Maybe it was telling the story of the cheerleader quilt, or maybe it was the stormy night full of dark shadows and eerie sounds, but Jillian felt a haunting in the air. As if something unseen walked the earth tonight.
Something far more real than Mrs. Kelly’s shy ghost.
She ran from Connor’s truck to the porch, not giving him time to open his door or reach for an umbrella to shelter her.
Stick-armed trees swiped at her from the bushes, and she swore she could hear a hungry animal howling in the wind.
She had heard Connor call, “Wait.” But she didn’t stop. Panic blended with memories of childhood nightmares, dark and thick in her mind.
Her dad used to leave her in the trailer on weekend nights, when his oil field work was done. He’d told her bad things run around after dark so she’d best stay inside. She had no phone, no one to turn to if she got scared.
On those nights when she was alone in a town where she had no neighbor to trust, she’d curl up trying to get warm and cry as the wind rocked the trailer and what sounded like wild animals cried in the blackness beyond the flimsy windows that rattled like paper. Sometimes she swore the trees scratched at the roof, but she’d been too frightened to even pull back the covers and look.
Shivering, Jillian opened the unlocked bed-and-breakfast door. Only tiny desk-lamp lights welcomed her. One in the foyer, one on each landing of the stairs, one on a table just outside her bedroom door.
Mrs. Kelly had left early for a wedding in Dallas and wouldn’t be back until very late. “There are no other guests tonight,” she’d said. “Make yourself comfortable in the place.”
The old house creaked. Wooden arthritis accompanied by the ting on crystal chandeliers calling out to the slightest movement. No cookies waited for her on the parlor table tonight. No low warm fire in the old Rookwood tiled fireplace.
Trying to shake the feeling of being totally alone, Jillian ran up the stairs to her room and curled under the covers. She wouldn’t cry. She’d made that mistake a few times before when she was afraid as a child. When her father caught her, he’d sworn and said, “If I hear one more sound out of you, I’ll give you something to cry about. You’re born alone and you’ll die alone, kid, so you might as well get used to it.”
He was rarely cruel, but one night he’d been drinking when he returned home and found her afraid. He’d slapped her hard and told her to stop being a fool like her mother had been. Then he’d walked out, mumbling something about a promise he’d keep if it killed him.
She’d cried in the shower after that night, or in the school restrooms, or sometimes when she walked home. But she never cried where he could hear her again.
Once she grew up, she always picked busy apartment houses to rent. She might still be alone, but she was among the herd. Safety in numbers.
Jillian heard the hard tap of half-frozen raindrops on the bay windows of her little room. She tried to slow her breathing and calm the child inside her who had never quite gotten over stormy nights. Reason never worked when fear climbed into her heart. She’d simply hide, and wait until exhaustion let her sleep. In the morning, like her father had, she’d call herself a fool, a coward. But for now, all she could do was withdraw into her covers.
“Jillian,” the storm seemed to call.
She pulled a pillow tightly over her head.
“Jillian?” The voice was gentle, but growing louder.
She stilled. It wasn’t the wind. And she knew it wasn’t her father. Tentatively, she pulled the pillow away.
Connor Larady stood at her open door. Slowly, he walked closer until he reached her bed and looked down at her with worry in his eyes. “Are you all right?” His hair was wet and his jacket shiny from rain. “I’m sorry to barge in, but you looked terrified when I saw you in a flash of lightning, then you ran so fast I couldn’t catch up to you.”
Part of her wanted to sit up straight and act like the woman she was, confident, brave, used to being alone. But tonight wasn’t her bravest hour. All the nights of fear piled up, making her unable to move. “No,” she said simply as she glared at him, knowing there was nothing he could do about it. “I’m not all right.”
Shakespeare was right. A coward dies a thousand times before his death.
He’d think less of her now. Maybe he wouldn’t and be her friend; after all, she wasn’t being rational.
To her surprise, Connor knelt beside her bed and his big cold hands cupped her face. “Are you ill?”
She shook her head without answer. She wasn’t about to tell him she was afraid.
Lightning rattled the windows and she jerked as if bracing for thunder’s blow. Maybe he wouldn’t look so calm now if he’d lived through Alaskan winters in a tin box on wheels. If he’d been left alone with no one to run to. If he’d been slapped when he’d cried out in fear.
