In Love With a Haunted House (Contemporary Romance) (4 page)

**

The next day dawned clear and bright and Blake woke up feeling very optimistic. That feeling changed when his phone rang and Louise said, in her bright chirp of a voice, “I hate to tell you but Lonny Lewis just took a carload of the historical society folks over to the house. He stopped by here to pick up the keys since he only had the one set. I thought I would just give you a heads-up.”

Damn!

Blake was not a fool. Louise was not telling him that out of the kindness of her heart, she was hoping to twist a higher bid out of him now that he knew the house was in danger of being gobbled up by the society.

He didn’t have much more money to play with, though, so his only hope was to make the house as unattractive as possible to the society

He hung up and grabbed his jeans off the floor, sliding them over his narrow hips and donning a T-shirt and his boots before grabbing his keys and heading out. He drove quickly and arrived at the house just in time to see Mallory in a heated discussion with his distant cousin.

As soon as Mallory had seen Mrs. Williams and her cronies climbing out of the long black car she had known what was going on. That damned Lonnie Lewis was trying to sell Gray Oaks to the historical society!

She marched over there, forgetting that she was wearing her pajamas: a set of pink lace-trimmed shorts and a matching camisole top and nothing else. The women had seen her coming and stared at Mallory, scandalized—or at least pretending to be. Mallory had not noticed them, or the fact that Lonnie’s beady little eyes were glued to her erect nipples, clearly visible through the thin top.

“Just what the hell are you doing, Lonnie?”

Lonnie Lewis looked like he had a terminal case of intestinal worms. He was skinny with a curve in his spine that was due not to medical issues but his utter refusal to stand upright. He had hair that had gone thin in patches, giving him the look of a mangy dog, and his teeth were a decidedly yellow color from the cigarettes he always had planted between his thin lips.

He gave her a long look. “Well, Mallory, I heard you were back in town. You look very good too.” His eyes raked her figure and she had the urge to strangle him. In high school he had been the guy who was always sneaking into the girls’ locker room and giving girls little squeezes on their backsides when he thought nobody was looking.

At the time his parents had still been alive and what they had lacked in actual money they made up for in power so most had ignored his antics but Mallory never had. She had once cracked him right across his face for grabbing her in an entirely inappropriate manner and he had never forgotten it, or forgiven her.

“I asked you a question.”

“I don’t believe it’s any of your business. My great-great aunt left me this place and I can do whatever the hell I want to with it.”

“You pompous little ass! She left you nothing! She left it to your folks so it went to you by proxy. I’m sure she would have hated to see those stuck-up old crones walking through her door!”

Blake heard that last and he had to stifle a laugh. Mallory was quite a sight angry, hell, she was quite a sight at any time. That camisole and shorts set she was wearing was enough to kill a man too. Her legs stuck out of the bottom of the shorts: tanned and long and gorgeous, and her breasts were almost visible below the pink material…he had better stop looking or he was going to have more to worry about than losing the house. He was going to be worried about losing his dignity.

Mallory groaned inwardly when she saw Blake approaching. Of course he would show up now, just when everything else was going so badly. He didn’t look like he had wasted any time getting there either—his hair was sleep rumpled and there was a definite crease down on one side of his face from either a pillow or a sheet.

She didn’t like where that train of thought was headed so she turned her attention back to the hapless Lonnie and added a few more choice words about his lineage and his looks to her diatribe.

Blake grasped her upper arm gently. He was amused but he was also a little surprised by her passion. Did Gray Oaks really mean so much to her then and if it did, why?

“Listen, Mallory, while that outfit is certainly enjoyable for the rest of us I think it might be best if you changed out of it, at least for now.”

Her face flamed. How dare he tell her what to wear! Okay, so she was practically naked in the street, but still…she favored him with a withering glare. “Don’t think you can talk this piece of crap into taking your side, he is the greediest thing alive.”

“Oh dear,” Lonnie said in an exaggerated drawl, “look who rode to the rescue, my dear estranged cousin.”

Cousin? Had Lonnie just said cousin? She gave Blake a baleful stare and he said, with a shrug of his broad shoulders, “Don’t blame me. I can’t help biology. And I am not here to rescue this turd.

“How about breakfast after you get dressed?”

Mallory stared at him, surely he was joking! He had to be! He was Lonnie’s cousin, he was after her house and…his jeans were still indecently tight, stretched across his lean hips and fitting snugly into the fork between his hard muscular thighs…

“Yes, okay.” Had she just said that? It was like she had been hypnotized by the gleam of the rivets on his front pockets.

