Free Haunting Ellie by Patti Berg

downstairs.
    Closing the door, she latched it securely, wondering if it had been partly responsible for some of the thumps she’d heard during the night, thumps that had interrupted her slumber. Those disturbing thuds hadn’t been the only noises to keep her drifting in and out of sleep. The creaking floorboards and wind howling through the windows had pierced through her subconscious over and over, long before the chandelier lights began to flicker and that horribly sour note pinged again and again on the old upright piano in the parlor.
    Thank goodness her brother had warned her about the sounds. If he hadn’t told her the truth about the old hotel, she just might have believed the place was haunted.
    Which was impossible.
    She set the bucket in the kitchen sink and dropped into a kitchen chair. Her body ached from a week of hard work. She’d mopped the floors downstairs, swept away all the cobwebs, dusted each piece of furniture, and moved every antique knickknack to the kitchen so they could be cleaned and polished.
    She hadn’t tackled the upstairs yet, except for hauling out a few old mattresses that had become home to critters too numerous to mention and ridding the rooms of spiders and their webs.
    She’d dozed in a sleeping bag for seven nights. The old chesterfield was soft and big, and she found she could curl up nice and comfortable amid its high back and arms.
    The storekeeper’s son had been kind enough to drop a cord of wood at her back door. She’d bought an ax and filled a box with kindling, and she’d managed to keep a fire going almost every night. She’d long ago given up hope of the furnace keeping her warm. The temperature control knob seemed to have a mind of its own. Every time she turned it up, it would slowly wind its way back down.
    A week ago she’d halfway considered giving up on the place. The work was more extensive than she’d imagined, she had no help, and she had no friends.
    But Jon Winchester’s arrogant attitude had fired her resolve. Every time she thought of quitting, she remembered his words, that insufferable lopsided grin, those crossed arms. No way would she give up.
    She had cried, of course. In the loneliness of these rooms her tears had fallen easily. And then she’d reflected on the good things. She had a home and a future; she was alive. A year ago at this time she’d thought she was going to lose all those things. Better off alive and lonely, she thought. Dead didn’t seem such a great alternative.
    The grandfather clock just inside the entry—still running in spite of its age and the filth she’d cleaned from it—gonged eight times to announce the hour, and with each gong she heard a thud. Those noises were going to drive her insane.
    It wasn’t until she picked up a cloth to polish a silver candlestick that she realized the thud was a knock. Going to the entry, she saw the shadow of a man—a big man.
    Oh, heavens! She could think of much more appropriate words, but she’d promised not to swear. It didn’t matter if the occasion warranted it.
    She tapped her foot and counted to ten before opening the door and facing the titan.
    “‘Mornin’, Elizabeth.” Jon tipped his hat. One side of his mouth tilted into a poor excuse for a smile, his sapphire eyes sparkled, and her feet and toes had the nerve to grow warm. She didn’t like the effect he had on her. He was abusive and rude. How dare she let his looks interfere with the way she loathed the man!
    “You didn’t leave anything behind when you left here a week ago,” she said flatly. “Is there some other reason you’ve dropped by?”
    “City council’s not too busy at the moment. You need help, and I aim to do the work.”
    “I don’t need your help. I think I made that clear before.”
    “You made it clear, but I decided this morning that you hadn’t meant a word of it.” He knelt down, picked up the biggest toolbox she’d ever seen, and grabbed a ladder he must have propped up next to