CHAPTER FIVE
LINDY
Witnot Castle had a ghost.
A real, honest to goodness ghost that threw salmon tins at us.
That spooky specter just made my entire Christmas.
I detangled myself from Dustman, pretending my insides didn’t warm like freshly baked gingerbread and that my lips didn’t zing from his tender kiss so at odds with his harsh words.
Those left a different sort of zing in a different place, but now wasn’t the time to focus on that. Well, not entirely.
“Do you make other sorts of sculptures?” I called to the roof, noting the soot stains with a grimace.
“Damn. That’s a job for a ladder and an upside down mop,” Covin muttered at my side, his hand resting possessively on my hip.
The contact felt so freaking good, but I didn’t want it.
Lie, lie, lie.
I didn’t deserve it.
Panties on fire.
Especially around this man, who was anything but dusty in the smooth moves department.
“Did you just proposition me with a paranormal threesome?” I asked, my voice lower and huskier than it should have been.
At least I wasn’t squeaking like a prepubescent teen waiting for their voice to break. Maybe that would come later. Or…
I banished the image attempting to form in my mind while Covin’s hand on my hip tightened. A brisk rub of my knuckles across the back of his loosened his touch. I stepped away from him a second time, not looking back to see if he was hurt or not. I couldn’t deal with his disappointment too.
Or breathe. At least, not around him.
“Stop that. I’m studying a ghost.”
“You mean, the evidence a ghost left behind,” he said quietly.
I swallowed at the lack of pretty much anything in his voice, just a quietness that screamed everything and nothing at once. My rejection stung him, almost as much as his come on terrified me.
Because what if we kept moving forward and I liked him ?
I hadn’t gotten over the last man I liked and look where that got me.
To a castle at the smallest, most unreachable town at the top of the Scottish Lochs as far from California as I could throw the proverbial stone across the pond.
And Covin came from California. SoCal U. Another stone’s throw away, albeit a much shorter one this time. A less than ten minute walk from my place.
Of all the locations in California, what were the odds?
Of all the places in the world…
It didn’t matter if we had the best holiday fling possible. The chances of me running into him again once we were home were…high.
I didn’t know if I wanted more complications. I had enough of those. Plenty, that I ran as far as I could travel…and I was looping, looping, looping back to where I started.
My eyes squeezed shut but all that achieved was to land me back in the bedroom I scrambled away from this morning, back onto Covin’s bed. Where his hand, way too large, pressed to the small of my back, pinning me to his long frame that was anything but weak or sticklike or anything I might have imagined when I first met him, if I imagined anything at all.
Liar, liar, ovaries on fire.
At this rate, I’d be able to add a new skill set to my repertoire by lunchtime.
No, the man who held me to him, who told me not to move when I wriggled against his hold because he told me to do something and I wanted to test his limits for no reason at all but to annoy him—that man had plenty of muscle beneath his sheets.
When I forced my mind back to the kitchen and pried my eyes open from my daydream, Covin circled the fresh tower of salmon tins, snapping more shots. His thumb moved quickly over his keypad.
I leaned forward and peered over his shoulder. “Whatcha doing?”
He jumped high enough to clip my chin. My tongue sucked back into my mouth before I could nip a bit off with my own teeth. “Christ, you’re a little nosy wraith,” he muttered. “You’re always standing where you shouldn’t be.”
The tins rattled their agreement. We both peered at the tower suspiciously.
“Maybe we should name him.” I beamed as the tins stopped rattling. “He seems to like that.”
Hazel eyes shot with golden spikes turned on me. “What?”
Covin Drysdale would not intimidate me, despite his height. Or, bulk, even though his stature was that lean, ripped musculature sort that hid under clothes until suddenly there wasn’t all that many clothes to be had between us like there weren’t this morning. No, I refused to be intimidated.
I tipped my chin back and met his golden gaze that lanced through me head on, and pretended I could still function at close quarters.
“We could call him ‘Polty’,” I suggested.
Covin rolled his eyes, and the spell was broken.
Thankfully.
“Polty,” he deadpanned. “That’s the best you can come up with?”
I popped a hip purely because I knew it would annoy him. Polty jiggled the tinned salmon reserves. Or over-reserves. After this I knew I wouldn’t want to see salmon again, tinned or otherwise, for a long, long time. Like several incarnations away, though it seemed to be our sole food supply along with two crates of root beer I found earlier since my attempt at eggs lay cremated to ash and still sizzling slightly on the stove top.
“Fine, Dustman. What do you want to call him?”
Covin cleared his throat and I just knew we were in for a speech.
“First,” he started in what I expected was his SoCal professor’s voice, “I wouldn’t assume our polty-geist was either male or female without prior confirmation.”
“Checking for pronouns.” I reeled out an unwilling dollop of admiration. Polty agreed, rattling his tower. “Glad you’re joining our century, prof.”
“Associate professor,” he corrected me. “Then–”
“Wait, did you just make a polty joke?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes. Catch up. The next thing we should do is simply ask h– their name.”
I blinked at him, and tried not to be impressed. Failed.
“That’s…unexpected.”
Two arched eyebrows rose for the heavens. “What is?”
“That you not only considered gender and the fact that Not-Polty is actually real, but who this person might have been in their past.”
He mouthed two words that looked suspiciously like history department . “I’m glad you think so little of me.”
I didn’t dignify that with an answer, turning in the direction where I hoped our—friendly—ghostly friend who had a penchant for rattling salmon tins hovered. “Alright, Not-Polty. We’re here for your story, if you want to tell it.”
