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Anything's Possible!
Judith McWilliams
A Ghost of a Chance Just one good deed was all it'd take for a certain rather lazy ghost to finally get into heaven and join his fiancee. And since the nice folks at the China View Inn figured a fake ghost would be good for business, well, maybe he'd give 'em the real thing… .And while he was at it, there were a couple of folks at the inn who were just about perfect for each other. And if a good old-fashioned things-that-go-bump-in-the-night haunting was what it'd take to get Cassie Whitney and Dan Travis together, why, he'd be more than happy to oblige… .
Anything’s Possible!
Judith McWilliams
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Prologue (#u327cb8c0-1872-535c-b4e2-723ac9bb6e33)
One (#uf752733d-b3dd-5ae6-8bf1-876a61606a79)
Two (#u72a9b981-01c7-5466-b9ec-024b48c0ad42)
Three (#uedb99549-8d3e-52ed-84ed-cbe4ebfc5351)
Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
“Now, Millicent...”
“Don’t you ‘now Millicent’ me, Jonas Middlebury!”
“But, Millicent—”
“No!” Millicent determinedly shook her head, sending wisps of golden hair flying around her pale face. “I have been listening to your excuses for one hundred and fifty years, and enough is enough.”
“Not really, sweetlings,” Jonas began placatingly. “I mean, I may have died a hundred and fifty years ago, but you’ve only been dead for fifty years or so.”
“Eighty-one years,” she corrected. “Eighty-one years, four months and seventeen days, and in all that time have you made the slightest effort to get into heaven? No,” she rushed on when he opened his mouth. “And all you have to do is a good deed. Just one good deed.”
“Done lots of good deeds in my time,” Jonas muttered.
“Ha!” Millicent gave a ladylike sniff. “If you had done lots of good deeds when you were alive, Jonas Middlebury, you wouldn’t be in this predicament now that you’re dead!”
“It’s not the good deed I object to,” he continued doggedly. “It’s the way that sanctimonious old puffguts at the gate told me I had to do it.”
Millicent gasped. “Jonas Middlebury, you mind your tongue! That’s an angel you’re talking about, which is more than you’re likely to ever be.”
“I’ll do the good deed, but in my own time,” Jonas insisted. “I’m not about to be forced by no pen-pushing—”
“When?” Millicent demanded.
Jonas blinked. “When what?”
“When are you intending to do your good deed and get into heaven? At the rate you’re going, the final judgment is a surer thing!”
“Now, sweetlings, you just don’t understand how it goes against the grain for a man to be told what to do.”
“I understand that I’m lonely.” Millicent’s lower lip trembled and her pale blue eyes looked huge through the tears that welled in them. “I understand that thanks to your selfishness I was cheated out of having a family and children.”
“My selfishness!” Jonas’ bushy black beard stiffened in outrage. “And was it my fault that I was drowned trying to earn a living for you in the only way I know how—whaling?”
“If you hadn’t been drunk, you wouldn’t have fallen overboard in the middle of the Atlantic,” Millicent pointed out. “And if you hadn’t fallen into the water, then poor Elias Simpson wouldn’t have drowned himself trying to rescue you.”
“Didn’t ask the fool to come in after me,” Jonas muttered. “Elias was always sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. He only did it because he wanted to hold it over my head afterward.”
“I don’t know about that, but I do know that Elias got into heaven the minute he died, while you are still wandering about trapped between heaven and earth. Or worse,” she added ominously.
“Ain’t never heard no talk about them wanting to send me to the other place,” Jonas said testily.
Millicent stared into his beloved black eyes and felt a confusing mixture of anger, exasperation and love swirl through her. Jonas had been stalling for eighty-one years, and if she didn’t force the issue, he’d probably stall for another eighty-one.
But if Jonas refused... Millicent felt a flash of blind panic. She might lose him altogether. She wouldn’t even have these snatched bits of time to cherish. She drew a deep, steadying breath. It was a risk she was going to have to take. She simply couldn’t go on like this. Jonas was no closer today to doing a good deed than he’d been when he’d died, a hundred and fifty years ago. He needed a shove. And it was up to her to give it to him.
Millicent took another deep breath and asked, “Do you love me?”
Jonas turned a bright red under his deep tan and tugged ineffectively at the collar of his rumpled white shirt. “Asked you to marry me, didn’t I?”
“Yes, and drowned yourself before you could. And now you refuse to do a simple good deed so you can be with me. Do you know what I think?”
“Don’t need to think,” Jonas mumbled. “No good ever came of a woman thinking. It’s not natural.”
“I think you don’t love me at all.” Her voice broke at the pain of the thought. “I think I’m just a habit. A hundred-and-fifty-year-old habit.”
“Millie, that’s not true!” Jonas looked horrified at the charge. “I do! You know I do.”
“Do what?” Millicent demanded.
“Love you, dammit!” he blurted out, then blushed a fiery red. “But there’s no call for you to make me say it. Words aren’t important. It’s how a man acts that counts.”
“Precisely!” Millicent nodded decisively. “And you consistently refused to act so that you can be with me.”
“I told you, Millie, that’s not it. I just don’t like them letting Elias right into heaven when he was always such a meddling do-gooder and then telling me I wasn’t quite the thing.”
“If they haven’t taken your point after a hundred and fifty years, they never will,” she said with uncharacteristic tartness. “I’m telling you, Jonas, that you must either do your good deed and get into heaven or—”
“Or what?” Jonas demanded aggressively.
Millicent’s lower lip trembled again and a tear trickled down her soft, pink cheek as a feeling of hopelessness washed over her. “Or I’ll have to finally face the fact that I’m not important enough for you to make the effort.” She forced the words out past her constricted throat muscles.
“Millie, no! Don’t say that.”
“I should have said it years ago,” she murmured sadly.
