Treasured Legacies (A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery) (21 page)

Union Dairy Ice Cream Parlor was closed for the night, the
lights were turned off and only the glow of the fluorescents behind the
fountain counter and inside the juke box illuminated the store.
 
Mary unlocked the door and she and Bradley slipped
inside.
 
Then she turned and locked the
door.

“Wait,” Bradley said, placing his hand over hers. “Isn’t
Adam supposed to meet us here?”

Mary looked up at him with a slight grin.

“Oh, yeah, right. Ghost,” Bradley said, releasing her hand
and shaking his head. “Sometimes I’m a little slow.”

She reached over and kissed him. “I think you’re doing just
great,” she said.

“So, what’s next?” he whispered, pulling her into his arms.

Looking up at the love in his eyes, Mary felt a wave of
wonder rush over her. It hadn’t even been a year since they met, both jogging
at the park early in the morning, and now her life was totally different.
 
His strength and tenderness, his intelligence
and curiosity, and his acceptance of who she was and what she did, had changed
her life. And now, together, they had created a tiny miracle.

“Dance with me, Bradley Alden,” she said.

Looping his arm around her shoulder, they walked over to the
jukebox.
 
Bradley pulled some coins from
his pocket and fed them into the machine. “What would you like?” he asked. “You
get four songs.”

She glanced up at the clock, it was only ten twenty-six; she
had four more minutes until Adam was supposed to show up.
 
Leaning forward, she chose the letter and
number combinations for her four songs and pressed the play button.
 
In a moment, they heard the whir of the
mechanisms and the record plopped down on the turntable.
 
Soon the soulful sounds of Elvis Presley
echoed in the quiet room.

Wise men say, only
fools rush in. But I can’t help, falling in love with you.

Bradley turned Mary into his arms and pulled her close,
stepping slowly to the music.

“Perfect song,” he whispered, brushing his lips against her
ear and making her shudder.
 

He slowly swayed her into the darkened back room, where
there was a little more floor room, and pulled her even closer. Their bodies
brushed together and Mary felt the slow melt she always experienced when she
was in his arms.
 
She sighed softly and
laid her head on his chest, feeling the solid beat of his heart.

Running his hand slowly up her spine, he bent his head
closer to her ear. “Take my hand,” he sang, his deep voice thrumming through her
body. “Take my whole life too.”

She looked up and met his eyes, dark with passion. “I love
you,” she breathed softly.

 
Tenderly crushing her
mouth with his, the dancing stopped and they stood in the middle of the room,
wrapped in each other’s love while the soft music filled the room.
 

The record finished and the mechanical noises from the
jukebox brought them back to the present. Mary inhaled a deep shuddering
breath. “We really need to go dancing more often,” she murmured.

Bradley placed quick kiss on her lips. “Yeah, we should,” he
agreed.

The strains of the
Everly
Brothers
singing “
Whenever I Want You All I Have
to
Do
is Dream
” now filled the room. Bradley
lifted one eyebrow. “Time for act two?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes, hopefully this will bring Erika here. I
think it was their song.”

Taking Bradley’s hand in hers, she led him back to the main
area of the ice cream parlor and they both sat at the counter and waited, hand
in hand.

Finally, Mary watched as the air around the jukebox
thickened and finally Erika appeared. “Hey,” she said to Mary. “That
your
steady?”

Mary nodded. “Yeah, I thought we could double tonight.”

“Double?” she asked. “Well, I would, but I didn’t bring a
date.”

“I saw Adam today,” Mary said. “And I asked him to meet us
here tonight.”

Erika’s eyes went wide. “You found Adam?” she asked. “Where
did you find him?”

Suddenly, the air near the front door wavered and slowly
Adam appeared in the restaurant, dressed in his letter-sweater and looking much
better than he had earlier that day.

“Wow, what happened to him?” Bradley asked.

“Maybe he’s appearing as Erika remembered him,” Mary said
with a shrug. “He’s kind of hunky.”

Bradley squeezed her hand lightly. “Hey, don’t forget who
brought you.”

She chuckled and winked at him.
“Never.”

Adam slowly scanned the room and he stopped and smiled when
he saw Erika. “I’ve been searching for you for a long time,” he said.

“They’re playing our song,” she said shyly. “We should
dance.”

He glided over to her and she stepped into his arms, then slowly
they floated around the ice cream parlor to their song, laughing and
talking.
 
Finally the music stopped and
they stepped away from each other, although, Mary noticed, their hands were
still linked.

“I need to talk to both of you,” Mary said.

