"Inside the heart. I got the picture. She liked you, she wanted you around, and I'd better fall in line. p.i.s.sed me off more, but it's hard to argue with a ghost."

"Which you resolved by being snotty to me. Tell the innkeeper this, tell the innkeeper that."

Ryder shrugged again. "She was okay with it."

"Hmm."

"Maybe you should try talking to her, Ryder," Clare suggested. "Since she mentioned you specifically. And since you and Hope are ... friendlier."

"You don't have to use code," Justine told her. "But you've got a point."

"I don't have that much to say to live people."

"It wouldn't hurt to try," Hope insisted. "She has a connection to you, to the three of you," she said to the brothers. "Avery and I talked about this. We think because you brought her place-her home-back to life, there's a connection. Because you and your mother cared enough to bring it back, make it beautiful, give it warmth again, you helped her. She doesn't know how to be anywhere else, she said. So it matters that where she has to be is loved and cared for. Because it is, she's more there. All of you had a part in that. But you, Ryder, had the most hands-on in the actual work. Maybe she'll tell you what she can't seem to tell the rest of us."

"Fine. Fine. I'll ask the dead girl."

"With respect," his mother warned.

"Meanwhile," Hope continued, "I heard back from my cousin and from the school. My cousin promises to send me what she can. She doesn't buy the ghost angle for a minute. Her response was very amused and really condescending, but she's enthusiastic about her research, and pleased someone else in the family shows an interest. Even if it's about the wrong sister. And the librarian's working through the red tape, but feels due to the family connection, and the family's long-term support of the school, she can cut through it. There are letters. She hopes to scan me copies within the next few weeks."

"Progress." Owen sat back. "Better than I'm doing."

"If they both come through and I end up with piles of doc.u.ments, I'm dumping half on you."

"Willing and ready."

Angry young voices punched through the open deck door.

"It couldn't last forever," Clare said and started to rise to break up the fight.

"I've got it." Beckett nudged her down again.

"Go with it," Justine told her. "Pregnancy pampering doesn't last forever either. Plus I've got ice cream to bribe them with. Any other takers?"

Hands shot up around the table.

"I appreciate it," Hope said, "but I really need to get back. Carolee's held the fort long enough. Thanks for dinner, for everything. It was just great."

"We'll do it again," Justine promised. "And I'd like to see those letters when you get copies."

"I'll let you know as soon as I do. 'Night."

Ryder tapped a finger on his knee for about twenty seconds, then pushed up from the table. "Be right back."

As he walked to the door Owen made exaggerated kissing noises. Ryder just shot up his middle finger and kept going.

"My boys." Justine sighed. "So d.a.m.n cla.s.sy."

He caught her before she got to her car. "Wait a minute."

She turned, hair swinging, settling.

"What time are you clear on Tuesday?"

"Oh. I should be done by five. Maybe four thirty."

"That works, if I can use one of the showers."

"It's your inn."

"It's not about whose inn it is."

"Then yes, you can use one of the showers. Any one you like."

"Okay."

When he said nothing else, simply stood, bringing that surge up with the steady look, she angled her head. "Well? Are you going to kiss me good-bye?"

"Now that you mention it ..."

He left her breathless and needy, light-headed and trembly. The perfect end, she thought, to an unexpected summer evening.

"That oughta hold ya."

She laughed, shook her head as she slid into her car. "Let's hope it holds you. Good night."

"Yeah." He watched her back out, make the turn. She flipped out a wave as she drove down his mother's lane. He continued to stand where he was as D.A. wandered over to sit at his feet, to stare out at nothing as Ryder did.

"Jesus, D.A., what is it about her? What the h.e.l.l is it?"

A little uneasy he might just find out, he walked his dog back toward the house.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EVERYTHING TOOK LONGER THAN HE'D EXPECTED, BUT that was nothing new. Rehabs ran on their own schedule, and when you bounced between two major jobs, schedules went to h.e.l.l.

Unless you were Owen.

Still, one job had a roof ready to shingle, and the other was about to move into drywall and brick veneer. He glanced back across the lot, beyond the huge crane to the building. The new roofline changed everything, the shape, the sense of s.p.a.ce and balance. He imagined even the untrained eye could see the potential now.

Then he put it out of his mind. He didn't want to think about shingles and drywall. He wanted to think about taking Hope Beaumont to bed.