by Gina Wilkins
“I don’t know about you,” Mae murmured as they climbed into the car. “But now I’m more cunous about the ghosts than ever.”
“We’ve got a lot more to worry about than ghosts. Plumbing and wiring, dry rot, modernizing the kitchen, refurbishing all the rooms. Paint, wallpaper, carpeting, wood to be stripped and resealed, fixtures to replace...”
Mae smiled. “lt’s going to be great fun, isn’t it, Dean?”
He relaxed enough to return her smile. “Yes,” he said. “I think it will.”
HAVING FULLY EXPLORED the inside of the inn, Dean concentrated on the outside while his aunt put away the groceries they’d purchased on the way home.
The sprawling two-story structure opened into a large lobby and reception area, with the public dining room off to the right. The kitchen, a smaller dining room, four small bedrooms, two baths and a private sitting room were at the back of the ground floor. The ten guest rooms were on the second floor, each with a tiny, but adequate, private bathroom not much larger than a walk-in closet. Above that, of course, was the attic.
Dean didn’t want to think about the attic right now.
Built in 1892 by James Cameron, a British immigrant, the inn was country-style, with multiple shuttered windows and dormers, and an inviting wraparound porch. It had been mostly unoccupied for the past six years. Some of the windows were cracked, shutters were crooked, paint was peeling and faded and boards were splintered and rotted in places.
A few renovations had been made over the years, but general neglect had finally taken its toll. The grounds were a mess of dead weeds, sprawling bushes and unpruned, winter-denuded trees. The driveway was rutted, the footpaths broken and uneven, and the once-flourishing garden was overgrown and run-down.
Dean looked at the place and saw the simple elegance that had once been, the same look he hoped to achieve again.
So far, only the kitchen, two of the back bedrooms and the private sitting room were habitable. Freshly painted, papered and furnished with antiques and reproductions, the rooms had been decorated according to Dean’s instructions while he’d finished up his business in Chicago during the past month. He had considered the private living quarters the first priority; after all, he and Mae would be making this their home.
Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his heavy jacket, he strolled around the side of the building, mentally adding to his list of needed repairs. Had it been summer, the garden path would have been so choked with weeds and vines, walking down it would have been difficult. As it was, he sidestepped the thorny branches that threatened the fabric of his wool slacks.
A rotting, precariously leaning shack that was little more than a stack of old boards lay at the back of the grounds, at the very edge of the woods through which Dean planned to cut nature trails and hiking paths. He’d have to clear away that shack, eventually. It looked as old as the inn, and had long since deteriorated past usefulness.
There were a couple of other dilapidated outbuildings on the property, all of which had to go. He had vague plans to build a few guest cottages once business picked up enough to justify the extra investment—honeymoon cottages, perhaps.
He didn’t have to be a romantic to know how to capitalize on that human weakness.
It was late afternoon now, and long shadows stretched across the path in front of him. He had almost reached the old shack, when something made him stop.
Compared to Chicago at this time of year, it wasn’t a particularly chilly afternoon. The temperature hovered in the low fifties, but Dean was suddenly cold, right through to the bone. Instinctively, he moved back a few steps. The coldness went away.
Frowning, Dean moved slowly forward. The coldness hit him again in the very same spot on the path, a deep, skin-tightening chill that made him decidedly uneasy. He wasn’t standing in a shadow, nor in a low spot, and there was no other apparent physical explanation as to why it would be colder here than it was five feet away. But it was.
The hairs at the back of his neck rose with a tickle of premonition. Reluctantly, warily, he turned.
She was standing on the path right behind him, so close he could almost touch her.
He kept his hands in his pockets. He had a nagging suspicion that his fingers would go right through her if he reached out.
The outline of a straggly, winter-dead rosebush was dimly visible through her, as though seen through sheer white fabric. Only her face was perfectly clear—and as beautiful as it had been when he’d seen her in the attic.
“I,” he told her stupidly, “do not believe in ghosts.”