He seemed to study her a moment, then said calmly, “I think I understand.” Without another word he bundled her into the blankets and lifted her up. He carried her to the third-floor hallway. There wasn’t much room, but he set her down on the top step, then turned and closed the door leading to her room that now seemed to showcase the storm in the wide windows.
When he sat down beside her, he leaned his back against the stairs’ sturdy mahogany balusters and pulled her against his chest.
Jillian had no idea what was going on, but suddenly the world calmed. The storm seemed far away and the blasts of lightning had been replaced by the low glow of a Tiffany-style lamp on the tiny table near her room’s door.
Her breathing slowed; she warmed in the cocoon he’d made her.
“Better?” he whispered.
“Better,” she answered.
As the storm pounded on the roof above, he simply held her. He asked no more questions. He didn’t try to explain away her fear. His arm sheltered her, keeping the terror at bay, until finally the storm played out like a misbehaving child going from manic to exhausted.
When she straightened and pushed away on his chest, Connor didn’t try to stop her. “You okay?” he asked.
“I am. Thank you.” Standing, she felt like she carried ten pounds of royal robes about her. “I should put these back on the bed,” she said, just to have something to say other than she was sorry for being a basket case.
Only, he didn’t look like he thought her a fool.
He stood but made no attempt to follow as she walked back into her bedroom. A few stars were breaking through the brooding sky. The rain had turned to tiny patters on the windows.
Covers back on the bed, she turned and faced him. For a few heartbeats neither said a word. They just stood staring at each other in the low glow of the hallway light.
She couldn’t simply say good-night and close the door. Not after what he’d done. He’d followed her through the rain to make sure she was all right, and when she wasn’t, he’d known how to help.
For the first time in her life, someone had ridden out the storm with her. Not telling her she was silly or giving a lecture on weather, but simply holding her.
“You want some coffee? Mrs. Kelly said I could have the use of the kitchen if I clean up after myself.”
“No, thanks. I...”
She watched as he stared at her as if he had no idea how to finish the sentence.
Finally his brain kick-started again. “I’d rather have that cocoa you made the night I came in for cookies.”
He smiled slightly and she swore he looked ten years younger.
She removed her wet jacket and looped it over the banister. Her shirt was damp and clung to her, but it would dry quickly.
As she passed him she whispered, “Let’s break into Mrs. Kelly’s cookie jar.”
“I’m right behind you, Sundance, but I’m telling you right now, I’m not wearing one of her aprons.”
A few minutes later they were laughing at the apron lying out on the counter, ready for tomorrow morning. It read I’m fully aware your advice isn’t in my recipe, but keep talking if it makes you happy.
Jillian made the cocoa while he ripped off paper towels to serve as plates. Then they slowly opened the huge cookie jar made in the shape of an apple.
Connor looked in and announced, “We can probably steal three each before she notices. No more or we’ll be caught. They hang cookie thieves in these parts, Sundance.”
“I’m willing to risk it, Butch.” She giggled, glad that she remembered the old movie with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. A classic.
They sat across from each other at the tiny kitchen bar, arguing over which cookie was the best. Tiny tea cookies, thin lemon-sugar bars, double-dipped chocolate fudge, oatmeal cookies with applesauce mixed in.
He kept wanting to taste hers, just to be sure his was the winner.
“If Mrs. Kelly corners us,” Jillian whispered, as if forming a plot to escape, “we claim the ghost did it.”
Connor nodded. “So she’s still swearing this place is haunted. I’m surprised she doesn’t put it up on the internet. I can see the headline: Share a Bed with Long-Dead Willie Flancher.”
Jillian pointed her cookie at him. “You don’t believe in ghosts?”
“No, I’ve got enough things haunting me. Bad grades. Bad decisions. Half my weekends in college and pretty much all the ones in high school. How about you? What haunts you from the past?”
“I have no regrets.” She lied and knew from the slight rise of his eyebrow that he didn’t believe her.
“Someday,” he said as if they had all the time in the world, “maybe you’ll think of one and tell me.”
“Maybe,” she answered, relieved he didn’t push. “But now’s a nice time to tell me about old Willie.”
“I don’t know much. My dad did a feature on him once for the paper. Willie fought for Texas independence in 1836. Outlived four wives and died at eighty-three on his fifth wedding night.”
“Just proves sex will kill you.”
They both laughed and she decided she liked Connor. He’d be a steady friend to have for a few months.
