The Next Always (25 page)

“Science quizzes give me bad dreams, too.”

“It wasn’t that. It was the aliens with octopus arms.”

“That’d do it, too.”

“Liam. He was freaked enough to wake his brothers, and Murphy decided that made it a fine time to play. Anyway, I have to catch up this morning. Then we have a bus tour coming in, so I’ll just have to admire the fabulous Inn BoonsBoro from here.”

It just wasn’t enough, he realized. Seeing her, talking to her, with Main Street between them. “Tell you what, bring the kids in after school. We’ll give them a tour, then take them for pizza.”

“Homework.”

“You’re such a mom. After homework.”

“They’d love it, but the way things have been going, it could be around four thirty before we make it.”

“I’ll wait.”

Ryder’s voice boomed up the stairs. “Beckett, goddamn it, where are those measurements?”

“Looks like we both better get to work. Thanks for the great view. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Clare. It was nice seeing you.”

HE SPENT THE
entire day on a high, and the high kicked up a notch every time he had to go out and someone stopped him to talk about the inn. He continued to ride it at the end of the day when the crew knocked off.

He held the usual end-of-day meeting with his brothers to confirm the next day’s business and strategies.

“Let’s take this over to Vesta,” Owen suggested. “A day like this deserves pizza and beer.”

“Can’t. Clare’s bringing the kids in to take a tour, then we’re heading over for pizza.”

“See what happens when you get hooked up?” Ryder shook his head, sadly. “No more time for pizza and beer with your brothers.”

“Beck’s a family man now,” Owen said soberly. “You’d better start thinking about beefing up your retirement plan and life insurance.”

“Kiss my ass. And I’m not a—”

“No more poker tournaments, no more partying.” Ryder gave Beckett a sympathetic rap on the shoulder. “And you can forget the tittie bars, man. It’s all about saving for that vacation at Disney World now. Poor bastard. Come on, Owen, we’ll eat and drink his share.”

“His oats.” Owen sighed as he walked out. “They have all been sowed.”

“Assholes,” Beckett called out, laughing it off. But the ragging comments gave him a little twinge between the shoulder blades.

“Just jealous because I have a woman.”

He looked down at his clipboard, tried to concentrate on what needed to be done the next day, and through the week.

He wasn’t a “family man.” Jesus. He liked the kids, a lot. They were great—interesting, fun, smart—and he liked hanging out with them. But he didn’t know anything about being a family man. He knew about being a brother, a son, so he knew about family, and how vital it was. But he didn’t know anything about being, sort of, in charge of one.

He was just seeing Clare, just in the beginnings of a relationship with Clare. Sure, her kids were part of that—he wasn’t an idiot. But they were just pals, he and the kids.

Just pals.

And making him chew over it was exactly what his brothers intended when they’d started poking at him.

He told himself to put it away, forget it, but was grateful for the knock on the door of Reception for distracting him.

He went out, passed the kitchen area, saw Clare and the boys through the door—which he opened with a flourish.

“Welcome to Inn BoonsBoro. Do you have a reservation?”

“We have a personal invitation from the owner.”

“In that case—” He stepped back, gave a sweeping gesture that made the boys laugh.

“You said to come to this door, right? I’m so used to—Oh, the tiles are just great! It’s all right to walk on them?”

“Here, and through the kitchen and down the hall. Lobby’s off-limits. They’ll grout that tomorrow.”

“It looks so big. Don’t touch anything,” she added quickly. “Remember? And stay with me. We can only go where Beckett says we can go.”

“Do you really own this whole place?” Liam asked him.

“My family does.” There was that word again. “This is where people will come in, check in. Hope’s going to sit right there.”

“There’s no place to sit.”

“There will be,” he told Harry. “Chairs for people to sit, too, in front of the fireplace.”

“Mom wishes she had a fireplace.” Murphy looked up at him. “You build stuff, so you could make her one.”

“How come you got all those old bricks?” Harry poked at them. “Where’s the wall for the inside?”

“That is the wall for the inside. They’ve been there a really long time, so we wanted people to see them. It shows respect for the building. Down here’s the kitchen.” He glanced at Clare. “They’re going to start installing the cabinets soon. That’ll be another big corner turned.”

“I’ll say. See, guys? This is where Hope’s going to fix breakfast.”

“Don’t walk past the tape, Harry.” Beckett started down to where Harry stood at the edge of the completed tile.

“I’m not. What’re all those little things sticking up?”

“Spacers. See how straight all the lines are between the tiles?” He started explaining grout, then wondered if he was too technical.

“Why are there smaller pieces?”

“At that edge there? They have to cut the tiles to fit.” So the kid was interested. “They have a special tool for that.”

“Where?”

“I’ll show you before we go.”

“The tile rug.” Clare kept a firm hand on Murphy, just in case. “It’s fabulous.”

“What rug?”

So Beckett explained about tile rugs before taking them around to the dining room.

“You’ve started on the ceiling!”

“We wanted to see if the plan worked,” Beckett told her. “And with it done, there’ll be less chance of messing up the hardwood when that’s installed.”

Harry pointed at the arch of stone in the wall. “Is that stone for respect?”

“That’s right. This was the first stone building in town. It’s important.”

