Hargrove House: The Haunted Book One

by Allie Harrison

  She had designed the bath to look old fashioned but be modern in efficiency. The shower stall was nothing but a single glass wall parallel to the far wall of the bath, open at either end. The sink was a pedestal.

  Just before the shower, he finally put her down on the small vanity stool she’d just that day put in there to complete the room.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, looking at her closer.

  “Right now I’m not sure of anything. I might have skinned my hands…” She held up her hands to reveal scrapes where she slid in the loose gravel.

  “And I see how you’re protecting your ankle, too.” He leaned in and turned on the hot spray of the shower. “Guess what, you’re the first one to get to test out the new plumbing and fixtures in here.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “Let me know if something doesn’t work with any of it,” he teased. “I’ll relay the message to the lady who designed it.”

  “You wouldn’t fire her, would you, if something didn’t work right.”

  He smiled. “I already tried to fire her this afternoon, and you know how well that went.” He had to clear his throat before he could go further. “Get in, get warm and then take off your clothes. Lean against the wall and keep your weight off the foot until I’ve had a chance to look at it.”

  “But…”

  “No buts. Here’s a new bar of soap and a clean towel.” He set them on the small shelf unit that was near the shower stall. “After you get in, toss your wet clothes on the floor and I’ll put them in the washer. In the mean time, I’ll see if I can find something for you to wear. Then we’ll get your foot propped up and put ice on it.”

  “But…” she tried again.

  “I said no buts. You won’t win. Besides I doubt you’d get far if you tried to get away. And you know as well as I do the best thing for your foot right now is rest, ice, compression and elevation. So don’t waste any more time arguing with me. And I’m sure we have some cream or something for your skinned places.” He looked her up and down. “Are you hurt anywhere else—and don’t try and be a hero. I need to know.”

  “I hit my head, but I think it’s okay.”

  He reached out and put his hand in the same place where she had hers to indicate where she’d hit the back of her head. “You have a lump.”

  “Yes, I feel it. It hurts.”

  “Do you have any blurred vision?”

  “No.”

  “Are you dizzy?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll keep an eye on it, keep you awake for a while to make sure you’re all right.”

  Torrie didn’t move.

  “If you don’t quit wasting time while your teeth chatter, I’ll have to get in the shower with you.”

  He sounded as if he meant it. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Torrie felt the heat of his hand on her back as he gently led her in to the shower.

  “I’d love it. Don’t tempt me.” Then he left and closed the door behind him.

  She carefully hobbled into the shower and shivered for a moment under the spray before it warmed her, thinking, wishing almost that Will Dalton wasn’t such a gentleman. She had every intention of telling Will her feelings for him the next time she was in Hargrove House. How here she was. Then she remembered Eleanor. He had to be a gentleman for the sake of his daughter. And Torrie wouldn’t want him any other way. Still if she had known she’d be the first to try out the shower, she might have designed something besides a see-through glass wall open at both ends.

  The skin on Torrie’s hands was tender, but not bleeding. Still, they stung under the hot spray of water, and stung even more when she moved the bar of soap across them. Once her hands were clean, she carefully peeled off her clothes and piled them in the corner of the shower away from the drain. She rinsed her hair and watched as what seemed like gallons of muddy water washed down the drain. If she didn’t know better, she’d think she’d taken a mud bath. Heaven knew she never wanted another. The entire time, she leaned against the wall on one foot being as careful as possible. The last thing she needed was to slip again in the shower stall. Her injured ankle throbbed.

  And she was just a bit surprised Will didn’t use that idea as an excuse to stay in the room with her while she showered.

  She almost wished he had.

  Well, at least she knew for certain, this mud room she’d designed and had installed worked to clean the mud just great. She giggled at the thought.

  When she finally turned the water off, she felt like a new person. She reached out one of the open ends and grabbed the towel Will had given her still on the shelf where he’d left it. She pulled it into the stall with her and dried off in the large booth where it was still warm from the hot water and she could lean against the wall. Then with the towel wrapped around her, she carefully hobbled out and sat down again on the small stool.

  It wasn’t her imagination, her ankle was already beginning to swell. “Obviously a sprain,” she muttered out loud. “At least I hope that’s all it is. I cannot do this job with a cast on my leg…Oh, but I would…” She would do this job no matter what.

  The room was much cooler than the warm shower had been, and she shivered again as her wet hair dripped down her neck. She looked around for any clothes Will had promised to deliver and didn’t readily see any, which was probably a good thing since he’d be able to see every inch of her in the shower if he had come in to deliver any clothes.

  Her sweep of the large ‘wash’ room stopped when her gaze met the small boy who stood just inside the now open bathroom door. For a long moment, she merely stared at him as he stared at her. His blue eyes were large, his mouth hung open slightly.

  She could imagine and believe his surprise, as she shared it.

  Will probably hadn’t told anyone he’d rescued her from the mud in the drive. She’d been glad Eleanor would have a friend, but this was a boy and a few years younger than Eleanor. He wore shorts and socks up to his knees. Perhaps he was a relative, Torrie thought.

