Between a Wolf and a Hard Place

  When Brett arrived at the MacTire sisters’ home, Laurel and Meghan were heading to the inn. They told him to have fun at the piano lesson and continued on their way. Ellie met him outside, looking like she was getting ready to take an exam and hadn’t studied the night before. He took her cold hand in his and led her out to the car.

  “Now remember, no worries. If we have fun at this, fine. If not, we can quit.”

  “I didn’t even ask how much it was going to cost,” she said.

  “It’s free.”

  “No, we have to pay the teacher what he normally charges.”

  “It’s a promotional tool for him. I’ll pay him. The first two lessons are free to see if we even want to do this.”

  “Are you sure? I can—”

  “No. My suggestion, my treat.”

  As soon as she got into the car, she saw the macramé book and smiled. “You were serious.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  She laughed. “Yes.” Then she saw the book on wood carving beneath it. She began flipping through the pages of the macramé book first. “Oh, oh, I want to try this one. It would be perfect to hang off the back porch holding a pot of flowers in the spring. Or maybe a wall hanging. Oh, I don’t know now.” She checked out the book on wood carving and smiled at the picture of a wolf carving. “This one.” She knew that was the one she wanted to do.

  “I haven’t seen the macramé project I want to do yet, but I’ll look later. We can pick up the supplies we need once we’re ready to try it out. I did get what we needed for wood carving. The wolf was my choice too.” He was glad he’d pleased her. He wanted her to know he was serious, and that he wanted to share in things she wanted to do too.

  “Hey, if we get really good at it, or at least if one of us does, we can offer carvings and wall hangings for sale in the lobby,” she said.

  “Gifts for family. The possibilities are limitless.” As long as they turned out well!

  * * *

  Laurel really liked the piano teacher. He was in his mid-to-late fifties, and like Brett had said, he was really eager to teach them how to play.

  He started teaching them the notes and gave them some online lessons to work on so they could practice.

  Remer had dark-red hair like Ellie, which made her wonder if he had Irish roots too. Or maybe Scottish. While Brett was practicing, she asked.

  “To be sure,” Remer said. “My maternal and paternal grandparents were from Ireland. They came over about the time the Silver family was starting the town.”

  “I thought you were new here. That you’ve only been here a year or so.”

  Brett was still practicing the piece the teacher wanted him to play.

  “Yes. We moved away for a time. I was performing in an orchestra in New York, but I got tired of not being around our kind. So I returned here.”

  “No family now?”

  “Nope. I was an only child.” Remer gave Brett some more notes to practice. “Both of you are doing great for your first time. I’m surprised you didn’t learn some from your great-aunt or your grandmother,” he said to Brett.

  Brett was frowning as he pressed down the keys. “My grandmother didn’t play the piano as far as I knew.”

  “Oh, she played. She didn’t play as well as Matilda though. Your great-aunt taught me piano lessons for a number of years. She taught a lot of kids. Matilda even asked your grandmother to take over lessons one day after she suddenly got an emergency call. Your grandmother didn’t play or teach half as well as your great-aunt. Maybe it was because she didn’t play that often. But she didn’t seem to have a natural affinity for it either. I think there was some jealousy between the two of them over it.”

  “I never knew that,” Brett said. “I know they lived together at the end, but I never saw Grandmother play.”

  Ellie hadn’t lived here back then, but she was surprised Brett’s grandmother had kept her training a secret from him. Even if Ellie never learned to play well, she wouldn’t hide the fact that she’d tried to learn. She was always trying new stuff. No big deal if she didn’t master it and make a big success of it. If one of her sisters was better at something than she was, she would be happy for her.

  “Your great-aunt made a good income off her lessons. She performed a lot too, before she settled down and began teaching local kids.”

  They heard someone enter through the front door.

  Remer smiled. “Another student just arrived. So what do you think? Are you willing to continue lessons for a few more sessions?”

  Brett looked up at Ellie, and she swore he was holding his breath, waiting for her answer. She smiled. “Of course. You can tell me when—I mean, if—you think I’m a hopeless student at any time. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

  “Truthfully, I’ve never seen a student play so well for the first time.”

  She was going to say he must have had some really bad students, but since he hadn’t said the same about Brett, she smiled again. She thought about Matilda really giving her the first lesson, but she wasn’t about to mention that. “Thanks.”

  When she and Brett left Remer’s house, Brett wrapped his arm around Ellie’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze in the crisp fall air. “That wasn’t too awfully bad, was it?”

  “No. I really had fun.”

  “Good. Me too. You did very well. I thought we’d go to Silva’s tea shop for lunch if you like.”

  “Oh, I’d love to. She’ll love it.” She was glad Brett had suggested the tea shop and not the pub for lunch since they had dinner there recently. Both were first-class establishments as far as meals and service went, but Silva’s tea shop was only open for lunch.

  Ellie was glad she had tried the piano lessons. At least so far it had been fun. “That was a surprise about your grandmother playing piano, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah. She didn’t want my Uncle Ned to take lessons. She always said it wasn’t a masculine enough activity for him. Maybe she didn’t like the idea of her sister teaching him because she could play better than my grandmother.”

