by Keta Diablo
Grandma Dorothy loved all things Victorian. She called modern architecture dull and boring, and women's clothes unfeminine. Burke had to admit Great-Grandfather's house was elegant and impressive. He had yet to judge the women's clothing. In town, he’d been too much in shock to critique the women’s clothes.
"Come on in, son."
"Stay, Spook."
Ted laughed. "You call him Spook?"
"He possesses a superior nose for scenting ghosts so it seemed appropriate for a ghost hunter’s dog."
"A ghost hunter, huh? You don't say! Well, the dog's welcome inside. My dog, Ruff, will love having a playmate."
"Thanks. Vizsla's don't grow winter coats so he gets cold staying outdoors this time of year." He appreciated the fact that Ted hadn’t puckered up like he'd bit into a lemon when Burke mentioned his work. Or laugh, scoff, or ask a bazillion questions.
"I wondered why you'd gone to the Halstead place." Great-Granddad shook his head. "Heard about our ghost there, eh?"
Burke followed the older man up the steps onto the veranda and through the front door. The home could have housed a good sized family. He tried to remember how many children his great-grandfather had. Five or six, he thought.
A young woman came from a room at the back of the long, wide entry hall and Burke’s heart somersaulted inside his chest. She was a vision, with the tiniest waist he'd ever seen above a long black skirt that bunched up in the back in what he assumed to be a bustle. Strange, but fetching.
Grandma Dorothy would definitely approve, of the girl and the dress.
"Oh. You've brought company." She stopped abruptly, her eyes wide as she stared at Burke. "I'll tell Nellie and fix another place."
She scurried out before either man had a chance to speak. Burke stared after her, a bit dazed. Had he seen alarm in her brown eyes? Because of him? He wanted to go after her, to get to know her. Maybe she didn’t like men. Whatever caused that look of distress, she couldn't be any more rattled by the sight of him than he was after all that had taken place today.
That he failed to figure out exactly how he came to be in 1881 annoyed him. He hated feeling like he’d lost control over his life. Who or what was responsible for this sudden interruption in his life? He had to figure it out.
If only Gabe were here to discuss it with. Burke sure couldn’t talk about it to his great-grandfather or anyone else here.
A black and white dog rushed in and went straight to Ted for a scratch, then spotted Spook. Ruff, Burke supposed. The two sniffed noses and immediately began to play together.
"That was Clori." Great-Grandfather gestured to the door the girl vanished through. "She lives with us. Does most of the housework. Husband died five months ago." He hung his hat on the hall tree. "I'll show you where to wash up. Had the house built with two bathrooms, a big one upstairs and a smaller one down here." His voice held pride.
"Nice." Burke meant the bathrooms, but his mind remained on his situation and the girl. He hung up his coat and more modern Stetson and kept pace while his mind continued to seek answers. "Any of your children still live at home?"
Ted led the way to a small room under the stairs. "Nope. Grown and gone."
Burke peered at the door at the end of the hall wondering what lay behind it and what Clori was doing there.
"Got a son at University in Philadelphia this year," Ted continued. "My youngest. Gonna be a lawyer. The two girls are married with families of their own. Alaina lives near here and has two young’uns. Becky, our baby, married earlier this year and lives in Idaho. Stephen has a cattle ranch to the east. And Curt is the Sheriff of Ouray County."
Curt. That name sounded familiar. Was he Burke’s great-great-grandfather? How freakin' cool it would be to shake his hand. He made up his mind to visit Ouray the first opportunity. Before he went back to his own time. If....
A porcelain pedestal sink stood against one wall, a toilet opposite with a door on either side. Hardly room for one man let alone two. Ted gestured for Burke to go first. Stepping inside, Burke picked up a piece of soap, wondering if it was the harsh lye soap Grandma Dorothy talked about. Guess he'd have to get used to lots of changes here, until he could find his way home.
The delicious scent of fried chicken wafted in on an errant breeze. At least Burke would eat well, it seemed. He let out an appreciative whistle. "Smells like Heaven."
