Charon's Crossing (A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel) (25 page)

"They say his name is Matthew McDowell. And if you did see him, you'd be the first."

Kathryn stared at the old man. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. It was, she knew, a peaceful, even a beautiful, scene. But she felt as if she were standing in a dark cave with a chasm yawning at her feet.

She wanted to do something to defuse the moment. To laugh. To make a joke out of the whole thing. But the best she could manage was a wan smile.

"Let me get this straight," she said. "You're telling me there's a ghost in this house, that he's been here for two hundred years—and that I'm the first person unlucky enough to see him?"

"I'm only sayin' what I know," the old man replied.

"That's not only impossible, it's illogical. If no one's seen this ghost, how do you know who it is?"

The look Hiram gave her said that her question was patently foolish.

"Everybody knows who it is."

The wind, gusting in from the sea, sent a tremor across Kathryn's skin.

"Everybody but me," she said, trying for a light touch and failing miserably. "Well, that's what I said yesterday, isn't it? Here I am, the lucky owner of a house that comes complete with a built-in spook, and nobody tells me a thing." She cleared her throat, linked her hands loosely behind her, and rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. "I, uh, I don't suppose you know why he'd be haunting this house, do you?"

Hiram took a hammer and screwdriver from his tool kit and tucked them into his back pocket.

"He died here."

The old man's matter-of-fact tone caught her off guard.

"Here?" she said, her voice rising to a squeak. "At Charon's Crossing? Was there an accident?"

"It was no accident. Matthew McDowell was killed here." Hiram jerked a box of nails from the tool chest and dumped it into a pocket. "Executed, for piracy, just through that old trellis, in the garden out back." He turned and looked at her. "But there are those who say it was more a murder than an execution."

Kathryn could no more have kept herself from spinning around and staring towards the rear of the house than she could have kept her heart from taking a leap into her throat.

"Man who killed him was a British officer. Some say he found out McDowell wasn't a privateer but a pirate, stealin' treasure meant for the English king and buryin' it on some spit o'land out in the middle of the sea for himself."

"But you don't believe that?"

Hiram shrugged. "McDowell fell in love with the governor's daughter."

"Cat Russell," Kathryn murmured.

He nodded. "She was high born, liked the good life. The rumor was McDowell wanted to make her his wife but she wasn't about to marry a rough-and-tumble American upstart who sailed under a flag some thought might as well bear the skull and crossbones."

"And? What happened?"

"All I know is what I've told you, Kathryn." Hiram let down the tailgate of his pickup truck and climbed up into the bed.

Kathryn gave a shaky laugh. "Let me get this straight," she said. "Does everybody on the island know that story?"

"Everybody." Hiram looked straight at her. "And not a one of 'em would think twice if you decided to move out of here and take a place in town."

So much for worrying about not spreading rumors about Charon's Crossing!

Kathryn looked at the house. She could feel nothing ominous here today. The only thing she could sense was a bittersweet sorrow. Besides, why would she lend substance to the fanciful tales of haunts and spirits?

She swung towards Hiram. "Thank you," she said, "but I think I'm going to stay right where I am."

"I had a feelin' you'd say that." The old man grinned. "Have the feelin' Elvira will like you just fine, too."

"Elvira?"

"My missus. She's as stubborn as a mule, same as you. You and she ought to get along real well."

For the first time in what felt like a long, long time, Kathryn really smiled.

An answering smile flickered across Hiram's mouth. "She said to tell you she'd be happy to come out here, give you a hand puttin' this place in shape. How's that sound?"

"It sounds terrific."

"Treat her right, might be she'll bake you some fresh cinnamon rolls while she's at it."

"If she'll make me some of that lemonade you served yesterday, it's a deal."

Hiram nodded. "She'll call you. Meantime, I'll fix your shutters and your doors. Should take me a couple of hours, no more."

Kathryn tried not to heave a sigh of relief. "Good," she said. "And you'll check for secret passages?"

The old man chuckled. "It'll be the most fun I've had since I was a boy, playin' at pirates down on the beach."

She smiled back at him. "Can I do anything to help?"

"Not a thing. Go sit in the garden and get some sun. You don't want to go back to New York, lookin' pale as a gh-..."

He tried to bite back the word, but it was too late. Kathryn's eyes met his and they both began to laugh.

* * *

She had intended to see if she couldn't drag a settee onto the terrace, stretch out in the sun and read her way through Matthew's diary. But after her talk with Hiram, the terrace and the garden had lost their appeal.

Besides, she'd been here for days and she'd yet to walk down the cliff to the sea. So she collected the journal, a glass of iced tea, and made her way to the cove.

The path itself was steep, the footing uncertain enough to make her pause a couple of times, but when she reached the bottom, she caught her breath with pleasure.

An arc of white sand bordered an azure sea. Lustrous shells, as intricate and beautiful as tiny sculptures, were strewn across the sand; tall coconut palms swayed under the touch of a gentle breeze.

Kathryn sank down under one of the palm trees, leaned back against it and stared at the waves lapping the shore. It was so serene here; she almost dreaded opening the journal. Something—intuition, maybe—warned that what she was going to read was not going to be pleasant.

Hiram was at the house, installing new locks, fixing the shutters and looking for secret passageways but deep in her heart she knew the truth. Nothing he could do would change anything. The answers to what was happening at Charon's Crossing lay inside this leather-bound book and it was time to find them.

Slowly, she opened the diary and began to read.

