Cinderella Search (3 page)

Sure enough, there was that damned little steamer trunk spilled open, and blood was spattered all over his bedding.

There was no sign of Rosa’s Birkenstock. Her knees went weak with relief. It must be in the attic. He had no proof that half a woman had ever been in his room.

“Oh, cripes,” she said, casting a glance at the hole in the ceiling. “What a mess! Did the trunk strike you on the head? You must have lost a great deal of blood. Please, sit down.”

Solicitously, she tried to steer him toward the one chair in the room. It was like trying to move a three-hundred-year-old cedar. Giving up, she asked, “Do you need medical attention? We don’t have a doctor here in Madrona Cove, but I could get someone to run you to town and—”

“No.” He firmly removed her hand from his arm, the strength of his fingers effectively cutting off both her breath and speech.

“I don’t need medical attention. I don’t need to sit down. Nothing hit me on the head. The blood’s from my nose, the result of that crazy woman kicking me.”

“Woman?” Lissa made her eyes big and round. “Oh, yes. You mentioned a woman when you called downstairs. Where … um, where is she?”

He tilted his head back to stare at the hole. She watched him swallow before he turned to her. “I don’t know.” His brows drew together. “I couldn’t pull her down, so I boosted her back up. At her request.”

His eyes narrowed as he glanced at her. “I use the word ‘request’ loosely. She threw the trunk at me, then disappeared.”

“Of course.” Lissa nodded sympathetically. “This woman who disappeared threw the trunk at you.” She smiled kindly. “Are you absolutely sure it didn’t hit you on the head?”

“Yes, dammit, I’m sure! Listen, if you think I’m imagining the woman, I can give you details. She’s wearing ugly brown leather sandals, has long legs, and some kind of bug tattooed on her butt. This is a small town. Doesn’t that help you identify her?”

Lissa kept her face serene and her tone even. She prayed the tingle of heat she felt in her face didn’t show as a betraying blush. “No, sir,” she said. “Uh, you were at Chuckles this evening, I believe?”

He glared. “I am not drunk.”

“Of course not, sir. I wasn’t suggesting you were.”

He hooked his thumbs through the belt loops of his low-slung jeans, his blue eyes narrowing to slits. “You sure as hell were.”

“It’s just that …” She shrugged helplessly and worked up a consoling smile. “Well, sometimes people on vacation feel a little more relaxed than they normally do, and drink more than they intended and then begin to take some of the local legends too seriously, and—”

“Legends?” He snorted derisively. “Oh, you mean the ghost.”

Feeling like an idiot, but knowing it was for a good cause, Lissa said, “I wouldn’t dismiss her too lightly. She was my great-grandmother. She appears to some people or makes her presence known in other ways. Sometimes she laughs, though mostly she cries.”

He gave her a skeptical grin. “Oh? Why?”

“Shortly after my great-grandfather, who built the inn, died, she lost one of the pearl earrings he’d given her for their tenth anniversary. She was distraught, and spent one long, rainy December night outside with a lantern, searching for it all over the grounds. She got pneumonia. The staff put her to bed—the family lived here on the top floor—and she continued wandering from room to room in delirium, trying to find that earring. She died, leaving her only child, my grandfather, an orphan. They say she’s still searching for her earring.”

She rubbed her arms as if a chill had run over her and looked over her shoulder. “I spent my summers in this very room, and I can tell you … odd things happen.”

He bit his bottom lip for an instant, looking just a little uneasy. She had to struggle to keep a straight face. “You own this inn?” he asked.

“My family used to,” she said.

“My father owns several resorts,” he said. “I don’t think any of them are haunted.”

Well! He was certainly up-front about what his father did. Maybe he didn’t realize they all knew exactly why he was here.

“I can’t swear the place is haunted,” she said. “My dad insists the sounds are nothing more than the wind in the limbs of the arbutus tree the inn’s named for.”

“Madrona Inn is named for an arbutus tree?”

“Madrona is the Spanish name for the tree. This is one of the northernmost specimens on the coast, and one of the oldest, I think, judging by its size. You’ve seen it, I’m sure. The big, gnarled, twisted, red-barked tree outside the dining room? It comes right up to the windows on this floor and sometimes makes terrible noises when the wind blows. That’s probably all you heard tonight.” She hoped she’d managed to inject a note of doubt into her voice.

