“I might be late. If we get to talking about solid fuels, who knows what could happen? But I’ll be back by midnight.”
She shivered in anticipation. “I’ll be waiting.”
“Good.”
They kissed again before he left. As soon as he walked out of the laundry room, Carly counted to twenty before going up the stairs and calling for her mother.
“Let them know I’m on my way,” she said. “I’m going to pick up Jack, then drive directly to the equipment rental.”
She and Adam might have just done the wild thing an amazing three times in a single night, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still going to try to convince him that the ghost was real. With Adam gone for several hours, she and Jack would put his electromagnet plan into action. With luck, that would do the trick.
No one had actually considered the dimension and weight of the magnet, Carly thought, as she and Jack wheeled the heavy cart onto the elevator.
She stepped back and stared at the device. “It looks like something out of a science fiction movie,” she said. “Is this going to work?”
“It’ll be great,” Jack promised.
Tiffany hovered in the hall. “Should you guys ride up in the elevator with it? Won’t that be too much weight?”
Carly looked at the metal device, the cart and the small elevator. “Good point. We’ll take the stairs.”
She leaned in, pushed the button for Adam’s floor, then jumped back. Jack, Tiffany and she raced up the two flights, then hurried down the hall to meet the elevator when the doors slowly opened.
It was early afternoon and all their guests seemed to be out enjoying the sunny Saturday weather. Good thing, she thought as Jack slipped in behind the magnet and pushed. Carly and Tiffany grabbed the front of the cart and pulled. The large wheels began to slowly turn. If anyone saw them right now, they would run screaming for the hills.
“What is this supposed to do?” Tiffany asked.
“In theory, it will disrupt Adam’s equipment and convince him there’s been some kind of ghost dropping by,” Carly said as she pulled with all her might.
The heavy cart finally rolled free of the elevator. She went around back to help Jack push as they urged it toward Adam’s room.
“It’s been two weeks, Mom. If he doesn’t believe now, he’s not going to.”
“I’m not giving up,” Carly said, between gasps as she pushed harder.
At last the cart was in place. Jack strung the thick power cord out a window and down to the portable generator that had been provided to run the magnet. He went downstairs and a few minutes later the entire house shook as he started the generator.
Tiffany raced to the window. “Ready?” she yelled. She turned to Carly. “He’s giving me a thumbs-up. Go for it, Mom.”
Carly flipped the switch on the jumbo magnet. For a second there was only a faint hum, then the afternoon exploded into a cacophony of thumps and crashes and screeches as throughout the house metal objects did their best to fly toward the magnet.
Carly swore under her breath. Obviously she hadn’t thought this through. A particularly loud crash made her wince, but she left the magnet on for a full minute before turning it off.
Tiffany stared at her wide-eyed. “What just happened?”
“To be honest, I don’t want to know.”
The damage was mostly minor. Several metal cooking utensils and pans had flown out of open shelves and up to the ceiling, only to crash to the ground a minute later when the magnet was turned off. Serving trays had taken the same journey, as had all the paper clips in Carly’s office. Her file cabinets had walked halfway across the floor. Drawers stood open. Her lamp was a casualty of attempted flight.
“It’s so weird,” Tiffany said when she ran into the office. “My bed is nearly out the door.”
“Probably the metal frame. What about other stuff?”
“A few of my belts are on the floor. Jack says you need to check your computer disks. The floppies could be messed up.”
Carly sank into her chair. “I don’t want to know what the guest rooms look like. I sure hope this worked.”
“We still have the locks to try,” her daughter reminded her. “The automatic ones. They’ll be fun.”
Carly nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. What if Adam didn’t believe? What if she couldn’t convince him?
“You’re quiet,” Adam said around one in the morning, when they’d finished making love and were simply trying to catch their breath.
“I was wondering how your day went. Did you have fun?”
Had he noticed that a giant magnet had gone off outside his room?
“It was good. I won’t bore you with the technical details about what we discussed, but I think Will is on to something.”
“Good.”
He bent over her and kissed her. “Giant magnet, huh?”
She did her best not to show any emotion as she looked at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“My equipment is all messed up and my floppies are trashed. Only one thing could have done that.”
“A ghost?”
He chuckled. “No. A magnet. A really big one. How did you get it in the house?”
Her heart sank. Sure, the sex was good, but what did it matter in the face of her family’s financial ruin?
“Why can’t you just believe?” she asked as she sat up. “Ghosts are real.”
“No, they’re not. We both know that, Carly.”
“I don’t.” She moved to the side of the bed and reached for her clothes. “I don’t know that for a second. You can tell me what your monitors say all you want. I don’t care. I remember her. Mary is a part of my childhood. She was here, in this house. I’ve seen her and I don’t care what anyone says. I believe, and if you don’t, it changes everything.”
He raised himself up on his elbow. “Is that the price of this relationship?”
