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“Ms. Simms…Marlie, I think you had too much sunshine and thin mountain air today. You crawl back into bed now, honey, and I’ll bring up a nice cup of herbal tea to help you sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
Ker-choo!
“You didn’t hear that?” Marlie asked in a small voice.
“No, sweetie. You get a good night’s rest now and I’ll bet you feel tip-top by tomorrow.”
Marlie sighed. “Perhaps you’re right. But I don’t need any tea. Really. Thanks for coming up, though.”
She walked Ann to the door and was about to shut it behind her when she noticed the bathroom trash basket sitting by the doorway in the hall. In it was her brand-new, used only once, very expensive tablet of lavender soap.
Marlie debated pointing this bit of evidence out to the desk clerk, who was wishing her good-night again, but in the end decided it probably wouldn’t do much good.
After closing the door, she leaned against it to gaze accusingly into her seemingly empty bedroom. “Say something, darn it. I know you’re still here.”
“That makes two of us.”
There was the sound a deep sigh followed by a massive Ker-choo!
“Oh, for goodness’ sake! Do you have to keep doing that? Ghosts aren’t supposed to sneeze.”
“I’m not a ghost.”
“Could’ve fooled me. What are you then?”
“Alive, for one thing. For some reason, people just can’t see me, and so far the only person who can hear me is you.” Ker-choo!
“Well aren’t I just the lucky one,” Marlie said nastily. “How delightful that the whole world now thinks I’m crazy.”
“Not the whole world, just Ann Jergin. But she’s a nice girl. She won’t tell anyone.”
“You know her?”
“Of course I know her. We were in the same grade all through school.”
Marlie frowned in the direction of the voice, now coming from the vicinity of the other bed. In fact, the bed looked a little depressed on one side, as if someone were sitting on it.
“Who are you?” she asked slowly.
“I’ll tell you after you shower. Lifebouy, Irish Spring, Dove. Take your pick. Any scent but lavender.”
“How do I know you won’t float into the shower with me? You might be anywhere for all I know.”
“Lock the damn door,” the voice snapped. “I can’t walk through walls. I already tried.”
“You could be lying.”
“Yes, ma’am, I could. You’re just gonna have to trust me now, aren’t you?”
Why should I, Marlie wanted to ask, but didn’t. A ghost with allergies seemed…trustworthy, in a bizarre sort of way.
Good grief! She was certifiably crazy.
But she headed for the bathroom. Just before she closed and locked the door, however, she stuck her head out again. “Where are you?”
“Here,” he replied, his tone one of long suffering, but the sound of his voice came from the bed. “Now get a move on. I’m tired, I’ve got a hell of a headache and I don’t want to stay up all night yakking.”
What a crab.
When she returned, showering in record time, the woman smelled like nothing but cleanliness. Caid had never thought of eau de clean as erotic before, but as he watched her prance across the room, then hop into bed, he had the overwhelming urge to hop into it with her.
Huh, he thought. So she had great legs. The real attraction was probably because he could talk to her. Communication could be a powerful aphrodisiac.
And strangely, though sharing a bed with the woman had strong appeal, going beyond sharing didn’t seem to…suit the moment.
“What’s your name?”
They’d asked the question at the same time.
“You first,” the woman said. “And your story better be good, buster.”
“Or what?” Caid asked, truly curious.
“I’ll think of something. Don’t think I won’t. Now start talking.”
Caid grinned. “Yes, ma’am.” But his story was no laughing matter and he sobered immediately. “I’m Caid Matthews,” he said. “Kincaid Matthews the Fourth, owner of the Rolling M.”
“That’s your feather on the dresser, isn’t it?” she said wonderingly. “I mean, your hat. Your name is inside. I thought it was part of the hotel decor.”
“Only since yesterday. I forgot it when I went back to the ranch.”
He heard a startled little movement in the next bed. “Oh my Lord!” the woman exclaimed. “You’re the rancher who was involved in the accident. The one they took to the hospital last night.”
“No, ma’am. I’m the one who ran into a tree, all right, but I never went to the hospital.”
“But…but when I checked in last night, they said you’d been taken to the hospital. That’s why they gave me the room.”
Caid was beginning to get irritated. Whose story was this? “No, ma’am,” he contradicted stubbornly. “I was right here in this bed last night.”
There was a long silence. “Oh.”
Though it hurt his head to do it, Caid raised up so he could look across the intervening space at the opposite bed, part of which lay in a pool of light cast by the lamp on that side of the table between them.
The woman sat against a bank of pillows, gazing into space and chewing her bottom lip, obviously thinking deeply.
“Do you remember how you got into town?” she asked at last.
Caid could tell she was keeping her tone carefully noncommittal and it riled him no end.
“Yes, I remember how I got into town. Three cowboys from the MT gave me a lift. They found my truck and I hitched a ride into town with them. But my head was killing me, so I let them talk to the sheriff and I came on here.”
