by Hope Ramsay
Meanwhile, life settled into a routine of sorts at The Jonquil House. The ghost, if there really was one, had given up haunting her. He left her furniture alone. He didn’t touch her alarm clock or cell phone. He stayed out of her kitchen.
She woke early every morning and made muffins or other sweet breads, testing out a variety of recipes for the future. Every morning at about seven-thirty, Mr. Raintree would emerge from his bedroom, looking sleepy-eyed and tousled, bristling with dark stubble. And Jenny would find some reason to be in the kitchen just to catch a glimpse of him. She’d given up on telling her heart not to speed up when she was in his presence.
He might, on occasion, mumble something unintelligible that resembled “good morning” before heading out the back door with the dog. With each passing day, his morning walk with the dog was longer, suggesting that his ankle was healing.
After his walk, he’d wander back into the kitchen, mumble a few more unintelligible words, ignore whatever Jenny had baked that morning, and pour himself a bowl of Cheerios with milk. He’d grab a mug of coffee and head back into his room.
At noon, he came out of his cave and made himself a sandwich. Zeph would show up shortly thereafter, bearing his own lunch box and cooler filled with orange Nehi. He’d go to work on the furniture.
At about four o’clock, Gabe would wander into the living room, fire up the television, and play video games. He would do this for at least two hours, after which he’d go out to his car and leave the house until about eight.
The first night after the china cabinet incident, Jenny cooked a big enough dinner for all of them. But she ended up eating alone. Zeph always left precisely at five and told her she didn’t need to cook for him. And Gabe made it clear that he didn’t expect her to do the cooking, since she refused to take any rent from him and since the inn wasn’t yet officially open for business.
In short, the ghost had eliminated her one and only chance to actually cook for Mr. Raintree. And she kind of resented it.
At the same time, she couldn’t blame her boarder. He might have held her while she cried. He might have given her the tiniest little kiss, but that didn’t mean anything. She knew this. And he knew it, too. But every morning she made muffins just the same in the vain hope that he might try one. And every morning she found some reason to be in the kitchen at seven-thirty, when he would go about his business and ignore her home-baked offering.
Aside from this singular and somewhat pathetic moment in the kitchen, Jenny spent her days with Bear in the office she’d set up in the Rose Room. She worked on the inn’s web page and online registration system, checked on the delivery date for the Daisy Room’s furniture, made appointments to have satellite television hooked up, and spoke with merchant service providers. When she needed a break, she surfed the web looking for ghost exterminators.
She had come to the conclusion that the ghostly world was divided into two sorts of people—clergy who seemed to believe that ghosts could be dispensed with by sprinkling holy water and praying, and psychics who claimed they could bring down vortexes of light into which the spirits would willingly go.
All in all both camps seemed crazier than loons. She had hoped the Internet would provide her the number of a real-life ghostbuster of the Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd variety. She wanted guys in jumpsuits with ghost traps. Alas, it seemed that ridding oneself of pesky spirits was more difficult than she had expected.
So when Wednesday came around, she had to choose between the book club and the strange loneliness of The Jonquil House. A part of her wanted to duck the club meeting, too. After all, her friends would all be dying to know if she had really thrown that chicken. But how could she stay away? She was a member of the Library Committee now, and besides, they had chosen the book she wanted. It would be rude not to show up.
So she pulled up her big-girl panties and arrived at the library a few minutes early, bearing a big basket of blueberry scones she’d baked that morning that had, once again, gone begging. It wasn’t even Jenny’s day for refreshments, which made her offering all the more pitiful and obvious.
“I’m trying out recipes,” she said brightly as she put the scones on the table.
She took a seat at one of the long library tables and tried to avoid talking to anyone. The Bill Ellis disaster had kept tongues wagging for weeks. She hoped the Timothy Lake incident wouldn’t prove as long lasting.
