Syd collapsed on the end of the bed. “I really made a mess of things, didn’t I?”
Teddy sat on the end of the other bed. “No, you were just looking for what you had with Damien. You wanted the kids to have a father. No one can blame you for that. You were smart enough to get out the first time he hit you. That’s more than many women do.”
Syd rubbed the cheekbone he’d fractured—after he’d stalked her and got his revenge for reporting him to the police. “I have no good understanding of character. I had no idea he could be so vindictive or I’d never have got mixed up with him in the first place.”
“Well, unless you’re a mind reader, that’s not possible.” Teddy thought diversion from these gloomy thoughts might be necessary. “But I’m delighted to tell you that your daughter can hear ghosts, so let’s not murder Asshat and pollute the shop, okay?”
Syd stared at her. “You’re kidding, right? You think this ghost stuff is real?”
As if in answer, an invisible force knocked over Syd’s large tote bag—spilling out a small handgun.
June 29: morning
* * *
“You mean it?” Sam asked in glee, pouring their coffee. “You talked Kurt into turning Hillvale into an art gallery?”
Teddy shrugged. “Actually, I suggested a year-around Halloween spook house. You’re the one who suggested art displays.”
The big black-and-white photograph of the triptych panel still hung on the café’s wall. More names had been scribbled on it in Sharpie ink. Someone had added pink sticky notes of possible names, apparently doubting their memory. A more creative soul had crayoned periwinkle blue onto Teddy’s shop door.
She didn’t see any way that the triptych would find a killer, but it was bringing people in to check it out and opening community conversations, which was all good.
Dinah came over bearing a plate of donuts. “That Elaine got me the name of someone who might clean up the mural, but where will I put my stuff?” She gestured at the small appliances and cabinets needed for her business.
“Dinah, let me introduce my sister, Syd.” Teddy gestured to the bench opposite her where her sister dealt with two excited children. Syd waved and plopped Jeb on her lap.
They’d decided last night there wasn’t much point in disguising themselves any longer. Eventually, one of the older residents would put two and two together, especially with the triptych painting stirring memories.
“Pleased to meet you, Syd. Those two are the spitting image of you. You like your pancakes sweet the way they do?”
Syd ran her hand over her dyed brown curls and grimaced. “I’m good with toast, thanks. You could probably lower that back counter so your small appliances are beneath the painting. See where the coffee pots are painted into the picture? You could put the carafes right there and everything works together. And real cabinets could hang over the painted ones.”
“Brilliant.” Still hovering with the coffee pot, Samantha stepped back to study the painting of long-ago customers sitting at the café’s counter, as if they were reflections in a mirror on that wall. “There’s even a place for the juicer. It looks as if it might have been originally designed for just that purpose, but over the years, the appliances changed, and accumulated, and people forgot.”
Mariah arrived with glasses of milk in time to hear this last. “How did you see that when no one else has?”
“Syd’s an interior designer with an emphasis on spatial concepts,” Teddy answered while Syd rescued a glass of milk and tucked a napkin into Jeb’s collar. “She’s helping me work out the shop’s space.”
Mariah and Sam had to return to waiting on customers, but Dinah lingered. “I have some cash set aside. Can you help me make that mural work?”
The tarot lady with the bracelets and amber rings—Amber—Teddy recalled, wandered over to join them while Dinah and Syd discussed re-designing the café. “Sam says we’re starting art walks. How can I contribute?”
This was what Syd needed—a community to make her feel safe. Teddy had freaked over the gun last night and demanded that the cartridge be removed. The ghostly incident had shaken Syd into agreeing, but Teddy wouldn’t be happy until the weapon was in safe hands. She’d like to shake the client who had sold the gun to her sister. Syd had absolutely zero training in the use of weapons. She was simply living in a state of panic, for good reason, admittedly.
By the time the kids had finished their breakfast, a committee had formed. They trailed down the street after Teddy and Syd, ready to set plans for the art walk in motion.
