Read The Perfect Hope for Free Online

elaborate bathroom. Water ran into the double vessel sinks on the counter, in the generous jet tub, from the shower and body jets.
    “Oh, for God’s sake.”
    “Does this happen often?”
    “It’s a first. Come on, Lizzy,” she muttered, turning off the sink faucets. “I have guests coming.”
    Ryder opened the glass door, turned off the showerhead, the body jets.
    “I’m doing the research.” Impatient now, Hope turned off the tub. “I know Owen is, too, but it’s not exactly a snap to find someone named Billy who lived, we assume, during the nineteenth century.”
    “If your ghost is acting up, I can’t do anything about it.” Ryder swiped his wet hand on his jeans.
    “She’s not
my
ghost. It’s your building.”
    “She’s your ancestor.” With his habitual shrug, he went out, walked to the parlor door. He tried the knob, glanced back. “How about telling your great-great-whatever to cut it out.”
    “Cut what out?”
    He jiggled the knob again.
    “That’s just—” She nudged him aside, tried the knob herself. “This is ridiculous.” Out of patience entirely, Hope continued to rattle the knob. Then she threw up her hands, jabbed a finger at it. “Do something.”
    “Like what?”
    “Take off the knob, or the whole door.”
    “With what?”
    She frowned, glanced down. “You don’t have your tools? Why don’t you have your tools? You always have your tools.”
    “It was a lightbulb.”
    Temper merged with just a touch of panic. “It
wasn’t
a lightbulb. I told you it wasn’t a lightbulb. What are you doing?”
    “I’m going to sit down a minute.”
    “No!”
    At her near-shout, D.A. moseyed to a corner and curled into it. Out of the line of fire.
    “Don’t you dare sit on that chair. You’re not clean.”
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” But he went around the chair, opened the window. And considered the logistics of the roof.
    “Don’t go out there! What am I supposed to do when you fall?”
    “Call nine-one-one.”
    “No. Seriously, Ryder. Call one of your brothers, or the fire department, or—”
    “I’m not calling the fire department because the damn door won’t open.”
    She held up her hands, took a breath. Then sat down herself. “I’m just going to calm down.”
    “Good start.”
    “There’s no call to be snotty with me.” She pushed at her hair—and yes, the in-between length definitely annoyed. “I didn’t jam the door.”
    “Snotty?” It might’ve been a smirk, might’ve been a sneer, but it hit just between the two. “I’m being snotty?”
    “You take snotty to a new level. You don’t have to like me, and I keep out of your way as much as possible. But I run this inn, and damn well. Our paths have to cross occasionally. You could at least pretend to be polite.”
    Now he leaned back against the door. “I don’t pretend to be anything, and who says I don’t like you?”
    “You do. Every time you’re snotty.”
    “Maybe that’s my response to snooty.”
    “Snooty!” Sincerely insulted, she goggled at him. “I’m not snooty.”
    “You’ve got it down to a science. But that’s your deal.” He moved over, looked out the window again.
    “You’ve been rude to me since the first minute I met you. Right in this room, before it was a room.”
    She remembered the moment perfectly, the dizziness, the powerful surge inside her body, the way the light had seemed to burst around him.
    She didn’t want to think about it.
    Irritated, he turned around. “Maybe it had something to do with you looking at me like I’d punched you in the face.”
    “I did not. I just had a momentary . . . I don’t know.”
    “Maybe because you charge around on stilts.”
    “Seriously? Now you’re criticizing my shoes?”
    “Just commenting.”
    She made a sound in her throat that struck him as feral, leaped up, and banged a fist on the door. “Open this damn door!”
    “She’ll open it when she’s ready. You’re just going to hurt