“Yes, and she wants your uncle to come.”
“Lottie wants Victor here?” This didn’t make any sense at all. The two of them hated each other.
“I guess so. She mentioned that she’d bumped into him when she was digging through records recently.”
“Records?”
“About the house, the land.”
That made sense. Victor had mentioned scouring records so he could prove that the house should belong to the Tuckers only. Fortunately, the trust superseded two-hundred year old land deeds, so it was mostly an exercise in historical trivia for both him and Lottie. “Well, I guess we can invite everyone and see what happens.”
“Okay,” Addie said, looking uncertain. “Mom’s bringing a roast. Maybe we can ask everyone to bring a dish and then you and I don’t have to cook.”
“But we have this incredible new kitchen,” I pointed out.
“And it would be a shame to mess it up,” Addie said.
“Okay, fine. I’ll ask Victor to make his cornbread.” I paused. “Does this mean Emmett and Virge are invited too?” I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want a repeat of what had happened in the store. They’d finally admitted to me what they’d said to her.
Addie’s face fell, but she recovered herself. “Um, I guess so, yeah.”
“I’ll make sure we have enough whiskey. This is going to be interesting.”
“It is,” she agreed.
I kissed her again, long and hard, and then headed off to work. I didn’t strictly have to work there on Saturdays—Emmett and Virge were slightly more competent than I let on to Addie. But I wanted to pick up the things I’d been finishing up in my workshop. Especially if we were about to have company.
26
The German Shepherd’s Sadness
Addison
I spent most of Saturday in a state of dreamy wakefulness, wandering around the house, thinking about Michael. He was humble and unassuming—things Luke never had been—but there was also an edge of sexy confidence to him that I sensed hadn’t been uncovered in a while. And the more I saw of it, the more I wanted.
As I tidied up the bedroom and made more coffee, preparing to spend another day out in the garden, I thought about my plans. Maybe I didn’t have to go back to New York. Maybe, considering the amount of money this house and the car sitting out in the garage were worth, I could envision a new plan. With that kind of money, I could really do anything I wanted. I couldn’t imagine not doing some kind of work, but I didn’t think finance was really my calling. I knew I didn’t want to bake, like Mom, or teach, like Amberlynn. And it was too late to become a doctor like Paige.
My mind turned over the possibilities, and I felt like a bright new pathway had suddenly been illuminated for me—one that might include Michael. And Singletree.
Just as I was heading out the back door into the yard, my mother trundled up the path, followed by another woman who was gazing around the property with an evaluative look on her face. Mom was the queen of unexpected visits. There went my quiet day.
“There you are!” Lottie called, as if she’d been looking for me for hours.
“Here I am. Good morning, Mom.”
“Addie, this is Sally. I told you I’d be bringing her by.”
Actually, Mom had told me Sally was a pet psychic with good Yelp ratings, but it never paid off to bring up semantics with Mom. “Sally, nice to meet you.”
“You too, dear. I understand you’re having some spirit trouble in the house?” She glanced past me at the house.
“Ah, maybe? We’re just hearing some noises now and then.”
Sally nodded as if she knew exactly what I meant. “Can you describe them for me?”
I told her about the scrabbling and the crashes and the shrieks, as well as the missing items. “My silver bracelet has recently gone missing too, so that’s actually the most concerning ghostly occurrence we’ve been having.”
“Yes, and what do the screams sound like?” Sally’s wrinkled face was offset by very large bright blue eyes, and she looked genuinely concerned, which made me feel a bit less annoyed at my mother for overstepping.
“Well, they’re high pitched and—“
“I was hoping you might demonstrate.”
“Oh. Um, you want me to scream?”
“If you don’t mind, dear.”
“Ah, okay, sure,” I said. Then I cleared my throat and did my best imitation of the otherworldly screaming we’d heard in the house.
My mother looked aghast at this demonstration, and Sally shook her head. I wasn’t sure if she had taken my scream as a very bad sign about the potential haunting at the house, or if both women were just disappointed with my rendition.
“Let’s go inside,” Mom suggested.
“Okay, sure,” I said, putting aside the gardening tools and leading the women up the back steps.
“Oh my lord, Addison,” Mom cried as we moved into the kitchen. “This is absolutely gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” It was crazy how much my mother’s validation meant to me.
Mom ran her hands over the counters and paused for long appreciative moments at the double ovens and gas stove. “It’s amazing,” she breathed.
“There was a lot of space,” I pointed out. “It just needed updating.”
Mom turned to me and smiled. “Filene would love this,” she said, a tear spilling down her cheek. I had almost forgotten that Mom and Filene Easter had been friends. Since Filene hadn’t wanted a service or any kind of gravestone, it was like she’d become just a distant memory. But for Mom, I realized, that was not the case.
“And Filene,” Sally said, stepping forward and regarding us both with those wide blue eyes, “that’s the dog?”
“The dog?” I asked, shaking my head. “What dog?”
“The one you’re having all the trouble with. I’m getting a very strong German Shepherd vibe in here.”
