Pippa’s throat closed. Her own actions had sabotaged her best-laid intentions. Last night had ended abysmally. It was as if she had juggled fine china and let it slip from her hands to shatter. It was her fault. All of it. The Watchman spooking in the chaos, her own fears throttling her bravery, and their very presence creating havoc in the wake of the elephant’s birth.
“The calf needs me.” Pippa’s voice quavered with the only words she could afford. There was so much more she wanted to say. Wanted to scream. But the words didn’t come. They never did.
Ripley waved his hand over the length of Pippa’s stature. “She’s your intended, Forrest. What do you say?”
Her father was washing his hands of her.
Forrest shot her a quick glance and then gave her father a curt nod. “I agree. She needs to stay away. The circus isn’t the place for—a proper lady.”
Pippa didn’t miss his hesitation. Of course, she wasn’t a proper lady. Her origins were the first strike against her, her deformity the second, and now being seen on circus grounds in the middle of the night? These might be modern times for modern women, but tradition and perception sneered at that idea.
Forrest continued, his voice smooth and confident, bypassing her like the nothing that she was. “You’ll need regular updates on the calf. I can continue to invest my time there. We can keep this quiet, and I’ll be sure no one makes any rash decisions regarding the calf’s welfare.”
“And you’ll make certain Pippa stays away from the circus?” Ripley pointed a finger in her direction as if she couldn’t comprehend reason. “If it gets out that she was there alone and unaccounted for—and for that matter, with that riffraff Chapman—it will shatter the decency of your betrothal and future union, not to mention besmirch our name. Carousing and consorting with the rabble of his like . . . well, we both know his sort.”
“I’ll keep Pippa accountable.”
Every nerve in Pippa’s body screamed to fight back, to rise in her defense, but she didn’t. The expression on Richard Ripley’s face indicated he was not to be crossed in the matter. Maybe, if Pippa could see him through different eyes, she would be able to appreciate that he was trying to protect her honor—and maybe her welfare. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t look at the man who had been her father since she was a babe and see anything other than the replacement for someone else. Her real father.
Chapter Eight
CHANDLER
Nothing was as sweet as that moment she deposited a sleepy Peter Pan into her bed, his lanky arms and legs, bare chest, and basketball shorts transforming into a tightly curled ball. Eyes closed, Chandler’s son edged his way toward the middle of the bed, and his hand reached out to pat her empty pillow.
“You’re awful close to my side of the bed, Dude-face.” Chandler launched into their nightly routine.
“It’s so I can snuggle while I sleep, Momma.” Peter might be seven, might be on the verge of no longer being a little boy, but for now he was still all hers. At night, he reverted to his toddler years when he gave up his little bed and sleeping solo to crawling in next to her. Truth be told, Chandler would never freely tell anyone that Peter slept beside her at night. Her parents already seemed doubtful of her parenting skills, and creating co-dependency, as they would put it, was unwise at best.
Chandler bent over and brushed back the damp, wavy hair, its ombré tones something a girl would kill for, but which Peter came by naturally. She pressed her lips to his temple, taking a second to draw in a deep breath of little-boy scent.
“Ni-night, Peter Pan.”
“Ni-night, Wendy,” he murmured, already almost asleep.
One more kiss and Chandler clicked off the lamp by the bed. She cast a quick look upward at the night-light hologram splashed across the ceiling. Wolverine. One of Peter’s favorite superheroes. Somehow, instead of being scary, the spread of Wolverine’s claws across the ceiling brought him comfort. He was protected by an imaginary man with wolfish sideburns and a yellow suit.
Chandler smiled to herself and padded across the wood floor of the rented cottage. She needed sleep too, and a hairy superhero wouldn’t be all that bad, either. No. She would be her own superhero. Her body was begging for rest, yet her mind was still sharp and wary.
