by Hope Ramsay
* * *
On Wednesday afternoon, Ella moved out of Granny’s house and into a third-floor room at Howland House. She might have stayed at her grandmother’s place, but the real estate agent insisted that it would be easier to sell the house if she wasn’t living there.
And Granny needed to sell the house.
Besides, staying there made her sad. And moving from place to place was something Ella had been doing for years. She’d mastered the art of traveling light.
This new room was in a beautiful historic house and looked like something from out of the pages of Southern Living. Her own space had a shiplap feature wall, flowered wallpaper, and wide-plank pine floors. The antique iron bedstead wore a hand-made quilt in shades of blue that picked up the forget-me-not motif of the wallpaper. And even though it was an attic bedroom, with oddly angled walls, the dormer window let in plenty of daylight and provided an elevated view of Magnolia Harbor’s central business district.
She put down her fiddle case and started to unpack, hanging her clothes in a small closet and folding T-shirts and undies into the old oak bureau with a silvered glass mirror.
Tomorrow she’d have to get up with the chickens to start her new job. But having a job was a good thing, even if the old ladies in Granny’s club had arranged it for her. When she got settled, she would run down to the yarn shop where Mom worked to discuss the engagement party guest list with her mother.
“Hey.”
She turned with a jump to find Ashley Scott’s son leaning in the bedroom doorway. The little brat had opened the door without knocking. Ella judged him to be about ten or eleven, and she made a mental note to make sure her door was locked from this time forward. Ashley had already warned her that Jackie had boundary issues, and the kid’s room was evidently just down the hallway. Howland House’s third floor was the private space where Ashley lived as well.
“Hi,” she said on a puff of air, choosing not to bawl out her boss’s only child. “I’m Ella, and I’m going to be staying up here for a while.”
He nodded and glanced at her violin case. “You play the fiddle?”
“I do.”
“The captain says he likes jigs, reels, and hornpipes. You know any of those?”
“The captain?”
The kid rolled his eyes. “Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t heard about the captain.”
“I’m not from around here.”
“Captain William Teal. He was a fierce pirate who went down with his ship during the hurricane of 1713.”
“Okay,” she said. Magnolia Harbor’s main business district was awash in touristy gift shops that sold pirate crap. Black Beard, among others, had sailed the waters of Moonlight Bay, back in the day. But this was the first time someone had professed personal knowledge of a pirate’s musical preferences.
She stared the kid down. “If the captain went down with his ship, how do you know he likes jigs and reels?”
The kid pushed away from the doorframe and sat on her bed. He was a pest. “Because he haunts the inn,” he said in a thoroughly matter-of-fact tone.
“Really?”
“Yup. And I’m the only one who can see him.”
Wiseass. The kid was trying to scare her or something. Not that she believed in ghosts or was about to play this game. “I’m not afraid of ghosts, so don’t try that on me. And yes, I do know how to play jigs and reels. And please get off the bed.”
The kid stood up. “Oh, sorry,” he said. Then he continued in a rush. “You should play for the captain.”
“I wouldn’t want to disturb anyone.” Especially her new employer, who would probably take a dim eye to her encouraging her son’s rude behavior.
Unless, of course, Ashley was using the pirate as a marketing ploy. The Travel Channel was awash in ridiculous shows about haunted inns. Cody used to watch that mind-numbing crap all the time. Now that she thought about it, haunted inns could probably charge a premium just because gullible people were willing to pay extra for ghosts.
“The captain says that his first mate used to have a whistle he played all the time. His first mate was Henri St. Pierre,” the kid said like a historic tour guide to the supernatural.
“St. Pierre, like the minister’s name?”
The kid nodded. “Henri St. Pierre was the only survivor of the shipwreck. All the St. Pierres are related to him.”
“Really,” she said in a neutral tone. The kid certainly knew his local history. She turned back to the bureau, putting the last of her meager wardrobe into the top drawer.