An hour slipped by, and then another. The sun moved higher into the sky but Kathryn was aware of nothing going on around her. She was caught up in a period that had existed almost two centuries before. It had been a dangerous time and an exciting one, and Matthew's brief entries made it clear that he had enjoyed every moment.

His ship was fast. His men were loyal. The Caribbean Sea offered prize after rich prize to
Atropos
and her dashing captain...

And Catherine Russell had stolen his heart.

An entry written on a day in March of the year 1812 was typical.

Today we have taken yet another French merchant ship. My men are jubilant, as am I. We are amassing riches beyond our wildest dreams and a reputation that precedes us on these blue waters. How I long to hold my sweet Catherine in my arms again and tell her of this victory.

Kathryn lingered over the last line, and over others like it in the entries that followed. There was no mistaking what had happened. Matthew McDowell, the man who had thought to conquer Catherine Russell, had been himself conquered. He was, at long last, in love... and it was tearing him apart.

His journal said it all.

I am torn with jealousy. Cat says we cannot yet let her father know that we have pledged our hearts to each other. I agree that she knows him best but I am beside myself with anguish when I see her laugh and flirt with the titled English bastards who flit in and out of Charon's Crossing. They all speak as if the silver spoons they were born with are still stuck in their mouths and look at me as if I were some exotic, dangerous specimen best viewed at a cautious distance.

Cat laughs when I protest.

"Why, Matthew," she says, slipping into my arms in the darkness of the rose garden, "you are jealous!"

There is no sense in denying what is so painfully obvious. Cat teases me gently, then assures me that I have no need for jealousy. She says her actions are meant to keep her father from realizing that she and I have fallen in love. He insists, she says, that she should marry well. Cat, of course, sees that a marriage to me would meet that condition. But her father must be persuaded, and she is convinced he is not ready to listen. She weeps sometimes, when she tells me of this, and it breaks my heart to see her so distressed.

I have thought about the problem a great deal these past weeks and I am convinced there is no longer a need for subterfuge. I am an American, yes, and I surely have no title, but in all other ways, I am an appropriate suitor. I am captain of the most successful privateer in these waters. I have amassed more than enough money to provide well for a wife. Most importantly, I adore Catherine. I will devote my life to making her happy. What father would not be glad to give his daughter in marriage under such circumstances?

Cat agrees but begs me to be patient, but I am running short of that commodity. I also know what she does not, that the international situation is fraught with danger.

The news from home makes it clear that President Madison and his advisors have finally grown weary of dancing to the English tune. Though I have profited by their dalliance, I am, at heart, a patriot. I, too, have tired of the game. We fought hard for our independence from British tyranny; that we succumb to it again makes my blood flow hot. In truth, I will not be unhappy if War comes and I must go from capturing the French to ending the English stranglehold on ships that sail the high seas.

If that happens—nay, when it happens, for I know in my heart that it will—then Catherine must already be my wife. Otherwise, we will be trapped on opposite sides of a War, perhaps lost to each other forever.

Truly, this grows ever more complex. I have tried to make Cat see it but she is too unworldly to understand all the ramifications.

"We can always elope," she insists, and then she goes into my arms and kisses me and I am lost to logic.

How innocent she is, and how I love her!

Innocent?

Kathryn frowned and looked up from the journal.

It seemed almost painfully clear that the only innocent in this story was Matthew. Catherine Russell had been playing Matthew for a fool. Any woman would know that, today or back in 1812.

She had wanted to have her cake and to eat it, too. The miracle was that Matthew had not seen through her scheming ways but then, he was a man in love, though how he could have been in love with such a manipulative, spoiled brat...

Kathryn lifted her face to the sea breeze.

What was it to her? So he'd been a jerk. Lots of men were. Lots of women, too. People in love weren't always reasonable or sensible. They let passion rule their heads. Her parents had proved that until the day they'd finally ended their marriage.

And that was how Matthew had loved Catherine. You could sense it, in the words he'd written. You could feel it, in the way he'd touched her and kissed her and...

Kathryn blinked. What the hell was she thinking? She didn't know how he'd kissed Catherine. A dream, a hallucination, call it what you liked, wasn't reality. And even if you climbed out on the farthest limb of self-delusion and said it was, it wasn't she that Matthew had held in his arms, it was the woman he'd thought she was.

"Kathryn?"

A shadow loomed over her. She gave a start of surprise and her heart leaped but when she looked up, it was only Hiram.

"Hiram," she said, with a little laugh. "I didn't hear you."

"I wanted to tell you that I'm leavin' now, Kathryn. Shutters are fixed, locks are all changed." He jerked his chin up towards the house. "Everythin's locked up tight."

"Oh." Kathryn closed the journal and scrambled to her feet. "Sorry. I sort of lost track of the time."

"No problem." Hiram held out a ring of keys. "Figured you'd want these."

She nodded as she pocketed them. "Thanks."

"Figured you'd want to know, too, that I checked for hidden doors and such." The old man's eyes met hers. "Didn't find a thing."

Kathryn felt a light blush rise to her cheeks. "No. I didn't really think you would but I figured it couldn't hurt to check..." Her words trailed away. "Well," she said, and stuck out her hand, "thank you for coming by."

"My pleasure."

"Shall I write you a check now?"

"We'll add it on to the bill." Hiram smiled. "Eager to get back to your book, hmm?"

Kathryn looked down. She hadn't realized she was clutching Matthew's journal to her breast.

"Yes," she said with an answering smile, "I guess I am."