Inn at Last Chance

by Hope Ramsay

  “I’m not beautiful, Sabina. And I’m okay with that. Really. Now you can take your tote bag full of whatever back out to the car.”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, you and Maryanne can keep an eye on dinner while I go up and change. I need a shower.”

  “Thank God for that. I was worried for a moment that you’d greet the preacher wearing flour in your hair, and I’m not talking about the kind of flour that blooms.”

  “Ha.” Jenny turned and headed down the hall to the stairs. Sabina followed her, tote bag in hand. “You’re not giving this up, are you? Even though I invited Mr. Raintree and this isn’t anything like a dinner date for two?”

  “Honey, I’m determined to be the helping hand that brings love into your life, and I’m convinced that Pastor Tim is the man for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Miriam Randall says so. And I reckon that if Miriam says it’s going to happen then it’s going to happen, even if you invited a second man to the table. Heck, Pastor Tim might just be more interested if he thinks there’s competition.”

  “Competition? From Mr. Raintree? Are you crazy?” She was protesting too much, and she knew it. Mr. Raintree intrigued her way more than Reverend Lake.

  Sabina shrugged. “Honey, you invited him because you’re afraid.”

  “What?”

  “You’re afraid of what Miriam said the other day. You don’t see yourself with a handsome man, do you? You don’t think you deserve one. But I’m determined to change your mind.”

  “I’m not putting on any makeup,” Jenny said on an exasperated breath as she headed up the stairs.

  “But—”

  “Sabina, if Pastor Tim is my soulmate, then I don’t need makeup or wine, or pies, or any other thing. If it’s meant to be it will happen.”

  “Okay, no makeup, but please let me do something with your hair.”

  Gabe strolled into the dining room, Bear at his side. He stood in the room for a full minute and a half, studying the little-old-lady wallpaper, the lace tablecloth, and the blue dishes. The room was a hundred times more formal than it had been when he was a boy. Jenny had turned it into the kind of upscale, fussy place that out-of-towners would probably love.

  But not him. He wanted it back the way it used to be. In fact, the feeling was so strong that he had to stop himself from finding a seam in the wallpaper and picking at it. The compulsion to set the magnolias free was almost more than he could resist. He studied the cream-colored blossoms so intently that they seemed to move of their own accord—as if blown by some unseen wind.

  He stepped into the hallway feeling light-headed. Damn, he hadn’t eaten enough today.

  He’d been busy starting something entirely new about a “haunted” inn that was remarkably like The Jonquil House. He’d outlined the story, and come up with a working synopsis that had all the usual haunted house tropes, like unexplained noises in the night, foul messages on foggy bathroom mirrors, flickering lights in the hallways, and walls that spontaneously generated flies. Only in his story there was a rational explanation for everything. His ghost story didn’t have any ghosts at all, just a sweet and attractive little innkeeper who lured people in for nefarious purposes.

  He wasn’t exactly sure what his characters’ motives were, but he had a feeling he would figure them out before too long.

  A knock sounded at the front door, and Bear started barking.

  “Coming,” Jenny called from upstairs. “Mr. Raintree, please ask Bear to stop barking.”

  He hushed the dog just as Jenny came down the stairs on nimble feet that hardly made a noise.

  She wasn’t wearing a turtleneck. Or a sweater. Or baggy pants. Her blue dress had a high waistline and full skirt that came halfway down her calves. The bodice covered her from her neck to wrists, and the whole thing was made of a medium blue floral fabric that was as old-fashioned as the flowered paper Jenny had pasted on every wall in the house.

  This particular fabric molded to Jenny’s torso above the waistline and revealed her figure in a way that her baggy turtlenecks and sweaters could not. Her breasts were the perfect size, and he wished the neckline of her dress didn’t button all the way up to her throat. Her legs—the part he could see—were shapely, and he wished the dress’s hemline were about five inches shorter.

  While the décolletage and hem of her dress were a tad disappointing, her hair brought a smile to his lips. Freed from its bun, it cascaded to her shoulders in soft waves the color of a sparrow’s wing. She might be up to something nefarious, but Gabe wanted to touch her hair. He wanted to touch other parts of her, too.

