Dreamscape (5 page)

“Chinese sounds good. I’ll take the pizza number, too. I have the feeling I’ll be doing this again over the next few days.”

“Brandino’s puts a menu in the bag with every order. Keep one, they have a lot more than pizza.” Ben gave her three more numbers then said, “As long as I have you on the phone…” He went on to explain that he’d placed an order for the plants and trees he needed. Familiar with other Victorian atriums in the area, he was pretty confident about what should be in there. The Victorians with their fancy roses and their gardening clubs often shared stock and cuttings. “I’ll be putting those in then flushing the entire thing with growth hormone. It’ll smell for a day, but that boost will get everything up and growing again.”

“I leave it in your capable hands.” She smiled. “I can treat illnesses, but when it comes to plants,
forget it.
” She held up her thumb as if he could see the act on his end of the line. “A green thumb I do
not
have.”

An hour later, comfortably full of chicken lo mein, she put her leftovers away and lugged several pots of hot water upstairs for a tepid bath.

And so it went for several days. The ghost of Jason Bowen dogged her every step and fed his nightly compulsion to touch her warm skin while she slept.

Feeling somewhat guilty for using his particular advantage as a spirit, he resolved not to repeat the inappropriate intimacy he’d subjected her to that first night in his bed. But he did surrender to a lesser debauchery—the urge to feel her living warmth. After the first contact with her skin, he could no more help himself from running his hands over her body from shoulder to knee than he could cease haunting his house. He hoped she found his touch as soothing to her body as he found touching her soothing to his soul.

Lanie’s dreams took on a surreal quality like never before. Interacting with the house and grounds, her nightly excursions became as real as her days. She searched for the dark-haired man with eyes the color of aged whiskey. She’d been dreaming of him since she’d turned eighteen. This was the man she longed to see each time she closed her eyes to sleep.

Chapter 5

“Lanie?”

“I’m in the dining room, Ben.”

He found her behind a mountain of folded linens. “Oh boy, you’ve been busy today. I see Al finally got the new washer and dryer in.”

Adding another folded pillowcase to the neatly embroidered stack, Lanie asked happily, “What tipped you off, the fabric softener wafting through the house or the added heat from the dryer?”

He chuckled. “Both, actually.” In short order spring had turned into summer and added heat and humidity to everything they did. Just looking at her flushed cheeks, he could tell this monumental task was taking the wind out of her sails, and it was only nine o’clock in the morning.

“Al surprised me by coming over yesterday to hook them up.”

He wasn’t surprised. His little brother was sweet on her.

Lanie pushed a damp lock of hair from her eyes with the back of her hand. All the linens were washed—no small task that. Seven bedrooms and five cupboards with their seven mountains of blankets and sheets had her washing and drying for two days. A full third of it was being donated to charity. She turned and saw the three large flat boxes he set on the table.

“What are those?”

“I’ve a present for you, kiddo.” He lifted the lid off one and showed her the washed and starched doilies. “I thought you could dress up this plain décor you got goin’.”

With its over-abundance of gingerbread and hand-painted walls, the décor in her Victorian mansion could
hardly
be called plain. Lanie laughed. “This was so nice of Janice to do. I don’t know the first thing about doily care.” She lifted a few up. Fully starched, they were as stiff as the proverbial board. “They look
so
much
better.” Choosing three of the nicest, she said, “Do you think Janice would like to have these? As her thank-you?”

“She’s gonna love ’em. So Kenny tells me you have a little request?”

She gave him her brightest smile. “How’d you like to hang a clothesline for me?”

“Funny you should ask. I was going to as you if you’d like me to restring the pulleys off the back porch today.”

“Great minds think alike!” they said at once.

* * * *

The day had gone pretty much as the day before and the day before that. By the end of her third week there the house was coming along splendidly. Finally, his other commitments winding down to completion, Ben’s oldest brother, Zack the contactor, had come. After the walkthrough, he determined work on the carriage house would begin the following Thursday as rain was expected early in the week.

