by Tegan Maher
© 2019 Tegan Maher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Copyright Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
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CHAPTER ONE
"I HAVE TO HAND IT TO you, ladies," Maisey said, floating a few feet behind me with her arms crossed over her ample bosom as she examined the new living room paint. "I thought I was gonna hate that color blue, but it's not horrible."
I raised a brow at her. "Awesome. Not horrible was exactly what we were shooting for."
She huffed a breath out, the translucent violet dahlia on her straw hat bobbing as she did. "You know what I mean. It ain't always easy watchin' you two turn my house upside down."
Maisey and her husband had built my lodge over two hundred years ago. Our relationship had gotten off to a rocky start, but after the initial butting of heads, we'd ironed things out. I'd agreed to run changes by her and she'd agreed to keep an open mind.
Dee, my best friend and roommate, dropped her paint roller into the pan and stretched, pulling off the paint-speckled bandanna that had protected her blonde hair as she did. "Admit it—you love it. It's the same exact blue as the cabbage roses that were on the wallpaper you'd hung in here."
She rolled her neck and cast a knowing glance at our ghostly roomie.
Maisey pressed her lips together in an attempt to keep her cool, but finally gave in and smiled. "Fine, you win. I love it."
Letting out a breath I hadn't even realized I'd been holding, I smiled back. I appreciated what the lodge meant to her, and even though the place was technically mine to do with as I pleased, I wanted her to approve. After all, she did still live there, dead or not.
I shook my head at the beautiful absurdity that was my life. Eight months ago, I'd been at the tail end of my marriage, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. The concept of equitable distribution is a joke, at least when it comes to the important stuff. When a marriage ends, one person almost always ends up with more than the other. There is no sheet that equally divides friends, favorite places, or even family.
In my case, all of "our" friends had been his first, so they defaulted back to him. The same went for my favorite restaurants, pubs, and even my hair salon. On paper, everything looked tidy and fair. In reality, he went out with "our" friends to celebrate "his" divorce, then gone to the house and slept in the bed that had been half mine just a mere few hours before.
I, on the other hand, had rented a hotel room on the beach, bought a bottle of expensive wine, and contemplated my life—or lack thereof—while I sipped from the bottle and watched the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico.
Somewhere between the bottom of the label and the bottom of the bottle, I'd decided to just pack up and go. Start over. Be who I wanted to be rather than who everybody expected me to be. The next morning, I'd closed my booze-reddened eyes against the blinding light pouring through the crack in the hotel drapes, dropped a shaking finger on a map of the US, and chosen my new home.
I blame the excellent merlot for my snap decision to buy a lodge sight unseen and move five hundred miles away, but maybe credit is a better word.
Never in a million years would I have guessed I'd end up running a B&B, much less a haunted one, but c'est la vie. It was the best decision I'd ever made.
"Now, about my rose garden," Maisey said, and I sighed. Part of the deal we'd struck with her was that we'd restore the rose garden her husband had made for her. We'd been working on it on and off, but it was a huge project. She had a hundred varieties or more of domestic and exotic roses back there, so it wasn't like we could just go in and weed-eat the whole thing.
It was a slow process, but we were getting there.
"It's hot as blue blazes out there," Dee said, scowling at her before I could formulate a response. "Don't tell me you expect us to go out there right now in ninety-degree weather and pull weeds. That's morning or evening work."
Sometimes Maisey lost track of details unique to the physical plane, but sometimes she just expected us to suck it up. This was obviously one of those times.
"Work's work," she declared. "Ain't no one time better than another."
"Says the woman immune to the heat," I pointed out, then decided to take a different tack. "We can go out first thing in the morning and get two or three hours in before it gets hot, or we can go out now and work for half an hour or until one of us falls over from heatstroke. Take your pick."
She frowned, then hmphed. "Fine. But I'm waking you up in the morning. We haven't worked on it all week."
I loved how she said we like I had a mouse in my pocket. Dee was running two businesses—her diner and her baking business—and didn't have much spare time to ferret the weeds out of prickly old rose bushes. That left me and Scout, our neighbor and my boyfriend. I smiled as the word flitted through my brain. It still felt weird to think of him that way, even though it had taken us months to get there. I'd liked him too much to ruin things by getting into a relationship before I was ready, but we'd stepped things up a notch recently.
"Besides," I said, throwing out the bone I knew she'd find irresistible. "Scout's coming over in the morning to help me hang the new porch swing. Maybe he'll be willing to put some time in the garden, too. Then we can get twice as much done."
At the mention of out handsome neighbor's name, a flush of pleasure brushed across her shimmering cheeks. "Well, why didn't you say so?"
As far as she was concerned, Scout walked on water. If she hadn't been dead for a couple of centuries, I might have been worried.
