Ghost of Summer

by Sally Berneathy

  The automobile's engine purred softly while refrigerated air blew from the vents. If they were sitting on the porch, they'd be able to hear the sounds of nature—insects and birds and the wind in the leaves.

  Kate no longer had any idea of what was right, but she did know this was all wrong.

  "Yes, it's true. I didn't send that note. I was going to talk to you when I got back to Dallas, but it is true that I don't think we should get married."

  Spencer compressed his lips and frowned. "Kate, do you realize how inconvenient this is going to be?"

  "Inconvenient?" She hadn't expected Spencer to make an impassioned plea for her to change her mind. He wasn't an impassioned kind of guy. But...inconvenient?

  "The plans we've made. Everything will have to be rearranged."

  "We didn't make plans of any great consequence. This whole wedding thing was geared to disrupt and change our lives as little as possible. From the beginning it's been—" She swallowed hard and forced herself to admit it. "Nothing of any consequence."

  "We both agreed it would be convenient to be married."

  "I know we did, but one of us disagrees now."

  "Why?"

  Kate spread her hands. "Spencer, we don't love each other."

  "Kate, I seem to recall that was one of the things you said we had in our favor, that we wouldn't get involved in all that messy emotional nonsense and cause ourselves a lot of problems."

  "You're right. I said that. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

  "So now you want all that messy emotional nonsense? Is that it?"

  "No, I don't want it." But she had it, whether she wanted it or not, and now she had to decide what to do with it. "I just don't want us to be married."

  "Kate, you're really not acting like yourself. I think this trip down here and having to deal with your crazy father has got you so stressed, you don't know what you're saying."

  "My father is not crazy!" She wanted to slap Spencer, but at least his rude comment gave her something concrete to use against him. "That's it! No way would I ever marry somebody who has no respect for my father!"

  She shoved open the car door, slid out and tried to slam it. The door was too heavy, the automobile too well sealed for any real effect. It closed quietly.

  She whirled to leave, but Spencer's voice stopped her. She turned back to see that he'd rolled down the electric window. "Will you be back in time to go to that dinner with me tomorrow night?"

  She hesitated on the brink of saying yes, of being cordial and accommodating and not disrupting Spencer's carefully structured life any more than she had already.

  But he'd called her father crazy, said he had a defective gene.

  "No. I'm sorry, Spencer. You'll have to find somebody else to go with you to the dinner and to the wedding. It shouldn't be too difficult to plug another woman into my slot since being there is pretty much the only requirement."

  "Fine. If that's what you want."

  The window slid silently up to close the opening between them.

  As Spencer drove away, she noticed he was already on his cell phone. He'd have someone for Sunday night before he got back to Dallas.

  As far as her own life, well, that wasn't going to be quite so easy to fix.

  She took mental inventory as she made her way back up the cracked walk to Papa's house.

  In spite of knowing the consequences, she'd fallen in love with Luke all over again. That was a big, huge mess in the midst of her carefully-ordered life. If she let it, that could change everything. She could once again find herself drowning in a sea of emotions, terrified of being hurt or abandoned.

  If they hadn't made love, she might have been able to continue to believe she didn't love him, but they had, and her defenses had come tumbling down.

  She paused with one hand on the screen door as a chill went down her spine.

  They had made love, and they hadn't used any protection. Luke had probably assumed if she was engaged, she was on the pill. He probably assumed she and Spencer were having sex! As if she'd let anyone get that close to her.

  Anyone but Luke.

  Or maybe he had been as swept away by their passion as she had been, and hadn't thought anything at all.

  In any event, she could be pregnant.

  A baby.

  Cold terror washed over her in the heat of the summer evening. She couldn't raise a child. She had no idea how to be a mother. She couldn't take care of a helpless child.

  Katie—

  No! She shoved that annoying voice down again.

  "Katie? Why are you standing on the porch with your hand on the door? Come on in. Is your friend gone?"

  Kate opened the door and went in, each movement slow and heavy as in a nightmare when a monster pursued her and she couldn't get away.

  She wanted to throw herself in Papa's arms, beg him to make everything all right. But even as much as Papa loved her, he couldn't do that. He hadn't been able to take away the hurt when Luke left or when her mother died.

  No, that wasn't quite right. After her mother died—

  She shook her head, unable to catch the evanescent memory.

  After her mother died, Papa had talked about her so much, Kate almost felt as if her mother were still there.

  Almost.

  She crossed the room stiffly and noticed that instead of more iced tea, Papa had made hot chocolate, just the way he had when she was a little girl and needed comforting.

  "So that's Spencer," he said, handing her a mug.

