“Edna!” roared Stan loud enough for angels and demons to hear. “Shut your yammering yap! No one cares what you think!”
The group stared in disbelief at Stan, who had finally spoken his mind. During the silence, a light appeared from the ceiling and shone down on him like a spotlight. He looked into the warm luminescence. “Well, look at that,” he said. “It’s about darn time.” He took a moment, basking in the glow. He talked to the light. “Hang on. Be right there.” Turning toward his wife, he bent down, and gave a sweet kiss to her cheek. “I do love you, you old gal.” He shot me a quick wink, then drifted up into the light. Stan was gone.
And for once, Edna was speechless.
Sean Jr. chuckled. “I guess we know what Stan’s unfinished business was.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WHETHER A GUARDIAN SPIRIT HAD been involved or not, Cal was still a married man. No amount of supernatural assistance driving us together could negate that fact. I kept any anticipation of his divorce in check, but I’ll admit, I eased up a bit on my rules of intimacy. On Saturday, sensing my waning resolve, Cal called and invited me on another hike. About halfway along the trail, our hands had managed to find each other, and link. And not wanting the day to end, we dined at a street cafe in Old Town, sipping wine and watching the crowds take in the warm summer night. When he dropped me off at home, I allowed a small kiss. No hanky panky, though. Not until I knew he was truly free.
Did I want hanky panky? Of course I did. I wanted hanky panky so badly. It wasn’t easy, trust me. After Cal left that night, Marmaduke showed up, and right away, I knew something was wrong. “Sophie,” he said. “I think the time has come for us to have a serious discussion.”
Thirsty from the wine, I grabbed a glass for water. “About what?”
“Our relationship.”
I laughed, thinking he was just playing with me. “Are you breaking up with me, Marmi?”
“Yes. I believe that is the colloquialism.”
I turned the water faucet off. “You’re serious. You want to leave me?”
“I do not want to leave, yet as time presses forward, I predict my presence will only be cumbersome. Inconvenient. And eventually, wearisome for you and the good doctor. I shan’t become the proverbial gooseberry in the room.”
Sadly, I considered the context. “Gooseberry—an unwanted person?”
He nodded. My heart sank. Losing Marmaduke wasn’t an option.
“You’ll never be a gooseberry, Marmi. You’re my friend.”
“Yes, well I have told you on more than once occasion that you are in desperate need of more warm-blooded companions.” He shot a glance at Peter Pan’s cage. “The sort without fur.”
“That may be true, but it has nothing to do with you.” I took a moment to gather my thoughts, since this was the last conversation I expected to encounter. “You told Cal that you thought I was special—that’s why you chose to talk to me that first night, at Barney’s.” I watched his face—it brightened. He nearly cracked a smile. “Am I still special?”
“You most certainly are.”
“Then you can’t leave.”
“You want me to stay, then? You are very positive of this? Should I give you time to think on the subject?”
“My mind’s made up, mister. Wanna watch a movie?”
He straightened his jacket lapels, too proud to appear very excited. “I do believe my evening is free.” He sat on the couch. “Could we put on my favorite?”
“Ghost?”
“You know me so well.”
Marmaduke had a good point about the warm-blooded, furless companions. I was desperately in need of a girlfriend. Someone to confide in, to share with. In my haste to play the jilted lover, I had closed the door on a dear confidante, so the next day I called Amy and apologized for my behavior. She apologized too and soon we were chatting like the old days. We made plans to get together for a beer and cheesy fries after work the next day—no Shane. Just the girls.
Next, I called someone who I knew really understood me—Tara Wiley. Not only was she a person who could listen, but she could guide me in a direction that I decided was the path for me: exploring my gift as a medium. She would be a knowledgeable and nurturing mentor. A very scary decision, I had to admit. But with the support of two men in my life—Cal and Marmi, who knew where it would take me? The pieces of my life were starting to fall together nicely—finally. And I was pretty sure that, not only was it about time, but that I darn well deserved it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
FOUR WEEKS LATER, I WAS at the reception desk, two lines on the phone holding while I gave a dad new patient forms to fill out for his daughter’s initial exam. Cal’s days were filling up fast and he had several new vision therapy patients.
