The House on Blackberry Hill (Jewell Cove 1)

Her mouth watered. Not like dessert.

“Come on, Abby, it’s a long weekend. It’s not right that you end up sitting here by yourself while there’s a perfectly good party happening. Don’t let Jess’s interfering drive you away.”

It wouldn’t be Jess driving her away. And the truth was that while kissing Tom had been a brilliant experiment on her part, she knew it was nothing more. It wasn’t just Tom carrying around a cart of baggage. She was a long way from trusting anyone. From opening up and letting anyone see the real Abby Foster. One kiss wasn’t a cure-all.

But if she backed out now, how would it look? It would look like tonight’s kiss mattered more to her than to him. She would look like a big ol’ chicken.

“Make sure she knows,” Abby said. “No matchmaking.” She leveled him with a look. “And I’m staying away from the wine.”

He chuckled a little. “Fair enough.”

“And what I said earlier, about my great-grandmother … just forget it, okay? It’s a combination of an overactive imagination and too many novels.”

“Consider it forgotten.”

“Okay. I’ll still go on Saturday. Besides, no one but the two of us knows what just happened. We’ll tell Jess that you dropped me off and went home. End of story.”

“That what happened?” He grinned, and the atmosphere around them eased again.

“Exactly.” She smiled back. Dammit, it was bad enough that Tom looked good enough to eat. It wasn’t fair that she was starting to like him, too. It had been easier to dismiss him when he was boorish and aggravating.

“I should probably get going, then.”

“Probably.”

She walked him to the door, keeping her hand on the knob as he stopped on the veranda. “Thanks for bringing me home.”

“Anytime. If you need anything…”

It felt like a polite, empty offer. The kiss still hung between them. No matter what they’d both said, how they’d backed off, the kiss couldn’t be taken back.

He disappeared into the dark and moments later his truck started and the headlights came on.

Then he was gone. And when Abby turned around, she caught her breath and pressed her hand to her pounding heart.

It was her. Edith Foster.

Same gray-blue dress, same long hair that touched her shoulders. Same sad, pleading look in her eyes. She was here. Real but not real. Like Abby was seeing her through some sort of filter even though every detail was clear.

Her heart thudded in her throat as she asked clearly, “Edith? What do you want, Edith?”

There was no answer, but Edith turned and walked toward the stairs.

Abby’s heart pounded so loudly she could hear it in her ears. When Edith paused at the bottom of the steps and looked back, Abby knew that she expected her to follow. And while Abby was completely freaked out at the fact that she was taking instructions from a ghost, oddly enough she wasn’t afraid. She didn’t feel threatened in any way. And so, with the fleeting thought that she must be losing her mind, Abby put one foot in front of the other and followed her great-grandmother up the stairs.

On the second floor, Edith paused and looked out the back window toward the outbuilding that had once been the carriage house and, later, a garage. Edith only paused a moment, her fingers against the glass before she turned back to Abby, her face profoundly sad. She then led the way into the bedroom with the smaller room linked to it. Abby was sure now that this room had been for babies. For Marian and Iris. Had the bigger room been Edith’s? A nurse’s?

Edith paused near one corner of the room and stared at her feet. Then she looked up, directly into Abby’s eyes.

And then, just when Abby had been about to repeat her question, the figure melted away.

The room turned cold. Abby’s heartbeat was still accelerated and she stared for several seconds at the spot where Edith had been. There was no do

ubt in her mind now that she was sharing the house with the ghost of her great-grandmother. And she was equally certain that there was something Edith wanted her to do. She wouldn’t have led her up here otherwise. But what?

Abby went to the window in the larger bedroom, the one that overlooked the backyard, but with the lights on she could only see her own reflection in the glass. She wasn’t calm enough to cut the lights and look into the darkness; considering the strange twist in the evening, who knew what she’d see if she looked out? Shivering, she retraced her steps back to the nursery, taking slow steps until she was in the corner where Edith had stood. Why had she stopped here, in this precise spot? What was she trying to say?

The floor creaked beneath her foot, audible in the complete silence, and Abby looked down at her toes.