Maybe.
Luella held her breath. Would she pass muster?
Her friend pursed her lips and then twisted them to the side. “Let me get my makeup kit. It’s in the loft.”
Luella let out a breath, deflated. “This is silly. And appearance completely aside, someone else needs to go talk to him.”
“Nuh-uh. You made the mess; you gotta clean it up.” Sue Beth flipped her hand over, gesturing at Julep, who was leaning over a financial ledger and making notations. Her pen was topped with a silk flower she’d attached to prevent customers from walking off with it. “Of the four of us, I thought the person who’d offend this man would be prickly-pear Julep, not our pleasant-as-punch Luella.” Sue Beth grinned at Julep.
Julep glanced at Sue Beth out of the corner of her eye before her gaze turned back to the ledger. Probably didn’t want to dignify that comment with a response.
“Be right back.” Sue Beth ran upstairs.
If only there had been time for her to talk to Julep privately about the bombshell she revealed last night before the tour. Although Luella didn’t understand much about what had happened, other than the brief events Julep had described, she knew Julep felt betrayed by Sue Beth’s comforting Mitch. It was such a horrible blow for Julep when they learned his days were numbered, and for another woman—a good friend, no less—to take Julep’s place as his confidant, even for an afternoon, was unforgivable to Julep. To make matters worse, Mitch up and died mere weeks later.
But after Luella offended Charles and the commotion at the lighthouse, well, Luella and the girls needed to focus on fixing that mess.
Last night the Glynn Girls had met after the ghost tour to discuss a game plan. Dell would make a pie, which Luella would then walk over to the Lighthouse Inn, where Charles was staying since he was now managing it. Sue Beth would help prep Luella with the right words to say and help her achieve the right “look,” whatever that meant.
Sue Beth scampered down the stairs. “Here we go.” She set the bright flowered bag on the counter. “Why, exactly, is Charles in such a dither?”
“Well, it seems he’s easy to offend.” Luella took a sip of her coffee. “Although, for all his ranting about not believing in ghosts, he sure beat a hasty retreat after we spotted Mary at the top of the lighthouse.”
Sue Beth shivered. “That whole thing last night gives me the heebie-jeebies.” She set several round makeup containers on the counter.
Luella shrugged. There had to be a logical explanation for what they saw last night. She just didn’t know what it was yet. “It’s peculiar. And stranger still that Gavin saw a similar woman on the beach afterward. I don’t quite know what to make of it myself.”
A familiar knock sounded at the front door. Dell liked to knock in the rhythm of one of their former high school’s cheers, similar to “shave and a haircut” but more complex.
Finally. Luella scooted off the stool. “I think I’ll skip the makeup, Sue Beth.” She smoothed the skirt of her dress. “Your kelly-green sundress is a fashion upgrade from my normal wardrobe. Surely it’s good enough for Chuck.”
“Can’t have you showing up to apologize in one of those prehistoric getups you wear for your tours.” Sue Beth sniffed.
“Antebellum,” Luella corrected over her shoulder as she hurried across the store to unlock the door. Dell had a key, but the lock was a pain to jiggle open. It was both amusing and not surprising that Julep was the sole person who could unlock the thing in any dignified manner.
“Ta-da!” Dell held up the pie as Luella opened the door.
Luella smiled. “Thank you so much for making the pie. Any chance you want to deliver it?”
Dell stepped inside and put the pie in Luella’s hands. The glass dish was cold from the refrigerator and had a clear, high-dome cover protecting copious amounts of whipped cream.
“No way, sugar.” Dell held up her hands, fingers splayed. “You stepped in it; you clean the shoe.”
Luella sighed. “Great. Sue Beth said something similar.”
“Well, best get it over with then.” Dell shooed her toward the open door.
“Ugh, fine.” Luella was almost out the door that Dell held for her. She turned back toward those in the shop. “I’ll report back afterward.”
“Remember what we talked about.” Sue Beth winked. “Use charm, Luella. Lots of charm.”
Julep looked up from the book on the counter. “Don’t listen to that advice. Just be yourself. I saw him last night, and he’s kind of cute. Maybe you can even get a date. For once.”
“Ohhhh.” Sue Beth waggled her eyebrows. “Wouldn’t that be fun?” She waved at Luella, who returned the gesture to all three women and left.
Luella went down the sidewalk, shaking her head. “I get dates…” But Julep was sort of right about Charles’s looks. Still, a man could only be considered cute if he wasn’t being an utter pain.
If there was one thing Chuck excelled at, it was being an utter pain.
She hurried to the inn and opened the sliding-glass front door. This inn was just a few hundred yards from the lighthouse. Had any of the tenants seen the woman at the top of the historical structure last night? As much as she wanted to know, she didn’t dare ask and bring up ghosts again at Chuck’s hotel.
She approached the front desk. “Is Mr. McKenzie working today?”
Clarissa, the college-age redhead working the front desk for the summer, flashed white teeth in a big smile. Luella had met her a few times when taking tour brochures to hotels around the island. “Why, yes. He’s in his office. Want me to get him?”
