Ghost a La Mode (12 page)

"Then why don't I believe you?"

"Because you're cynical and have trust issues."

Tracy laughed. "Okay, I'll call this woman and see what she can tell me. You still going to be there later today?"

"Looks that way. It's nice down here. Sweet and peaceful. Might stay a couple of days to think things through about Grant and me.

"I saw at Kelly's party that the two of you were getting into it. Everything okay?"

"Yes. Great, in fact. We're moving ahead to finalize the divorce."

"Emma, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm both sad and happy for you."

"You and everyone else I know, including me."

"It'll be fine. You'll be fine. You'll see"

"Thanks, Tracy." For a brief moment, Emma almost asked Tracy to hop in her car and join her in Julian. It'd be nice to have some live company.

"I'D LIKE THE VEGGIE burger," Emma said to the pretty Latina waitress at the Rong Branch Restaurant. "And what do you have in the way of cold beer?" After spending the entire morning traipsing around the Julian countryside in the June sun, she was both famished and dry.

"We don't serve alcohol," the waitress announced.

Emma looked down at the menu, which clearly stated the place had a full bar. In fact, the establishment's name was the Rong Branch Restaurant and Saloon.

"But it says here-," Emma began, pointing a finger at the full bar announcement.

The waitress shook her head and cut her off mid-sentence. "We lost our liquor license last month. It was in the paper."

Emma knitted her brows. "I must have missed it."

Her subtle sarcasm lost on the waitress, Emma ordered an iced tea to go with her burger. While she waited, she reviewed the photos on her phone and starting sending them, one by one, to her e-mail at home for safekeeping. The waitress brought her tea. When she set it down on the table, Emma glanced up and smiled. The smile quickly turned to wariness.

Standing a few feet behind the waitress was a man, and he was staring at Emma. When the waitress moved away, the man approached her table.

"A fancy lady like yourself must be the owner of that Lexus parked out front" The man's voice was neither harsh nor friendly, just matter-of-fact words spoken in a medium tone.

Emma frowned. "Do I know you?"

The man in front of her was tall and solid. He wore a trimmed moustache, and his face was lined. Emma guessed him to be in his early fifties. He was dressed in faded jeans and a white knit polostyle shirt with dirt smudges. Before he answered, he took off his cowboy hat to reveal a bald pate. Positioned between his head and moustache were a slightly crooked nose and serious gray eyes. He reminded her of the actor Gerald McRaney, whom she'd met once at a party with his wife, Delta Burke.

"Name's Bowers. Phillip Bowers."

Bowers, Emma thought, like the name on the ranch next to Granny's homestead. She continued to look at Phillip Bowers, saying nothing, waiting for him to make the next move. He, in turn, seemed to be waiting for her to recognize the name and say something.

Without giving him her name, Emma asked, "What can I do for you, Mr. Bowers?"

A tight smile edged his lips. "I'd like to know what your business was on our land."

Emma continued to look at him without saying a word. She was weighing what and how much to tell him. Meanwhile, the stranger stared back. Their little standoff was interrupted by the waitress delivering her burger and fries.

"Can I get you anything, Phil?" the waitress asked him.

He tossed the waitress a smile, then returned to studying Emma. His smile vanished.

"A cup of coffee would be nice, Anna," he told the waitress without taking his no-nonsense gray eyes away from Emma's face.

A bit rattled by the commanding presence of Phillip Bowers, Emma busied herself with adding the lettuce and tomato to her veggie burger. By the time she'd poured a small lake of ketchup next to her fries, Anna had brought Bowers his coffee and he'd plunked himself down at the table across from her. She felt her face flush with uneasiness.

After cutting her burger into two halves, she looked up at her uninvited guest. "I don't recall inviting you to join me, Mr. Bowers."

"And I don't recall inviting you onto our property." He paused to take a drink of coffee, quite comfortable with his style of intimidation. "But since we're going to have a chat, why don't you call me Phil."

It was an obvious opening for Emma to tell him her name, but she didn't. Instead, she picked up a half of her sandwich and bit into it. It was delicious, even if the company wasn't. As she chewed, she studied Phil Bowers. If he could play tough, so could she. She was, after all, the soon-to-be ex-wife of Grant Whitecastle, the reigning TV king of rude and tacky. And she hadn't done anything to hurt the Bowers property.

Phil Bowers took another long slurp from his coffee mug before speaking. "Okay, Fancy Pants, if you won't tell me your name, then why don't you tell me why a gal from Los Angeles is trespassing on private property out in the middle of nowhere."

Emma stopped chewing and swallowed. "How do you know I'm from Los Angeles?"

He chuckled. "I could say it's obvious from your expensive duds, but the truth is your car's license plate frame says Lexus of Beverly Hills." "

I never said I drove a Lexus."

He put down his coffee cup and glanced around the restaurant. "Look around, Fancy Pants. There are only a few folks in here right now. I know most of them, and not one of them drives a luxury car. That leaves you, through the process of elimination."

Emma flushed again, this time with embarrassment. The man had a point.

While she quickly thought through her dilemma, she picked up a fry, dragged it through the ketchup, and polished it off in two determined bites. Should she ask this annoying man about his property, or should she keep her mouth shut? She weighed the possibilities.

