Kiss Me Hello (9 page)

SARA PULLED UP TO
the back porch steps and parked the car. Unloading the groceries she bought in the village, she looked up at the widow’s walk. It stuck out over the roof like a deck and created the overhang above the guest room where she’d slept last night. It was covered with the wisteria and lilacs she’d seen from her window.

She could never get a lilac to bloom with any abundance at home, and here was a feast of them. She hoped she’d be here when the peonies bloomed.

Along with a few basics, she’d picked up some fresh cut flowers at the store—a redundancy, she realized now. She arranged the pink and white tulips and purple irises in a vase, thinking of the pond in the eucalyptus grove. Was it still as pretty as when she first saw it? Was it even still there?

The possibility of really owning Turtledove Hill started to sink in. How would she take care of such a big place? It certainly needed work. The house did, anyway, starting with the staircases.

Oh, Aunt Amelia. If only you’d kept them repaired!

She set the flowers on the table in the nook. From there she could see the barn through the window. It was in better shape than the house with a recent coat of paint.

The barn,
good lord!
It hadn’t occurred to her there might be horses out there. Heart racing, she rushed outside and threw open the barn door. Thankfully, there were none inside. There was no sign of animal life at all.

Wooden crates and steel stakes were stacked in neat rows where the hay bales used to be. Cardboard boxes filled the empty stalls. All of it was addressed the same:

Poole Haven Wines c/o 1 Turtledove Hill Road, Pelican Chase, CA.

If Poole was using the barn for storage, he must be taking care of its maintenance—probably anticipating future ownership.
Never let them have Turtledove Hill,
Aunt Amelia had said. She must have meant Gracien Poole—and his real estate agent, Bonnie.

Old saddles and tack were thrown carelessly in piles in the corner. She looked closer and saw that one saddle and bit and bridle were draped over the old steam trunk with J. MONTAGUE stamped on it. “Wonderful!” she said aloud.

She cleared off the trunk and opened the lid. The same men’s clothes were there, not so neatly folded as she remembered. She pushed aside the trousers and shirts. As she hoped, the brass bell was there at the bottom of the trunk. She picked it up by the leather thong still threaded through the top loop. Still no clapper.

Beneath the bell lay a skeleton key—and it looked like it would fit the door at the top of the landing. A sick feeling came over her. Could whatever Bonnie wanted be up there?

What if the slamming door in her dream yesterday wasn’t actually in her dream? Now she wondered if Bonnie had been in the house. It would explain the house key being in the wrong place—and the car driving away in the fog.

Bonnie had complained about Aunt Amelia’s refusal of Gracien Poole’s offers. What if Bonnie had sabotaged the stairs somehow?

“Stop it, Sara,” she said aloud. “You’re creeping yourself out.”

She put the skeleton key in her pocket and replaced the saddle on the trunk, hung the bridle on a hook, and made another fun discovery: stuck in the support post near the trunk, level with her heart, was the iron knife she’d used to strike the bell years ago. She pulled it out of the wood and picked up the bell by the leather strap.

You can’t unring the bell.
If Aunt Amelia was joking, Sara didn’t get it. Anyway, there were no chickens here now. In the courtyard, she tapped the bell’s rim with the knife, half expecting Aunt Amelia to race out of the house in a snit. As the tone dissipated, something shuffled behind her.

“Who’s there?” She spun around, but it was only the barn door swinging shut. “Knock it off, girl. You’re acting paranoid.” All the ghost talk this morning was making her jumpy. In the house she left the bell and knife with the flowers on the kitchen nook table and went upstairs to the locked door.

The key turned easily. The door squeaked open to an alcove the size of a large closet. To the left another door led to the widow's walk. To the right through an archway was the observatory, the single room.

It was an octagon. Four of eight walls faced the ocean, with windows from floor to ceiling. Three opposite walls had the familiar grapevine-and-turtledove windows running just below the ceiling. Built-in bookcases filled the solid walls, empty of books but containing knickknacks and gewgaws. The doorway took up the octagon’s eighth wall.

Sara picked up a cluster of porcelain snowdrops from a bookcase shelf and blew off the dust. The little flowers were delicate and perfect with tiny green dots on the petals. They made her think of her mother, and she put them in her pocket to take down to the guestroom.

A rotting Turkish carpet covered the wood floor, and a sheet covered a large object in the room’s center. She pulled away the sheet, brown from a thick layer of dust, to reveal an old-fashioned cherry wood desk and swivel chair. Despite being careful, the fine dust filled the air and Sara’s lungs, and she started coughing like mad.

She went out on the widow's walk to clear her lungs. The view of the ocean was spectacular. She could see Turtledove Hill Road winding away from the highway, and then the long driveway that bordered the expansive lawn in front of the house. Pelican Chase was hidden behind a hill to the north. On a cloudless night here the sky must be brilliant.

A dove cooed from within the wisteria, answered by another. She moved her head slowly, scanning the branches until she spotted a nest with four black eyes peeking out at her. Mourning doves, still as statues. She’d done the research years ago; turtledoves didn’t live in the western hemisphere. Now she’d never know why the house was named for them.

Back inside the observatory, she spotted a journal lying on the desk. The burgundy leather was nearly the color of the desktop, and in her coughing fit she hadn’t noticed it before. On the first page inside the cover was written:
Journal of Joss Montague.
She turned on the overhead light and sat down to read.

