Chapter 4
On Saturday morning, Matt warmed his hands on his thermos and took in the cold, pine-scented air. It had snowed last night, it was now eight degrees, and downtown Spinning Hills looked like it had been taken from the pages of a Dickens novel. Everything was glistening under the sun, from the frosted rooftops to the icy mounds of snow that had been cleared from the sidewalks. Jazz was playing from speakers outside and Star Springs Park in particular looked like a winter wonderland.
Over half the businesses were closed due to the weather, and the near-empty streets made it all the more charming for Matt. Finally, he was able to take a walk in his new hometown without worrying about running into Hope. The house he hadn’t yet warmed up to, but the town he loved. Matt had never thought he could be so charmed. Spinning Hills wasn’t the crazy town he’d feared it was after meeting Hope, her sisters, their grandmother, and her cohorts. He had a dog to come home to, he’d met and liked almost all his nearby neighbors, and two of his best friends lived in town. Life was good. He turned a corner and caught the tail end of a conversation that made him freeze one moment and pulled a reluctant smile from him the next. So there he stood. Frozen with a smile on his face.
* * *
Hope opened the door of Flo’s Country Yoga and stepped out into the cold air, feeling invigorated and new. Who’d have thought that yoga and country could be such a blast? Hope was no country girl. She’d never even set foot on a farm. But Flo’s directions to concentrate on the lyrics of “Down on the Farm,” by Tim McGraw and “Am I the Only One,” by Dierks Bentley had her moving from pose to pose as if she were do-si-doing in a barn on a Friday night after a long day of working the land. And she and Flo had clicked instantly. After class, Hope had spoken to her about a hypnosis session.
“You look like you had a good time.” Hope turned to the sound of her younger sister’s voice. Gracie, Paige, and Grandma Sherry were all sitting on a bench waiting for her. Hope narrowed her eyes at them. She’d just started venturing into town again, after years of staying away, and everywhere she went, there they were. Visiting the small town’s haunts was Hope’s way of confronting ghosts from her past and so far, so good. There was only one street she avoided. But she didn’t need bodyguards. Or spirit guards. Or whatever her sisters and grandmother thought they were to her. But she was in too good of a mood to get angry at them. Even though it was crazy for them to be waiting outside for her in freezing weather.
“How was it?” Paige asked.
Hope looked behind her to make sure none of the other students were outside to hear her. “I won!” she enthused.
Grandma Sherry gave her a look. “You won? How do you win at yoga?”
Paige shook her head at her. “No one wins at yoga, Hope. That’s not what it’s about.”
“And you wonder why none of us wants to run with you.” Gracie clicked her tongue.
Hope bit her lip. “I merely meant that I was the only one who was able to do each and every pose correctly the very first time.” Which meant she’d won. She tried to stop the triumphant grin that was making its way across her face, but she couldn’t.
When she turned, the sight of a smiling man who had just turned the corner made her stop in her tracks. “Mr. Williams,” she said, recovering quickly. She stuck out her hand with a confident smile. He reached out and shook it. Normally, she wouldn’t be surprised to see him. Spinning Hills was a local tourist draw because of its unique housing stock and niche downtown businesses. His job probably meant he was acquainted with at least a few tenants there. But it wasn’t tourist-attracting weather. In fact, over half the businesses in town were closed. “It’s like a winter wonderland this time of year, isn’t it?” she continued. The plan was that he’d agree, she’d tell him to enjoy his walk, and they would each be on their way. But when she twisted to sweep her hand across the glistening downtown area, she caught her sisters and her grandmother shooing Mr. Williams away with their hands while giving him warning looks. They stopped and pasted ridiculous smiles on their faces the moment she swept her arm. Hope pretended not to notice, even as a nervous twinge pinched the pit of her belly. Something was going on, and she was the only one not clued in.
“It’s something all right,” Matt Williams agreed. But he was clearly uncomfortable.
“And what brings you here today?” she asked next, ditching her plan to get rid of him. Was he meeting with her family? Was that what the funny behavior was about? But that didn’t make sense.
He stuck his gloved hands in his coat pocket. “Taking in the scenery.”
Hope nodded and turned. “Grandma, Paige, Gracie, meet Matt Williams. Mr. Williams, meet my family,” she said next, and stood back to see what happened next.