“Strange thing about Willie,” Connor added. “He didn’t show up at the bed-and-breakfast until about ten years ago. Mrs. Kelly started mentioning Willie to folks about a year after Mr. Kelly ran off with the young organist at the Methodist church. I always thought the ghost arrival might be her way of having a man in the old house.”
“Maybe Mrs. Kelly killed Mr. Kelly and just made up the ghost?”
Connor shook his head. “She may have made up the ghost, but she didn’t kill Mr. Kelly. He married the organist and they live in Tyler. Have four kids, which must be hard on him since he’s a few years older than Mrs. Kelly. He’ll be well into his sixties before they all get out of grade school.”
Jillian leaned her head sideways. “And you know all this how?”
Connor laughed. “Mrs. K keeps up with them, even sends them Christmas gifts. She has no hard feelings. Says she’d rather live with a ghost than old snoring Sam Kelly.”
Jillian laughed so hard her sides hurt.
The rain was now only a dribble off the roof, almost forgotten, as she talked to this kind man trying so hard to make her smile. In a big city, with a tailored suit on and his hair styled, Connor Larady would have a powerful presence. But here in his wrinkled, damp, elbow-patched jacket, with his hair looking windblown even on a calm day, Jillian thought he was irresistible.
A dozen cookies and two mugs of cocoa later, when he stood to leave, he seemed to be studying her. “Strange that you’re afraid of storms when your eyes are the color of rainy nights.”
“I’m not normally so easy to upset. I’m usually more prepared for them. Watching the weather is part of my everyday routine, and this one wasn’t predicted to come in before midnight.” She was rattled and realized she didn’t want him to leave just yet. “I like to be around people when any kind of storm hits. I’ve waited out many blustery nights in hotel bars or in rooms with blackout curtains so I couldn’t see lightning. Once I spent the night in an airport before driving home so the bad weather couldn’t get to me.”
“You all right now?”
“I’m fine.” She shrugged. “Storms are my Achilles’ heel. The raging winds always make me think of wolves the size of horses fighting at the door to get in.” She turned away, not wanting him to think less of her but knowing she had to thank him. “You helped me tonight. No one’s ever done that before.”
“I’m glad I was here. Call on me anytime to fight your storms.”
She couldn’t look up. How could she say that the next time he wouldn’t be around? He was grounded, bolted to this land, and she was a tumbleweed blowing across ever-changing terrain. When she was caught by a storm again, she’d hide as always. She’d be alone.
“Are we all right?” He finally broke the silence. “I didn’t step out of line, did I?”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand what he meant. “We’re better than all right. I think we’ve become friends.”
Now, he looked away, reaching for his jacket, all at once in a hurry as if she’d said something wrong.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said too quickly.
She’d never known one word could sound so hollow. “What?” Somehow she’d offended him.
“It’s nothing, really. I just wish for once...” He moved to the kitchen door. “Never mind. Friends is fine. Friends is good. Friends is probably predictable.”
She crossed to block the doorway, guessing how he felt. He wasn’t the kind of man to make a pass or ever suggest something between them, but his thoughts were pounding in the silence so loud she swore she could hear the beat.
All the times she’d seen him standing at the big window looking out at Main. Always alone. The days she’d noticed him walking down by the creek all by himself. One of the quilters had even asked Gram once why he never dated after his wife died.
She took a guess at reading his thoughts now. “You wish for one moment, one hour maybe, we could be more than just casual friends without all the complications that come with stepping into a relationship?”
He met her eyes and she knew she was right. She grew bolder. “Maybe both our lives are rolling in a storm, and we just need someone to hold on to for a moment.”
“Yeah. I’d settle for six minutes,” he admitted as his body seemed to relax a bit. “I don’t know if I could handle much more, not all at once. My life is far too confusing to invite someone in to stay longer. But it would be nice to shelter in one place for a few minutes.”
“I feel the same.” She studied him, this complicated man who took the entire town’s problems on his shoulders. She stepped closer and smiled. “We’re already criminals, Butch, so why don’t we steal a little time? Six minutes, ten, and then never speak of it again. It’ll be like we saw the trailer, but never watched the movie.”
Taking his hand, Jillian tugged him into the old parlor with its turn-of-the-century Victorian furniture and pattern rugs.
Sitting on the small couch, she pulled him down beside her. She’d been so brave with this crazy suggestion, but where should they start? Maybe she was all talk and no action. Maybe he was, too. If so, there would never be even a spark of fire between them.