Kurt waited at the shop door, leaning one shoulder against the newly painted panel. He wasn’t wearing jeans today, Teddy noted in disappointment. Yesterday, he’d looked three kinds of sexy in faded denim. Not that he looked half bad today sans tie and coat. She could admire the bronzed column of his throat emerging from the open-necked shirt and hope for a glimpse of chest hair.
She was forced to admit that she had really wanted to take him up on that dinner invite. Working beside him yesterday had been a turn-on of epic proportions. Sex between frenemies, maybe? Except her lawyer had said consorting with Kurt while filing a lawsuit was a no-no. Ugly.
“Is this another uprising to which I’m not invited?” he asked as he straightened. His chiseled features displayed just a hint of uncertainty.
That was a good look on him, Teddy decided—no false arrogance. “We’re planning an art walk. Since the lodge has the largest collection, you should join us.” That wouldn’t be consorting, would it?
“It’s a throwback to our frontier roots,” the sardonic musician who’d been introduced as Harvey said solemnly. “We’ll have a barn-raising and picnic after.”
Teddy noticed that—despite Harvey’s heavy irony—the excited crowd grew tense with Kurt’s appearance. That was a shame. She sensed Kurt’s reluctant interest and desire to help. How often had he been excluded from the town’s activities because of who he was? She had a clear memory of the little boy standing alone in his fancified suit behind a table full of expensive gifts, while his birthday guests played and laughed without him.
She’d been too young to think beyond her own excitement, but she’d known he was sad. At the time, she hadn’t realized not everyone sensed what she did.
To hell with it. Kurt needed the art walk as much as the town did. Personal differences shouldn’t intervene.
She caught Kurt’s arm and dragged him inside. “I assume you know everyone? I just met Harvey. Since his walking sticks contain crystals, I thought I could display them in here. You said you studied architecture, didn’t you? Meet my sister, Syd, the interior designer. We’re talking about how we can fix up the city hall displays. Can you help with that?”
She waited for their resident ghost to protest Kurt’s entrance, but Thalia—Teddy was thinking of her as her mother’s cousin—seemed content to leave them alone today. For now. After the gun incident last night, Teddy worried about displaying anything breakable—like her parents’ pottery.
Kurt seemed tense too as the conversation played out around him. He let Mia drag him out to see her tree house—Teddy realized her niece still missed her dad and was seeking a father figure. He came back in carrying Jeb, who was gnawing on a banana. Her nephew comforted himself with food. He needed stability. Maybe having Syd back would help.
Teddy kind of liked seeing the stiff executive deal unquestioningly with childish demands. She wished Kurt would be mean and yell at them, or even ignore them, so she’d get over this damned crush that couldn’t go anywhere. But he actually made an effort where many men wouldn’t.
Jeb went into his mother’s arms, leaving Kurt empty-handed. Teddy wanted to ease his discomfort, but he’d started it by isolating himself from his neighbors for so long.
He was starting to loosen up and help Harvey re-arrange the hooks beneath her shelves when Cassandra Tolliver entered.
Kurt’s tall, professorial, silver-haired half-aunt had a way of taking command with just her
presence. The moment she entered, the others turned to her with explanations, questions, and requests.
Kurt eased up beside Teddy. “I’d better get back to my desk. Dinner tonight?”
Teddy shot him a look of disapproval. “As I understand it, Cass’s mother owned this valley before your father turned it into his medieval fiefdom. She deserves a little respect.”
“There’s more to the history than that,” Kurt countered. “Give me credit for being polite and allowing her to reign free of my presence.”
“Discussion to follow,” she replied sternly. “Tonight, over a good bottle of wine.”
He not only looked relieved, but she thought she detected approval and a strong surge of lust seeping through his barriers. He squeezed her hand, said his farewells, and departed under Cass’s regal glare.
The dead speaker wires cackled.
Shouldn’t the damned ghost have left along with her bones?
