“The coffee’s perfect.”
“I’ve been watching. I know how you take it.”
“Then you also know I never eat this much for breakfast.”
“That’s only because you don’t have the time or make the time to fix it. With the work you do, you need to eat. When I lived, I was an engineer on the Boston to Maine Railroad. I know what hard work looks like, and I did plenty of it over the years. Just like you need to fuel a train engine, you need to fuel your body. Eat,” he answered.
So she did. His voice was so forceful, yet not demanding that she wanted nothing but to comply. He was, after all, looking out for her. The food was delicious, and she told him so.
“You can’t eat?” she asked, suspecting the answer.
“No need and no desire. But I found I enjoyed cooking it. I’ll have dinner for you tonight. I think I’ve managed to figure out all of these fancy kitchen machines except these two,” he said pointing to the microwave and the dishwasher.
Ashley laughed and showed him how to run them. The stove and refrigerator were much more sophisticated than what he’d had in 1920, but he hadn’t struggled with them, and he’d seen her use the Keurig enough times, so he understood how that operated. He was a quick learner.
He was still covered in the plaster dust from the evening before, and she suggested he might want to shower to get rid of it.
“Then you won’t be able to make out my features,” he said.
“Use my makeup. Slather it on your face. There’s plenty of it in my bathroom,” she offered.
“Look, I have to go to work. Do you want me to crate Tootsie or leave her out with you?”
“Dogs shouldn’t be left in crates like they are wild animals. They’re practically human. Tootsie and I will do just fine. I can let her out when she rings her bells.”
“She won’t even bother you with them now that I have the doggie door installed. I warn you, I’ll be home late. Maybe around seven.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
She went to reach for him to draw him into a kiss, but when she touched his hand, her hand went right through his, and she fell slightly forward, but righted herself.
“Oh, creepy,” she said. “I guess I should have expected that.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you.”
She drove off then wondering what kind of kinky, weird, paranormal situation she’d gotten herself into and who the hell she could talk to about it.
That day at work, she asked around, “Do you believe in ghosts?” She tossed out the question at lunch time when most of the crew was there. Kia said she’d once lived in her grandparents’ old apartment after they’d died, and she swore she’d seen her grandfather’s ghost haunt the place while she lived there. Her boyfriend had seen it too.
“What did he look like?” Travis asked.
“Like my grandpa, only misty, floating, not grounded or walking around like a real person.”
“Did he talk to you?” Ashley asked.
“He talked like he was looking for my grandmother. He kept calling her name. ‘Florence, Florence, where are you?’ He called her over and over. One night Bill, the guy I was seeing then, answered him. Bill said, ‘Grandpa, Florence died and went to heaven. You can go now and see her there.’”
“No, shit,” Anton said.
“I shit you not, that’s what Bill said. He wanted the visits to stop. He had no idea whether my grandma was in heaven or burning in hell, but he wanted Wagner to leave us the hell alone. And after that night, he never bothered us again. We wished he’d thought of it sooner.”
“You’re making that up. There’s no such things as ghosts,” Wayne said.
“No, Wayne. I think there are. I think I’ve got one haunting my place,” Ashley admitted.
The crew got real quiet. Then Travis said, “That place has been sold any number of times; maybe it is haunted and maybe that’s why it keeps selling. What’s going on, Ash? What makes you think you’ve got a ghost?” He clenched his fists, dug in his boots with his feet shoulder width apart, and looked like he wanted to take on Ali in his prime.
Suddenly, Ashley realized maybe she’d said too much or asked too much. She certainly wasn’t ready to talk about Perry Lucier or that she’d met him or that he’d made a delicious breakfast for her that morning. No, they’d likely lock her up if she told that much.
“Oh, I just hear things sometimes.”
“You said it sounded and felt like wind before we installed the windows. Is it more than that?” Travis asked, and she could tell he wasn’t going to let up easily.
“Just some sounds in the walls,” she volunteered.
“Shit, Ashley, that could just be some mice or rats. Get yourself some traps, and those will be gone in a week,” Wayne offered.
“I’ll do that on the way home,” she said. “Hey, let’s stop this talk about ghosts and get back to work or Rex will make me a ghost if we fall too far behind, and he and his crew have to bail us out again. Can’t let that happen.”
They grumbled, agreed, and generally gathered their thermos and lunch packs, threw them into their vehicles, and got back to work. She had dodged a bullet, or so she thought until Travis came up behind her. “Do you want me to stop by tonight and walk the place with you to check things out?”
She smiled her most reassuring grin then. “No, thank you. Wayne’s likely right. It’s probably just mice. Of all God’s creatures, I can take snakes, spiders, pretty much anything, but mice, I hate. I’ll pick up some traps at the hardware store on the way home and get rid of those pesky critters for sure. But thank you.”
“You will tell me when you feel ready to date again, won’t you?” he asked.
“I will, Travis. But not yet. I need time alone. Brody did a number on my psyche for sure.”
He lifted his hands as if to push back. “Okay. I’ll back off. Just so you know I’m here if you need me.”
“I appreciate that.” He turned and walked to the other side of the building where he and Anton were working on a three-season porch.
She went back inside thinking thoughts of Perry, not mice.
Chapter Nineteen
She did stop for mouse traps on her way home, so that if Travis asked, she could honestly tell him she had set them out. But, yuck, if she caught one in a trap, she’d likely have to ask him to come take it out of the trap because she truly was afraid of mice and rats—they were pretty much her only creepy animals. No, she thought, I could ask Perry to handle them, and she smiled a sly grin that if someone had seen they would have asked her what happy thought she was thinking about.
After stopping at the hardware store, she picked up several bottles of wine at the state liquor store and hurried home. Tootsie greeted her at the door instead of yelping at her from her crate as she normally did, and it lit up Ashley’s heart to see her pup have free use of the house all day. She was getting bigger and needed space to play. Having the doggie door meant she could be in and out all day weather permitting. Ashley was a bit disappointed that Perry didn’t greet her when she arrived.
She gave Tootsie some loving, locked the door, set the alarm system and called, “Perry, are you here?”