Southern Comfort

Avon, Massachusetts

Copyright © 2015 by Amy Lillard.
All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by

Crimson Romance

an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

www.crimsonromance.com

ISBN 10: 1-4405-9034-6

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9034-4

eISBN 10: 1-4405-9035-4

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9035-1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Cover art © iStockphoto.com/Lise Gagne

To the great state of Mississippi. It’s taken me a while and residence in another state to completely appreciate your beauty. My birthplace, my home. Look away, look away, look away Dixieland.

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• Title Page
  
• Copyright Page
  
• Dedication
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Epilogue
  
• About Amie Louellen
  
• A Sneak Peek from Crimson Romance
  
• Also Available
  

“But what about the ghost?” Newland Tran balanced the tiny saucer of cookies in his too-big hands and nodded politely to his hostess.

Bitty Duncan gave him the sweetest smile, her wrinkled cheeks dimpling. If he had to guess, the woman was close to eighty-five, yet she had a spring in her step and a sparkle in her eyes that belied her age.

She was the quintessential grandmotherly type. Well, if a typical grandmother had lavender-colored hair to go with her crocheted shawl and flowered housedress.

“Would you like another glass of tea, Mr. Tran?”

She said his name with the short “a” sound, but Newland didn’t bother to correct her. It seemed most everyone in the South wanted his name to rhyme with ran, and there was nothing he could do to squelch that desire.

“No, thank you. I would like to hear more about your ghost though.” For someone who wanted a tabloid reporter to write an article about the ghost she had in her house, Bitty seemed reluctant to talk about it. Or maybe she just wanted someone to keep her company.

Great. That was just what he needed. To come all the way out here from Chicago to keep an old woman from being lonely.

Turtle Creek, Mississippi. And he had thought that Jefferson County, Tennessee, was bad. That was where he’d lost the only woman he’d ever loved. The woman he’d proposed to, albeit somewhat out of the blue, and who’d turned him down. He wasn’t even supposed to be in Tennessee at the time—he was supposed to be in Arkansas, working on a story—but he found out that Roxanne was in Tennessee, accused of murder and digging up the story to end all stories. One she wouldn’t allow anyone to print after she got it.

Well, he understood that part. But what he didn’t understand was how in three days she fell in love with Malcolm B. Daniels IV, state senator from District 27. He was a stuffed shirt if Newland had ever seen one, always wearing a tie and a coat and little wire-rimmed glasses. What was up with small-town Southerners that made them put on airs like none other?

Turtle Creek was twice as bad as tiny Jefferson County. He’d only been here two hours and he was already itching to get back north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

“Oh, the ghost. Of course.” Bitty nodded. “Well, he only shows himself on the last Thursday of the month.”

Well, it would have been nice if she had explained that in her original letter to the paper. Newland resisted the urge to check the date on his watch. Today was Tuesday. He had a week and two days before the last Thursday of the month.

“Are you sure?” he asked as he wrote the tidbit in his notebook. No full moon stories or anniversary dates. Just the last Thursday of the month. “Why do you suppose that is?” he played along. What choice did he have really?

He’d lost his job at
I Spy
after he had gone off the deep end. But only just a little bit. So he had tipped Roxanne’s desk over at the magazine. He’d been angry when he returned last year from Tennessee. But the editor-in-chief had gotten upset, and the next thing Newland knew, he was out on his can.

He had taken a of couple months and nursed his broken heart, but by then news of his “volatile nature” was all over Chicago. Any job he did get, he was watched like a hawk, and every photographer who was sent out with him trembled as if he were going to smash their face in. Newland couldn’t take it anymore so he went freelance. Didn’t that sound better than “I quit”?

It had at the time. But now things were getting tight. He needed this story. He needed it badly. And that meant sticking around to see this alleged ghost in person.

Though at this rate, he supposed he could leave and come back closer to the day the ghost would turn up, but that would cost gas and time. And it wasn’t like he had any place else to go.

“I couldn’t possibly know why.” Bitty shook her head in a sad sort of way. “Who knows why Confederate ghosts do anything they do?”

Newland wanted to write something in his notebook, hoping that taking down pertinent information would make him appear attentive and understanding. But he didn’t know what the heck he would write.

“So it’s a Confederate ghost. And you’ve seen him in the cemetery behind your house, correct?”

“Oh, he comes in, too.” Bitty pointed to an empty spot on a shelf across the room. “See those decanters there? I used to have the whole collection, and he knocked one of those down about … let me see, that must’ve been about two weeks ago. Just crashed onto the floor.”

Newland studied the line of glass cars. He had never seen anything like it in his life. The back end of each one had a screw-off lid, like the kind that came on a toothpaste tube.