Jonas stared for a long moment, her tormented expression tearing at him.
“All right,” he said at last, capitulating. “I’ll do it, but only because it means so much to you.”
“Jonas!” She flung her arms around him in sudden, overwhelming joy. “You won’t be sorry!”
“There, there.” He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, but made no effort to escape from her enthusiastic embrace. “No need to go overboard. That’s how this whole mess started.”
To his intense disappointment, she jumped to her feet and, moving to the edge of the cloud bank where they were sitting, peered down at the New Hampshire coastline below. “Are there any restrictions on your good deed?” she asked.
Jonas frowned, trying to remember what he’d been told. “No,” he finally said. “It just has to be significant in the life of someone.”
“That might present a problem,” she said slowly. “What about the old lady who lives in our house now? Didn’t you mention that she was having some troubles?”
Jonas nodded. “Since they built that new resort up the coast aways, she hasn’t been able to rent out any of her rooms.”
“Sounds to me like there’s a good deed there,” Millicent said.
Jonas absently scratched his beard. “Only way I can think to help her is to burn down the new resort so her clients’ll come back, and I doubt if that sactimonious old pen pusher at the gate would accept that.”
“No,” Millicent agreed. “But there has to be another way.”
Jonas frowned. “I could get her some money so that she doesn’t need the income from the inn, but the only way to do that is to steal it, and while that might help her, it won’t help me.”
“There appears to be more to this good-deed business than first meets the eye,” she said uncertainly.
“I could have told you that eighty-one years ago,” Jonas said acerbically. “In fact, I rather think I did!”
“You promised,” Millicent reminded him.
“And I’ll do it. I just got to figure out what it is I’m doing.”
“You’ll think of something.” Millicent smiled at him with a confidence that Jonas wished he could share. Now that he’d finally given in, he wanted to do his good deed and marry his Millicent. He watched with a nagging sense of loss as she slowly faded away.
Jonas got to his feet and absently brushed at the wisps of cloud clinging to his pants. He’d better get down to earth and see what he could work out. He heaved a disheartened sigh. If people thought living was hard, they ought to try dying!
One
“What you need is a gimmick, Aunt Hannah.” Cassie Whitney absently scooped up a handful of fresh, red raspberries from the bowl on the kitchen table and began to munch them.
“No, dear, what I need are paying guests. Even one or two would be nice.”
Hannah sighed despondently as she began to expertly shape the pastry for the raspberry tarts. “I feel so bad about Gertie. She depends on the money I pay her for cleaning the guests’ rooms to supplement her social security, and if there’re no guests...”
Cassie eyed her aunt worriedly, beginning to fear that the situation was even worse than she’d originally thought when she’d arrived last night to find the normally bustling inn silent. It wasn’t like Hannah to sound so discouraged. She had always been one of the most positive people Cassie had ever known. In fact, Cassie’s father claimed that after forty-four years of reading The Little Engine that Could to her kindergarten classes, Hannah had been brainwashed into believing that anything was possible.
“And if the truth were told, dear, I feel sorry for myself, too.” She gave Cassie a rueful smile. “I need the money the guests bring in. My pension is more than adequate for normal living expenses, but...” She glanced around the spacious, old-fashioned kitchen with affectionate resignation. “There’s no denying China View is very expensive. The heating bills alone are horrendous, and something always seems to need fixing or painting or replacing. And the taxes...” Hannah shuddered.
“Are the taxes in arrears?” Cassie cut to the heart of the matter.
“Not exactly,” Hannah hedged.
Cassie frowned as she considered the matter. “I would have thought you were either in arrears or you weren’t.”
“Well, you see, property taxes are paid in two installments. The first installment was due June first.”
“And this is June twenty-second. So you’re late.”
“Technically, but the tax office always gives you a ninety-day grace period before they take any action. And I was able to make a partial payment,” Hannah added.
“How much do we owe?”
“No, dear.” Hannah shook her gray head emphatically. “How much do I owe. China View is my white elephant, not yours.”
“It’s the family’s white elephant,” Cassie insisted. “Whitneys have been living here forever.”
“Only since 1844, when Jonas Middlebury died and left it to his fiancée, who was a distant relative of ours.”
“How romantic.” Cassie’s blue-gray eyes softened dreamily. “To die tragically and leave the love of your life all your possessions.”
“From all accounts, demon rum was the love of his life,” Hannah said tartly. “He’d have made poor Millicent a terrible husband.”
Cassie jumped at the sound of a thump coming from the pantry behind them. She turned and looked across the kitchen at the closed pantry door. “What was that?”
“Probably the wind blowing through the open window knocked something over,” Hannah replied, dismissing the noise. “You’ve been living in New York City too long. You’re nervous of your own shadow. Not only that, but you’ve lost weight.” She frowned at Cassie’s cheekbones, which were a shade too prominent beneath her creamy ivory skin. “You need fattening up.”
“It’s been a long, stressful winter in the advertising business.” Cassie massively understated the case. “But also a very successful one. You are looking at Welton and Mitchell’s newest vice president.”
“Congratulations, dear.” Hannah beamed with pride at Cassie’s achievement.
“Thank you. And, since I got that promotion because I’m very good at selling things, why don’t I use my expertise to sell China View to prospective guests? A month from now, when my vacation is over, you’ll need my room for the surplus guests.”
“Wouldn’t it be a comfort to be booked full?” Hannah popped the tray of tarts into the oven. “But this is your vacation, dear. You’re supposed to be resting.”
“And I will,” Cassie assured her. “But lying around doing nothing palls very quickly. I much prefer to have a project percolating in the back of my mind. It keeps me from getting bored.
“Now then,” she went on briskly, “I think our first order of business had better be the taxes. I’ll give you a check, and you can pay them.”