“Breakfast. Just don’t expect me to cook it. I’m a lousy cook.”

“I’m sure you have other charms,” Lonnie sneered.

Mallory interrupted Blake’s glower with a calm, “I see you still have a scar from the last time you messed with me, Lonnie. Better think of a nicer way to phrase things or you might end up with another one.”

“That’s a threat!”

Blake said, “I didn’t hear a threat, I just heard her tell you to stop being such a pervert.”

Mallory would have laughed if things were not so surreal and spiraling even further out of control with each passing second. She turned and walked to her own house, uncomfortably aware of the breeze blowing against her mostly exposed thighs.

Lonnie gave Blake a yellow-toothed grin. “I guess you better come up with some extra money, cuz. It seems the society has been after this house for years.”

There wasn’t any extra money and they both knew it. Blake turned his attention back to the house, wondering if there was anything at all he could do to help get the women in there out of there. Where was a good ghost when you needed one?

Mallory was thinking the same thing. Her bedroom window faced the house and she stared at it as she yanked on a pair of jeans and a pretty blue silk sleeveless blouse, ran a hasty comb through her locks and dashed on a bit of mascara and lip gloss.

It was odd, she had not really wanted the house. Not since she was a little kid dreaming about owning it, anyway; it had simply been the best solution to a problem. But now, now that other people wanted it, she just had to have it. She wasn’t sure what that said about her.

She said, “Ms. Lewis, you didn’t want those old biddies that you never liked in your house when you were alive. If you don’t want them in your house now, you better do something about it.”

She turned away from the window and went out the front door, crossing the yard to meet with Blake, who still stood under the alley of trees next to Lonnie. The front door burst open and the women came out. All of them were making a rather undignified and hurried exit.

One was not just in a hurry, she was actually running like her feet were on fire and her butt was catching, as the rather quaint little Southern saying went. She went so fast her wig flew off, hovered in the air like a weird little bat and then it landed at the feet of another woman, who gave it a hurried little kick as she went past it.

Lonnie stuttered out, “Ladies…ladies…What are you doing?”

Blake said, “It looks like the historical society has become the hysterical society. I doubt they want the house, Lonnie.”

The tires squealing as the women left seemed to emphasize that point. Lonnie was not one to let a minor setback sway him, though. “No worries. I got a developer coming tomorrow. He wants to tear the place down, put in a little apartment house complete with swimming pool and a gym for the residents.”

He swaggered off. Blake and Mallory stared at each other and then Mallory said, “That is it, then. I could fight the society if I had to but a developer, no way. I can’t afford any other house in the neighborhood or much of anywhere else to be honest. I hope you really want it.”

Sympathy welled up in him and an affection he had not expected. “What I want is breakfast. What do you think made those women run so fast? A rat maybe?”

“You’d think if they were frightened of rats they would have spooked at the sight of Lonnie.”

“You have a point there.”

Neither of them wanted to say what they were thinking. The ghost of Gray Oaks had struck again.

**

Well, they are right although they’re wrong too. The only person who haunted this house all those years was me and I’m still here. I keep hoping you’re going to show up, George, and tell me everything is going to be okay and that you forgive me for doing what I did to our son. I hope he had a good life, he would never have had one here and we both know that.

My family’s reputation was bad enough, I didn’t want our child to be born out of wedlock too, I saw my own aunts and father deal with that stigma and it was never pretty. Times sure have changed, though, hardly any child is born in wedlock these days.

Oh well. Did you see that silly woman lose her wig? That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a dozen years.

I really like that girl, the one that lived next door. Did you know she used to come by on Christmas Eve and stuff cookies into the mail slot in the front door? The things would fall apart before they ever hit the floor but it was the sweetest thing. She’s the sweetest thing.

Well, maybe she should have this house then. I know she should and I’m going to keep helping her to get it. I got nowhere else to go right now anyway. I said I would wait right here for you and I will, no matter how long it takes.

No matter how long it takes.

Blake and Mallory were sitting in a little neighborhood diner a few blocks away from the house. They were sipping strong and hot coffee, and applying their attention to giant plates filled with fluffy scrambled eggs, potatoes, toast and pancakes.

“Have you ever noticed that breakfast in a diner consists of starch, sugar and grease?” Mallory asked as she forked up a giant mouthful of syrup-dripping pancake and placed it in her mouth.

“That’s why I enjoy it so much. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m one of those guys that lives on potato chips and beer or anything like that. I do try to take care of myself sometimes.”

“Well, you look like you take care of yourself.” Mallory blushed as soon as the words left her mouth. She was not trying to date the man; she was trying to buy a house out from under his very attractive ass. Why was she always thinking about his bum?