Savannah Randall sat down next to her. “Honey, these scones are amazing. And no, I’m not going to ask for the recipe.” She patted Jenny’s hands, which were folded in front of her, on top of a paperback edition of Jane Eyre.
“Honey, don’t give up,” Savannah said.
Jenny fought the urge to grind her teeth, or to stand up and scream. “I haven’t given up on anything that’s important,” she said. She didn’t even care that her voice had come out kind of snooty and mean sounding. Sabina and Maryanne and a lot of her so-called friends were all trying to think of some way to snatch victory from the jaws of this disaster. It was as if the people who were certain she didn’t throw the chicken were all in league to find a way for Jenny and Tim to find everlasting happiness together. And everyone else was hoping for round two, in which Jenny would progress to pie hurling.
Savannah patted her hand again. “Everything is going to work out just fine, you wait and see. And remember that there isn’t any ill wind that doesn’t blow some kind of good.”
“Right, like throwing a chicken might discourage Tim Lake?”
Savannah smiled. “There is that.”
Jenny turned. “You’re not trying to find some way to salvage this disaster?”
She shook her head. “No. But I thought you might want to know that not everyone is focused on the flying chicken. There are a lot of folks who are wondering just how a big china cabinet falls over like that. And I’d say half of the gossips are buying into the idea that the floor wasn’t level, and about twenty-five percent have a theory that it was the wind that night, coupled with the preacher making a sudden move to get away from your napkin. As you recall, it was a very windy night.”
“And the remaining twenty-five percent?” Jenny couldn’t resist asking.
Savannah laughed. “Well, those are folks who are convinced that you didn’t throw the chicken at all. They’re the ones who’ve experienced odd things out at The Jonquil House, and they’re saying the ghost of Luke Raintree is responsible for everything. And just speaking one businesswoman to another, if I were in your shoes, I’d ride that horse. I mean, having a ghost is probably good for business.”
Jenny stared at Savannah for a long moment. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
She shrugged. “I’m agnostic on the question.”
“Savannah, if I did have a ghost, I wouldn’t want one that threw china cabinets around when he was angry.”
“I suppose you’d want to have a tame ghost, then?”
“Right.” Jenny rolled her eyes. She hoped her dismissal of the ghost theory was convincing. She didn’t want anyone to think she actually believed in ghosts. A real ghost wasn’t nearly as much fun as a pretend one.
“I’m serious,” Savannah said. “Having a haunted inn would be terrific for business in Last Chance. It would be a tourist attraction. You could do ghost tours on Halloween. You might give Golfing for God a run for its money.”
“I doubt it,” Jenny said. “Didn’t I hear Rocky saying the other day that Elbert Rhodes is expanding Golfing for God?”
“Really?” Savannah said, “I hadn’t heard that.”
“Actually, I heard that he’s adding another eighteen holes on some land that Lord Hugh owns. He’s dedicating this new course entirely to angels.”
“Wow, that’s cool. But I don’t see where a mini-golf trumps a haunted inn.” Savannah’s smile broadened. “Especially when the ‘Dean of Horror’ is living there.”
“Yeah, well he’s not particularly scary, except maybe in the morning before he’s combed his hair.”
S
avannah gave her a knowing grin, and Jenny suddenly wished she hadn’t said one word about Gabe Raintree. Her growing fascination with him was embarrassing and pitiful. “Uh, that came out all wrong. I mean he doesn’t shave or comb his hair when he comes into the kitchen in the morning, and—”
“I bet he loves your scones.”
Jenny’s chest squeezed. Luckily she didn’t have to admit that he hated her cooking because Nita chose that moment to call the meeting to order.
“I thought before we started our book discussion,” Nita said, “that I’d let y’all know what the Library Committee has been up to. Hettie, do you want to fill folks in?”
Hettie was dressed in a winter white business suit, and as always, she looked way too well dressed to be a minister’s wife. Jenny tamped down her resentment. She had no reason to dislike Hettie. Bill had chosen her because he loved her, even if it was a well-known fact that Hettie had never cooked for herself because she always had servants as a child. So Hettie couldn’t even boil water. Apparently she had other talents that Bill admired.
