Crazy in Love

by Lani Diane Rich

  Well, he thought, raising his beer in a quiet salute to Rhonda Bacon, who needs her, anyway?

  Chapter Three

  The old lady sat in the rocking chair in the corner of the room. She was rocking, but the chair was not.

  Weird.

  Flynn sat up in the bed, but at the same time, knew she was still asleep. She could feel the heaviness in her limbs, the steadiness in her breath. Also, it was late, the sun was definitely down, but the room was filled with a misty, orange glow.

  And she was staring at a see-through old lady in a rocking chair.

  Definitely a dream.

  “You moved my cows,” the old lady said.

  Flynn stared for a moment, her brain moving in fuzzy waves as she tried to connect to what the lady was saying. Cows. She hadn’t moved any—

  “Oh!” she said, snapping her dream fingers. “The creamers? The ones on the shelf? Hell, yeah, I moved them. They were creeping me out.”

  The lady stopped rocking. “You’re scared of ceramic cows?”

  “Cows in general. I’m not a fan. Actually, most farm animals kinda bug me. And bugs.” She shuddered through an exhale. “I don’t like nature much.”

  The old lady chuckled. “Boy, did you ever come to the wrong place.”

  “Maybe.” Flynn tried to formulate her next question so it wouldn’t make her sound crazy, but then gave up. What the hell? It was just a dream. “Are you, um . . . are you my great-aunt Esther?”

  “Is your grandmother Elizabeth Daly?”

  “That was my father’s mother. Yes.”

  “That was my sister.” Ghost Lady started rocking again. “Guess that makes me your great-aunt Esther. You can just call me Esther, though.”

  “Oh. Okay. But you’re . . . you know. Dead, right?”

  Esther glanced up at her, and for the first time, Flynn noticed she was knitting an afghan in various shades of purple. Crazy dream.

  “It would appear so,” Esther said. “Came as quite the shock to me, too.”

  All right. This was not okay. It was not okay to be sitting in a strange bed in a strange place that smelled like old lady and having a conversation with a dead woman. Flynn closed her eyes and tried to wake up, but when she opened them again, the room was still all glowy.

  She was still dreaming.

  Shit.

  “Got any Pop-Tarts?” Esther asked suddenly.

  “No.” Flynn swallowed. This was by far the weirdest dream she’d ever had. And that included the one with the duck.

  “Shame.” Esther sighed. “I really miss Pop-Tarts. The strawberry ones with the frosting and sprinkles were my favorite.”

  Flynn rubbed her fingers over her eyes, but when she opened them again, Esther was still there.

  “Look, not to be rude, but isn’t there a white light or something you need to be going toward?”

  “I think perhaps you need to examine your concept of rude. And, no, to answer your question, there isn’t a white light. There isn’t anything. Just me in this little house, doddering about. No Pop-Tarts.” She shot a ghostly glare at Flynn over her bifocals. “I assume it has something to do with you.”

  Flynn felt a rush of panic go through her. “With me? Why me? We’ve never even met before.”

  “And yet, there you are, sleeping in my bed, moving my cows—”

  “Look, I’m sorry about the cows, okay? Had I known it would upset the dead lady, I would have thought twice.”

  Esther let out a martyred sigh. “Don’t worry about it. I put them back.”

  Flynn felt herself roll over in her sleep, and yet there she was, still on the edge of the bed, locked in an awkward silence with a dead woman.

  Okay. That’s enough.

  “It was nice to meet you, Aunt Esther. I’m going to wake up now, and you’ll just go away, right?”

  Aunt Esther continued knitting. “I don’t know. Why don’t you give it a try?”

  With a deep gasp, Flynn shot up in bed. For real this time. She no longer felt all fuzzy, and with her hand on her chest she could feel her erratic heartbeat and uneven breathing. She reached over and flicked on the lamp, then looked at the rocking chair in the corner of the room.

  It was still.

  And empty.

  Thank God.

  She glanced at the clock. 12:34. She’d been sleeping for six hours. No wonder she was disoriented. Dreaming about dead old ladies. How ridiculous.

  She tried to laugh, but it came out all wavery and weak. She felt a chill go down her spine, and shuddered as she tried to talk herself down from the panic welling in her gut.

  It was just a dream.

  She hopped out of the bed, grabbed her suitcase, and tossed it onto the bed.

  There’s no such thing as ghosts.

  She unzipped the suitcase, pulled out a pair of jeans and a light sweater.

  Even if she’s really a ghost, she can’t hurt you.

  She got dressed quickly and zoomed out of the bedroom. She snatched her purse from the half-moon table and then froze as she saw something out of the corner of her eye.

  She turned.

  She looked.

  Oh, holy Jesus.

  Had she dreamed taking the ceramic cows down and putting them in the closet? She remembered all the details clearly, from the light sheen of dust on the ceramic to the old musty smell of the closet as she tucked them way in the back.

  And yet, there they were on the shelf on the wall, exactly where they’d been when she’d found them.

  Well, then she must have dreamed putting them away, too.

  She must have.

  “It was nice meeting you, Aunt Esther,” Flynn said loudly as she pulled the front door open. “Now go away.”

