LITMIR.BIZ

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been graceful. He could watch her for hours, and if she lost her top again, then he could watch her for days, he was pretty sure.

      “I’ve taken care of my mother for years. That’s about it.”

      “What about Dad?”

      She shrugged again. “Died young. Don’t remember him.” She glanced at Tempest’s paintings. “It wouldn’t be so bad to leave your roots and go do something exotic and fabulous, would it?”

      “Takes a special breed of person, I’d guess. I’m much more of a homebody than that.”

      Chelsea laughed out loud. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her phone. “I made notes about you, Texas, when I called back to Diablo to find out about you—after the snake incident. According to Sabrina, you’re Jess St. John’s cousin, who is married to Johnny Donovan at Rancho Diablo. You rodeoed most of your life, happiest on the circuit. You’ve never had much of a love life because the road is your life. Apparently, you mentioned once that you’re never in one place for more than two or three nights, so there was never any point in calling a lady back.” Chelsea slid her phone back into her purse. “I’d say you didn’t lack for adventure. In fact, somebody like her,” she said, indicating Tempest, “is probably exactly right for you.”

      He shook his head. “You’d be surprised, but life catches up with people.”

      Blanche placed their artfully plated food in front of them, and Gage got hungrier just looking at it. “This looks great.”

      “You won’t find better in Tempest,” Blanche bragged, “although all the restaurants here are pretty good, I’ll say that. If you’re a foodie, you’ll find you don’t want to stray far from town.”

      She went off again, pleased with her story.

      “I like Blanche,” Chelsea said. “She’s happy.”

      Gage dug into his salad with gusto. “And proud of what she does.”

      “So what caught up with you?” Chelsea asked as she bit into her steak and moaned. “I could cut this steak with a spoon, it’s that tender.”

      “I’m sure if you placed a call back to the ol’ homestead, you know I wasn’t exactly aware that I had a daughter.”

      Chelsea’s eyes grew round. “All I asked was whether you were safe to live with. I didn’t inquire as to your love life.”

      Gage grinned. “Not curious at all?”

      She didn’t say anything.

      “We’ll work on our relationship,” he promised.

      “I want to drive by and see the Tempest place,” she said suddenly, catching Gage off guard.

      “Ah, the mystery writer’s curiosity at work. Feeling the blockage move?”

      She wrinkled her nose. “My creativity isn’t blocked.”

      “Jonas says it is. Jonas says you haven’t been able to write in three months. He said—”

      “Jonas doesn’t know everything.” Chelsea ate more of her steak wrap, carefully not looking at him.

      Obviously, she no more wanted to talk about her problem than he wanted to discuss his. “I’m game for a late-night run to a ghost-infested family home.”

      Chelsea’s gaze met his. “Good.”

      “Guess ghosts don’t bother you like varmints do?”

      “I’ll be fine, thanks.”

      He polished off his margarita, thinking that for such a hot night, he was in danger of getting frostbite from his companion.

      Maybe she’d warm up to him if they could scare up a ghost or two.

      * * *

      “IT’S KIND OF A SAD little place for such a lively person,” Chelsea observed, peering at Tempest’s house as Gage stopped his truck in front of the small, two-story white wood structure. Long neglected, the paint flaked and the front porch sagged. Even in the falling darkness, she could see that the roof hadn’t been repaired in years.

      If visiting a haunt like this didn’t stir her creativity, maybe nothing would. A shudder ran through her. She’d loved ghost stories as a kid—she’d grown up on them, courtesy of her mother. “I probably learned storytelling at my mother’s knee,” she told Gage. “This house has secrets.”

      “Just looks like a deserted old house to me.” He got out of the truck and went up to the porch. “Nothing exciting about a building that needs to be torn down.”

      She looked in a dirty window. “You have no romance in your soul.”

      “You’re probably right.” He joined her in spying. “Looks like no one’s home, Chelsea, if you’re just dying to take a peek inside.” He pushed the front door open, and pointed to several firecrackers that had been lit and left on the porch, probably by pranksters around Halloween. “Watch where you step.”

      She followed him in. “Pee-ew. Doesn’t smell like a place a star grew up in.”

      “She was Zola here, remember. Cupertino or something.”

      Chelsea looked around at the moldy, sagging furniture. Everything was in a state of decay and disrepair, and she felt sorry that the house had been abandoned. “It looks like she just left everything behind.”

      “Nothing here was what she wanted.” Gage kicked something under the sofa.

      “What was that?” Chelsea demanded.

      “Nothing.”

      “It was,” she insisted. “You have to be honest with me.”

      “A small mouse,” Gage said. “A little on the decayed side.”

      “I’m okay with mice,” Chelsea said, walking past him into the kitchen.

      “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find in here, unless it’s your next cliffhanger,” Gage said, batting some cobwebs away from his face. “These spiders are bigger than in Texas. And you know there’s probably scorpions in this place—”

      “You know what your problem is,” Chelsea said, looking back at him. “You don’t know how to relax.”

      “This is relaxing?” Gage moved a fallen tile away from where she was about to step. “If we want to see rotten, we could do it at Dark Diablo.”

      But this was where Tempest had grown up, and from here she’d gone away to seek her fortune. Chelsea could feel the ghosts of disharmony and discontentment shrouding the small house. “Whatever made her leave, it was ugly enough for her to hide herself away once she made her bundle.”

      “We don’t know that she made a bundle.”

      “She made enough to live in a villa in Tuscany. Blanche said Tempest is still in demand.”

      “Yeah,” Gage said, “Blanche was blowing smoke up your skirt. She was giving you the Tempest tale, to make their little town seem a bit more exciting. I bet no one named Tempest ever even lived here.”

      “Then who’s that?” Chelsea asked, her scalp tightening just a little.

      Gage picked up the picture that lay on the kitchen counter, long forgotten. It was of a small girl with threadbare clothes and spindly arms. He turned the photo over. “Zola, five years old.”

      “See? Blanche was telling the truth.”

      He set the photo back down in the dust. “Can we go now? I’ve spent quite enough time with Zola Tempest, thanks.”

      Chelsea followed him out. “Guess there’s no need to lock the door.”

      Gage shook his head as he got into the truck. “Well, hope that helped.”

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