Read Treasured Legacies (A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery) for Free Online Page A

lack of a better word, yes, that’s exactly what you
are.”
    He rose to his feet and stared down at her, affronted. “I
don’t believe in ghosts, young lady,” he said. “And I was a good Christian man.
If I died, I should have been sent to heaven.”
    Mary suddenly felt nauseous and took a deep shaky breath.
    Dale stopped his tirade and knelt down next to her. “Are you
okay?” he asked. “You looked a bit peaked.”
    She nodded slowly. “I think it has something to do with being
pregnant,” she said. “I just found out.”
    He smiled kindly. “This your first?” he asked.
    “Yes,” she said, stroking her stomach. “I’m a real novice.”
    “Well, my Greta got sick as a dog for the first three
months,” he said. “And after that, it was smooth sailing.”
    “What did she do for the sickness?” Mary asked.
    “Seems to me, she always carried soda crackers around with
her, everywhere she went,” he said.
    Mary felt her stomach twisting. “And if she didn’t have soda
crackers?”
    “She made a beeline to the toilet and didn’t hold back,” he
replied. “Said she always felt better once she got it out of
her system.”
    Mary took another deep breath. “Bathroom?” she asked.
    Dale moved out of the way and pointed.   “Last door on the left at
the end of the hall.”
    He was right, Mary
thought a few minutes later as she splashed cold water on her face over the
bathroom sink. I do feel better.
    She pulled a tissue out of her coat pocket, blotted her
face, opened the bathroom door and met a concerned Rosie in the hallway. “Are
you okay?” Rosie said. “I thought I heard…”
    “Morning sickness,” Mary supplied. “Yeah, I feel much better
now. Thanks.”
    “I have some crackers in my purse,” Rosie volunteered. “It’s
in the car, but I’ll only be a moment.”
    Thinking that crackers actually sounded good, Mary nodded. “ Thanks, that would be nice.   I’ll be in the master bedroom talking with Dale.”
    Looking down the hall, she could see Dale standing in the
doorway watching her.   “I’m feeling much
better,” she admitted, as she got closer. “Thanks for the advice.”
    Chuckling, he moved away from the door as she entered.
“Always worked for Greta,” he said. “Every morning, like clockwork, she’d dash
down the hall to the bathroom.   Got to give her credit for doing it three times.   I wouldn’t have lasted through one.”
    He glided to the window and looked down at Rosie opening her
car door. “So, can your friend see me too?” he asked.
    Shaking her head, Mary followed him to the window. “No, she
can’t.   But she could feel your
presence.   That’s why she asked me to
come by.”
    “You’re an expert?”
    Laughing, she shrugged. “Well, I guess you could call me
that,” she said. “I’ve been doing this for a couple of years.”
    “What do you mean by doing this?”
    “I find people who have died, ghosts, and help them figure
out why they’re still here,” she said. “So they can continue on to heaven.”
    He turned to her. “What’s holding me back?”
    “I don’t know,” she answered. “What do you think it is?”
    He glided away from her to a side window that overlooked the
old grain silo.   Vines and brush had
grown up around it and the barn had fallen into a state of disrepair.   The pens that had housed the calves were now
gone; only broken slabs of concrete with grass growing up between them
remained.
    “What happened to my farm?” he asked.
    “Rosie, my friend, told me that all of it was sold off,”
Mary explained, “except for the house and five acres.   Your wife lived here since your death.”
    “But, we talked about selling it off,” he said, shaking his
head in confusion. “We all decided that we needed to keep it.   We didn’t want some big corporate farm to get
the land.”
    “You all decided?” Mary asked.
    “Yeah, well, Josh, my oldest son wanted to sell the farm,”
Dale said. “He said we could