Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Evie
“Evie, don’t you think the mantel looks a little bare?” Aunt Sigrid muses as I carry a tray laden with breakfast items into the dining room. Two pitchers filled to the brim with orange juice and ice water float beside me as I head toward the long buffet table along the wall.
“What I think looks bare”—I set down the tray, then focus my magic on settling the pitchers onto the covered surface—“is this buffet table, when breakfast is supposed to be served in less than five minutes.”
As if on cue, the grandfather clock tolls six deep chimes from the foyer.
“I say, isn’t it running early? I thought you had it serviced just last week.” She raises a questioning brow in my direction, her nails clicking against the bone china teacup in her hands as steam rises toward the ceiling.
“Yes, I did,” I seethe through clenched teeth, glancing at my wristwatch, which still shows four minutes till six.
“However, if you’ve forgotten, we don’t live in an ordinary bed-and-breakfast with ordinary guests.
We have several ghost residents who have entertaining ideas about time and etiquette. ”
“What’s that about ghosts?” The deep rumble of his voice nearly has me jumping out of my skin.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ironwood. I didn’t hear you come in. Breakfast won’t be ready for another five minutes.” I flick a hand toward the china cabinet, and a dozen plates, bowls, and cups fly out, lining themselves up in their places along the table.
“Is there anything I can help you with?”
I glance up at the man. He must be in his late thirties, although by shifter standards, it’s harder to tell. He’s dressed in fitted slacks that leave little doubt he spends at least half the week in the gym and a sweater over a collared shirt, the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms.
Tall, dark, and handsome.
Like some college professor all the girls—
Nope. Not even going there, Evie. You’re a grown-ass woman, well out of college, running your family’s business, and it’s the busiest season of the year. For all you know, he’s married.
As if of their own accord, my eyes drop to his hands. They look strong and clearly accustomed to work, given the calluses, yet there’s no sign of a wedding ring, not even a faded tan line where one might have been.
“Nope, I’m fine. I’ve got my aunt—” I tear my gaze away to where Sigrid stood moments before, but neither she nor her sisters are anywhere in sight.
Suddenly, I’m struck by the combined exhaustion of a poor night’s sleep on the twin mattress, the festival’s demands, and the relentless pressure of managing the family business. “I’m fine.”
His green eyes watch me patiently, and suddenly the room feels stiflingly hot.
“Your pulse has increased, you’ve got dark circles under your eyes, and you look tired enough to fall over if the breeze blows the wrong way,” Liam says matter-of-factly as he steps closer, arms crossed over his chest, making his already sizable biceps strain against the fabric of his sweater.
“I thought you were a detective, not a doctor.” I tilt my head up to meet his gaze. He’s nearly a foot taller than me.
“That I am, but I’m also undercover…” He glances behind him, but there’s no one in the room save for the two of us and Clove, the resident ghost cat.
Not that he can sense her or any of the other spirits in the bed-and-breakfast. Many visitors come hoping to spot one of our infamous specters, but none so far—at least as long as I’ve run the place—have been able to see or sense any of our ghostly inhabitants.
Save for the poltergeist, but he makes his intentions very clear and saves most of his antics for the Pumpkin Festival.
“Well, Mr. ‘I’m an undercover detective,’ I’m not stopping you from your investigation, and I have breakfast to prep and decorations to hang.”
The shrill whistle of the kettle fills the air.
Just the excuse I need to stop ogling the man in front of me.
Not that I was ogling him.
Not that I need an excuse to move around my own house.
“If you’ll excuse me.”
Liam steps to the side, gesturing with one hand.
Aggravatingly, both handsome and polite.
I do not need some green-flag jaguar-shifter detective giving my aunts more fuel for the fire.
“Please, don’t let me get in your way,” he says, his voice sounding like something out of a vintage black-and-white romance film, conjuring the image of a damsel in distress in the arms of a handsome suitor whispering sweet nothings after rescuing her.
I need no such help. I am doing perfectly fine on my own.
The kettle kicks up a note, and I sweep past him, my skirt swishing as I make a beeline straight for the kitchen, the door swinging closed behind me.
I grab an oven mitt and pull the kettle from the stove, filling both French presses to the brim with hot water before slumping onto a stool.