“We had a meeting with Mr. Raintree last week.” Hettie looked in Jenny’s direction. “Thank you, Jenny, for giving him a place to stay. He’s agreed to do a short talk about his writing and, in particular, the setting for Black Water and how he drew inspiration for it from our town. Savannah has agreed to hold the talk at The Kismet and make it a fund-raising dinner. She’s going to use the theater’s reservation system to take the donations. After Mr. Raintree talks, we’ll show the movie version of the book. We’ve got it scheduled for Saturday, February fifteenth, which will give us time to publicize it.
“I’ve got flyers for it in the back of the room. If y’all would take some and hand them out at your churches and other places, that would be great. Nita has already posted the event on the library’s Facebook page, and if any of you are on the Twitter, it would be great if you could get the word out. We want the county executive to know that there are people in this county who think there ought to be two branches of the public library.”
A smattering of applause greeted Hettie’s speech, and she turned the meeting back to Nita.
“All right, now let’s get down to discussing the book. Does anyone want to start us off?”
“I do,” said Lola May. “If any man had done me the way Mr. Rochester does Jane, I would kick him in the family jewels, if you don’t mind my saying so. I might take out my shotgun and put him out of his misery. I certainly wouldn’t drag myself off to the middle of nowhere and wander the moors like a crazy woman. And I wouldn’t go back to him either. Not that I’d ever marry a cold fish like St. John Rivers.”
“Yes you would,” said Cathy. “You’d marry any man who asked you, Lola May. In fact, you have married every man who ever asked you.”
“Well, I never married a man who already had a wife, that’s for darn sure.”
“But Jane and Mr. Rochester were soulmates,” Savannah said.
“Were they? I didn’t notice that,” Rocky said. “I mean he was nice to her and all, but he lied to her, and then when she found out he was already married, he asked her to be his mistress.”
“But his wife was crazy,” Jenny found herself saying. “I mean, if Mr. Rochester lived now, he’d be able to divorce his crazy wife and go for a happy life. He was trapped by the rules of the time, as much as Jane was trapped. And I agree with Savannah, the book makes it clear that they are soulmates. And he treats her like an equal, unlike anyone else in her life. Not to mention that he gives her a home and love and all the things she’d been denied. It broke my heart when she found out that they couldn’t be married, but I understand that she had to learn to stand on her own two feet. In the end, that was a much more valuable lesson for Jane, wasn’t it?”
When Jenny finished, everyone around the table was staring at her like she had egg on her face or something. “What?”
“Honey, I think we should talk about what happened last week with Reverend Lake,” Rocky said. “I mean, having a china cabinet fall on your dinner table was just bad luck, you know?”
“And to tell you the truth,” Cathy said, “I’m sure you just slipped with the carving knife and the chicken got away from you.”
“And I know for certain,” said Lola May, “that if I had inadvertently thrown a chicken at a handsome man, I wouldn’t think twice about trying to wipe the grease off his lap.”
“So none of us think this whole incident is an insurmountable impediment, like having a wife stashed in the attic. And I’m sure Reverend Lake would be happy to come to dinner another time. You just have to ask him,” Rocky said.
“That’s right,” Cathy said. “And everyone in town knows that Miriam says you and Reverend Lake are made for each other. It would be wrong to let a simple thing like an inadvertently thrown chicken to get in the way of true love. You know Miriam is never wrong about these things.”
Jenny pressed her lips together before she said something nasty about Miriam and her marital advice. The old lady was going senile. Everyone knew it. And she was flat-out wrong about Reverend Lake. He was a cold fish and a coward. He wasn’t the guy she was thinking about night and day. He wasn’t the one who made her pulse rate climb. He wasn’t the one who had her tied up in knots.
