A Wish For Love (Gates-Cameron 2)

Cara claimed to be widowed; her husband had died in a job-related accident when Casey was only a toddler. She’d said she had never been close to her husband’s family, and that she had none of her own except a few distant cousins she’d never known well. She’d shared those tidbits only when Bailey had persistently asked questions under the guise of making conversation, but she hadn’t elaborated, and had quickly changed the subject each time to something less personal.

The only thing Bailey had learned for certain was that Cara lived in fear, though she had no idea what frightened the other woman so. But something did. Cara was running—and had been for some time. Though she’d found a measure of security at the inn, and had obviously grown close to the friends she’d made here, it was obvious she was keeping a slight emotional distance from all of them.

Bailey would have bet that Cara was fully prepared to leave again at a moment’s notice, and didn’t want to form any ties that would bind her here.

Bailey found it extremely frustrating that she didn’t know what Cara was so afraid of, and as a result had no idea how to help her. She might as well face it, she thought glumly. She was an incurable meddler.

Ms. Lonely Hearts was on the prowl again, ready to solve everyone’s problems but her own. Maybe she was destined to spend the rest of her life this way, she thought with a dispirited sigh—taking care of everyone but herself.

And she was getting maudlin again, damn it.

Tossing her head back in defiance of her own depressing thoughts, she suddenly stood and crossed the sparsely furnished bedroom. Since the cottage had been completed only a few days before Bailey moved in, there had been little time for decorating. Dean had scrounged up a bed, a nightstand and chest for this room, as well as a love seat and two armchairs for the sitting room. The tiny kitchenette was still unfurnished. Bailey hadn’t planned on doing any cooking while she was here, anyway.

A large cardboard box sat in one corner of the bedroom, the musty smell emanating from it competing with the lingering scent of fresh paint and newly finished woodwork. Aunt Mae had found the box of old books in the attic of the inn, and had asked Bailey to use her experience with antiques to determine if there was anything of value among the contents.

Though Bailey was certainly no expert on old books, she’d told her aunt that she didn’t mind glancing through them. Maybe she’d find something worth having appraised, at least. And it would give her something meaningful to do, if only for a short time.

The first selections she glanced at were not particularly interesting. They were in poor shape, and wouldn’t have been valuable had they been like new. She set them aside.

A little brown-covered book caught her attention. She lifted it out of the box, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell. It was a collection of bedtime stories, she noted, published just after the turn of the century.

The words were barely legible, and the once-colorful illustrations had faded, but something about the volume made Bailey smile. It looked as though it had been well-used, read and reread, treasured, perhaps, as a nighttime ritual between mother and child.

Whimsically, she pictured a slender woman in a Gibson-girl hairstyle and a long dress nestled on a bed beside her curly-haired child, reading by the soft light of an oil lamp. Her heart ached at the image. Bailey would love to have a child of her own to read to at night. Would she, like her fortunate sister-in-law, ever have that precious experience ahead of her?

Slowly, carefully, she leafed through the yellowed, badly foxed pages, stopping to read a line or two when she could make it out, wondering who might have bought the volume. According to the history her brother had researched so carefully, the inn would have still belonged to the original owners at the turn of the century. It had been built by a British immigrant named James Cameron, who’d died in an accident a few months before his young bride gave birth to tragedy-fated twins.

Her fingers stilled on the book’s ragged cloth cover. Was it possible that this book had belonged to the legendary Cameron twins? she wondered, holding her breath as she considered the possibility. She added another tot to the mental image of mother and child.

She’d been enthralled by the history of the twins ever since she’d first heard about them, shortly after Dean had bought the inn. Some of the locals had claimed that their spirits haunted the old place. Dean had been interested in the legend, too, though he claimed that he’d looked into it only to debunk the ghost stories that had the potential to adversely affect his business.

He and Mark Winter had researched the muchembellished story, and had unwittingly uncovered a mystery that had gone unsolved for three-quarters of a century. Almost by accident, they had publicly unmasked a murderer long after the fact, to the avid fascination of the locals and the intense embarrassment of the murderer’s prestigious descendants.

Ian and Mary Anna Cameron had been shot in cold blood by their stepbrother, Charles Peavy. Peavy and Stanley Tagert, a crooked police officer in league with him, had spread the story that the twins had been involved in a profitable bootlegging operation. The twins were also blamed for the murder of a Prohibition officer. Peavy and Tagert had reported that the twins died in a shoot-out with Tagert when he’d tried to arrest them for their crimes.

Few had questioned the official story. None of the townspeople had ever realized that it was Charles who had headed the bootlegging ring; Charles who’d killed the Prohibition officer. Charles murdered the twins when they stumbled onto the truth about him. Using them as his cover, he had retired from his criminal activities after that point, going on to become a successful and respected businessman.

For seventy-five years, local history had recorded that Ian Cameron had died a criminal, and that his sister had either been his accomplice or had unfortunately died in the crossfire during the arrest attempt. Some people said that their ghosts haunted the old inn, a story that grew increasingly popular as the place suffered bankrupt

cy and decay during a long spell of mismanagement and neglect.

Dean and Mark had learned the truth when they’d located a witness to the murders, a dying man who’d been a frightened ten-year-old boy when Ian and Mary Anna were gunned down in front of him. Only a few weeks before his own death, the old man had told the whole story to Dean and Mark, and had provided proof of his claims. Mark had printed the sordid tale in his newspaper.

Bailey had suspected that there were specifics to the investigation that her brother hadn’t shared with anyone, but no matter how many questions she’d asked, he hadn’t given her any more details than Mark had published. Even now, Dean didn’t like talking about the murders, or the ghost stories that had circulated around Valentine’s Day each year—the date of the twins’ birth and their death. Dean had never had much interest in the supernatural, and had little patience with what he’d called “crystal-carrying ghost groupies.”

Bailey, on the other hand, loved a good legend— probably because of her fascination with the past.

She knew that some of the townspeople believed the spirits of the murdered twins had been freed when their murders had been solved and their names cleared. Others had seen no reason to embarrass a long-prominent family by publicizing something that had happened seventy-five years ago. Still others had savored the gossip and belated scandal.

It might have been her fanciful thoughts of ghosts and murders that made Bailey shiver. For the first time in over a week, she was aware of being alone in the little cottage.

It was silly, of course. The cottage was securely locked, well-lit on the outside and only a few yards from the inn. Telephones had been installed in the sitting room and bedroom, connecting directly to the front desk.

There was no reason at all for Bailey to be suddenly nervous.

She moistened her dry lips and told herself to stop being such a wimp. She’d been living alone for several years in Chicago and she didn’t usually indulge in fearful imaginings.

She set the little brown book back on her nightstand and headed for the doorway. The dusty books had made her thirsty. She could use a glass of cold water.