The Ghost and Miss Hallam: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 1)

by Barbara Bartholomew

  “My attorney is at the hospital now arranging to give Moss more time. It’s not that I’m getting my hopes up, but I want to be fair. He should have every chance.”

  She didn’t want to hurt anymore, but had come anyway. Lynne felt she owed her everything. She showed them to the extra bedrooms and helped put their luggage away, then started supper. It was only after they ate and she went back to her bedroom that she found Moss.

  He was seated on her bed, looking forlorn. “That’s my sister out there,” he said, “and her daughter.”

  “Cynthia and Betsy,” she agreed, unable to understand why he seemed so disturbed. “Why aren’t you out there getting acquainted?”

  “They don’t see me. They don’t hear me.”

  “But you can see and hear them. Get out there. Spend the evening with us. We’re going to make popcorn and fudge and watch old movies. Moss, it’s going to be all right. Cynthia is here.”

  He stood up to come close to her. “I was so afraid. I felt your hand and then we moved away, I was back in the hospital and you were gone.”

  “For the first time,” she whispered, “I was in another time. You took me back to when you were still in prison two years ago. I visited you there and, oh Moss, I met your father.”

  Emotion moved across his face, sadness, a sense of loss, even pleasure at the memory of the man who had fought so hard for him. She could read every shade of feeling that he moved through.

  “Moss, was it became of your father that you were released. Did he start looking into the history of the real murderer?”

  He frowned. “How did you know that? That’s exactly what happened. Turned out the man was someone with whom we were slightly acquainted.” Another look came on to his face and she knew he was thinking of the friend who lost her life.

  She led the way back into the living room where Cynthia had just brought in the fudge and Betsy set a big bowl of buttered popcorn in the middle of the coffee table.

  Lynne sat down, quietly watching Moss as he took in the sight of the sister he hadn’t seen in so long and the niece he was only seeing for the first time today.

  Cynthia served her little daughter with a piece of Lynne’s homemade fudge, which she put on top of the small bowl of popcorn she’d gotten for herself.

  “I first heard about this place from Dad,” Cynthia was saying, but I’ve never been here before. It was a such a strange thing the way this was left to our family.”

  Lynne, abstracted with watching Betsy dig into her popcorn, didn’t take in the words at first. Then she looked up with a frown. “What was left?” she asked, bewildered.

  “The Maud Bailey Sandford property. I supposed Moss had told you about it.”

  “I don’t think he knew.” Lynne still had no idea what she was talking about. She looked questioningly at Moss and he shook his head.

  “That’s possible, I guess. It was only when Dad was going over the estate before he died that he told me about it.” She smiled. “Old Maud must have been a bit eccentric. My dad’s family didn’t even know she existed, but when the will was read after her death, they found the property had been left in trust for my dad’s oldest son. The funny part was that Moss wasn’t even born yet.”

  “Maud left the ranch to Moss.”

  Cynthia nodded. “He inherits it along with the trust Mom and Dad set up for him. I was left with a trust as well and the house in California.”

  “I see,” Lynne said, stalling as she took this in. “But why would she leave the ranch to someone she didn’t even know.” But, of course, Maud had known Moss, though she could hardly tell Cynthia that.

  “It was funny. You’d think if she wanted to leave it to anyone it would have been dad. Of course, he didn’t even know about her until after her death, my great-grandmother was still alive then and she was Jeanie Sandford’s daughter, but nobody knew that. When great-great however many greats Jeanie died, the family lost contact with Maud. She was something of a recluse, you know.”

  So it was blood that had drawn Moss back here. This train of thought was interrupted abruptly as Lynne saw that little Betsy had lost interest in her popcorn and fudge. She stared, open-mouthed, at where Moss sat quietly in his chair. He, too, had been absorbed in Cynthia’s revelations about his family, but now he slowly placed one finger across his closed mouth, motioning the child to silence. His face filled with laughter and he winked at her.

