The Haunting of Hotel LaBelle

by Sharon Buchbinder

  Glass broke and curses exploded from Will’s office.

  “Keep moving,” Lucius spoke in a low voice. “He’s in his cups. Take the elevator.”

  “I didn’t know it worked,” she whispered. “I’ve been taking the stairs all this time. Oh, well, good exercise.”

  He nodded and waited for her to open the ornate brass gate. “Just press the button. It only goes up or down.”

  At last they arrived at her door, and Franny pawed at the wood, urging her on. “Okay, I got it.”

  “You’ve got one more thing you gotta do before you get in that bed and put your foot up.”

  Sweat trickled into her eyes, and she wiped her brow. She was panting as hard as the pug. “What?”

  He pointed toward the desk. “Put that chair under your doorknob and push it in tight-like.”

  After following his instructions, including putting two pillows under her foot, she collapsed on the bed. “I wish you could get some ice for my ankle.”

  “Before tonight, I couldn’t even leave the porch.” He sat on the bed next to her and locked gazes with her. “I have no idea what I can and can’t do, anymore. All I know is, when I’m with you, I’m a changed man. I’m almost real.”

  She grabbed his warm, solid hand and squeezed. “You’ve always been real to me.” The pug yapped, and she laughed. “And to Franny.”

  Lucius stroked her cheek with a light, easy touch. “You’re the first woman I’ve wanted to be with in over a century, Tallulah. That has to be connected with this change coming over me. What other explanation can there be?”

  She moved her leg and set off throbbing in her ankle. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said through gritted teeth. “Full moon? Alignment of the planets? Magnetic fields?”

  He leaned in close, and a heady blend of cigar, whiskey, and real man hormones wafted over her. Her gaze strayed to his cheek. The damn dimple sat there teasing her, urging her to come closer. She lifted up her chin and licked her lips.

  “May I be so bold as to ask for a kiss from your lovely lips, Miss Tallulah?”

  “Omigod, you’re killing me.” She laughed. “Kiss me, Lucius. Let’s see if a kiss will undo your curse.”

  Their lips joined, not with a lightning bolt, but with a definite sizzle, one that took her breath away. His tongue probed her lips. A good thing I’m laying down already or I’d be swooning.

  She opened her mouth to invite him in for a deeper connection—

  Someone pounded on the door. “Ms. Thompson, I need to shee you righth now.”

  Where was Lucius? One moment he was kissing her, the next poof!

  “I’m indisposed, Mr. Wellington.” And you have terrible timing. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The knob rattled, and the deadbolt shook. “Now. I need to shee you now.”

  “And I said no. If you don’t go away, I will call the police.”

  He guffawed and rattled the knob. “No copsh out here. Jusht the Sheriff.”

  “You sound like you’ve been drinking. Go to bed. Sleep it off. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Yer making me very—”

  The entire building shook and rattled.

  Earthquake? Were there such things in Montana?

  “Will?”

  No answer. She raised herself up on her elbow and stared at the door.

  “Lucius?”

  Brushing his hands together, he appeared at the side of her bed, looking like the cat that ate the canary. “That lout won’t be bothering us again tonight.”

  “Is he—”

  “Dead? Heavens, no. But he will be aching in the morning.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Let’s just say I pulled the rug out from under him.” He grinned and plopped down next to her on the big four poster, stretching his long legs and arms. “And he just happened to take a tumble down the stairs. He’ll think he tripped and fell while drunk. Which he is.”

  She gasped. “That’s awful. What if he’s hurt?”

  “Nah, he’s fine. Drunks topple over all the time. They get bruised, might break a bone or something. The worst he’ll have tomorrow is a bad hangover.” He cleared his throat. “Look, I’ve been trying to tell you all evening, that swindler searched your room today. He even looked in your drawer of unmentionables.”

  “What a jerk.” She knew he was a boor but had never pegged him for a pervert.

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Are you calling him dried meat?”

  She laughed. “I guess I am. But, seriously, what on earth could he have been looking for?”

