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Hope came back through with a man wearing what Ryder thought of as dad jeans—though his own had never worn them. He had a beer in each hand while Hope carried two glasses of red wine.
“Got yourself a walk-in, Hope.” The man grinned, all affability. “Better make up a cot.”
“Ryder. Ah, Bob Mackie, this is Ryder Montgomery. His family owns the inn.”
“Sure, sure, you told us about that.” Bob hooked the necks of the beer in the fingers of one hand, stuck out the other for an enthusiastic shake. “Pleased to meet you. You did a hell of a job here, hell of a job. My wife and I haven’t left yet, and we’re already talking about coming back.”
“Glad you like it.”
“The bathrooms alone,” Bob said with another grin. “And the history of the place. I love the old photos you’ve got back there. I’m into the Civil War. Connie and I spent the day at Antietam. Beautiful place. Just beautiful.”
“It is.”
“How ’bout a beer?”
“I was just—”
“Come on, a man’s always got time for a beer. You gotta meet Connie. And Mike and Deb, and Jake and Casey. They’re good people.” He thrust a beer into Ryder’s hand. “Say, we’re in Jane and Rochester. I bet that copper tub was a pain in the ass to get up there.”
He all but herded Ryder toward The Lounge like a border collie with a reluctant sheep.
Hope took a moment to compose herself. Ryder, not the most sociable of men in her experience, was about to be Civil War Bobbed.
HE TRIED TO get away. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the guy; Bob Mackie was as likeable as a puppy. He made an excuse, citing his dog in The Courtyard, but all that accomplished was the unified insistence he bring D.A. inside.
Where his dog was petted and made over like a visiting prince.
Mike, from Baltimore, wanted to talk carpentry. He ended up taking them all around, showing them some of the details, explaining how they’d been done, why, when. They had a million questions. Before he’d finished, four more people came back, and had a million more.
Hope didn’t help, not one damn bit. She just smiled, tidied up behind them, or worse, offered another avenue of discussion.
By the time he managed to get out, it was full dark, and his brain felt soft. Not from the beer; he’d been careful there. From the conversation.
He hadn’t gotten across The Courtyard when The Lobby door opened. He relaxed, a little, when he recognized the click of Hope’s heels.
“How do you do that?” he demanded. “All the time?”
“Do what?”
“Talk to total strangers.”
“I like it.”
“I worry about you.”
“They’re a very nice group, except for the ones who came in and went straight up to their room. You had a lucky break there. She’d have probably asked you to remodel something in the room on the spot. I call her The Pill—in my head.” She smiled, touched a hand to his arm. “You were very polite, even friendly. It has to be gratifying when people—total strangers—so admire your work.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to talk to them.”
She laughed. “You enjoyed Bob.”
“He’s okay. But next time I’ll know to steer clear when you’ve got a houseful. Tuesday, right? Nobody.”
“Just me. And Lizzy.”
“I can handle you and Lizzy,” he replied and pulled her in before she could evade.
In the moonlight, with the scent of roses. In the shadows of the inn with stars dazzling above. She wasn’t looking for romance, but when it dropped in your lap, what could you do?
She locked her arms around him and took it. The heat, the promise, the quiet splendor of the night.
She fit against him as if she’d been made to. And the scent of her mixed with the perfume of roses. A man could get drunk just on the scent of her.
Better not.
He drew away. “Tuesday. Do you want dinner or not?”
“We’ll order in.”
His grin flashed. “That works for me. Come on, Dumbass, let’s go home.”
She wouldn’t watch him cross the parking lot, she told herself. That was silly, and not at all what this—whatever this was—was about. But she did glance back once, just once, as she walked back to the inn.
She walked back in, to the voices, the energy, the peals of laughter. Smiling—a woman with a hot little secret—she went into the kitchen to make a plate of cookies for her guests.
CHAPTER NINE
THE SCREAM SHOT HER STRAIGHT UP IN BED AT TWO IN the morning. Dreaming? she wondered. Had she been—
The next scream sent Hope flying out of bed, rushing for the door. She grabbed her cell phone on the run and bolted into the hallway in her cotton shorts and sleep tank. Heart thudding, she charged downstairs and into considerable hysteria on the second floor.
