Dreams of Fire (Maple Hill Chronicles Book 1) (16 page)

“Yeah. We’d go to the ends of the Earth for each other ‘cause nobody else will,” Kelly said, gazing at her companion. “You’ll find someone who will love you, Marianne, don’t worry,” she said with absolute confidence.

Ruari’s handsome face flashed across her mind, and Marianne smiled, “I hope so.”

Kelly raised one eyebrow suspiciously. Clearly her well-developed sense for gossip was tingling. “Have you already found someone?”

Marianne blushed and shook her head quickly, filling her mouth with a sinfully rich bite of cookie instead.

Kelly looked like she wanted to pursue the matter, but Sarah interjected smoothly, “Leave the poor girl be, Amazon! How about you show Marianne the guest room? Some of us have to work tomorrow.” She stood and gathered up the mugs and teapot.

Kelly led her up a flight of stairs to a small bedroom painted in a rosy-brown color. The windows were open to let the night air come in and alleviate the stuffiness.

“Sorry about the heat,” Kelly said apologetically. “We don’t have A/C. Bathroom’s across the hall. We usually have breakfast around seven. I go for a run around five or six while it’s still cool. Do you run? I’d be happy to have company.” Kelly got a small fan going, trying to stir the air.

Marianne put her overnight bag on the counterpane of the guest bed. “I don’t run. I’m afraid if I came with you, you’d spend more time waiting for me to catch my breath. Maybe I’ll take it up now since I live in the country.”

“I’ll be happy to run with you some time,” Kelly offered generously and padded back down the stairs.
 

Marianne could hear her in the kitchen, talking with Sarah. She looked at the fresh covers, turned down, the curtains lifting slightly in a breeze and thought, I don’t think I ever knew anyone well enough, except Mom or Grandma Selene, to impose on them in an emergency. And yet two people I’ve barely met are willing to help me. For all the weirdness in my life, this is a definite improvement. I’ll have to invite them to my house for dinner or something as a thank you. Footsteps on the stairs indicated her hosts were coming up for the night.

As she got ready for bed, she waited her turn for the bathroom. Maneuvering around each other in the small upstairs reminded her of being in college and sharing a suite with girl friends. Marianne turned out the light and said, “Goodnight, guys. And thank you.”

“Goodnight, and don’t worry about it. We’ll get your ghost problem sorted out,” came Sarah’s voice next door.

I hope Oscar is okay without me, Marianne thought as she drifted off.

He was furious! The girl had dared to defy him. Not only had she broken his window to escape her righteous punishment, but she had removed the lock on the door. His wife would never have dared to destroy his property, and she had endured her punishment when she needed it. He was going to have to do something to impress upon this girl that this was his house, and he was in charge.

Ruari looked at the sculpture he’d been shaping over the last few days. Details were beginning to emerge. It was looking more and more like the face of a woman resting her head on the edge of a heavily curtained window or perhaps slumbering in a soft pod. He’d begun thinking of her as “Sleeping Lady.” Her left hand was resting by her cheek perhaps holding the curtains aside.

A memory of Marianne’s shy smile crept into his mind. And the memory of the fizz of electricity that had sizzled up his arm and exploded quietly in his brain. What an unexpected and wonderful meeting. He was looking forward to seeing her again. Maybe he could figure out a way to ask her out.

Smiling, he stared at the piece and rolled it from one hand to the other in his lap before picking up a tool and setting to work again. He slipped into the zone as fragments of wood curled away from the metal and fell to the floor around him in a growing pile.

Chapter 14

Marianne awoke in a sunlit room and experienced a few moments of disorientation until she remembered where she was. She stretched and sighed, feeling rested for the first time in days. A clatter downstairs told her the others were up, and reluctantly, she arose and made the bed neatly before dressing.

Sarah and Kelly were eating a light breakfast at the kitchen table. A pot of tea was under a quilted cozy, and a selection of cereals and fruit sat on the counter nearby. Marianne poured herself a cup, glad her new friends were fellow tea people. Geoffrey had been a diehard coffee guy and disdained tea as an effete British drink for wimps. She’d learned to make coffee for him and kept her tea habit to herself.