Making her way into the kitchen, Chandler stopped in the doorway and stared at the unrepaired sink. Denny Pike hadn’t returned as he’d promised, and he hadn’t called to give her any messages either. After a dinner of ramen noodles and some box-mix biscuits Margie had scrounged up, the nanny took her leave—but not before giving Chandler a cozy hug and a whispered “Tomorrow’s gonna be fresh and new, hun.”
Now her phone rang with the indicative ringer of a video call, and Chandler snagged it from her joggers’ pocket. She glanced at the screen, biting back an oath as she dreaded the sight of Jackson’s name. He’d call her any time of day. The man was always working, always devoted to proving himself as the more competent of the two. Instead it was a welcome name.
Chandler swiped to answer. “Nel?”
“Hey!” Her friend’s voice was almost raspy on the other end. Nel was second only to Peter. Nel was . . . well, she grounded Chandler. “You didn’t text today.”
Chandler squeezed her eyes tight. “No, I’m sorry. I was—it was a—heckuva day.”
“Aw, tell me what happened.”
Chandler hardly noticed her friend’s confinement to her wheelchair from spina bifida. It wasn’t Nel’s defining feature. It was her eyes, so dark, so knowing. All knowing, it seemed, and framed by dark curls and olive skin. She should have a degree in counseling, but instead she worked at a local grocery store and relied on assistance to help get her from point A to point B. Someone had to pay for school, Nel always said with a chuckle while waving away Chandler’s sympathy. Pity wasn’t something Nel liked. She’d get through school, eventually, and as independently as possible.
Chandler exited the kitchen and entered the small living room, sinking into a cushiony couch of taupe faux leather with a top stitching that made it rustic and homey. She stared vacantly at the cold white-brick fireplace and the cast-iron pot on its hearth filled with kindling. Denny must have employed a designer’s help in making this rental so cozy. He seemed more like the type to decorate with pyramids of beer cans and a few old flowerpots for ashtrays.
“It’s just—tough.” Chandler bit her tongue. Really she was just tired. Tired of keeping her health a secret, tired of maintaining through the stress, and tired of worrying that one of these days it was all somehow going to explode around her.
Nel laughed, her husky tone carrying through the phone. “Now, now. My tough isn’t your tough, and I can see you checking your words and comparing the two. Knock it off, sister. You’ve a right to cry ‘trouble!’ now and then.”
“You have no idea.” Chandler had to admit something or she’d self-combust. She sank deeper into the sofa, pulling her feet off the floor and perching them on the edge of the cushion. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
She’d been contemplating it since Margie had gone on and on about Lottie over dinner. How the real estate agent was as professional as they come but a bit loony about the spirit world. How the ghost tours she ran on the side had fished up stories about the murdered depot prostitute, a poltergeist who busted mirrors in the old house on 10th Avenue, and the theory that other spirits from the old Native American burial grounds were none too pleased that their graves had been built upon eons ago. But Chandler couldn’t shake the eerie sensations that had made the hairs stand up on her arms last night in the depot. If a light had been seen inside, there was no physical explanation for it. And Sasquatch Man seemed convinced someone had been inside too. If it wasn’t a human, could it be a wandering spirit?
She could see Nel’s black eyebrow raise, her inquisitive look and searching expression. “Do I believe in ghosts?” she repeated. “Um. No. Although my aunt saw my uncle standing over her in bed one night. She swears by it. He’d been dead for five years
. And I know for sure he was dead ’cause I was a kid and touched his body in the coffin. It was sort of cold and spongy.”
Chandler grimaced. “Thanks for that.”
Nel just smiled.
Chandler continued, plowing ahead in spite of misgivings that she’d sound a bit crazy. “Some . . . stuff happened last night at the property I’m working on. And, I found out there’s a local story about the long-ago murder of a woman that might have taken place there. I don’t know if it will affect resale if we decide to flip the property, but people get superstitious about ghosts and such. Of course, there’s no requirement that I can find here in Wisconsin that information like that be disclosed before a sale. So . . . voilà! I may have purchased a ghost! And Jackson is breathing down my neck just waiting for me to mess up so he can show himself to be god almighty of the company.”