The Pill loosed one glass-shattering scream after the next while her husband, wearing nothing but boxers, gripped her shoulders and shouted at her to stop. Leading with shouted questions, other guests poured out of rooms in various states of undress.
Calm, Hope ordered herself, someone had to be calm.
“What happened? What’s wrong? Mrs. Redman. Mrs. Redman. Lola, stop!”
Hope’s order cracked out, but she thought it carried less insult than a slap across the face. The woman sucked in her breath. Color flooded into her face.
“Don’t you speak to me in that tone.”
“I apologize. Are you hurt?”
The color died again, but at least she didn’t scream. “There’s someone—something—in that room. It—she—was standing right over the bed. She touched me!”
“Lola, nobody’s in there,” her husband began.
“I saw her. The door to the porch was open, wide open! She came in through the door.”
When everyone began talking at once, Hope raised her hands. “Just give me a minute, please.”
She opened the door to Elizabeth and Darcy, thinking, Damn it, Lizzy, and switched on the lights. She saw nothing out of place, but she could certainly smell honeysuckle. Mr. Redman came in behind her, with Jake Karlo at his heels. Jake’s wife held the door open, her eyes sharp as she tightened the belt of the inn robe she’d thrown on.
“There’s nobody in here,” Redman began, and checked both porch doors. “These are still locked from the inside.”
“Nothing in the bathroom,” Jake announced, then got down on all fours to peer under the bed. “All clear.”
“Bad dream, that’s all,” Redman said and scrubbed at his close-cropped gray hair. “She just had a bad dream. I’m sorry for the disturbance.”
“Please, Mr. Redman, don’t apologize.”
“Austin,” he said to Hope and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m standing here in my underwear. Make it Austin. Sorry about that, too.” With a sigh, he stepped over to take one of the robes from the hook in the bathroom.
“We’re all pretty casually dressed.” Jake stood in jeans so hastily yanked on he’d yet to fasten them. “Is there anything we can do?”
“I’m sure we’re fine now,” Hope told him, “but thank you.”
She stepped out to where Mrs. Redman remained in the hall, her arms crossed tight, hands hugging her elbows. She might have been a pill, but she was shivering, and obviously frightened.
“Austin, maybe your wife would like a robe.”
“I don’t care if there’s no one in there now.” Lola jutted up her chin, but it trembled. “I don’t care if you say the doors are locked. There was someone.”
“Lola.” With a patience Hope found admirable, Austin laid the robe over his wife’s shoulders. “You had a bad dream, that’s all. Just a bad dream.”
“I saw her. The door was open, and the light shone right through her. I’m not going back in that room. We’re leaving. We’re leaving now.”
“It’s two in the morning.” Twin edges of irritation and embarrassment jutted through the patience. “We’re not
leaving now.”
“Why don’t I go down and make you some tea?” Hope suggested.
“I’d appreciate that,” Austin said when his wife remained silent. “Thank you.”
“I’ll give you a hand.”
Jake’s wife—Casey, Hope remembered—fell into step beside her. “You don’t need to bother.”
“I don’t mind. I could use a drink myself. If I were you,” she continued, lowering her voice as they went down, “I’d add a solid jigger of that whiskey you have in The Library.”
Tempting, Hope thought. “I’ll suggest it.” Hope wound her way to the kitchen, put on the kettle. “What can I get you?”
“I can get it myself. She really put you through the paces tonight. You don’t have to say anything,” she added. “It’s just I know the type. I waitressed all through college.”
At home, Casey got an open bottle of wine from the refrigerator, took off the topper. “She’s the type who wants to adjust everything she orders, complains about the food, the service, the table, calculates a tip on the wrong side of insulting, and acts like she’s doing you a great big favor leaving that.”
As she spoke, she got down two glasses, poured both.
“This is a beautiful place, and you went out of your way—way out—to accommodate her, with class. You give some people a canteen in the desert when they’re dying of thirst, they’ll bitch that the water’s not wet enough.”
