Blue Dahlia

The man could cook. With little help from Stella, Logan put together a meal of delicately grilled tuna, herbed-up brown rice, and chunks of sauteed peppers and mushrooms. He was the sort of cook who dashed and dumped ingredients in by eye, or impulse, and seemed to enjoy it.



The results were marvelous.



She was an adequate cook, a competent one. She measured everything and considered cooking just one of her daily chores.



It was probably a good analogy for who they were, she decided. And another reason why it made little sense for her to be eating in his kitchen or being naked in his bed.



The sex had been ... incredible. No point in being less than honest about it. And after good, healthy sex she should've been feeling relaxed and loose and comfortable. Instead she felt tense and tight and awkward.



It had been so intense, then he'd just rolled out of bed and started dinner. They might just as easily have finished a rousing match of tennis.



Except he'd kissed her fingers, and that sweet, affectionate gesture had arrowed straight to her heart.



Her problem, her problem, she reminded herself. Over-analyzing, over-compensating, over-something. But if she didn't analyze something how did she know what it was?



"Dinner okay?"



She broke out of her internal debate to see him watching her steadily, with those strong jungle-cat eyes. "It's terrific."



"You're not eating much."



Deliberately she forked off more tuna. "I've never understood people who cook like you, like they do on some of the cooking shows. Tossing things together, shaking a little of this in, pinches of that. How do you know it's right?"



If that was really what she'd been thinking about with her mouth in that sexy sulk, he'd go outside and eat a shovelful of mulch. "I don't know. It usually is, or different enough to be right some other way."



Maybe he couldn't get inside her head, but he had to figure whatever was in there had to do with sex, or the ramifications of having it. But they'd play it her way for the moment. "If I'm going to cook, and since I don't want to spend every night in a restaurant, I'm going to cook, I want to enjoy it. If I regimented it, it'd start to piss me off."



"If I don't regiment it to some extent, I get nervous. Is it going to be too bland, or overly spiced? Overcooked, underdone? I'd be a wreck by the time I had a meal on the table." Worry flickered over her face. "I don't belong here, do I?"



"Define here."



"Here, here." She gestured wide with both arms. "With you, eating this really lovely and inventive meal, in your beautifully designed kitchen in your strangely charming and neglected house after relieving some sort of sexual insanity upstairs in your I'm-a-man-and-I-know-it bedroom."



He sat back and decided to clear the buzz from his head with a long drink of wine. He'd figured her right, he decided, but he just never seemed to figure her enough. "I've never heard that definition of here before. Must come from up north."



"You know what I mean," she fired back. "This isn't... It isn't - "



"Efficient? Tidy? Organized?"



"Don't take that placating tone with me."



"That wasn't my placating tone, it was my exasperated tone. What's your problem, Red?"



"You confuse me."



"Oh." He shrugged a shoulder. "If that's all." And went back to his meal.



"Do you think that's funny?"



"No, but I think I'm hungry, and that I can't do a hell of. a lot about the fact that you're confused. Could be I don't mind all that much confusing you, anyway, since otherwise you'd start lining things up in alphabetical order."



Those bluebell eyes went to slits. "A, you're arrogant and annoying. B, you're bossy and bullheaded. C - "



"C, you're contrary and constricting, but that doesn't bother me the way it once did. I think we've got something interesting between us. Neither one of us was looking for it, but I can roll with that. You pick it apart. Hell if I know why I'm starting to like that about you."



"I've got more to risk than you do."



He sobered. "I'm not going to hurt your kids."



"If I believed you were the sort of man who would, or could, I wouldn't be with you on this level."



"What's this level'?"



"Evening sex and kitchen dinners."



"You seemed to handle the sex better than the meal."



"You're exactly right. Because I don't know what you expect from me now, and I'm not entirely sure what I expect from you."



"And this is your equivalent of tossing ingredients in a pot."



She huffed out a breath. "Apparently you understand me better than I do you."



"I'm not that complicated."