  “If I were a betting man, and I’m not, I’d say money.” He described the scene in the office. “I think he might have gone to the casino to try to win some cash, lost it instead, and got boozed up. Now he’s chasing El Dorado, and is he gonna be disappointed. I took all my money to the bank to pay off my loan and get my deed to the hotel the very same day Beautiful Blackfeather cursed me. He won’t find a penny, much less a gold coin.”

  “He’s broke.” She covered her face and groaned. “I’ll never get paid the rest of my fee now.”

  “Did you really think he was going to pay you?”

  She peeked between her fingers. “Yes. He gave me a thousand-dollar deposit. Emma said the same thing. I should have never taken this consultation.”

  “But if you hadn’t come here, then we would have never met.”

  Tallulah lowered her hands and rolled over, face to face with this man candy from a bygone era, when men were men and women were glad of it. “That’s true. Whatever you are, ghost, spirit, vision, I do like you Mr. Lucius Stewart.”

  “I like you too, Miss Tallulah Thompson.” He snuggled closer. “Now about that kiss.”

  Just like her fantasy, Lucius was in her bed, cuddling with her. His kisses were like butterscotch candies; she couldn’t have just one. She pulled him closer with each touch of his lips and ran her fingers through his silky hair. Was this a dream or had he been real all along?

  His attention moved from her lips to her neck, down to the hot-button spot on her shoulder. She slipped her hands under his shirt and stroked his chest. Hair, not a gorilla suit but a real man’s hair, unwaxed, unshaven, unmodern, met her fingers. He was one hundred percent male, and she wanted to find out how far that manliness extended. She tugged at his shirt to pull it out of his pants.

  He froze.

  “What’s wrong?” She leaned back and looked at his face. “Don’t you want me?”

  Jumping a ghost’s bones hadn’t been on her bucket list, but it was now. This hot specter was calling her to dance the horizontal mambo. What was wrong with her? She had never been one to leap into bed with a man the first week she met him. It was as if he’d crawled under her skin and used his gentle old soul to patch and fill the voids in her younger soul—and she wanted more.

  “My darlin’, I’m not sure what I want.” He rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her. “In my day, a woman who behaved like this was called a lot of different names, starting with brazen hussy and going on to worse ones.”

  Face burning with shame, angry words spilled out of her mouth. “Oh. Now you’re going to get all moral on me? For Heaven’s sake, man, you’ve been out of touch for over a century. Trust me, a lot has changed. And it’s not just cars, computers, and telephones. Women won the right to vote. We aren’t chattel anymore. We work outside the home and have careers. Or we work at home and have children and a family. We can even do both.”

  He stood and faced her, buttoning his shirt, saying not a word.

  Suddenly he’s the strong, silent type after hours of nonstop chatter. His unspoken contempt set her off again.

  “We get to choose who we want to go to bed with and when, Lucius. Maybe it’s too much for you to grasp, perhaps the curse and isolation made you a deeper shade of whatever color of stuck-in-the-mud you already were in a frontier town. I hear you were called ‘Love ’em and Leave ’em Lucius.’ Do me a favor, Lucius. Just leave, and
don’t even pretend you give a fig about me.”

  Gazing at her with sad eyes, Lucius’ usual warm, mischievous smile was gone, wiped off his handsome face. He nodded, said not a word, and vanished.

  Hot tears leaked down the side of her face, and sobs wrenched their way out of her. Maybe I need to see a psychiatrist to get some of that zombifying medicine, so I won’t feel this pain. Even though they both wanted the same thing, to restore the beautiful Hotel LaBelle to her glory, what made her think this supernatural relationship could ever be real? A man trapped in a time warp like a fly in amber would never, ever think of her as an equal.

  Chapter Six

  Lucius paced the porch all night long, mentally kicking himself for messing things up with Tallulah. What was wrong with him? A smart, beautiful woman wanted to bed him and he hightailed it out of her room as if Old Scratch had been after him. Maybe the Devil was behind it. After all, hadn't every woman he'd ever cared for left him?

