Detectives, Ghosts, and Romance

Being female in a brawny male career field isn't easy, especially when you are not only female but petite and considered cute. Alley struggles with this in the male-dominated private detective industry. Other private eyes are either lusting after her, not adverse to making overt suggestions, or trying to undermine her investigations. 

Pete Hayes is the worst. Ex-Marine, ex-cop, ex-lover, he irritates her with his tough-guy image. He also makes her heart beat faster when she is near him. Something she tries to avoid. There are too many memories of what might have been when they planned a future together.

Their territory is in a southern city with history oozing from every portal, or at least it seems like it. Tour groups are common, especially around Halloween when Ghost Tours are popular. 

It was the day of one of those tours that Alley couldn't avoid Pete. They are opposing P.I.s in a divorce case. She is working for the husband, Alex. Pete is investigating for the wife, Megan. Of course, he is working for the wife. Women in this town, married or single, can't resist his charm. Alley knew some women hired him for non-existing cases just to be around him.

In their mutual divorce case, Megan is charging  Alex with infidelity. She hired Pete to get proof. Alley is convinced there is no infidelity. She believes Alex is being taken for his old family wealth, which he recently inherited. There was no prenup. When they married four years earlier, Alex had no idea he was the illegitimate grandson of the town's wealthiest and recently deceased millionaire. As the only living heir, he became the town's newest millionaire overnight.

Alley lives in an impressive but rapidly becoming dilapidated old mansion barely inside the city limits. It has been in the family for several generations, and the only reason each of those generations continued to live there is it is free and clear of any mortgage. There was a stipulation in her great-great-great grandfather's will. If anyone ever took out a loan, using the house as collateral, they would immediately be evicted, and the house would be handed over to the city to be used as a museum.

The house and acres of land were maintained reasonably well until after WWII. As the town became less and less of a cotton and tobacco agriculture center, the family began selling the acres to housing developers, using the income as a livelihood. Alley dreams of someday bringing it back to its old elegance. On a private detective's income, it is just a dream.

Stoneridge, the name of her home, is on the Ghost Tour list. She is paid a small fee for allowing groups to be guided through the downstairs rooms that have not been changed over the years. Exquisite aging paintings of ancestors adorn walls in the three main rooms, two Victorian-style parlors, and an elegant dining room.

The tour companies devised an intriguing story of silver hidden during that terrible war. Whispers by a tour leader of possible ghosts haunting the upstairs always have tour members glancing at the ceiling.

Alley made peace with the ghost as a child. The ethereal entity she has seen in childhood dreams seems friendly. If she feels the presence now as an adult, she considers it part of her imagination, even though some of the encounters are more real than imaginative. Footsteps, when she is alone in the house, which is most of the time, she attributes to the old house settling as it ages. Passing images she believes are merely shadows caused by swaying curtains. She never allows herself to consider that curtains do not sway when windows are closed. Yes, Alley has made peace with the ghost or ghosts by not admitting that they could be real.

Early morning of an expected Tour group arriving later in the day, Alley is in her office, her father’s old carriage house, into a workroom. She converted it into an office when she came home from Atlanta after his death. It has also been her mother's sewing room years before. She can feel the aura of their energies when she takes a break from working on files on her computer. She can almost hear the hum of the sewing machine as her mother altered clothes for the town's elite. When she looks at the workbench across the room, she remembers her father leaning over a piece of furniture he was restoring for some of those same elite families. Yes, there are ghosts, at least ghost memories.

The tapping on the door startles her from her thoughts. She isn't expecting anyone. Taking a gulp of coffee from a mug, she stands quickly and flits to the door. Looking out the side window, she is surprised to see Pete. What in the world could he want? 

"Alley, I know you're here. I tried the house doorbell, but there was no answer, and I see your car in the driveway. Open the door! We need to talk!."

Opening the door slightly, she looks questioningly at Pete. Grinning, relaxed, hands in his pockets, he seems casually friendly. He is also more handsome than when they were lovers. 

"Come on. Open the door. I'm not going to hurt you. Why do you always seem so afraid of me?"  He pushes lightly against the door. You've been like that since we were kids."

"I'm not afraid of you, Pete Holmes." Alley straightens her shoulders and opens the door wider.

"Sometimes you act like you did when we were in Mr. Allen's prep school." His smile is alarmingly attractive.

"What do you want?" She refuses to go back to the days when she had a crush on him, and he scared the hell out of her. Or the days she was surrounded by their love and no fears of ever being hurt. But hurt she was, not physical but emotional, almost as painful.

"Can I come in? We need to talk about the Dupree's situation." 

"If you are here to tell me Alley is dropping the divorce case, you don't need to come in."