"Oh, please. You're a maze, Logan." She leaned forward until she could see the gold flecks on the green of his eyes. "A goddamn maze without any geometric pattern. Professionally, you're one of the most creative, versatile, and knowledgeable landscape designers I've ever worked with, but you do half of your designing and scheduling on the fly, with little scraps of papers stuffed into your truck or your pockets."



He scooped up more rice. "It works for me."



"Apparently, but it shouldn't work for anyone. You thrive in chaos, which this house clearly illustrates. Nobody should thrive in chaos."



"Now wait a minute." This time he gestured with his fork. "Where's the chaos? There's barely a frigging thing in the place."



"Exactly!" She jabbed a finger at him. "You've got a wonderful kitchen, a comfortable and stylish bedroom - "



"Stylish?" Mortification, clear as glass, covered his face. "Jesus."



"And empty rooms. You should be tearing your hair out wondering what you're going to do with them, but you're not. You just - just - " She waved her hand in circles. "Mosey along."



"I've never moseyed in my life. Amble sometimes," he decided. "But I never mosey."



"Whatever. You know wine and you read comic books. What kind of sense does that make?"



"Makes plenty if you consider I like wine and comic books."



"You were married, and apparently committed enough to move away from your home."



"What's the-damn point in getting married if you're not ready and willing to do what makes the other person happy? Or at least try."



"You loved her," Stella said with a nod. "Yet you walked away from a divorce unscarred. It was broken, too bad, so you ended it. You're rude and abrupt one minute, and accommodating the next. You knew why I'd come here tonight, yet you went to the trouble to fix a meal - which was considerate and, and civilized - there, put that in the C column."



"Christ, Red, you kill me. I'd move on to D, and say you're delicious, but right now it's more like demented."



Despite the fact he was laughing, she was wound up and couldn't stop. "And we have incredible, blow-the-damn-roof-off sex, then you bounce out of bed as if we'd been doing this every night for years. I can't keep up."



Once he decided she'd finished, he picked up his wine, drank thoughtfully. "Let's see if I can work my way back through that. Though I've got to tell you, I didn't detect any geometric pattern."



"Oh, shut up."



His hand clamped over hers before she could shove back from the table. "No, you just sit still. It's my turn. If I didn't work the way I do? I wouldn't be able to do what I do, and I sure as hell wouldn't love it. I found that out up north. My marriage was a failure. Nobody likes to fail, but nobody gets through life without screwing up. We screwed it up, didn't hurt anybody but ourselves. We took our lumps and moved on."



"But - "



"Hush. If I'm rude and abrupt it's because I feel rude and abrupt. If I'm accommodating, it's because I want to be, or figure I have to be at some point."



He thought, What the hell, and topped off his wine. She'd barely touched hers. "What was next? Oh, yeah, you being here tonight. Yeah, I knew why. We're not teenagers, and you're a pretty straightforward woman, in your way. I wanted you, and made that clear. You wouldn't come knocking on my door unless you were ready. As for the meal, there are a couple of reasons for that. One, I like to eat. And two, I wanted you here. I wanted to be with you here, like this. Before, after, in between. However it worked out."



Somewhere, somehow, during his discourse, her temper had ebbed. "How do you make it all sound sane?"



"I'm not done. While I'm going to agree with your take on the sex, I object to the word 'bounce.' I don't bounce anymore than I mosey. I got out of bed because if I'd breathed you in much longer, I'd have asked you to stay. You can't, you won't. And the fact is, I don't know that I'm ready for you to stay anyway. If you're the sort who needs a lot of postcoital chat, like 'Baby, that was amazing' - "



"I'm not." There was something in his aggravated tone that made her lips twitch. "I can judge for myself, and I destroyed you up there."



His hand slid up to her wrist, back down to her fingers. "Any destruction was mutual."



"All right. Mutual destruction. The first time with a man, and I think this holds true for most women, is as nerve-racking as it is exciting. It's more so afterward if what happened between them touched something in her. You touched something in me, and it scares me."