Neither relaxed. They seemed as stiff as the furniture. Finally, he stood and turned on a ribbon of gas in the fireplace. When he placed a few logs on the rack, the fire came alive.
Returning, he gently pulled her to her feet. She was only a few inches shorter than him. Five foot ten to his six foot one.
The night outside was silent now, and the fire offered warmth. He laced his fingers in hers and shrugged. “I think you’ve got a great idea, but I don’t know where to start.”
She leaned closer. “We’re just sharing a hug, nothing more. No promises. Just two people holding on to one another after the storm. We’re just passing a moment in time.”
He put his hand on her waist and studied her face. “You’re very beautiful, you know. I almost didn’t hire you for Gram’s shop because I figured I’d walk across the street just to stare at you. When I first looked up and saw you, I wasn’t sure you were real.”
“Then touch me. I’m real, Connor.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere you like, but the talking is over. I just want to feel you closer, even if it only lasts six minutes.” For once in her life she wanted to keep a memory, nothing more, just one pure memory. Then she’d leave the rest of Laurel Springs behind.
“I think I’d like that.”
Like a bothersome bee, his cell phone buzzed. Once. Twice. Three times before either had the sense to move apart. He grabbed his cell as she closed her eyes, knowing their one moment was slipping away.
“Hello,” he said, his voice sounding almost normal.
“Wake up, Dad.” Jillian heard Sunnie’s voice shouting from the phone. “The movie’s over and I’m ready for you to come get me.”
Connor stepped farther away from Jillian, but it seemed as wide a gap as the Grand Canyon.
“I’ll be right there.” He clicked the phone off and reached for his coat. “I have to go.”
He froze, staring at her in the firelight. “I...”
Jillian could see his struggle and tried to help. “No strings. No promises. No worries. What almost happened, never happened. There is nothing to say.”
“Right.” He kept staring.
“Your daughter’s waiting.”
“Right,” he said again and jerked as if he’d been poked with a cattle prod.
He was gone before Jillian could ask if she should forget what almost happened or wait for another chance. He didn’t seem like a man who found himself alone with any woman, and the chances he’d be with her totally alone again were slight.
She couldn’t save an almost-memory. What almost happened, never happened.
She turned off the gas flames beneath the logs and walked back to the kitchen. She could still feel him near her as she cleaned up. They’d been outlaws stealing cookies for only a blink in time, but it made her smile.
“It’s Saturday,” she whispered to herself. She’d have a whole day tomorrow to think about what had almost happened. Then she’d put it away and try her best to forget him holding her during the storm.
The logs were glowing when she passed back through the parlor.
“Six minutes more might have been more than I could handle.” Her words echoed through the empty rooms. “If I allowed myself any more, one of us, maybe both, would walk away hurt.”
Only she hadn’t even gotten a chance to find out. Her words drifted in the still air, but no answer came.
“No regrets, though,” she called to the empty house, then waited to see if an answer echoed back.
When the ghost didn’t answer, she said, “I don’t want to know what you’re thinking, Mr. Willie Flancher. I don’t even have time for a ghost to haunt me.”
Laughing at herself, she wondered if crazy people settle in small towns or normal folks move there and are driven mad. In her case it appeared to be a fifty-fifty split.
As she climbed the stairs to her room, she decided it was time to make the drive to Oklahoma City. She was getting too involved with the people in this town. She needed to know that she could leave. She had to make sure she’d have everything in order.
The trip to Oklahoma City would put her mind to rest. The drive would give her time to think, to plan.
She’d deposit money in her account at the bank, then check her mailbox she’d paid rent on for years. She also needed to visit her secret stash and make sure her dad’s letter was still in the stacks at the library.
Surely someday he’d wonder how she was. Maybe he’d check his old hiding place. It had been the first place she’d looked at the end of her freshman year. Her papers were still there, along with five hundred dollars. Nothing of his remained.
But now, after ten years, maybe he’d checked on her. Maybe he’d left a note for her. One thread was all she wanted, all she needed.
Tomorrow she’d go check, then she’d take the rest of the day to think about how the moments she’d shared with Connor had felt before she put them away in the back of her mind.
Papa’s rule: Don’t pack memories. They’ll weigh you down.
She knew he was right. Tonight she’d almost collected a memory that would have been hard to leave behind. Now it was just a thought of what might have been. That was enough.