  The little girl’s shock evaporated and her face twinkled with delight. “Mom,” she said, and Moss shook his head. No, she wasn’t to tell Mom what she was seeing.

  “What is it, Betsy?” Cynthia looked at her daughter, following her gaze to what was obviously to her an empty chair.

  “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking,” the girl evaded.

  Cynthia grinned. “Well, don’t stop doing that.” She went back to her conversation with Lynne. “Moss was only a kid when he left home. He probably wasn’t much interested in financial discussion at that point and Dad told me later that my brother refused to listen when he tried to tell him his plans, saying everything should be left to me because it couldn’t matter to him. But Dad never gave up.” She brushed tears from her eyes. “He would be so sad to see what’s happened.”

  For the first time Lynne understood that Cynthia’s presence here didn’t mean she shared her hope for Moss’s eventual recovery. She was only making sure everything possible was done.

  Lynne refused to let her own hopes be depressed, especially while she was here watching Moss make faces that encouraged his niece’s giggle. Children and animals, she’d always heard they could see things that their elders missed. Evidently that was true.

  “Whatever’s wrong with you, Betsy?” Cynthia asked with amusement. “You’re in such a silly mood.”

  Betsy giggled again.

  Early the next morning, Moss was still in the house when they left to go to the hospital. As Lynne followed the other two out of the house, he brushed her face with a kiss and she mouthed a kiss in his direction.

  At the hospital, they were shown into the administrator’s office where Lynne’s middle-aged attorney awaited them. Also present were four unexpected people, Wilda Walsh and the other members of the trust board.

  Wilda and the administrator regarded her with open disapproval. “I’m afraid this is not a matter that concerns you, Miss Hallam,” the administrator said and rose to escort her from the office.

  Cynthia frowned. “We will discuss that once my daughter is settled,” she said. She looked at her lawyer.

  He nodded slightly. “Betsy’s nanny is waiting in the cafeteria to look after her while we are meeting.”

  “Julie?” Betsy asked eagerly. “Julie’s here.”

  The attorney and Cynthia left the office to take the child to her nanny while Lynne, feeling not at all comfortable, waited with the disapproving administrator—she refused to identify him by name—and Wilda Walsh.

  “Miss Hallam, it would be best for everyone if you left before we have to disclose certain pertinent information about your stalking our patient to his sister. It would be only kind to spare her that painful experience.”

  “Yes, Lynne,” Wilda chimed in. “Please, for the sake of Maud Sandford’s reputation.”

  Lynne couldn’t obey and she was quite sure Maud wouldn’t mind a bit. “She wasn’t legally a Sandford, you know. Edward Sandford died before he could marry her. She only took the name because she thought her daughter was entitled to it.”

  Individually the members of the board, including Wilda, took on looks of indignation. “Slander,” Wilda spat out the word.

  “That old story,” another board member scoffed.

  Lynne ignored them, finding herself a chair and sitting down. She hoped they couldn’t see that she was shaking. Brought up by commanding parents, she found it hard to stand against authority, especially when the authority figures were considerably older than herself. Everybody in the room ranked her.

  But she had to do this for Moss.
>
  Cynthia and her attorney came back into the room and also took seats. The attorney began, “As I’ve already advised you, Mrs. Burden, wishes to extend the period of life support for her brother. She isn’t willing to give up yet. I’m sure that you will recognize her authority as his closest living relative to make that decision.”

  “Of course,” the administrator agreed immediately. “We will do as she wishes.”

  Wilda rose slightly in her seat. “We feel a responsibility . . .” she started to speak.

  With the greatest courtesy, the attorney interrupted her. “And your part in this proceeding?”

  Her face reddened. “I’m Wilda Walsh and I serve as board chairman for the Maud Bailey Sandford trust.”

  His raised eyebrows indicated that he had no idea what the relevance of this information was to the matter at hand.

  Cynthia spoke up. “The Sandford trust,” she reminded her lawyer. “It’s one of Moss’s holdings.”