No. “Yes, please.”
Clarissa scratched her head. “I suppose I should have asked if you have an appointment, Luella.”
“No appointment. Mr. McKenzie and I, uh, met last night.”
“Oh, that’s right!”
How did she know that already?
Clarissa reached behind the counter and held up a pack of Luella’s tour brochures. “Mr. McKenzie came storming in last night and told me to throw these out. But it seemed wasteful, so I just stowed them back here for you.”
Figured. Luella would have reached out to take the brochures if she wasn’t holding the pie with both hands. “Er, yes. That’s part of why I want to talk to him.”
“May I help you?” A familiar low voice came from somewhere out of Luella’s line of sight.
Speak of the devil. She looked to find Charles walking through an office door behind the hotel counter. He approached the front desk.
Luella flashed a smile that she hoped was as cute as Sue Beth’s. “Ears burning?”
He scrunched his brows. “What?”
“It’s an idiom that derived from the supersti— You know what? Never mind.” Mr. I-Don’t-Believe-in-Ghosts wouldn’t want to hear it. “May we chat for a few minutes? I won’t keep you long.”
“Sure.” He opened the door that led behind the counter and held it open for her. “We can talk in my office. This way.”
Luella followed him into the small office. The shelves and walls of the square room were bare. Several unopened boxes were stacked in a corner. A laptop sat on the large oak desk.
Charles gestured for her to sit in a leather office chair in the center of the room, and he took the chair behind the desk, staring at her and waiting for her to speak.
Was he trying to make this as awkward and uncomfortable as possible? She set the pie on the desk and smoothed Sue Beth’s dress over her knees. Then she looked up to catch his eyes. They were a rather nice combination of green and blue, eyes that she would enjoy studying…
On anyone else.
Luella cleared her throat. “I wanted to come in person and apologize. I was rude to you last night, and I don’t want you to think that’s how I am. I brought you this pie.” She picked it up and leaned forward to s
coot the cold pastry in front of him.
Charles tilted his head to the side. Maybe he was considering why she had put it in front of him. He straightened. “Apology accepted for the tone of our altercation. Although I was partially at fault as well. I had just arrived on the island yesterday, was suffering a bad headache, and the first thing I encountered was two different guests who wanted a full refund because they had heard something about the rooms being haunted.”
“That had to be frustrating.” This was the first she’d heard of her tours decreasing business on St. Simons. Normally people were curious to stay in the locations she mentioned. “It’s the stairs actually.”
“What?”
“The stairs are haunted, not the rooms.”
His lips thinned. “I see. You know that your apology and”—he picked up the pie dish, looked underneath it, and then set it back down—“whatever this pastry is don’t change the fact that I must insist you not include my hotel in your program.”
Luella nodded. “This island has enough rich history to cover, so I can do that.” At least until you are gone.
Charles released a deep breath. “Well, good. Glad that matter is settled. What kind of pie is this by the way?” He held it up. The filling was obscured by whipped cream, and the bottom was a graham-cracker crust.
Well, snap beans. Luella should have asked Dell what the pie was. “It’s an icebox pie.” Maybe that would be a sufficient answer.
He blinked several times. “Should I know what flavor that term refers to?”
The jig was up. She rubbed the back of her neck. “I…don’t know what flavor it is. I didn’t make it.”
He tilted the dish to the side. “It doesn’t look store-bought.”
“Dell made it.”
He arched an eyebrow. “So you’re apologizing with someone else’s pie?”
Her face went hot. “Well, Chuck, not all of us fit a man’s view of how a Southern woman should spend her time.”
“Oh, I can see that.” Was he messing with her? She couldn’t decipher his expression.
Luella stood. “Okay, then.” She took two steps toward the door of the office.
“Luella, is it?”
What now? “Yes.” She turned to look at him.
He smiled. “I didn’t mean that as an insult.” He ran a finger around the edge of the pie dish. “It’s kind of endearing, really, bringing me a homemade pie made in a home other than your own. So, for this picnic that Stan and Rick have been telling me about—which I assume you were a part of—did you fix any of the food?”
Luella found that his face looked handsome when it wasn’t scowling, but she still didn’t care for this string of questioning. She gave him her best stare down. “I took a cooler of ice and sweet tea. And, yes, before you ask, I do know how to boil water to make tea, thank you very much.”
He broke into a chuckle.
“Glad I could bring you some entertainment along with your pie.” In spite of herself she found herself laughing too.
Charles stood. “Look, I’d like to reach a compromise with you. I have some hotel business to attend to today, but would you like to grab a cup of coffee tomorrow morning—assuming they have that on St. Simons Island in this heat—and talk about this shop location you and your friends want?”
Really, she should stop while she was ahead and on amicable terms with the man. But the other Glynn Girls would be none too pleased if she declined an opportunity to talk about the store.
She smiled at him. “We do indeed have coffee on St. Simons. Year-round even. Let me ask my friends what time would work best to meet with you.”
