by Kim Hornsby
I slipped into my boots, pulled my big fuzzy bathrobe around my shoulders and left the room with Hodor, who was delighted to not have to wait for me to shower and change.
The kitchen was cold, and I heard the wind tossing the tree branches outside. It would be a stormy day. Going back to bed seemed like a good idea after I fed Hodor. I might have to give in because of the headache. I went directly to the door and unlocked it to let my dog outside. The sound of his nails tapping across the veranda told me he was taking off in a rush after something he’d spied. Probably a bunny or one of the feral cats.
I stood at the doorway letting the cool wind bathe my face and toss my hair, then moved a few steps out onto the covered veranda. It wasn’t raining, not that I could hear, but the waves below the cliff were crashing against the rocks at the bay’s edges. I imagined there were whitecaps out on the vast ocean and rain might even be coming soon. I knew this scene, having seen it many times when Caspian was here. I didn’t want to grieve again so soon but losing Caspian would take its toll.
I would have to grieve for my eyesight later. I couldn’t face that yet. I’d been lucky to have had moments of sight, to have seen this house, Caspian’s face, Eve’s new hairstyles, footage from our show. Thinking that I’d never see again was too much for me to think about today.
I waited for Hodor, staring blindly in front of me, listening to the waves, smelling the salty air until I thought I could see the outline of the cliff in front of me—the scrub grass, the rocks, the fence. Then, the scene lightened, and the ocean came into view, grey with flecks of white as far as I could see. Hodor sniffed around a clump of bushes to my left. I held my breath. “Hodor?” I called, and he turned towards me.
I spun around to search for Caspian, but no one stood on the veranda with me. He wasn’t in the kitchen. I searched the yard, the cliff wondering if I was hallucinating. And then I saw him. First, there was slight movement at the cliff’s edge, then I saw the top of a dark head of hair gradually coming into view. My heart jumped and I took two steps forward, hoping this wasn’t another premonition.
Caspian mounted the last of the stairs and continued across the grass towards me. Seeing me at the door, he stopped, tipped his head and smiled. I smiled back. He was here. He’d come back. I ran off the veranda across the grass towards him and as I got closer, he held out his arms.
“Bryndle,” he said pulling me into his damp chest and holding me hard against him.
“Please stay. I have so much to say to you, so many questions, things I want to tell you,” I said into his chest. I looked up and our eyes met in understanding. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
He nodded and smiled sadly. “You saved my life.”
“I saw you go under.”
The thought that I could be seen from the house standing by the cliff alone, posing strangely, passed through my mind, but I didn’t care. Caspian was here again. I wasn’t crazy. He’d come back to me.
“You didn’t leave me here to carry on without you,” I said touching his face with my fingertips. “I didn’t make you go away forever.”
“No. I will never leave you, Bryndle.” He pulled back and took the lion ring off his pinkie finger. “I must return your ring.” Caspian slipped the gold ring on to my finger, kissed my hand and pierced me with the sexiest look that has ever come my way. It wasn’t lost on me that Caspian had slipped the ring on to my wedding ring finger.
“I’ve fallen in love with you,” I said, new tears coming to my eyes. Happy tears.
“Or have you always loved me?” he whispered.
Our lips joined in a passionate kiss that had my knees weak and made my toes curl.
Caspian had returned.
The End
Thanks for reading COMING ABOUT
If you enjoyed this story, a review would be greatly appreciated on the site where you bought the book. Reviews help other readers find good books and make the author deliriously happy. I’m no exception. ~ Kim
Acknowledgements
As well as my family and friends, I’m always grateful to my readers. I have the best group of faithful bibliophiles ever. Wonderfully supportive people I’ve never met face to face but share my love of reading and appreciate my stories. I appreciate you. Thank you to Kim’s Krowd and to The Kim Hornsby Beach Club who keep me on my toes to remain accountable and keep me writing for their waiting Kindles.
As always, I’d like to thank my literary manager, JD DeWitt. When starting out as a writer, I dreamed of having an agent champion for me and never expected to have a book to script agent. JD goes above and beyond for her clients and I’m grateful every day she believes in me. Moody was originally written as a TV pilot and is being shopped in Hollywood.
I’m appreciative of 5x5 Production’s Robin McLain, who gave my professional life such a kickstart by optioning my book series for film and loving my storytelling. You continually remind me, Robin, that anything is possible. Women in film and women in a man’s world!
To my hubby, who doesn’t read fiction (so I can say anything I want about him!). Your excitement and support for ten years has kept me at the keyboard.
Moody & The Ghost
HOIST THE JIB
Book 4
Moody & The Ghost – HOIST THE JIB, Copyright 2019, Top Ten Press
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Novak Illustrations
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
SEATTLE * MAUI
DEDICATION
To my Nana Hornsby who saw ghosts and led me to grow up believing in things we don’t understand.
We may encounter defeats, but we must not be defeated.
~ Maya Angelou
Chapter 1
My ghost boyfriend, Caspian, had emerged from the depths of the sea to tell me he loved me.