Her family shook his hands and acted so normal, it was decidedly not normal. Hope was introducing them to a handsome man. Something she’d never done. If they were being their usual selves, they’d be tripping over one another to find out how she knew Matt, and they’d be exchanging not-so-subtle looks.
Matt’s behavior was also suspect. He was shaking their hands with a stern expression on his face. What the hell was going on? Had her family been the ones to betray Friendly Clicks’ possible move? It was a wild thought, but the only one that made sense. Another crazy thought was that only Matt was willing to tell her the truth. Hope grabbed the bull by the horns. “How do you know each other?” she asked in a calm voice.
“Know each other?” Grandma Sherry repeated. “Well, Mr. Williams just moved in to town. And you know me, I know everyone.”
That made sense. But why had she shooed him away at first? And why had she allowed Hope to introduce him if she already knew him? “Where do you live?” Hope asked next, because it was the next logical question, and she wasn’t going to let him go until she got to the bottom of what was going on.
“Spinning Hills,” Gracie answered. “Grandma just told you.”
Grandma Sherry looked at her watch. “We should get going. We have breakfast waiting for us at the café.” She looked up. “It was nice seeing you again, Mr. Williams. I’ll expect you at the café soon.”
Paige took Hope’s arm, but Hope began to get a sinking feeling as things Matt had said during their meeting came back to her. “Where do you live?” she repeated, not recognizing the sound of her strangled voice.
He looked her in the eye, which was more than she could say for her family. “Nome Court.”
Hope stared. So that was it. He’d probably seen her sleepwalking and making a fool of herself. They’d told her that’s where she always went. To the abandoned house on Nome Court where she and Derek had once lived. She swallowed past the dread in her throat. “What house?” she asked, to determine how much he’d seen. Hopefully, he was at the end of the street.
Matt’s reluctance was palpable, but he didn’t look away. Gracie grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away. “Hope, we need to talk, we were going to tell—”
“What house?” she insisted, brushing Gracie off.
He looked at her from underneath his lashes and quietly said, “Fifteen twenty-six.”
Hope felt the blood drain from her face. Tears sprung to her eyes, but she held them back with all her might as she turned to stare at her grandmother and sisters in shock. They’d lied to her. Her head snapped back to look at him. And he’d known who she was the moment they’d met. Knew things about her she didn’t know, because she couldn’t remember. Knew things she couldn’t begin to contemplate without wanting to go away for good.
She’d been made to look the fool. And a fool she was. For thinking she was in control when she never would be as long as she remained. “Breakfast is canceled,” she said to her family, hating the weak, breathy sound of her voice. She turned to Matt. “Our Monday meeting is canceled, too. Slander me all over the region. I don’t care.”
She took a step, and he was the only one to reach out to her, but she ignored him and turned the corner he’d just come from. And then she jogged away at a brisk, steady pace as if she was still in control.
When Matt saw Paige was about to take off after Hope, he put a gentle hand on her shoulder and shook his head. It seemed for a moment that she would argue, but the confused look on her face told him she didn’t know what to do. Gracie and Sherry remained frozen in place and after a few moments of silence, Matt said, “I’m sorry. I tried to keep quiet, but I wasn’t going to make up an address or refuse to answer her questions.”
Sherry put a hand on his shoulder, while Gracie and Paige stared at the ground. “What were we thinking?” Paige whispered in a pained voice. “We should’ve told her.”
Gracie’s eyes were full of regret. “But she would’ve left, and she really didn’t want that. A lot of people are depending on her. She keeps saying that.”
“She might not have a choice. Not knowing what you’re up to half the night is no way to live. We’ve tried everything. And she hates that she worries us.” Sherry closed her eyes as if she were fighting to keep it together.
Matt looked at the sky, seeking guidance. The women in front of him were deeply distressed and he felt for them. “Don’t be so hard on yourselves. You love her and this whole situation is…” he trailed off, not even knowing how to describe Hope’s sleepwalking and his unwitting role in her world. “It’s way out of the ordinary,” he finished. “And I don’t think anyone would’ve known how to handle it.”
The three women didn’t move, and Matt gave each of them a squeeze on an arm and left, understanding they needed to be alone.