Steam curls from the twin glass carafes, the robust scent of coffee mingling with the sticky-sweet aroma of the pumpkin pastries from The Wicked Whisk.
“Quite a looker, ain’t he? Wonder if he’s got a beau at home.”
A cold sensation washes over me, and I bite my lip to keep from shrieking as Molly floats straight through me and pokes her curly blonde head through the door. A shiver runs down my spine as I stand and brush down my apron, the lingering chill of her ghostly form slowly fading.
“I thought I told you not to do that,” I hiss. “And come back here before anyone sees you.”
“Oh, sorry, old habits. It’s not like anyone but you can see me.” She shrugs and leans over the pots, steam rising straight through her head. She folds her arms over her chest, lips pouting. “I don’t know why you make this stuff when you have perfectly respectable tea from the homeland.”
I don’t dislike tea. In fact, I have tea almost every afternoon with my aunts, which is why we have some of the most expensive loose-leaf tea imported from across the ocean.
But growing up, my father always made his coffee in the French press.
I remember waking up every day to the smell of it filling our house just a few blocks away as he and Mother prepared to come down to the bed-and-breakfast.
I glance at my watch, counting down the four minutes until I need to press down the plunger. I always like to make a lighter pot and a darker, richer roast. Personally, I prefer the darker batch with a splash of cream and an old Hawthorne recipe for pumpkin syrup.
“We don’t know that no one else can see you except me.” I busy myself with the first French press, carefully pressing down the plunger, then transferring the dark brown liquid to a silver serving carafe.
“Oh, come on, Evie. I’ve known you since you were a little girl, and for over three decades, I’ve yet to meet another being who can see me like you can.”
Sighing, I turn around and face her.
“Molly, just because no one has yet doesn’t mean they won’t. As caretaker of this house, that also means keeping you and the other ghosts safe.”
She presses her thin, opalescent lips together, then looks out the kitchen window, where the willow’s long branches wave in the autumn wind. Her translucent dress fits like a glove over her stays and hoop skirt, a mid-eighteenth-century style favored when she was alive.
Molly is one of our resident ghosts. She died in her early twenties, never married, and is among the most coherent spirits in the house.
Over the years, she’s also become my close friend.
The daughter of a local doctor, she grew up here over two hundred years ago.
Why her soul, or any of the other spirits in town, is drawn here, I still don’t know.
Many ghosts have come to my family over the centuries for help moving on to the Fade, but several have chosen to stay at the bed-and-breakfast.
Her appearance bears no sign of physical injury, and through all our conversations, she has never recalled the true circumstances of her death, although we’ve speculated several times about how she died and who might have killed her.
I grab the other French press and repeat the process.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just under a lot of pressure, and the aunts are already on my tail about finding a date for the Pumpkin Festival and about the family curse and—”
Her cold hand lands on my forearm, and I inhale sharply, gritting my teeth against the freezing pins-and-needles sensation.
“Maybe your aunts have a point, Evie.”
“Oh, don’t you go starting in about the Hawthorne family curse being real.
You may have lived here for over two centuries, but there is magic, and then there are stories made up to teach children to mind their manners or follow certain societal rules.
” I flick my wrist toward the two carafes before scooping up the box of Halloween decorations from the table.
“That’s not what I’m saying.” She sidesteps in front of me, and the carafes of hot coffee slosh at the sudden stop, threatening to spill from their spouts. “All I’m saying is I never had a chance at love or a partner.”
She huffs out a laugh, rolling her eyes.
“In my day, I was considered a spinster, nearly too old to marry! But what I am saying is that I’ve seen several generations of your family throughout the years, many happy and successful with their partners and many who struggled.
I’m not saying it’s some family curse, but, Evie, you work too hard. It’s okay to accept help sometimes.”
My mouth opens and closes, my brain unable to articulate a good comeback.
Finally, I settle on the truth.
“I don’t have time to find a partner, Molly.”
“Just think about it, Evie.”
“I don’t even have time to think, but nice try. Now be off with you to whatever haunting you do. I’m late to serve breakfast.”
Perhaps the detective has made his way out of the house and onto his job.
Nutmeg hoots, poking his head out from under a wing as I push through the kitchen door and make my way back toward the dining room.