I know this sounds weird and wonderful, mostly weird, but how else do you describe Caspian’s act of coming up from the rocky beach at Smuggler’s Cove, striding across the lawn wet, then taking me in his arms to kiss me like no woman has EVER been kissed before?
At that moment, I had no worries about getting sea water all over me, I was only thinking that Caspian had returned. I was jubilant, and the ghost of this handsome sea captain from the 1850’s kissed like I was in an erotic dream. For a ghost, his lips were warm and soft, and my mind went to naughty places wondering what else we could do together that might be fun.
Unfortunately, we were interrupted by Eve screaming from the kitchen doorway. Eve is a screamer, yes, but this was more along the lines of a surprised yelp, not like a someone-has-broken-into-the-house scream.
I tore myself away from Caspian’s arms and turned to see Eve speechlessly waving.
“What is it?” I asked, imagining what she saw. “Me kissing the air made you scream?” No one but me and my awful mother could see Caspian. And that was it. Not even my dog, Hodor, had Caspian on his radar. “Caspian is back,” I said.
Eve squeaked across the room and shook her head, pointing to the object of my affection behind me. “I can see him!”
Well, this was news. Eve could see Caspian.
“He’s tall and wet and smiling at me,” my tiny cousin exclaimed.
Eve had seen him before, when Caspian’s wife (in name only), Jacqueline, had inhabited Eve’s body and socially sparred with her husband at our dinner party, so it wasn’t like Eve didn’t know what Caspian looked like. Lucky her. Caspian was pretty yummy for any century.
“That’s weird, but interesting,” I said, turning to Cas
pian. “Do you know why she sees you?” I had so many questions for the ghostly captain, questions I’d stored up between his random visits, but this had to be the first.
“I do not.” Even his voice was sexy, and manly, and made my knees go weak. Caspian was a man of few words, something I found touchingly sweet sometimes and maddeningly frustrating others.
Hodor flew across the lawn barking his Black Lab head off at Caspian and stopped before he ran right through him. It seemed he could see the backdoor visitor too.
“No barking. This is mommy’s boyfriend.” I shot a grin at Caspian whose eyebrows knitted in question. “Suitor,” I clarified in old-timey talk. The term boyfriend sounded like we attended high school. Caspian was around two hundred years old for crying out loud. We’d just professed we loved each other, minutes earlier. He was so much more than a boyfriend but in a pinch the word described my new relationship with the man I’d taken to kissing.
That thought led to another one. One that should not have been on my priority list at that point. Something that was not important at all. If everyone could see Caspian, maybe he and I could go to dinner at the Smuggler’s Cove Grill sometime. Maybe we could do normal couple things. Maybe he could eat, drink, drive a car. Fit into the life of an Alive. Before I imagined him in thigh-hugging jeans and a chambray shirt with Nike shoes, I had to get back to the subject at hand. “You can hear him too?”
Eve had pulled herself together and nodded, wide-eyed.
“Excellent,” I said looking at the dashing, long-haired, dark-eyed stud muffin beside me. “I wonder if you can function like an Alive now.” There were those tight jeans again…
Caspian petted Hodor’s head and smiled at my dog’s adoring face. “I’d say this fellow won’t be running through me again.”
I led everyone into the kitchen, loving the fact that I could see anything again and that making the morning coffee would not be a game of touching and guessing like every morning since Caspian had been gone. Being able to see in my ghost’s presence was a wonderful gift and when he’d left me in the past, falling back into blindness was so much more than a huge disappointment. Without Caspian, I was back to using my white cane and guide dog.
Caspian followed me to the coffee pot, mostly because I held his big rough hand and didn’t want to lose contact with him.
“I’ll rouse Jimmy and we can find out if everyone sees Caspian,” Eve said. “He’ll be so stoked to see a ghost.” Jimmy was Eve’s new love interest and was presumably still asleep in one of the many bedrooms upstairs. Eve started out the door to the hall, then turned to Caspian. “Sorry. No offense. I know you’re not a freak show.”
Caspian dipped his chin accepting her apology. He was a gracious ghost.
I took this moment to abandon the coffee making and get another smooch in before anyone else arrived, not worried at all that my hair was a mess and I still wore my Frye boots and a big fuzzy bathrobe. I also had a big scar down my face I didn’t worry about anymore with Caspian. I’d affectionately named it Frankenscar and the blemish hadn’t ever deterred Caspian from kissing me, although he seemed troubled my face was marred by it. “I’ve missed you so much,” I said wrapping my arms around his neck.
“How long was I gone?” he asked. Poor guy had no idea if his absence was a year or two days. He’d once told me that when he disappeared from the house, he didn’t sit in a room watching a clock. He simply felt himself going and then arrived again, like sleeping and waking with no sense of time between the two.
“Three weeks,” I said, assuming they had weeks in the old days when he was alive. “A fortnight and another half,” I said.
He nodded. Caspian probably had a better understanding of modern phrases than I gave him credit for having haunted this house for one hundred and seventy years, the last forty as the good friend of the owner. “Your absence seemed like forever to me. Three long weeks.” I thought about the last twenty-one days. “Unless you count my dream at the hotel last week. Was that you who kissed me in my sleep?” We’d been on an investigation in Portland and I’d dreamed of Caspian.
