Officer Next Door (4 page)

“Sasha’s the head chef at Wisteria – I’m sure the brownies will be worth a little dishonesty. Besides, as far as her schemes go, bending the truth in the name of getting you three to join us for the evening is pretty mild.”

“Well, I’m glad she did it. I’d lay down my life for Henry and Grey if it came down to it, but I’d be lying if I said getting to know my new neighbor wasn’t more appealing than sitting around here and watching some game I don’t really care about with them.”

Alicia smiled. She couldn’t help it. Liam Alexander was flirting with her; she was sure of it now. As she met his eyes, her nipples went hard beneath her sundress. Life on Pine Hollow was shaping up to be much more exciting than she’d imagined, and she wasn’t about to complain.

Liam tipped his head toward the sack of sugar she’d clutched to her chest. “Your friend will be waiting for that. Don’t spill it all, or there won’t be any brownies.” His smile returned.

She glanced down and realized that sugar was pouring from one corner of the bag, falling in a fine white mist to form a gritty pile by her sandal.

“Sorry about that,” she said, righting the sack and hoping she wouldn’t actually turn red. “In case you didn’t realize this morning, I’m a total klutz. Where are your paper towels? I’ll get this cleaned up.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He tore a couple from a roll beside the sink, dampened them at the kitchen faucet and knelt in front of her for the second time that day.

She half-stepped, half-stumbled backward despite the fact that her sandals didn’t have heels. Living next to Liam was going to kill her via a heart attack if dropping to his knees in front of her for seemingly innocent purposes turned out to be a habit.

When Liam rose from his knees, Alicia was practically dizzy from the sight of him kneeling in front of her. “I’d better get this sugar to Sasha before I ruin it all,” she said and turned carefully, wary of tripping.

Whenever she was flustered or excited, she was ten times clumsier than usual.

He held the door for her again, and she managed to make it down the porch stairs without face-planting at the bottom, which seemed like a considerable success after that morning’s ordeal.

“Thanks again for the sugar,” she said to fill the silence as she and Liam strolled side by side.

“Anytime.”

By the time they reached her front porch, it was almost a relief not to be alone with him anymore. A relief and a disappointment at the same time. She returned to the kitchen, where Sasha seemed busy despite her lack of sugar.

“Well, that certainly took longer than it needed to,” Sasha said, her blonde ponytail whipping around as she turned to face Alicia. “Did you—”

“No.” Alicia deposited the sugar sack on the counter. “Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.”

“That’s a shame,” Sasha said, dipping a measuring cup into the bag and leveling off the sugar with the edge of a butter knife before dumping it into a mixing bowl.

Alicia returned to the front porch and settled down next to Kerry – a position that put her directly next to Liam. She gripped her glass and took a long sip of sangria. Surprisingly, Sasha reemerged from the kitchen before Alicia had even gotten close to half-emptying her glass.

“Brownies are in the oven,” she announced, settling into her old seat. There were only four patio table chairs, but Henry and Grey were both standing, leaning against the porch railing.

Sasha shot a lingering glance in Henry’s direction, but he was standing farther away from the patio table than anyone else and seemed to be absorbed in something in the distance, his gaze traveling far beyond the gathering on the porch and into the pine forest.

“Don’t take it personally,” Grey said, motioning in Henry’s direction. “In our little group, he’s the paranoid tightass who doesn’t know how to relax and have a good time.”

“And Grey,” Liam said, “is the one who never shuts up.”

Grey frowned. “I was going to say I was the fun one.”

“What’s that leave for me?” Liam asked.

Grey shrugged. “Guess that makes you the boring one. Sorry.”

Alicia was 100% certain that no woman would ever consider Liam boring, but refrained from embarrassing herself by voicing that opinion out loud.

“I can hear your big mouth running Grey, even from over here,” Henry said, turning to face the group and Grey in particular. “And I’m not paranoid. In order to be paranoid, you have to be afraid. I’m not afraid of anything.”