Nel gave her an empathetic smile. “You look like a train wreck.” She grew more serious and tilted her head to stare down her nose at Chandler.
A desperate ache grew in Chandler’s chest. It was familiar and dark. A sensation riddled with longing and a need to find a place—just one place—where she could stop fighting, stop being, and just rest. Wasn’t rest supposed to hold hands with faith and marry itself to a person’s belief that God had things handled? All those pretty memes that popped up on her Facebook feed, the little coloring book of inspirational quotes the lady at the women’s outreach at church had given her, and even that T-shirt she’d bought on a whim online from a click-bait site. All those things printed with cursive and flowers promised a rest that was as elusive to Chandler as catching a falling star.
“You need to sleep,” Nel advised. Not rest. She knew better. She knew better than to tell Chandler that. Rest was a completely different thing than sleep. Chandler hadn’t rested since the day she found out she was pregnant with Peter and didn’t know who the father was. Hadn’t rested since her own parents said they’d be there to help if Peter needed them, but also made it clear that Chandler had made her own choices and needed to live with the consequences. They weren’t going to bail her out like a privileged kid who didn’t need to answer for herself. Even when Uncle Neal had recognized potential in her after she labored her way through her last year in college and offered her a job, she was immediately struck with the accusation of nepotism from co-workers. Maybe not spewed from their mouths directly, but it was in their eyes nonetheless. The challenge, the doubt, the disappointment.
“My sink is busted, and my landlord hasn’t bothered to fix it yet,” Chandler mumbled.
Nel opened her mouth and started to speak, but Chandler didn’t hear her. A loud knock on the door startled her, and she twitched in surprise. A quick assessment through the cross-paned windows and the filmy curtain that covered it told her it was still dusk. Not completely dark outside, but the early autumn night most assuredly evolved quickly toward it. Another month, Daylight Saving Time, and it’d be well into nighttime by now.
“Nel, someone’s at the door. I need to go.”
Nel offered Chandler an understanding albeit tinged-with-concern smile. “Fine. But you call again if you need me. You know I’m here, day or night.”
Blessed Nel.
“And,” her friend finished, “I’ll be praying for you.”
Another knock at the door. Chandler nodded. “Thanks, Nel.” She hung up, wondering when Nel’s prayers would bring the peace God had promised but didn’t seem to care about seeing through.
And here was proof that God’s peace that passes all understanding was more likely a myth than a reality.
Chandler had the bolt lock hooked as she stared through the open crack between the door and frame.
He glowered back.
Chandler couldn’t resist darting a look over her shoulder at the ceiling toward the room where Peter slept. If the man tried anything—anything—he’d experience a far fiercer version of Chandler Neale Faulk than the one he’d encountered last night. A man knew no violence like that of a mother bear enraged on behalf of her cub.
“What do you want?” Be direct. Be firm. Chandler coached confidence into her voice, the same confidence she infused herself with when going into a corporate meeting where she had to lay out her proposals with the façade of professional expertise that was so critical to keep her footing as a woman in a roomful of contractors, investors, architects, and other sundry positions.
He didn’t appear any friendlier than last night in the depot, only this time she could see his eyes were green as they drilled into hers with unsettling intensity. It was as though he was seeing through her and into her, attempting to translate who she was, assess her intelligence, her threat level, even her honesty. Or was he gauging her vulnerability? Chandler recognized he could snap the bolt lock from its anchor with one well-placed kick of his boot-clad foot.
Chandler’s common sense took over. She had no obligation to entertain a stranger who’d butted into her business last night with the finesse of a bulldozer. She was moving to slam the door shut when the tip of his boot wedged into the crack.
“Don’t.” His word was a command. His voice gravelly.
“Tell me who you are.” Command for a command, she determined, and she locked eyes with him.
He didn’t grace her with an answer. Just a declaration. “My uncle sent me.”
Confusion hampered Chandler’s reasoning. “Your—who?”