“What relationship? You’re here for another week, then you’re leaving.” She pulled on her panties, then grabbed her T-shirt. “How can you do this to me?”
“Do what?”
“Ruin me. If you go out and write your paper, or whatever it is you do, this B and B will lose over half our business. We’ll never make it. My mom will sell. This house had been in our family nearly a hundred and fifty years. You don’t have the right to take that away from us.”
“I’m not. I’m simply telling the truth. I’m sorry about the house, but I don’t believe you’re going to lose it. You’re stronger than you think.”
She wasn’t. She could feel herself getting weaker by the second.
“I’ve worked so hard and there’s so much left to do.” She pulled on her T-shirt, then grabbed his hands. “Adam, please. Don’t do this.”
“I care about you, Carly, but I won’t lie.”
“I’m not asking you to lie. I’m asking you to keep quiet.”
“They’re not that different.”
“They are to me.” She released him and turned away. “There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?”
“No. I’m sorry. This isn’t about you.”
“Then who is it about?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally she heard him get out of bed and pull on clothes. “You want me to go?”
“Yes.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant to leave her room or the B and B. Did it matter? Sure, she would miss him when he left, but she would miss the house more. To have come so far, only to lose everything now.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he walked to the door. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“Too bad. If that had been your plan, think of how successful you could feel right now.”
She waited until he was gone, then she collapsed back on the bed and buried her face in a pillow. How could everything have gone so wrong so quickly? And how on earth did she make things right?
“Mom?”
Tiffany hovered outside Carly’s office. Carly
looked up from her computer, where she’d been searching for small towns with good schools. If they had to move again, she wanted to make sure her daughter had a chance at a great education.
“What’s up?” she asked, trying for cheerful and not sure she’d succeeded. The past two days had been one giant hurt that she’d tried to keep to herself.
“I don’t know. You seem different. Are you okay?”
Carly smiled at her daughter. “I’m fine, but you know what I need?”
“What?”
“Some time away from here. Let’s go into town and have ice cream for dinner.”
“Really? Just the two of us?”
“Absolutely. Only don’t tell Grandma.”
“I won’t. She’d totally freak.”
Thirty minutes later they sat across from each other with two large chocolate sundaes between them.
“Bon appétit,” Carly said.
Tiffany giggled and took a big bite. “This is great.”
“I’m sure we’ll both have stomachaches later, but it will be so worth it.”
“You bet.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Carly felt the first stirrings of a sugar rush. Maybe it would be enough to get her mind off Adam.
He’d chosen not to leave the B and B, so she’d spent the past two days avoiding him. She’d canceled the order for the remote locks—they wouldn’t fool him—and resigned herself to the demise of their status as a haunted house. After running the numbers without Mary as an enticement, she’d discovered what she already knew—no ghost meant no profits. It was well and truly over.
“Jack feels bad the magnet didn’t work,” Tiffany said. “But he had a good time helping.”
“I’m glad. He’s been great.” She glanced at her daughter. “You guys have been together for a while now.”
“Nearly two months.” Tiffany ducked her head and blushed. “It’s my longest relationship ever.”
“You’re growing up.”
“Enough to car date?”
“Nope.”
“Mo-om!”
Carly set down her spoon. “I know you think I make up these rules to make you unhappy, but it’s not true. I love you and you’re the most important person in my life. I want to do everything I can to keep you safe.”
“But Jack would never hurt me.”
“I think he cares about you a lot, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hurt you without trying. Boys are different.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “We’re in a restaurant, Mom. Don’t you dare bring up sex now!”
“I’ll whisper,” Carly said softly. “But it is about sex. Because Jack cares about you, he wants things. Sexual things.” The fact that he was sixteen meant he would want those things even if he didn’t care, but she wasn’t about to get into that.
“He hasn’t tried anything.”
“He hasn’t had a chance. But if the two of you were alone, in a car or at someone’s house, it would be so easy. You start out kissing and one thing leads to another. Eventually you’re going to have to make those choices on your own. I know that. But not at fifteen. You’re not ready, and neither am I.”
“But this shouldn’t be about you. What about my life?”
“I want you to have fun, but that doesn’t mean you can do what you want. I love you too much not to have rules.”
“Rules aren’t good.”
“They can be. They can save you. Tiffany, I would give my life for you. I’m also willing to have you hate me from now until you go off to college if that’s what it takes. That’s how much I want you to have a good life.”
She thought she might have gotten through, but she wasn’t sure. Especially when her daughter sighed and said, “I’m still mad about the belly button ring.”
“Me, too.”
“But everyone has one.”
“Name me twenty girls at school who have one.”
“Okay, not everyone.”
Carly smiled. “Name me ten.”
Tiffany sighed again, then grinned. “How about one?”
“You are so not getting a belly button ring on my watch.”
