The Counterfeit Cowgirl (14 page)

To his surprise, she remained just outside the barn door as instructed, coughing and gingerly inspecting the oil stains on her clothes while he went back inside. Her uncharacteristic obedience might have been due to the shock of her fall, he told himself, grinning. Or maybe the kiss had affected her as much as it did him.

He went back inside the barn, skirting the big puddle of oil and flour, and headed down the center aisle, where he methodically checked the first two stalls. They were empty, as they should have been, but he didn’t know what he’d find further down the row.

Before he could speculate on who had let the pony out of his stall, he heard a loud shriek and thump from behind him.

“Aaron,” his sister screamed. “Where are you?”

That was all she managed before she began coughing violently. Between coughs, she tried to call to him again.

“I’m right here, Deb.” He turned back and approached cautiously to help her rise from the oil and clouds of flour. “Somebody set a trap to catch whoever came through the barn door first.” He managed not to laugh, remembering that Felicity was just outside. “Be thankful you weren’t the first.”

“What?” Deborah coughed some more. “Is this what happened to Felicity? She was coughing so hard, she couldn’t answer me when I asked if she’d seen the boys. Aaron, they’ve disappeared again.” She clutched his arm. “Tony called and I was almost frantic.” She sucked in her breath on another cough. “I thought they were playing with their toy cars in the den, but when I went to check on them, they were gone.”

“Don’t worry, Deb.” Aaron knew better than to grin, but laughter was building slowly and inexorably inside him now that he realized Felicity’s ex-boyfriend had not set the trap. “I have a feeling I know just where to find them.”

Deborah sagged with relief. “Thank God. I’ve been so worried.” She struggled to stand, and he had to lead her to a dry portion of the wooden floor. “Where are they?”

“Stay out front with Felicity,” Aaron said. “I’ll go get them.”

Deborah craned her neck to inspect her bottom. “Mercy, Aaron. I’m covered with salad oil.”

The shocked surprise in her voice must have reached Felicity. She stood in the barn door looking at the big, oily spots on Deborah’s navy trousers. The same laughter shaking Aaron seemed to be building inside her, judging from the expression on her slender, flour-dusted face.

“I guess this means you don’t know anything about the barnyard oil spill,” Felicity said between coughs. “Or the bucket of flour that fell on my head the minute I stepped inside?”

“Oil and flour?” Deborah sounded as though she had awakened and found herself in an alternate universe. “Is that what this is?” Understanding suddenly dawned on her pale, beautiful face. “Oh, no … the boys.” She gripped Aaron’s arm. “When their father called, they must have heard and decided their ghost was after them again. Oh, Aaron, what am I going to do?”

Felicity gave way. Peels of laughter poured from her throat. Aaron joined in, and Deborah stared helplessly at the two of them.

“I can’t wait to find out what the flour was for.” Choking, Felicity collapsed against the edge of the open barn door. “What I want to know is why no one has yet explained to them that ghosts can’t be caught with these corporal methods.”

“You look like a ghost yourself,” Aaron teased. “When you appeared on the floor in a puff of smoke, I thought I’d stumbled onto the set of a vampire movie.” He beckoned the two of them to follow him. “What do you say we go find them? I have to admit, I’m curious about the flour too.”

“Oh, Felicity, I don’t know how to apologize,” Deborah said, distressed. “Aaron, you’ve got to do something. This ghost thing has gotten beyond me.”

“Don’t worry, Deb.” Aaron lowered his voice gently. “Our resident ghost expert is here. Maybe she can suggest a way to straighten out this mess.”

Felicity grinned. “It’s probably a good thing I was the first one in the door. But I’ll bet poor little Donatello will never be the same again.” She sputtered with laughter and added, “You’ll probably have trouble getting him to come inside the barn tonight.”

Thanks to the liberal dosage of flour on the floor, she made it across the threshold and skirted the main pool of oil without falling. Once inside, both women followed Aaron down the center aisle as he stopped to check each stall, even though he figured the stall of interest was the smaller stall normally occupied by Donatello.

A blue plastic tarp had been spread over the top of the stall. As they drew closer, Aaron saw that every crack between the boards had been stuffed with straw or cloth, and a blanket had been stuffed in the space beneath the door.

Aaron stood gazing at the stall door in thoughtful silence for a moment. “I wonder what we do now?” he said. “They might have a heart attack if I just pull open the door.”

