and gathered up the long material of her flowing skirt as she moved behind the narrow bar toward her private room. Glancing around at the dimly lit saloon, a hint of pride warmed her unease and she allowed it to settle into her mind. As she leaned into the closed door, she admired the unpainted wooden walls and dusty planked floor. Tables sat all around the interior of the bar area while a set of stairs to the right of her went up to a series of small rooms lining the back wall of the second floor. Working-girl rooms, she thought with a smile.
When the small liberal arts college she’d been teaching at for the past five years finally agreed to sponsor her grandfather’s idea of rebuilding Winter Creek and turning it into a live reenactment area with demonstrations of the way people lived during the middle 1800s, Jen wasn’t sure she wanted to be a part of it. But now, two years and many thousands of volunteer hours later, the Winter Creek Historical Area was close to completion.
And she was glad her grandfather and brother had talked her into getting involved with it.
Her grandfather would be so proud.
Peace filtered into her soul as she glanced around at the results of her handiwork, a peace she didn’t quite understand. This saloon was a safe haven for her now, a place she could call her own.
“Jen, can I ask you a personal question?”
She shook her head, focusing back on her frowning friend. “You know you can ask me anything.”
“Okay.” Barb stood in front of the foot high platform, hands clamped hard on her hips. “Why are you always putting yourself down? You must know you’re beautiful.”
“What?”
“You heard what I said.” Barb waved her hands up and down the length of Jen’s body before settling them back on her small waist. “Just answer my question.”
“It would be easier to answer you,” Jen said, “if you’d ever had the privilege of meeting my mother and sister.”
Barb huffed. “So I suppose you’re going to tell me your past relationships with your female family members are the reason you got involved with David.”
“When you tend to date men who inhabit bars, you’re bound to find a few losers.”
“We’ve all made mistakes in our lives.”
“If you say so.” Jen turned to face the door leading to the back room. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Not every man you’ve been with was like David.”
She didn’t want to think about that man. If she’d never met him that night, at that downtown bar less than a year ago, she wouldn’t be in the position she was in now. She wouldn’t be ostracized from her school, from her colleagues, from her students. She wouldn’t be waiting for the semester to end so she could be free of the bullshit.
“David wasn’t all bad.” Barb touched her hand lightly. “He was good to you in his own way.”
“Yes, he was, for a while. All of them are, for a while.” Shaking the sad memories away, Jen stepped into her back office and stared around her. A pure white Chinese folding wall separated the large narrow room into a working and sleeping area. “I liked him. And the sex was wonderful. But…he was just way too into me. He wanted more than I was willing to give him.”
“You just wanted to have some fun.”
“And what’s wrong with a woman having some fun?”
“Nothing,” Barb said quickly. “Close your eyes. I’m going to walk you behind the folding wall and place you in front of the mirror. Keep your eyes closed now.”
Jen grinned.
“Are your eyes closed?”
She laughed softly but did as her friend asked of her. Every dress this talented seamstress designed for her was always shown off in the same way. “Yes.”
A moment later a soft hand encircled the top of her left arm while another hand landed lightly against her back. She allowed her friend to press her toward the small cramped area opposite her office desk and chair. A frozen touch slowly replaced the warmth of her friend’s hand, and a hint of flowery perfume replaced the scent of her friend’s earthier one. Honeysuckle flowed into the air around her a second later, a breeze of chilled wind moving past her skin into her interior being, making her dizzy with the aching familiarity of it. As she moved through the scent, closer to the old-fashioned Chinese wall, a strange iciness settled deep in her bones, freezing her feet to the floor.
She’d felt this profound, unnatural chill a few times before.
“Jen, don’t stop now.”
The strangeness deepened in her, and she brought her arms up to wrap them tightly around her upper body. “I’m freezing.”
“It’s not cold in…” Barb’s hand dropped from her back but not from her arm. “Oh, it’s that kind of cold.”
“My little saloon girl is visiting with me again.”
“So you’re finally admitting she’s a saloon girl?”
Barb’s words seemed to come from a great distance as the cold around Jen intensified.
“I’ve been telling you that for weeks,” Barb added. “What changed your mind?”
“She’s a ghost that haunts a saloon.”
“Yeah,” Barb said. “You’ve always known that, but it never convinced you before.”
Icy tentacles suddenly wrapped around Jen, like a frozen pair of snow-hardened gloves, before an eerie voice whispered, “He’s coming.”
“What?” Opening her eyes at the barely heard sound, Jen stared at her puzzled friend. “Did you just say something?”
“Are you all right?”
“Tell me you just said something under your breath.”
“Sorry, Jen,” Barb said lightly. “What’s going on?”
The prickly eeriness left her system as quickly as it’d entered, bringing blessed feeling back into her freezing, stilled body. The hint of honeysuckle perfume lingered for only a few seconds before dissipating in the October Montana air.
“Jen?”
“Please tell me you heard a woman’s voice just now.”
“Are you telling me she actually talked to you?” Disbelief registered clear in Barb’s wide, dark eyes. “All mine ever does is mess with my stuff.”
“I’ve never heard her speak before.” Jen frowned. “Maybe it was just my imagination.”
“So what did your imagination say to you?”
“He’s coming.”
* * * *
Adam Craine stared at the two men in front of him and wished, not for the first time, that he hadn’t come to Winter Creek today. This whole situation would be so much easier to take if Adam had gone home and gotten a few hours of sleep. Then he wouldn’t be so pissed off.
