Summertime Dream (5 page)

Dutifully, she pulled out the tablet and little keyboard Joe had given her and opened her works in progress folder. She selected one file after another, but none appealed. Before her illness had knocked her flat, she hadn’t a single problem with the flow of words and ideas for the cozy mysteries she enjoyed writing. She loved the challenge of a whodunit. She’d finaled in a few contests, received several very kind rejections, and still had two queries out to agents. Hope sprang eternal.

Thinking of hope…Stephanie filled her mind. She had always been more a sister than sister-in-law. Mom had heard through Violet at the pharmacy that Stephanie had gone to visit her grandmother in Tampa. Impulsively, she shot off a simple email: “
Thinking of you. Miss you so much. Talk to me, okay?”

Still undecided what to work on today, she scrolled through her file list once more, but the old stories seemed tired and heavy, as if they reflected the creeping exhaustion of her illness. They all needed change and she was too antsy for the necessary review and editing.

So? Start a new one.

Yes, she needed to start something new. New story, new genre…maybe if she let herself play. She opened a new document.

And stared blankly at the blinking cursor.

Okay, maybe just prime the pump, get
something
on the page. Grimacing, she typed rapidly “
It was a dark and stormy night
.” She laughed. Now her head was full of Snoopy perched on his doghouse with his typewriter.

Delete.

Just type. Get the words down and, no matter how lame, you can fix them later.

She shut her eyes, took in a slow clearing breath, and typed
“It was a bright and sunny day and it ended with a—”

Shot in the dark? Plunge in the river? Spilled cup of poisoned tea? Blackmail note?

Ended with what?
Don’t stop. Go with the flow.

She sipped at her coffee, pausing with the mug brushing her lips. She could still feel Christopher’s lips on hers and his low, easy voice…She shook herself and set down the mug. What she wrote didn’t matter. Only starting mattered. A plot would come, eventually. As a total goof, and because, honestly, it was the only thing her mind seemed capable of flowing with this morning, she typed
“kiss.”

She frowned at her sentence. Far from the snappiest opening line for a mystery: “
It was a bright and sunny day and it ended with a kiss.
”

Go for it. Who kissed and who was kissed?

A girl in a green summer dress standing on the porch of the Falk house the way it looked in the pictures in the library filled her mind. The heady summer perfume of roses filled the air. She’d done the kissing.

But, who had she kissed?

Ah, yes. The young man driving the rusty blue pickup down the driveway.

The girl dashed laughing into the truck. “Hurry!” She tossed a glance at the upstairs windows and brushed her lips over his mouth.

And the young man had flashing green eyes full of want.

Margie laughed and let her fingers fly.

“Hi, Margie?” Christopher’s warm voice sent a sweet shiver rolling through her.

She clicked save and looked up, dizzy in the good way she used to get after losing herself in a productive writing session. He stood beside the opposite seat of her booth, hands tucked away in the pockets of his navy slacks, looking crisply professional in his white pinstriped shirt and polished leather shoes, and just as fascinating as yesterday.

“Hi.” She blushed, bursting with sensations of his lips on hers. Nope, the attraction between them yesterday wasn’t her imagination. “So nice to see you again. Are you here for lunch?” She glanced at her tablet. The time was just short of twelve thirty and she’d written 3,204 words. Wow. Great start.

He cleared his throat. “I thought I’d try it out. I haven’t eaten anything today but Mrs. Dodd’s donuts and coffee. Time for something solid.”

She closed her document. “I can fix that. Would you like to join me?”

“Yes, thanks.” He slid into the opposite seat.

She fetched him a menu and water for them both.

After glancing over the selections, Christopher laid the menu aside. “Everything sounds good. What do you recommend?” He regarded her intently with those vivid eyes of his, as if he were asking about more than food. “Your dad recommended the brisket sandwich.”

“That’s excellent if you like barbecue. Dad smokes it himself. The Swedish meatballs are delicious and, if you’re a hamburger fan, Joe makes a wicked blue cheese and bacon burger. And our fries are fresh, not frozen.”

“What are you having?”

“I love breakfast all hours of the day, so I was thinking of a veggie omelet.”