“Really?
Now?”
Erika asked. “We’ve been waiting to go cruising for the longest time.”

She started to fade away.
 
“Wait,” Mary called. “I just wanted you to hear a new song I really
like.
 
You can wait for that, right?”

“Well,” Erika hesitated. “We really wanted to cruise…”

“Aw, come on,” Adam said. “She did get us together.”

Erika sighed.
“Fine.”

The jukebox’s mechanisms whirred again and another record
slid onto the turntable. The familiar opening drum beats of J Frank Wilson and
the Cavaliers “
Last Kiss
” filled the
room.
 
The opening lines had them both
staring as the jukebox.
 
When they heard
the lyrics “
I’ll never forget the sound
that night, the crying tires, the busting glass, the painful scream that I
heard last”
Erika put her hands over her ears and shook her head. “I don’t
like this song,” she screamed. “Stop it!
 
Stop it!”

Bradley jumped up and pulled the plug on the jukebox. The
music stopped and the room was silent.
 
Mary came up to him and took his hand and the ghosts reappeared to
him.
 
Now he could hear the quiet sobbing
from Erika.

“Why don’t you want to hear that song?” Mary asked.

Erika shook her head. “I don’t know,” she cried. “I don’t
know!”

Adam put his arm around Erika. “Where did you go?” he asked.
“After the accident?
 
I searched and searched for you.”

“We didn’t have an accident,” she insisted. “You were late.
We didn’t go.”

“I picked you up,” he said, his voice both calm and gentle.
“I picked you up on time and we drove out of town. We went up Highway 75 and we
were listening to the
Everly
Brothers on the
radio.
 
I told you I loved you…”

“You just looked away for a little while,” she said, tears
filling her eyes. “You just looked at me when you said you loved me.
 
It wasn’t very long.”

Adam nodded slowly and turned to Mary. “It was too long,
wasn’t it?” he asked.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the couple. “Adam, you stayed in
the car, but Erika, you were thrown from the car. You both…”

“We died,” Erika said. “We died and we didn’t even get to
prove how much we loved each other.”

Mary shook her head. “No, you did get to prove it,” she
said. “You both died over fifty years ago and you have spent those years
searching for each other.
 
Adam was
searching the crash site for you and you were waiting here for him.”

Adam looked at Erika and smiled. “You were always the
prettiest girl I’d ever met,” he said. “I still love you Erika.”

Smiling through her tears, she wrapped her arms around his
neck. “I love you too, Adam,” she said.

Suddenly the whir of the jukebox echoed in the room and once
again
“Whenever I Want You All I Have to
Do Is Dream”
started to play.
 
Adam
looked down at Erika and pulled her closer, kissing her tenderly. “Want to go
cruising?” he asked.

She sighed and leaned her head against his heart. “Forever,”
she said.

Slowly, the couple swayed to the music, drifting higher into
the air until finally they faded away.

Mary wiped a few stray tears from her cheeks and smiled at
Bradley, “Great move,” she said. “That last song was perfect.”

Bradley stepped away and picked up the loose power cord.
“Um, Mary, I didn’t do it,” he said.

Mary shivered and rubbed her arms. “Okay, well now that was
spooky.”

Mary sat back in her office chair and stretched.
 
She looked at her desktop calendar. She’d
been working out for exactly one week and a day, and she felt a great sense of
accomplishment. She put her hands on her still flat abdomen and smiled. “Are
you hungry?” she asked her belly. “Oh, you are?
 
And what do you want to eat?”

She stood up and walked over to the refrigerator. On the two
bottom shelves were the items Mary had picked up when she was at the store
shopping for healthy snacks.
 
There were
snap peas, broccoli florets, mini carrots and ranch dip, multi-flavored rice
cakes, some high fiber all grain crackers and low fat cheese dip and a couple
small bags of fruit.
 
The top shelf was filled
with craving foods: chocolate bars, cookies, pastries, cheesecake squares and
some left-over sweet and sour chicken.

“Hmmm, what do we want to eat?” she asked herself. “Do we
want yucky rice cakes or a delicious Bavarian-cream-filled donut?”

She paused, as if waiting for a response.

“You’re
right,
we worked out really
hard this morning.
 
We deserve a donut.”

“Um, Mary, are you talking to a ghost?”

The male voice behind her had her dropping the donut back
into the package and turning around, closing the refrigerator behind her.
Quinn, Jessie, Josh and Abe all stood behind her, watching her with great
interest.