Great-Granddad laughed and handed him a towel. "Tastes that way too. Nellie always keeps a plate warm for me when I get home. Finish up and we'll go eat."
Burke dried off and stepped into the hallway while the marshal he had begun to think of as Ted—much easier than third-great-grandfather—took a turn at the sink.
Great-Grandfather. Still seemed odd to be with a man who had been dead for...what? A hundred and twenty years, at least.
Ted led him to the sitting room first, fished a bottle out of a sideboard next to the fireplace and set out two shot glasses. "Drink?"
"Whiskey? You bet." Somehow it seemed appropriate to drink whiskey now that he was in the Old West. Not too much, though. Burke disliked the way liquor made him feel. One glass, okay. More, a bad idea.
He had barely downed his drink and was seeking a way to open the subject of Clori when an older woman with a sweet, crinkled face entered. "I understand we have company."
Straight-backed and strong, she walked directly to Burke. Not plump as kids generally pictured grandmas. Slender as a beanstalk in her practical calico dress and apron, Great-Grandmother Nellie had white hair piled high on her head in a bun. "Hello, young man. Welcome to our home."
Great-Grandmother Nellie. A lump rose in his throat, preventing him from speaking. Until that moment, he'd figured he'd done well handling the situation he'd landed in, but seeing this small woman with her kind eyes and worn hands touched him on a more personal level. "Thank you," he managed.
"You're very welcome." She had a beautiful smile. At one time, she had been a beautiful woman with dark hair. Even with her hair mostly white, and her face lined with wrinkles, she still looked good to him.
"He's broke, Nellie." Ted hugged her to him. "So, I'm inviting him to stay until he gets on his feet."
"Of course you invited him to stay. We wouldn't have it any other way."
"Thank you, ma'am. I was robbed earlier today, so I'm truly grateful." He didn’t want her to think him a vagrant.
"I'm sure you are. Someone needs to give the marshal a kick so he’ll do something about the outlaws around here." She winked at her husband. "Now, while you eat, I'll prepare you a room. Plenty of beds here." She tucked her hand through his elbow and led him to the kitchen. Ted followed.
He hoped to see Clori, but no such luck. Was she avoiding him? He couldn’t imagine why.
Ted sat at the head of the table and Burke to his left. Nellie bustled around taking plates out of the oven of an old wood-burning stove.
Finally, Clori pushed through the swinging door. Ted rose and pulled the girl into a hug. Burke watched with a touch of envy. She was a beauty, with long, dark brown hair that curled down her back, and big brown eyes that peered at him with trepidation over Ted's shoulder.
So Burke had been right. She feared him. He vowed to learn why. And change that fear to fondness.
He cleared his throat.
"Sorry, son." Ted stepped back, one arm still around Clori's waist. "I want you to meet the Widow Hal—"
"Mrs. Hall," Clori inserted. "I dislike being addressed as the Widow Hall and Marshal Jameson knows it."
"Uh, yes." Ted appeared a tad confused. "Clori, this young man is Burke James. He's a stranger in town with no place to stay, so I brought him home."
"It's a pleasure, Mrs. Hall." He spoke with sincerity. Rarely had he been so instantly attracted to a woman, but this one entranced him. Beauty and mystery, an irresistible combination. Everything about her surprised him. He would have expected to consider a woman in a long, tightly corseted bustle-dress, to look ridiculous.
Clori Hall appeared any
thing but ridiculous. Barely an inch of bare skin showed, and she wore not a hint of the makeup modern women considered necessary. Yet she struck Burke as more feminine than any woman he'd ever met. And not only because of the clothing. It was the way she moved, the way she spoke, her gestures, the proud tilt of her head. Fantastic.
"Coffee, Mr. James?" she asked, bringing an enamel pot from the counter.
He looked into her chocolate brown eyes and felt himself melt. "Yes, and it's Burke. Just Burke."
"Very well." She filled his cup, a delicate bit of porcelain china he feared to touch with his big clumsy hands, and moved on to Ted. Burke hoped she’d invite him to call her Clori, but she said nothing.