"Straightforward," he commented.



"Straightforward, to your maze. It's a difficult combination. Gives us a lot to think about. I'm sorry I made an issue out of all of this."



"Red, you were born to make issues out of every damn thing. It's kind of interesting now that I'm getting used to it."



"That may be true, and I could say that the fact your drummer certainly bangs a different tune's fairly interesting, too. But right now, I'm going to help you clean up your kitchen. Then I have to get home."



He rose when she did, then simply took her shoulders and backed her into the refrigerator. He kissed her blind and deaf - pent-up temper, needs, frustration, longings all boiled together.



"Something else to think about," he said.



"I'll say."                



* * *



Roz didn't pry into other people's business. She didn't mind hearing about it when gossip came her way, but she didn't pry. She didn't like - more she didn't permit - others to meddle in her life, and afforded them the same courtesy.



So she didn't ask Stella any questions. She thought of plenty, but she didn't ask them.



She observed.



Her manager conducted business with her usual calm efficiency. Roz imagined Stella could be standing in the whirling funnel of a tornado and would still be able to conduct business efficiently.



An admirable and somewhat terrifying trait.



She'd grown very fond of Stella, and she'd come -  unquestionably - to depend on her to handle the details of the business so she herself could focus on the duties, and pleasures, of being the grower. She adored the children. It was impossible for her not to. They were charming and bright, sly and noisy, entertaining and exhausting.



Already, she was so used to them, and Stella and Hayley, being in her house she could hardly imagine them not being there.



But she didn't pry, even when Stella came home from her evening at Logan's with the unmistakable look of a woman who'd been well pleasured.



But she didn't hush Hayley, or brush her aside when the girl chattered about it.



"She won't get specific," Hayley complained while she and Roz weeded a bed at Harper House. "I really like it when people get specific. But she said he cooked for her. I always figure when a man cooks, he's either trying to get you between the sheets, or he's stuck on you."



"Maybe he's just hungry."



"A man's hungry, he sends out for pizza. At least the guys I've known. I think he's stuck on her." She waited, the pause obviously designed for Roz to comment. When there was none, Hayley blew out a breath. "Well? You've known him a long time."



"A few years. I can't tell you what's in his mind. But I can tell you he's never cooked for me."



"Was his wife a real bitch?"



"I couldn't say. I didn't know her."



"I'd like it if she was. A real stone bitch who tore him apart and left him all wounded and resentful of women. Then Stella comes along and gets him all messed up in the head even as she heals him."



Roz sat back on her heels and smiled. "You're awfully young, honey."



"You don't have to be young to like romance. Um ... your second husband, he was terrible, wasn't he?"



"He was - is - a liar, a cheat, and a thief. Other than that he's charming."



"Did he break your heart?"



"No. He bruised my pride and pissed me off. Which was worse, in my opinion. That's yesterday's news, Hayley. I'm going to plug some silene armeria in these pockets," she continued. 'They've got a long blooming season, and they'll fill in nice here."



"I'm sorry."



"No need to be sorry."



"It's just that this woman was in this morning, Mrs. Peebles?"



"Oh, yes, Roseanne." After studying the space, Roz picked up her trowel and began to turn the earth in the front of the mixed bed. "Did she actually buy anything?"



"She dithered around for an hour, said she'd come back."



"Typical. What did she want? It wouldn't have been plants."



"I clued in there. She's the nosy sort, and not the kind with what you'd call a benign curiosity. Just comes in for gossip - to spread it or to harvest it. You see her kind most everywhere."



"I suppose you do."



"So, well. She'd gotten word I was living here, and was a family connection, so she was pumping me. I don't pump so easy, but I let her keep at it."



Roz grinned under the brim of her cap as she reached for a plant. "Good for you."



"I figured what she really wanted was for me to pass on to you the news that Bryce Clerk is back in Memphis."



A jerk of her fingers broke off part of the stem. "Is he?" Roz said, very quietly.



