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“Okay, let’s just… take a breath,” he said, using the same tone he employed when one of his workers was about to make a costly mistake. “Have you had anything to eat today? Let me make you some tea.”
“Tea?” Amy stared at him as if he’d suggested performing brain surgery on the spot.
“Or I could call your sister for you?” He was grasping at straws.
Amy shook her head miserably. “Kelsey and Mac are in Boston for some charity event. Noah’s with them.” She buried her face in her hands. “I’m alone.”
The despair in her voice landed solidly. He glanced at his watch, calculating how much time he’d already lost this morning and how much more he was about to sacrifice.
“Look,” he said gently, “why don’t I walk you back to your cottage? You could rest for a bit. Things always look clearer after some sleep.”
What he didn’t say was that he mainly wanted to ensure none of his workers saw her waving that tablet and babbling about ghosts. But as she looked up at him with genuine gratitude, he felt a twinge of guilt for his ulterior motives.
“You’d do that?” she asked, wiping ineffectually at her tears with the heel of her hand.
“Sure,” he said, awkwardly offering her his handkerchief—a real cloth one, because his grandfather had insisted that a man always carried one, and some lessons stuck deeper than others.
Amy took the handkerchief, looking momentarily surprised by its existence. He caught her noticing the embroidered stitching and instantly wished he had offered her a plain one instead of this piece of his past, a wedding gift from his grandfather. “Thank you,” she whispered, and the genuine relief in her voice made Sully uncomfortable. He hoped to the heavens his act of kindness wouldn’t come back to bite him.
He hadn’t signed up to be her or anyone else’s emotional support human. He had foundations to shore up, historically accurate moldings to install, and a crew that was one ghost story away from a mass exodus. But as Amy gathered her tablet and phone with trembling hands, Sully resigned himself to the detour.
Keeping the client functional was just good business. It had nothing to do with how lost she looked in that moment, or how the tears made her eyes an impossible shade of blue. Nothing at all.
They began walking toward the exit, and at the last moment, Sully turned Amy by the shoulders to the mansion’s back door. “Just… maybe let’s avoid where the crew is working. The guys are a little on edge today.”
Amy wrapped her hands around the warm mug, still somewhat bewildered to find Sully Sullivan in her kitchen. Her little white terrier, Ollie, sat expectantly waiting for more biscuits from the burly man who’d quieted his barking with treats.
Sully’s large frame and practical work clothes seemed out of place in her cozy, eclectic cottage. He moved without hesitation in her private space, locating tea bags and honey without needing direction.
The cottage—a small gardener’s residence on the mansion grounds—was her sanctuary. Its respite had been even more relevant over the past months. Unlike the imposing half-renovated mansion, this space was entirely hers, filled with colorful fabrics and the lingering scent of the essential oil diffuser she’d run last night. Lavender for calm, which clearly hadn’t worked.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice still rough from crying. The embarrassment of breaking down in front of Sully, irritating and judgmental Sully, was mortifying. He always looked at her as if she were running a snake oil business that lingered like a bad taste.
He nodded, leaning against her counter with his own mug while keeping an obvious distance from her, as if her emotional outburst might be contagious. The silence stretched uncomfortably between them.
Amy sighed, willing her professional persona back into place. “I’m sorry for my… outburst earlier. It was unprofessional.”
“It happens,” Sully said, though his tone suggested it didn’t happen to him or anyone in his orbit.
Now that the initial wave of despair had subsided, Amy found herself able to think more clearly. She wondered whether she needed to explain herself. That she had a genuine dilemma to deal with, and not just a rush of hormones. Because clearly he would be the type to blame the tears on female hormones, typical of his macho-construction-worker persona.
“I’m worried about this project,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “I’ve invested everything I have in creating a place of healing and restoration. But who’s going to want to come to a wellness retreat with a history of murders? And now ghosts? It’s the opposite of what I would want for ambiance.”
Sully studied her over the rim of his mug. After a moment, he set the tea down untouched.
“You’re really convinced it’s haunted? Because of that video?”
Amy reached for her tablet. “Even if that isn’t real, there are the very real dead bodies.” She hesitated. “You were obviously concerned about your crew hearing about the ghost. Why?”
Sully’s gaze shifted away, focusing on a point somewhere past her shoulder. Clearly, he wasn’t a believer of anything beyond the practical.
“My guys are jittery already. Recently, they’ve found some things,” he finally admitted. “Weird things you don’t come across every day.”
Amy straightened. “What kind of things?”
“Glass bottles, for one.” At her questioning look, he elaborated. “Old glass bottles and jars sealed with wax, all containing weird combinations of items—nails, hair, herbs, that sort of thing. We found three of them embedded in the walls when we opened them up for the new electrical.”
“That’s interesting,” Amy said, shifting her position on the pillows.