“I couldn’t get through and stay in this world with you.” Caspian’s eyes were dark pools of emotion. “But I seemed to find you in a dream, which I thought was very strange indeed.”
“Carlos and Eve saw you in the mirror. They caught sight of your form on camera, then you showed up later in my dream.”
His eyes narrowed like that explained a lot as his finger traced Frankenscar. “Your deformity is fading somewhat.”
“Gee, thanks.” Someday, I would inform him it wasn’t nice to call Frankenscar a deformity but this morning I was too happy to bristle at anything. It was then that I realized I was wet and cold from pressing myself against someone who’d presumably just exited the cold sea in front of Cove House. And if I was cold, Caspian had to be very uncomfortable. “Your clothes are wet. Let’s get you out of them.” I reached to help take off his long, dark jacket that felt oily, like one of those Australian bush coats. “I hope you stay long enough this time to get dry,” I said. My ghost came and went without warning.
“As do I.” Caspian stripped down to his pants, even taking off his boots. We put the clothing outside to catch the early morning rays of sunshine promised by a blue sky. This was the first I’d seen Caspian in the almost buff and I had to admit, his physique had me staring impolitely. Even if he’d been flabby and lily-white, which he certainly was not, I wouldn’t have cared, but to see his well-toned chest, his flat abdomen and that skin of Spanish gold that he’d probably inherited from his father, was a thing of beauty. “I feel like I should take off my clothes to keep you company,” I teased.
Caspian threw a grin my way and pulled me to his bare chest. “I might hold you to that promise later.”
Sounds of footsteps on the stairs had us breaking apart and me wondering if my blush was evident when Carlos, Jimmy and Eve rushed down the hall to our big haunted house kitchen.
“Aye, Carumba,” Carlos said. “See him, Jimmy?” The two men had stopped just inside the doorway and were staring from across the room.
“I told you, skeptics,” Eve smiled. “But his clothes seem to be disappearing.”
“Ha ha. They’re drying outside,” I said.
Caspian smiled at the men, obviously liking this new turn of events. How could everyone see my ghost now? Did I like this or did I want to be one of the only people able to see his handsome form? Jealousy wasn’t something I’d experienced much in my life but there was a first time for everything.
I’d be interested to see if my mother still had eyes for Caspian when she got out of bed at the crack of noon. Since her latest paramour, the probably-married cop, had broken off things, I now had a new worry. Would my sneaky and morally-lacking mother make a play for Caspian? She’d gone after my boyfriends before.
Carlos and Jimmy walked further into the kitchen.
“Nice to meet you, Caspian,” Carlos said. My tech guy for the YouTube show wore rude T-shirts, today’s announcing I’ve pooped today, but his manners were excellent. He crossed to Caspian; his hand outstretched.
It was surreal to see everyone shaking hands, smiling at each other, talking about putting a face to a name. I stood back watching like a host who proudly brought her knitting group together with her fencing club.
“How did you manage this…?” Jimmy asked without finishing the thought.
Caspian and I smiled at each other. “We don’t know,” I said.
“I often find myself reappearing on the beach, and mount the stairs to Cove House, but today, when I arrived, I was coming out of the water. Being a ghost is an existence I don’t fully understand,” he chuckled. Everyone laughed nervously with him, like we were at a cocktail party chatting up the guest of honor about his cool job.
Eve started the morning coffee and the rest of us stood around talking and gawking at Caspian until he looked awkward enough to suggest we all sit down.
“Do you feel different, like yo
u might be an Alive now?” I asked.
“I haven’t felt myself get older in the last ten minutes, if that’s what you’re asking.”
If Caspian was an Alive, he’d age like the rest of us. As a ghost, he’d kept the same body and form for over a century and a half.
He looked around. “Moonraker usually accompanies me. I wonder where she is.”
I hadn’t thought about the cat. If Hodor could see Caspian and I assumed he could because as soon as Caspian sat down, Hodor leaned against him, his head eventually falling over Caspian’s thigh, the cat was probably equally visible to my dog.
Although Hodor had training as a service dog, he’d flunked out because he was easily distracted and one of those distractions was prey. Hodor was a cat chaser and that would make things difficult in this house when Moonraker showed up. “I hope Hodor didn’t chase Moonraker away. Did he come up the stairs before you?” I hadn’t seen the marmalade tabby cat but then, just before I saw Caspian, I’d had my eyes closed, feeling the morning sun against my sightless face.
Although I’ve never been called pretty, my husband, Harry, who died last year in a car accident, used to say that I had the most interesting face of anyone he’d ever met. He loved how my angular jaw and aquiline nose (his words) made me look like a brooding rock star. Pretty or not, Caspian seemed to like what he saw, Frankenscar and all.
Just then, Moonraker appeared at the back door, presumably having just walked through the thing the rest of us have to open to get in the house. My gaze went to Hodor immediately, but his eyes were closed in sleepy ecstasy in having a new friend, his muzzle having slid down Caspian’s thigh to his bare foot. The cat sauntered over to her master, jumped up on Caspian’s lap and stared down at my dog.