  What the hell was that woman doing to him? She was haunting him, in more ways than one. He ought to pack his bags and leave this place, except that might be precisely what she wanted of him. And by nature, he’d always been contrary.

  She hurried to the door and admitted a tall man wearing a Roman collar and a face that ought to be in the movies.

  Gabe went immediately on guard, every atom in his body reacting negatively to the man who walked in the front door. Strangely, the moment the preacher set foot in the foyer, The Jonquil House itself seemed to express its own displeasure. The temperature dropped, and the air became heavy and hard to breathe.

  Jenny turned in Gabe’s direction and introduced Reverend Timothy Lake.

  “Mr. Raintree,” the minister said in a voice that conveyed disapproval, even though he spoke with a smile on his face.

  Gabe took the man’s hand briefly. Then the minister turned and aimed a half-lidded gaze toward Jenny. The guy was admiring her hair and her legs, no doubt about it.

  Gabe jammed his hands into his pockets and looked down at Bear, who was also studying the minister and whining a little, as if he, too, was unhappy about this turn of events.

  “Mr. Raintree, I think it might be best if we closed Bear up in your room,” Jenny said, eyeing the dog.

  “Probably a wise idea,” he said.

  Gabe called the dog and headed down the hallway, trying to parse out the source of his sudden, intense animus toward Timothy Lake.

  Was it possible for The Jonquil House to have feelings about the people inside it? He shook away that errant thought. He didn’t believe in haunted houses. His immediate dislike of the preacher was much easier to explain: the green-eyed monster called jealousy.

  Jenny ushered the two men into her dining room, where Maryanne had thoughtfully opened the bottle of wine before she and the meddling Sabina had beaten a hasty retreat ten minutes ago.

  Jenny felt exposed. Her dress was old and a little tight through the bodice. Her hair seemed to be wild and out of control, sort of like her heartbeat.

  And having an out-of-control heart was annoying. It wasn’t as if Timothy Lake made her hormones go haywire. It was quite the opposite. The minister made her nervous and tongue-tied. He was just so beautiful she had trouble looking at him.

  Having Mr. Raintree there didn’t help in the least. Her boarder had shown up with his bad-boy flags flying. He’d shaved sometime this morning, but the dark stubble was already starting to shadow his square chin. His fitted black dress shirt with the tiny gray double stripe accentuated his broad shoulders. His dark pants fit him like a second skin. And he’d topped off the ensemble with a black leather suit jacket.

  Reverend Lake and Mr. Raintree looked like an angel and a demon as they preceded her into the dining room. Predictably, Mr. Raintree made a beeline for the wine and started pouring, beginning with Jenny’s glass.

  Jenny wasn’t at all surprised when the preacher declined the wine. On the other hand, Jenny had to stifle the urge to snatch up her glass and down it in a single gulp. Instead, she excused herself and headed into the kitchen. She needed to get the corn bread out of the oven, decant the gravy, and get the food on the table.

  She hadn’t expected either of her guests to follow or offer help. In all the years she’d been cooking for potential suitors, no man had ever followed her into the kitchen. And
if she had to imagine the man who would break that protocol, she would never, in a million years, predict that he’d look like Mr. Raintree.

  But there he was. Limping without his cane. “What can I carry?” he asked.

  She turned toward him, immediately flustered and off her guard. “I’m fine,” she said.

  He shook his head. “What can I carry?”

  She glanced at the cast on his foot, and he gave her a smile. “I’ve been toting wood for days. I think I can manage a few dishes.”

  “But you’re a guest here. You shouldn’t have to carry anything.”

  Something changed in his stance. She wasn’t quite sure how to read it, but her insides churned and flipped in reaction to it. His shoulders dropped a fraction, and the spark in his dark eyes dimmed. She’d hurt him in some way, and that bothered her. She had started out not liking him in the least, but she’d been wrong about him.

