The Perfect Hope

CHAPTER TEN

HOPE WOUND UP THE LANE TOWARD JUSTINE’S LATER than she’d planned on Sunday afternoon. Still, she’d enjoyed the drive in the summer green along the curvy roads with her windows down and the wind lifting her hair.

A day tailor-made for a convertible, she thought. She’d toyed with buying one once, but hadn’t been able to justify the purchase with her urban life. And now she couldn’t justify it due to the long, often snowy country winters.

It was hell being practical.

She liked the way Justine’s house seemed tucked away in the woods and still managed to sprawl. And the gardens, she noted, put on a pretty spectacular show.

She saw why when she spotted Justine yanking weeds with a wide-brimmed straw hat perched on her head, purple gloves on her hands, and a bold red tub beside her.

When Hope pulled up, nosing behind a trio of trucks, a pack of dogs raced up to sniff and wag and dance. Justine’s two Labs, Atticus and Finch. Hope counted off as she eased open the car door. Clare’s family’s Yoda and Ben, Ryder’s D.A., and … Oh, the puppy!

The sniffing and wagging continued as she scrubbed heads. “Hi there. You must be Spike. Look how cute you are!”

Justine, earbuds dangling, clapped her hands. “All right, boys, back off some.” As she spoke, a pug waddled around the big red tub.

“Oh, they’re everywhere.” Laughing, Hope started forward as Justine hefted the weed-filled tub and walked to meet her.

“Yeah, they are. This one’s Tyrone, and a little overwhelmed.”

“Everybody else is so big. Hello, Tyrone.”

“He’s only got one good ear, and he’s shy yet. But he’s got a sweet nature once he’s got his bearings.”

The trio of boys raced toward them from the direction of the shop, Murphy pumping hard to bring up the rear. Immediately, the dogs—sans Tyrone—ran to surround them.

“Mom’s coming,” Harry announced. “We’re thirsty.”

“She’s going to get us drinks. Can we have Specials? Can we, Gran?”

Justine flipped at the brim of Liam’s ball cap. She’d started stocking jugs of V-8 Splash, and her Special was a tiny dollop of ginger ale added to the cup. “Okay by me. Take this one with you.” She motioned toward the pug. “And see he doesn’t poop on my floor.”

“Okay!”

Murphy wrapped his arms around Hope’s legs, looked up with a face shining with joy. “We got lots of dogs. We got more dogs than anybody else in the universe.”

“So I see.”

“Wait! Wait for me!” he shouted when his brothers ran off.

“Seems like it was just me and my two dogs for a while,” Justine said, carting her weeds to her composter. “Though the boys were always thinking up reasons to come by and check on me. Now I’ve got those three and a wolf pack.”

“And you love it.”

“Every second. Clare!” Justine fisted a hand on her hip as Clare walked down the slope from the shop. “I’d’ve gotten those boys drinks.”

“I can use the exercise and an indoor seat. I didn’t hear you drive up,” she said to Hope. “It’s noisy back there.”

“It’s going to be noisy inside, too,” Justine pointed out.

“That I’m used to. They kicked me out of the shop anyway. They’re going to start staining and varnishing something, and didn’t want me around the fumes.”

“I didn’t raise idiots. Go on inside. I’m nearly done here so I’ll be along to help you ride herd. Hope, why don’t you go out there to the shop, get a gauge on when they’re going to take a break.”

“All right.”

She walked toward the shop, and the dogs came tearing after her. Finch was wild-eyed, with a ratty, slobbery ball in his mouth. “I’m not touching that,” she told him.

He dropped it at her feet. “Still not touching it.”

He repeated the process every few steps, all the way to the shop with its covered porch crowded with old chairs, tables, window frames, and various salvage she couldn’t identify. Music banged out the open windows along with male voices raised in what might have been a discussion, debate, or argument.

She poked her head in the door and saw men, a lot of toothy tools, piles of lumber, stacks of paint, shelves jammed with cans and jars, and God knew what else.

Finch hustled right in, dropped the ball at Ryder’s feet. Ryder barely glanced down before he kicked the ball through the window.

The dog soared through after it. There was a crash, a thud. As Hope scrambled back to make sure the dog was all right, Finch rolled with the ball clamped in his teeth, raced back into the shop.

