Southern Comfort (11 page)

“Ow!” she cried. “Aunt Bitty! Get your cat, please!” Her leg stung like the dickens, but she couldn’t stop to look at it. She had her hands full of trembling, scared-witless Oskar.

“Aunt Bitty?” Where was her aunt now? It was Thursday, not a day she typically went out. But that didn’t mean anything in the world of Bitty Duncan. The woman figured that since she was eighty-five she could do whatever the hell she wanted to and whenever the hell she wanted to do it. And nothing could stop her either way. Case and point …

“Did you call?”

Tran stood at the doorway to the kitchen. He had on a tool belt, hammer slung in the side of it, and little pouches bulging with nails and who knew what else a guy thought he needed when he built something. “I need somebody to get Mr. Piddles. And to make sure I don’t have any claws still stuck in my leg.”

Newland hurried over to her, scooping up the cat who promptly started to purr. It seemed that Mr. Piddles completely forgot about terrorizing Oskar whenever Newland was within ten feet of them.

“That looks bad. Come on. I’ll help you get it disinfected.”

“It’s fine,” Natalie said, though she could feel blood trickling into her shoe. She needed to do something quick before it ruined them.

“Quit being so stubborn and let me help you. He took Mr. Piddles into the parlor and shut the door behind him. Then he turned back to Natalie and took Oskar from her. Wrapping one hand around the dog and one around her arm, he steered her up the stairs.

Newland set Oskar down on the second floor landing and directed her into the bathroom.

It wasn’t the largest bathroom in the house. She should’ve protested, but going into Aunt Bitty’s master suite wasn’t exactly an option either. Somehow it felt like trespassing, though Natalie could never figure out why.

He lifted her up before she could protest and plopped her down on the edge of the cabinet. With gentle hands, he picked up her leg and braced it against his thigh, slipping off her shoe and wincing as he noticed a little bit of blood inside. “You want to take care of that?”

She nodded and he handed her a cotton ball and some peroxide. “What’s this for?”

He shrugged. “I worked at a vet’s office for a while. If you use peroxide, it’ll get the blood out without any problems.”

“A vet’s office?”

Newland nodded. “Yeah, sometime after journalism school and before I went to work at
I Spy
.”

“Why would you go to work at a vet’s office after you finished journalism school?”

He took his sweet time in answering, using his own cotton ball to dab at the smears of blood across her leg.

Natalie sucked in a sharp breath. “Yeow,” she said.

He dabbed again and she felt his cool breath against her leg as he blew it dry. “Better?” He looked up at her, and Natalie was lost.

Why, oh why, did he have the ability to do that? Just look at her and make her insides melt? It was disturbing on many levels. First of all, she didn’t want to feel that way. And second of all, she was practically engaged to the most handsome man in the entire county, and third of all she … Well she really didn’t have another reason. Weren’t the first two enough?

“Who said I finished journalism school?” His brown eyes twinkled as he spoke, and she wondered if he was teasing her. She made a mental note to check it out on the computer.

Why should she?

He seemed to be on the level. If he wanted to murder them in their sleep or steal all the family heirlooms, he could have done that long ago without offering to fix Aunt Bitty’s cellar stairs or paint the foyer.

“I see.” Just how many jobs had this man had?

Natalie did her best to ignore his soft hands and gentle touch as he lightly rubbed the area with the dab of antibiotic cream. Then he covered the worst of the cuts with bandages.

“There you go.” He smiled that smile that made everything tilt on its head. Maybe she just needed some alone time with Gerald.

When was the last time they had any alone time together? She thought back. The last time they were together was at the town meeting. Before that it was the board meeting for the historical society and before that it was a luncheon with the county sheriff and other law officials in the county.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had just sat on the couch with him and watched TV. Okay, so they never did that. Gerald Davenport wasn’t the type to sit around and watch TV, or go to the movies, or something else equally blue-collar. And there weren’t a lot of highbrow things to do in Turtle Creek, Mississippi.