  Jake wiped the inside of a wineglass and hooked it into the holder above the bar. Monday nights were typically dead; the locals who drank early in the week usually went to dives like the Bait and Tackle on Route 9, and guests of the Goodhouse Arms tended to be early-to-bed types. The last customers had left fifteen minutes earlier and Jake started in on closing up, taking advantage of having a few moments alone to think.

  But there were really only two things on his mind: Rhonda Bacon and Flynn Daly.

  Rhonda, because he needed to figure out how he was going to approach her without Gordon Chase getting wind of it. Shiny was a small place; you couldn’t have a dirty thought without everyone knowing about it. Meeting with the secretary of your sworn enemy? They’d be talking about it in the preschool.

  And Flynn Daly, because Jake needed to find a way to undo the damage from their meeting that afternoon and try to talk her into keeping the place before Gordon Chase swooped in and convinced her otherwise. If Flynn didn’t delay her family on the sale for at least a little while, there’d be no bright, shiny objects to keep Chase distracted while Jake did his investigating on the sly. If he could just get Flynn to gum up the works for a little while . . .

  Of course, he’d have to get her to trust him first. He’d thought about stopping by the cottage after work, but it was way too late for a casual social call. She’d think he was there for sex or a raise, and neither assumption would reflect well on him. The wrinkle was, Chase had certainly smelled the niece in the water by now. If Jake was a betting man, he’d put his last dollar on Chase being there first thing in the morning, which meant that in order to beat him to the punch, Jake would have to get to Flynn before eight, and he didn’t have her pegged as a morning person.

  So when he heard the door swing open and saw Flynn Daly push into the bar looking like a woman who needed a drink real bad, Jake’s smile couldn’t have been more genuine. Flynn, however, didn’t look quite so happy to see him.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “My job.” Jake flipped a bar towel over his shoulder. “I’m your bartender.”

  “I thought you were maintenance.”

  “Why would you think I’m maintenance?”

  “Well . . . you said . . .” She paused for a moment, the
n shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay.” He leaned one elbow on the bar and pulled on the charm smile. It almost never failed. “That’s a good reason.”

  She slumped down on a bar stool. “This is not going well.”

  “You think?” he said, setting a dish of pretzels out for her. “Because I’d have to disagree. My night just started looking up.”

  Flynn raised her head up from the bar and glared at him.

  “Don’t charm me, Tucker.”

  “Can’t help it. Charm is part of a package deal. It comes with the clever and the good-looking.”

  “Oh, stop it. I know your type.” She sneered and moved her fingers around in the air in front of his face, as though conjuring his “type” from thin air. “I wasted most of my precious college years dating your type. I . . .” She blinked, and her eyes cleared, and she shook her head. “Why am I talking about this? Jameson’s neat, please.”

  Well, I guess making friends and gaining her trust is out, Jake thought as he set a rocks glass on the bar and filled it. This is where a plan B would have come in handy.

  He slid the glass to her in silence. She took it and looked up at him with guilty eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she grumbled finally. “I’m usually not this cranky. I’m actually, typically, kind of a fun person.”

  Jake perked up. Was she starting to confide in him? That could be good. He leaned forward slightly. “I think you’re scads of fun.”

  She gave a mini eye roll, then sighed. “My family thinks I’m a loser. They sent me here because they don’t think I’ll ever make anything of my life on my own.” She lifted her glass and snorted into it. “The kicker? They’re probably right.”

  Jake waffled for a moment, then chose a direction. “If you think so, then they are.”

  Her glass froze in midair, and her eyes raised up to his. “Excuse me?”

  “I have four sisters and a mother. I know a little something about familial disapproval. The secret is not to let it get to you. They love you, they’re worried about you, they say hurtful things, but it’s just because they want what’s best for you. But only you know what’s best for you, so go ahead and humor them so you can get through Thanksgiving without bloodshed, but don’t believe any of it.”

  She stared at him in stark silence. Jake held his breath. He’d either just won her over or completely blown it, and he wouldn’t know until she said something.

  But she wasn’t saying anything. She just held his gaze for a long moment, and then, without any change in facial expression, said, “My father has angina.”

  Jake broke into a deliberately confused grin. “Really? Is that possible? For a man to have—”

  She huffed. “Not a vagina. Angina. It’s a heart—”

  “A heart thing,” Jake said, playfully swatting at her arm with his bar towel. “I know.”

  Finally, she broke into a crazy, tremendous, heart-stopping smile, and it felt like all the lights in the room upped their wattage. She lowered her glass, shook her head, and laughed lightly.

  Jake grinned. He hadn’t blown it.

  “So, your dad,” he said. “He’s okay?”

  She lifted her head, the smile still playing on her lips. “Yeah. He’s fine. And now, he’s not worried about me anymore, so that should help.”

  “Ah,” Jake said. “Taking one for the team, are you?”

  She looked around the bar, assessing her surroundings. “Yeah. Guess you could say that.”

  The smile was almost gone. Jake wanted to see it again, see if the entire room brightening was just his imagination, but there were things to be accomplished first.