Uh-oh. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that “killing me” part. The woman’s own ideas were bad enough.
“But did you actually talk to them?”
She just wasn’t going to leave it alone, was she? “Hell yes, I actually talked to them. Well, some. Maybe not a whole lot, but I told them I’d ride into town with them. Then I crawled into the back of their pickup and we came on to Fort Davis.”
“You told them? They didn’t ask? And they let an injured man ride in the night air in the back of the pickup? That doesn’t sound strange to you?”
“Not particularly,” Caid replied shortly, though come to think of it, it did seem a little harsh even for West Texas cowpokes. Nobody had even offered him a handkerchief to sop up the blood.
“Did you get a good look at your truck?” the woman then asked.
“Yeah, I saw it. What about it?”
“There was blood all over the seat.”
“Doesn’t mean anything. There was blood all over my head and my shirt, too. I probably had a mild concussion, but so what? I’ve had worse. And how do you know there was blood on the seat?”
“Your truck was the sensation of the morning, Mr. Matthews. When I had breakfast, everybody was talking about it at The Drugstore this morning, so I walked down and looked at it, too. You could see the bull’s-eye in the windshield where your head hit. Why in Heaven didn’t you wear your seat belt?”
Caid felt his ears turn red. “I forgot,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“I forgot, dammit, just like I forgot my hat and just like I forgot the blasted papers in the first place. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”
There was another long silence.
“Something else was being talked about in the restaurant this morning, Mr. Matthews,” she said at last.
“Caid.”
“Um, Caid. People were talking about the latest news from the hospital after the ambulance took you to the emergency room. They said…”
She paused, and Caid had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what came next.
“They said, um, Caid, that you were…on life support.”
It was Caid’s turn to be silent for a long moment. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, hell. All I know is, I’m not in the hospital, I’m sitting right here on this bed talking to you, and the only thing wrong with me is a humdinger of a headache.”
And then she just had to say it. “But no one can see you or hear you.”
“You can.”
“I can hear you, but I can’t see you. Mr. Matthews…Caid…I’m sorry to have to say this, but I—I think you died. Life support keeps the body going, but it doesn’t necessarily keep the spirit going.”
“Bull hockey. I’d know it if I was dead. I’d have seen the light or something. And why the heck would I stick around town when I could go to Paradise?”
“Maybe Paradise isn’t an option. Or maybe you just don’t know you’re dead. I mean, isn’t that kind of what a ghost is, someone who doesn’t understand that they’re dead so they refuse to go to the other side? That’s why they do exorcisms, isn’t it?”
“Exorcisms! Lady, are you crazy?” Caid sat straight up in bed, then had to grab his ears to keep his head from bouncing off. Hell, if he was a ghost he wouldn’t have this damn headache. And what did she mean, maybe Paradise wasn’t an option?
By now, Marlie was near tears. There was no easy way to tell someone they were dead and this man just kept arguing with her.
“My name is Marlie,” she said, “and I’m not the one who’s crazy here. Everyone can hear and see me just fine, thank you very much. It’s you who can’t seem to get with the program. If you’d just go on to the other side like you’re supposed to, you wouldn’t have this problem.”
“Marlie what?”
“Simms,” she said, and sniffed.
“Marlie Simms, are you crying?”
The voice from the other bed sounded very gentle. She could have liked this man, Marlie thought. When he wasn’t being stubborn.
“I’m s-sorry you’re dead,” she said wetly.
She could almost feel his instant withdrawal.
“I’m not dead. Now turn out the light and let’s get some sleep. I’m tired of arguing. My head feels like a Chinese gong at prayer time and I’m out of aspirin.”
Marlie blinked. “You’ve been taking aspirin?”
“While I had it, but I can’t say it’s done much good.”
“There’s medication stronger than aspirin,” she said tentatively. “I, um, have some in my purse. I’ll give you a couple of tablets, if you like.”
“Appreciate it.”
Throwing back the covers, she left the bed to get her purse, returning to sit on the edge to rummage through the bag in the lamplight. Naturally the ibuprofen was on the bottom so that she had to take out a few things.
“Say. Are you going to eat that candy bar?”
Startled, she looked over at the bed next to hers that appeared empty, yet was so very full of pure unadulterated male. How she knew that last she wasn’t quite certain, except that a picture had begun to form in her mind from the moment she’d picked up his hat.
“You’re…you’re hungry?”
“Haven’t eaten a bite all day. When I tried to order a meal, no one would listen to me.”
“Here, take it,” Marlie said immediately. But with no hand to give it to, she placed the chocolate bar on the far side of the bedside table. It immediately disappeared.
“I also have a couple of packages of crackers, and a granola bar,” she added, placing them, too, on the nightstand.
She heard the rustle of paper wrappings and a crumbly, “Thanks,” as if Caid was talking with his mouth full. In seconds, the crackers and granola bar vanished. Discarded wrappers appeared in the trash basket under the night table.