She smiled. “Also, if you’ve had a little more to drink than normal, things might not seem to be exactly as they are.”

“I wasn’t complaining about a ghost.” He pointed one long, tan finger. “That trunk is exactly what it seems to be. So’s the hole in the ceiling, and the crap all over my bed.”

“Yes. Mmm-hmm. The trunk is certainly real.”

“So,” he said, his voice taut, “is my aching nose.” He rubbed its bridge gingerly with two fingers. “The heel that kicked me didn’t belong to any ghost.”

His nose did look as if it had been broken—though not recently. Still, she had the most ridiculous impulse to kiss it better. Get a grip, she told herself. “Those darned termites,” she said with concern. “Must have chewed clear through another beam. I hope we can make up to you for this … inconvenience.” She shook her head in despair as she stared at the damaged ceiling.

Looking doubtful, he raised his thick brows. “Go on,” he invited.

“Tonight, of course,” Lissa said, “I’ll move you to another room, and your stay to date will be on the house.” Then, as inspiration suddenly struck her, she added quickly, “Tomorrow, I can try to book you into another resort.”

Of course! Her dad, the whole committee, would be so proud of her. Her unfortunate fall through the ceiling could be turned to their advantage. Surely, Steve Jackson gone was a whole lot better than Steve Jackson merely uncomfortable and sending home bad reports.

“At this point,” he said, “what I want is another room, preferably one with a firm mattress and an intact ceiling. Tomorrow I’ll decide what I want to do. I’ve paid for three weeks in advance.”

“I understand,” she said calmly. “Naturally, your money will be refunded and if there’s a discrepancy between our rate and that of the resort you move to, we’ll make up the difference.” If she had to make it up out of her own pocket, she’d do it.

Again, his gaze swept over her. “If I decide to leave.”

If? Lissa bit back an exclamation and schooled her face as best she could while she nodded. So much for her inspiration. Clearly, he wasn’t about to go along with her agenda. “Of course. Well, then, if you’d care to pack up your things, Mr. Jackson, I’ll go downstairs and get the key to your new room.

“You may leave your toiletries in the bathroom if you wish. You’ll be moving next door to the adjoining room. Please excuse me for just a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”

She slipped out and closed the door behind her, then stood leaning on it while she collected herself.

What did he mean, if he decided to leave? Why would he want to stay? Now that she had the notion of getting rid of him, she couldn’t see its happening any other way. But, he didn’t appear willing to cooperate. Lissa squared her shoulders and headed back downstairs. Okay. She’d offered him an out. If he didn’t take it, if he didn’t leave tomorrow, Steve Jackson’s so-called vacation was really going to get interesting.

As Lissa Wilkins left the room, Steve couldn’t get her out of his mind. Her bright brown eyes and her dazzling smile had hit him somewhere deep and elemental. She was tall, slender, yet voluptuous, and irrationally he believed she was the one who’d fallen through the ceiling.

He frowned. If so, she’d made one damned fast recovery. She’d appeared minutes after the incident, unruffled, serene, and hadn’t so much as blinked when he mentioned that tattoo. Nor was there so much as a single dark mahogany hair out of place in her long, thick French braid.

Still, those brown eyes had widened when he’d said, “If I leave.” However quickly she’d regained her composure, there had been that momentary reaction of pure dismay.

As if she wanted him to leave. But why?

His frown deepened as he began opening drawers to dump things in his suitcase and duffel bag. Nah. It had to be his imagination.

A drawer jammed, and he slammed it with the heel of his hand. After another slam, the drawer finally opened straight, but before he could reach in for anything, it slid smoothly shut. He stared at it, then slowly pulled it open again. This time it stayed that way and he emptied it quickly, keeping a wary eye on it. Then he reached for the next drawer down. It slid open before he so much as touched it.

He stared at it. This place was definitely weird. The building was old. So, more than likely, the floor must have sagged when he shifted his weight, causing the drawer to open on its own. Still, he rushed through the rest of his packing, irrationally wanting out of that room.

He rolled aside the trunk on his bed to locate the T-shirt he’d shucked earlier, and uncovered one ugly brown sandal.

Holding it on the palm on his hand, he laughed softly. “Ah-hah!”

