She knew the drill. Her ex-husband was a jerk. No big deal, lots of ex-husbands were jerks. “Listen, Luanne, I realize you mean well, but I know how these things work, and I’m telling you that there’s a ghost. I hear footsteps at night. The lights flicker. I know the signs, all right? I have a ghost, and I want someone to come by.”
“And what do you think old Charley is going to do? Wave his nightstick at it?” Luanne sounded amused.
“What about Hank?” Hank was Luanne’s boyfriend. He was tall, quiet, and reassuring. “Maybe he can just come and take a peek in my attic? I’d feel better if someone looked at things.” Mostly she just wanted someone to come by and distract her, because this was a big, creepy old house that made lots of unexplained noises and she was here alone.
Always, always alone.
It was depressing if she thought about it for too long, so she tried not to think about that sort of thing.
“I’ll send Hank by on two conditions.”
“Name them.”
“One, that you call a carpenter to get your lighting checked out, because I’m pretty sure you don’t have ghosts.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “I don’t need a carpenter. I’ve been watching lots of wiring videos on YouTube and I know what I’m doing—“
“Humor your little sister,” Luanne said, a hard note in her voice. “I worry about you.”
She wasn’t the only one. Emily sometimes worried about herself. “Fine, fine. What’s number two?”
“Number two is that you send enough chocolate croissants this way for your favorite sister.”
Emily laughed. “I think I can manage that.”
~~ * * * ~~
Hank found nothing in the attic, of course. Being that he was a rather nice, obliging sort of man, he checked all of her rooms in the big Victorian (six), all of the closets (nine), and even the crawlspace under her porch. There was nothing out of the ordinary. No dead bodies. No vagrants. No ghosts.
Emily thanked him profusely and sent him back to the station with double helpings of chocolate croissants and some red velvet cupcakes she’d made (because she knew Old Charley liked those quite a bit). For the rest of the day, she cleaned up her kitchen, baked some fresh lemon poppy seed bread in case she had visitors, and then went back to work scraping wallpaper min one of the back bathrooms.
In the last two years, the ramshackle three-story Victorian had seen vast improvements. It had been a wreck when she and Braden had bought it, but with time – lots of time – and effort, it had turned into a fascinating project and a fun place to live. If she ever got done remodeling, it’d look downright beautiful, but there was always more to be done. Not that Emily minded – she loved home improvement projects.
And in the daylight, she even enjoyed the big house with its fascinating rooms and its historical charm.
After the sun went down, though, she kind of hated it. Especially when the bed and breakfast was empty, as it often was. Bluebonnet wasn’t exactly a hub of commerce, but Emily had gotten a decent chunk in the divorce and the house was mostly paid for. She was doing just fine monetarily as long as she watched her pennies and had a few guests a month. But still, only a few guests a month tended to make things lonely. Now that her sister Luanne had moved out of the Peppermint House and in with her boyfriend Hank Sharp, Emily found herself home alone most nights.
And she really, really hated that.
So she watched Antiques Roadshow repeats on television. She flipped through the newest issue of Better Homes and Gardens. Played Sudoku on her phone. Scraped more wallpaper. Walked down to the hardware store and picked up a small can of paint for door trim. There was a paper on the bulletin board at the register. HANDYMAN – JERICHO LOZADA. GENERAL CONTRACTOR – NO JOB TOO BIG OR TOO SMALL. Several phone numbers were written on small torn strips at the bottom of the page, so she ripped one off and pocketed it. Why not. She’d promised Luanne she’d get the lighting checked out, and she had other projects she could use help with, too.
Then she returned home. The house was too still, so she turned on all the lights and watched a movie. When she could avoid it no longer, she headed up to her room for bed.
Emily’s bedroom was still her favorite room in the house. In one of the front turrets on the third floor of the old Victorian, it was an octagonal shape, which she adored for its uniqueness. She’d painted the room a soft burgundy with a paler pink trim, and matted art pieces in pale pastels dotted the walls. In the center of the room was her big, circular bed with the curving upholstered headboard in a matching pale pink. Her blankets were a mixture of burgundy and pink, and throw pillows dotted the head of the bed. It was a fluffy little paradise, and a cozy place to hang out.