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Walker speed-walked the few blocks to the hotel, feeling like her heart and breath were in a vise. She wanted to stop and get a grip, but she needed to get off Main Street. She’d never had a panic attack during the whole sordid debacle that comprised last year’s flaming end of her career and her forced flirtation with Congress and the American judicial system at one of its higher levels, and she wasn’t going to start now.
As a budding teen, she hadn’t broken down sobbing publicly when she realized her daddy was gone for good and he’d taken Rafe, and she wasn’t about to cry now.
She wanted to hit herself. Rip out her insides and stomp on them to further toughen herself up. She needed to throw her suddenly tender heart against a wall and laugh. Then kick it aside and move on.
She didn’t even pay attention to how she got into the hotel. She just hurried up the steps, through the door before acknowledging that she was in the main lobby. Usually she entered through a service door so she could head to the small administrative offices where she had what passed as a cubical office.
Get a grip.
She did as soon as she stumbled past the small, tucked away bar. She stood in the service area, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the bar and lowered her head. Forced herself to suck in a deep breath before she had the composure to close her mouth and breathe through her nose. Again and again.
She was not having feelings.
She was not longing for something she wouldn’t have.
She hadn’t even wanted kids, when they’d been within reach so what was her problem now that she was feeling lonely and that her chance at marriage and motherhood might have passed. She wasn’t eighty!
Normally, looking at kids did nothing to her. Left her indifferent. So why had looking at her cousin Kane’s little girl, sipping hot chocolate and getting whip cream on her nose making him laugh, made her feel so bereft? Walker had made up her mind in middle school after her dad left with her twin Rafe, leaving her mother alternately so furious she’d curse him or so devastated she’d huddle and cry in bed, useless for days, that perfect families were a myth. Walker, herself only twelve and grieving for the unexplained absence of her twin and her father, had been left to pick up the pieces for all three of them including her five-year-old sister.
“Drink this.”
Shane slid a cup towards her. The sliding sound reminded Walker about the chair in the attic and she shivered.
“What is it?” She looked up into Shane’s sparkling blue eyes.
“Tea.”
Walker made a face.
“Take a few sips.”
Seemed rude not to. Besides she needed Shane. Guilt whispered in her ear, but Walker shut that bitch up. Of the things she’d said and done during her political career, this would barely register, although Shane, with her black skinny jeans, shiny black combat boots, white tank and plaid flannel shirt carelessly open with sleeves pushed up, didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a pushover.
Nor did she seem particularly imaginative. Or vulnerable to suggestion.
Walker took a cautious sip and nearly choked.
Shane smiled. “Sugar. I put condensed milk in as creamer too. Good for shocks.”
“It sounds so British.” Walker groused but, in a weird way, the sip of tea had felt good going down. She sipped a few more times.
“I’ll likely get diabetes drinking this.”
“Not every day you get a shock, I hope.”
Walker didn’t want to talk about shocks. Especially when they shouldn’t be shocks. Two cousins who were strangers and would likely stay that way should not be a shock. But it had made her realize how everyone’s life just kept moving along, while hers felt stuck in reverse.
Shane immediately moved further down the bar towards her drink condiments where she placed supplies of pickled asparagus and carrots. Then she filled a container with green olives. Then came the cherries.
“I’ve always loved these.” Walker slid her tea down the bar and actually hiked up onto a stool. Not professional probably but she was miles from any corporate deity. Marietta didn’t seem particularly formal. She plucked one from the container. “Kinda my secret sin.”
Shane reached under the bar and pulled out a bag of roasted pistachios. She began filling small, square ceramic bowls with the nuts. She placed them strategically down the bar and then moved gracefully around the room, dropping off the small bowl of nuts on the few table rounds.
“I didn’t have a shock.” Walker made a face because she couldn’t seem to shut herself up. Shane wasn’t asking questions, and yet Walker felt compelled to answer. “More like a pang, and it was totally stupid. I’m only thirty-two, not forty. Besides, I don’t even want kids.”
Usually she felt the rightness of that statement, almost as if were a beautiful, lightly knit shawl she could settle round her shoulders and cuddle into its fragrant softness. Today it didn’t fit.
“Do you?” she asked Shane, surprising herself with the direct question about something so personal.
Shane paused in the act of pouring the pistachios into the bowls and a few scattered on the bar. “No.”
Then, after a beat, Shane’s blue eyes held Walker’s.