  She sat on the sofa and sipped. Rich. Papa always used whole milk.

  "Spencer's actually a very nice person," she replied. "He's just not very...emotional." And he'd called Papa crazy. "Or nice. He's not a very nice person. I was mistaken."

  "I'm afraid I have to agree with your mother, Katie. He's definitely not the right one for you."

  Kate considered correcting him about her mother, then decided against it.

  "At any rate," he continued, "I'm glad you're not going to marry him."

  Kate nodded and lifted her cup to her lips for another drink of cocoa when it occurred to her that she'd told Spencer she wasn't going to marry him while sitting inside his well-insulated car. She hadn't mentioned it to Papa yet. She lowered the cup and looked at him.

  "How did you know I'd called off the engagement?" His hearing couldn't possibly be that good.

  "Your mother told me."

  Oh, well, sure, why hadn't she thought of that? Ghosts probably had supernatural hearing abilities.

  "After tonight, I can't believe I ever considered marrying him."

  "In the setting of a big city and big business, he probably came across real different than he did down here."

  "Yes, he certainly did."

  "When you get married, your mother and I want you to have the kind of love we have. We don't want you to settle for anything less. Your mother knew from the beginning what a big mistake Spencer would have been. We want you to love somebody so much he's like a part of you, so much you can't remember what your life was like before that person came or what it would be like if he left."

  Papa was describing the way she felt about Luke. But he didn't understand how painful that sort of love could be.

  "Guess you've loved Luke since you were just little tykes," he said, evidently thinking she wasn't getting the point quickly enough.

  "The love that children have for each other is a different kind of love," she protested.

  "Love is love. You can add other elements to it, like sex, but the love part is pretty basic."

  She could feel her face grow hot. "Papa! Are you suggesting that Luke and I—"

  He shrugged. "None of my business. You're both adults. You're young and healthy and you did spend the night together in Dallas."

  "You set me up, didn't you? You didn't need those papers from the Dallas courthouse."

  He focused his gaze on his cup of hot chocolate. "Of course I needed them. I wanted to find out the exact dates o
f Seth Flanders's marriage and divorce. Okay, maybe you could have got them the night before, but your mother thought if the two of you had a little time alone together—" He looked up at her, shrugged and smiled.

  She ought to be angry. This whole situation with Luke was Papa's fault. But she loved him too much...and she knew he'd done it all out of love for her. On the positive side, it had saved her from marrying Spencer.

  Which reminded her of the reason Spencer had come to Briar Creek.

  "Did you send that email to Spencer asking him to come down here so I'd see what a jerk he can be?"

  "Oh, Katie-girl, you know I don't know anything about that email stuff."

  "You didn't send it?" Luke was the only other possibility.

  "Of course I didn't. Your mother did."

  Kate set her empty cup on the coffee table and went to kneel beside Papa's chair. "Mama didn't send that note," she said softly. "Mama's dead."

  "I guess it depends on how you define dead. She isn't quite like she used to be, but she doesn't like to hear that."

  Well, she supposed it was better than an outright denial.

  "Mama didn't send the email. She didn't encourage you to play matchmaker between Luke and me. She died in the car wreck twenty-six years ago."

  He nodded. "Twenty-six years. Hard to believe."

  But he didn't say he didn't believe it. Encouraged, Kate plunged ahead. "So she can't be talking to you. Can she?"

  A soft smile and a dreamy expression settled on his face. "You used to talk to her, too, when you were young, Katie-girl. But then after Luke left, you closed your heart to love, so you couldn't see or hear her anymore. Now your heart's opening up again. Mama said you can hear her again, and sometimes you almost see her."

  Your heart's opening up? That was the same language her mother had used in her dream.

  "I talked to her memory," Kate replied firmly, reminding herself as well as Papa of the reality. "You told me so much about her, you made her live for me, and that's something I'll always treasure. But, Papa, she isn't really alive. You haven't really been talking to her. It's not possible for someone who dies to return to this world."

  "Not without a special dispensation. The good Lord knew I wouldn't be able to raise you alone, so He let her come back just for that purpose."

  He even had the details figured out.

  "Papa, listen to me. What you're saying is impossible."

  "Impossible." He nodded thoughtfully. "On the surface, you'd think it was impossible for an act of love between two people to create life. You wait, sweetheart, until the first time you hold your own baby, and then you tell me if you think anything's impossible when it comes to taking care of your child."

  She flinched. Even though she wasn't going to marry Spencer, she still didn't want to have children.

  Unless, of course, she had no choice.

  She swallowed hard and thrust that idea aside to deal with later.