- 9 -
The Journal

Lahaina, island of Maui, Territory of Hawaii, December 6, 1941

L
AST NIGHT I WON MY
soul in a game of chance. At least that’s what the Chinese fellow tried to tell me. He offered up a broken brass bell as collateral when I raised the bet on a pair of jacks. The pot had swelled to almost three hundred dollars, more than enough to haul my trunk down to the port and go home to Olivia.

It didn’t hurt that my two boys had three pretty ladies on their arms.

The Chinese was the only one left in the game. The others—a pineapple plantation overseer and two naval officers over from Pearl Harbor—had folded.

The pot was mine; all I had to do was refuse the bell. No one would call me a bounder. It was broken, even if it was a pretty thing. But I allowed the bet, not because I was a great guy, and not because the Chinese was raving on with a sad story about the rape of Nanking, but because the bell was etched with snowdrops and it reminded me of Turtledove Hill.

I promised what gods there be that if I won I’d head home the next day. It was time to face Olivia.

The Chinese had three aces, and he laid them out in gleeful triumph. The poor sucker turned white as a ghost when I turned my three ladies over on the two boys.

“That bell save your soul,” he said, so woeful I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“I can always use a life insurance policy,” I said as I raked in the pot. “Even if it’s just Oriental superstition.”

“Not save your life. You fool. That bell save your soul one day. You mark my word now.”

I’ve packed the bell at the bottom of my steamer trunk. Whether or not it saves my soul remains to be seen, but it will make for an interesting story in years to come.

Island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii December 10, 1941

My reunion with Olivia has been thwarted by Japan. The United States naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked three days ago, and in a fit of patriotism I have joined up. A week ago, they would have rejected my sad twenty-nine-year-old sack of bones as too ancient, but now we’re headed for world war. As cannon fodder, my bones will suit as well as those of my seventeen-year-old shipmates.

At this point, I’m hoping the Chinese fellow was mistaken. A soul’s not much good without a body to keep it in. At all events, I’m keeping that bell close to hand.

Tokyo, Japan, September 1945

It’s over. As they say, war is hell. I won’t commit to words my time there. In a matter of days, I’ll be a civilian and on my way to California. The brass bell served me well. I bore witness to man’s brutality to man. My soul is bruised beyond doubt. But I’ve come through with my life, and for that I must be grateful.

Now, on to Olivia. Our day of reckoning has been too long postponed.

“What?” Sara sat up straight. The late afternoon sky was gray with fog rolling in off the coast, and it was getting chilly. She’d fallen asleep reading the journal and left the door to the widow's walk open. She went out to the alcove to close it and saw the tail end of Bram’s truck in the courtyard parked next to her car.

Aunt Amelia’s dead.

She went back inside and closed the journal with regret. She’d never felt so attached to
Hot Heat.
Joss Montague’s journal was fascinating. His writing had swept her away and made her forget about poor Aunt Amelia, and she wanted to keep reading. Normally she’d feel disloyal to Bram, but under the circumstances that would be pathetic.

“Babe, where are you?” Bram called from somewhere on the second floor.

“I’m here.” An alarm went off inside her, a feeling of protectiveness for the observatory. “I’m coming.” She hurried out to the landing and lost her balance on the stairs.
Oh, crap!
A tread tilted, and she pitched forward. She was going to fall and break her damned neck.

“Livy!” a man’s voice called out. Two strong arms surrounded her from behind and guided her sideways. She grabbed the banister and regained her footing and looked up into a man’s concerned brown eyes. He had dark hair and wore a white shirt with an open collar.

“You’re safe now.” His voice was deep and gentle like warm honey, and Sara believed him. But…

“You?”

“You!” They spoke simultaneously.

He tilted his head in puzzlement.

“Yes, me,” Bram said at the foot of the stairs. “You were expecting someone else?”

The man dissipated into nothing. Sara gasped, still gripping the rail. “Did you see that?”

“What, babe? Are you seeing ghosts?” Bram grinned.

She raced down the remaining stairs.

“Oh, honey.” He put his hands on her sides, steadying her. His soft chuckle eased her nerves. She must have looked pretty silly freaking out like that. Going all day since breakfast with nothing but coffee had made her loopy.

“I’m sorry about your aunt,” he said, “but everything is going to be all right now.” He gave her a hug, then lifted her chin and smiled, his blue eyes twinkling.

“Bram, I’m so glad you’re here. It feels like I haven’t seen you in weeks. Months.”

“Me too, babe.” He kissed her gently. She held him close and pressed against his chest. She was hungry for more than food. Starving.

“I’m famished,” Bram said.

“Actually, we’ve been invited to dinner,” she said. Her body wanted his, and her heart wanted comfort. But it was too soon to let him back in, no matter how much she needed him.

“Good. I could use a drink.” He held her at arm’s length. “And you look like you could stand to get out of here for a while. Away from the ghosts.”

“Let me just get my purse.”

Bram drove. As he pulled Sara’s car onto Turtledove Hill Road, she looked back at the house.
Crud
. She forgot to turn off the observatory light. She shouldn’t be surprised. She was tired and sad and not thinking straight. She’d watched her aunt die today and hadn’t eaten since this morning.

But that didn’t explain why her hallucination, the man on the stairs, was Aunt Amelia’s lover.

- 10 -
Dinner, Dolls, & Dollars

T
HEY STOPPED IN THE VILLAGE
to pick up Peekie and drove over to the Blue Pelican, the restaurant at the Chase Me Inn. The Victorian mansion built in the 1880s was so far out at the end of the peninsula it looked ready to fall into the sea if a big enough storm came along. Fog rolled in over the deck and gazebo, creeping through the hydrangeas and camellias that hugged the main building.