A hint of a smile lurked. “It’s the boyfriend. It can happen to the best of us.” Something skittered across Shane’s face, but it shut off so fast, like a flash of lightning, leaving only darkness behind. Shane clipped shut the bag of nuts and stored it. “Hopefully, he’s on the same page.”
“We’re not on a page,” Walker said quickly.
This was her opening, and in a bar they wouldn’t have time to talk much although no one was here yet and even the pub-style restaurant open for lunch, dinner and snacks wasn’t quite half–full, which was part of the problem the Graff was having. Although it was Tuesday.
Don’t panic.
She was not expected to solve the lower bookings due to the August fire at the rodeo and fair grounds in one week.
“And he’s not my boyfriend.”
“Too bad.” Shane smiled. “He seemed fun and smart and looked like he’d memorized his way around a woman’s body long before he got out of high school.”
Walker couldn’t argue with that.
“One drawback. He looks like the stick around type.” Shane said breezily.
“He does?” Walker asked.
She would imagine Calum moved through women about at the pace he moved through shows. Fast and fun and over. He chased ghosts. And flirted from the first hello. How did Shane get that impression?
“Yeah, I can smell the type. Or at least thought I could.”
The heaviness that colored Shane’s voice made Walker want to avoid that topic. “I doubt Calum sticks. Not that I want him to,” she added hastily. “He doesn’t take anything seriously.” But, even as she said it, she doubted that was true. He’d been adamant about doing his own research and setting up his own interviews as if he were going for authenticity. “And he’s not my boyfriend.”
Shane paused. “Think you already said that.”
Walker mentally rolled her eyes although it was hardly the right attitude for her to take since she wanted Calum to walk around with his camera crew filming the hotel. But, really, authentic ghosts? And she was losing her cool. Protesting too much.
“Perfect fling material then.” Shane opened up the small dishwasher behind the bar and began to take out the wine glasses and store them.
“I’m don’t think I’m fling material.” Walker clarified quickly. She felt incredibly lazy sitting here drinking tea while Shane worked. “But I’m trying to get him to film a Halloween special here about the hauntings in the hotel.” Walker told Shane.
“This hotel is haunted?” Shane asked flatly.
“Ahhh...” Walker hadn’t really thought about this part.
The staff. What if people got freaked out? Left. The manager would not exactly celebrate that. Or promote her. Not that she wanted to be promoted. There probably wasn’t a position to be promoted to. She just needed to regain some professional mojo and earn enough money that she was not longer scared spitless to look at her bank statement’s automatic bill payment withdrawals.
“It’s an old hotel. It’s had its share of experiences. I bet a lot of staff have had...” She paused, hardly an expert in hauntings and the couple of episodes she’d mostly fast forwarded through hadn’t enlightened her much. “Unexplained experiences.”
“Like whispers when I’m closing up at night or the clink of glasses when the bar’s closed?”
Walker nearly spit tea out of her nose. “You haven’t.”
Shane paused, the last two wine glass stems dangling in her fingers.
“Don’t you want me to say something like that? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“I... well...” Walker swallowed hard.
“Is the truth always such a challenge?”
“What, are you some seer? A truth diving rod?”
“Was. Now I don’t care,” Shane said. “And if hunting ghosts gives you a thrill, buckle up, enjoy the ride. I have enough trouble with the living.”
“It doesn’t give me a thrill,” Walker said, pushing the tea away. “I want to get some publicity for the hotel.”
“And ghosts will do that?”
What was Shane, her conscience?
“People like mysteries, right? The unknown.” The more Walker thought about it, the more she thought she was right. This was going to work if she could get Calum on board.
“Maybe.” Shane shrugged and arranged her cocktail napkins in a short spiral tower. “But what if the unknown becomes known?” Shane asked. “What then?”
The sun was a red orange fireball flaming towards the shadowy horizon when Calum finally made his way back towards the hotel. He’d enjoyed another coffee with Laird and his fiancé, Tucker as well as Laird’s brother Kane and his wife and young daughter. They’d been waiting for their nephew Parker’s soccer game to start at the elementary school, but Calum had declined the invitation, telling Laird that he’d either catch up with him tonight at the ranch or tomorrow.
Laird had been curious that Calum hadn’t jumped at the invitation to stay at the ranch, opting instead to book in at least for one night at the Graff Hotel. After all, Calum was the one who’d asked to visit. Yet he felt like he had unfinished business at the Graff. Really with Walker, and he’d tried to ignore that fact for the past hour.