  He was good for Bear. He was thoughtful in a lot of ways. He wasn’t nearly as demanding as she thought he would be. He stood there, waiting, and she knew she would never get him to leave without something in his hands.

  And then, all at once, she realized what was going on. It was as if someone whispered in her ear. “You used to help set the table when you were a boy staying here, didn’t you?”

  His shoulders straightened, and his mouth quirked up on one side. “We had a cook named Lottie, but Luke—” He bit off the last of the sentence.

  Jenny understood. “I’m sorry. It’s my job to make you feel like a guest, and I guess that’s awkward for you sometimes. You have a much longer history with this house than I do.”

  He nodded.

  She gave him a brief smile, picked up the tureen with the okra, and handed it to him. “Here, take this, and then the chicken. We’ll carve it at the table.” She pointed to the bird that had been resting for about half an hour. “The mac and cheese needs to be put on a trivet, and use a pot holder. I need to get the corn bread out of the oven.”

  He turned and limped away with the tureen while Jenny pulled two cast-iron corn bread pans from her baking oven and turned the muffins out into a basket lined with a blue-and-white-checked napkin. Then she poured the gravy into the old silver gravy boat that had belonged to her grandmother. By now, Mr. Raintree had enlisted the preacher’s help, and her large kitchen suddenly felt crowded.

  Among the three of them the food made it to the table quickly and, for Jenny’s purposes, a bit chaotically.

  Jenny stationed herself at the unset end of the table and started carving the chicken, while the two men took their places facing one another. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that Mr. Raintree and Reverend Lake were a couple of junkyard dogs circling each other, trying to figure out which one was going to be the leader of the pack.

  The testosterone level in the room skyrocketed, just as the temperature started to drop. The lovely January thaw had been short-lived, and in the silence created by the men, Jenny could hear the swishing and sighing of the pines outside as the wind picked up.

  “So, I understand you write horror novels,” Reverend Lake said to Mr. Raintree, breaking the silence.

  “Some people call them that. I like to think of them as thrillers.” Mr. Raintree took a sip of wine.

  Reverend Lake took a sip of water. “I see. Do you ever worry about how young people might react to your books? They are so violent, and largely bereft of positive Christian messages.”

  “No, I don’t worry about the messages in my book. I’m writing them to entertain.” Mr. Raintree put his wineglass down a lot harder than was necessary. The wine sloshed, and a drop of it stained Mother’s pristine tablecloth.

  Jenny bit back an oath. It was a small stain. She could probably lift it with some hydrogen peroxide and dish soap. She needed to learn how to be more flexible. And she also made a mental note to move up the delivery date for her first set of commercial linens.

  She started carving the bird just as Reverend Lake resumed his decidedly one-sided conversation. “I understand that in one of your books, a character practices Voodoo.”

  “Have you ever read one of my books?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Ah, well, let me correct you. Voodoo is a religion with its roots in West Africa. What my character in Black Water practices is a demented and twisted from of Hoodoo, which is a kind of folk magic that comes from Africa. Of course, my villain is a psychopath, and what he practices is neither Voodoo or Hoodoo.”

  “Voodoo is a religion? Really, Mr. Raintree, I don’t see how—”

  Just then, the fork, which Jenny was using to hold the bird steady while she carved up the white meat, developed a mind of its own. It almost felt as if someone had grabbed her by the wrist with icy fingers and forced her to literally throw the bird across the table. The chicken practically took flight and then landed on the table, shattering wineglasses before rolling right into Reverend Lake’s lap. The only good thing about this was the fact that the flying chicken abridged whatever small-minded thing the preacher was about to say.

  There were many bad things about this turn of events—chief among them the fact that any chance Jenny might have had of a courtship with Reverend Lake had just flown out the window. But on second thought, perhaps that was a blessing in disguise.

  Nevertheless Jenny sprang into action. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. The fork just slipped,” she cried and descended on the minister with a napkin. She retrieved the chicken, but there was grease all over the preacher’s pants that she unadvisedly attempted to blot up. This, of course, immediately caused the minister to stand up, knocking his chair down in the process.