“For heaven’s sake,” she murmured. She walked back, this time going in. And had just enough time to lift her hands in defense and catch the ball before it hit her in the face.

“Good reflexes,” Ryder commented.

“Yuck.” She heaved the ball outside. A deliriously joyful Finch flew after it.

“And not a bad arm.”

“You might look where you’re kicking that disgusting thing.”

“It would’ve gone out the window if you hadn’t blocked it.” He pulled a bandana out of his pocket.

She only eyed it when he offered it, and instead reached in her purse for a mini bottle of antibacterial gel. “No, thanks.”

“Hope! Look at my bar.” Avery, in cargo shorts, hiking boots, and a wildly green bandana tied around her hair looked more like one of the trekkers who came off the Appalachian Trail than a restaurateur. She negotiated the maze of power tools and lumber to grab Hope’s hand and pull her through. “These are the panels that go on the bar. Aren’t they gorgeous?”

Hope didn’t know much about carpentry, but she thought she saw potential in the unfinished wood, the cleanly defined details.

“All of those? It’s going to be bigger than I realized.”

“Belly up!” Avery wiggled her butt. “I’ve nearly decided on what I want for the top. I keep going back and forth. We’re going to start staining some of the panels today so I can see how they look.”

“There’s no we,” Owen corrected.

“But I—”

“Do I mess around in your kitchen?”

“No, but—”

“Why?”

Avery rolled her eyes. “Because you’re too fussy and picky about having everything lining up like soldiers, and won’t experiment.”

“And you’re not. Makes you a good cook. Fussy and picky make me a good carpenter.”

He did something Hope never expected to see the fussy and picky Owen do. He licked his thumb, rubbed it on the unstained wood. “Nice,” he said as the dampness brought out the deep, rich tone. “Go cook something.”

When she bared her teeth at him, he laughed and grabbed her in for a hard kiss and a butt squeeze.

Beckett came in from another area carrying a couple of large cans. “I told you I knew where it was. Hi, Hope.”

“If you’d leave it where I put it, you wouldn’t have to look for it,” Owen began.

“It was in the way, and I knew where it was.”

“It’s not in the way if it’s in the paint, stain, and varnish area.”

“Ladies.”

Hope turned to Ryder when he spoke. “Not you. I’m talking to them. Open the damn cans,” he told his brothers. “I’d like to get these pieces stained sometime this century.”

“Let me do just a little of it.” Avery put on her best smile. “Just one little corner of one little panel. Then I can say I had a hand in it. Loosen up, Owen.”

“Yeah,” Beckett agreed. “Loosen up, Owen.”

That started another round of arguing.

“Is it always like this?” Hope asked Ryder.

He took a long swig from a bottle of Gatorade. “Like what?”

Before she could answer, Finch came back with the ball. She barely managed to jump back so it didn’t plop wet and filthy on her shoe. Ryder just booted it out the window again so the happily crazed dog could leap after it.

“High school football,” he said when Hope frowned at him.

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll hurt himself?”

“He hasn’t so far. Do us a favor and get Little Red out of here. Everything takes three times as long with women around.”

“Oh really?”

“Unless she picks up some tools and knows how to use them, yeah. If you want to get to your ghost talk before nightfall, move her along.”

“If you know Avery, you know she won’t leave until she does her corner. When she does, I’ll get her out.”

“Fine.” He picked up a glue gun, ran a bead along an edge of what looked to be some sort of counter with shelves above it.

“What’s that going to be?”

“Built-in for the waitress station. If you’re just going to be standing there, hand me that clamp.”

She looked around on a table scattered with screws, tools, rags, glue tubes and located a clamp. And felt something just above her hair.

“Did you just sniff me?”

“You smell good. If you go to the trouble of smelling good, you should expect to get sniffed.” Their eyes met over a wood clamp. “Why don’t you come by my place when we’re done here?”

“I have guests.”

“You’ve got Carolee.”

That surge worked through her, but she shook her head. “Tuesday night.” She stepped away before she could change her mind. “Avery, let’s get out of the way.”

“You did your corner, Red,” Ryder added. “Scram. No girls allowed.”

“Boys are mean.” Avery drilled her finger into Ryder’s belly as she passed.