“What’s your plan for today?” Sarah asked. She was back in conservative business attire, a tailored, beige linen suit with a white blouse and low heels. Her hair had been pulled back and rolled into a chignon held with a beautiful black and silver Celtic knot shaped clip. Kelly, in contrast, still wore her running clothes, and her own hair was pulled back and off her shoulders with a rubber band and big comb clip.
 

“Well, after last night I think I’d better find out everything I can about the names on my list. I’ll see how far I get today. I don’t want to lose momentum on painting either, though, or I’ll never unpack! Maybe there will be time to work on the hallway.”

Sarah swallowed her tea and nodded. “Research sounds good. Depending on what you find, maybe we can get the angry male ghost to leave you alone long enough to find a longer term solution.”

“That would be great. I don’t want to impose on you for too long.”

“No worries,” Sarah said with a warm smile that made Marianne feel more relaxed around the lawyer.

“You want me to come in and make sure everything is okay when I drop you off? My first client is at nine, and I have a little time,” Kelly offered.

Marianne remembered the laundry sitting in the washer and the broken window. That was going to require a few phone calls…oh. She remembered the business card and suddenly felt it burning a hole in her pocket. She had a reason to call Ruari. After Kelly left. The heat in her pocket reached her face.

She looked up to meet Kelly’s curious gaze. “Um, yes. I have laundry in the washer, and even though I took the lock off the basement door, I don’t really want to go down there by myself. So, if you don’t mind…?”

“Sure.” Kelly looked like she was restraining herself from making further inquiries with great effort.

Half an hour later, they pulled up in front of 25 Violet Lane, and Marianne opened the front door, calling for Oscar as she went in. Kelly trailed in after her and closed the door. The big tabby came trotting down the hall meowing indignantly.

“Sorry, big guy,” Marianne said. “Let’s get you some food.” Kelly stroked his soft orange and white fur while Marianne got a can open and threw away the old one.
 

“I hope you had a quiet night, Oscar,” Kelly murmured while the big cat waved his crooked tail languidly.

They went down the basement steps together, and Kelly walked around to inspect the damage. It was darker with the board across the window, and she crunched carefully over the broken glass. Pushing the board away from the window to let in both light and fresh air, Kelly walked around making sure no animals had gotten inside. Marianne moved her laundry along and got the dryer going. Luckily, she only had one load.

“Looks okay to me,” Kelly said. “No critters got in as far as I can tell.”

“Good. Thanks a lot for checking it out.”

Upstairs they walked through the whole house from room to room. Marianne couldn’t see anything particularly out of place or sense anyone else there. But then usually she didn’t feel anything until she’d been alone for a while.
 

“Do you feel anything?” She asked Kelly.

Kelly shook her head and shrugged. “I’m deaf as a post when it comes to that kind of stuff.” Checking her watch, she added hastily, “Gotta go. See you tonight for dinner?”

Marianne’s brow creased a little. “Hmm. Let’s see how it goes at the library. Thanks for the invite.” She was genuinely grateful for their generosity but didn’t want to overstay her welcome.

Kelly departed in a swirl of energy, leaving the house quiet.

Marianne felt curiously shy about calling Ruari, so she showered and messed around for a bit. Finally, after she could delay no longer, she phoned the number on the card.

It rang a few times before he answered, “Ruari Allen.”

She felt a flutter in her stomach and managed to get out, “Hi, this is Marianne Singleton. You came and looked at my dishwasher yesterday?”

“Yeah. I looked online for the parts and have them on order. They should be in by next week.” He sounded like he was pleased to hear from her.

“Thanks. Um… I broke a window yesterday, sorry. Could you come and fix it?”

He sounded surprised. “Sure. What happened?”

“It’s really stupid,” she said in embarrassment. “I got locked in the basement by accident and had to break a window to get out.”

“Oh, that’s no good,” he said with concern. “I’ll come take a look at the lock and get measurements for the window. I could come by in an hour or so?”

“That would be fine.”

“See you then,” he rang off.

Now that her library trip was going to be delayed, Marianne decided to get the dings and dents in the hallway patched while she waited for Ruari. It seemed better than spending an hour or more being nervous. She put the little radio on and sang along to the tunes she knew. Oscar got his morning ya-yas out by racing up and down the hall and pouncing on bits of the canvas dropcloth that looked suspicious.
 