  And that set off a chain reaction of mishaps, which ended in disaster. The chair fell back against a potted plant. The plant flew out of its pot and smashed against the china cabinet, shattering several of the glass panes in its doors. And then the cabinet started to totter side-to-side in a manner that looked like someone was trying to push it away from the wall.

  Jenny and the minister backed up a few steps, just as the cabinet teetered forward and tipped over, spilling Mother’s Blue Willow china in all directions and aiming directly for Mr. Raintree’s head.

  Jenny stopped thinking. She grabbed Mr. Raintree by his leather jacket and hauled him back from the brink. He tripped and fell to the floor, taking Jenny with him.

  She landed on top of him just as the china cabinet came crashing down onto the table, destroying Mother’s china, tablecloth, and table in one horrifying moment.

  And if that wasn’t enough, the minister said a long string of truly profane words right before the lights went out.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Jenny’s first thought, as the lights went out, was not about Mother’s furniture or china or any such thing. Her entire mind, in fact her entire being, was overtaken by a soul-deep awareness of Gabriel Raintree, who was pressed underneath her from toe to chest.

  The room might be colder than a witch’s teat, but Mr. Raintree’s body was as hot as a furnace. Then he upped the temperature when he wrapped his arms around her. For one insane moment, Jenny thought he might kiss her. She decided not to fight it. She was, in fact, going to enjoy the heck out of it.

  “This place is a madhouse.” Reverend Lake’s voice had the same effect as a bucket of cold water. Jenny put the brakes on her libido at the same time that Mr. Raintree released her. She scrambled to her feet, cutting her hand on a piece of broken china as she pushed off the floor. It was right at that moment that Bear started to bark as if the house was on fire.

  Suddenly aware that she’d abandoned her boarder on the floor, she asked, “Are you all right, Mr. Raintree?”

  “I’m fine,” came his deep voice. “Thanks to you. You saved my life.”

  “I did no such thing,” she said, but the moment the words left her mouth the full, horrible import of what had just happened came crashing down on her.

  “Has anyone got a flashlight? A candle? Really, Jenny, if you’
re planning to open this house as an inn you should have some emergency power and emergency exit lighting.” The minister sounded extremely put out.

  “I plan to have all of that, but it hasn’t been installed yet. The men are coming next week.” She turned, trying to see Mr. Raintree in the darkness. “Do you need help getting up, Mr. Raintree?”

  “I’m fine.” She heard china shifting, and then his presence made itself known just behind her. He was still radiating heat, which was a good thing because the temperature in the room had plummeted even further.

  “This place is a death trap,” Reverend Lake said.

  And with that pronouncement, Jenny’s throat thickened, and it was all she could do to keep from sobbing. Reverend Lake would undoubtedly go blabbing his mouth in town, and people would wonder if she was competent. Or worse, they’d wonder if it was safe to stay here.

  Just as this thought crossed her mind, Bear abruptly stopped barking. And then the front door opened with an eerie creak.

  “What’s that?” the minister asked. He sounded scared to death.

  A bright white light shone down the hallway, and Reverend Lake made a girlie whimpering sound.

  “Miz Jenny, you all right?” a voice called.

  Zeph Gibbs. Jenny didn’t know whether to be grateful or angry at her neighbor’s sudden and unexplained appearance.

  “How the hell did you get in here?” Mr. Raintree demanded before Jenny could open her mouth.

  “I opened the door,” Zeph said as he walked into the dining room and shined his light over the disaster. “Lord a’mighty,” he whispered.

  “You have that right,” Reverend Lake said. “Something—” He snapped off his words the moment Zeph aimed the light toward the wall where the china cabinet had been standing a moment ago.

  The wallpaper hung in shreds, as if some wild animal had run its gigantic claws over it.

  “Dear Lord, save us from the demons in this house,” Reverend Lake shouted, but he showed remarkably little faith in his Lord when he turned and ran from the dining room as if his hair were on fire. The lights came back the moment Reverend Lake started his car and peeled out of the parking lot.