Haunt Me (3 page)

“If it’s a wild animal, you don’t want it up there.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Unlike their first meeting, he had business cards on him. He offered one to her. “See, Kent Restoration. That’s me. I work on houses like yours for a living.”

She studied the card, sucking at her bottom lip, indecision weighing in her expression.

“I’d like to help,” he continued. “That said, if I go up in your attic and get attacked by a wild animal, you won’t have to feel that bad about it.”

“And if it’s a ghost?”

“Which it isn’t, but if it is, I promise to scream like a little girl and you can make fun of me for the rest of my life.” He was pretty safe on that account. Local legend and lore aside, there was no such things as ghosts.

Her icy reserve cracked and the corners of her mouth twitched upward. “I don’t think I’d go that far,” she said. “I certainly don’t want you hurt. If you think it’s dangerous, maybe we should call animal control.”

“And give up this opportunity to score some brownie points? Not a chance in hell.” He winked and motioned to the porch.

She sighed as if exasperated with him but then smiled and shook her head, acquiescing. “You’re incorrigible, but thank you.” She led the way and Justin followed hot on her heels.

He had no idea why she thought him incorrigible, but as long as she let him help and smiled like that, he could live with it.

Inside, most of the boxes in the kitchen were gone and the wallpaper had been scraped away from one section. He tried not to stare at the glue-encrusted wall, because the half-finished, half-assed job ignited the need to complete the task. Instead, he followed MacKenzie until paused in the central hallway and pointed up to a drop-ladder string. Justin pulled it, and as the ladder unfurled, hot air puffed down, along with dust and a distinctly musty odor.

Grimacing, he pulled a pen flashlight from his belt, then climbed high enough to see inside. Illuminating the corners of the slanted attic, he noted the space took up the full length and breadth of the single-story house.
Huh
. Considering the house’s history, he’d always expected it to be so much larger. Hell, his house was linked to the history of this place and was even called the Caretaker’s Cottage, supposedly having been the subsidiary house to the main house—Summerfield—so why was his place so much bigger than hers? So many half-truths and misrepresentations populated local legends; the discrepancies in the house sizes added another puzzle piece to the mystery of the “real story.”

He climbed the rest of the way up and began a circuitous check of the various corners. A few minutes later, he climbed down to join MacKenzie in the kitchen. “Nothing.” He shook his head and felt like he should apologize. “It’s actually in pretty good shape up there.”

“Huh.” Her fleeting smile turned wry. “Maybe it
is
my ghost.”

Not likely, but he bit back the caustic response. He wanted to make friends with her. “Sometimes critters got in the walls. Do you have a basement?”

“Yeah. It’s over there on the other side of the kitchen.” Her cell phone rang, but when she looked at it she went a little white, then turned it off rather than answer it.

“How often do you hear the noise?” he asked, following her as she walked to a closet door tucked next to the pantry.

“It happens randomly. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night.” She gave a little shudder. “Not fond of the nighttime noises.”

The door stood open, showing a set of rickety wooden steps. Frowning, he asked, “Have you been down here?”

“Not yet. I need to go through all the items Aunt Katherine left in here, first. The woman was a pack rat. Of course, I’m on a deadline, so I’ve been a little focused on that.”

He grinned. It wasn’t the first time she’d brought up her deadline. Hint received, and ignored. He scanned the walls for a light switch, but the only one he found didn’t turn anything on. “Lightbulb might be out. Stay up here.”

He tested the steps one at a time before putting his full weight on them. Inside the basement, a thick layer of grime seemed to have caked all surfaces. The air smelled stale, but felt cooler than the attic. Discarded and broken furniture was stacked in the space beneath the rickety stairs, and a collection of various parts, including a scrub board, a splintered barrel, and wooden bucket that seemed suspiciously like an old water pail right down to the attached frayed rope littered the floor like an obstacle course. Aged storage bins, probably once used for food, sat side by side with an old wring washer and dirty jars littered a shelf with other canning supplies.

He hunted for several minutes but nothing came scurrying out, although he did find a chewed electrical wire, a broken window, and crabgrass and tangled vines stretching inside. He emerged from the basement to find MacKenzie in the kitchen, sitting at the table, drumming her fingers against the wood.

“I have good news and bad,” he said.

“Just tell me how much it’s going to cost.”

“Repairs won’t cost you anything. I’ve got some glass for the broken window, and I can replace the wiring and clean up the water damage.” He liked the excuse to see her again. He pointed to the yard. “But we’re going to have to clear some of the ground cover that’s grown right up on the house. It’s starting to spread in through the broken window and it will bring in all kinds of bugs and rodents.” Real problems, not mythical phantoms.

“Bugs?” She shuddered. “Ugh. I’ll get it taken care of—I can call someone.”