He still wasn’t clear on what he was going to do about Walker. What he wanted and what he should do were miles apart. She intrigued him. She was puzzle, and hell, yeah he was attracted—so much that he had trouble concentrating when he was with her and thinking about anything else when he wasn’t. But it was more than that. And he really shouldn’t care. Absolutely not. He was done with mysteries along with ghosts. At least that was what he kept telling himself.
So why wasn’t he driving out to the Wilders’ ranch? He couldn’t honestly say. Perhaps it was watching Walker’s quick exit from the Java Café, near panic on her face. Or maybe it was his vow made long ago when his equipment was jury-rigged, borrowed, and nearly always breaking and he had a duffle bag of clothes and a sleeping bag to his name that he would never back down on a commitment.
And like it or not—and he didn’t—the Halloween special each year was a commitment. It had the highest ratings. And it also brought closure to another season.
“Once more into the breach?” He quoted a movie or a book or something he’d heard but never knew where it originated, but it always seemed to fit. His whole life had been about jumping into the unknown—into the breach. And so far it had always held.
Walker was in her office talking to a local pumpkin farm about delivery, not just the usual pumpkins for the October displays outside the hotel as well as in the lobby but also extras for a carving contest she thought would be a fun activity for local families. She was hoping that the five-dollar entry fee would also raise a little money for Harry’s House, an after school place for kids to play, get tutoring, take a few classes like art or cooking that had opened up this year in honor of a fallen local first responder, Harry Monroe.
She’d seen a memorial on the highway coming into town and it hadn’t taken more than a couple of hours with her new landlady, a retired teacher from the high school, who was renting her a nicely remodeled studio apartment above her garage, to learn the entire story of Harry Monroe and his large, loving family and how the community had come together with a fundraising bake-off and then a Men of Marietta calendar to help raise funds to remodel an old, nearly condemned house in Harry’s honor. She’d bought a calendar from the former teacher even though it was already two months into the academic year and, after leafing through the seriously gorgeous but unabashedly beefcake photos, her money was not wasted.
Porn wouldn’t have been hotter.
She’d put the calendar in a drawer even though her landlady had slyly said Walker should take it to work. Never. She wouldn’t get anything done. Not that she was getting much done with images of Calum flashing across her retinas. If he’d just been an empty head like a lot of the wannabes she’d met in high school and college in Southern California, he would have been easy to ignore.
But he was the total package—smart, sexy, funny, a good listener, kind and respectful, and Walker hadn’t had a lot of kindness recently.
And that made her think about her tumble down the stairs and her lap sprawl on a definitely interested ghost quester. She snapped a pencil she’d been idly playing with while she looked over her notes on the computer.
“Focus.”
She breathed in the scent of the ocean from her “ocean breeze” scented oil sticks. They were the one familiar thing in her life now as she’d stocked up on them from the little DC store before she’d left town. The scent calmed her and made her office seem warmer. Actually her office wasn’t that bad although it wasn’t really hers. She shared it with all of the administration and it was little more than a desk and computer, yet it was light filled and looked out on a back patio and small garden where drinks and happy hour menu items were served in the summer. Now the patio was closed, but still, the worn brick and wrought iron space with the empty pots would be a pretty view in the spring with all the flowers spilling over, but she probably wouldn’t be here long enough to see it.
And then she saw Calum walking with Ava Moore, one of the efficient members of the housekeeping staff. Ava was young and friendly. She’d offered to help Walker get settled in her tiny apartment, but Walker had been too shocked and then embarrassed to take her up on it. She had nothing to fill the apartment with. She’d bought a frame and a mattress and had two suitcases of clothes to her name. She consigned almost everything else.
Walker frowned. Calum hadn’t cleared any interviews through her yet. And she definitely hadn’t had a chance to talk to Ava. Ava had been too busy organizing a deep clean of several of the rooms that hadn’t been in use this September since the rodeo had been cancelled due to the fire at the fairgrounds.
Arson. She’d heard that ruling. It seemed inconceivable to her this quaint town that was almost aggressively friendly and welcoming and had so much riding on ranching and its burgeoning tourist trade could have an arsonist in its midst. She thought the original rumor of teens smoking and getting a little careless made more sense, but she’d recently heard from Bob at the front desk, that the fire had had a strong accelerant and had been no accident.