The door opened as I was picking up one of the holding lines. In ran Robert and Michael Wiley, followed by their only slightly frazzled mother. Robert was one of our new vision therapy patients. She pointed sternly to one corner. “Boys—sit there quietly. Silently. Meditate for three minutes.” She held up three fingers to make her point. “Three.” She took a breath then smiled brightly. “Hi Sophie! How are you?”
I waved, and pointed to the phone letting her know I couldn’t talk just then.
“How are you, Jonathan?” she asked of the young man sitting next to me.
Jonathan broke away from his computer, a recent new purchase, to throw Tara a wave as well. “Great, Mrs. Wiley. Thanks.”
He had stopped by one day to apologize and to offer his services as a website designer. He had time on his hands before heading back for his senior year at college. Cal was thrilled. I know, because we were spending more and more time together. We weren’t officially dating. That wasn’t allowed yet. I’d set the rules and I was sticking to them. Sort of. But he’d come by to watch a movie with Marmi and me. And he fixed me dinner several nights. If the man hadn’t chosen optometry as a profession, he could have seriously considered culinary school. Good looking, great with kids, donated to charities, good cook. The list just grew and grew. So did my lust.
Mr. Franklin, who put on a grumpy face for most, had a soft spot for Cal. They’d even shared a beer once while watching a pre-season football game. Although Cal admitted that Mr. Franklin’s place didn’t smell all that great, and maybe I could help with making an excuse should he get invited again.
The introduction letters I had sent to the area optometrists worked even better than I had hoped. Several doctors had actually called Cal and arranged meetings. They were looking to send referrals to a developmental optometrist and wanted to make sure his practice was something they could recommend to their patients. Thankfully, they were impressed, and the new patient calls started ringing off the hook. He was filling up with so many patients in therapy that he even started working with two at a time to help offer parents more convenient times after school.
Probably the best part is that one of those parents was a private investigator, who, when he heard Cal’s problem with Rachel and the new lawyer, grew suspicious. Having seen some pretty sneaky lawyers in his time, he offered to send one of his investigators out to sniff around.
If he found nothing, Cal owed nothing. If he did, Cal could pay the fee. And guess what?
Turned out Raging Rachel was sleeping with her sleazy barrister. When Cal provided photo proof of their collusion, via certified mail, suddenly they changed their tune. Correction. She changed her tune. And her barrister. With a new lawyer, she was suddenly ready to sign papers with no claims on his business.
Just as I’d finished handling the second call on hold, the vision therapy room door opened and a young boy and girl tore down the hall looking for their respective magazine-reading mothers. They both screeched to a stop beside me first, stood erect, and flashed me gigantic smiles. One of them semi-toothless. That was Becca—she was six years old.
“Do you have lollis for us, Ms. Sophie?” she said with a hint of a lisp.
“Did Dr. Callahan say you
worked hard?”
They both nodded vigorously.
“You’re sure now?” I teased. I knew they had worked hard. Cal talked a lot about Becca and Patrick—what good patients they were and how much progress they were making. They nodded again.
I pulled two lollipops from my special “Good Patient” cup and handed them over. Patrick snatched his, like a squirrel stealing a nut, and ran. Becca took hers more gingerly and with greater care. Then she reached over and hugged me super tight.
“Thank you, Ms. Sophie.” I returned the hug, soaking up the love it contained. The hugs and love of children, I had learned in the last few weeks, was something I didn’t think I could ever live without again.
At six o’clock, Jonathan had packed up and was leaving. “See you tomorrow, Sophie,” he said. “I probably only have a few more hours work, and then the website should be good to go.”
“And then you’re good to go, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“When do you leave?”
“Saturday morning.”
“I’ll bet Astrid will be sad, huh?”
“Yeah. But she’s going to visit over fall break. Well, see you tomorrow.”
I waved. “Okie dokie.”