  “Brett, do you know for sure that Matilda died of natural causes?”

  * * *

  Brett glanced in Ellie’s direction, shocked she’d ask about his great-aunt’s cause of death. What did she suspect? Or know?

  “You saw her, didn’t you? Not Chrissy, but Matilda,” he asked.

  Ellie nodded. “I know you don’t exactly believe in ghosts, so I didn’t want to mention it. She didn’t like that you and I were kissing. I figured it was her Victorian upbringing. Unmated girls had to be chaperoned.”

  He couldn’t believe it. Yet that did sound suspiciously like his great-aunt. “And?”

  Ellie let out her breath on a heavy sigh. “Meghan and I heard her playing the piano in the inn the other night.”

  Brett pulled into the parking lot of Silva’s tea shop and cut the engine. He stared at Ellie in disbelief. “What are you going to do about it? With your guests coming?”

  “Do you believe me?”

  She looked so hopeful that his heart went out to her.

  “Well, like I said, it’s kind of hard to believe in something I can’t see or hear. I can rationalize that others can experience ghosts when I can’t, I guess, but still, it’s hard to imagine.”

  “Well then, we’ll just have to kiss by the piano.”

  He smiled, certainly ready for that.

  “Then again, you probably wouldn’t be able to see her if she suddenly appeared. I’d be the only one who was unsettled. Maybe I can talk her into playing the piano for you. She showed me some keys to play last night.”

  He shut his gaping mouth and processed that. “I thought you went to bed.”

  “I-I just had to talk with her. So I went to the inn and told her we were taking piano lessons together. I didn’t see her this time. I don’t always
see the physical ghost. She began to show me keys to play, and I copied her. I think that pleased her.”

  “Why did you think she might not have died of pneumonia?”

  “I mentioned my dad dying of pneumonia to her.”

  “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. We were devastated. It seemed to bother her when I asked if she’d had a relapse like my dad had. She made a horrible noise on the piano, banging on the keys. She seemed really angry. I can’t imagine that anyone who loves the piano as much as she did would mistreat it. Maybe she was angry that she had died from pneumonia. Or she believed that someone hadn’t taken care of her like he or she should have, even if they had. My mother was devoted to my father. So were my sisters and I. He still died. His body didn’t have time to fight the infection before he lapsed into a coma and died.”

  “Do you think she might be telling you someone neglected her and that’s why she died?”

  “No. Like I said, it could be she’s angry about it, despite receiving the best of care. It doesn’t mean anyone did anything wrong.”

  “Okay, I wondered.” Brett took a deep breath and let it out. “She had a cold beforehand. Maybe she had walking pneumonia, unaware that she was that sick. But what if something else happened? What if she actually drowned?”

  Ellie stared at him in disbelief. “What makes you consider that?”

  “It’s all supposition. Probably just a crazy, far-out notion. I keep thinking that if she showed herself to you, she needs some kind of closure to move on. It’s possible that something else, nothing sinister, is at stake. But what if that’s not the case? Especially if she’s upset you think she died of pneumonia. What else would she have died of that could simulate pneumonia? Pulmonary edema can cause a buildup of fluid in the lungs. But drowning can too. I ran the idea past CJ, but he doesn’t believe the cause was anything other than what the coroner’s report stated.”

  “She died in bed though, right?”

  “That’s what everyone thinks.”

  “So what makes you think that she could have died elsewhere?”

  He explained about the missing boat and what they’d found in the bottom of it—the man’s glove, the empty wine bottle, and his great-aunt’s sunbonnet.

  “Scandalous,” Ellie said very seriously. “I mean, if she had issues with us kissing when we’re not mated, and she was partying with some guy in a boat on the river behind her house, her sunbonnet off… Well, it sounds rather scandalous.”

  “And out of character? Of course, the old gal might have had a secretly wild side. We don’t really know.”

  “Any idea who the gentleman suitor might have been?”

  “A couple of men were hanging around. One loved to play the piano. The other was Remer’s grandfather, Theodore. I don’t know the name of the first man.”

  “Two gentleman suitors?” Ellie tsked. “And she was giving me the evil eye because we were kissing? Okay, so when were the items found in the boat?”

  “Well, Theodore was actually seeing Grandmom. After Matilda’s death, they discovered the boat had gotten loose from its moorings, and the river had carried it downstream a couple of miles. Someone in the pack found it stuck on some rocks.”

  “Did anyone notice it was missing before she died?”

  “No.”

  Ellie frowned. “So, if she had drowned, someone would have had to carry her to the house, change her clothes, and put her to bed.”

  “Her hair was damp the next morning, though everyone assumed she’d had a bath and taken more of a chill. A couple of damp towels were hanging on the rack. Grandmom said Matilda must have been really delirious because she’d used both Grandmom’s towel and her own, and her nightgown was on backward.”

  “Or she could have been drunk on the wine. Then again, she could have drowned, and the man who brought her back dried her the best he could, making the mistake of using both towels, then dressed her in her nightclothes and made it look like she just didn’t wake up the next morning. That means he would have left water all over though, if he’d had to pull her out of the river and carry her back to the house.” Ellie shook her head.