* * *
Hope stopped running when she reached the middle of the bridge. It was so cold! And now that she’d broken into a sweat, she was shivering. She hung on to the railing and looked out onto the snowy banks and frozen water, wanting to rage, but she held it all in as cars swished by behind her. She wished there were some lonely, deserted field nearby where she could scream. Anger and feelings of betrayal would be simpler to handle than what she was holding in. What was she going to do? People were depending on her, but she couldn’t depend on herself. She’d never felt so powerless as the moment when she’d looked into Matt Williams’s eyes and known with a sickening certainty that something huge had been kept from her. It was easy to be mad at her family and at Matt, but that anger didn’t run as deep as the anger she felt at her own inability to get a grip on her own mind and body when she was asleep. What was wrong with her? From the time she’d been a child, she’d had problems while she slept. Night terrors, the doctors had called it when she was little. Then, when she was eight she’d started sleepwalking. At least it had been easy for her sisters to pull her back into bed when they’d shared one in the trailer.
She stood there a long time, staring out onto the gray ice until the weight of her anger and her shivers became too much to bear and it all collapsed into a strange nothingness inside her. When the cold air made the skin under her gloves feel as if it was going to tear, she put her hands in her jacket pockets and began to walk home. There was only one thing she could do to make herself feel close to normal, and that was work.
It was past midnight and Hope was reading profiles of up-and-coming technology experts looking specifically for people with a passion for data-mining research. The activity was allowing her to not only focus on work she was passionate about, but also to focus on the future she was working toward. Both her heart and mind were in it, because she forced them to be, but a corner of her heart was aching badly.
A sharp, high-pitched bark at the window instantly brought both her eyes and her defenses up. The sound was familiar on a guttural level. There was no doubt in her mind the affable woof came from Zeus. She jumped to her feet and a second later was opening her window, calling out, “Zeus!” afraid that the little guy was half freezing. How could Matt have let him escape in this weather? She nearly screamed when Zeus was suddenly in front of her with Matt Williams’s face at his side. “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.
“Hey, you’ve barged in on me a few times in the middle of the night. I figured I’d return the favor.” He was scaring her out of her wits in the middle of the night to joke about everything that had happened? She moved to shut the window in his face, but he instantly held Zeus’s big brown eyes level to her face. “I get it! I get it!” he exclaimed. “It’s too soon to joke about it. I’m sorry. I thought it would help break the ice. I wanted to talk, but I figured you wouldn’t open the window if it was just me. I also didn’t think you’d want my sympathy. So I tried Zeus and a joke.”
“I have a front door, you know,” she grumbled as she held her hands out for Zeus.
“There’s a buzzer and an intercom and Zeus doesn’t bark on cue. If it was just me, you wouldn’t have answered.” He handed Zeus in, and Hope quickly shut the window in Matt’s face, feeling the first real satisfaction she’d felt since she’d beat everyone at yoga that morning. But Zeus’s adorable woof turned into an earsplitting, nonstop, high-pitched tempest. Hope threw the window back open and yelled at Matt to get inside before the dog woke the whole town up.
Matt threw one foot over the windowsill, hit his head on the large metal dream catcher dangling in front of it, and stumbled back. Hope was tempted to push him out, but Zeus gave her a warning growl. “Fine,” she said on a sigh before grabbing Matt by the jacket and pulling him inside. He stumbled and fell, and Hope left him on the floor to shut the window and warm Zeus against her. “You shouldn’t have taken him out in this weather. I can’t believe you’d risk having him freeze to death just to use him as a pawn.”
“He was inside my insulated jacket. He was fine,” Matt said in a pleasant tone as he brushed himself off. “And what’s with the dream catcher?”
“Long story and none of your business. Now walk yourself right out the front door, and I’ll have Zeus returned to you in the morning. You and I have nothing to talk about.”
He came to stand in front of her. She glared up at him. His nose and cheeks were red and chill air hung around him. Even his hazel eyes looked frozen, but not because there was anything icy about them. It was because they shone with a particular light. “Hear me out, Hope, please,” he said, his voice, at least, warm. For a moment she couldn’t answer. Something about his eyes continued to hold her interest. The more she looked into them, the more she felt that he was worth listening to. And worthy of knowing. There was kindness there.