“To fix your sink,” he finished as though she’d never interrupted.
There was no way she was letting Sasquatch Man into the cottage. “I’ll wait for Denny, thank you.”
“Fine.” The scruffy man with the long wavy hair that framed a broad, chiseled face gave a short nod and pulled back his toe from the door. He turned remarkably thick shoulders to her and started down the walk with intentional steps that held no regret at being thwarted from his purpose.
Chandler opened the door until the chain on the bolt was stretched to its max. She squinted into the fast-growing night. A Harley. Very similar to the one that Denny had rode earlier in the day.
“Wait!”
He turned.
Why had she stopped him? Uncertainty warred within her.
“I’m not going to hurt you. You saw me with the cops last night. We go way back. I’m harmless.” Harmless. He looked like with a flick of his wrist he could break her into two pieces.
“How comforting,” Chandler retorted. “What do you want? Who are you?”
His mouth curved slightly at the corner in a dry, tilted smile that offered no friendship and made her feel smaller than she already was. Maybe even a little playful teasing—mischievous. Definitely that.
“I’m your plumber.”
“You’re way more than that,” Chandler shot back, remembering him strong-arming her into silence for fear the trespasser—or as Lottie would claim, the ghost—would spook. Ha! Spook. Even in her nervous fluster, Chandler noted her unintentional mental pun.
He shrugged. He didn’t seem to care one way or the other if he fixed her sink.
“Just a second.” Chandler shut the door and retrieved her phone from the couch. She was going to call Denny. She had no intention of letting a stranger into her house—or a Sasquatch. But intentions were sometimes thwarted by necessity, and she had a sink that needed fixing.
One thing was certain, the last twenty-four hours had almost proven to Chandler the foundations of her worst fear. She was growing inept. Inept and incapable of remaining stable and level-headed, of wearing her big-girl pants, of being Uncle Neal’s right hand without question. She was floundering. And floundering made a person very, very vulnerable.
Chapter nine
The sink was repaired. Denny had vouched for his nephew and even offered to come over and stand there with him if Chandler was that upset. She was torn and almost took him up on the offer, but then thought she had to be overreacting if the guy was Denny’s nephew. Of course, she’d only met Denny once too, so what if he wasn’t trustworthy? Still, last night the cop
s hadn’t seemed worried about him. And so on and so forth went her circular thoughts until, before Chandler realized it, the sink was working again.
Darkness invaded every non-lit section of the tiny kitchen, made tinier by the grizzly who had silently worked his plumbing talents with no introductions and no further conversation.
Hank. Hank Titus. Denny had given Chandler his name and was adamant that Hank could do a better job of repairs than he could. What was she nervous for? Hank was just a younger version of himself. A softy.
Chandler eyed Hank from across the room, keeping her phone clutched in her hand. It brought her a false sense of security.
The clank of a pipe wrench being tossed on the linoleum floor startled Chandler from her swirling thoughts.
Hank eyed her and declared, “It’s fixed.” Then he wiped his hands on a dish towel.
“Thanks.”
They examined each other wordlessly, the tension taut with the unspoken. He finally broke it by tossing the towel on the counter and bending to retrieve the wrench.
“So you didn’t see anyone last night at the depot?” he asked.
Chandler scowled. “No one except you.”
Hank cussed and kicked the cupboard door shut on the pipes.
“What were you doing at the depot last night?” Chandler didn’t bother to try to sound nice.
He glanced at her and then back at his toolbox. Hank dropped the wrench into it without care or concern for the other tools or any semblance of organization. “What were you doing there?” he countered.
“I own it.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but it was a long, roundabout story to try to explain her uncle’s business of acquiring, restoring, and flipping old properties.
Hank’s thick brows rose. He grunted as if he hadn’t expected that response. He shut the lid on the toolbox. “I need to get back inside.”
Chandler recalled Denny’s descriptor of Hank. A softy? Nope. She didn’t see it. “Why? No one was there. It was a trespassing false alarm.”
The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus Page 7