"Well I'm glad that's settled," Dee said, gathering the paint pan and brushes while I tapped the lid down on the paint can with the small claw hammer I'd used to open it.
"I have to get in the kitchen and do some baking," she said. "Sheila Doring's birthday is tomorrow, and her mama's ordered a triple-layer death-by-chocolate cake in her honor. She's picking it up at two."
"And I have to get to work," I said. "Don has friends coming down for the weekend, and I told him I'd come in early so he could get the boat ready."
Maisey snorted. "When isn't his boat ready? I swear, that man's gonna grow g
ills if he spends any more time on the water."
"It's good for him," I replied. "He works too much as it is. I'm glad he's taking the whole weekend off."
When I'd first moved to Mercy, I'd gotten a job bartending at the Dead End, the local watering hole, in order to help ends meet. Don owned it, and he'd hired me so he could semi-retire. At the time, I hadn't had any solid plans for the lodge at all, let alone opening it to guests just a few months after I'd moved in. Since we'd ended up with guests as a test run before I decided to commit, I'd had to cut back at the bar in order to take care of my own business, which had left him hanging in the breeze, high and dry.
"How's the hunt for a new bartender going?" Dee asked.
"Not so great," I replied, picking up the can and following her to the kitchen. "He doesn't want just anybody working there. Honestly, I think he's being a little unreasonable. Between me and Annie, he's spoiled. But in his defense, most of the people who've applied aren't exactly shining examples of humanity, either."
The crunch of tires on gravel alerted us to a new arrival a second before Bear, our ginormous black Leonberger, popped his head up and whined. I glanced at Dee. "You expecting anybody?"
She shook her head as she ran water into the paint pan and started washing the brushes. "Nope. I've put myself on lock down. I even told Jeremy and the girls not to call me unless the place is on fire, and the fire department can't make it. I've gotta get that cake done, and the cafe's out of desserts, too."
I stepped to the kitchen window and pulled the curtain aside. A middle-aged, imperious-looking woman was sitting in a brand new Lincoln talking on her phone. I couldn't hear, but it was obvious from the way she was scowling that the conversation wasn't going well.
Maisey shot through the wall, zoomed across the yard, and floated right through the woman's windshield. Or at least half of her did. I giggled at the sight of her ample backside poking out the front while she poked her head inside the car to eavesdrop.
Within just a few seconds, she pulled her head back out and came back in the house.
"She's arguing with somebody about a wedding," she said. "From the sounds of it, the venue she'd booked for her daughter is no longer available, and the wedding's this weekend."
"So what's she doing here?" I asked. It wasn't like I was a wedding planner, and it was way too late in the game for Dee to put together a wedding cake.
Maisey shrugged. "No idea. I'm just relatin' what I heard."
My gaze snapped back out the window at the sound of her door opening and closing, and I pulled in a deep breath as she stalked toward the house. Heading to the door, I pasted a smile on my face and pulled it open. She had her fist midair, just getting ready to knock.
"Hello," I said, doing my best to make my smile genuine. It was possible the woman was a delight under normal circumstances, though the frown lines at the corners of her mouth and the professional way she wore the lemon-sucking expression said otherwise.
Without returning my greeting, she swept past me into the house, taking in every detail with a gaze that wouldn't have been out of place on an angry hawk flying into a pigeon's nest.
However, she was underestimating this particular pigeon.
"Excuse me," I said, stepping in front of her as she headed to the kitchen, "but can I help you with something? I'm not sure where you were raised, but where I come from, charging into somebody's home can get you arrested."
"Or shot," Maisey added, slamming her hands on her hips. "If she'da come through that door like that two hundred years ago, she'da been starin' down the business end of my twelve gauge."
I did my best to hide a smile.
The woman stopped mid-stride, mostly because had she moved forward, she'd have crashed right into me.
"I'm sorry," she said, not sounding sorry at all, "but I was led to believe this is a bed and breakfast. Since there's no service desk, would you please fetch me the owner?"
"Consider her fetched," I said, brow raised.
She tilted her head and gave me an appraising look, and it was obvious my faded jeans and paint-speckled flannel were not up to snuff. She gave a long-suffering sigh.
"Of course you are. My daughter is determined to get married in Mercy, and it seems our venue is no longer available. I was told this may be a viable alternative. It's not ideal, but it will have to do. I assume you can have all this"—she fluttered a hand toward the drop cloths and unfinished walls—"finished in time?"
"I'm sorry," Dee said, stepping forward and wiping her hands on her jeans, "but who are you again?"
"Pardon me," the aristocratic old biddy said, holding out an insipid hand. I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to shake it or kiss the massive rock on her third finger. "I'm Amelia Pennington, of the Boston Penningtons."