She blinked and looked away, feeling funny, and not knowing what to do about him. She wanted to know what had happened the nights she’d gone to Nome Court, but she didn’t want to let him further into her life. “You get two simple sentences. That’s it. I suggest you don’t waste them.”
There was a long pause. Even Zeus seemed to tense up in her arms, as if he were in suspense. “You deserve to know everything that happened the three nights you came to my door. One of the things you said is what made me want to help you quell the rebellion at your company.”
He had her. He’d chosen his sentences well. And then he did something truly remarkable. He read the thoughts she was barely aware were racing through her mind. “I know it must seem like I have some power over you because I know things about you that you don’t, and because all you’ll have is my word, but for me, this isn’t about power. It’s about the employees of Friendly Clicks feeling secure, and it’s about avoiding dangerous precedents that can affect others in the region.”
“So it’s about business?”
He shook his head. “It’s about people. You’re an employee of Friendly Clicks, too. I want you to feel safe.”
And with that, Hope believed him. It was the second time he’d expressed that sentiment. Business was also about people to her. And if she kept her focus on the people who benefited, she could take the personal humiliation of listening to a virtual stranger tell her personal details about her life.
This was about others, she repeated to herself before straightening her shoulders and motioning for him to follow her to the dining room table. She sat down and motioned for him to sit to her right. It wasn’t a statement; she simply didn’t wish to look at him while speaking of this. But Matt chose to sit in front of her. So be it. “What happened to your heartleaf?” he asked, pointing to a plant behind her.
“What do you mean, what happened to it?”
“You don’t look like the type to keep a dead plant.”
“It’s not dead. It looks great. Grandma Sherry gave it to me, and she says it’s coming along. But you didn’t come here to talk about my heartleaf, did you?” She gave him a pointed look.
He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and studied her a long moment. She met his gaze. “First, I want you to know you’ve never been inside the house because I was focused on protecting myself, too. We’ve always been outside and except for the third night, we were never alone for long.” He nodded then, as if he was done with his intro, and Hope braced herself. “The first night you came you were looking for someone named Derek, and you thought I was a contractor you had hired to fix up the house. I immediately called Sheriff Walker, he explained who you were, and he left to call your grandmother. You—” his voice faltered and his eyes flickered to the table for a split second. “You sat on a rocker on the front porch and sang ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’” He hesitated again, this time uncrossing and recrossing his arms. “And you, uh, were acting as if you were pregnant.”
Hope was too frozen inside to do anything but keep looking forward and remain still. A ghost of a smile touched his lips then. “And you proceeded to grill me about the house—asking me what suppliers I was using and how much everything cost.” He must’ve thought she was nuts, and she wanted to tell him not to smile, that this was painful, and that she was not amused and would never be, but no matter what her feelings were, a part of her couldn’t ignore that this was uncomfortable for him, too. It seemed to her that he’d been trying to do right by her—a stranger out of her mind—from the start. “And that’s it, until your grandmother came. She explained you were sleepwalking, gave me her and your sisters’ phone numbers in case it ever happened again, and warned me never to wake you up and never to approach you if I saw you in the light of the day. Actually, it was more of a threat.”
Hope felt herself soften toward her grandmother, who had gotten up in the middle of the night to get her, but not enough to relax any muscle or nerves. All she could do was give him a terse nod to encourage him to continue. He shifted in his seat. “The second night you were crying, and you said that you were hurting. I was worried someone had accosted you on the street or something, so I asked you if someone had hurt you, and you said no. I immediately texted Sherry and your sisters, but…” He hesitated. “But I did hold you, only to try to calm you. You told me you were usually confident and that you had busted someone’s balls, but that you did it for your niece and nephew.”
That did get a small, sad smile out of Hope, and she held on to the knowledge that she didn’t completely lose her sense of self when she was out of it. “You were also worried that you were hurting your grandmother and sisters,” he continued. “Then your sisters came to get you, and they threatened me, too.” She watched as his Adam’s apple worked in his throat and sensed that he was trying to hide that he wasn’t happy about what came next. “I was also informed that your grandmother ran a background check on me.”
Hope felt her jaw slacken. “She did what?” Matt merely nodded. He did not look amused. “I’m—I’m sorry,” she said, even when that detail made her find some humor in her family’s methods, and even though she was still hurt and angry that they hadn’t told her the truth.