  Firstly, his mother left him. Well, she didn’t want to leave him, he knew that. She died of pneumonia, what some people called “the old man’s friend.” But she wasn’t a man, and she wasn’t that old. He was thirty when she passed on, and his mother a healthy fifty. She worked herself to the bone for those rich, snot-nosed brats. A seamstress by trade, she’d made exquisite gowns for the high and mighty of New York society. Smart, funny, creative, and stubborn, his mother would never let a competitor take on any of her clients, lest they leave her. Well, she left them. In a pine box. Caught in a downpour after delivering her last creation, a wedding cake of a dress, his mother came down with a cough that wouldn’t let up. The doctor came, shook his head, and urged her to get her affairs in order. Two weeks later, she died.

  Then, all the lonely widows and divorcees on their adventures out to the Wild West came through Billings, took one look at his long fingers, and dragged him into bed. Not that he complained, mind you. He would be the first to acknowledge the services rendered had been his pleasure. The ladies never complained, but after a week of entertainment, they’d climb back on the train, smiling and satisfied, and leave. Billings was not San Francisco. There was no gold in the streets, therefore, no gold diggers stayed to keep his bed or his heart warm. Not that he wanted a woman who was only after his money, but it sure got lonely in the winter months when the trains rolled through town less often.

  Finally, Mourning Dove. That woman drove him mad. Wouldn’t live with him at Hotel LaBelle, wouldn’t be seen with him in public—other than that one time with the cowpokes. Made him sneak out of town to a teepee halfway to the reservation, one she stayed in on trips into town to sell her wares. Didn’t he send her samples back East to his mother’s former client whose husband owned the department store with the big red star? The New Yorkers went crazy for the Wild West designs, couldn’t get enough of her mirror bags, moccasins, and whatnot. On the rare occasion when she permitted him to travel to her home, he saw the Crow women lined up outside their teepees producing hundreds of pieces a week, all under Mourning Dove’s close supervision. Every penny earned went into the Crow Nation coffers.

  When Lucius asked why she gave up all her money, she laughed at him, shook her head, and called him Crazy White Man. “I have food, water, teepee, family, friends. What more do I need?”

  “What about me? Don’t you want me?”

  “Yes, but we aren’t really married until you come live in my home.”

  When couples married in the Crow Nation, the husband gifted the bride’s parents with a horse and moved into the wife’s home. She owned the teepee and all the household belongings, while he owned his horse and his weapons. In contrast to the white man’s world, women in the matrilineal Crow Nation were highly respected and independent. Following tradition, Lucius gifted Beautiful Blackfeather with a horse, but Mourning Dove staunchly refused to move into Hotel LaBelle. He admired her free spirit but hated that she wouldn’t marry him, no matter how hard he begged. She’d left him too, not in a pine box, but above ground, wrapped in her best robes, on a scaffold. The night Beautiful Blackfeather showed up to curse him, he knew. The lacerations on her arms, her hair cut at the base of her skull, her anger. Mourning Dove had been her only daughter. Childbirth was dangerous for mother and infant and he was responsible for her pregnancy. He might as well have pulled out a gun and shot his lover and the baby.

  Lucius sat on a rocker, put his elbows on his knees, and dropped his head into his hands, moisture pricking the back of his eyelids. The century hadn’t blunted the knife’s edge of grief. Drowning in sorrow, neither alive nor dead, he was unable to be with Mourning Dove. Now, for the first time in decades, he’d hadn’t been alone. Someone could not only sense him, but see and speak with him. His loneliness and grief had been set aside, and he’d had a glimpse of what life might be if the curse was removed. On the one hand, the idea thrilled him. On the other hand, that scared the dickens out of him.

  Hotel LaBelle was his home, his sanctuary. Would release from limbo evict him from his beloved inn? And what about Tallulah? Did this friendship born from her Medicine Woman powers have any chance of blossoming into a romance? Tallulah was smart, and damn independent, just like his beloved Mourning Dove. Soon she’d be gone too. And he’d be left behind alone—again.