Bob seemed privy to most of the information in town. He knew everyone and remembered every guest. He’d been more excited about the possibility of “ghost questing”—he used air quotes and a wink—than Shane had.
Walker nearly shot out of her chair and snagged her cashmere coat. It might be unseasonably warm for early October, but as the sun began to set, the air grew chilly. She had to walk down a hall and through the main restaurant to get to the outside door leading to the outside dining terrace. Calum and Ava had settled around a small iron and reclaimed wood table. They faced each other as they talked. The setting sun cast the entire terrace in a red orange glow.
“You’re back,” Walker said, wincing a little because she sounded happy and more than a little girly and not the cool professional she’d been striving for. “And interviewing a staff member without an appointment.”
There. That sounded more serious.
Ava looked up a little uncertainly. “I’m done with my shift and was only talking about my impressions of the hotel and the history of the hotel that I know since I’ve been here longer than the head of housekeeping.”
Walker held back her grimace She’d sounded accusing, and Ava felt bad, but Calum, the one at fault, looked amused.
“Ava, of course you are free to share any information that you choose.” Walker tried to soothe away her overly assertive approach. “I just had asked Mr. Quest to see me before conducting any interviews. That is standard procedure,” Walker said, trying to not sound too pissy about it.
“Calum said all the interviews were cleared,” Her gaze bounced between both of them.
Calum?
“Since this is a media event, obviously I will be present for the interviews.” Walker said patiently. “That’s how it’s done.”
Ava’s nose wrinkled a little as if she wanted to disagree.
“Potential media event.” Calum broke in cheerfully. “And getting permission is not how I roll. I was clear about that, Walker.” He made her name sound a little dirty, which should irritate her, not warm her blood. She was trying to set high work standards. Then Calum made it worse by winking. “I knew you’d see it my way as I’m only scouting and researching at this point.”
Not a very veiled threat that he could still walk away. Walker felt like they were playing a game of high stakes tennis, and Calum was a better opponent than she had anticipated. And he oozed charm, which made her want to smack the proverbial negotiation ball back really hard.
But like the dreaded press in DC, she needed Calum, and he clearly took his job and his independence very seriously.
“I need to protect the hotel.” Yuck, she sounded like she was pleading.
“Not throwing a party with rock stars and their groupies where I’ll end the evening tossing a flat screen out the window and shimmying out using bed sheets while naked.” Calum said drily.
Walker’s retinas burned with that image.
But Ava laughed and stood. Calum also stood.
So polite.
But then Walker remembered his mother had died when he’d been young and his grandmother had raised him, and she hated herself for being snide. It was like all the years in DC had made it impossible for her to behave normally anymore.
“I’m going to pick up my daughter,” Ava said. “We can talk a few more minutes tomorrow, Calum, if you want. I’m off again at four.”
Ava smiled, and Walker wasn’t sure if Calum had a date or if he was seriously considering featuring the hotel. The first wasn’t her business. The second was.
“Here is my number.” Calum handed Ava a simple black matte card with QUEST and a number.
Walker nearly rolled her eyes at the pretension, but part of her had to admit it was effective at snagging attention and creating a tone.
“I’m staying at the hotel tonight at least” Calum continued, but his eyes flicked towards Walker and held.
She felt it again. The pull. The tingle. The desire to just let go and stop pretending she had it all held together when clearly she didn’t. She wanted to trust him, that he was who he appeared to be, and that scared her more than anything.
Calum frowned a little at her. Then his attention and smile was back on Ava. “And I’d like to talk again after I’ve done a little more research. Perhaps I can buy you a quick lunch or if you have the time at the end of your shift or tomorrow if you are working again, you could meet with me and talk.”
“I will. But it won’t be filmed yet?” She sounded a little nervous.
“No cameras yet, just some recon.” Calum smiled.
“Sounds like a spy movie,” she said and walked off with a look at Walker that made her feel as if her fur had been rubbed the wrong way.
“So, James Bond?”
“Do you always interfere or just when you’re hiding something?” He turned to her and his quick easy smile was gone, fast as a snap.
“I’m not hiding anything.” Walker defended and immediately regretted it because his features darkened in scorn. “So you’ve decided to stay.” She resisted doing a mental victory dance just barely. “I’ll arrange...”
“I already booked a room through Bob.”
“Great I’ll...”
“Already done. I pay my way.”