“Who? Ghostbusters? Last I checked, that was a movie.” Thankfully, she grinned at his lame attempt at a joke. “You don’t have to call anyone. What’s a favor between friends?”

“We’re not friends.”

Prickly had never attracted him before, but he liked it in Mac. “Not yet, no. But you need help and I can offer it. Now, I’m going to take a quick look at the vegetation out there and see how much needs to be cut back.” Whether MacKenzie realized it or not, she projected
in over her head
at high volume.

He read the objection on her face before she opened her mouth. “No, I get it. You don’t want to ask for help. But you’re not asking—I’m offering. And if you have any other ‘minor’ problems with the place, let me know. You’re Katherine Summerfield’s niece, and you should feel like a part of the community. I liked your aunt. I helped her when she needed it, and it wouldn’t feel right not helping you.” Every word had been dipped in truth.

He headed for the door. She trailed behind him, letting the screen door slam behind her when they exited the house.

“Oh and, word to the wise?” He divided his attention between navigating the weeds and glancing back at her as he moved along the side of the house. “Don’t stay holed up here too long or folks will find excuses to come visit—and bring food. Quilts. Jam.”

“You sound like it’s happened to you.”

Way too often, and the fact that he was a Kent made his community’s attention on him that much worse. Founding families were obligated to be involved. Period. End of story. “You have no idea. Did you know that it’s impossible to tell an eighty-year-old woman you aren’t interested in any of her granddaughters, no matter how cute they are?”

She laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that problem.”

“For you I’m sure they’ll trot out their grandsons and nephews and other bachelor types.” And he didn’t like the idea at all.
Damn
. He shouldn’t want to want her—the last thing he needed was to mix business with pleasure. He squatted and began pulling out the kudzu and crabgrass. Mac’s shadow fell over him and he glanced up at her. From this angle, he could see the faded line around her ring finger. A curious thrill went through him at its absence.
Business
, he reminded himself. He rose, awareness of her washing over him.

“That seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for someone you barely know, especially since I’ve been so rude,” she said.

It wasn’t quite an apology, but he decided to accept it anyway. “I like to fix things, and I’m really fond of the house. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, around five.” He made for his truck before she could change her mind. Glancing back, he found Mac watching him.

And then, for the barest moment, he saw two of her.

Apprehension slithered up his spine, then he grimaced. It was just the sun hitting the glass. Shaking his reaction to the weird vision off, he turned the vehicle onto the drive and headed away. It had been a worthwhile visit. Mac seemed cut from the same tough cloth as her aunt, but he had a feeling she’d be worth the work.

Although now he had to ask himself…was he really after the house, or the woman?

Chapter Two

The rest of the day Mac forced herself to focus on the house, putting away household items, making whatever minor repairs she could with the only screwdriver she owned, and continuing to remove the kitchen’s god-awful 1960s avocado-and-mustard-yellow wallpaper. Early in the afternoon, from inside the kitchen where she was attempting to rip off the faded wallpaper, she heard the purr of a motor. She put down the scraper and headed to the front porch—then cringed as a familiar Lincoln MKZ pulled up through the rusted gates and headed up the driveway.

Oh crap. What does he want?

Walking the rest of the way out, she waited for her ex to park his car. Kevin exited, dressed in a business suit and with his hair slicked back. She could see why she’d once found him so attractive, but thanks to time—and because of the abuse he’d put her through—that wasn’t the case anymore.

“Hey, babe.” Kevin gave her his signature smile, but his attention was on the house, not her. He came up the steps to join her on the porch. “I’ve been calling you.”

Folding her arms, Mac fought a shudder. If she didn’t make a big deal about him being here, maybe he wouldn’t notice her skin crawling. “I’ve been ignoring you. What are you doing here?”

“I came to check on you.” Kevin put his hands on her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Apparently, the man still didn’t understand body language. Nor did he understand she was done being controlled by him. Hurt by him.

Retreating a step, she raised her eyebrows. “You drove all the way from Maryland to
check
on me?”

He sighed, disappointment edging into his expression, and a lock of dark hair fell across his brow. His face morphed into a cocky grin and he peered at her sideways. Once upon a time, she’d been utterly taken in by that puppy-dog expression. It was roguish and beckoned playfulness. Not anymore.

“Mac,” he continued, “I was worried about you. I heard about your great-aunt passing and you inheriting the house. The next thing I know, you’ve given up your apartment and moved out here to the middle of nowhere. That’s not you.”

Her stomach bottomed out, and it made her ill to swallow the automatic urge to apologize. That part of her life was over, and she would fake it until she made it. Checking on her didn’t sound like the Kevin she knew. No, he had an agenda—just what, she didn’t know. But she wasn’t going to stick around and find out. Pretending she needed to leave seemed the simplest way to encourage him to do the same. When he didn’t get his way, he could be so ugly.