Blake changed the subject. “So it seems as if one of our potential problems is gone. Then again, the historical society might decide that ghost would raise the value of that house.”

Mallory met Blake’s gaze over the rim of her coffee cup and she took a long sip before she asked, “Are you working with Lonnie to raise the price of the house?”

“Okay, let’s just get this out in the open now, okay. Lonnie is my cousin but we don’t know each other. We never met each other until recently, when Shannon Lewis died and I found out the house was empty and about to be sold.

“I know there are a lot of rumors that she had a child, she did. There’s no sense in dressing it up or trying to save the reputation of the dead at this point. Not that anybody in this day and age would really care about that kind of thing anyway. She was my grandmother, but I never met her.

“I used to come down here and drive by the house and I always, always wanted to go inside of it. I knew from the time I was about sixteen that I wanted to live in that house. It’s not something I’m willing to give up.”

“I’m not willing to give it up either.” Mallory stuck her fork into her pile of pancakes and left it there. “I used to pretend, when I was little girl, that I lived there. I used to wonder what it was like inside, too, so I guess we have the same curiosity. I never expected it to look the way it looks though, wow, what a mess.”

“If Lonnie really is trying to sell it to a developer neither one of us is going to wind up with it.” Blake was stating the truth and they both knew it.

Mallory changed the subject unexpectedly. “I’m very sorry to hear that you lost your grandmother. I’m even sorrier to hear that you didn’t know her. I don’t think many people knew her, and I’m not going to pretend that I did because I didn’t.

“She was always very much a recluse, she hardly ever even came outside unless it was to scream at the guy that cut her grass. She was always positive that he was going to run over her azalea bushes or knock down her clotheslines. It would’ve been funny, if it wasn’t so sad.”

“I still wish I’d met her. I don’t know if Lonnie even knew her either.”

Mallory said, “I can answer that for you. No. Shannon hated her aunt, and all her aunt’s offspring. Lonnie is descended from that line somehow or another, I never really asked but anyway… My mom and dad used to laugh about it when I was little. They said that her aunt came by one day to try to talk some sense into her and managed to rile Ms. Lewis up to the point where she actually came out of the house, jumped into that old car of hers and she tried to run her aunt down right there in the driveway.”

Blake burst into laughter. He had not expected to be able to hold a conversation with Mallory, much less one that was so easy and relaxed. It was almost as if they weren’t fighting over the same thing, and he almost wished they weren’t. Her hand was lying on the table, and he put his own down beside it—not really touching her but just letting the heat of her hands seep over into his. It was pleasant, and he looked up into her soft eyes and found her staring back at him.

“We could work together.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean if we pooled our money we could get the house and then…we could share it.”

The offer had been impulsive, and he had no idea why he had made it really. It was pretty obvious that she was determined to have that house, and she had good reasons for it— her reasons were just as good as his own. Maybe exactly what they needed was an alliance.

“I’m still not sure what you mean.” Mallory wasn’t sure what he meant, how could they share the house?

Blake leaned forward. “I have my architect’s degree, but what I really love to do is build things. But not new things, I like to take old things that have been damaged and broken, and restore them. This house is the perfect project for me because of that. It’s also huge, and quite frankly if there’s even a dollar added to the price point it’ll break my budget.

“What we could do is share the house, by turning it into a duplex. There’s plenty of room, we could divide it up right down the middle. What do you say?”

Mallory stared at him, in a way it made perfect sense and it would actually solve all her problems. She would only be responsible for fixing half the house, which meant that some of her budget would not be lost and she could use it for other things which she dearly needed, like furniture. Or an office for her new business. “How would we decide how to divide it?”

Blake said, “It would not be as difficult as it seems. Not really, the house was set up with the premise of two wings so if you simply split them apart and put a wall in between, it would sort of naturally divide into a duplex. We can even incorporate the staircase into the division of it because it goes up and into the landing so we could put the wall in the direct center of the staircase so that we both have stairs and one half of the landing.”

“Okay, all that sounds great but there is one problem.”

Blake asked, “What’s that?”

“I can’t afford a new kitchen.”

He crowed, “I knew it! You loved those appliances, say it! Say you loved them. You don’t have to beat around the bush, you can have them!”

Mallory retorted, “You loved them! You should keep them!”

“I can’t afford  the laser surgery my eyes would require after looking at them,” Blake chortled.

They both burst into gales of laughter. “They look like someone tossed slime at a stove and refrigerator,” Blake choked out and Mallory laughed even harder.