“T–thank you,” she stammered.

Before she knew what happened, he swung her to the ground. Like she couldn’t get off the cabinet by herself. She could have, but she just sat there dumbly watching him as he put away all of the medical supplies.

“I’m going to head out to the cemetery tonight. You want to go with me?”

“Sure,” Natalie said before she could stop herself. The last thing she wanted to do was go out to the cemetery at night. Again. Especially not with a man who made her feel so … trembly. “Why don’t we go in the daytime? Wouldn’t it be easier to see things?”

“Your aunt says the ghost always comes out at night. So I figure if I’m going to get a chance to look at him, then I need to go at night … tonight. He does come on Thursdays, correct?”

Natalie shook her head. She wasn’t going to fall for this. “There is no ghost.”

“I thought we had an agreement. Now do you want to go with me or not?”

“I already said I would.”

“Put on some good shoes and let’s head on over there after dinner. We can maybe get a look at the place a little better before night falls.”

“I suppose.” She stopped. “You don’t really think whatever’s causing the ghost is going to be there tonight, do you?”

“Anything is possible. Maybe Bitty thinks the ghost only comes on one night because that’s the only time she expects him and the only time she looks out the window.”

Natalie shook her head. “Whatever.” She started toward the door, trying to ignore the tingle in her legs and on her arms where he had touched her just moments before. Surely that would fade in a bit. She didn’t know how much longer she could take it.

“After dinner then?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She nodded.

“And Natalie?”

She turned to face him.

“This does not count as our date.”

• • •

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Newland looked at Natalie and smiled. He had to give her kudos for dressing a little more comfortably tonight than she had the time before. At least she had on walking shoes without a designer label and a pair of jeans that had seen better days. And a t-shirt from the Turtle Creek Snappers.

He shook his head. Some people just didn’t know a good mascot when they saw one.

“I never said it was a good idea at all.” He went back to crawling on his hands and knees through the tall grass of the cemetery. She walked behind him, careful not to step on him as she inched along.

“Then why are you doing it?”

“There may be something we’re missing.” He felt around in the grass, confident there was something about the cemetery that was special.

“Tell me again about the Confederate soldiers.” He shifted his weight and sat, folding his legs Indian style. They still had another forty-five minutes before the sun went down. That was forty-five minutes that he could study the lay of the cemetery, talk to her more about its history, and try to figure out why there was one lone ghost in the cemetery full of departed souls.

“There’s not much to tell. I guess you could go to the library and look at the old reports.

He nodded. “I already have.”

“I don’t remember the exact date. I wasn’t even born then, but I hear people talk about it. The federal government decided to go ahead and bury all the Confederate soldiers that they could find in the national cemeteries.”

“So they came and exhumed the bodies and took them away, right?” He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that. There was something there. Like why some of the graves were sunken in and some of them weren’t. Did that mean they all didn’t have Confederate bodies? It was apparent that some didn’t. Were those the ones that were level with the ground? It just didn’t make sense. Seemed like there was something more going on here than sunken Confederate graves.

And then there was that large pile of dirt. It just hadn’t dropped down from the sky. Which meant somebody had brought it in at some point. Though no one on Bitty’s street had ever heard large equipment in the middle of the night. Or in the day for that matter. The dead end about where the dirt came from was like a rock wall. Did the dirt have anything to do with the ghost? He had no idea.

“I have a confession to make,” he told Natalie as he sat there on the ground. She had plopped down next to him, one knee almost touching his as she gazed out over the overgrown cemetery.

“What is that?” she asked.

“I don’t think this ghost is a real ghost at all.”

“Well, hallelujah! Will the wonders of this world never cease?”

“You know,” Newland said, “sarcasm does not become you.”

She had the audacity to chuckle. “And what was your first clue?”

“Well,” he started, “the first one is the fact that the Confederate graves have all been dug up and yet he still haunts a grave site where he’s not even buried.”

“You think that matters?” she asked.