Bowers leaned back and leisurely sipped his coffee. The waitress swung by with the coffeepot and refreshed his mug. Something told Emma he was going to take all the time necessary to get to the bottom of her trespassing. She thought about getting up, paying her tab, and leaving, but she was hungry and the food was good. More importantly, she realized she was enjoying the little banter. At first blush, Phillip Bowers, albeit rather brusque, was intelligent and witty and not too hard on the eyes in a rough and tumble, middleaged way. He had no proof it was her. And if he did, what harm had she done? Why would this man care that she'd hopped a fence and wandered through a meadow mined with cow patties? Maybe, she thought, she should just 'fess up and say it wouldn't happen again. And maybe, just maybe, he could tell her something about the property. After all, it wasn't like he'd murdered Granny himself.

As if able to read her mind, Granny materialized next to their table.

"Ask him how he came to own our land," Granny demanded of Emma.

Emma glanced at her and frowned. When she did, Phil Bowers looked over in the same direction but saw nothing.

"Go ahead, ask him. What are you waiting for?"

Emma started to reply to Granny but caught herself in the nick of time. It wouldn't do to have Phil Bowers, or anyone for that matter, see her gabbing away at nothing.

Ignoring both of her companions, Emma took another few bites of her burger and ate a couple more fries before she finally pushed her plate away. While she ate, Phil Bowers drank his coffee, never taking his eyes off of her. After a long drink of her iced tea, Emma dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin and leaned back against the leather booth.

"Okay, you got me," she began. "That was me out by your ranch." She leaned slightly forward. "But if you saw me, why didn't you approach me then? Why wait until now and interrupt my lunch? After all, I might have driven off and not come back into town."

"True, you might have." He nodded his head. "But I wasn't the one who saw you. I took my chances that you were heading back here. Not a lot of places for a car like yours to hide in this town." Phil reached forward, grabbed a fry from her abandoned plate, and stuffed it into his mouth. "They make a good burger and fries here, don't they? They go great with beer."

"They lost their liquor license. It was in the paper." Emma said the words with a straight face.

Phil took another fry, never taking his eyes off her while he ate it. "You read the local newspaper, do you?"

"Every chance I get."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I bet you do. Probably have it delivered to your home right along with Vanity Fair."

"Are you always this charming to tourists, or is it just me?"

"Depends. Are you a tourist? Or a trespasser?"

Phil Bowers studied the attractive woman across from him. She seemed to be thinking hard about her response. He waved at the waitress and she immediately scooted over to refresh his coffee and Emma's iced tea.

"Most tourists don't find their way onto our property unless they take a wrong turn. And then they don't get out, jump a fence, and wander about talking to themselves and taking photos."

Emma's eyes widened. Someone had been watching her, and closely. But from where? The Bowers house was quite a distance from Granny's homestead.

"I wasn't talking to myself."

"No? Then you must have a mouse in your pocket."

"Whoever was watching me was mistaken. I made some phone calls, that's all." Fighting to seem nonchalant, Emma drank some tea.

"According to my aunt Susan, at one point you even appeared to be arguing with someone-someone who wasn't there. And, believe me, my aunt is quite accurate with her binoculars. And she gets nervous when crazy people come onto the ranch."

Binoculars, Emma realized, that's how she was spied on with such detail. This woman must have heard her car on the road and investigated. She probably saw everything-the slip in the dung, her attempt to leave, facing off with Granny-everything. She could hardly tell the imposing man in front of her that she wasn't alone, she was with a ghost. He was barely tolerant now. Something like that would really tip him over the edge. She had to think fast.

"I have one of those Bluetooth gizmos," she explained. "And I can get quite animated on the phone sometimes."

Granny had moved closer to Phil Bowers and was trying to get Emma's attention. It was all Emma could do to keep from yelling at her to stop and go away.

"You're not wearing the earpiece now," Phil said.

"Huh?"

"The Bluetooth. You're not wearing it now, yet I get the feeling you're talking with someone besides me. Your eyes keeping darting, and your facial expressions are changing constantly."

"Um, I'm thinking. I'm an animated thinker as well as an animated talker."

Phil Bowers studied her some more while Emma worked hard at ignoring Granny. The ghost was waving her hands, trying to get Emma's attention, talking constantly and insisting that Emma ask about the property. It was as annoying as an angry bee and just as distracting.

"Uh-huh. Still doesn't explain what you were doing there, Fancy Pants."

"Will you please stop calling me that? My name is EmmaEmma Whitecastle." She braced herself for the usual comments. Most folks, upon hearing the name Whitecastle, either made a joke about the hamburger chain or asked if she was related to Grant Whitecastle. She preferred to be associated with the tiny burgers. Phil Bowers made neither comment.

"Okay, Emma Whitecastle, now that that formality's out of the way, why don't you tell me what you were doing on the ranch."

Deciding to lay her cards on the table and hopefully get some help researching the history of the property, Emma gave him the truth. "It's simple, really. I just found out that my family used to live here in Julian over a century ago, so I wanted to check it out." When Phil said nothing, she continued. "It seems their homestead was, or might have been, located on that patch of land I visited this morning.

Phillip Bowers' body language changed. Although it was slight, Emma noticed it right away. His gray eyes clouded over like two storm clouds heavy with electricity. His shoulders straightened. His jaw tightened. He leaned forward, going partway through Granny.