  “Or he went back to the house and used the two towels to mop up the floor.”

  “Did anyone notice a bunch of wet towels?”

  “No. Just the two.”

  “And her wet clothes?”

  “He might have disposed of them.”

  “So she was living with your grandmother?” Ellie asked.

  “Yes, her twin sister, my grandmother, but she wasn’t home at the time. Grandmom was out with a couple of lady friends and was completely distraught that she had been gone when my great-aunt got so sick and died. She’d believed Matilda was home, not wanting to go out with the ladies because of her cold, and instead playing her piano as usual. But what if she went out with some guy, and it had a tragic end?”

  “Accidentally? Or on purpose?” Ellie lifted a brow.

  “Or not the case at all. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this. It’s hard for me to believe she’s been hanging around the piano all these years when none of us had a clue.”

  “I understand. I have to admit we were sure shocked.”

  “I saw the way you were upset when I was kissing you. I’m glad it wasn’t because of me.”

  She smiled. “It wasn’t because of you. So what are we going to do about the possibility that your great-aunt didn’t die of natural causes?”

  “I’d say we might need to team up and do research. What do you think?”

  Ellie nodded. “Yeah. I’m all for it. I’m starving. Do you think you can eat anything?”

  “I sure do.” Despite being hungry and wanting to spend as much time as possible with Ellie, Brett was distracted. He had been thinking way ahead about this situation. He needed to learn who the other man was. Had anyone seen them go out in the boat? Or know anything that would prove she had gone out that night and not stayed at home like his grandmother had believed.

  Brett and Ellie entered the tea shop. Round tables covered in lace, antique teapots and teacups, botanical prints, and vases of roses adorned the quaint Victorian shop. Silva also had decorated pumpkins filled with flowers on each of the tables. Ghost and Frankenstein petit fours were sitting on a platter underneath glass, and a pot of witches’ brew—orange spice tea—was scenting the shop for that sweetly Victorian Halloween flair.

  Silva greeted them with a cheery smile and then showed them to their seats at a table next to one of the windows overlooking a covered street-side patio with café chairs and tables. Brett had a triple-stacked Reuben sandwich and swore Silva had made it more man-sized just for him, so he’d encourage more of the guys to stop in at the tea shop. Ellie had chicken and dumplings, and the women in the tea shop twittered as if seeing a man in the lunch room had gotten them all excited. Most were mated, so he was amused.

  “You’re getting all kinds of attention,” Ellie said to Brett, taking another spoonful of her chicken and dumplings. She smiled at him.

  He chuckled. “They’d react that way if any guy turned up here.”

  She laughed. “Enjoy it while you can.”

  A red car pulled up outside the window and parked. The license plate immediately caught his eye. “Art4Hire.” Ah hell. Not only was the driver Ginger, one of the former students who had painted him when he was modeling nude, but Thera and Renea, both watercolor artists, climbed out of her car. They lived in or around Breckenridge, and all had been in one class or another that he had modeled for. There wasn’t any way that they would know he had come here for lunch. And though they’d mailed him free prints that he didn’t keep, he’d never given any of the ladies his phone number or email address.

  No one knew he was going to be here today except Ellie. No way had he wanted to mention this to her here and now, but he could see the trouble he migh
t be in with her when the women entered the shop and saw him—if they didn’t already know he was here.

  He reached across the table and took her hand and squeezed. “Trouble is on its way.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. You see those three ladies?”

  She glanced out the window and raised her brows as one of them saw Brett and began waving and blew a kiss to him. The others started waving frantically too. Damn.

  “Former lover?” Ellie sounded like she was trying to keep her tone of voice even, but he heard a hint of annoyance.

  “No. I used to model for art classes at a college in Breckenridge so I could pay for my journalism degree.”

  Her gaze switched to Brett, and her jaw dropped. “A nude model?”

  He was afraid she was going to dump him right then and there.

  “Not always. Sometimes I had something draped across my lap.”

  Her lips were parted in surprise, but then her attention shifted to the door as the bell jingled and the three women walked in. They were all lookers: Ginger, the redhead; Thera, the brunette; and Renea, the blond. They were great artists, displaying their works in galleries all over. But Brett’s modeling days were done. Not that he couldn’t still model and do a good job of it, but he was a news reporter now, and that’s all he cared about doing.

  Ellie leaned back in her chair as if distancing herself from him and the women, who happily surrounded him, all smiles and hugs. What could he do but smile back and return the hugs? Platonically, of course. He didn’t want Ellie to think this was how he was with everyone and that he had a bunch of women interested in his body, just because he’d posed for some art classes a couple of years back.

  “We came here to see if we could find you,” Ginger said. “We thought if the three of us got together, we could convince you to model for another session. We’d pay for it, of course.”

  “Truthfully?” Renea said. “Ginger made such a mint off her last oil painting of you that we all wanted to have another chance. We’re in competition to see who can make the biggest sale this time. We all have our own technique so our paintings turn out differently for each of us.”