  He thought for a moment, than nodded. “The ranch that writer left him.”

  “Left who?” Wilda looked confused. “It’s the Sandford trust and I’ve been on the board since my mother died.”

  In fact, Lynne believed, Wilda considered the ranch almost her own. She and her family had always been guardians for the estate as long as she could remember.

  “It belongs to my brother. Mrs. Sandford left it to him to be managed by the trust.”

  “That can’t be true,” another board member protested. “I understand your brother is a young man. He probably was only a little boy when she died.”

  “He wasn’t born yet,” the lawyer corrected. “If I recall correctly.

  Wilda looked as though she’d been spun around and left standing dizzy. “I don’t know about that, Mrs. Burden.” She looked past the lawyer to his client. “But since we brought Lynne Hallam here and she has gone into this bizarre attachment to your brother, we feel responsible. You must know that she only pretends to be acquainted with him. She never even saw him until he was lying here unconscious in the hospital. She’s trying to make a fool of you.”

  Lynne wanted to protest, but she kept quiet. She wasn’t trying to deceive Moss’s sister, but the rest of what they’d said was true, though not all the truth.

  Moss’s sister got to her feet, than turned to face them all, color flaming in her cheeks. “I have listened to Lynne talk about my brother, tell little stories about him. She must know him better than anyone and it is the fact that she loves him better than anyone that has brought me here.” Her gaze traveled from one to the other of them. “I know the truth when I hear it. You can all go home and leave the two of us to see that Moss is taken care of in the best way possible.”

  Lynne felt like cheering.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They left Betsy with her nanny while they went in to visit Moss. Lynne guessed that though Cynthia had committed herself to the pain of being at her brother’s bedside, she was not willing to expose her daughter to the risk of being hurt.

  “She’s lost her dad. She doesn’t need to lose her uncle too,” she said in an aside to Lynne as they walked briskly down the hall toward the intensive care area.

  Lynne wasn’t about to argue, though she knew the risk of attachment had already taken place when the little girl saw the shadowy form of her uncle at the ranch house. Maybe it was easier for her to see him in such a ghostly form, than as a lifeless figure on a hospital bed. Children seemed to have a way of dealing with the impossible. No doubt by the time she was an adult, she would remember her Uncle Moss as only an imaginary companion.

  If he didn’t recover and she had no other chance to know him. For the first time, Lynne faced that possibility. She had to do it for Betsy.

  For right now, though, she willed herself to focus entirely on Moss. She felt a flood of gratitude toward the woman who walked at her side. Nobody could debate Cynthia’s right to visit her brother or to take a friend with her as she chose.

  For the first time she had a right to visit the bedside of the man she loved.

  She heard Cynthia gasp as they entered the cubicle that was his room in the intensive care unit and she tried to see him through the other woman’s eyes. She’d last seen her brother when he was eighteen and she was eight and now she was looking at a man in his mid-thirties, but probably that wasn’t what she was thinking about either.

  Cynthia looked at a bruised and broken man wrapped in bandages and obscured by connections. Most likely she wouldn’t have recognized him if she hadn’t been told he was her brother.

  She stood frozen in the doorway while Lynne approached the bedside. “Moss,” she whispered, “It’s Lynne. I’ve brought your little sister with me.”

  Of course there was no answer.

  Cynthia crept up to her side. “Do you think he can hear you?” she whispered.

  Her honest answer would have been that of course he could hear when he was there inside his body and not visiting the ranch house in one time or another. Instead she said, “medical studies suggest we keep talking to the person in a coma.”

  Cynthia nodded. “Hi, big brother,” she said. “Long time, no see.” She winced visibly. “That sounded really stupid, didn’t it?”

  “I’m no critic.” Lynne smiled reassuringly. “He just needs the sound of your voice.”