The aroma of the fried chicken made Burke's mouth water.
Clori treated him to a rear view of her bustled skirts as she bent at the oven and removed a bowl and platter. Steaming mashed potatoes and fried chicken. Fluffy biscuits followed.
Nellie excused herself to fix his bed. Burke was still eating when she rejoined them. "Your bed is ready, Burke. Where are you from, if it’s not too rude to ask?" She sat down with a cup of coffee.
He swallowed the bite of buttery potatoes he had just taken. He'd been lucky at the marshal's office to sidestep this question. Seemed smarter to avoid talk of the Bar J and the Jameson family—the far distant future Jameson family. "All over, actually, ma'am. I travel a lot in my line of work."
"He’s a ghost hunter, Nellie." Ted stabbed a chicken thigh with his fork and transferred it to his plate.
Burke glanced at Nellie and Clori to see their reactions. Two blank faces, one paler than the other, peered back at him. "As I told the marshal, I’m a ghost hunter. Psychic Specters Investigator is my actual title."
"Oh, my." Nellie put down her coffee. "Believe in ghosts, do you?" She sounded genuinely curious, not judgmental. He liked her even more.
"Yes, ma'am. I've met several spirits, and they're generally mild-mannered."
"Generally?" Ted wiped his mouth on a cloth napkin.
Burke should have known better than to try to get anything past the lawman. "There have been a few unfriendly ones. Pranksters. Nothing we weren't able to handle."
"We?" Nellie asked.
"Yes, I work with a partner. I'm afraid we were separated tonight, and I wasn't able to find him. I'll go back tomorrow and try again."
"Go where?" Clori’s voice was flat, and apprehension clouded her pretty face that had gone white and pinched.
Burke had no idea why the subject would make her so tense, but he didn't want to make it worse and ruin any chance he had of getting to know her. Still, he had to say something. "We came here to investigate reports of increased paranormal activity at the Halstead house."
"Excuse me." What color remained in Clori’s face vanished. She put down the cloth she’d been using to clean the stove top and fled the room.
"Clori?" Ted scooted his seat back, preparing to rise.
Nellie shook her head. "Give her time, dear. I'll talk to her after supper."
Ted remained seated, but his lined face showed concern.
"Did I say something wrong?" Burke asked in the heavy silence that followed the girl's departure.
"No. No, son." Ted began eating again. "The idea of ghosts disturbs Clori is all."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"
"Don't fret over it, Mr. James." Nellie patted his hand. "We've been trying to get her over it. She'll be fine in the morning."
Burke hoped so, but the bad feeling had returned to the pit of his gut—the same feeling he always experienced just before a disaster struck.
Chapter Four
Clori barely stepped out of her room the next morning when the door at the other end of the hall opened, and Mr. James emerged in the same rumpled clothes as yesterday. She stiffened and started to duck back inside her sanctuary.
"Good morning, Mrs. Hall. How are you today?"
Too late to escape.
Yesterday, she’d done her best to ignore him. His attractive face immediately put her on guard. Horace had been handsome, and he’d turned out to be a cruel bully.
Now, with Mr. James standing right in front of her, she took a better look. His voice bore a slight rumble that made her imagine a strong, confident, rugged man. His posture and the tilt of his chin confirmed that assessment. Besides being a pleasure to the eye, Burke James had a kind face. Crinkles at the sides of his eyes hinted that he laughed a lot. He had a beautiful mouth. It made her want to touch those generous, mobile lips.
But he was a man.
Clori had come by her poor opinion of men at an early age. Her father and older brother had been hanged as claim jumpers, leaving Clori's mother alone, defenseless, and pregnant with her. The fact that she never met her father and brother meant nothing. She'd heard enough about them from her mother. Every other man she'd met, including Horace Halstead—especially Horrible Horace Halstead—proved her opinion of that gender correct.
Until she met Marshal Jameson. As the exception to the rule, she worshiped him. She worshiped Nellie as well. The couple had taken her in at the lowest point of her life when she had nowhere to go and no money for a stage ticket. They treated her like family and never said one word about the awful crime she'd committed.