Though the hard-packed dirt cellar remained untouched, the livable parts of the house were shining from top to bottom with only servant’s quarters and the topmost bedrooms left to see to. The wood paneling had been polished with lemon oil, the draperies re-hung after their return from the dry cleaner, and the oriental carpets and assorted upholstery steam cleaned. The cluttered mix of eras and décor styles were sorted through and choices made as to what would be kept and what would go to charity. She’d only be keeping the best so that task wasn’t difficult. She’d happily discovered most of the furniture of her dreams was still in the house, even if it wasn’t in the same rooms as it was when her dream-self walked the halls in the 1800s.

Ben’s brother Tommy had rented a floor polisher so the parquet floors had a nice sheen of wax, and the vintage wallpaper had all been carefully cleaned with the exception of one bedroom upstairs. Apparently the window had been broken and rain and irreparable damage followed to both sill and wall below. Just that morning Lanie went online and ordered several rolls of pre-pasted wallpaper in a similar pattern. It was the best she could do. With the help of Ben’s sister Katie, she made repairs and paste-downs where needed and washed the preponderance of knickknacks. With the decorations in place, the house was looking wonderful.

Men jumping to assist Lanie annoyed Jason. In his opinion more than one watched Lanie a little too attentively and showed a little too much overt interest, especially the young lad who connected the water pipes to her washing machine.
A man would have to be dead not to find her appealing.
His thoughts made him chuckle. The dead found her appealing as well.

Seeing the red begonia planted in her Chase and Sanborn coffee can brought a smile to Ben’s face when he came in that morning. Lanie had it centered on top of a red, yellow, and white doily on the kitchen table as a center piece. After going over the atrium expenses together, she asked, “So your brother Gordon will be able to paint next week?”

“Yep, he’s splitting the crew as a favor to me and because they don’t need everyone for the job they’re on now. When Zack comes to work on the carriage house, he’s not going to want the rest of us in the way.” Ben’s family of nine brothers, two sisters, their husbands, and
their
extended family, all worked together on various projects. Zack, the eldest of the lot, had taken over the contracting when their father retired. They all got along, too. The thought of Ben’s big extended family made Lanie a little wistful. Aside from her friend Lexie, who’d married Pete right out of high school, there was no one else in her life. Thirteen years later and Lanie was still alone, a fact that had Lexie regularly setting her up on dates with coworkers and Pete’s friends.

“Great. How about the colors, do you think he’ll be able to match them?”

“Gordon sent Lenny here today to peel some chips and do a color chart of the original paintjob by what’s visible under the layers added on through the years.”

As if conjured out of thin air, Ben’s youngest brother Len knocked on the kitchen door frame. “Did I hear my name?”

“There he is! I was just telling Lanie you have a good grasp of the original paint colors.”

“Yeah, and I’ll tell ya, I’m surprised it was so colorful once.” The young man laid out a piece of heavy paper with paint chips scotch-taped on it. “Look at these, these four were on the porch spindles alone.” Pointing to bright yellow, green, a dark shade of rose, and chocolate brown, he said, “When I think Victorian, I think staid mourning colors.
Not
these.”

His older brother shook his head. “Oh no, if anything the Victorian age was incredibly flamboyant. That’s why these houses were known as Painted Ladies, like dolled-up street walkers.”

“Hmm.” Len turned to Lanie. “So, by my estimation, you have about a week’s worth of scraping and another half a week for painting out there. All those windows are gonna take some time. I’m seeing some minor repairs, too. The shutters are falling off most of the windows on the east side. Two are busted. I suppose that happened from vandals throwing their rocks.”

Lanie nodded. She’d seen that for herself.

“But we can take two from the back of the house and put them in front so they’ll match. There’s no real reason to have shutters behind the atrium unless you want them there. I’m thinking the atrium was added onto the house later. No one can see them there and those windows were walled over from the inside to make the wall that holds the atrium plumbing.”