All he wanted to do was drive his herd of cows past their damn precious town. It wasn’t like he was asking to corral them within the town proper and place a fence around it.
“Jen will decide.”
Now they were talking about adding yet a third opinion to the issue.
“What’s the problem?” Adam glanced up from his slouching position in the chair beside the younger man’s desk. He eyed the accountant with weary disbelief. “It’s a simple decision.”
“Jen is the third member of the foundation.” The older man lifted up from a chair in front of the desk and reached for the phone. “We never make decisions without consulting all of our board members.”
“It’s a herd of cattle, for crying out loud.”
“Please, Mr. Craine.” The younger man leaned toward him. “It will do you no good to get angry at us. Jack and I can’t make a decision without Jen’s input. Jack will call her, and she’ll be here soon. She’s only across the street from the bank.”
Jen, he thought. According to the sign hanging on the wall directly behind the younger man’s clean desk, Jennifer Ferguson was the history expert on the town’s original time period. Two other names joined with hers—William Longstreet, an accountant, and Jack Phillips, a historical constructionist.
Adam could only imagine what this woman looked like. Probably an old crone who knows the history of the town because she used to live in it, he thought with a tight grin.
“Mr. Craine?”
“The name is Adam.”
“Adam.” The accountant stood over him. “We need to ask Professor Ferguson for her opinion on this matter. If there’ve never been any cattle moved past Winter Creek, I’m sorry to say we won’t be able to allow it.”
“What?” Jerking his legs up and under him, he leaped from the chair, almost knocking it over. The man didn’t even move. Pretty tough for an accountant, Adam thought. “Are you telling me I can’t drive my herd past your town?”
“It’s up to Jen.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“She’s coming now,” the older man said while hanging up the phone. “She was at the saloon, modeling one of Barb’s newest creations.”
“Saloon?” Soft footfalls fell one at a time on the outside staircase leading to the WCHA’s office over the remodeled bank building. “She was at a saloon?”
“She works there,” the older man replied. “We all have buildings—businesses—that we sponsor. I’m the sheriff, and William’s the town’s banker.”
“And the history professor is…a saloon girl?”
“Actually she’s the saloon’s owner,” Jack said with a grin.
A history professor who owns a saloon. This should be interesting. Sitting back down in the chair, Adam stretched his legs out in front of him and slouched low in the seat, placing his damp Stetson on his lap. The soft footsteps stopped at the door, and he glanced toward it.
She’s definitely not an old crone, he realized, studying the strangely clad woman with interest. White leather tennis shoes poked out of the bottom of a floor length red dress, the material sweeping across the tops of her modern shoes with every slight movement of her body. Lush brown hair was piled on top of her head with a large wooden clip, soft tendrils of it falling along her neck to settle gently over the high collar of her modern brown coat. As his gaze traveled down the full lines of her, he caught a glimpse of a tiny waist indented into curvy hips cradled in the same flashy red material.
Damn, where were the teachers like her when he was going to college?
“William, Jack.” To the point, her tone broached no nonsense. “You mentioned something about cows.”
“Mr. Craine’s cows,” William offered. “He needs to move them to his winter pasture.”
“So what’s stopping him?”
“He needs to move them past the town.”
Adam stood up from the chair as she turned to stare at him, a deep penetrating stare. His hands clamped into fists around the rim of his Stetson.
“Jack and I don’t think it’ll be a good idea to move them—”
“Drive them.” Speaking to the still staring woman, Adam added, “From the summer pasture up in the hills to the winter one closer t
o the ranch a few miles north of here.”
She nodded slowly, never taking her wide-opened gaze off of him while gliding a single step toward him. His mouth dried, air catching tight in his chest, when her coat swung open and he caught a glimpse of uplifted boobs encased in the body molding material. The strange dress barely covered her.
Damn, but this was one hot college professor.
“Mr. Craine,” Jen said, reaching out a delicate hand toward him. He gripped it tight. “I’m Professor Jen Ferguson. Tell me about your cows.”
“Adam.” Not letting go of her hand, he glanced down at their entwined fingers while stroking his thumb over the curve between her thumb and index finger. Her bright green eyes widened at the touch, but she didn’t pull away. “My father’s name is Mr. Craine. I’m Adam.”
She shivered. “Mr. Craine?”
“Call me Adam.”
Her studious look burned into him again, as if reading thoughts buried deep in his subconscious mind. Unease started to form in his thoughts before she dropped her gaze to their clasped hands and said, “All right, Adam. And you can call me Jen.”
“Now that the two of you have settled that issue,” Jack blurted out roughly, “what are you going to do about his cows, Jen?”
“We’ll let him move…” She grinned at Adam’s slightly opened mouth, stopping his protest before he could utter a word. “I mean, we’ll let him drive them past Winter Creek.”
“Jen,” William said, “these are dirty, messy beasts. They’ll cause a lot of damage to the exterior walls. The paint on them isn’t dry enough yet.”
She once again studied Adam’s face. He held her gaze.
“Will your cows mess up our freshly painted walls too much, Mr. Craine?”
“They’ll go where Mark and the crew direct them to go,” Adam said.
“Mark?”
“My brother is in charge of the cattle drive.”
She nodded, not moving away from him. Those penetrating eyes of hers still stared hard at him, into him, through him. Her nearness brought unwanted heat racing down into the lower half of his body, settling like a hot pool of blood below his belt.
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