Murder.
Clori still shuddered at memories of that night.
Now, here came along someone new to complicate her life. Someone as masculine as Horace was brutish, as strong as Horace was weak, and an even greater pleasure to look at. She found it curious what meanness did to a man's face, how it screwed it up into a mask of evil and hate and transformed beauty to ugliness.
Burke James cleared his throat, bringing her back to the present.
"I'm quite well, thank you, Mr. James." She hurried to the head of the stairs. No matter how nice he may seem, she couldn’t risk losing her heart to another man. "I'm late with breakfast. Excuse me."
***
Burke watched her scuttle down the stairs. How much of her rush came from necessity and how much eagerness to escape him?
A door next to him opened, and Ted emerged. "Well, an early riser like me, eh? Excellent habit to develop young. Shall we go down and enjoy some leftover coffee from last night?"
Burke grinned. "First thing I want in the morning is a hot cup of coffee. Or three or four."
Ted began his descent to the ground floor. "Myself, as well."
They entered the kitchen where Clori had put the coffee on to heat. Ted greeted her and joined Burke at the table. She bustled about banging pots and tossing wood into the stove. The coffee being warm enough, she brought steaming cups to the table. She handed Ted his while standing next to him but slid Burke’s across the table as if to avoid being near him.
"I hope to learn more about your work today, Burke." Ted snatched a couple of biscuits from last night’s supper out of the bread box and brought them to the table, tossing one to Burke and biting into the other one. "Sounds rather intriguing."
"What would you like to know?" Burke squirmed, aware of how upset Clori became at the mention of ghosts. The growl of his stomach thankfully went unheard with all her clanging of pots and pans.
"Do you actually have evidence that Horace Halstead is haunting Eagle Gulch?" Ted asked.
At the sink, Clori stiffened. The banging of cookware grew louder.
Burke took a deep breath. He hated upsetting her, even more than he hated having to explain over and over to disbelievers how he knew ghosts existed. Half the time, it proved a waste of breath. "Actually, none. Yet. The agency I work for, Tremayne Psychic Specters Investigations, heard reports of psychic activity here."
"Never heard of them."
"They've been in business since 1837 and have offices all over the country." Burke buttered his cold biscuit. "Mostly in the East, of course. Their methods are based on centuries' worth of research by notable scientists."
"So how do you find these ghosts? How do you know they're there?"
"Various met
hods. Drops in temperature, a disturbance in air currents—"
Nellie burst into the room and grabbed an apron from a hook. "Sorry I'm late, Clori. What's left to do?"
"I'm grinding beans for fresh coffee and have water heating up for porridge. You can start the biscuit dough."
"All right, I'll do that and get the bacon frying."
Burke's stomach growled again, this time, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Nellie laughed. "I'm glad to see you have a healthy appetite." She threw ingredients in a bowl, mixed them with her hands and deftly rolled out the dough.
Clori disappeared into what appeared to be a pantry. Glancing at the door she'd closed behind her, Ted whispered, "We decided last night to talk openly about ghosts in front of her as often as we can to help her recover from her obsession with them."
So he and Clori had something in common, although ghosts frightened her and intrigued him. Not the best connection to build a friendship on.
The girl emerged with a can of peaches and a basket of eggs.
"You mean a simple breeze can tell you a ghost is present?" Ted asked as if continuing the conversation.
"That would only work in a completely closed up room."
Ted frowned. "If it's all closed up, where would a breeze come from?"
"That's the point. A breeze where there should be none would indicate a ghost."
"Ah, I see."
"So you boys are going hunting for ghosts, are you?" Nellie asked, chuckling as she slipped the biscuits into the oven.
"Yep." Ted finished his coffee and rose to his feet. "Come along, Burke. Got chores to do before we can eat a full breakfast."
Burke set down his cup and followed. Behind him, he suspected he heard a sigh of relief from Clori.
She certainly wasn't like women he'd met in his own time. Yet, she intrigued him more. He loved the way tendrils of her upswept hair curled around her neck, making him want to kiss her there.