“The captain says his crew used to get drunk, and Henri would play his whistle, and they would all dance. Pirates drank a lot of rum.”
“I guess they did.”
“But anyway, the captain says he hasn’t heard a reel or a jig in hundreds of years, and he misses it.”
Something in the boy’s tone wormed its way past Ella’s skepticism. She closed the bureau drawer and turned to face the kid. Was he teasing her? Goading her? Or did he just want some attention? “If you want me to play my fiddle, all you have to do is ask.”
The kid beamed a big smile. “That’s great. But, um, could you play the fiddle out by the tree?”
“The tree?”
“Out in the yard. It’s where the captain hangs out. I’m not sure he could hear you if you played up here.”
“Right now?”
The kid’s eyes got bright with excitement. “Yes, please.”
There was something so earnest in the way the boy said “please.” He was good at this game, but she wasn’t about to play games today. She had things to do.
She checked her watch. “I’m sorry, I can’t right now. But I’ll check with your mom when I get back from my errands to see if she’d like me to do some music in the evenings.”
The boy’s shoulders sagged a little. “Great.” He seemed oddly crestfallen.
“So you don’t think your mother would be interested in live music for the guests?”
He shook his head. “The minute she finds out the captain likes jigs and reels, she’ll say no.” He turned away, leaving Ella alone and adrift, as if she’d misread the kid from the beginning.
Did he believe in ghosts? He seemed a little old for that somehow. Either way, she wasn’t about to screw up her new situation. She needed this job. She needed the structure of work to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
Besides, she wasn’t about to embarrass her grandmother, who had called in help from her friends. So no music until Ashley signed off on the idea. And in the meantime, she had an engagement party to plan.
Twenty minutes later, she stepped inside the cozy confines of A Stitch in Time. The place had a homey vibe, with comfy chairs in the front, where an endless stream of knitters and crocheters visited on a daily basis. The store was filled with color, from the bright cubbies of yarn to the bolts of quilting cotton. Underfoot, the wide-plank pine floors had seen so much traffic they were worn down to softness.
Mom was at the checkout helping a silver-haired lady purchase a bunch of self-striping sock yarn. It struck Ella as odd that anyone would spend time knitting socks when they could buy them at the Value Mart for a fraction of the price. Somehow she’d never been bitten by the knitting bug, but she could remember the endless parade of hand-knit sweaters Mom had made for her over the years. When she’d been little, Mom’s sweaters had been special, but then, when she’d gotten into middle school, the kids had teased her about them. After that, Mom’s sweaters got pushed to the back of the bureau drawer.
Mom hadn’t knitted her anything in years. Why had she run away from that? She had no answer except supreme stupidity. Both of them were responsible for the relationship running off the rails, which was why Ella was determined to make Mom's party the best ever.
“Hey,” Mom said when the customer left the counter. “I thought you were moving into Howland House today.”
“I didn’t have much to move.” She leaned into the counter.
“I’m all settled, and I’ve met Ashley’s son, who is a piece of work. He gave me a whole spiel about how the inn is haunted and the ghost wants to hear jigs and reels so he can remember the days when he used to sail the ocean, drink rum, get drunk, and dance like a fool.”
Mom snorted a laugh. “That sounds like Jackie Scott, all right. Granny says Ashley is determined not to advertise that the inn is haunted.”
“You think it is?”
“Probably not.”
“Well, that’s good to know. Because I was thinking about approaching Ashley about maybe playing some music for the guests.”
“I would avoid any mention of Jackie’s ghost.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“So what brings you down here?” Mom asked.
“I need to get your invite list for the engagement party. Dylan and I are trying to put together a master list.”
“So you’re working together, then?” Mom’s eyebrows rose a little, which meant she was either surprised or pleased. It was a good sign.
“Yeah, we’re working together…sort of.”
Mom’s eyebrows lowered a tiny bit. “Sort of?”
“He pretty much wants to be in charge. So I’m sort of letting him for now.”
“Oh?” Mom sounded wary.