I turned to my mother, narrowing my eyes. She didn’t need actual words to know exactly what I was telling her. This is stupid. There is no dog. This lady is insane. Thanks so much for bringing her over.
“Now, Addie,” Mom said. “Give this a chance.”
“Um, I don’t know anything about a dog, Sally.”
Sally nodded, wandering through the doorway and into the hallway, turning into the dining room.
I hadn’t been in the room since the previous night, when Michael and I had gone at it on the gorgeous dining room table, but looking at it now in the light of day with my mother and the pet psychic both gazing thoughtfully at the place I’d lain and orgasmed as Michael had thrust above me . . . well, it made me blush. And then I started coughing and choking when I noticed my underwear hanging off the back of one of the chairs.
Luckily, when I’d recovered, Mom and Sally had moved us into the parlor and then asked if we might go upstairs. I’d snagged the evidence and shoved it into my pocket.
“Honestly, that’s where we hear most of it.”
“That’s where the dog was most content,” Sally said, nodding as if she understood everything now.
After touring the entire house to the random accompaniment of Sally’s pronouncements about the dog who’d once lived here, we went back down to the kitchen, where I made both ladies some tea.
“So here’s the problem,” Sally said, when we were all sitting at the island. “The dog never had a chance to properly say goodbye to his owner.”
“Oh.” I had trouble summoning any enthusiasm into my voice.
“And he’s screaming in frustration.”
“Oh.”
“So you need to pose as the owner and allow the doggy to say his goodbyes.”
“I don’t really see how that would be possible,” I told her. “I don’t know who the owner was.”
“Oh, he said Elias was his name.”
I had no response to that. Elias was actually the name of one of the men who’d lived here. Lucille’s father. Maybe this lady wasn’t nuts.
�
��So, like, how would we do this?” I asked, suddenly a little more willing to believe the pet psychic might know what she was doing.
“There’s a man here, correct? Your mother said you were living with some terrible man.”
I glared at Mom, who shrugged. “Yes, Michael.”
“Good. You spend an entire day calling him Elias, and ask him about his dog as much as you can. He should speak fondly of the dog and allow as many opportunities for the dog’s spirit to come forward as possible.”
“By doing what, exactly?”
“Play with a ball, throw a stick, that sort of thing. Maybe bring out some dog food.”
“Ah, okay,” I said, still a little overwhelmed by the idea that a German Shepherd was actually haunting us. What use did the dog have for my bracelet? “Thanks,” I told Sally.
“Just let me know if it helps, dear. Maybe leave a review?”
“Sure,” I said, imagining myself writing a Yelp review about this engagement. “So do I owe you something?”
“No, honey. This was a favor to your darling mother.”
Mom beamed.
“Okay, well, thank you.”
After a little more small talk and another cup of tea, my mother and Sally departed, leaving me to garden for the afternoon with the spirit of an unhappy German Shepherd at my side.
Michael arrived home just after five, and I’d managed to pick up some drinks and dinner from The Shack.
But even after his truck trundled noisily into the driveway, Michael didn’t appear, so I went out to see what he was doing.
Michael was at the bed of the truck, unloading four white wooden rocking chairs. “For the porch,” he told me. Then he put down the chair he was holding and smiled at me. “For you.”
Something warm and unidentifiable welled up inside me. I was touched.
I remembered saying how much I’d enjoy sitting out there, and I was shocked that he had remembered it too. “These are for me?” I asked, dumbfounded. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had made such a sweet gesture. “Thank you.”
“I wanted to do something nice. To maybe help offset the years of ‘not nice’ between our families.”
“Wait, did you . . .” I looked over the smooth form of one of the chairs. They weren’t like any I’d seen online when I’d priced them. “Did you make these yourself?”
He actually blushed and dropped his eyes to the ground. I half expected him to utter the word shucks. But instead, he cleared his throat and then met my eyes. “Yeah. It’s the thing I really enjoy, making furniture. I have a workshop out behind the store.”
“You’re really talented. You could definitely sell these,” I told him, unable to stop myself from sitting in one to test it out. “They’re gorgeous.”
“Thanks,” he said, as I stood again.
I stepped closer to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. “This is nice. This is so nice.” And then I did what I’d been thinking of doing all day. I kissed him, long and sweet and languorous, out there under the sweeping fall of leaves and the angling rays of the setting autumn sun. And for that one moment, everything in my life was perfect.
We had dinner in the parlor after setting up the new chairs on the front porch. I tested out every one of them, rocking back and forth on the new porch planks while gazing out at the gates that led down to the town square. I could never have imagined a couple months ago that I’d be sitting on the front porch of the old haunted house, happy and content.
“I made a swing too,” Michael said, once I’d finished rocking and stood back up to go inside.
“Seriously?” I grinned. The idea of a porch swing made me so happy. It seemed so provincial, so very southern—to sit on a porch swing and drink lemonade. It wasn’t the kind of life I’d thought I’d have, the kind I’d had in New York. But it was the kind of life I was beginning to think I wanted.