“Fine. I’ll put it on my to-do list for when I turn eighteen. I’m gonna be really busy that day.”
“I’ll bet you are.”
Tiffany grinned. “Want to come with me and get one yourself?”
“We’ll talk.”
Carly walked into her bedroom that evening to find Adam sitting on her bed. She came to a stop, not sure if she should be happy, angry or simply order him out.
“I don’t want it to be like this,” he said before she could speak. “I hate that you’re mad at me.”
“Do you expect me to be happy with what you’re going to do?”
“I expect you to understand.” He stood and moved toward her. “Dammit, Carly, we have something special here. Are you going to let that go because of some fake ghost?”
He was furious. She could see the temper in his eyes.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Us. What we could have together.”
Was he insane? “There’s no us. You’ve been really sweet to me, and I appreciate that, but Adam, you live in Virginia. I’m here. At least until I have to move. You’re seven years younger than me.”
He grabbed her arms. “Do you really think that matters?”
“Of course.”
He swore again and released her. She couldn’t believe he was so upset.
“I thought this was just about sex,” she said. “I thought—”
“What?” His gaze narrowed. “That I didn’t care? That this was all just an easy game for me? That you were one more notch in the bedpost?”
Honestly? “Yes.”
“No!” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her with a desperation that made her knees go weak. “I care about you, Carly. More than I have cared about anyone in a long time. You’re amazing. I want us to make this work.”
What us? What this? She couldn’t get her mind around the fact that he thought they had a future.
“For how long?” she asked. “At what point will you want someone younger and newer?”
“Why does it always have to be about age?”
“Because age matters. I’m forty. I have a fifteen-year-old daughter. You’re going to want kids someday and I’m not interested in doing that again. I don’t even know if I could get pregnant, but I can tell you I don’t want to.”
“I’ve never been that interested in kids.”
Ha. Like she believed that. “You say that now, but you’ll change your mind.”
“So you won’t have a relationship with me because of something that might happen in the future?”
There were other things, too, although she couldn’t think of them now. Truthfully, she’d never allowed herself to consider a future with Adam. Sure he was great and pretty much everything she’d ever wanted in a man, but so not for her.
“I can’t deal with any relationship right now,” she told him. “I just got a divorce. I’m not looking to get involved.”
“So this is just bad timing?”
“Some of it. Plus I know you think you’re in the right on the ghost thing, but I don’t want to be with someone so willing to ruin me.”
His eyes darkened. “That’s too bad because I can’t be with someone who wants me to lie for her.”
“I don’t want you to lie,” she began, then stopped. Wasn’t not telling the truth as he saw it a lie of omission? “I guess I do.”
“I won’t.”
“I know.” Perhaps in time she could appreciate his honesty, but right now it was just too hard.
“I’m leaving in a few days. I don’t want it to end like this.”
“How do you want it to end?”
“With a promise for the future.”
“I can’t give you that. There’s too much in my life right now. I don’t know what’s going on. If the B an
d B closes, I don’t even know where Tiffany and I will live.”
“Then come back to Virginia with me. I have a house. There’s room.”
She stepped back. “I’ve known you less than three weeks. I can’t move in with you. Even if I wanted to, what kind of example does that set for my daughter? I’m having a hard enough time trying to keep her following the rules now.”
“But I…” He reached for her. “I care about you.”
She stepped back a second time. “Sometimes caring isn’t enough.”
“It has to be.”
For the first time, she actually felt every one of the seven years that stretched between them and then some. He was so earnest and determined. As if he could will things to be the way he wanted.
She’d learned a long time ago that wanting had very little to do with anything.
“I’m sorry, Adam. It’s not.” She walked to her door and held it open.
He stared at her for a long time, then he shook his head and walked out into the hallway.
“You’ll regret this,” he said.
He might be right. There was something between them. There had been from the first second she’d seen him. But for now, her gut told her it was time to let him go.
The only good thing about feeling so crappy was that she didn’t want to eat, Carly thought three days later as she sat at her desk and reached for her fifth cup of coffee. Maybe she could drop a couple of pounds and have to buy all new clothes because her old ones were hanging on her. It could happen.
Adam was leaving that afternoon and she had yet to speak with him. She hadn’t—not since their last, very painful, encounter. She didn’t know what to say.
She doubted he would want to know he was the best lover she’d ever had. Not only was that not much of a compliment, she had a feeling he wanted their time together to be about more than sex. And it was. She had feelings for him, but she didn’t know what they were. Everything had happened too fast. She was too close to her divorce. He wanted the impossible, all the while planning to destroy her.
And she’d thought her life was complicated before.
She returned her attention to the spreadsheet in front of her. Once again she tried to make the numbers work without the ghost. If they could get enough business before word got out, maybe people would keep coming because they enjoyed the experience. Or if they could—
There's Always Plan B Page 17