He held up a hand. “It took me a few days, but I was able to see where your grandmother was coming from. And you have nothing to feel sorry for. None of this is your fault, and I never thought it was.”
Hope slid her eyes to the window. Unfortunately, she could still see the reflection of his profile there. She didn’t move, though, finding it was easier to study him that way. “And the third night?”
Matt leaned forward and smiled. “The third night you changed my life for the better.” His gaze slid to Zeus, who was curled up on the sofa on top of a shimmery silver pillow.
Hope felt as though her eyes were going to pop out of her head. “I’m the neighbor who saddled you with Zeus?” The dog’s head came up, he barked twice, jumped down, and came over to place his front paws on her chair. Hope picked him up, and he licked her cheek before curling in her lap.
Matt stared at them with a funny grin while bobbing his head. Her mind raced. “Did I name him Persepho—” she cut herself off when he nodded again. “Did I tell you how I found him?”
“You said he came to your window and that he was the one who told you his name. You, uh, thought you could speak dog.”
Hope’s heart fell. “Did—did I bark?” Another nod. And that was it. She pounded the table and lowered her head onto it. It didn’t matter that he was still there to witness her shame. The man had heard her sleep-bark. Whatever hope she’d had that she had some self-control when she sleepwalked vanished. What would she do during hypnosis? And did she really want both Flo and Rosa to witness it?
“It was sweet,” he said.
“Go away.” Her voice sounded alien to her ears. “Just leave Zeus. I’ll find a way to get him back to you tomorrow…”
She heard him scrape his chair back and the trepidation she’d been feeling in the pit of her stomach suddenly bounced up into her throat and became something else. Determination. It was a sensation she’d felt before. Something in her would not allow her to stay down. Her head snapped up. “No. Don’t go. Finish. Please.” Zeus’s head also came up and she began to pet him. It calmed them both.
He glanced at her. She didn’t flinch. This time, he sat in the seat beside her. “There’s not much more,” he said. “You seemed happier that night, and I told you had the smile of a woman who should never be sad, and you told me not to flirt with you because you were a married woman, at least until you could find Derek and divorce him. You thought Zeus was mine, and you scolded me for denying it. My phone was inside, and I couldn’t get to it because I’d just re-stained the floors, so I walked you home. You tried to fall asleep on someone’s lawn, so I picked you up and carried you the rest of the way.” She wasn’t looking at him anymore, so he tapped her arm. She glanced his way. “Before you tried to fall asleep, you told me you didn’t want to go, but you didn’t know how to stay. When I met you at Friendly Clicks, it took me a while to put two and two together.” He tilted his head, and she knew he was looking for a reaction. “I think you don’t want to leave, but you feel you can’t stay if being here triggers something that causes you to sleepwalk the way you do. And I get it, Hope, and knowing it and getting it made me want to work with you and not against you. But I disliked using things I knew about you when you had no clue that I knew them, even if my heart was in the right place.” Something in her belly warmed and spread. She didn’t like it. He was saying all the right words, but she had to remind herself they were just that, words. She didn’t know him.
When she didn’t say anything or visibly react, he continued. “I texted your family the moment I left. I told them I had met you through my job and that I couldn’t meet with you again without you knowing we already had a history. They came to my office two hours later, and they brought Rosa, Ruby, and a crystal ball with them.”
Hope’s eyebrows shot up, and she looked at him again. His eyes glowed with warmth and humor. “A crystal ball?” So that was the new game Ruby kept trying to get her to play. Hope hadn’t set foot in the café all week, fearing some other gypsy ritual that would have her smelling like skunk for a week. A crystal ball, at least, was harmless. “What did she use it for?” She wanted to know.
“She wanted to read me. But the ball hadn’t been properly cleansed.”
Hope felt her first real smile since that morning. “Well, I don’t blame her for trying. You’re a hard person to read.”
He leaned back and sighed. “You all keep saying that, but I’ve been nothing but forthcoming with them, and I’m being completely open with you here. How can you not see that?” The sincere note in his voice and the earnest expression on his face suddenly caused her to feel a dread she didn’t fully understand. She began to pet Zeus again. “Why did my family visit you at work?”