Samantha
June 29: late afternoon
* * *
Sam added water to the new begonia she’d discovered in her ghost garden and added a top layer of compost. “Thank you, Gladys,” she whispered to the spirit she’d once met in the yard. “Your garden makes a fabulous nursery.”
Hearing Walker coming up the flagstone path, she stood and stretched the kink out of her back. She stretched a little more at his appreciative look, so the buttons of her shirt strained over her breasts. The man had a way of feeding her feminine power.
“You’ll have to add this yard to the art walk.” He kissed her thoroughly, then turned to admire the bed of blossoms that had practically sprung up overnight. “Art should be about expressions of beauty and life, shouldn’t it?”
“For a man who spends his time digging through dusty files and dealing with black-hearted villains, that is an amazing understanding. You get extra bonus points tonight.” Sam took his arm as they climbed the stairs of the cottage they’d just moved into. She liked the way he tightened his arm against his side to hold her hand in place. The man had muscles beneath his unprepossessing uniform.
“You may thank my mother for my sensitivity training. She’ll be coming in for the art walk.” Walker kissed her hair and wouldn’t let go when Sam tried to yank away.
“You know perfectly well it isn’t the art she’s coming to see,” she said nervously. “She won’t like me. I’m too white, too non-domestic, too tall, too. . .”
He kissed her into silence, then led her toward the kitchen. “My five-foot Chinese harridan of a mother married a six-foot Irish cop. She has no grounds for complaint. And I promised her a memorial now that we have dad’s remains to cremate. So it’s not all about you.”
“Okay, excuse my moment of panic. I was just getting used to a community that accepts me, and you threw me a ringer. I know how much you respect your mother.”
Sam released him to open the refrigerator and remove their carry-out dinner. “Dinah was experimenting with sushi today, in preparation for the art walk. The lunch crowd wasn’t appreciative. She has high expectations of a more sophisticated clientele once we bring in art lovers. I’ll have to start paying to work there if she keeps sending gourmet meals home with me.”
“Sushi is dangerous. Dinah could end up poisoning the crowd if she doesn’t know what she’s doing.” Walker examined the neat, colorful bites revealed when he opened the carton.
“She says she had training in New Orleans. She’s coming out of her shell a little now that she knows you won’t arrest her for being who she is. Or maybe she’s starting to believe her mixed gender really isn’t against the law anymore.” Sam set out plates and reached for wine glasses, making some attempt to pretend they weren’t eating out of boxes. Domestic goddess, she was not.
“Or maybe Kurt actually deigning to eat in the café gave her courage,” Walker said through a mouthful of sushi roll.
She poured the wine, frowned, and thought about that. “He’s not a bad man. Having him around seems to be changing the town dynamic. If he’s working with us, then there’s less of the us against them mentality.”
“And maybe common sense and peace will reign again?” he asked with obvious sarcasm.
Sam shrugged and moved on. “Have you had any word on the identity of those bones? Teddy says her spirit is still hanging around, probably waiting for justice.”
“Or revenge.” Walker leaned his rangy frame against the counter instead of taking a seat at the tiny kitchen table that had come with the cottage. “It’s not easy to collect DNA from burned bones. The kiln baked them pretty good, and the coroner isn’t sure if these have been contaminated after enduring that level of heat. Even if they find something, we have nothing to match it against.”
“Teddy won’t be happy to hear that. She’s hoping the ghost will pass over once she knows her killer has been caught.”
“I think the lot of you are just guilting me into working my employees for free with this talk of dangerous ghosts. This police chief gig doesn’t even pay our rent, so my guys need to work on the paying cases. But if it helps at all, they can’t find any trace of Thompson after he left here. We don’t have a social security number to work on and the world is full of Thompsons.”
“Who needs money when we have free food, don’t need a car, and my trust fund pays what your salary doesn’t?” she stretched to kiss his cheek to show she was teasing. He smelled of expensive aftershave so she knew he’d stopped to clean up before coming home.
