Free Relative Strangers by Kathy Lynn Emerson Page A

her to follow Joyce into what was apparently Hugh’s room.
    “Yup.Definitely time to leave,” Rachel said.
    They retrieved their coats and already had the front door open when Lucas reappeared. His piercing glare impaled Corrie, making flight impossible.
    “We’ll talk later,” he said. “At the hotel.”
    For a promise, it felt suspiciously like a threat.
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Overcast skies, merely threatening earlier, had by midafternoon produced freezing rain rather than snow. Lucas stopped beneath the portico outside the front entrance of the Sinclair House to brush moisture from his coat and glower at the precipitation. Sleet meant slippery roads and an atmosphere of doom and gloom. Bad for skiing. Bad for tourism. Bad for the Sinclair House.
    Perfect weather for ghosts, though.
    He entered the lobby to find Corrie Ballantyne occupying a chair near the registration desk. She was only pretending to read a novel. He watched her for a few minutes as she stared at one page, never turning to the next.
    After all the trouble she was causing, how could he still want to look after her? Protective instincts warred with his natural wariness of women. The whole situation was so preposterous that his normal decisiveness had deserted him.
    “Ms. Ballantyne,” he said softly. “Would you come into my office, please?”
    A guilty start was her first reaction. Then she complied with his request.
    Lucas’s inner sanctum was furnished much as it had been in his great-great-grandfather’s time, with a massive oak rolltop desk, chairs covered in garnet-colored leather, and framed maps showing nineteenth-century street plans for the state’s major cities. A computer terminal was discreetly hidden in the shadows behind a four-drawer wooden file cabinet.
    “Is your father all right?” Corrie asked.
    Lucas hung his coat on the coatrack and seated himself in the massive chair behind the desk, waving Corrie into a smaller version situated to one side. He picked up a pencil, tapped it on the blotter, then tossed it away. He didn’t want to look at Corrie. He was already too aware of her. The atmosphere in the office had the same charge that preceded an electrical storm.
    “Pop managed a few words after you left the house,” he said. “That’s the first time he’s spoken since his stroke.”
    “Lucas, that’s wonderful.” Her voice hummed with sincerity.
    “He said ‘ghost’ and then ‘girl saw her.’“
    Corrie sat up straighter, drawing his gaze to her in spite of his resolve. “Girl? What girl?”
    “That’s what I’d like to know. Mom and I are pretty sure he didn’t mean you, but he couldn’t manage to say any more. He nearly made himself ill trying.”
    He’d gotten so agitated that Lucas had insisted they drop the subject. He’d feared a second stroke was imminent and called Hugh’s doctor. Fortunately, Doc lived only two doors away. Semi-retired, he was Hugh’s friend as well as his physician. He’d advised rest and assured them all would be well if Hugh avoided getting overexcited.
    “Just how much of my conversation with your mother did he overhear?” Corrie asked.
    “Only the last part, what Mom said about ghosts, but she was filling him in on the rest when I returned from seeing you out.”
    Lucas had tried to stop his mother. She had overruled his objections and insisted on telling the tale, which had riveted his father’s attention.
    “After she finished,” Lucas went on “Mom asked Pop if he thought you were telling the truth. He nodded his head. Then he managed those few words. That’s more progress than we’ve seen in weeks, but I can’t say I’m pleased by the cause.”
    Corrie leaned forward. Her fingers came to rest on his arm in a gesture of comfort. Surprised, he stared at them as waves of heat surged up his arm and into his chest.
    When she started to pull away, to release her hold, he couldn’t stop himself from capturing her hand. Seemingly of its own volition, his thumb