“They wanted to make sure I wouldn’t tell you how I knew you before they could tell you themselves, but they needed time to figure out the best course of action. It again took me a while to understand why, but I think I get it. Your whole family has been through a lot in a short period of time, Hope, and the right thing to do isn’t always clear. I think we both know that.”
Hope shot him a look. “So you get all of us. Impressive. That’s not an easy task. And now you want to help. You’re an angel, Matt Williams. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” He smiled a sudden smile, and the organ in her upper left chest cavity did something it never did. It skipped a beat. Annoyed, Hope held her breath in an effort to beat the organ back into submission. Physical attraction was never enough to make her lose control over her physical reactions. She looked down at Zeus. Having his warm little body so near was softening her. That was the problem. She thought of moving him, but couldn’t. He looked much too comfortable.
“I’m not trying to make myself look like a saint here. I’ll even admit to having a laugh at your expense when you and Zeus reunited. But if none of this had happened, you and I wouldn’t be in a position to help each other. But it did and we are. I have a proposition for you. A business proposition.”
Hope was quiet for a long time but not because thoughts were running around in her head. It was because she didn’t have it in her to hear him out right then, but she didn’t want him to leave. The moment he left she’d start to examine everything under her mind’s powerful microscope to come to logical conclusions, and right now her brain was drained. When he shifted in his seat, she said, “I’ll hear you out, but not right now. Right now I have a lot to process, and I won’t be able to give you my full attention and consideration.” And there it was, that ghost of a smile again. “Do I amuse you?” She raised an eyebrow.
“No. I’m in awe. That’s all.” That he would be in awe of her at that moment made no sense, but everything about him, from his tone to his posture, told her he was being truthful. Maybe he was a little dicked in the head, too. “Can I ask you just one question before I go?”
She hesitated, but he’d been nothing but kind, even when she’d been difficult at times, so she relented. “Sure.”
“Why is your apartment decorated with fairy lights, dream catchers, metal moons, suns, stars and paper lanterns? It doesn’t jibe with you.”
Hope couldn’t help it, she smiled again. “Gracie says it looks like a fortuneteller’s tent. It’s because Grandma, Ruby, and Rosa bought the building from Amador Preservation and Construction, and they insisted on decorating and picking out the finishes in three of the apartments. They figured themed apartments on a haunted street in a town with a fun history would add to their appeal on Airbnb. Paige describes the one Grandma Sherry decorated best, she says it looks like gingham and sunshine and oak threw up all over it.”
“What does the one Rosa decorated look like?”
“Picture a zoo inside a seventies discotheque.”
“Lots of red and animal prints?” he asked.
“How’d you guess?”
“The first night I met her, she was wearing zebra-striped slippers and red lingerie. Revealing red lingerie. I haven’t been able to look her in the eye since.”
Hope laughed, long and hard, and it released a lot of the tension she was holding in. When she sobered, she sighed and added, “They decided which apartment we’d each stay in when we all moved back home. I now see they were trying to push us out of our comfort zones.”
“And you got Ruby’s because they think you need to learn to believe in magic?” he asked, looking genuinely curious.
Hope nodded, and said, “Well,” before getting up. She hadn’t meant to share that much. He took the hint and stood up, too. “We can meet Monday morning, as planned,” she continued.
“Monday morning at nine a.m., then, but I think we should meet in a neutral location. Neither of our offices will work.”
She had to agree. This was business, but it involved personal matters. “How about at the Gypsy Fortune Café and Bakery?” she asked.
He shot her a look. “That’s your grandmother’s place of business. I said neutral. Those women don’t know the meaning of neutrality.”
Hope felt her lips twitch again. “Then you name the place. As long as it’s not a startup or business you’ve funded or helped. That wouldn’t be neutral either.”
“How about we meet for coffee at Panera Bread on Brown Street?”
“Agreed.” She stuck her hand out, out of habit, they shook on it, and he walked to the door, calling for Zeus.
“It’s cold.” Hope put a hand on his back, and he stopped. “Leave him here, please. I’ll have someone bring him over tomorrow. And I’ll take good care of him. I promise.” He turned and she watched him go a little pale. Maybe she was asking too much of him. It was kind of sweet how attached to Zeus Matt was, not because Matt was sweet, but because it made her feel a little better that she had been the one to introduce them.