  She was whistling in the wind since she couldn’t help thinking that Moss wasn’t hearing their voices. She didn’t feel his presence in the room and watched as Cynthia blinked away tears. “We probably should keep this first visit short. Betsy will be wondering what happened to us.”

  “Betsy is my little girl, Moss,” Cynthia said, “your niece, Moss. She’s six years old and the love of my life.”

  Tempted to tell the other woman that Moss had already met his little niece and was obviously as taken with her as she was with him, she managed to keep her mouth shut. Poor Cynthia had already been through enough stress today.

  They left a few minutes later to find Betsy being looked after by a young woman in her late teens. This was Julie, the nanny, and obviously she and the girl had a good relationship, though Betsy greeted her mother with the relief of a child left in a strange and uncertain place.

  Outside in the warm late summer air, Cynthia seemed to breathe easier. “I’ve arranged to have a rental car brought here,” she said, “and booked rooms for us in a local hotel so we won’t have to impose on your hospitality any longer.”

  Dismayed, Lynne walked with them to where the car waited. She could just imagine Cynthia’s face when she drove up to one of the town’s motels, substantial enough for middle class visitors such as herself, though occupied mostly by the oil field workers sent in on assignment by their companies, but hardly the kind of place to which Cynthia was accustomed.

  “Oh, Mom,” Betsy whined. “I want to go back to the ranch with Lynne. I didn’t get to ride a horse yet and I want to see the man who makes funny faces at me.”

  Cynthia stared at her daughter, than she looked questioningly at Lynne.

  “Don’t children have the most wonderful imaginations?” she asked rather lamely.

  Cynthia nodded, saw to it that Betsy and the young nanny were safely strapped into their seats, and drove away with a wave.

  Lynne was left feeling abandoned. Instead of getting into her car and heading home, she turned around and went back into the hospital.

  Lynne had been right about Moss not being in the hospital room, but he was not back at the ranch, either as a shadow hoping to see her, nor was he keeping company with the redoubtable Maud. Instead he was revisiting his own life from the time he was the only child of his parents, to when his baby sister surprised him by coming into this life. He saw himself playing baseball with his buddies and he saw the girl who had been killed, his first girlfriend.

  Emotions were fleeting, it was more like watching a movie of someone else’s life, and as he watched he began to be increasingly alarmed. He’d always heard that your life flashed before your eye
s when you were dying and he wasn’t ready to die, not yet. He couldn’t leave when he’d just got his sister back and met his little niece. Maud might have other things to teach him and, most of all, he couldn’t leave Lynne behind without having ever been closer to her than the brief touch of a hand.

  Then he was back at the hospital and for the first time the pain really rose above the drugs they were using to bring him comfort. The tide was in and he was hurting from his multiple wounds, most especially his head injuries that sent unimaginable poundings through his brain. This was unendurable pain and for an infinite amount of time, he hovered on the edge, pushed toward death by all that pain.

  Then he heard her voice, heard Lynne speaking his name and he struggled toward that sound. For just an instant, he understood why it had all happened, why he’d been sent to listen to Maud’s stories and to fall in love with Lynne.

  It wasn’t time for him to die, not yet, but he’d had the chance to give up, if that was his choice. He chose otherwise. He chose pain and life.

  And in the next moments as he swam to the surface, he didn’t remember anything, not even his own name. More importantly he didn’t recall the name of the woman crying at his bedside and calling, “He’s awake. Thank God, he’s finally awake.”

  They ordered her immediately from the hospital room while the doctor checked out Moss’s condition. She sat shivering with anxiety in the waiting room across the hall, hoping she hadn’t imagined the whole thing. She had seen him open his eyes and look at her. She was sure it had actually happened.

  “Are you all right, Miss?” a big, rough-handed rancher in the seat across from her asked with open concern. “My wife’s in here fighting for her life. Do you have somebody in the same circumstances?”

  She tried to smile and knew it was a failure. “It could be good news,” she confided. “He’s been in a coma and just woke up. Or at least I think he did. He opened his eyes and looked at me.”