  He stared at her as if he saw a ghost. But then seeing a strange woman wrapped in nothing but a towel would probably give a young boy the same reaction as a ghost. If he had quietly come in a few minutes sooner, he would have seen more than a woman wrapped in a towel.

  “Who are you?” Torrie asked once she’d found her voice. She kept her words even and didn’t want to startle him any more than he already appeared to be. At the same time, she wanted to keep calm. To lose her cool just then might make things worse than Torrie already felt they were.

  “Alexander…”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Alexander.” She spoke as if she greeted people in a towel while sitting on a stool in the bathroom every day. “You can call me Miss Torrie. That’s what Eleanor calls me.”

  “I know. She told me.”

  “She did?” That was almost as much a surprise as finding him standing in the door way. “What else did Eleanor tell you?”

  He said nothing, but continued to stare wide-eyed at her.

  Questions touched Torrie like cold fingers. Why would Eleanor talk about her? Unless Alexander was a more permanent guest. “Do you live around here?”

  “I live h—”

  “Alexander, what you doing here?” Will interrupted, stepping up behind the boy. He had changed into dry clothes, but his hair was still damp.

  “I came to see her,” Alexander said, still staring at Torrie as if he’d never seen a woman before. Well, given his age and size, he probably had never seen a woman in a towel right out of the shower before.

  “Go back upstairs with Eleanor,” Will said sternly. He stepped around Alexander and gently moved him back before carefully closing the door.

  “Who is he?” Torrie asked. Something told her she already knew, but she didn’t want to believe it might be true. She stared at the closed door for a long moment as if Alexander might materialize through it. Then her gaze met Will’s.

  Will took a heavy breath and let it out slowl
y. It sounded loud in the still room. His frustration was as thick in the room as the steam from the shower. “I found some clothes you should be able to wear until yours dry. They have strings so you can tighten them up as tight as they need to be.”

  “I asked who Alexander is,” she repeated. She couldn’t help but notice the way Will refused to keep eye contact. “Will!” She reached out and touched his arm, forcing him to look at her. “Who is he? He looks like Eleanor.”

  Will looked at the door for a long moment as if he could see through it to make sure the boy was no longer just on the other side. “He’s Eleanor’s brother,” he replied quietly.

  Torrie stared at him for a long moment in disbelief. “You have another child, another child you didn’t feel the need to tell me about? You asked me to stay with you, to have wine in front of the fire. You danced with me, and have had dinner with me and lunch in the gazebo, practically made love to me in that little dark room leading to the attic, and you didn’t think it was important to tell me you had another child?”

  She thought she might bubble over with sudden frustrated fury. “What? Are you ashamed of him or something? Were you afraid I might not stay if I knew there was more than Eleanor? Do you have any more hidden in a closet around here?” Her throat suddenly ached with the way she fought to keep her voice even and calm. The last thing she wanted was for Eleanor or Alexander or Alice to hear her screaming at Will.

  Besides, what right did she have? This was his house. This was his family. He really didn’t have to tell her a damned thing if he didn’t want to tell her.

  The fact it was his house and his family were two very big reasons to stay calm.

  Still, the idea he’d hidden his son from her bit at her, especially after seeing how upset she was when she learned about Eleanor. She would have liked to leave right then, to walk past him, get into her car and leave. She could have furniture delivered without seeing him and still finish the job. She could make phone calls and order materials from her office. She could work this out so she never had to see Will Dalton again.

  But she couldn’t leave.

  Her clothes were a sodden mess in the shower stall, and he still held the dry ones. Her car was stuck. Her shoes were ruined. And if she attempted a step, she would probably fall flat on her face.

  Despite her rage, she didn’t want to leave.

  She didn’t want to venture back out into the rain or the dark. She didn’t want to go home to her lonely empty apartment. She didn’t want to leave Hargrove House. Since the first moment he’d ushered her inside, it had felt warm and inviting to her.

  But she did want answers.

  Even now, with her anger burning through her, she wanted nothing more than to put on the sweats he held and go up to Eleanor’s room, meet Alexander formally and give him a hug in hopes that she hadn’t frightened him. She could listen to Eleanor read. Then she could finally enjoy the glass of wine in front of the fire.

  She told herself she shouldn’t want any of that, not after the way Will had kept his children a secret from her.

  She had no right to want it. She had a job to do.

  She had never mixed her business and her personal feelings.

  But it was a useless, stupid argument. One that she couldn’t even convince herself to fight any longer no matter how angry she was.

  “No, I’m not ashamed of him. And you were already leaving, it didn’t matter if you knew about him or not. I didn’t tell you because—”

  Torrie held up a hand to stop him. “Never mind, I don’t care why you didn’t tell me. You don’t have to tell me anything about you or your children or your family. I’m only here to get the house back to its original splendor, isn’t that right?. I should never have said anything. I just wish I would have known, I would have decorated one of the rooms just for him.”

  “But you did,” he insisted.

  “I did?”