With all patients out of the office. I got up and locked the door, then grabbed a sealed manila envelope from the desk. It had arrived via courier from Cal’s lawyer earlier in the day, but we’d been so busy, he hadn’t even seen it. I skipped into his exam room where he was flipping switches and covering equipment.
I waved the envelope in front of him. “Look what came today. Please, please, please be good news.” I kissed it for good luck, then handed it over.
As anxious as me, he ripped the envelope and very nearly tore the papers inside. He read silently. I bit my nails while I watched his eyes move across the page.
There were an awful lot of words on that page. He was taking too long. “What does it say?”
He lifted his eyes from the page and looked at me over it, a sly grin on his gorgeous face. “What will you give me?”
“For what?”
“To tell you what it says. What will you give me? A kiss?”
“I’ll give you more than a kiss if that says what I hope it says.”
“Thirty days.”
“And?”
“She’s agreed to sign the papers, which she’ll do tomorrow. So thirty days from tomorrow, I’m officially divorced.”
“And then you’re all mine?”
He threw the papers on the floor, hooked an arm around my back, and pulled me in close. “I hate to break it to you, but I’ve been all yours since I spotted you, lost in the parking lot, looking for Suite A. Now that I believe in ghosts and witchcraft, I think I need to confess to something else.”
I looked into his eyes, absorbing the moment. Loving how our bodies fit together so perfectly. As if cast by ethereal molds intending us to eventually join as one. Or maybe I was just being silly. I caressed the line of his jaw with my hand. “What’s that?”
“I believe that we are undeniably, indubitably, irrefutably, meant to be.”
Or, maybe not so silly. “You’re starting to talk like Marmaduke,” I teased.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He smiled and took my hand, planting a sweet, soft kiss in my palm that radiated down to the very tips of my toes. My heart melted and so did my willpower. Thirty days. And heck, she agreed to sign... yeah, I was giving in.
We moved the celebration to my place. And lets just say that we took kissing to a whole new heavenly plane of existence.
THE END
(OR... MAYBE NOT...)
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Ghosts may or may not be real, but vision problems that affect a child’s ability to learn—they are very real. If you have a child, or know of a child who struggles in school, especially with reading, the source of the problem could be visual. To learn more about Developmental Optometry and Vision Therapy, as well as find a list of symptoms, check out the website for College of Optometrists in Vision Development or Parents Active for Vision Education.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karen Cantwell lives and writes in Northern Virginia. As an artist, she dedicates herself to writing fun fiction that entertains readers and keeps them laughing, believing that laughter heals the soul. And yes, she definitely believes in ghosts. She is also the author of the Barbara Marr Murder Mystery Series, featuring danger-prone soccer mom, Barbara Marr. Karen loves to hear from readers, so please visit her website at www.KarenCantwell.com where you will find her email address as well as more information about her and her books. You can also “Like” her Facebook page: Karen Cantwell Author.
OTHER BOOKS BY KAREN CANTWELL
Take the Monkeys and Run, A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #1
Citizen Insane, A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #2
Silenced by the Yams, A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #3
Saturday Night Cleaver, A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #4
The Chronicles of Marr-nia, Short Stories Starring Barbara Marr
“It’s a Dunder-Bull Wife”—a Barabara Marr Holiday Tale (short story)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every day I am thankful for the generosity of so many who, in some way, have helped me make my way as a writer. Without them, I wouldn’t continue to do what I love. Here, I’d like to give my thanks to my family who puts up with my moods when the words or inspiration aren’t quite there; to those who took the time to read this story in its early drafts and offer advice—Maria Schneider, Beth Balberchak, Angie Holtz, Colleen Tompkins, and Misha Crizer; to the team at Streetlight Graphics for their continued professionalism in providing me with quality covers and files for my readers; Randy Schneider for his valuable copy editing; my proofreaders, Christina and Patrick, and mostly, to my fans—your emails, your comments, and your reviews buoy my spirits when the going gets tough, and they keep me writing. Thank you!
Keep Me Ghosted (Sophie Rhodes Romantic Comedy #1) Page 19
