that moment she’d been doubly enraged. How dare he not be around for her to give him a piece of her mind.
She needed to sit the man down and explain how the ghost was merely Jackie’s coping mechanism for having lost his father three years ago. And the sooner Jackie grew out of his fantasy, the better. Her son’s therapy sessions were costing Ashley a fortune. The last thing she needed was her cousin, who was having his own issues with fantastical thinking, undoing all of that work.
She slammed the frying pan down on her new eight-burner Vulcan stove and swallowed back a curse. There was no way in hell she was letting Jackie go back to the library with anyone, much less Topher.
She should have known better from the start. She remembered the summer when Topher had insisted he’d seen the ghost and Grandmother had explained about how Topher was sad because his mother had died and his stories about the ghost were just his way of getting added attention.
Jackie was doing the same damn thing.
“We need two more bowls of oatmeal,” Judy said, carrying dirty dishes as she came through the swinging door to the dining room. She dumped the dishes into the big sink and turned. “Reverend St. Pierre has made his usual Saturday-morning appearance, and Jackie has come down early.”
Ashley moved to the big pot of steel-cut oatmeal she kept going every morning. Funny how oatmeal had been the last thing on her menu when she’d first started this business. But the Rev liked oatmeal, and he popped over for breakfast quite frequently. So she’d started making it every morning. The number of guests who opted for oatmeal instead of the usual eggs and bacon, waffles, or pancakes had been a revelation.
She filled two bowls while Judy loaded a tray with butter, cream, walnuts, raisins, honey, and brown sugar. “I’ll take it out there. You watch the biscuits and bacon,” Ashley said, putting the bowls on the tray.
“Okay.” There was an uncertain tone in Judy’s voice. Usually she did the running to and from the dining room.
“I need to give the Rev a piece of my mind.”
“Oh?”
Ashley was tempted to tell Judy to mind her own business, but she clamped down on the snippy comment. Her assistant wasn’t responsible for her morning funk. But Micah St. Pierre certainly bore some responsibility for it.
She’d asked Micah to talk to Topher, not enlist him in some harebrained scheme to help Jackie with his Heritage Day project. The trip to the library may have gotten Topher out of the house, but at what cost?
She pushed through the swinging door and scanned the dining room. The long table was mostly empty, except for a couple of women who were married to sailors participating in today’s races. They sat at the near end of the table chatting and lingering over their coffee. At the other end of the table, Micah St. Pierre leaned forward, listening with grave intent to Ashley’s son.
As usual, Jackie was chattering away like the proverbial box.
“Really?” Micah said as Ashley approached.
“Yup. Rose wrote it all down in her letters,” Jackie said.
“You don’t say.”
Ashley slammed a bowl of oatmeal down in front of the minister.
He gazed up, piercing her with an amused look. The little smirk annoyed her to no end. “Good morning,” he said in an irritatingly cheerful voice, and turned toward his oatmeal.
“Good morning,” she said in a curt tone.
“Mom’s ticked off,” Jackie whispered.
“Is she?” Micah asked, turning his gaze on Jackie.
“I don’t think she’s happy about discovering that Cap’n Bill is real. But it’s okay. I’m not surprised. Topher said she’d be ticked off.”
“He did, did he?” Ashley asked, putting her fists on her hips and resisting the urge to grind her teeth.
Jackie nodded. “We’re going back this afternoon to read some more of the letters. They won’t let us make copies on the machine, which is kinda weird ’cause they’re not the real letters. But Topher took a picture of the letter Cap’n Bill wanted me to see.”
“So Captain Bill went to the library with you?” Micah asked, his tone deadly serious.
Ashley’s head was about to explode. Jackie hadn’t given her all these details last night, probably because she’d sent him to bed early. Oh, good Lord, this was much worse than she’d thought.
“Yup,” Jackie said with enthusiasm. “And you know what? I think Topher knew the cap’n was there.”