Dee rolled her eyes and I took Amelia's hand, wincing a little at how cold and bony it was, and gave it a firm shake. "Toni Owens. This is my business partner, Dee. I'm not sure who referred you, but as you can see, we're not exactly prepared to host a wedding. I'm sorry you wasted your time coming here."
The air seemed to whoosh right out of the woman. "Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. You see, I'd always envisioned Stephania being married in a cathedral—Boston has so many lovely churches—and yet, she's chosen here."
I glanced at Dee. That seemed random. "Why?"
"Her fiance is from here." I didn't have to be psychic to pick up on how she felt about that—the curled nose and the way she said fiance as if it were a four-letter word made her opinion crystal clear.
A quick glance at Maisey's old grandfather clock told me I only had twenty minutes before I had to be to work. "I'm sorry you were given bad information, Ms. Pennington, but as you can see, we're renovating."
Her lip curved up in a knowing grin. "Name your price."
That just pissed me off. "There is no price, Ms. Pennington. My lodge isn't ready to host a wedding. I have no staff, and we're still finishing the remodel. I'm sorry. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some place to be."
I crossed my arms and tossed a pointed look toward the door.
"Oh, for Pete's sake," Maisey huffed when Amelia opened her mouth to argue. She whooshed through the woman and I cringed. I knew what that felt like, but the woman was being a royal pain. When she frowned and rubbed the goosebumps that had jumped up on her arms, I smiled a little.
Maisey was able to touch things briefly in the physical world, but she rarely did because it was an energy suck. Apparently, she considered it worth the trade off in this instance, though, because she gave the woman a little nudge.
"What was that?" Ms. Pennington asked.
Dee and I schooled our faces into carefully polite masks.
"What was what?" Dee asked.
"I just ... it felt like ... oh, never mind," Amelia huffed. "I suppose I'll just have to find someplace else." After a brief pause and a glance over her shoulder toward where Maisey had poked her, she pulled a card out of her clutch purse. "But if you change your minds, call me. I'll make it worth your while."
With that, she stomped out the door toward her car.
CHAPTER TWO
"WOW," DEE SAID ONCE she was gone. "Even if we were ready, can you imagine what a mother-of-the-bride-zilla that woman would be?"
"Yeah," I agreed, following her back into the kitchen. "I'm not touching that mess with a ten-foot pole. We're sitting pretty for now, and the last thing I need is some city-slicker diva charging in and taking control of the place."
"She'd only do that if you let her," Maisey said, shrugging a shoulder.
I shot her a dirty look. "We don't need the hassle."
"No," Dee said, rinsing the paint out of the sink. "What we need is to get this place finished so we can head into vacation season fully prepared."
"When do you think that'll be?" I asked as I grabbed my purse from the table and my keys from the hook by the kitchen door. I had a feeling that tourist season in rural Georgia was a lot different than tourist season in central F
lorida, where I'd lived before I moved to Mercy. Of course, with so many theme parks, it seemed like it was always tourist season in Orlando.
Dee lifted a shoulder as she dried her hands on her jeans. "It's hard to tell. Definitely next spring, but we may get some folks in for hunting season and maybe even for the holidays. We're not far from fall, and we get a lot of people driving through looking at the trees changing, too."
My phone dinged with an incoming text just as I was slipping on my shoes.
"Well," I said after I'd read it, "it looks like you're stuck with me for the night. Annie just asked if I'd mind switching my next couple shifts for her Tuesday and Wednesday ones. Apparently her ex gave her a hard no on taking the kids while she works and her sitter's gonna be out of town."
I pecked out a response letting her know I was fine with the switch, then hung my keys back up.
Annie was Don's niece and a good friend of ours. She was a single mom with two awesome kids, and I felt bad for her because her ex was a deadbeat. Between her job at the bar and at Dee's cafe, she worked almost every day and still barely made ends meet. She had, however, shown a real eye—and love—for design during our renovations, and I was doing my best to encourage that.
"Good," Dee said, plucking two aprons from the drawer and tossing me one. "I'm gonna need all the help I can get. Not only does this cake need to be ready by two o'clock tomorrow, she also ordered mini cupcakes and no-bake cookies. Prepare to bake. Or not, as the cookie may be."
I laughed as I strapped the apron on. Ask me to make chicken piccata and I was your girl. Baking, on the other hand, was outside my pay grade. I could handle brownies and cakes from a box, but even that edged toward the ledge of my skill level. I was more of a add-to-taste cook, and that didn't fly in baking.
"I'll take the no-bakes. Even I can't screw those up."
She raised a brow at me. "You do realize you're basically making fudge when you do that, right?"
I tilted my head as I pulled the oatmeal and cocoa from the pantry. "How do you figure? I put what it says in a pot, bring it to a boil, simmer one minute, then add the rest of the ingredients. No candy thermometer or hours of stirring involved."