"He's living at the Peabody for now and has some sort of venture in the works. She was vague about that. She says he plans to move back permanent, and he's taking office space. Said he looked very prosperous."



"Likely he hosed some other brainless woman."



"You aren't brainless, Roz."



"I was, briefly. Well, it's no matter to me where he is or what he's doing. I don't get burned twice by the same crooked match."



She set the plant, then reached for another. "Common name for these is none-so-pretty. Feel these sticky patches on the stems? They catch flies. Shows that something that looks attractive can be dangerous, or at least a big pain in the ass."



* * *



She buried it as she cleaned up. She wasn't con-cerned with a scoundrel she'd once been foolish enough to marry. A woman was entitled to a few mistakes along the way, even if she made them out of loneliness or foolishness, or - screw it - vanity.



Entitled, Roz thought, as long as she corrected the mistakes and didn't repeat them.



She put on a fresh shirt, skimmed her fingers through her damp hair as she studied herself in the mirror. She could still look good, damn good, if she worked at it. If she wanted a man, she could have one - and not because he assumed she was dim-witted and had a depthless well of money to draw from. Maybe what had happened with Bryce had shaken her confidence and self-esteem for a little while, but she was all right now. Better than all right.



She hadn't needed a man to fill in the pockets of her life before he'd come along. She didn't need one now. Things were back the way she liked them. Her kids were happy and productive, her business was thriving, her home was secure. She had friends she enjoyed and acquaintances she tolerated.



And right now, she had the added interest of researching her family ghost.



Giving her hair another quick rub, she went downstairs to join the rest of the crew in the library. She heard the knock as she came to the base of the stairs, and detoured to the door.



"Logan, what a nice surprise."



"Hayley didn't tell you I was coming?"



"No, but that doesn't matter. Come on in."



"I ran into her at the nursery today, and she asked if I'd come by tonight, give y'all a hand with your research and brainstorming. I had a hard time resisting the idea of being a ghostbuster."



"I see." And she did. "I'd best warn you that our Hayley's got a romantic bent and she currently sees you as Rochester to Stella's Jane Eyre."



"Oh. Uh-oh."



She only smiled. "Jane's still with the boys, getting them settled down for the night. Why don't you go on up to the West wing? Just follow the noise. You can let her know we'll entertain ourselves until she comes down."



She walked away before he could agree or protest.



She didn't pry into other people's business. But that didn't mean she didn't sow the occasional seeds.



Logan stood where he was for a moment, tapping his fingers on the side of his leg. He was still tapping them as he started up the stairs.



Roz was right about the noise. He heard the laughter and squeals, the stomping feet before he'd hit the top. Following it, he strolled down the hall, then paused in the open doorway.



It was obviously a room occupied by boys. And though it was certainly tidier than his had been at those tender ages, it wasn't static or regimented. A few toys were scattered on the floor, books and other debris littered the desk and shelves. It smelled of soap, shampoo, wild youth, and crayons.



In the midst of it, Stella sat on the floor, mercilessly tickling a pajama-clad Gavin while a blissfully naked Luke scrambled around the room making crazed hooting sounds through his cupped hands.



"What's my name?" Stella demanded as she sent her oldest son into helpless giggles.



"Mom!"



She made a harsh buzzing sound and dug fingers into his ribs. 'Try again, small, helpless boy child. What is my name?"



"Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom!" He tried to wiggle away and was flipped over.



"I can't hear you."



"Empress," he managed on hitching giggles.



"And? The rest, give it all or the torment continues."



"Empress Magnificent of the Entire Universe!"



"And don't you forget it." She gave him a loud, smacking kiss on his cotton-clad butt, and sat back.



"And now you, short, frog-faced creature." She got to her feet, rubbing her hands together as Luke screamed in delight.



And stumbled back with a scream of her own when she saw Logan in the doorway. "Oh, my God! You scared me to death!"



"Sorry, just watching the show. Your Highness. Hey, kid." He nodded at Gavin, who lay on the floor. "How's it going?"