Matt lingered before Hope a moment, feeling a twinge of separation anxiety over leaving Zeus behind. “Or I can give you a quilt to wrap him in—” Hope began, but he put up a hand. “No. It’s okay, he can stay,” he said, and turned to walk out the door, taking his twinge with him.
Before she shut the door behind him, she called out, “Matt?” He stopped and looked back. “What color did you stain the floors?” she asked.
“English Chestnut,” Matt answered and watched as she sighed and gave him a disappointed look.
“In the conversations you said we had about the house, did I never mention that a satin finish and a medium tone hide dust better?” she asked.
“You mentioned it, and you were very persuasive, but it was too late.”
She gritted her teeth. “What do you mean, I was very persuasive?”
He bit back a smile. “It means you wouldn’t let it go, Hope. I didn’t mean to imply that your methods of persuasion involved charms other than your powerful arguments.”
She gave him a look. “My powerful arguments have never been described as part of my charm.”
“Maybe others haven’t taken the time to really listen and understand your mind, then.”
“And you’ll probably understand them all on Monday.” She shut the door with a smile that promised him hell during their next meeting, and Matt leaned against it. It was time to admit that the uplifting tickle he felt whenever he was around Hope, whether she was asleep or awake, signaled something he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager. A crush. The woman was really something.
He sighed and pushed off the door, telling himself it was nothing he couldn’t handle. He was a grown man, not an eighth grader. Trying to fall asleep without Zeus at the foot of his bed would be harder to get over than the beginnings of a crush. He’d grown used to the mutt’s loud snores, and he didn’t think he could get his Zs without the lulling sound.
When he got to his street, he greeted Sheriff Walker, who was waiting for his own dog to do his business. “Where’s Zeus?” he asked Matt.
“I left him with a friend.”
“Huh. I thought you two were attached at the ankle.”
Matt smiled. “It looked like my friend needed him more than I did tonight. But I’ll admit it’ll be hard to fall asleep without his snores.”
Sheriff Walker nodded. “Nobody has ever been able to get a good night’s sleep in that house. It’s because the beatings and emotional abuse Bessie White suffered at her father’s hands there were too great for her soul to contain. The misery seeped out and crawled through the walls, clinging to the house’s bones.” He was quiet for a moment, letting his words settle, until suddenly, he grinned. “At least, that’s what Ruby says.”
Matt started, too caught by the man’s words to easily roll with his change in tone. He tossed the old sheriff a half-hearted smile before continuing to his house, but the sheriff stopped him again. “You look shaken, son. Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts? Didn’t anybody tell you you bought ole Bessie’s house?”
Matt shrugged. “No worries—I don’t believe in ghosts. I was surprised, that’s all. I knew it was Bessie’s house, but I didn’t know much else. I was told Bessie had been having an affair with the town’s very first mayor, and that she arranged to meet him late on a moonless night, to tell him she was pregnant, and that she even wore a white dress, to hint at a wedding.”
Sheriff Walker nodded and picked up the tale. “And when she told him her news, he pushed her off the bridge, hoping to make it look like a suicide, but he was caught. Though it was a moonless night, and it was dark, a few people heard the scream, ran out, and saw the mayor running away. When they looked over the bridge and into the water, it was too late. Bessie was dead. She’d hit her head on a rock. Blood pooled in the water, and the white dress billowed about her. On moonless nights, they say you can see her walking up the street, in her bloody white dress, wailing. And so the story went. But after the whole debacle with Paige’s husband there was renewed interest in our town’s ghosts and the real tale came out. It turns out the mayor and Bessie were really in love. When she found out she was pregnant with his child, she was terrified of what her father would do. She and the mayor planned for her to escape her father’s house as soon as her father fell asleep, so they could get married at the judge’s house and her father would no longer have rights over her. But Bessie’s dad caught wind of it and was waiting for them at the bridge where they were to meet. What happened next was the mayor’s word against her father’s, but nobody was ever brought to justice over Bessie White’s murder.”
Part of Matt wanted to know the rest of the story, like what each man said happened on the bridge that night. But a greater part of him wanted to forget he’d ever heard any part of it. When he’d purchased the cottage, buying a “haunted house” had felt like fun. He hadn’t known a woman had been abused in it. Nothing would have made him buy the house had he known that.