Then when they got outside where kids and dogs ran like the wild in the yard, she hooked her arm through Hope’s. “Sizzling-hot sex vibes.”

“Stop.”

“I know sizzling-hot sex vibes when they’re snapping in the air. You know he lives a couple minutes away.”

“I have—”

“Guests. Still. Quickies are underrated.”

“Again, I say, one-track mind.”

“I’m engaged to my boyfriend. I’m supposed to think about sex.”

“You’re supposed to think about wedding dresses and caterers.”

“And sex.” Laughing, Avery pulled off the bandana, scooped her fingers through her hair. “I don’t want to pick the dress yet. I’ve been looking at magazines and scoping online to get ideas, to try to find a style that pulls at me. It’s like the bar top.”

“Avery.” With an eye roll for her friend’s lack of romantic priorities, Hope sighed. “Your wedding dress is not like the bar top.”

“It is because they both have to be exactly right, exactly what looks fabulous and makes me feel excited.”

“Okay, your wedding dress is like the bar top.”

Avery walked inside, through the kitchen door where Clare sat at the counter peeling carrots. Justine stood, chopping celery with the pug curled at her feet. Something boiled on the stove.

“Avery, your dad’s coming over.”

“Great. I want to introduce him to the puppies.” She bent down to rub and nuzzle Tyrone—currently hiding under Clare’s stool.

“We’re cooking out,” Justine announced. “Ry’s been dropping broad hints about the lack of potato salad in his life, so I figured I’ve got three girls here. We ought to be able to pull that off.”

“I’d be happy to help,” Hope began, “but I really have to get back in about an hour.”

“I called Carolee. She’ll hold the fort until you get there.”

“Really I should go, let her come, be with the family.”

“She’s fine,” Justine insisted. “Avery, will you make that marinade you do for this chicken? The spicy one. We can handle it—we’ll do something mild for Harry and Liam. God knows Murphy can handle the heat. The boy would eat hot peppers like gummy bears if we let him.”

“He likes them better than gummy bears,” Clare agreed. “Relax,” she told Hope. “This will give us more time to brainstorm about Lizzy.”

True enough, Hope thought. But if she’d known she’d have extra time, she might’ve taken Ryder up on that visit to his house.

Now who was thinking about sex?

“I’d love a cookout,” she said, smiling at Justine. “How can I help?”

Justine just handed her a potato peeler.

RYDER WALKED IN with his brothers, a herd of kids, and a pack of dogs. Chaos immediately ensued. Rolling, running, wrestling, demands for food, drinks. His mother, as expected, ignored it or rolled with it. Avery added to it—also expected. Clare handled the boys’ insanity with a look that cut it almost in half—that mom thing—while Beckett grabbed cups to deal with claims of death by thirst.

None of that surprised him.

Hope did.

She hauled the runt onto her lap, listening with appropriate responses of shock and awe as he bombarded her with every detail of his past hour.

The women had gotten into the wine, but he didn’t think that was responsibile for her equanimity. In his observations, she just handled what came.

“Can we have a snack?” Liam tugged at Justine. “We’re starving.”

“We’re going to eat as soon as you wash up and Willy B gets here.”

“That could be forever.”

“I think it’ll be sooner. In fact, I hear Willy B’s truck coming up right now.”

So did the dogs, who immediately ran out the door—except for Tyrone, who stuck by Justine as if Velcroed. “Go on, wash your hands. We’re going to eat out on the deck.”

Ryder opened the fridge for a beer, spotted the bowl of potato salad. Grinned. “Keep your fingers out of that,” Justine ordered, anticipating him. “Wash your hands.”

So Hope ate grilled chicken and potato salad on the deck in the early summer evening, hip to hip with Ryder, with dogs wandering mournfully in the yard hoping for handouts.

Except for Tyrone. He sat—despite Justine’s protests—in Willy B’s lap, gazing up with shining love.

“This sure is good.”

Justine arched her eyebrows. “How much are you sneaking to that dog?”

“Oh now, Justine, I’m not. He’s a good boy—aren’t you a good boy? He’s not even begging.” Tyrone planted his front paws on Willy B’s massive chest and wiggled in ecstasy as he licked Willy B’s bearded face.