Felicity solved the problem by knocking gently.

“Who … who’s out there?” a quavering, young voice asked.

“Your friendly, neighborhood ghost-buster is here to look into your problem,” Felicity called. “Open up, Pete. You’re safe now. Your Uncle Aaron and your mom are here with me.”

“Felicity.” The voice was muffled, but unmistakably joyous. “She’s here.”

The stall occupants fumbled with the wooden door. Seconds later it creaked open and two scared knights in full ghost-busting armor tumbled out and fell upon Felicity.

“Felicity, the ghost almost got us.” Joey, teeth chattering, clung to her legs, apparently unaware that Felicity was covered with flour and oil. “We set a trap for him and hid.”

Deborah clapped one oil-slicked hand to her forehead, moaned and leaned weakly against the stall. “What on earth am I going to do with them?”

“Did you see our trap, Felicity?” Pete stood before her, kitchen fork at his shoulder, like a soldier before his captain. “We’re ready for that old ghost.”

Felicity, conscious of Aaron’s smothered chuckles, replied gravely, “Yes, Pete, I can see you were.” She looked down at herself. “The only problem here is that the trap you set for the ghost works only on people. Ghosts aren’t solid like people. They require different methods.”

“Oh, but this trap will work for the ghost.” Pete gestured eagerly with the fork. “If he comes in the door, he’s going to get oil on his feet and fall down and then flour is going to fall on him and make him so we can see him. Then we can let all the air out of him.” At this moment, Pete registered Felicity’s unusual mode of decoration. He gulped and said weakly, “Uh-oh.” The saucepan on his head fell off with a loud clatter when he hung his head.

Deborah buried her face in her hands with another soft moan. “I’ve told them and told them. There are no such things as ghosts.”

“‘Uh-oh’ is right,” Aaron said, with admirable gravity under the circumstances. “You made Felicity fall, and you made your mother and I fall. We could have been hurt. This ghost business has gone far enough, boys.”

There was a moment of apprehensive silence.

“Are you going to spank us, Uncle Aaron?” Pete asked bravely.

Joey began to sniff dolefully and clung to Felicity’s oily white skirt.

“I have a feeling you’ll have been punished enough by the time you’ve scrubbed all the oil and flour off the barn floor.” Aaron stood looking down at the two crestfallen children. Kneeling, he reached for Pete and looked into the boy’s face. “Pete, this ghost isn’t real. You know that, don’t you?”

“But he
is
real,” Pete protested earnestly. “He’s a real
bad
ghost, Uncle Aaron.”

“If you think about it, you’ll realize your ghost is actually your fear about why you left your own house and why you haven’t seen your dad lately,” Aaron said gently.

Deborah gasped but said nothing.

Pete hung his head again, sniffing. Joey buried his face against Felicity’s skirt and began to cry.

“When you overheard your mother and me talking about the situation, you jumped to the conclusion that something bad was after you. So you created your ghost as a reason why you had to leave your own house.” Aaron reached for Joey and drew him out from behind Felicity. “The worst thing about it is that you’re carrying your fear with you. Wherever the two of you go, your fear goes, and so does your ghost.”

Pete swallowed, big-eyed. “The ghost is still chasing us?”

“What you’re really afraid of is chasing you,” Aaron corrected, clasping Pete’s shoulder with one big hand. “You don’t know what’s happened to your dad, and you’re afraid to find out. Until you face that fear, you’ll keep on hiding in closets and stalls and being afraid to go to bed. Is that what you want? To keep on being afraid?”

Pete grimaced in thought. “How do we find out where Daddy is? Will he make the ghost stop following us?”

“You call him on the telephone,” Aaron said. “Ask him when he’s coming to see you.”

“And when he comes, the ghost will leave?” Joey asked eagerly.

“No, Aaron,” Deborah whispered, gesturing wildly. “I’m not ready to confront Tony yet.”

“This has gone too far already, Deb.” Aaron gently took the two kitchen forks from the little boys and tucked them inside the waistband of his jeans. “If you can’t face Tony, that’s your business, but unless you want the boys coming up with more outlandish ideas for ghost-fighting, you’ll let them get this business with their father straight in their own minds. They have a right to see him.”

