“Goodbye, Connie,” I said over my shoulder.
I guided the cart out to the frozen entryway and the cold air assaulted my nostrils as I hustled to the car.
I made a mental note to send the kids in for groceries from then on.
SEVEN
“I’m expecting kids in here tonight,” Jake said, stretching out under the covers. “So you should probably keep your hands off of me so they don’t see anything inappropriate.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, sliding into bed next to him.
He’d turned the electric blanket on while I read a bedtime story to Grace and the warmth enveloped me. My eyes were heavy and my body felt like I’d just run a marathon. The whole day had been draining, mentally and physically, and the only thing on my mind was sleep. Even a bed full of little people creeping in at various hours wouldn’t keep me awake. I was certain of it.
I threw my arm over him and snuggled against his chest. His skin was heated from the blanket and I felt the warmth of him through the thermal long-sleeved shirt I was wearing. “Still mad at me?”
He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close. “I was never mad at you,” he said. “I was jealous.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do say. I’m able to admit my flaws. And I’m a jealous person.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You know that.”
“I honestly never thought to mention to you a single two-hour date with a person I never thought about again,” I told him.
“I know.” He looked at me, smiling. “I just like giving you a hard time, too.”
“Probably could have picked a better time,” I said. “I was pretty sure you were ready to join the force so you could arrest me.”
He chuckled and squeezed my shoulder.
“Some things never change,” I said, yawning.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You teased me incessantly in high school.”
“I’ve told you this a thousand times. Boys tease girls they like. It’s like written in the Guy Code somewhere.”
I smiled. Jake and I had been friends all through high school and had dated for a few months during my junior year. He was one year older and we’d easily transitioned from a friendship to a romance. After a string of loser boyfriends, I thought I’d found a guy I could be serious about. I could talk to him and laugh with him and there was definite chemistry with the blue-eyed basketball player who always had a smart ass remark or teasing comment for me.
“Do boys also break up with the love of their lives? Is that written in the Guy Code, too?”
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” he asked.
With my free hand, I pulled the comforter closer. “Nope.”
“Good,” he whispered. His lips dusted my hair again. “Don’t ever let me forget what an idiot I was for breaking up with you. For letting you walk out of my life.”
“Oh, I won’t,” I promised. “I also won’t let you forget that I was the one who brought us back together.”
“Really?” he asked, arching his eyebrow. “And here I thought it was Facebook…”
I dug my elbow into his side and he groaned. Part of me hated that we fit the cliché of being one of those couples reunited through social media. It sounded so…lame. But it was exactly what had ended our twenty years of non-communication. It wasn’t like I’d forgotten about him after he broke up with me and graduated and went off to college. But I’d started dating someone else and, in the days before social media, I couldn’t exactly engage in any stalker-like behavior to keep up with what he was doing as the months turned into years.
But then I saw him through a mutual friend on Facebook. And my heart had hiccuped, staring into those blue eyes, registering that smile that was so achingly familiar. I’d hesitated to contact him. It had been twenty years and I wasn’t sure how he was going to respond to me, if he’d even remember me or want to reconnect. After an argument with Thornton about child support, I’d downed a stiff rum and Coke, sat down with my laptop, and fired off the friend request.
Three days later, he accepted it and the rest was history. We’d chatted—about what we’d been doing the last twenty years, about time in high school, and, finally, about our personal lives. He was in the middle of a divorce, too, and after a few more weeks of messages, he decided to come to Minneapolis for a weekend visit. The rest really was history because, less than two years later, he’d uprooted his life, gotten full custody of his daughter, and we were all living in a century old house in the middle of Moose River. Together.
And that’s what we were doing and despite all of the crap with the house, I was happier than I’d ever been.
At least until they pulled Olaf’s body out of the coal chute.
“How would he have gotten here?” Jake said, his arms tight around me.
I yawned again. “I have no clue. We weren’t even living here when I met him. It was two years ago.”
“So weird.”
“Weird and creepy. It makes me think he was watching me or something,” I said, shuddering against him.
“What creeps me out is how he ended up in there,” Jake said. “Pretty sure he wouldn’t have gotten in there on his own. Be interesting to see how he died.”
I nodded. I had so many questions. Why Olaf? Why in my house? When? Who?
Too many interrogatives.
“Just relax,” Jake said, squeezing me again. I loved how solid his touch felt. “It’ll be okay. It’ll all get worked out. We’re safe and the house is fine. But you gotta relax.”
“It’s like you don’t even know me,” I said. “How am I supposed to relax?”
“I was hoping I could catch you in a moment of weakness,” he said.
I snuggled in tightly against him. “You should know better.”
“You’d think.”
The door swung open then and the two youngest girls burst into the room. Sophie wore a Hello Kitty nightgown that barely covered her thighs and I wondered why she hadn’t turned into a Popsicle in the drafty bedroom she shared with Grace.
“Mom!” Grace said, her hands on her hips, a frown plastered on her face. “Will says there is probably another ghost here now.”
I didn’t want to tell her that I had contemplated the same thing. Olaf.
“He says it’s going to be a mean ghost,” Sophie added. She’d taken off her glasses for the night and her blue eyes were wide. “Because…well, I don’t know why. But that’s what he said.”
“Is there?” Grace asked, scrambling on to the bed. Her knee caught Jake in the stomach and he groaned. “Is there another ghost?”
“No,” Jake said. He picked her up and shifted her off of him. “There is not.”
I scooting to the side, making room. “Probably not, no.”
Grace settled in between us. She was like a pixie, small and compact. Sophie followed her up and sat cross-legged between us. I glanced at her exposed legs; not a goose bump to be seen. I shook my head and pulled the comforter tighter to me.
“He says we live in a haunted house,” Sophie said. “But we don’t. Right?”
“We do not,” Jake said.
Her lip quivered and she nodded, like she was trying to believe her dad.
“Will! Get in here!” I yelled.
Footsteps bumped slowly in the hallway. Will stuck his head around the door. “What?”
I stared at him. He was also sparsely dressed, clad in thin pajama pants and a Vikings t-shirt. My eyes traveled the length of him. The pants were only two months old and were already sitting above his ankles. At the rate he was growing, he’d be taller than me by spring.
“Are you telling them there’s another ghost in this house?”
“Well…no,” he said, looking everywhere but at me. “Not exactly.”
“Then what exactly?”
“Well,” he hedged. “I said it was possible.”
“No, you didn’t!” Grace yelled in my ear, pointing at him. “You are a Pinocchio!”