  “Yes, and Alexander is ecstatic about having my train set up and running for him to play with. It was the one thing I knew would lure him out of the master bedroom.”

  “He’s really been in the master bedroom all these weeks?”

  Will shrugged. “It hasn’t seemed like that long. The days go by quickly for us.”

  Torrie finally offered a small smile, feeling her anger fading away. “They have gone by quickly, haven’t they?” She didn’t add that today, while dancing in the attic, had flown by faster than any day yet. “Alexander should have been out at lunch in the gazebo the other day, though. It was a perfect day to play outside.”

  “He was in bed with a cold.”

  “Really? He was inside with a cold while we were all outside having a great time?”

  “He’s much better now—free of any infringement.” She couldn’t help but notice the way he didn’t really answer her question.

  “Now that you mention it, he did look a little pale.” She was suddenly so tired, she could hardly hold her head up. This was just too much to consider after her already wild day.

  He grinned at her. “All the more reason for me to keep him inside and quiet for a while longer. It’s a good thing he likes Alice’s chicken soup. At least we don’t have to fight him on that issue.” He paused and looked at her as if he finally noticed she only wore a towel. “Here’re these clothes. If I leave you alone, are you able to dress with your ankle swelling as it is?”

  “I think I can sit here and put them on.”

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes to help you into the kitchen.”

  He gave her one more look—up and down, the expression on his face a great deal like that which had been on Alexander’s face. Will, too, looked as if he’d never seen a woman wrapped in a towel before. Torrie felt heat rise up her neck to her cheeks. When he handed her the clothes, Torrie wondered if he noticed how much her hands shook. Without another sound or word, he left her alone. The door didn’t even make a click as he closed it.

  A few minutes later, Torrie, warm in Will’s sweats, certainly felt drier and cleaner than when she entered it in his arms. Will seemed to know exactly when she finished with the final drawstring. He returned as silently as he’d left.

  She must be overly tired, for she felt the uncontrollable urge to giggle hysterically at the idea of the first clothes Alice would be scrubbing in the laundry room would be hers. She was more in control by the time he returned.

  He carefully helped her to her feet and held her close to him as they made their way into the kitchen. “By the way, I went out to your car and brought in your purse and your computer. I wasn’t sure if you’d need them, but I knew you wouldn’t be going out to get them if you did.”

  “That was very thoughtful. Thank you.”

  “I think your umbrella must have blown away though. I can’t see it anywhere.”

  “Oh, well. Maybe we’ll find it in the morning. Where are the children?”

  The kitchen was warm. “Upstairs. I doubt we’ll be able to keep them up there for long, though. How does your foot feel?” he asked helping her into a chair. He sat down next to her and lifted her foot up for a closer inspection. “And be honest, because it’s swelling fast.” Tenderly he touched it.

  Torrie flinched.

  “That good, huh?” he quipped at her reaction. “Here, prop it on this chair.” He moved to set it carefully on the chair he just vacated. “I’ll get you some ice. And I think I’ve got some aspirin somewhere. Do you think you need ice for your head?”

  “I think my head is better—no—to the ice.”

  “Then we’ll have some of Alice’s left over chicken soup that I’ve got warming on the stove.” He moved to the shiny new fridge and pulled the door open.

  Torrie noticed how empty the fridge looked. How could Alice fix anything? She’d take care of that tomorrow—provided she could walk.

  At least the ice maker was working, and he placed several cubes into a dishtowel, tied the ends together with a rubber band and brought it to her. Placing the towel carefully so as no
t to startle her with its coldness, he rested it on her ankle. “Sorry, I don’t have anything better like a fancy ice bag, but you know I just moved in, and the drug store in this little town isn’t open twenty-four hours.”

  She chuckled at his joke. “This is fine, feels better all ready.”

  “Good.”

  His fingers lingered on her ankle as he put the ice on. His gaze lingered on hers, too. “You’re probably liking this, aren’t you?” she had to ask.

  “Liking what?”

  “The fact that I can’t leave.”

  He grinned at her, but at the same time, he shook his head. “I wish you’d never leave, but I never want you hurt. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner.”

  She chuckled. “You don’t have to be sorry. You couldn’t have even known I fell. I’m surprised you could see me out there in the dark.”

  The headlights on your car were still shining when I looked out. I saw you on the ground.”

  Then he moved away to the stove where he stirred the pot on a front burner. “I know it isn’t the wine I offered earlier, but given the turn of events, I thought the soup might go over better.”

  “I don’t want to intrude.”

  He stopped stirring and looked hard at her. “You are no intrusion,” he said carefully. “Besides,” he moved the spoon again, “if you caught a cold like Alexander or broke your leg, it would be my fault, and it might also set back getting finished with the house.”

  “It wouldn’t be your fault. You didn’t push me down in the mud.”

  “It’s my mud you fell into,” he insisted.

  “That doesn’t make it your fault.”

  “Do you always argue?”

  “Only when I’m right. Besides it wasn’t the heel of your shoe that broke. And I know my car isn’t going anywhere until morning.”

  “No, it isn’t.”