“Well, this is slightly embarrassing,” she said with a quick
grin. “I’ll give you a discount on your next haunting if you don’t tell Bradley
I use our unborn child as a justification to indulge in my cravings.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Josh said with a grin.

“I’m sure I saw you reaching for…,” Abe paused. “What do you
got in there that’s healthy?”

“Rice cakes,” Mary muttered.

“Gross,” Abe agreed. “But, I’m sure I saw you reaching for
them and not the…”

Mary sighed. “Bavarian-cream-filled Long John.”

“Hey, if you need someone to eat it so you’re not tempted…,”
Quinn offered.

Mary shook her head. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” she said.

“Well, I think you look great,” Jessie said. “As a matter of
fact, I was going to tell you that I thought you looked too great and you
weren’t putting on enough weight.
 
You
should really be eating some high carb foods, for the baby’s sake.”

“See, and that’s why I like you so much,” Mary laughed.
 

She walked back to her desk and offered them all seats.
 
“So, what can I do for you?” she asked.

“We just wanted to give you some updates,” Quinn began. “I
contacted the president of Maughold on
Monday,
they
just got back to me to tell me they’ve arrested the vice president who worked
with Sawyer.”

“Tell her what else they did,” Jessie encouraged.

“They offered me a job,” he said.
“In
Chicago.”

“And?”
Mary asked.

“I turned them down,” he said, grasping Jessie’s hand. “I
told them I had much better options in Freeport.”

Jessie blushed and nodded. “We’re, um, dating,” she said.

“So, the other thing we all wanted to talk to you about,”
Josh said. “Were you really interested in buying the house?”

Mary thought about it for a moment. It was a great house
with a big backyard and lots of room for a growing family.
 
And then she thought about her current home
and her neighborhood.
 
She pictured her
neighbors, especially the Brennan family who were going to be descended on her
house that very night, and finally shook her head. “No, it’s lovely,” she said.
“But it’s not for me right now.”

“Great!” Josh said.

“Great?” Mary asked.

“Well, Abe and I have decided to go back into farming,” he explained.
“Thanks to Quinn.”

“The people at Maughold are selling them back their land,”
Quinn said. “Once I explained the circumstances behind the sale.”

“Selling it to them?” Mary asked. “They should give it to
them.”

“Well, yes, but if they did that it would be admitting the
company was in some way complicit with Sawyer’s dealings,” Quinn explained.

Mary nodded. “Okay, I understand, but did they at least give
you a deal?” she asked.

Josh smiled. “Yes, a very good deal.”

“So I thought you didn’t want to be a farmer,” Mary said.

“Well, Josh is going to handle the financials and I’m going
to farm,” Abe replied. “I always liked that part better.”

“So you’re going to move back to the house?”

“Well, just until my new house is built,” he said. “In about
six months.”

“Then what?”

“I think in six months or so, I’ll be looking for a house,”
Quinn said, with a loving look at Jessie. “You know, some place to raise a
family.”

Mary grinned. “Well, wow!
 
Good news all around.”

“We also wanted to thank you,” Josh said. “All of us.
 
You not only solved our dad’s murder, you
brought us back together as a family.”

“It was my pleasure,” Mary said.

“And I have one more surprise,” Abe said.

“What?” Josh and Jessie asked.

“This is going to be great,” he said, reaching into his pocket
and pulling out a photo. “See this cute little heifer?”

Mary looked at the photo of the black and white cow. “Yes?”

“She’s the first cow I purchased for our new dairy and I’ve
named her Mary O’Reilly,” he said, beaming with pride.

“Oh,” Mary replied, trying to muster up a little enthusiasm.
“That’s…um…lovely. That’s really lovely.”

She slid the photo back to him across the desk.

“Oh, no, that’s your copy,” he said. “I want you to be able
to look at her anytime
you’d
 
like
and, of course, you can come out to the farm and check out
her progress yourself.”

“Well, I would love to do that,” she replied, picturing
herself wading through manure in a dairy farm.
“Really.”

“And the best news is that she is already pregnant,” he
said. “So you both will be delivering at about the same time.”

“How adorable,” she said.
“Me and a cow,
maternity twins.”

Josh stood up. “Well, we have to get going. We’ve got
meetings scheduled with the bank,” he said, extending his hand to Mary. “Thanks
again.”

Mary shook his hand. “You are so welcome,” she said. “Please
give my best to your mother.”

After a flurry of goodbyes, they left Mary alone in her
office looking down on the picture of her namesake.
 
Finally, with a deep sigh, she walked across
the room, open the fridge, pulled out a rice cake and bit into it.
 
“Moo!” she said with a sigh.