Then the dog laid his head on Willy B’s shoulder.

“That’s it.” Avery shook her head. “Dad, that’s your dog.”

The same shining love beamed out of Willy B and he stroked the dog’s back. “He’s my first granddog.”

“No, he’s your dog. You’re taking him.”

“Avery, I’m not taking your pup!”

“That dog’s yours. I know love at first sight when I see it, and I’m looking at it. He likes me, and he’ll love me eventually. But he’s in love with you. And you’re in love with him. You’re taking him.”

“She’s right,” Owen agreed. “You’re made for each other.”

The little dog snuggled into the big man’s arms.

“I wouldn’t feel right taking …” Tyrone turned his head, stared at Willy B with his dark, bulging eyes. “Are you sure?”

“You come by on the way home, get his things. You just got an extra Father’s Day present.”

“Best one ever. But if you change your mind—”

“Dad.” Avery reached over, gave Tyrone’s back an affectionate scratch. “Love’s love.”

Yes, it was, Hope thought. And there was plenty of it to go around on an early summer evening.

When the food was cleared they managed to interest the boys in the toys Justine had started stockpiling in a spare room. The room she now thought of as the boys’ room.

They sat outside as Hope related the details of her eventful Friday night.

“Before we talk about what all of this might mean, and so on, I wanted to ask you, Justine, if we should have any sort of a policy. Do you want me to tell people about Lizzy, or not tell them?”

“I think a policy is too limiting. You should handle it just the way you are. You judge, guest by guest, what to say, how much to say. This is the first time she’s ever disturbed anyone,” Justine considered. “And it seems like she did it on purpose. She didn’t like seeing someone being rude to you.”

“Ought to have better manners,” Willy B commented and gave Tyrone a tickle under the chin. Tyrone grumbled happily in his throat.

“Well, manners aren’t requirements for paying guests. They’re a nice benefit. I’ve certainly dealt with ruder.”

“But we’re not talking about Ry,” Beckett pointed out, and grinned when Ryder sneered at him.

“I think Lizzy makes certain allowances,” Hope continued. “I mentioned broadening those allowances to her.”

“You talked to her again?” Owen asked.

“Not exactly. I talk to her now and then. She doesn’t talk back. Except for Friday night.”

“It’s heartbreaking,” Clare murmured. “What she said about fading.”

“And yet she rarely seems sad. She’s got hope.” Beckett smiled at Hope. “She had it even before you. I can’t figure why she mentioned Ryder. He had less to do with her than me and Owen.”

“How do you know?” Ryder demanded.

“I don’t remember you saying much about her until she played games with you and Hope in The Penthouse.”

“We all spent plenty of time in that place, together, separately. I got along with her. We gave each other space.”

“Did you ever see her?” Owen asked him.

“You don’t have to see her to know she’s there. She didn’t like Shawn—you know the carpenter we hired on right after we got started?”

“Nobody liked Shawn after we found out he was skimming materials for side jobs,” Owen pointed out.

“And hitting on Denny’s wife. What kind of idiot makes a play for the wife of a town cop, especially when the town cop’s a friend of his bosses—and the woman’s not interested?”

“Before we didn’t like him, and fired him—Lizzy didn’t like him. She used to hide his tools, his lunch bucket, his gloves, like that. At first I thought he was just being careless, then I found some of his things down in the old basement, where he hadn’t been. All stacked up neat and tidy—and smelling like honeysuckle.”

“A better judge of character than we were in that case,” Owen decided.

“Sounds like. She’d spook some of the crew now and then, but sort of playful. And …”

“Uh-oh.” Beckett pointed at him. “You’ve been holding back.”

“It didn’t seem relevant. But since we’re getting in deeper.” Ryder shrugged. “That time with Hope wasn’t the first time she’d stuck me in The Penthouse. Right after Hope showed up, and Mom hired her. On the spot.”

“Proving I’m a good judge of character.”

“Well, okay, yeah. Anyway, maybe I was a little irritated about hiring somebody so fast, without talking it over.”

“You were rude,” his mother reminded him. “Rude and pigheaded.”

“It’s not pigheaded to express an opinion. Rude, okay. I apologized,” he pointed out. “Maybe I was still a little steamed. I went back up to do a little more work. The door slammed shut behind me, and wouldn’t open. We didn’t have the lock sets on yet, but that damn door wouldn’t open.”