Charles rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the pie. “Ah, well…I was thinking more of just the two of us, if that’s okay with you. I consider myself an observant person, and I noticed you don’t wear a wedding ring. Sorry if that’s too forward.”
Oh. She looked at his left hand as he dropped it from his neck to his side. No ring there either. She stared at him. Was he implying what she thought? “Like a date?”
“That’s what I had in mind, but you seem skeptical.”
Skeptical didn’t begin to cover it, and before today she’d always known when a man was going to ask her out. “You caught me without my biscuit buttered.”
Confusion flittered through his eyes.
“I mean you caught me flat-footed.”
“Ah.” He grinned. “Since your biscuit isn’t buttered, how about we keep things simple and have breakfast one morning? I imagine you know a good place to go.”
“Sure.” Sharing a meal would give her a solid opportunity to explain how important it was for the Glynn Girls to rent the Home Décor space. “It couldn’t hurt to get to know each other a bit.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” He smiled. “Are you free Tuesday, say eight o’clock?”
She nodded, her heart pounding. What was she doing accepting a date with Chuck?
“Good.” A serious thought seemed to come to him. “Be sure to bring that biscuit.”
Luella grinned. Sue Beth, Dell, and Julep would be thrilled.
11
Gavin turned over on his side, making the metal frame of the twin-size, sleeping-quarters bed creak and shake. He had almost drifted back to sleep when something pulled him awake. Had his phone buzzed? His mom didn’t text him on his overnight shifts at the fire station. So who was texting at this miserable hour?
He leaned over the side of the bed and felt around on the floor for the device. No luck. If anyone needed him, they could just call the station.
He flipped onto his back and closed his eyes.
Lights flickered through his eyelids. He groaned and forced his eyes open. Shimmering in the air above his bed was a glowing image shaking back and forth. Was that…a dark-haired woman in a white dress?
He sat up just in time to see it fade away. Was he dreaming?
Something scraped against the wall, and then he heard a muffled snicker.
Oh…you have to be kidding m—
The lights flickered on and off.
“Ahh!” Three grown men wearing white sheets rushed in the room shrieking. Gavin jumped a little out of pure reflex.
They started whooping in laughter, falling over, and slapping one another on the back.
Gavin shook his head. “Glynn County’s proud ‘Guardians of the Rock’ yukking it up.”
Jimmy pulled the sheet off his head, laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes.
Gavin tossed his own sheet off and kicked his feet over the side of the bed. He stood and walked over to flip on the light switch.
Wow. He must have been sleeping hard earlier in the night, because someone had managed to string up a semi-translucent fabric screen near the foot of his bed. A projector hooked to a MacBook sat on top of a stack of books on the floor.
Gavin walked over to touch the screen. With the lights on, it was easy to see, but in the dark it had looked like a ghost. “You know, I’m not even mad. This is a legit setup. Where’d you knuckleheads get this idea?”
Jimmy wiped the inner corners of his eyes. “YouTube.”
“You say you aren’t mad now, but let’s see how you feel after the video of you goes viral.” Dan tapped the small video camera in his left hand. “This thing films in the dark.”
Great. More ways for people to laugh at him. “Well isn’t that special.”
“You sound like your mama—all grouchy.” Jimmy grinned.
“Maybe because it’s around four in the morning, and I could be sleeping.”
“How’d we do?” Dan shook the screen, making the ghost woman move back and forth. “This look like your Mary?”
Gavin walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. He started to slide on his shoes. “Not even close. Wrong hair. Besides. I didn’t see a ghost. I saw a real woman
.”
“A woman who disappeared.” Jimmy wiggled his fingers.
Gavin stood, stretching his arms behind him. “A woman who left the area when I called out to her. I’m not sure what Luella and her tour saw at the lighthouse, but when I saw that woman on the beach, I had a sense that she needed help. Not that she was trying to find her ghostly betrothed.”
Dan closed the video camera. “You never know. Sometimes our hunches lead us to people who need us.”
Something scraped on the opposite side of the wall, near the bed. Gavin looked over at it.
Dan cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Bryan! You can stop with the scratching. It’s over.”
A few moments later the young man ran in. “Aw man, I missed it?”
* * *
The waves lapped at the shoreline mere feet from where Tara sat on a towel. She watched families play as the tide continued to steal the strip of sand between the water and the large rocks that protected the earthen embankment from erosion. Sunlight danced across the top of the water, and people fished from the nearby pier. Despite the searing heat and thick, humid air, she took a deep breath and dug her toes into warm, cushy sand.
It’d been a long day, a confusing day. She woke this morning to find a bill under her hotel door, thanking her for her stay. When she went down and talked to the management about staying longer, she was told the place was booked. She had to check out. The desk clerk was nice, even made some calls and inquiries for another place Tara could stay, but in the end Tara settled her bill and left her luggage there. She’d called a dozen places too, looking for a room, and had no luck. Her legs ached from a long day of walking, looking for her brothers and stepping into every hotel she could find. It seemed if she called a hotel, it might be easy for them to say they were booked, but she’d thought if she went to the desk, they might find something. They hadn’t.
As the Tide Comes In Page 10