In truth, she didn’t give a rat’s backside about Reverend Lake. If she was upset about anything right at the moment, it was the fact that Gabriel Raintree didn’t care enough about her to try her muffins, much less eat one.
But she wasn’t about to admit that to anyone, even her friends at the book club. So she pasted on a good-girl smile that was designed to mollify them. They were being helpful. Not a one of them believed that she’d actually thrown the chicken at Reverend Lake, and she appreciated that more than words could express.
“I’m so glad y’all don’t believe I would actually throw poultry at anyone.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Nita said. There was something more in Nita’s look. Something that said she wasn’t satisfied with the story that the chicken had slipped and the preacher had stood up and the china cabinet had fallen.
“I promise that once my furniture is repaired, I will ask Reverend Lake to dinner a second time, and I’ll do all the poultry carving in the kitchen instead of at the table.”
“Or you could just have him do it. Men love that kind of thing,” Cathy said.
“Just don’t give him one of those electric knives, honey,” Lola May said. “My first husband nearly ’bout cut off his johnson one time with that thing.”
And that comment ended any chance that the book club would ever return to their discussion of Jane Eyre.
“Jenny, do you have a moment?” Nita asked as the book club adjourned, and the members started heading for their cars.
“Sure, what is it?”
Nita took her by the arm and walked her to the children’s nook, away from the other members of the club. “I’m worried about you.”
“You don’t think I really threw—”
“No, I don’t. And I also don’t for one minute buy the story that the china cabinet toppled of its own accord. I saw you on Thursday morning, and you were a mess. You had scratches all over your face and your hand…” She reached down and pulled up Jenny’s hand, which still had a Band-Aid covering the cut. “What really happened?”
“The china cabinet tipped over, and the china broke, and I cut my hand. That’s what happened.”
“There is no way that cabinet tipped over without some help.”
Jenny stared at the librarian. What was she supposed to say? Savannah had blithely accepted the possibility of ghosts, but would Nita Wills? Jenny doubted it. And she didn’t want to risk being called a fool or a liar. It was bad enough that everyone thought she was a poultry-hurling hussy.
Nita gave her hand a squeeze. “Look, Jenny, I feel responsible for what’s going on here. I did some Internet surfing on Gabriel Raintree and I discovered that he’s been in a couple of nasty public altercations. At least one
of these was with his girlfriend at the time. He was arrested in Los Angeles, although no charges were ever brought. I think he might be violent. Did he go into a rage and start throwing stuff?”
“No.” Jenny said this as firmly as she could. The idea that Gabe would hurt someone on purpose seemed wrong in every way. He might write dark stories, but his heroes were always people who triumphed over violence. They usually won the day by being smart and loyal and brave. She knew this because she’d downloaded every single one of his books into her e-reader and had kind of binged on Gabriel Raintree the last few days. The evil in his books was always conquered.
She stood there staring into Nita’s concerned face, and she didn’t know what to think. Something wasn’t adding up, because for all his gruff attitude, Gabe didn’t strike her as the kind of guy who would create a public spectacle. He seemed to be a man who was comfortable being solitary.
“Honey,” Nita said, “you can tell me the truth. Don’t be proud and don’t be brave.”
“Mr. Raintree is a little moody at times. But he’s not violent and he didn’t throw the china cabinet. In fact, the china cabinet almost fell on him. I cut my hand pulling him out of harm’s way.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And I want you to know that if you don’t want Mr. Raintree to stay out at The Jonquil House, you can evict him. Don’t you worry about the library, you hear?”
“I don’t want to evict him. He’s actually a pretty easy boarder, to tell you the truth. He doesn’t expect me to cook for him, and he keeps mostly to himself.” Damn him.
CHAPTER
14
Gabe left his room at about eight o’clock on Sunday morning, expecting to find Jenny waiting for him, as she always did, with a cup of coffee and something tempting and sweet and homemade that he couldn’t eat.
But the kitchen was dark, and his morning went into a little tailspin until he remembered it was Sunday, the second day of February.