She smiled. Her mouth moved, but no sound emerged. At least, nothing that he could hear. She looked suddenly frustrated, as though annoyed that he hadn’t responded to whatever she’d tried to say.
Which, of course, was ridiculous. “I am not going crazy,” he said emphatically.
She shook her head, her expression reassuring.
He wasn’t reassured.
He thought of the people who’d questioned his sanity when he’d quit his fast-track career in Chicago and announced that he’d bought a run-down old inn in an off-the-beaten-path town in central Arkansas. He thought of his ex-wife’s recent telephone call, not so subtly inquiring if he was having a nervous breakdown following their divorce a year ago. Irritably, he’d assured her that he wasn’t.
He hoped to hell no one would ask him that question now. He wasn’t at all sure he could answer so positively.
“This is absurd,” he said, his eyes never leaving the woman’s face. “It’s a joke, right? A twisted way of welcoming me to town? Someone’s idea of having fun with the newcomer? What are you, a projection?”
A look of sympathy crossed her face, overriding what might have been exasperation.
Great. Now even his hallucination felt sorry for him.
He raised his voice a bit. “Whoever is behind this, ha, ha. Great joke. You’ve really pulled a good one. You must introduce yourself sometime so that I can fully express my appreciation for your inventiveness. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do inside. You can turn off your projector.”
The woman didn’t leave. She reached out a hand to him, her dark eyes beseeching.
“Great effect,” he muttered, shaken despite himself by the appeal in her...well, her haunted eyes. “But wouldn’t it have been spookier at night?”
He shrugged. “I’ll make it easier for you,” he said to whoever was listening. “I’ll turn around. When I turn back, the ‘ghost’ will have vanished, okay?”
Her lips moved. He thought she said, “Wait.”
He turned. Counted to fifty. Then to seventy-five, just to make sure he’d allowed the prankster plenty of time to comply with his demand. When he turned back, the woman was gone.
Exhaling in relief, Dean briefly considered searching the grounds, finding the practical joker and rearranging his teeth. He restrained the uncharacteristically ferocious impulse with a proud lift of his chin. Dean Gates could take a joke as well as anyone. He wouldn’t have his new neighbors snickering and saying otherwise.
“Welcome to Destiny,” he muttered, shaking his head as he strode impatiently back to his supposedly haunted inn. “Home of ghosts and fruitcakes.”
He sincerely hoped his first day here hadn’t set a pattern for the rest of his stay, however long that might be.
“I TOLD YOU he wouldn’t be able to hear you,” Ian couldn’t seem to resist pointing out.
Watching wistfully as the man strode angrily down the path toward the inn, Anna sighed. “At least you have to acknowledge that he saw us that time.”
“You,” he corrected. “He saw you.”
“I’m sure he saw us both. It’s just that I was the one trying to speak to him. I was so sure he’d be able to hear me.”
“Sweetheart, you are a ghost. He can’t hear you. I’m not even sure he really saw you.”
“He saw me,” Anna insisted stubbornly. “And somehow, I’m going to make him hear me. I just ha
ve to try harder next time.”
“Anna—”
She whirled on him. “Do you have any better suggestions?” she demanded. “What do you want to do, drift around in limbo for eternity? At least I’m trying to free us!”
“I just don’t want you to be disappointed. It’s hard enough not knowing what happened to us, or why. We don’t know why we’re here, we don’t know what, if anything, can free us—or where we’d go if we could leave.”
“I know why we’re here. I’m certain it’s to clear our names, change the lies that we’ve heard told about us all these years. All we need is someone to help us find out the truth, someone who’ll tell everyone what really happened, and we’ll be free. It’s the only possibility that makes sense to me.”
Ian refused to argue with her anymore. After all, they’d been having this same pointless discussion for three-quarters of a century.
Anna turned away. Her brother was as tenacious as the blue-eyed man she’d been trying to talk to. She couldn’t help smiling as she thought of the man’s adamant insistence that he didn’t believe in ghosts, despite the evidence in front of him. He was a stubborn one, she mused.
