He couldn’t argue with that, though he might have liked to try. “Well, when you put it that way...”
“I’m sure the local library or newspaper office would be able to help you print up a brief history of the inn. You really should consider it. Your guests would probably enjoy it.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“Great. I can’t wait to come and see the place again.” She had seen the inn only once, when Dean was considering whether or not to buy the place and had flown her down to ask her opinion. Like Dean, Bailey had fallen in love with it at first sight, and her encouragement had strongly influenced his decision.
“I hope you’ll be able to come soon,” he told her affectionately. “I miss you already.”
“Oh, by the way,” Bailey said just as he was about to hang up. “I ran into Gloria yesterday.”
He brought the receiver reluctantly back to his ear. “Did you?”
“Mmm. She was still trying to pump me for information about your emotional health. The conceited bi—Well, anyway, she’s absolutely convinced that you’re pining away for her and have suffered an emotional breakdown as a result.”
“She’s wrong.” Dean’s words were curt.
“I know that. She just can’t stand to think that you’re better off without her. Which you are. Much. As I said in so many words to her.”
Dean winced. “I’m sure you did.” Bailey shared their aunt’s sometimes ill-timed bluntness.
“She really hates me,” Bailey said cheerfully. “But I can live with it. Bye, Dean. Talk to you soon.”
Dean hung up the phone, then stood for a moment leaning against the reception desk, tugging absently at his lower lip. His thoughts were jumbled, ranging from concerns about his sister’s happiness to worrying about whether he really could have all the renovations finished in time to open the inn by July.
His eyes were focused blankly on one corner of the empty lobby, and he was dimly aware of the sound of hammering and pounding from somewhere on the second story above him, where the carpenters and electricians were working that afternoon. He’d have to go up soon and check on their progress. Later, he had an appointment with a decorator and a ...
He frowned, his planning coming to an abrupt halt. Something was odd about the corner he was staring at. The wall seemed to be shimmering, going hazy, as though a film had come over his eyes.
He blinked, closed his eyes and rubbed them, then opened them again. The haze was even thicker now. White. When he squinted, he could almost make out a pale face with pleading dark eyes ...
“Dean? Dean, look what I found! You’ll never believe it.”
At the sound of his aunt’s voice, Dean snapped his head around. “In here, Aunt Mae.”
When he looked back at the corner, the apparition—or whatever it had been—was gone.
The walls looked normal. Grimy, cracked, faded, but normal. No face. No pleading eyes.
“I am not having a breakdown,” Dean muttered with a ferocious glare, as though confronting his ex-wife.
“Goodness, what a frown,” Mae exclaimed, bustling through the doorway from the hall. “Stop glowering, Dean, and look at what I found in the attic.”
With one last scowl at the offending corner, Dean turned to his aunt, who looked even more disheveled than before.
“What is it?” he asked, noting that she held a length of half-rotted fabric in her left hand and what might have been a small wooden picture frame in her right. He wrinkled his nose when he caught a whiff of a musty, mildewy smell emanating from the fabric.
“I found a box of old fabrics and pieces of clothing,” she explained, waving the dark-colored scrap enthusiastically, making Dean sneeze when dust flew from it. “I thought we could use them for our decorating. Not these pieces, of course,” she added quickly when he would have spoken. “But maybe the colors and prints will give us ideas.”
He looked doubtful. Judging from the scrap in her hand, he wasn’t sure he could even tell what color it had once been, much less make out the pattern.
“But this is what I really wanted to show you,” Mae said, holding out the frame and looking expectant. “Who do you suppose this is?”
Dean took the frame without much enthusiasm, still partially preoccupied with his former concerns—and trying not to dwell on that odd sensation he’d just experienced. He glanced down at the black-and-white photograph, and noted that it was old, and faded, and that the two subjects, a man and a woman, had been posed in front of the inn.
Guessing that the photo had been taken sometime around 1920, he ignored the people and studied the inn with a proprietary eye, examining the changes and additions that had been made since that time. He wondered if there were any other such photographs of the place that he could use for reference in his renovations.
And then something made him look more closely at the couple in the picture. His knees gave way, and he sagged against the counter, his gaze riveted on the face of the woman.