“As you can see, I’m just fine,” she said. “In fact, I hate to greet and run, but—” She slipped inside to grab her purse and keys, but he followed her.

A sudden wave of dizziness slammed into her when Kevin stepped into the kitchen. She paused to suck in a breath, grabbing hold of the countertop to steady herself, overwhelmed at the sudden weakness in her knees. Stress over Kevin’s sudden appearance, or perhaps hunger? Had she even eaten today?

“Nice place,” Kevin said, then cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. “You have to leave?”

“Yeah.” She held up her keys. Would he take the hint?

He nodded absently, but instead of walking back out the door, he remained in the kitchen, studying the half-stripped wall. “You have lot of repairs to do here.”

Mac steadied herself and shrugged. “I’ve never been afraid of hard work.”

“I could help.” He pressed farther into her house, invading her space.

“Kevin, I really do need to go, so…” She made it over to the door and held it open for him. He said nothing for a long moment, and she had the sudden sinking realization that he might refuse to leave. “Kevin?”

“Sorry.” He shook his head and finally walked toward the door. “How about I follow and buy you some dinner? We could talk.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I’ve got plans.”
Please don’t make this more awkward than it is.
Why had he shown up, anyway?

He exited and she locked up behind them, but instead of walking to his car, he trailed her to her SUV. “Mac—I thought maybe we gave up to soon. Maybe we can still be friends? At least give it a shot?”

Would he make complete the farce of leaving? Her gut clenched. She’d do anything to get away from him.

Oh, hell no.
Swallowing back a less than hospitable comeback, she set her purse inside her SUV before facing him. The last thing she needed was a fight. “Kevin, neither of us was happy and a lot of terrible things were said. But we’re divorced. So let’s agree to respect each other’s space and get on with our lives. Okay?”

His attention wandered back to the house and then to her. Ice chilled his gaze. “Fine. I get the hint. Take care, Mac.” He leaned in for another kiss but stopped when she held up a hand. The graceful way he took her rejection set off alarm bells in her, but she didn’t want to look the gift horse in the mouth. He walked back to his car and gave her a wave before climbing inside.

A shiver raced up her spine. Her grandmother used to call that someone walking over her grave.

“New life,” she reminded herself. “Fresh start. Eye on the prize, Mac. Eye on the prize.”

She stayed in the yard and watched Kevin leave until she lost sight of the car. Relief shuddered through her. She fled back inside the house, bolting the door behind her. A
bang
-
thud
echoed through the walls, and she jumped. The inconsistent explosions of sound never failed to startle her—family lore aside, the house was beginning to creep her out. Rubbing her arms against a sudden drop in temperature, she made her way back to the old-fashioned “drawing room” she’d converted into a makeshift office.

The casual elegance of the Old World clashed with the gleaming newness of her laptop. The vintage red, round-backed sofa, with its fleur-de-lis gold monogramming and the spindly-legged, round tables in cherry wood offered a window to the past. The desk was even an antique—a rolltop, with a skeleton-key lock and tons of nooks and crannies. The room was her favorite in the house, and the writer in her wanted to explore every inch and see what hidden stories she might find, but the practical side of her nature demanded she finish the book she desperately needed to write.

Her agent’s last e-mail still stung—she’d asked for Mac to make a choice: either finish the book or reconsider their business contract. It had been a year since Mac’s last sale, and longer still since she’d last submitted a manuscript. Her muse, like everything else, had taken a beating in the divorce and refused to cooperate—until now.

Something about the house had woken the slumbering muse, and she’d been writing like a fiend since moving in. Maybe her sudden productivity had come from being in the house—she hadn’t been joking about the ghost inspiring her. Writing had never consumed her so much before, no matter how much she loved it. At Summerfield, when she sat down to write, it was like falling into a trance. The scenes became so much more than words on a screen—it was almost as though she lived through her characters those moments she wrote.

Kevin’s visit still had her rattled, but sitting down at her desk, she pushed her ex out of her mind and logged into her computer, eager to get back into the story. She’d left Madeline and Kurt in the midst of a heartbreaking argument. The Lady Madeline, daughter of the Marquis de Hervault, had offered the rakish earl Kurt a final chance to win her heart…and he’d failed, rather spectacularly. He’d chosen war over her, chosen the ascension of a title over her, and chosen to marry another woman without her knowledge.

In some ways, the work was both cathartic and exhilarating. Mac had always written more contemporary pieces, books about real women overcoming their flaws and becoming who they were meant to be. But this book was different. She’d never written an historical romance before, but that’s what was coming out on the screen as she typed. Her main character, Madeline, had devastating choices to make. Mac had actually finished an entire book about Madeline since coming to Summerfield, but she hated the ending to the first book. She wanted to give Madeline the life she deserved.