“My mom’s bookstore place is old. The stairs creak.”

“That’ll happen.”

“If it’s old, how come you got a new porch?”

“Someone took the one that used to be here away a long time ago. We put one back.” Beckett went out, opened the door. “It’s not exactly the way it used to be, but I think the building likes it. I have copies of old pictures Mr. Bast gave us. I’ll show you sometime.”

“He has a furniture store and a museum.” Liam danced out on the porch. “He has all
kinds
of stuff in the museum. But he doesn’t have any mummies.”

“Maybe he can work on that.”

“It’s beautiful from this angle, too.” Clare stepped out, looked over to Vesta, down to her own shop. “Everyone who came in the bookstore today talked about it. I must’ve walked out on my own porch a half dozen times to look over and—Murphy!”

She whipped back inside in time to see him halfway up the stairs. “Come down here. I told you not to go upstairs alone.”

“I was just going to talk to the lady.” He looked up, smiled that angel’s smile. “Okay, ’bye.”

“What lady? Who are you talking to?” Clare rushed in, scooped him right off the steps and into her arms.

“The lady upstairs. She said hi, and she guessed my name.”

“Beckett, if there’s someone upstairs—”

“I’ll go up.” But he already knew.

For Clare’s peace of mind, he did a quick walk-through.

“Nobody here,” he said when he came back down.

“I guess she had to go to the party. Is she gonna live here with Hope?” Murphy wondered.

“Maybe.” Speculating, Beckett glanced back up. “She was going to a party?”

“I guess. She had a long dress. Ladies wear long dresses to parties sometimes. Can we see upstairs now?”

“Sure. Okay?” Beckett said to Clare.

“Fine, but . . . we’ll talk about things later. Murphy, you stay with me.”

SINCE SHE WOULDN’T
let the boys out of her sight, he had to wait until they went for pizza. Getting her alone, more or less, at that point came easy. All it took was a pocketful of quarters.

“Okay, I get you don’t want to talk about it in front of them, but we could be talking about a plague of two-headed frogs and they wouldn’t cop to it now. That was something else.”

“I don’t know what happened, or what this is. All I know is whatever it is had my little boy going upstairs, by himself, to... whatever it is.”

“She’s not dangerous.”

“There is no
she
,” Clare insisted. “And how can you be sure, if there were, she isn’t dangerous?”

“We’re all over that place every day.”

“Grown men.”

“I’ve been in there countless times on my own. Just today she and I had this little negotiation about leaving the porch door open.”

“Maybe because she wanted to push you over the rail.”

He would’ve laughed, but clearly this wasn’t a joke to her. “Why would she?”

“How do I know why?” Irritation bubbled in her voice. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. We’re sitting here talking about a ghost. For God’s sake, Beckett.” She grabbed the glass of soda the minute the waitress set it down.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Heather.” Beckett sent her an easy smile. “Thanks.”

He waited until Heather moved off again. “We’re having the conversation because you’re upset about it. Murphy wasn’t scared.”

“He’s a child.”

“Yeah, and I figure that’s why he actually saw her. They say, don’t they, kids are more open to stuff like this.”

“How do I know? I don’t—didn’t—
don’t
—believe in stuff like this. It’s crazy.”

Gauging her mood, he tried to lighten it. “You can be Scully and I can be Mulder. Maybe I do want to believe, but the fact is Murphy saw her. Hair like yours, he said, so she’s a blonde. Wearing a long dress. I’d say she’s from back when women wore long dresses. Eighteenth or nineteenth century.”

“God.”

Now he put a hand over hers, held it firm. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to him, to them, to you. Clare, if I thought for a second Lizzy wanted to hurt anyone, I’d find a way to—I don’t know—exorcise her. I guess it’s exorcism. Here’s the thing.” He shifted forward a little. “You’re thinking she’s all
Blair Witch
or
Poltergeist
. Because you dig on horror novels. So you think ghost equals evil.”

“Ghosts aren’t always evil in fiction.”

“There you go.”

“In
fiction
. I’ve never dealt with one in reality. It scared me, seeing Murphy going up those stairs, smiling up at thin air.”

“I have a theory. Quick version before the quarters run out, and the pizza gets here. She likes what we’re doing, likes that we’re fixing the building. Bringing it back to life, you could say. I think she likes having people around.”

“Now you want to believe you not only have a ghost, but a sociable ghost.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, so many reasons.”

“Try this, Agent Scully. The more we do over there, the more she comes out. When we first went through, I got nothing. But later, when we started taking measurements, when I started doing some sketches, I got this sense. Like being watched. Now that was spooky. As things progressed, I started smelling honeysuckle. Not every time, but more and more often. Now today, we take the tarp down, and that’s a big deal. We have this.”

“I don’t want her screwing around with my kids.”

“Who?” Murphy crawled into her lap.

“Anybody.” Clare wrapped her arms around him, nuzzled his neck until he laughed. “Nobody messes with the Brewster boys.”

And that, Beckett thought as the pie arrived, was that.

After she took the boys home, Beckett went back over. He had the pleasure of walking over the stretch of finished floor, thinking about the permanent steps that would go in before much longer.

And waited to see what might happen.