Grey rolled his eyes. “Right. How could I forget? You ritualistically banish fear by polishing your war medals when things get scary.”

Sasha responded before Henry could say anything else. “You’re a war veteran, Henry?”

“I was in the Marine Corps before I was discharged and started working at Riley.”

“Wow.” Sasha’s eyes got big, and Alicia had a feeling Sasha was envisioning Henry in a military uniform.

Apparently, the vision stunned Sasha into near silence, because several moments ticked by before she spoke again, seeming a little flustered. “Anyway, only a few more minutes until the brownies are done.”

Vaguely appreciative murmurs rippled through the group, and Sasha smiled, though her gaze returned to Henry again, who didn’t seem to have anything else to say.

Alicia couldn’t help but think that if he was a little hard to get, maybe that would temper Sasha’s wild tendencies and render the evening bearable, even enjoyable. She wouldn’t have been forward enough to invite the three men over on her own, but she had to admit, she wasn’t exactly sorry they were there.

“So let me guess – you three must all work together at Riley now,” Sasha said, leaning forward as she clutched her drink, as if settling in for a long, juicy conversation.

“That’s right,” Grey said.

“Same shift and everything?” Sasha prompted.

Grey nodded. “We’re on PERT together too.”

“What’s that?” Alicia asked, wary of letting Sasha control the direction of the conversation. The last thing she wanted was for the innocent talk to take a turn for ‘cucumber country’. Though she’d only known Sasha for a couple weeks, that seemed like a real possibility.

This time, it was Liam who responded. “Prison Emergency Response Team.”

“Is that anything like a police SWAT team?” It was the closest thing Alicia knew of to compare it to – she knew nothing about how prisons operated.

“Sort of. Basically, we handle things if shit hits the fan at the prison.”

“Sounds risky,” Sasha interjected. “I bet you guys have to do all sorts of special training.” Again, her gaze drifted toward Henry. “Military experience must come in handy.”

Liam shrugged. “Yeah, extra training is a requirement.” He took a drink from his sangria glass, meeting Alicia’s eyes over the rim. “Alicia tells me you three work together, too.”

They made a little small talk over their positions at Wisteria.

“I went to a wedding there once,” Grey said. “Heard the place is haunted.”

“It is,” Kerry replied, her voice echoing soft but somber as she spoke for the first time Alicia had witnessed since the guys’ arrival.

Grey eyed her with apparent interest. “You see a ghost or something?”

Kerry shrugged, the picture of mystery, though Alicia knew she wasn’t the type to tease intentionally, like Sasha might have in a similar situation. “As head housekeeper, I spend a lot of time in the house. I’ve been working there for three years now… The house is never empty, even when there are no guests.”

A little shiver zipped down Alicia’s spine. Something about the way Kerry spoke – so matter of fact – made the purported hauntings seem more real than any ghost story might have.

“Well, I’ll be thinking of
that
next time I’m alone in a room at Wisteria,” Alicia said.

“You might see the Lady in White,” Sasha said, smiling as if she relished the creepiness of it all.

“Okay, who’s the Lady in White?” Alicia took the bait, unable to help being curious.

“Elizabeth Jewell. She was the youngest daughter of the house’s original owners. She still walks the grounds at Wisteria, nearly two hundred years later.”

“You should give ghost tours in your spare time,” Grey said. “You sound like one of those ghost documentary narrators.” He grinned, beaming particularly brightly at Kerry, whose usual serious expression barely wavered.

“I’m dead serious,” Sasha said, shaking her head. “She died just outside the main house, right on the lawn. It was murder. Haven’t you ever heard the story?”

Grey looked thoughtful. “Mighta. Why don’t you refresh my memory?”

“She was killed by a thief named John Hastings – a former pirate who was lying low, hiding out in a cave along the coast. He’d been sneaking into houses at night to steal food and valuables. The night he targeted Wisteria, she was outside on the grounds. No one really knows why, though most people think she was planning to meet a lover. Anyway, she got in Hasting’s way and he slit her throat, left her for dead. A slave found her body the next morning.”