At the end of the first book, Madeline had still been in France, where she’d sold her mother’s ring to book passage to England, headed to the new country—a new life.

Like Mac’s new experience.

Tears gathered in the corners of Mac’s eyes as she skimmed down the page. These last few words would be Madeline’s final ones to the man she’d thought she loved. Madeline was left brokenhearted by his absence, utterly destroyed. Mac had a plan for the book; well, at least she’d called it a plan, but what she’d written since she’d arrived at her aunt’s home had shaken it all up.

Maybe I should stop messing around with the idea and return to more familiar material.

The minute she considered the idea, her stomach cramped.
Huh
. Better to follow her instincts rather than risk pissing off her muse.

Sucking in a bracing breath, she closed her eyes. With an exhale, she opened them and let the story flow out. As she wrote, Madeline’s devastation was so real it was like it happened to her—but the oath Kurt swore made Mac cold, almost icy, and she could almost see the fog of her breath. But she didn’t stop typing. She couldn’t.

Her original hero, Kurt, had been an irredeemable bastard. And lord knew she’d tried to redeem him throughout the book. But now, as she typed, she found herself setting Kurt aside in favor of James, the Duke of Worcester. She’d originally considered the duke a minor character, but his presence in the book kept plaguing her. She’d never found a place for him before, but now he suddenly was interested in Madeline. As Mac typed, something clicked inside of her—this felt right.

A hot tear slipped down her cheek and she hit save before grabbing her box of tissues. She pressed one against her eyes in a vain attempt to staunch the emotion shaking through her. In her earliest outline, the characters Madeline and Kurt had found their way back to each other, yet the poor woman always ended up more wretched than ever. In the outline, the death of Kurt’s wife meant they could be together. The foolish Madeline always accepted him.

“But not this time,” she whispered to the computer. Madeline could not forgive his betrayal. Mac wouldn’t let her. And while in her outline James was supposed to merely be an obstacle, a point to demonstrate Madeline’s absolute loyalty to Kurt, Mac saw a possibility with him she had never considered before.

Redemption.

A second chance.

Sniffling, she glanced at the clock, then flinched. It was nearly three in the morning.

How had that happened?

She’d sat down at the computer right after Kevin had left. Surely all those hours hadn’t passed without her noticing?

Her stomach cramped with hunger and her fingers burned. Glancing down, she stared at a bloodied fingernail—she’d actually cracked one nail all the way to the quick. Rising, she grimaced at the tautness in her muscles; it actually hurt to stand up straight. Feeling bruised and beaten from head to toe, she closed the laptop lid and limped down the hallway.

Time for bed. Tomorrow she’d deal with what to do about the book.

And see if she could figure out how the hell twelve hours had disappeared without her noticing.

…

A scream ripped Mac out of the talons of a dark dream. She lurched up, then suddenly found herself halfway across the room as awareness swam back to her. Sunlight spilled in between the curtains. Sweat slicked her spine and soaked through her shirt. Her breath came in hard, explosive pants.

Nightmares. She’d had them all throughout childhood—strange dreams featuring the heavy voice of a strange man—but she thought she’d outgrown them. Why the hell were they back? Still shaken, she limped into the bathroom and showered, seeking clarity.

By the time she made it to the kitchen, she’d cleared away some of the mental cobwebs. Too many long hours spent sitting on the hard wooden desk chair the day and night before. Her head ached, along with her entire body. Her hands trembled, and she gave them a good shake. Her fingertips burned, like they’d been submerged in ice. Coffee. She needed coffee.

It wasn’t until after she’d added fresh water to the coffee maker that she realized she was out of ground coffee—
dammit.
She’d meant to go to the store earlier in the week. Heck, she’d meant to do a lot of things, but had instead spent her time writing. She stared at the wallpaper strips still hanging off the wall, where she’d abandoned the project of stripping the walls.

Aunt Katherine’s house was a huge work in progress, but every time she started on repairs, she found her mind wandering back to Madeline’s story. The next thing she knew, she would be back to writing. In one week, she’d written over sixty thousand words, something that used to take her four months.

God, but did she ever need to get out.

“That’s it.” Making sure the coffee maker was off, she finger-combed her hair, grabbed her keys and her purse, and headed for her car. It was almost lunchtime. She could drive into town, pick up supplies and food, then get back to work on the house and unpacking. A few boxes still remained on the kitchen counters, waiting for her to find a place in the house for the contents. First she’d fix her space and then worry about her book. Sometimes the best way to deal with the pressure of a looming deadline was distraction; it let her subconscious work out the story kinks.

Stepping outside, the soppy, wet August heat instantly warmed her chilled bones. Had she turned the AC in the house up so high that she’d become this cold? How else could the house have dropped so low in temperature? Adding “check thermostat” to her list of tasks, she opened the car door—and quickly backed up a step from the exhale of hot car interior.