Home. It was lovely to have a home again. And someone she loved to come home to.
“In that case, shall I have them start hunting for your birth mother? No charge.” He lifted a quizzical eyebrow.
That was a bit of a sore point. Her mother had taken her from Hillvale and her only family, given her up for adoption to a couple who deliberately moved to Utah to keep her from knowing her origins. Sam wasn’t at all certain that she had any right to interrupt the life of a woman who had fled Hillvale for undefined reasons.
She shook her head without explanation. “I submitted more grant requests today,” she told him, changing the topic. “I’d love to explore the quake fault in relation to the crystals my grandparents found up there. But it’s not as if there’s an easy application to real world uses.”
“No one knows until you dig into it—that’s what research is about. I’d miss Dinah’s food if you started working a real job,” he added with a chuckle. “This sushi is top notch.”
“I can always have Dinah teach me to cook,” she said blithely, “But I’d rather grow food than cook it. What progress have you made with Daisy? Do I need to hunt Valdis down and talk to her?”
“Daisy promised to look for Thalia’s pieces. Of the two, Daisy is probably more easily persuaded. Your aunt is rational enough to argue against touching the art she deems evil. Will she be helping with the art walk?”
“Put her on a stage and let her sing opera? I’ve been looking up Val’s career. She mostly sang in California theaters, but she also performed in Chicago and New York. So far, I’ve not uncovered what sent her around the bend.”
“It’s her business and not ours. I think the Kennedys will give up the fight for the farm once they’re convinced Gump lied about ownership. I’m starting to believe this legend about Hillvale attracting evil though. How can one tiny town have so much fraud plus two killers?”
“That you know of,” she murmured wickedly. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”
An owl screeched in the tree outside. Her Aunt Val would call it an omen.
Sixteen
June 29: late evening
* * *
Teddy curled up against the side of warm, naked male and sighed with pleasure. “So it wasn’t just purple pixie dust.”
Kurt chuckled, a sexy masculine note that shivered her in a good way. “We could blame a bottle of wine.”
“I can handle two glasses just fine,” she protested, snuggling into the bend of his shoulder and muscled arm. “This was
just us.”
Well, it had been a little more than that, if she was willing to admit it, but she wasn’t ready to give him full view of her soul. Despite the lawyer’s warning and their basic differences, she’d opened her senses over dinner. Probably a big mistake, but she just wasn’t cut out to be cold and calculating, and this quiet, intense man interested her far more than he should. Normally, he cut himself off, but tonight, his desire and admiration had hit her like rain on a thirsty desert, and his lust had fed her own.
At least she’d tested him, which was more than she’d done with Ray. So, she was learning.
But Kurt kept himself so closed off, it made her extra sense a nice sexual stimulant and not a lot more. She really needed to be wary, or he’d steal her house like Ray had stolen her gems.
“Just us is pretty damned good.” Kurt murmured, stroking her breast. “The distraction of wanting you every time I look at you may make getting any work done problematic.”
“Horn dog.” With a sigh, she extricated herself from the distraction. “I need to go back to the shop, though. Syd is still pretty fragile. I don’t want her panicking if Thalia the Spook decides to shake things up.”
She didn’t want Syd shooting up the shop and herself, but she thought it best not to mention what was undoubtedly an illegal weapon.
He sat up, letting the sheet fall to his hips. Executives weren’t supposed to have six-packs. The man obviously worked out—and baked himself on yachts, if his bronze was any indication. Teddy had to fight with her better self to keep from crawling back into bed with him.
“I was hoping you might consider staying up here now that your sister has moved in.” He leaned back against the headboard. “My cottage is private. I could give you a key.”
They were in one of the luxury cottages set back in the woods—out of sight of kids and family and tourists. Picking up her clothes in the enormous master bath, Teddy sent the steamy tiled shower a longing look. Even her nice apartment back in San Francisco had nothing this lavish.
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