“There’s a problem with that?”
“Well, I guess not.” Mom didn’t sound sure.
What the hell? Did Mom want her to run the show? She could have sworn Mom wanted her to be nice and make friends with Dylan. Sometimes Mom was hard to figure out.
“Mom, he has some good ideas about the party and—”
“What ideas?” Mom pressed a hand to her throat as if she was dealing with a sudden attack of heartburn, which was apt now that Ella thought about it. Dylan could give anyone heartburn.
“He thinks we should do the party at the yacht club. He had some good arguments. I mean, it’s a nice place, and it would be easy to arrange catering. So…easy-peasy.”
Mom’s eyebrows lowered into the frown-of-death, which could kill anyone’s optimism at twenty paces.
“You don’t like the idea of the yacht club, do you?”
Mom’s mouth twitched. “Not really. I’m not a yacht club kind of person. They’re so stuffy up there.”
She’d been afraid of this. “Okay, I’ll let him know that you’ve nixed the idea. I tried to tell him that you probably wouldn’t be wild about having the party there, but he’s…” She stopped speaking. Maybe she shouldn’t call him a bully in front of Mom.
“Oh, well, don’t tell him that. I mean, let me talk to Jim first and make sure he isn’t committed to the yacht club.”
Ella wanted to let go of a deep, long, primal scream and grab her mother by the shoulders and give her a shake.
“Mom, you should just tell everyone what you want, and we’ll make it happen.”
Mom shook her head. “It’s not that easy. I don’t want Jim or Dylan to feel left out or whatever. I just want everyone to be happy.”
Right. Somehow Ella didn’t think that was possible. And then Mom wouldn’t get what she wanted, and she’d let the world know all about her dissatisfaction. Ella could see the disaster looming ahead on the horizon.
Wait one sec…What if Dylan was pushing the yacht club because he knew Mom would hate the idea? Oh, the insufferable jerk. He’d played her. And she’d let him do it. That was not going to happen again if she had anything to say about it.
“Mom, it’s your engagement party too,” she said.
“I know, but I want Jim to be happy. So if Dylan thinks the yacht club is the right choice, we should maybe go along with that idea.”
Great. Now what?
Chapter Seven
A deluge hit the island on Thursday morning, so Dylan decided to take the Honda instead of the Harley. He pulled the car into the Howland House parking lot at about seven o’clock for his regular monthly breakfast meeting with Rev. Micah St. Pierre.
They’d been having breakfast together since last November, ever since Dylan had assumed the role of secretary on the Jonquil Island Museum Foundation’s board of directors. Micah was its president, taking the position because his sister-in-law, Jenna, who had endowed the project, had nagged him until he’d given in. Jenna’s husband, Jude, had twisted Dylan’s arm and he’d also reluctantly agreed. But Dylan had never expected to become the board’s recording secretary. That had happened when Simon Paredes suffered a stroke last November, and Dylan had been goaded into taking the position.
Today’s breakfast provided a face-to-face opportunity to review and tweak the agenda for this week’s meeting before Dylan sent it out to the rest of the board. Since Micah lived across Lilac Lane from the inn and had a standing invitation to take his breakfast at Ashley Scott’s table, these breakfast get-togethers were always at Howland House.
Micah and Dylan took their usual places at the end of the inn’s communal dining table, which was almost full this morning because of the influx of spring break tourists. Ashley’s guests weren’t college kids, of course. They were young marrieds and a family with school-age kids. But all of them seemed unusually grumpy this morning.
“Where the hell is my coffee?” one Izod-shirt-wearing customer muttered as he twisted in his chair to glare at the kitchen door.
“Uh-oh,” Micah said, leaning in. “Things have been a bit chaotic since Judy left for Colorado. Maybe I should—” He started to get up, but the door into the kitchen swung outward, and Ella McMillan appeared, her auburn hair more awry than usual. She wore a blue striped apron over her jeans and T-shirt, and judging by the scowls aimed in her direction, the guests were not pleased with her.