“So he appears at the cemetery on the last Thursday of the month, but he comes inside whenever he chooses?”

“Yes.” Bitty nodded her purple-rinsed head. “That’s right.”

He stood and went over to the bookcase, looking at each one intently. He turned back to Bitty. “Do you mind?” He gestured toward one of the cars.

She waved a hand. “Go right ahead. The collection’s ruined now.”

Newland picked up one of the cars and examined it. It was made of dark glass, sort of brown, almost black. It had red painted accents and a matching red lid on the back.

He flipped it over and looked at the bottom. It came from one of those makeup catalogs with the door-to-door salespeople. He didn’t even know how he knew that; there’d never been any makeup in his house. Maybe some joke from high school or something. After his mother, father, and brother died in a car accident when he was five, he’d been raised by his uncle with no women around to speak of. Unless he counted his uncle’s occasional dates, but Joey Tran was not the kind to date women who wanted to hang out with kids.

Newland placed the decanter back on the shelf as gently as possible—careful not to set it too close to the empty spot that Bitty seemed to have reserved in memory of the broken decanter—and returned to his seat. The chintz sofa boasted a print made up of two-toned pink roses the size of dinner plates and a crocheted throw tossed across the back.

“You were in the room when it fell?” he asked.

Bitty shook her head. “Oh no, I don’t ever see him in the house.”

Newland had picked up his notebook and pen, ready to record all the details of her paranormal experiences. He let it fall again. “If you’ve never seen him in the house, how do you know he’s ever
been
in the house?”

“Oh, it’s the little things. The stove will be on and water boiling or the refrigerator door will be left open. And then there’s my Stanley’s decanter. God rest his soul. He collected those for years.”

“I see,” Newland said. But he didn’t. He was not a collector of anything really. Maybe because his life had been sparse, growing up without parents. Or maybe it was just a personality thing. But most of his possessions would fit in a duffel bag or, at the very most, in the trunk of his compact car. He never saw the need to hold onto things. It just weighed a person down.

“Let me make sure I have everything correct.” Newland looked at the sparse summaries he had in his notes. Most everything that Bitty Duncan had told him was stored in his brain. “You have a Confederate ghost. He shows himself in the cemetery the last Thursday of the month, but he comes into the house on other days and wreaks havoc.”

“Oh no,” Bitty said. “He’s not dangerous or destructive. Just sort of mischievous.”

“I see,” Newland said again.

Bitty nodded approvingly. “So you’ll do it? You’ll stay here until my ghost appears and then write a story to tell the world?”

Newland nodded. “Of course.” It was the very reason he had come here, after all. This was the story that was going to put him back in the game. And he would stop at nothing to get it.

• • •

Oskar barked out his welcome as Natalie pulled her little red convertible into the familiar driveway off Sycamore Lane. She’d been shocked when she got the call from her aunt’s neighbor, Josephine, telling her there was a strange car at her aunt’s house. Natalie had an uneasy feeling she knew exactly who it was. She had to put a stop to this. And now.

“Come on, baby.” She hooked Oskar’s leash onto his red-studded collar and carefully set him on the uneven sidewalk. She had other things to do today besides get rid of the stranger her aunt had invited into the house. Again. This had to be the third reporter Aunt Bitty had invited in to write about her “ghost.”

These days Natalie’s life consisted of going around and cleaning up after all the members of her family. What she wouldn’t give for just one day of no drama, no craziness, and no ghosts.

She gave one courtesy knock and let herself in. The house smelled like it always did, like old wood, furniture polish, and lilac. If she had her way, she would bottle that scent and keep it with her forever. But today she didn’t have time to bask in that glorious aroma. She had things to do.

“Aunt Bitty, it’s me, Natalie.” Her shiny red heels clicked against the hardwood, the sound echoed by Oskar’s toenails. She still had to attend Gerald’s sister’s wedding tea this afternoon, so hopefully this wouldn’t take very long. How long did it take to kick the paparazzi out of one’s elderly aunt’s house?

She wound her way across the waxed wooden floors and threadbare rugs until she made it to the parlor. Her aunt always entertained in the parlor.

“Just as I suspected,” she muttered under her breath.

Sitting across from her aunt, dressed in an unlikely corduroy blazer, some sort of t-shirt, and jeans that had seen better days, the two-bit reporter who had come to take advantage of her aunt balanced a glass of iced tea and a small saucer of sugar cookies.

Her aunt pushed herself to her feet, and to his credit, so did the reporter.

He had to have been the tallest Asian man she had ever seen. He was at least six foot, with blue-black hair and dark, exotic eyes. And when he smiled, a tiny dimple winked at her from one corner of his mouth.