"She defeated me. Now I have to go to bed, 'cause that's the law of the land."



"I've heard that." He picked up the bottom half of a pair of X-Men pj's, lifted an eyebrow at Luke. "These your mom's?"



Luke let out a rolling gut laugh, and danced, happy with his naked state. "Uh-uh. They're mine. I don't have to wear them unless she catches me."



Luke started to make a break for the adjoining bath and was scooped up, one-armed, by his mother.



Stronger than she looks, Logan mused as she hoisted her son over her head.



"Foolish boy, you'll never escape me." She lowered him. "Into the pj's, and into bed." She glanced over at Logan. "Is there something ..."



"I got invited to the ... get-together downstairs."



"Is it a party?" Luke wanted to know when Logan handed him the pajama bottoms. "Are there cookies?"



"It's a meeting, a grown-up meeting, and if there are cookies," Stella said as she turned down Luke's bed, "you can have some tomorrow."



"David makes really good cookies," Gavin commented. "Better than Mom's."



"If that wasn't true, I'd have to punish you severely." She turned to his bed, where he sat grinning at her, and using the heel of her hand shoved him gently onto his back.



"But you're prettier than he is."



"Clever boy. Logan, could you tell everyone I'll be down shortly? We're just going to read for a bit first."



"Can he read?" Gavin asked.



"I can. What's the book?"



'Tonight we get Captain Underpants." Luke grabbed the book and hurried over to shove it into Logan's hands.



"So is he a superhero?"



Luke's eyes widened like saucers. "You don't know about Captain Underpants?"



"Can't say I do." He turned the book over in his hands, but he was looking at the boy. He'd never read to kids before. It might be entertaining. "Maybe I should read it, then I can find out. If that suits the Empress."



"Oh, well, I - "



"Please, Mom! Please!"



At the chorus on either side of her, Stella eased back with the oddest feeling in her gut. "Sure. I'll just go straighten up the bath."



She left them to it, mopping up the wet, gathering bath toys, while Logan's voice, deep and touched with ironic amusement, carried to her.



She hung damp towels, dumped bath toys into a plastic net to dry, fussed. And she felt the chill roll in around her. A hard, needling cold that speared straight to her bones.



Her creams and lotions tumbled over the counter as if an angry hand swept them. The thuds and rattles sent her springing forward to grab at them before they fell to the floor.



And each one was like a cube of ice in her hand.



She'd seen them move. Good God, she'd seen them move.



Shoving them back, she swung instinctively to the connecting doorway to shield her sons from the chill, from the fury she felt slapping the air.



There was Logan, with the chair pulled between the beds, as she did herself, reading about the silly adventures of Captain Underpants in that slow, easy voice, while her boys lay tucked in and drifting off.



She stood there, blocking that cold, letting it beat against her back until he finished, until he looked up at her.



"Thanks." She was amazed at how calm her voice sounded. "Boys, say good night to Mr. Kitridge."



She moved into the room as they mumbled it. When the cold didn't follow her, she took the book, managed a smile. "I'll be down in just a minute."



"Okay. See you later, men."



The interlude left him feeling mellow and relaxed. Reading bedtime stories was a kick. Who knew? Captain Underpants. Didn't that beat all.



He wouldn't mind doing it again sometime, especially if he could talk Mama into letting them read a graphic novel.



He'd liked seeing her wrestling on the floor with her boy. Empress Magnificent, he thought with a half laugh.



Then the breath was knocked out of him. The force of the cold came like a tidal wave at his back, swamping him even as it shoved him forward.



He pitched at the top of the stairs, felt his head go light at the thought of the fall. Flailing out, he managed to grab the rail and, spinning his body, hook his other hand over it while tiny black dots swam in front of his eyes. For another instant he feared he would simply tumble over the railing, pushed by the momentum.



Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shape, vague but female. And from it he felt a raw and bitter rage.



Then it was gone.



