Jamie stood up and reached out to pull her to him. It was a brother-sister hug and he rubbed her back comfortingly. “I’m sure there’s nothing in the ghost story. Betty is probably right and her mother-in-law should be put under care. I don’t agree that she should be locked away, but she should get some help.”
He held Hallie at arm’s length and looked into her eyes. “My guess is that old man Bell did something he didn’t want people to know about. And he probably spread the ghost rumor to keep people away.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” Hallie lowered her eyes so she’d look properly frightened.
Jamie drew her back against him. “Tomorrow we’ll call a locksmith and I’ll go in and look around.”
Hallie wanted to say, Not without me! but couldn’t since she was pretending to be afraid. “So you’ll move upstairs into the other bedroom and I won’t be alone in this strange house?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” His tone went back to being stern.
Hallie pushed away from him. “Okay. I’ll move downstairs. But, no, that couch down there is too small to sleep on. I know. I’ll call Jared and see if I can stay in his house for a few nights. I know it’s empty. You’ll be all right here by yourself, won’t you?” She batted her lashes at him in innocence.
Jamie looked like he was torn between anger and helplessness. “All right,
I’ll move upstairs.” His teeth were clenched together.
“That’s great!” Hallie said. “I’ll help you pack your things, and tonight I want to do some breathing exercises with you.” She headed toward his room.
“Look only in the bathroom and the closet!” Jamie called after her. “I’ll take care of the desk.” He glared at the locked door that led into the tea room. “Whatever you’ve got hidden away in there, Henry Bell, I’m going to expose it, ’cause look what you’ve done to me.”
He moved as fast as he could to get to the living room and dragged his duffel bag from under the bed. While Hallie was gathering toiletries from the bathroom, he slipped eight bottles of medication into the side pocket and zipped it.
Chapter Five
Jamie was lying on his back on the floor of his new bedroom, his hands clasped and raised above his head. Hallie was seated beside him, leaning over his midsection, her hand just below his navel. Not that she could see his belly button, but she could guess at it. “I want to feel your breath coming from here,” she said. “Now deeper and slower.”
“Are you sure this is going to do anything?”
“Shhhh,” she said. “Don’t talk. Just breathe.” She watched him slowly raise and lower his hands and take long, deep breaths. He was such a contradiction! she thought. On the surface he seemed to not have a serious thought in his mind, always teasing and laughing, but his body felt like a tightly coiled spring. If she could just get him to fully relax, maybe he wouldn’t need pills to help him sleep.
She couldn’t help wondering what had made him so tense. Was there a recent tragedy in his life? A brush with death for him? But she knew better than to flat out ask him. He’d change the subject.
They spent an hour together doing exercises. Jamie called them “girly” and frowned, but she could tell that the breathing movements were helping him. At one point she saw his eyes flicker as though he were sleepy. The thought that she’d helped enough that he might not need pills for sleep made her feel good.
When she finished with him, he lay on the thick rug, his eyes closed, and smiling. “Feel better?” she asked.
“I do, actually.” He sounded surprised.
She stood up and looked down at him. He’d said that he was truly beginning to like her and she felt the same way about him. She’d never before felt so comfortable with a man. Sometimes they even seemed to have the same thoughts at the same time.
With the few boyfriends she’d had in the past, she usually couldn’t wait to get away from them. Growing up, her neighbor Mrs. Westbrook, Braden’s mother, had been a best friend to her. She used to say that Hallie’s problem was that she chose men like the people she knew. Hallie asked what she meant. “Larry was slow and easy like your grandfather, and Kyle was never available, just like your father. And Craig sat in a chair and let you wait on him. He was a male Shelly.” At the time, she’d laughed at the very accurate description of her past relationships, but she knew she didn’t want to repeat herself.
Of course there was one man they hadn’t spoken of: Braden. They both wanted the same thing, for her and Braden to get together, but that didn’t look like it was going to happen.
As Hallie looked at Jamie Taggert, still lying on the floor, she wondered if it was possible that they could have a future together.
Slowly, Jamie opened his eyes and looked up at her. Some of what she was thinking must have been showing because his expression changed from sleepy to an invitation. He held up his hand for her to join him on the floor—and Hallie knew where that would lead. A quickie with him in his big sweatsuit. It would probably be wonderful, but in the morning she’d be angry at herself for mixing business with pleasure.
She had to turn away or she’d let the pleasure side win. “Can you get up by yourself?” Her back was to him.
“Sure,” he said, his voice flat. He sounded like a man who’d just been rejected—which, in a way, he was.
She heard him as he held on to the bedpost and got up. When he was standing, she looked back at him and gave a smile as though nothing had happened. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“All right,” Jamie said, his voice cool and distant. But then his head came up. “How do you work out?”
“The usual way,” she said. The truth was that between taking care of Shelly, multiple jobs, going to school, and, well, taking care of Shelly, gym time had been left out. She’d told herself that the practice sessions where she’d learned the proper form for rehabilitation had been enough.