“I’ll go with the brisket sandwich. I have all week to try the rest of the menu.”

Joe delivered their meals himself, and made a reserved, but decent effort at polite small talk for a few minutes.

She enjoyed the pleasure filling Christopher’s face at his first bite of the sandwich.

After a second savoring bite, he grinned. “This is one outstanding sandwich. You could get addicted to the stuff. Your omelet looks delicious too.”

“It is.” Light and fluffy, her omelet was fragrant with herbs and studded with perfectly cooked mixed vegetables. Joe always made her omelets special, with only two eggs instead of his usual man-sized, four-egg serving popular at breakfast, and she’d substituted a salad for the customary home fries.

Talking with Christopher as they ate was as easy and comfortable as yesterday, even with the clumsily casual visits from every member of her family.

Christopher ate the last fry on his plate and sat back, patting his stomach. “Another good meal I need to walk off. I’m heading over to the house to take a look inside. Would you like to come along? If you’re busy, I understand...”

“I’d love to!” If Joe wouldn’t let her work, she might as well enjoy herself and satisfy her life-long burning curiosity to see the inside of the house.

“Great.”

On the way out, Margie paused by the hostess stand where Amy sat engrossed in her organic chemistry textbook. She took advantage of every lull in customers to study. “Amy, let Mom and all know I’ll be home later. I’m going with Christopher over to the Falk house—his house, okay?”

Amy tucked a lock of pink-tipped blonde hair behind her ear and waved, barely glancing up. “Sure. Have fun.”

Christopher’s spiffy silver car was a delightful surprise. “Oh, how fun. I’ve always wanted to ride in a convertible.”

“I’ll put the top down for you.”

She loved every minute of the ride, even though her hair was a windblown disaster when they arrived at the house.

Christopher removed the padlock and chain from the driveway gate and swung the gate open, only to have the rickety picket panel break off in his hands. He shook his head and dropped the wreckage aside on the grass. “One more item for the to-repair list.”

After slowly navigating the lumpy, buckled driveway to park alongside the house, he pulled a heavy-duty flashlight from the back seat. “The power’s not on yet, maybe tomorrow. Mrs. Dodd lent this to me.”

She tippy-toed after him up the side porch steps, careful to avoid putting the high heels of her sandals through the old wood. “We’re not wearing the best exploring clothes.” She smoothed her hands over the skirt of her dress. Both of them were dressed more for church or a dinner date.

He regarded her from beside the boarded front door, his steady gaze pausing on her mouth before flinching upward. “You look great. Really pretty in that peach color.” A flush rose in his cheeks, and he focused on sorting through the neatly labeled ring of keys.

Her own cheeks burned. Was he also remembering those kisses yesterday? “Thanks.”

Christopher removed the padlock and swung open both panels, revealing the screen doors and the original ornamented and leaded glass double entry doors, both curving into a graceful peaked arch like a church door.

“Oh, all the glass is safe. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Christopher nodded as he fit an old-fashioned key into the ornate brass lock. He gripped the doorknob and took a deep breath. “Ready?”

The hinges whined and creaked as he pushed the door inward. Daylight wedged into the short entry vestibule, revealing another doorway formed by elegant leaded glass sidelights and transom, and faded across the hardwood floor into the gloomy grand entry hall. Disturbed dust floated through the sunlight.

Christopher flicked on the flashlight and stepped into the once-majestic hall. Margie followed, nose wrinkling at the musty stale air. He swung the light upward, revealing an elaborate lamp fixture hanging from a plaster medallion, the crystal pendants festooned with spider webs. “Our very own haunted house, huh?”

The broad, strong flashlight beam highlighted the delicate trails of mouse footprints across the dust-dulled carpet.

A queasy shudder ran through her. Oh, please, no live mice. Or spiders. Oh, boy. Perhaps she really should have thought twice before jumping into this adventure.

Okay, stop. Time to grow up and get a grip on silly fears. Time to focus on anything besides tiny, harmless vermin. Focus on Christopher. Your heroines wouldn’t let tiny pests distract them from a handsome guy or their investigation, right?

Right, but….