He could hear his own breath heaving in and out, and feel the clamminess of panic sweat down his back. Though his legs wanted to fold on him, he stayed where he was, working to steady himself until Stella came out.



Her half smile faded the minute she saw him. "What is it?" She moved to him quickly. "What happened?"



"She - this ghost of yours - has she ever scared the boys?"



"No. Exactly the opposite. She's ... comforting, even protective of them."



"All right. Let's go downstairs." He took her hand firmly in his, prepared to drag her to safety if necessary.



"Your hand's cold."



"Yeah, tell me about it."



"You tell me."



"I intend to."



* * *



He told them all when they sat around the library table with their folders and books and notes. And he dumped a good shot of brandy in his coffee as he did.



"There's been nothing," Roz began, "in all the years she's been part of this house, that indicates she's a threat. People have been frightened or uneasy, but no one's ever been physically attacked."



"Can ghosts physically attack?" David wondered.



"You wouldn't ask if you'd been standing at the top of the stairs with me."



"Poltergeists can cause stuff to fly around," Hayley commented. "But they usually manifest around adolescent kids. Something about puberty can set them off. Anyway, this isn't that. It might be that an ancestor of Logan's did something to her. So she's paying him back."



"I've been in this house dozens of times. She's never bothered with me before."



"The children." Stella spoke softly as she looked over her own notes. "It centers on them. She's drawn to children, especially little boys. She's protective of them. And she almost, you could say, envies me for having them, but not in an angry way. More sad. But she was angry the night I was going out to dinner with Logan."



"Putting a man ahead of your kids." Roz held up a hand. "I'm not saying that's what I think. We have to think like she does. We talked about this before, Stella, and I've been thinking back on it. The only times I remember feeling anything angry from her was when I went out with men now and again, when my boys were coming up. But I didn't experience anything as direct or upsetting as this. But then, there was nothing to it. I never had any strong feelings for any of them."



"I don't see how she could know what I feel or think."



But the dreams, Stella thought. She's been in my dreams.



"Let's not get irrational now," David interrupted. "Let's follow this line through. Let's say she believes things are serious, or heading that way, between you and Logan. She doesn't like it, that's clear enough. The only people who've felt threatened, or been threatened are the two of you. Why? Does it make her angry? Or is she jealous?"



"A jealous ghost." Hayley drummed her hands on the table. "Oh, that's good. It's like she sympathizes, relates to you being a woman, a single woman, with kids. She'll help you look after them, even sort of look after you. But then you put a man in the picture, and she's all bitchy about it. She's like, you're not supposed to have a nice, standard family - mom, dad, kids - because I didn't."



"Logan and I hardly ... All he did was read them a story."



"The sort of thing a father might do," Roz pointed out.



"I... well, when he was reading to them, I was putting the bathroom back in shape. And she was there. I felt her. Then, well, my things. The things I keep on the counter started to jump, jumped."



"Holy shit," Hayley responded.



"I went to the door, and in the boy's room, everything was calm, normal. I could feel the warmth on the front of me, and this, this raging cold against my back. She didn't want to frighten them. Only me."



But buying a baby monitor went on her list. From now on, she wanted to hear everything that went on in that room when her boys were up there without her.



"This is a good angle, Stella, and you're smart enough to know we should follow it." Roz laid her hands on the library table. "Nothing we've turned up indicates this spirit is one of the Harper women, as has been assumed all these years. Yet someone knew her, knew her when she was alive, knew that she died. So was it hushed up, ignored? Either way, it might explain her being here. If it was hushed up or ignored, it seems most logical she was a servant, a mistress, or a lover."



"I bet she had a child." Hayley laid a hand over her own. "Maybe she died giving birth to it, or had to give it up, and died from a broken heart. It would have been one of the Harper men who got her into trouble, don't you think? Why would she stay here if it wasn't because she lived here or - "



"Died here," Stella finished. "Reginald Harper was head of the house during the period when we think she died. Roz, how the hell do we go about finding out if he had a mistress, a lover, or an illegitimate child?"