"Come on, Alley, the least you can do is offer me a cup of coffee. I was up most of the night watching your client." 

"I'm sure you didn't find anything happening with him and a woman, did you?"

Pete shakes his head. "No, I didn't, but that's not what I'm here to talk to you about. Come on, a cup of coffee, some talk, and I'll be out of here before you know it." There was that attractive smile again, this time in his steady blue eyes too, soft and almost caring.

Stepping out, closing the door, she motions for him to follow her to the house. “I'll make a fresh pot, you talk, and leave." There was no way she was going to let him charm her. She allowed that to happen in college. He broke her heart when he joined the Marines.

She leads him to the side entrance to the kitchen. In old plantation times, it has been a separate building. One of the ancestors extended the house to encompass it and remodeled it, which needed to be done again. Top of Alley's redo list when the funds are available.

Sensing him watching her empty the pot, rinse, and fill it with water from the tap, adding a filter and coffee, she hesitates to turn knowing his look will undo all her resolve to avoid him. 

"So talk."

"Come and sit down."

"I'm fine where I am."

"Alley, I'm not going to hurt you. I've never physically hurt you. Why do you always act as if I will?"

Looking at him, her thoughts are of the emotional pain he'd brought her. To her, it was as physical as if he has hit her.

"I'm not afraid of you Pete."

Pouring steaming coffee into two porcelain cups, she puts them on a tray with cream and sugar and places them on the table. Standing quickly, he pulls out a chair for her. The nearness of him standing there, waiting for her to sit in the chair is unnerving. She drops down into the seat quickly, reaches for the cream pitcher and distracts herself from his nearness.

Sitting quietly across from her for a few moments, he smiles over the rim of his cup.

I think we should be partners."

She gasps, nearly spewing a mouthful of coffee. "What?"

"I think we would work well together."

"You are out of your mind." She slams the mug on the table.

"Not at all. I've watched how you work. You can handle the soft side of cases, and I'll do the hustling or the strong arm stuff when necessary."

"Are you implying I can't handle the rough stuff in this business?"  It was a part of the business she didn't like. Being tough with some of the not so nice people she has to deal with.

"I'm implying that you are better with the softer part of it than I am. I'm considered a tough guy. That's what clients expect of me. I don't handle women very well."

"No one would guess that from the number of female clients you have."

"I'm not good with the things they want me to do. Find out if their kids are on drugs. They should know that without hiring me. They ask me to follow their husbands, and I know the guys aren't fooling around. Why the heck would they suspect him?"

Alley smiles, knowing why those women hired him, at least, most of them. She also knows if they become partners those women would suddenly drop their cases.

"I like it when you smile, Alley. I don't see you do it very often."

"Pete, I don't think a partnership would work."

"Why? I think we could be good together. We were good once. Have you forgotten?"

Alley looks down at her cup, wanting to keep those memories out of her mind. Shaking her head, she says, "Don't go there ."

"I don't know what happened, or why you broke up with me. I joined the Marines because I wanted to serve my country. It was a family tradition since the Revolution. You know all the males in my family served in the military. It was my duty."

Finally looking at him, she feels tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. He is dislodging memories she has kept deep inside. "I begged you not to go. Your grandfather was killed in Viet Nam, your father wounded in Kosovo. I believed if you loved me you wouldn't go." The tears overflow. She feels the heartbreak all over again. Pushing back her chair she stands. "I want you to leave."

He crashes his chair to the floor, holding her as she struggles against him. It's been years. We both have had relationships since then. None of them worked. Why do you think they didn't work?"

She stops struggling, letting him hold her. Shaking her head against his chest, her lips tremble, her throat too tight to answer.

He reaches down, puts his finger under her chin tipping her head towards his. "They didn't last because they didn't have what we had. If I've acted like a tough, uncaring guy around you, it's because I didn't think you cared, and I wasn't about to let you know I still love you."

"I thought you hated me for breaking up with you."

"I did for a while. I wanted to grab you and shake some sense into you. I was going to when I came back from Afghanistan, but you were in Atlanta and I'd heard you were seeing some executive up there."

"I was." The tears stop as a new wave of emotion replaces the hurt.

"What happened?"

She hesitates a few moments before looking up into his eyes. "He wasn't you."

A wide grin lights up his eyes as he pulls her  closer."Well, if you won't be my partner in the Private Eye business how about being my partner for life?"

Looking over his shoulder at the swaying curtains, noticing the windows are closed, she hears footsteps on the stairs, in the distance, she hears the whir of a sewing machine and the soft thump of a hammer. She knows her ghosts are urging her to follow her heart.

The End