“Sorry,” she said on a huff of air. “I’m new, and I have yet to reach an understanding with the industrial coffee maker.” She leaned awkwardly and placed plates of eggs and bacon in front of the most impatient guest and his wife. And then started refilling coffee cups.
The coffee ran out before she reached Micah and Dylan. “Be right back,” she said in a tense voice and raced into the kitchen.
Dylan turned toward Micah. “Ashley hired Ella? Really? That was a mistake.”
Micah turned a pair of dark brown eyes on him, and Dylan had to stifle the urge to slink under the table in shame. Hadn’t he been irritated with Dad’s patients who had judged him harshly over the last few days? He’d just done the same thing to Ella. He was a better man than that. Maybe he didn’t want Dad to marry Brenda, but that didn’t mean he had to take his frustrations out on Ella.
“Sorry. That was unkind,” he said to the minister, who nodded.
“She just started today, and I’m sure she had issues with that coffee maker. I’ve had my own run-in with that machine.”
“You’ve made coffee for Ashley?” Dylan asked.
“Last Friday, when the temp Ashley hired failed to show up.”
“You’re a good man, Micah.”
Just then, Ella came flying out of the kitchen again, her tray heaped with plates of food and glasses of orange juice. She rushed to the man sitting beside Micah and placed his plate in front of him. Then she turned and headed the other direction, to where the man’s wife was sitting. But as Ella came flying around the end of the table, she must have lost her balance or stubbed her toe on something. Whatever the reason, she tripped, and her tray went flying off like an errant Frisbee.
It connected with the side of Dylan’s head, where its forward momentum came to an abrupt halt, dumping four plates of eggs and bacon and two glasses of OJ onto Dylan’s shoulders.
Dylan was momentarily stunned by the blow to his head and the twin sensations of hot eggs and bacon and icy-cold OJ inching down his back and landing in his lap. He reached up to touch the spot where the tray had connected with his head. A bump was already forming.
Damn. That hurt.
He blinked a couple of times, trying to process what had just happened, and then he heard Ella’s cries of pain.
“Ow, ow, ow,�
� she said from the vicinity of the Persian rug, where she’d apparently done a face-plant. Dylan would have normally gotten up to render aid, but time seemed to be moving in slow motion for him.
Not so for the minister, who got up and helped Ella up from the floor.
“Are you okay?” Micah asked.
She studied her palms. “Uh, um, yeah. I think just rug burns.”
“You didn’t break a wrist?”
“Uh…” She looked up, her gaze landing on Dylan like another blow. “Oh my god, Doctor D. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
She grabbed a napkin and started ineffectually beating his soaked shoulders, but when she leaned over and started scooping eggs and bacon out of his lap, he finally pulled himself together and grabbed her hands.
“Stop,” he said. “I think you’ve done quite enough for one morning.”
* * *
Dylan’s hands were warm and rougher than Ella expected. They paralyzed her for a moment as she shifted her gaze to his face. A strange hum sounded in the back of her head, but it soon became an urgent siren when a bright gush of blood welled up from a cut on Dylan’s temple and trickled down his face.
“Oh my god, you’re bleeding.” Ella’s heart went into a full gallop as she let go of his hands and grabbed another napkin from the table. As she pressed it to Doctor D’s temple, panic began to swell inside her.
Oh, crap, crap, crap. She was a disaster. She couldn’t make coffee. She couldn’t deliver food. And now look what she’d done. She’d given her future stepbrother a concussion and a head wound that probably needed stitches.
She glanced at his eyes, which was what you were supposed to do when checking for concussions, right? They seemed normal…beautiful even. Dark blue with little amber flecks in them.
She pressed the napkin tighter against his head. Doctor D’s beautiful eyes turned up toward her. Woah. Was it weird to find them beautiful? Or worse yet, icky?
“Someone should call a doctor,” one of the guests said in a voice that carried a world of censure.