“Left or right or straight?” He traced the flashlight beam over the choices. Ahead, the stairway to the second floor and a hall into deep shadows. To the right, elegant pillars guarded the wide archway to what must be the living room. To the left, a partially open pair of pocket doors allowed a view of a parlor and a swag of webs.

Oh…
Do it.
“Left.”

Christopher gave a testing push to one of the pocket doors and the door rolled smoothly into its slot, tearing the webs away.

Dust and spider webs shrouded the parlor furniture. She shuddered. Where there were webs, there had to be spiders. Sagging stacks of cardboard boxes, tumbles of bulging black garbage bags, and other cluttered junk left only a narrow path through the room. Vases, bowls and cups of dead dry roses littered surfaces everywhere.

Christopher groaned, shaking his head. “What a mess. I sure hope that’s not garbage in those bags. I’m wishing the Sorensens hadn’t followed Reba’s instructions to leave everything in the house intact so literally.”

Another set of pocket doors divided the parlor from the formal dining room. Christopher led the way and dealt with any draping webs barring their path.

Chin up.
Spider webs never hurt anyone, unless you’re a fly. Mice are more scared of you than you are of them.

She tightened her mind’s grip on her new be-brave action plan.

The dining room presented another jumbled mess. Junk heaped the massive mahogany dining table dominating the room, but the chairs were missing. More vases of dead roses covered the sideboard and mantel, along with stacks of china. Boarded-over French doors must lead to the side porch and another interior door led into a hall. Broken glass from the French doors crunched under their feet and glittered in the beam of the flashlight.

At the rear of the hot and stuffy house, they found an informal dining room, with chairs and plenty of junk. A roomy half bath held stacks of newspapers, magazines, and one towering pile of paperbacks. An odd small closet by the kitchen proved to be a dumbwaiter, so far the only empty space in the house. Even the hallways had clutter.

Christopher played with the hand-pulled mechanism. “Cool.”

The dirty kitchen would have been spacious, but for Mrs. Falk’s hoarding. Two closet doors opened to a huge but crammed pantry and a dishroom.

“I have never seen so much junk. Looks like Great-Grandma was a packrat. How could she live like this?” Christopher ran the light over the piled trash bags and newspapers.

“I had no idea the house was left like this. Not a single rumor or gossip. Mrs. Falk used to walk around town all hours of the day with one of those big old folding shopping carts on wheels, but we always thought she was just using it to steady herself instead of a proper walker. I guess she was filling it up as well.”

Stairs by the kitchen coiled up through darkness to a faint glow at the top and down into deeper darkness below.

“These must go all the way from the basement to the third floor. I’ll wait on exploring the basement for when the power’s on. If the main floor is this filled with junk, I hate to think what might be down there.”

A sitting room with two fireplaces occupied the center of the house. The missing formal dining chairs crowded in a half circle facing one hearth, each occupied with dolls from various eras, glass and plastic eyes blindly focused at the old ashes.

“That’s creepy.” He swept away a hanging drift of webs from the doorway.

The overstuffed chair nearest the ornate marble mantelpiece held a book with a tassel peeping from the center pages and a magnifying glass. More withered roses filled vases around the room and a full china tea service burdened the mahogany piecrust table. Teacups perched on every available ledge, even on a stack of books.

“Maybe she was lonely.” Despite the spider skittering over the table inches away making her skin crawl and her phobia screaming
Run!
, her fascination overruled her fears by a hair and she stood her ground.

Remember, it’s all grist for the story mill.

Christopher played the light around the room and stopped, facing Margie. “You’re enjoying this?”

“Totally fascinated.” With the ghostly strands of webs, the room and its doll tea party was definitely eerie, and sad, but absolutely intriguing.

They reached the last two rooms: a drawing room or perhaps originally a ballroom and the formal living room at the front of the house.

“You have a treasure trove of antique furniture in here.”

The flashlight beam flicked over a broken, skewed plastic patio cart, a pile of stringless badminton rackets and a rusty, bent-wheeled bicycle. “And some real trash. Yeah. I should get an appraiser for the good stuff. Figure out what to do with it all.” He shook his head, drawing a long breath before exhaling sharply. “Ready to check out the upstairs?”