  Papa set his cup on the coffee table and picked up the photo album. He thumbed through, found what he was looking for and laid the album back on the table in front of her. "That's you and your mama when you were just a few weeks old. You were born with a full head of red, curly hair. You were one of those impossible miracles that happened anyway. We'd been married seventeen years when you came along. Your mother cried when you were born. Oh, not from the pain. She went through two days of labor and never complained. But when old Doc Stanton laid you in her arms, her whole face lit up and she cried."

  For no discernible reason, Kate could feel the tears forming behind her own eyelids, could feel an old pain trying again to creep up and grip her heart.

  She stood. "Papa, I've got to go back to Dallas tonight. Right now."

  "Right now?" He looked up in shock. "Why?"

  She shook her head. "I just do. I'll call you tomorrow and I'll be back next weekend for my clothes." She leaned over and hugged him, then grabbed her purse and ran out the door, fleeing as if for her life...certainly for her sanity. Surely when she got back to Dallas she'd be able to get her thoughts and her life in order once again.

  ***

  Jerome stood at the door and watched Katie drive away.

  "I don't understand, Emma. Everything seemed to be going so good."

  "She's frightened, Jerome. I didn't stay to see what happened between Luke and her in the cave. Perhaps I should have, but I didn't want to intrude. Whatever it was, she's terrified, and she's shut me out again. I can't get through to her."

  "What are we going to do?"

  "I'm not sure. I need to have a chat with Luke and Francine and maybe even Jeff. They're all in pretty receptive moods right now, back in the old house and with lots of love flowing around all of them."

  Jerome went back into the house and returned to his recliner. "Come sit in my lap for a little while, Emma. Let me hold you while we talk about what to do with our wayward daughter."

  Emma settled on his lap and smiled up at him. "Do you have any idea what the neighbors would think if they should look in the window and see you with your arms wrapped around thin air?"

  "No worse than what Spencer thought when he saw you petting Leo."

  Emma laughed. "He certainly wasn't worthy of our Katie. You were pretty hard on him, though. You know I can't drink tea anymore."

  Jerome chuckled. "He wasn't real sure. He kept looking at that glass. It would've been a hoot if you'd been able to make that tea go down."

  He kissed his wife's transparent, tingly cheek. The failure of their plans meant she'd be with him for a while longer, but it was a bittersweet thought. He hated the notion of her leaving, but he couldn't stand for their precious Katie to be unhappy.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Luke pulled up in front of his house and parked.

  The first time he'd driven by Sheriff's place, he'd seen Katie sitting beside some slimy jerk with blond hair in a silver Mercedes with the engine running. A quick computer check of the license plate on that car revealed it was registered to Spencer Osborne of Dallas, Texas.

  So that was Spencer.

  Interesting that Katie hadn't mentioned Spencer was coming to Briar Creek.

  Angry at her for deceiving him, at himself for being deceived, and at the whole world in general, Luke had driven by the house again a few minutes later just to check on the situation...and found both cars gone.

  That told him all he needed to know, but being a law man, he'd checked his facts anyway. He stopped and knocked, and Sheriff verified that Katie had left for Dallas. She would, he assured Luke, be back next weekend.

  Katie was gone. Not just physically, but all the way gone.

  He got out of his car and went up to his house.

  His car, his house, his job.

  So much of the past he'd reclaimed.

  But not his friend, his love. Not Katie.

  He'd lied to himself about one thing. He hadn't wanted her back just as his friend. He'd wanted all of her. And she hadn't wanted to give any of herself to him.

  After today, after her spoken words as well as the way she'd responded to his lovemaking, he didn't doubt that she loved him. But for whatever reason, she didn't want to.

  "Luke, what's wrong?" His mother stood holding the screen door open, waiting for him.

  He forced a smile. "Nothing's wrong. Why?"

  "Don't give me that. I'm your mother. I know when something's wrong."

  He shrugged. "Katie's gone back to Dallas. Sheriff begged off for dinner tonight. Said he'd see you and Jeff tomorrow."

  "Oh. I rather thought you and Katie were—"

  Luke pushed past her. "No. Katie and I aren't."

  Jeff looked up from his seat in the recliner where Luke had sat the first night they were there. It was the same spot where Luke's father's old recliner had sat for many years.

  Luke knew he was in a black mood, ready to find something or someone to take out his anger and despair on, and for a moment he expected to be angry at Jeff for being where his father wasn'
t.

  But it didn't happen.

  He was sorry his father wasn't there, but he was glad Jeff was. He was genuinely glad his mother had someone to make her happy. The fact that someone happened to be a friend of his actually made it even better.

  Katie was the only part of his past he hadn't been able to come to terms with.