Lanie nodded. “I know the shutters you’re referring to. You’re right, if they’re used in front they’d match the others.”

“Oh, by the way, Al asked me to tell you the atrium fountain works just fine.”

Lanie smiled. “Great.” Here for the better part of a month, she had yet to enter the atrium and was really looking forward to it.

The several species of the exotic plantings she’d lost to the Pennsylvania winters had been replanted, as had a large section of the moss bed. Despite the fact everything had long gone wild, most of the native trees and plantings were going to be just fine. Just as Ben suggested would be the case, enough windows had been broken at the top to allow for adequate rain through the years. It made her so happy to hear it. Just yesterday Ben had flushed the place with growth hormone again, and just like the last time his warning was right on the mark. It
did
stink. Stinky or not, the first flushing had done just what’s he’d hoped. The old growth responded with new, and his new plantings and creative prunings were already beginning to fill in the gaps. His advice was if she wanted to see it at its best, she should give it another month. There was much yet to do, but she was fine waiting. The three talked atrium and schedules for a while then all went back to work. Lanie knew Ben to be a perfectionist so if he was happy with how things were coming along, it was all good.

Jason sat near, waiting for the day to end, waiting for his beautiful housemate to undress that he might lie beside her and immerse himself in her warmth.

* * * *

Closing her eyes, Lanie settled back in the steaming water, thinking what a shame it was that modern houses didn’t have claw foot tubs. Being able to take a hot soaking bath in a chest-deep tub was a marvelous luxury, especially after a day of bending and lifting.

“Good god, what a day, I’m
exhausted.
” Lanie groaned to the empty room.

Jason sat on the edge of the tub quietly watching Lanie bathe
. Such beautiful breasts.
The hot water had pinkened her skin. It also softened her nipples and caused her areolas to plump up so delectably. He wanted in the worst way to draw those succulent tips into his mouth and feel the soft pink flesh firm under his tongue. He’d made a decision not to show himself just yet. He had time. It wasn’t as if he were going anywhere. He’d shared the house with Margaret for seventy-four years before he showed himself. Seeing her disbelief as he disappeared from the end of her bed the night of the storm, he had the distinct impression she dismissed what she’d seen. Perhaps she thought him a fragment of a dream or a trick of flashing lightning.

He wanted her to know he was real and not a figment of her imagination. But you never knew how one might react to the dead haunting a place. She might leave never to return, and he didn’t want that to happen. No, not at all.

Yawning, she left her bath and lightly toweled off. With the night being too warm to be covered, she lay down on top of the sheets. Within minutes she was sound asleep. As he had for the past three weeks, Jason stretched out beside her, his head propped on his elbow alongside hers on the pillow. He found himself wondering what she dreamed of. Some nights he’d see her delicate brows furrow or the corners of her sweet, rose-tinted lips would turn in a smile. A thought came to him then, and he wondered,
If I can influence her unconscious mind when she’s fatigued, could I influence her mind while she sleeps?
Could he witness her dream if he tried?

Resisting the overpowering urge to touch her again, he closed his eyes instead and whispered, “Dream of me, sweetheart. Show me where to go each night.” And, just as he projected himself from room to room, the energy of his spirit plied her synapses…and to his complete and utter surprise, he fell into her dream.

Chapter 6

Lanie instantly recognized the stately mansion the moment she stepped from the carriage. It was as beautiful as she’d remembered it as a child. Her father often took her along on his business meetings, but that was before the war and he had time to visit with his friendly investors. He’d taken her here once long ago. She couldn’t have been more than five or six at the time but remembered thinking it so pretty. From that first visit, the house played a large role in her make-believe. Her childish imaginings had her living here while she took care of all of her dolls exactly as she imagined the famous war nurses Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix might. She turned the bell key at the front door twice, and the housekeeper answered, “Can I help you, miss?”