“She gave you the smackdown,” Avery said.

“Who’s telling the story? I could smell her in there, and that just pissed me off more. Windows won’t budge, door won’t budge. She fucking grounded me.” Then he laughed, quick and easy. “You’ve gotta respect that. Then she wrote your name on the window glass, inside a little heart.”

Hope blinked in surprise. “My name?”

“Inside the heart. I got the picture. She liked you, she wanted you around, and I’d better fall in line. Pissed me off more, but it’s hard to argue with a ghost.”

“Which you resolved by being snotty to me. Tell the innkeeper this, tell the innkeeper that.”

Ryder shrugged again. “She was okay with it.”

“Hmm.”

“Maybe you should try talking to her, Ryder,” Clare suggested. “Since she mentioned you specifically. And since you and Hope are … friendlier.”

“You don’t have to use code,” Justine told her. “But you’ve got a point.”

“I don’t have that much to say to live people.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to try,” Hope insisted. “She has a connection to you, to the three of you,” she said to the brothers. “Avery and I talked about this. We think because you brought her place—her home—back to life, there’s a connection. Because you and your mother cared enough to bring it back, make it beautiful, give it warmth again, you helped her. She doesn’t know how to be anywhere else, she said. So it matters that where she has to be is loved and cared for. Because it is, she’s more there. All of you had a part in that. But you, Ryder, had the most hands-on in the actual work. Maybe she’ll tell you what she can’t seem to tell the rest of us.”

“Fine. Fine. I’ll ask the dead girl.”

“With respect,” his mother warned.

“Meanwhile,” Hope continued, “I heard back from my cousin and from the school. My cousin promises to send me what she can. She doesn’t buy the ghost angle for a minute. Her response was very amused and really condescending, but she’s enthusiastic about her research, and pleased someone else in the family shows an interest. Even if it’s about the wrong sister. And the librarian’s working through the red tape, but feels due to the family connection, and the family’s long-term support of the school, she can cut through it. There are letters. She hopes to scan me copies within the next few weeks.”

“Progress.” Owen sat back. “Better than I’m doing.”

“If they both come through and I end up with piles of documents, I’m dumping half on you.”

“Willing and ready.”

Angry young voices punched through the open deck door.

“It couldn’t last forever,” Clare said and started to rise to break up the fight.

“I’ve got it.” Beckett nudged her down again.

“Go with it,” Justine told her. “Pregnancy pampering doesn’t last forever either. Plus I’ve got ice cream to bribe them with. Any other takers?”

Hands shot up around the table.

“I appreciate it,” Hope said, “but I really need to get back. Carolee’s held the fort long enough. Thanks for dinner, for everything. It was just great.”

“We’ll do it again,” Justine promised. “And I’d like to see those letters when you get copies.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I do. ’Night.”

Ryder tapped a finger on his knee for about twenty seconds, then pushed up from the table. “Be right back.”

As he walked to the door Owen made exaggerated kissing noises. Ryder just shot up his middle finger and kept going.

“My boys.” Justine sighed. “So damn classy.”

He caught her before she got to her car. “Wait a minute.”

She turned, hair swinging, settling.

“What time are you clear on Tuesday?”

“Oh. I should be done by five. Maybe four thirty.”

“That works, if I can use one of the showers.”

“It’s your inn.”

“It’s not about whose inn it is.”

“Then yes, you can use one of the showers. Any one you like.”

“Okay.”

When he said nothing else, simply stood, bringing that surge up with the steady look, she angled her head. “Well? Are you going to kiss me good-bye?”

“Now that you mention it …”

He left her breathless and needy, light-headed and trembly. The perfect end, she thought, to an unexpected summer evening.

“That oughta hold ya.”

She laughed, shook her head as she slid into her car. “Let’s hope it holds you. Good night.”

“Yeah.” He watched her back out, make the turn. She flipped out a wave as she drove down his mother’s lane. He continued to stand where he was as D.A. wandered over to sit at his feet, to stare out at nothing as Ryder did.

“Jesus, D.A., what is it about her? What the hell is it?”

A little uneasy he might just find out, he walked his dog back toward the house.