To his relief, Felicity touched Deborah’s shoulder and nodded her agreement. Oddly enough, the Sachitano family seemed to think Felicity was a font of knowledge when it came to ghost-busting. Aaron grinned inwardly and registered sentiments of gratitude for that fact.

“We all have things we’re afraid of,” Aaron said, tapping Pete’s chin with one big finger. “Even grown-ups have things they’re afraid to face. But if you don’t stop and find out what’s really making you so afraid, you’ll never be free, and the next thing you know, it turns into something really scary, like your ‘ghost.’”

“Was a ghost chasing you, Uncle Aaron?” Joey asked, goggle-eyed.

“It wasn’t really a ghost,” Aaron said, smiling. “It was a silly and wrong idea I’d taken into my head about what I wanted to do in life. It really had me going until one day, after everything I tried went wrong, I finally had to sit down and face it and see it for what it was. That’s when I decided to change careers, and I’ve been happy ever since.”

“But was it a really bad old ghost?” Joey asked again.

Aaron glanced at Felicity, whose face reflected understanding and sympathy. His sister, however, watched him in horrified fascination.

“No, Joey, it wasn’t. It wasn’t a ghost, and it wasn’t even very scary once I sat down and really thought about it.” He focused on the little boys once more. “And I think that once you’ve had a chance to talk to your dad, you’ll find that your so-called ghost isn’t nearly as scary as you thought. In fact, he might just vanish forever.”

“He’ll bust,” Joey exclaimed, with enthusiasm. “He’ll make a big noise and lots of fire.”

“Maybe he’ll even explode,” Pete agreed. “Wow.”

The idea clearly found favor with the two children, but it didn’t take Aaron long to realize that what the boys really wanted was for the ghost to go out in style, with a burst of loud pyrotechnics as it vanished forever.

He went through the whole thing again with great patience, but either the boys were too young to understand, or their ghost had taken such possession of their minds, they refused to give it up without a proper ceremony. Every time Aaron declared the ghost unreal, the boys countered with proofs of the ghost’s existence.

“But he really is real. We heard him, Uncle Aaron,” Pete insisted, with great earnestness. “He whispered to us last night, almost all night long.”

“Boys, there are no such things as ghosts,” Deborah reiterated, for perhaps the tenth time in ten minutes. “And if there were, they couldn’t talk to you.”

Aaron glanced at Felicity, amused that he found her striking even in her disheveled, flour-covered state. Maybe she knew how to conduct a ghost exorcism.

“What do you mean, he whispered to you?” Felicity asked.

“He talked to us,” Joey said. “But we couldn’t hear what he was saying.”

“Does that mean something was talking very softly, or does it mean it sounded far away?” Felicity went on. “Or do you think maybe it was talking in another language?”

Aaron gave her a warning grimace. He wasn’t so sure he wanted the ghost cemented into the boys’ imaginations with all those questions, as though it were a real entity.

Deborah shook her head, clearly unable to deal with such an unprecedented situation. “They can’t possibly have gotten all this from Jason.”

“The ghost was whispering,” Pete reiterated. “It sounded sort of soft and squeaky and we could both hear him, but we couldn’t understand anything he said.”

“You heard an actual voice?” Felicity asked, frowning.

“It was a
ghost
voice.” Joey tugged at her skirt. “It was scary, Felicity. We hid under our blankets so he wouldn’t see us.”

“You say this was last night?” she asked. “How long did you hear the voice?”

“It was hours and hours,” Joey assured her. “We were scared he might see us, or we would have sneaked out in the hall to go find Uncle Aaron.”

“When did you stop hearing the voice?” Felicity asked.

“It was when the sun came up,” Pete said. “Joey was asleep.”

“Was not,” Joey said.

“Hmmmmm … ” Felicity said thoughtfully.

Aaron watched the scene with some amusement and wondered what Felicity meant to suggest for this new wrinkle. Both boys hung on her every word with hope that wrung his heart. Whatever had kept them awake during the night had scared them badly.

Felicity asked a few more questions and discovered that the ghostly whispers — which sounded like rustling newspapers and tiny squeaks — seemed to come from the closet. Moreover, when one of the boys chucked a house slipper at the wall, the sounds had ceased for several moments before resuming.

Deborah frowned. “I can’t imagine what that could be.”

“This calls for action,” Felicity said. “When a ghost starts keeping people up all night, something has got to be done.”