She was standing on the ladder up near the ceiling trying to fill in a crack that looked like it had been previously repaired, when she felt the air chill, and the hair on the back of her neck prickle. Oscar was sitting between the legs of the ladder with his tail curled around his front feet and staring intently down the hall toward the bedrooms. The radio crackled with a zizz of static before resuming. Marianne paused and looked back toward the bedrooms as well. She couldn’t see anyone but had the sense that someone was watching her. She took a couple of breaths trying to sense whether the watcher’s emotions were angry or upset or something else. Nothing came into her mind.

“Hi,” she said aloud as if she could see a person there. “I’m just trying to patch up the ceiling and the walls before I paint them,” she explained. “I hope you don’t mind. As you can see, they need a little work, but I think it’ll look nice when it’s done. I was thinking of using the same off-white I used in the bedroom,” she went on. “And then use the bright white for the trim around the doorways.”

She didn’t know what else to say and couldn’t feel any reaction from the silent watcher, so she went back to spackling. Eventually, the feeling faded, and she breathed a sigh. Maybe that was the woman? Or the Angry Man doesn’t mind the repairs and color scheme out here? Oscar had wandered off, probably to curl up and sleep somewhere.

Marianne had finished and was washing up her tools in the kitchen sink when the front door chimed. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and walked unhurriedly to the front door to counter the ridiculous hammering of her heart.

There he was on her front step, toolbox in hand. His light gray eyes gazed past an untidy mop of straight, reddish-brown hair as he smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Marianne smiled back, trying to act normal. She stepped aside as he came in.

“I’ll take a look at that lock first, if you don’t mind.”

She walked to the basement door and said, “Actually, I removed it. I really didn’t want to get locked in again.”

“Well, that’s one way to solve it,” he said a little nonplussed. “Do you want me to put it back on? I can make sure it won’t lock unless you want it to?”

She thought about the Angry Man and decided, “No, that’s okay. I’d rather leave it off for now. I put the pieces in a kitchen drawer and saved everything so it can be put back someday. Just not right now.”
 

“If you don’t mind my asking, what happened?” He asked curiously. “I just can’t imagine how the door would get locked.”

She hesitated not wanting to appear like a crazy woman. “You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He shrugged. “As a handyman I’ve seen some weird stuff. Try me. Maybe I can fix it.”
 

She regarded his open expression and the hint of humor in his face and decided to take a chance. “Well, this sounds a little crazy, but there are a couple of ghosts that live here too,” she said, looking at those beautiful gray eyes, her words speeding up, “and one of them is an angry, controlling man who doesn’t like my choice of paint in his favorite room and doesn’t like my telling him that he’s not in charge anymore.” She paused and took a deep breath to steady herself. “When I went down to the basement yesterday, he locked me in. So, I broke a window to get out, and when I got back up here, I took the lock off the door so he couldn’t do it again,” she finished and scanned his gaze for a reaction.

His eyebrows disappeared under his forelock, but he didn’t laugh in her face. He finally said with an uncertain half smile, “I don’t think I can fix that. The angry ghost thing, I mean.”

Marianne held her figurative breath and said, “You believe me?”

“Well, it’s the most...creative explanation I’ve ever heard for why something is broken. You said there are two ghosts. What—who is the other one?”

She regarded him steadily, willing him to understand, as she replied, “She’s a woman who plays my piano in the middle of the night and sometimes when I’m not here.”

He couldn’t help himself; he laughed. “Really? That’s pretty wild.”

Marianne looked away, disappointed and regretted her honesty. “It is pretty hard to believe. Never mind. I’ll show you the broken window.” She led him down the creaky steps and showed him the window. Retrieving a dustpan and broom from upstairs, she cleaned up the shards while he took measurements and got the frame cleaned up for a replacement pane. Then the laundry buzzer indicated the cycle was done, and she pulled the dry clothes into the basket.

As he worked Ruari silently warred with himself. She was the most attractive woman he’d ever met but blaming ghosts for damage that she must have caused herself, even by accident, was not an excuse he’d ever heard before. She seemed serious, though. It would be really disappointing if she were a pathological liar. At the moment she radiated embarrassment, and he fished mentally for a conversation starter that might help reveal a little more about her, perhaps startling her into giving herself away.