“Hey,” he said, leaning over the porch railing, staring at something. “Come look at this.”
I joined him, following his gaze down to the ground, where there was a very noticeable anthill and about forty million big red ants.
My stomach roiled. I hated ants. I hated bugs. “Fire ants?” I asked.
“Yes, I think so,” he said. “I’ll call an exterminator. We don’t want to mess around with those.”
I put the ants out of my mind as best I could and went inside to open the boxes of clams and fries I’d brought home, and then turned on a movie neither of us was really watching.
“I told you about Sunday dinner, right?” I asked him, my mouth half full of clam.
“Yeah,” he said. “Uncle Victor was weirdly agreeable. The cousins are suspicious.”
“Maybe it’s a trap,” I suggested, grinning.
“Knowing your mother . . .”
“Careful,” I warned, though he wasn’t wrong to be wary of Lottie. “Oh, and speaking of my mother.”
Michael looked at me and then his eyes slid shut. “Just tell me. I can handle it.”
“She came by today with a pet psychic. Long story short, I’m supposed to call you Elias as much as possible and you’re supposed to spend as much time as you can throwing balls and putting out kibble.”
“Should I pretend that isn’t insane?”
“She thinks we’re haunted by a German Shepherd.”
“Right,” he said, just accepting this in stride because based on everything else my mother had done, this made perfect sense.
“So what do you say, Elias?”
“What do I get to call you?” He asked.
I put my drink down and turned toward him on the couch. “If you want to go upstairs, you can call me anything you want.” It was the boldest thing I’d probably ever said, but this thing between us had me feeling like a different version of myself. A better, more confident, sexier version.
“Let’s go,” he said.
We practically sprinted up the stairs, and the second I’d crossed the threshold into the bedroom, Michael caught my wrist and pulled me into his chest. For a few beats, he held me close and just looked down at me with those expressive blue eyes, and then he smiled and leaned in, pressing his lips to mine.
The kiss was slow and teasing, a current of control that was at odds with the wild thrashing inside my body every time Michael looked at me that way or touched me. But after a moment, his tongue swept the seam of my lips and the kiss deepened, and he walked with me toward the bed, pushing me back until the mattress hit my thighs.
We broke the kiss only long enough to scoot into the center of the mattress, Michael hovering over me for a long moment. I stared up at him, beginning to feel both impatient and a little uncomfortable under his intense scrutiny.
“What?” I laughed, reaching for him.
“You,” he said simply. “You’re incredible. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to know you. I would never have imagined this.” He shook his head lightly, smiling, and then the smile slid from his face as his eyes darkened.
For the rest of the evening, we didn’t talk much, and Michael, didn’t repeat his thoughts about feeling lucky—instead, he showed me. His tongue made trails across my body, swirling and laving every part of me, and at one point, when his head was between my thighs, my hands fisted in that thick red hair, I had the sense we weren’t alone in the room. And when I screamed my release, I thought I heard the ghost scream along with me—only this time, it didn’t frighten me.
But it was a little creepy.
And it definitely wasn’t a German Shepherd.
27
We Don’t Joke about Coons
Michael
Spending night after night with Addison Tanner in my arms felt like a completely different version of my life. Somewhere though, in the dark corners of my practical and pessimistic brain, I wondered if it wasn’t doomed from the start. She was a Tanner, after all. And the odds were stacked against us. Our disparate ages. Our families. Her career. My failures. Our mutual baggage. My responsibilities to my son. None
of that added up to a carefree and successful relationship, but the neutral territory of the house made it feel like maybe it was all possible.
I decided, consciously or subconsciously, not to allow any of the realities of my life interfere with the first real selfish happiness I’d found in years. It was too heady, too addictive for reality to intervene.
Saturday morning we called the exterminator to deal with the ants. He was a tall wiry guy with a permanent scowl named Liam, who showed up almost immediately after I’d called and stood over the anthill shaking his head.
“It’s a big colony,” he said. “I might need to come out a couple times to really get it.”
I shrugged. “That’s okay. I just don’t like it being so close to the front door.”
He gazed up at me then, narrow eyes evaluating me. “Don’t mind the ghosts though, eh?”
I smiled, gazing around the rebuilt front porch. From the outside, I guessed maybe the house did still look a little dilapidated. We hadn’t had it repainted yet. But the place was sound, and the interior work was almost complete. The electrician had updated the wiring, and we had internet and cable, and a state of the art kitchen. It was hard to look at the old house the way I once had. “I guess I don’t.”
He nodded, gazing around me at the big house. “What about coons, you mind them much?”
I shook my head. “Come again?”
“I could take care of them at the same time as these ants.”
“Did you say coons?”
He crossed his arms and nodded again, not saying anything.
“Liam, do you see raccoons?” I was beginning to wonder if our exterminator was hallucinating.
“I bet you do,” he said. “Big old hole up there on the right side under the eaves, right next to that tree.” He pointed at something I couldn’t see from where I was standing, so I moved off the porch to gaze up to where he indicated.
There was a hole.
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