  He lost track of time and was surprised to see the sun rise as if nothing terrible had happened the night before. Birds chirped and took flight, the breeze stirred the grasses, and a small herd of mule deer waded into the river for a morning drink. He couldn’t stand watching the beauty of the day unfold before him. The wine cellar stuffed with the collection of dead animal trophies would be a fitting place for him today.

  ****

  After a fitful night’s sleep, Tallulah sat up on the edge of the four poster and gingerly placed her left foot on the floor. “So far, so good.” She stood and hobbled to the bathroom. On a scale of one to ten, the pain was about a four. Bearable and with some aspirin, it might even come down to a three.

  Franny ran in circles, anxious to get out for her morning constitutional.

  “We are moving slowly this morning, my little one. Patience.”

  The pug cocked her head to one side and watched her owner dress and pack her suitcase.

  “If I go downstairs, it’s a one way trip. We are not staying here another night. I’m fed up with Will’s lies and have had it with Lucius.”

  The dog wagged her tail at his name.

  “Now don’t go giving me those big, sad eyes. If I didn’t promise Emma I’d drive out to the reservation to meet her family, I’d be on the first road out of town.” Tallulah packed her laptop in the outer pouch of her travel bag. “This is the worst consulting job we’ve ever had. Why did I let you talk me into this?”

  Placing the skeleton key in her pocket, she used the wheeled bag to assist her with walking.

  Franny trotted ahead of her, snorting and snuffling. “What kind of idiot gets on a plane, drives halfway out into the hinterlands, and doesn’t get paid at least half upfront? Well, that would be me, wouldn’t it? Lesson learned.”

  Her left ankle throbbing, she pressed the button to the elevator and rode down in silence, mentally berating herself the entire time. Suitcase in the back of the SUV, she planned to get breakfast on the way to the reservation. The thought of breaking bread with Will made her gag.

  Franny moseyed around the grass and nosed at each blade. Every stick was fascinating to the pug, it seemed. Tallulah hobbled slowly behind Franny, and the dog decided to go around the corner of the porch and behind one of the plants Will had moved from the tire planters to the ground. At least she’d gotten him to do one good thing with the place.

  Tires crunched on the gravel driveway. With Franny deeply engrossed in her examination of the flowers, Tallulah could only peek around the corner. A black SUV with a mud-smeared Nevada license plate expelled two no-necked, enormous men with shaved heads, muscle shirts, and tattooed arms—the size of her thighs. If they spoke, it must have been in sub-vocal grun
ts to one another because she couldn’t hear a word. They stomped up the steps, one after the other, their denim encased legs ending in metal-tipped cowboy boots.

  No luggage, but that could still be in the car.

  If these guys were coming to register at Hotel LaBelle, Tallulah was doubly glad she was leaving. They looked like trouble with a capital T and that rhymed with “Get out of this place ASAP.”

  “C’mon Franny, what is taking you so long this morning? Didn’t you get your bran flakes?”

  The dog favored her with a baleful look, circled three times, and squatted.

  Finally.

  Franny finished her business, kicked up dirt with her back feet, and sniffed for another spot to water. And another. And another.

  Tallulah sighed. Better than in the car.

  An engine roared and the black SUV took off in a cloud of dust.

  “Well that was quick. Let’s go, Franny. We’re out of here.” She patted her pocket for the car fob and found the skeleton key. “Oh shoot. I have to take this back in.” She and Franny climbed the stairs, Tallulah with difficulty, the pug hopping like a rabbit up the steps with no problem. “Show off.”

  She limped into the foyer over to the registration desk and set the key down on the counter. Just as she turned to go, she heard someone moan.

  “Help!” Will’s cry came from the office.

  That can’t be good.

  Reluctant to enter the inner sanctum, Tallulah hobbled around the counter and stopped mid-limp.

  Eyes, nose, lips, and ears bleeding, Will lay on his back on the floor, cradling his left hand.

  “Ohmigod! What happened to you?”

  His eyelids and lips were rising like biscuits, and he struggled to speak. “The vig. I couldn’t pay the vig. They sent the tune up squad.”