He made no comment as she rolled her eyes at his statement.

“There was this lady in Montana. She had a cowboy ghost that came to her house every third week. No one knew why he picked every three weeks to come but that was pretty much his time to arrive. He stayed for three days and then disappeared.”

“And why is that so odd?”

“Because she lived in downtown Billings in an apartment complex.”

“Oh.”

“We did some investigation and found out that the apartment complex was built on land where a saloon used to be. The cowboys would come in from the range every three weeks or so. They would buy a drink, stay a couple of days, and then head on back to the ranch.”

“What does that have to do with our ghost?”

“He came back to that spot because that’s where he died. It wasn’t where he lived and it wasn’t where he was buried. So there has to be some kind of connection to pull a ghost to a place, don’t you think?”

Natalie shook her head. “No, I don’t think. I don’t usually think about ghosts at all.”

“That’s because you’re too busy thinking about numbers and other things like that.”

She shrugged. “That’s what I do. That’s my job.”

He nodded, but didn’t comment further on the matter. “If the ghost keeps coming back here and his body isn’t buried here, then why? I guess he could have died here. That could be his connection to this place, but other than that … ” He trailed off. “If he didn’t die here and he wasn’t buried here, why would he haunt here?”

“So no ghost?”

“Not a real one anyway.”

“I’m bored,” Natalie said. “Is being a journalist always like this?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I usually don’t have to go looking for a story. I worked at a national magazine. Stories came to me.”

“But now you’re freelance.”

“Yeah.” He looked away as he said the words, and Natalie had a feeling he was hiding something.

“It was a girl.” From the look on his face she’d hit the nail right on the head. “A coworker? A mark?”

He turned to her, disbelief written so plainly on his face even the fading light couldn’t hide it. “A mark?”

She shook her head. “Whatever it is you call someone that you’re going to interview and get a story from.”

“You’ve been watching too much TV.” He looked back over the graveyard, but she had a feeling it was just to keep him from looking at her. “What was she like?”

“I didn’t say it was a girl.”

Natalie smiled. “You didn’t have to.”

He sighed, but he didn’t turn back to face her. “She was beautiful.” He hesitated before he said that last word as if he was looking for one special description for this unique lady.

“How beautiful?”

“Not like beauty pageant beautiful, but she had this beauty on the inside. Why are we talking about this?”

“You’re the one that dragged me out here without anything fun to talk about. So if you’re going to abandon me in the middle of the graveyard with nothing else to do I’m going to start asking questions.”

“A born reporter.”

They laughed together. Then Natalie tried again. “Seriously? What was she like?”

“She was sad.”

Something in his voice prevented her from asking any more questions about her. Had he loved this mystery woman? “What now?” she asked instead.

“We wait.”

“For?”

“I don’t—” He stopped as a large truck pulled up beside the graveyard gate. He pointed as the truck killed its lights. “That.” He smiled. “Can you see who it is?”

“Not from this distance,” she said. “And not at dark thirty.”

“Who would be coming to the cemetery this time of day?”

“Besides us?”

“Hush.”

“I think that’s … ” Natalie squinted as if that would help improve her vision. “Darrell.”

“Or Gilbert,” Newland added.

“Yeah.” The twins were so much alike it was hard to tell them apart unless they were standing side by side. Across the overgrown cemetery at ten o’clock at night it was damn near impossible. It could be either one of them. “Maybe both.”

The passenger door opened and another big hulking shadow got out. It could only be the other Hughes brother.

“What would they be doing here?” Newland asked.

“Maybe they have relatives buried?”

Natalie glanced around pointedly at the overgrown and neglected cemetery. “Really?”

“Right. If they haven’t come to visit graves then why are they here?”

“No idea.”

“Can you see what they’re doing now?” Newland asked.

Natalie shook her head. “Whatever it is, I wish they would do it in the daytime when I can see better.”

“You suppose it has something to do with our ghost?”

She decided not to point out that the ghost was in no way “theirs.”