It was old and well-worn, with heel and toe marks clearly impressed in the sole. Ghosts didn’t wear Birkenstock sandals. Here was irrefutable proof the woman existed.

But not proof enough that the woman was—or was not—Lissa Wilkins.

He had a mystery on his hands. A mystery and a challenge, neither of which he could resist. Who owned that sandal and why had she been in the attic directly over his bed?

In the meanwhile, he was looking forward to spending more time with Lissa, and learning more about her, and what she was up to.

When Lissa returned to take him to his new room, he was taken aback by the impact of her big brown eyes on him.

She gestured for him to precede her into the adjoining bedroom and he sauntered through the door, duffel over one shoulder, suitcase in the other hand, feeling her gaze on his back.

The room was larger than the one he’d just left. The bed—a genuine, antique sleigh bed, or his mother hadn’t taught him one damned thing—appeared to have no sag in the middle.

“Ahhh …” he said, sitting on the edge of it, then flopping backwards. Good! The bed was antique, but the mattress was not, and was as firm as it looked. He smiled up at Lissa Wilkins, who stood with her hands behind her back, her eyes flickering below her thick lashes and a faint flush rising up her cheeks. “Too bad I wasn’t assigned to this room in the first place. Then I wouldn’t have such a mystery to solve.”

“Oh?” Lissa said trying to sound nonchalant. She knew exactly what mystery he was talking about, and she didn’t want him trying to solve it. She wanted him disturbed and uneasy and unable to find anything positive to say about the Madrona Inn. Even more, she wanted him gone.

“Who knows what lurks in the dark, dusty attic rooms of the Madrona Inn?” he intoned. “Who knows what manner of creature dwells in the shadows? Who knows when the pods will hatch and the aliens come crashing through the ceilings? Will they make their way from floor to floor, devouring everyone in their path, gaining strength with each new victim they consume? Will they—”

Lissa laughed. “Now I know that trunk hit you on the head! Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Jackson?” He lay sprawled across the bed, his head propped on a pillow. “I don’t know.” Idly, he patted the mattress as if in silent invitation. “What do you think?”

Lissa stared at the empty area of the bed. She would fit nicely beside him, next to his outspread arm. He’d have only to curl his arm and she’d roll up against his side and—Lissa bit back a gasp. “Think?” she echoed.

“About what else you could do for me.”

Nothing like this had ever happened to her—not in her teenage years working as a chambermaid, nor in the two years she’d been back at the inn. Suddenly she realized she was ill prepared to deal with a man like Steve Jackson. Especially while he lay on his bed, with a provocative smile on his face, as if he knew exactly how his teasing was affecting her. If he was teasing.

She turned to leave. “I think there’s not a thing I could do for you, Mr. Jackson.”

“How about a nightcap?” he asked. He rolled toward her and sat up.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her hand on the doorknob. “The bar is closed.”

“What a shame.” He stood up, reached over and snagged her elbow. “Then how about another bedtime story?”

She laughed. “Another what?”

“Well, the one about the ghost surely wasn’t designed to lull me to sleep. Maybe you should try again.”

She shook her head. “What I told you was no bedtime story, Mr. Jackson. I wouldn’t know one of those if it bit me on the … ankle.”

His hand slid from her elbow to her wrist, and suddenly his fingers were linked with hers. “Then how about I tell you one?” he said. “Or how about we act it out?”

He gently turned her around and, without knowing quite how she’d gotten there, she found herself seated in a chair. Still holding her hand, he crouched before her. With his free hand, he dragged his duffel bag closer, reached into it and pulled out Rosa’s Birkenstock.

Lissa tried not to show her dismay. Damn! She’d been counting on that sandal still being safely in the attic, but here it was in Steve Jackson’s big hand. He grasped her left ankle, trying to lift her foot from the floor. Lissa’s breath caught in her throat.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she said, keeping her foot firmly planted on the floor, resisting his efforts to lift it.

His grin flashed again, “I have this glass slipper—well, okay, leather sandal—and I aim to find my secret princess, the one whose foot will fit.”

Lissa bit her lip.

“What do you think?” he asked. “There’s a prize for the winner.”

“How thrilling.”

“You don’t like prizes?”

“Depends on what they are.”

“You’ll have to try the sandal on for me if you want to find out.”