“And now she haunts the place.” Grey leaned back in his chair, his grin spreading a little wider. “Can’t move on – her soul was too traumatized by the murder and all that?”

Sasha shrugged. “Wouldn’t
you
be traumatized?”

“Hastings sounds like he’d fit right in at Riley. How did they know it was him that killed the girl, if no one saw?”

“He confessed. He was caught thieving in Wilmington a week later, and he confessed before they hung him.”

“At least he didn’t get away with it.” Grey looked satisfied. “Doesn’t Elizabeth’s ghost know justice was served? You’d think she’d be able to move on.”

“Well,” Sasha stood, pushing back her chair, “they say that she stayed behind at Wisteria to prevent the same thing from happening to others. When she appears, it’s supposed to be a warning – a harbinger of danger. You could say she’s our guardian ghost.”

The day’s heat had only begun to fade, giving way to a muggy Carolina night, but Alicia felt a sudden chill anyway. “What does she look like?”

“I’ve never seen her personally,” Sasha said, “but she’s always in a white dress. An old-fashioned one, like they wore back then. I heard she has dark hair.”

“Transparent too I bet,” Grey said. “Glides through walls, floats instead of walks…”

“Ha ha.” Sasha crossed her arms beneath her sizeable bust. “For your information, the Lady in White is my favorite Wisteria ghost. A spirit with a purpose – I like that. The others are just hanging around for the sake of creeping people out, as far as I can tell.”

“So you’re saying there are other ghosts too?”

“Of course there are. And now, I’ve got to get those brownies out of the oven.”

“What do you think?” Grey turned to Kerry as Sasha disappeared into the house. “Just how many ghosts does Wisteria have?”

“It’s hard to say – so many people have lived and died in that house. I’ve heard of at least four different ghosts – ones guests claim to have seen.”

“Have any of them seen the Lady in White?”

Kerry tipped her head to the side. “I remember one woman claiming to have seen her outside, on the grounds. Where Elizabeth was murdered.”

“And did anything bad happen to that woman afterward?”

Kerry shrugged. “She was a tourist. Stayed the night and was gone the next day. Who knows?”

“Maybe Elizabeth was trying to warn the woman away from Brutus,” Alicia said, trying to inject a little levity into the matter. Grey seemed to find all the ghost talk amusing, but she kept thinking back to the woman in the white skirt she’d glimpsed that morning. “That monster gives me the creeps.”

“Monster?” Liam asked.

“Brutus is Wisteria’s resident gator,” Kerry said. “He likes to hang out in the creek behind the house. He’s never really bothered anyone, but he looks intimidating.”

“He makes it hard to give tours sometimes,” Alicia said. “It’s my job to convince couples that they’ll have the charming, idyllic wedding of their dreams at Wisteria, and then there’s this ten foot dinosaur sunning himself in the backyard.”

“A lot of the tourists think he’s exciting,” Kerry said. “I once saw a couple from Maine spend an hour taking pictures of him. I don’t think he’s going anywhere anytime soon; he’s been hanging around Wisteria since before I started working there. He was smaller when I first arrived, too.”

Talking about Brutus had its advantages; although the giant reptile seemed more like something that belonged on the set of a horror movie than on a bed and breakfast lawn, thinking about the actual danger he represented made Alicia’s uneasiness over the Lady in White seem kind of ridiculous.

Sasha emerged from the house with a tray of brownies. The rich chocolaty scent preceded her, blending with the aromas of pine needles and distant salt water that always seemed to be hanging in the air.

A hunger pain sailed through Alicia’s stomach, reminding her that the only thing she’d had for dinner so far was half a glass of sangria. Consumed on an empty stomach, the mild drink had her feeling faintly light-headed – or maybe it was just Liam’s presence that did that to her.