  “I think you did the right thing,” he said. “And let me tell you why.”

  “You sound like that guy from The Music Man,” she said. “Does your reason start with a capital T, which rhymes with P, which stands for—”

  “The Goodhouse Arms,” Jake jumped in. “Let me tell you why I think you shouldn’t sell this place.”

  “Oh, hell.” Flynn lifted her glass and took a long swallow, but that smile played once again at the edge of her lips.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said, leaning closer to her, creating an air of intimacy between them. “This place, it’s a great place. With great people. There’s history here. Did you know that George Washington actually slept here?”

  “How do you know he’s not still sleeping here?” she muttered, and took another drink.

  “Well . . .” Jake chuckled, hoping she was kidding. “Because he’s dead. But I find the dead to be a really depressing topic. Hey, let’s talk money.”

  “Or, hey, let’s not.”

  “We don’t make much here.”

  She raised a brow at him. “That’s your hard sell?”

  “Esther liked to pay her people well, and that ate into the profit margin a bit. But you see, this place is about more than profits.”

  “More than profits?”

  “More than profits. It’s about history. And legacy. And the Goodhouse name, which may not mean much to you because you don’t carry it, but it’s still in your blood.” He waited, not speaking again until she smiled, which, he was glad to note, didn’t take too long.

  Hell. This might just work.

  “Flynn, it’s a great place. And we do a decent business. Esther got along just fine. So can you. Why don’t you just give it a try? Stay for, say, a year. Run the place. If it doesn’t work, you can always sell then.”

  She bolted upright. “A year? Are you kidding? I’m not staying the night.”

  Wow. He really sucked at this.

  She looked at him for a long moment, then shrugged and downed the rest of the drink.

  “It’s been a long day,” she said, sliding the glass to him to refill. “I should be sleeping right now, but I can’t because, as it turns out, I’ve got a roommate.”

  Jake felt a bristle at the idea, but covered with a laugh. “Well. That was quick.”

  She blinked. “What?” Her eyes widened, and then she smacked at his arm. “Oh, God. No. Who could I possibly have seduced between now and when you dropped me off this afternoon?”

  “I’d believe it,” Jake said. Flynn met his eye.

  “You say that like it’s a compliment.”

  “It was.”

  Flynn opened her mouth, then closed it, then waved her hand in the air. “Okay. Whatever. Anyway. I was talking about Esther. Esther’s my roommate.”

  “Mmmmm, don’t think so,” he said, smiling lightly. “We may not be up on all the latest things here in Shiny, but we have hopped on the bury-the-dead bandwagon.”

  “I don’t mean her body. A body I can deal with. I’m talking about her”—she waved her hands around in the air, as if trying to conjure the word—“spirit.” She downed another gulp of her drink, then shook her head. “I think she moved the cows.”

  Jake gently pulled the glass from Flynn’s fingers. “You know, I think maybe we’re done with this.”

  She whipped her eyes up to his and then narrowed them dangerously. Jake drew back in a self-protective instinct.

  “Look,” she said, her voice low and serious, “let’s get a few things straight here. I’m not some ditzy, spoiled Daddy’s girl who can’t think for herself or put in a hard day’s work. And I’m not crazy, either. I dreamed about Aunt Esther, and okay, fine, maybe she didn’t move the cows, but it creeped me out, and that’s a completely sane response. Now, I’m here to do a job, and I’m gonna do it, and that’s that. So don’t charm me, don’t condescend to me, and if you value your hand—”

  In a flash, she snatched her glass back; Jake was impressed that she did it without spilling a drop.

  “—do not ever take my drink away again, okay?”

  Their eyes connected, and Jake felt everything go still. Flynn Daly was just plain odd. Alternately combative and congenial, pretty and prickly. She had this weird effect of shifting gravity when she walked in a room, making him feel perpetually off balance in h
er presence, and there was something about her that occasionally snuck up and dope-slapped him in the back of the head.

  He liked her, much more than he thought he would. Not enough to stop him from using her to get to Gordon Chase . . .

  She raised her eyes to his, and a suspicious look flashed through them.

  “What?” She swiped at her face. “Do I have something on my nose?”

  Jake smiled and jerked his chin up toward the clock. “It’s closing time. One A.M.”

  “I don’t think so. I own the place.” She took a swig from her drink and set it down on the bar. “From now on, we’re open until I’m done drinking.”

  “Fine,” he said. “But you’ll have to take that up with the town board. They make the rules, and right now, we’re in violation of the law.”

  Her eyes met his, and behind her tough expression, he could see the vulnerability there. She was scared. Somehow, though he didn’t think it was possible, that made him like her even more.

  He smiled and nudged the glass toward her with his finger. “Take it with you. It’s your glass now anyway.”

  “Great. Can I get a room, too?”

  “I don’t know. The desk is closed.”

  “The desk is closed? This is a hotel. What if someone needs something? Like, to get a room?”

  Jake shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. The desk closes at six. And I don’t know which rooms are available. Annabelle has this . . . system. It’s weird. It involves tarot cards and an abacus and a trained monkey—”