“Why would you do that?” The idea of someone who might be working with her to provide some publicity paying their own way was so foreign that, for a moment, her mind emptied of words.
“Are you familiar with my show?”
“Of course,” Walker arched a brow—she’d developed that look before puberty. Her twin, Rafe had hated it. He’d called it Mother Superior.
“Sit down,” he said and nodded toward the place Ava had vacated.
He sat.
Walker hesitated.
“Boo.” He laughed. “Scared of me or what I will or won’t find?”
“Are you always so suspicious with your hauntings?”
“Yes” He kicked out the chair for her. “Sit. I dare you, Walker Kent.” He leaned forward in the small metal chair, his forearms resting on his thighs, hands dangling down, and Walker had to fight the urge to kick the chair further away.
He irritated her. He challenged her. And, if she were honest, he aroused her. So, she couldn’t give into her insane desire for honesty with him. Hadn’t she learned anything from being sucked under, beat up, and kicked back out again this past year? She’d worked in politics for her entire schooling and professional life so she wasn’t that used to being honest. And honesty didn’t work.
“I’m not sure where you’re going with that,” she said, pleased that even as her life had imploded this past year, she still had her veneer of sophistication—the only thing she had left. “But I am pleased that you are willing to do a little exploring around the hotel.”
Sprawled in the seat, he looked up at her, his eyes near navy, the corners of his mouth tilted and a faint shadow of beard scraped his cheeks. He looked edgy, dangerous and the heat that shot to her core astonished her even as it lit her up. She’d always preferred and demanded clean-shaven men. What the heck was happening to her? She needed to get out of Montana. Next she’d be giggling and twirling her hair at the rodeo and gazing up at a cowboy when Marietta’s arena and stands were rebuilt in the spring if the fundraising and insurance money came through.
“Sit.” He invited, and somehow it sounded like so much more would be involved than sitting.
Walker sat.
“Tell me one episode you watched of me.”
Dang.
“Deadwood.”
His eyes squinted.
What did he want her to say? He was taller in person? More chiseled. His eyes more penetrating? Way too sexy to contain in one room and one chair? And why was she thinking that?
“And pieces of others.” She barely resisted the urge to squirm like a naughty school kid sent to the principal.
“And why me? Why not a different show like Brandon Wills and his crew? Or...”
“Look...” Walker sat forward. “I’ll come clean. I’m not a fan of ghosts, but there have been...” She trailed off because as far as she knew there’d been nothing, other than the scrape of that damn chair, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
And just because people hadn’t announced haunting incidents to her face didn’t mean there weren’t any. It wasn’t like she’d done an employee survey past and present, but a hotel that boasted over one hundred years of... well, she couldn’t say business because quite a few years the hotel had been abandoned and languishing in ruin, but it had a history and the town was quaint and getting bodies in town for the holidays and raising money for the new fairgrounds...
Walker practically got a burn from the shine of her halo. “Incidents that could benefit us both.”
“Incidents.”
The way he said the word made her think of shedding her jacket and kicking off her shoes for starters, but she was done with men. Well, she should be done with men, if her body would just shut up.
“Yes.” She stared at her hands knotted in her lap and then immediately released them and placed them on her thighs—no, that looked too much like a school girl seeking permission—then she moved them to the arm of the chair.
She was bad at sitting down. She was bad at playing the seductress. Ugh, she wasn’t trying to seduce him. But really, when had she so awkward and a bore?
You’re boring.
Jared’s voice popped into her head and she nearly slapped her hears to get it out.
“So I get the impression you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone,” she blurted.
The way his eyes flared made her feel gutted. And why had that come out now?
“So you want to watch?”
Again that sounded dirty and she should be shutting him down, but she really did want to watch the interviews, what if he came up with something that portrayed the Graff in an unflattering light? She didn’t even want this job. She was wildly overqualified. It should be so far in her rearview mirror that it wasn’t even a speck, but she didn’t want to lose it. Bankruptcy would set her back five to seven years at least. She hadn’t even finished paying off her student loans and then there were her legal fees. Losing her condo with the luxurious master bath with a jetted tub and marble pedestal sink to a short sale had been, she’d hoped, her lowest point.
“I love to watch.” Something about him made her want to be daring for once, made her want to engage, flirt even. Walker held his gaze, feeling as she did so, that she was jumping into the deep end of a very large, very deep pool.
“Good because Bob recommended a room.”