The tins remained still.
In fact, the longer I stared at the tin-tower space where I swore that the ghost last occupied, the less certain I was that he–or she—remained in this part of the castle along with us.
Maybe they did want that threesome after all.
Covin ran his hand over his five o’clock shadow he hadn’t shaved from the day before, leaning in until the bristles grazed my cheek in the sexiest manner. “I think our fighting scared Not-Polty off.”
“You think?” I’d had enough of retreating. Time to really elevate this.
I turned on my heel and bolted out of the room.
“Where are you going?” Covin called after me, confusion lacing his yell.
“To get breakfast!” I shouted back, intent on putting as many hallways and salmon tins between us as possible.
“What am I supposed to do with these?”
I didn’t stop to turn around to find out if he meant the eggs, the smoke damage, the tin tower, or our sulking, absentee ghost. Nor did I care right then. I was going therapy shopping. I grabbed my bag off a small table where I had left it earlier that morning as I passed, my feet barely able to keep pace.
“Milk the damn cow!” I screeched back.
Covin muttered a curse that faded the closer I came to the castle’s front entrance. Finally, cold crisp air and pale sunlight filtered onto my face. My shoes hit the gravel roadway as I headed back into the small village, certain my mood would make the miles walk painless enough, and wondered if Covin would chase after me.
The only answer I received was a muted, plaintive moo .
Ahh, he’d found the cow. Good to know he was trainable after all.
I headed into town, and wondered if they had some decorations I could buy to make the castle a little more Christmassy for Not-Polty.
Two full bags of garlands that threatened to turn me into a living Christmas tree and a bowl of undisclosed-ingredient hotpot stew-soup later I felt a whole lot better even if my bank account wasn’t about to thank me for the trip into the small town, never mind my waistline.
A small dose of guilt whispered through me at abandoning Covin, but he’d come on way too strong and way too fast.
There might have been a time, but now… I’d be staying on my side of the hole in the wall and keeping Not-Polty firmly between us, metaphysically speaking.
But at least my castle neighbor could milk the cow.
“Another bowl please. In a takeout bag,” I added counting out coins and hoping I got the currency right.
The lady across the counter chattered at me. I stared, trying to follow along, nodded a few times and shook my head.
“Nope. Missed the lot. Is this enough?”
Sighing, she counted out my proffered coins. She pushed three back, and spoke slowly. “You’re staying up at the castle? With the odd man? Are you safe up there?”
I smiled, picking everything out through her brogue this time. “Yes, he’s lovely. Well, I mean he’s a bit forward, but he— he’s going to keep to himself from now on,” I said firmly to stop gabbling. “Do you know about the ghost that has a tinned fish fetish?”
The woman cocked her head to one side, pale curls whispering into her lined face. She didn’t push them back. “Ohh, that ghost. He’s been around for a long time. Never did find out who it’s meant to be. But it did cause a stir twenty, no thirty years ago. Lot of scientists came up, tried to ‘catch’ the wee thing. Never saw it. No other evidence since. If you do see it, tell them where you’re from. Send them back to us. Benita would like some extras to stay at that place. Hard enough to get vacationers, isn’t that what you call them?” She smiled kindly as she ladled up my extra bowl of hotpot for Covin.
“You mean Betty, dear,” one of the waitresses called.
“Bettina,” I frowned, thinking of the phone call with the holiday lady I had on the day I arrived. Yesterday? The day before? I couldn’t keep track already. The number of steps in the castle overran my quota for the day, clearly. “And the science expo caused a stir, huh? The town must have liked that.”
I imagined a string of Nessie-like hunters filling the ferry that crossed the loch in order to find Not-Polty and the idea of exposing him—excuse me Dustman, them , until proven otherwise didn’t sit well in my stomach. The idea of Polty’s space being invaded, cameras set up to capture the tin-towers and rattles…that part wasn’t quite so cute at all.
“Oh yes, love,” the woman chattered on. “The streets were full of those little cars they brought over and all their fancy equipment. Found nothing of course. No more than the monster they think lives in the loch. Though we all know better, don’t we, dearest?” This second endearment was aimed at the cook she aimed a hip bump at as he passed by. The man’s graying head turned bright red as he shuffled past her, mumbling something incoherent in Gaelic.
Their lyrical, if guttural language filled the small shop. I collected my bagged food, grateful for the four rolls she popped in on top, and waved my way out the door.
The walk back to the castle wasn’t half as bitter nor strained as last time. Laden as my arms were, my bags weren’t half as heavy or cumbersome as my art supplies and an ancient suitcase.
The gray clouds cleared leaving the pale white sky a pretty cornflower blue I ached to paint. Suddenly my feet moved that much faster. I danced up the steps to the castle door, shoving my shoulder into its hard surface when it jammed, refusing to be deterred by its stubborn facade once more.
“Covin?” I yelled.
My voice echoed along the corridor though I knew if he was up in his tower, reading or whatever he did, he would never hear me.
Heading into the kitchen I placed my supplies on the counter, unpacking the perishables into the refrigerator and left the rest in their bags. Then I wound my way back to my room, grabbed my art bag that thankfully remained intact while my suitcase did not—a challenge to face after Christmas—and headed for a wing of the castle I hadn’t explored yet.
Four days counting traveling to date without painting anything—even something shitty—during a muse finding vacation was far too long. At this point I’d probably paint Covin if he stood still long enough. With dust of course.
No, I was off to locate my muse.
Who knew? It might even be Polty.