But then, so was she.
2
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
—John Keats
DEAN AND MAE had just finished dinner when the old-fashioned, 1950s-era doorbell clanged, announcing a caller at the inn’s front door. Having hardly touched his meal, Dean sprang to his feet to answer the summons.
He welcomed the diversion from the disturbing thoughts that had been troubling him all evening, making him a less-than-scintillating dinner companion for his poor, curious aunt.
As he approached the front door, he couldn’t help wondering if the visitor would be the prankster who’d played such an elaborate trick on him a few hours ago. Maybe it was someone who would cheerfully claim responsibility, generously concede that Dean was a good sport and solemnly promise never to do such a thing again.
His hopes of discovering the culprit collapsed when he opened the door. He doubted very much that the frosted-haired woman standing outside the door, a covered dish in her hands, had masterminded the elaborate practical joke. “Ms. Burton. Come in,” he said, politely greeting the real-estate agent who’d first shown him the inn.
Divorced, and in her early thirties, Sharyn Burton had made no secret of her interest in Dean, to his aunt’s amusement and his own rueful embarrassment. He didn’t know what it was about his ordinary face, slightly shaggy brown hair and bright blue eyes that intrigued her, but something obviously did, judging from the way she behaved around him.
“Hi,” she said, giving him a toothy smile as she minced past him. “I brought you a peach cobbler to celebrate your first night in the inn.”
“That was very thoughtful of you.” Dean took the heavy dish from her and then wondered what to do with it—and her.
There was nowhere for her to sit in the lobby, which was empty except for the massive oak reception desk that stretched in front of the back wall—an original fixture of the inn, the realtor had assured him. A once-magnificent Williamsburg chandelier hung over them, giving out just enough light to deepen the shadows in the corners of the lobby. Dean found himself avoiding looking at those shadows, even though he was confident that he would see no one standing in them.
Though he wasn’t really in the mood for entertaining, courtesy forced him to invite Sharyn to join him and his aunt in the dining room for dessert. Mae welcomed Sharyn warmly, and rushed to pour her a cup of coffee before going to the kitchen. She returned carrying dishes for the peach cobbler. Both she and Dean made appropriately appreciative comments after tasting the still-warm dessert.
“I’m glad you like it,” Sharyn said with a smile that was obviously for Dean’s benefit.
He concentrated on his cobbler, hoping this wasn’t going to get awkward. Sharyn seemed nice enough, but he had absolutely no interest in dating her. Or anyone else, for that matter. At least not right away.
He found himself wondering inconsequentially about the dark-haired, dark-eyed “ghost.” Who was the woman who’d posed for those projections? Was she a local resident? Would Sharyn know her if he described her? He was reluctant to bring up the subject, still smarting from the uneasiness he’d felt before he’d figured out that he was the victim of an elaborate prank.
“I heard youmet our mayor this afternoon,” Sharyn commented, reclaiming his attention.
Dean looked up in surprise.
Reading his expression, Sharyn gave a sheepish little shrug. “Word gets around quickly here,” she explained. “You can hardly sneeze in Destiny without everyone hearing about it.”
Dean winced. He’d heard about small-town gossip, but had never actually become the topic of it. Of course, he wasn’t so sure it was any different from the corporate-circle gossip he’d endured in Chicago. He would bet tongues were still wagging there about his abrupt decision to move to Arkansas.
“What did you think of the mayor?” Sharyn asked, directing the question to both Dean and Mae.
Dean shrugged. Mae gave him a quick look of reproof for his lack of conversational finesse and turned to their guest. “He seemed pleasant enough, if a bit too aware of his social consequence,” she said with the frankness that was entirely characteristic of her, to the dismay of more than a few hapless souls who’d tried to condescend to her in the past.
Sharyn chuckled. “If you think he’s aware of the family prominence, you should meet his mama. The mayor likes to pretend he’s in charge around here, but everyone knows his mother is the one really running things. She calls him up, barks a few commands and suddenly he’s got a new community project going. Usually at taxpayer expense. Margaret Peavy Vandover considers herself somewhat on a par with the queen mother.”
“Why would the local citizens support a mayor who lets his mother tell him how to run the town?” Dean asked, bewildered by this glimpse of small-town politics.
“Habit,” Sharyn admitted ruefully. “The Peavys have lived around here for years. Charles is the mayor, his cousin’s chief of police and another cousin is a state senator. Not to mention the money the Peavys have poured into the town over the years. It has to be spent exactly the way they say, of course—and usually on something that carries the Peavy name, like the new Charles Peavy Memorial Library. Charles, Sr., was Margaret’s father, and according to her, he fully qualifies for sainthood. He owned this inn once, by the way.”
“The mayor said something about that,” Mae acknowledged.
“Gaylon Peavy—Margaret’s grandfather—married the widow of James Cameron, the British immigrant who built the inn back in the 1890s. Her name was ... um ... Amelia, I think. James died of influenza while she was expecting their twins. She married Gay-Ion about ten years later. She died five or six years after that. Gaylon took over the inn and operated it until his death in the thirties, after which Charles, his son from a previous marriage, took over. Charles sold it in the fifties.”
“You know a great deal about the history of the inn,” Dean commented, wondering why she hadn’t told him much of this before. Perhaps because he’d never asked?
He’d taken one look at the place and had known he wanted it, whatever its history.
Sharyn smiled. “Everyone around here knows the story of the Cameron Inn. It’s part of our local lore.”
“Ah, yes. The ghosts,” Mae said with satisfaction, getting to the part of the story that particularly interested her.
“Amelia’s twins,” Sharyn said, her eyes lighting up.
It was obvious that she, too, relished this part of the legend, Dean thought in resignation. Was he the only one around here who couldn’t care less about silly old ghost stories? He’d outgrown them in his Boy Scout days.
As if sensing his disapproval, Sharyn threw a quick glance at Dean. “I did mention that the inn was supposed to be haunted,” she reminded him. “You never seemed particularly interested, but I didn’t want you t
o claim that I misrepresented the place when I sold it to you.”
He nodded. “You did tell me. And, as you assumed, I wasn’t particularly interested. I don’t believe in ghosts.”
How many more times, he wondered impatiently, was he going to have to say that before he could get on with the business of restoring and running his inn?
Mae dismissed her nephew with a wave of her hand. “I’m interested,” she assured Sharyn. “I would love to hear about the ghosts who haunt my new home.”
Sharyn hesitated a moment. “I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable here...”
“Nonsense. I already love this old inn. I have from the moment Dean first showed it to me. I’ve sensed a, well, a welcoming presence from the old place since we first arrived. If there are ghosts,” Mae said with a gentie smile, “I think they’re pleased that someone is eager to restore their home to its former glory.”
“From what I’ve been told, you’re probably right. The twins supposedly loved this place wholeheartedly. Their mother was obsessed with the inn, which had been built by the first husband she’d adored, and she reportedly passed on her obsession for it to her children. They were so attached to it, it was rumored that the brother—lan Cameron—was involved in bootlegging, maybe even murder, to make enough money to redecorate and enlarge the inn as soon as he was in charge.”
Dean felt a chill breeze drift down the back of his shirt collar, much like that eerie cold he’d felt on the garden path. He shifted in his chair, telling himself he was being an idiot.
“Murder?” Mae repeated, looking properly shocked.
Sharyn nodded avidly. “Apparently, there was a big, very profitable bootlegging ring in this area, distributing booze to the gin joints and gambling houses that were operating in Hot Springs at that time. Hot Springs was quite a hotbed then, a favorite hangout for some notable historical figures, including organized crime bosses like Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel. Some thought Ian Cameron had become involved with those organizations. He’d made no secret that he planned to enlarge the inn as soon as he and his sister took over on their twenty-fifth birthday.”