Maybe This Time Read online

Damn straight, May said, and twirled around again, and Dennis leaned forward, squinting.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Lydia snapped, and all three ghosts seemed to grow a little more defined.

  “Anger,” Isolde said. “Get that woman out of here or we’re in trouble.”

  Andie stood up. “Come on, Lydia.”

  “Not until I’ve—”

  There was a knocking sound, and Andie said, “I’ll get it,” and all but shoved Lydia out of the room. “Wait here,” she said when they were in the entry hall, “do not go back in there.”

  Then she went to savage whatever idiot was screwing with her séance now, but when she opened the door, it was North, tall and strong and calm. She said, “Oh, thank God,” as he stepped in, put her arms around him, buried her face in his wet overcoat, and said, “Save me.”

  She heard his overnight bag hit the stone floor as his arms went around her, and he felt so good that she held on longer than was polite. He said, “That bad?” and when she looked up, he was smiling down at her, just like the old days, and she lost her breath because it was him, holding her again.

  Then Lydia said, “Well, it’s about time you got here,” and Andie stepped back as he let go of her.

  “Hello, Mother,” he said, sounding annoyed.

  “It’s a damn good thing you came to your senses,” Lydia said. “These people have all lost their minds. They’re having a séance with that O’Keefe woman in the room.”

  “A séance?” North said, looking at Andie as he took his coat off.

  Andie took the coat and put it on the hall tree, trying to get her breath back while she figured out how to tell him that she believed in ghosts in front of his mother.

  “It’s over now,” Lydia said. “I went back in and the woman who was running it said I’d brought too much anger into the room, and it was strengthening the spirits.”

  “They like being bullied, do they?” North said, and then Andie saw Crumb come into the entrance hall from the living room, wearing her violently orange-flowered apron and a furious expression.

  Andie leaned up and whispered in the direction of North’s ear, “I fired Crumb this morning. Also, remember, we’re still married.”

  “There goes the nightly blow job,” North said under his breath and crocodile-smiled past her. “Mrs. Crumb. So sorry you’re leaving us.”

  “No we’re not,” Andie said.

  “I heard the knocking,” Crumb snapped. “We wasn’t expecting any of you. Four people last night and now this. You need me to take care of this mess.”

  “You can discuss that with . . .” North looked down at Andie. “Mrs. Archer.” He gestured to Lydia. “This is my mother, Mrs. Archer. The other Mrs. Archer.”

  “What other Mrs. Archer?” Lydia said.

  “How many more are there?” Crumb said to Andie, ignoring them all.

  “How many Mrs. . . . Oh, how many guests?” Andie did a fast count in her head. “Four more.”

  “We only got two more bedrooms. ’Course Mr. Archer will be in with you.”

  “What?” Lydia said, and North looked at her, and she shut up. “Fine.” She looked at Andie and then at North and then went back into the Great Hall.

  Okay, North’s sleeping in my room, Andie thought, no, May’s room. She’ll like that. It doesn’t matter since I’m sleeping in the nursery with Alice. “Of course he’ll sleep in my room,” she said to Crumb, and North looked interested but didn’t say anything.

  Crumb folded her arms. “I don’t know what that is to me. I been fired.”

  “Good point,” Andie said. “Leave.”

  “Well, now,” Crumb began, and then Southie came into the hall, saw Crumb, and said, “For the love of God, woman, get us drinks.”

  Crumb looked at Andie, and Andie said, “Fine, we’ll talk about it later.”

  The housekeeper smiled, triumphant, and said, “You’re going to have to share a room, Mr. Sullivan,” and went off to shift some guests.

  Southie caught sight of North and came as close to a glare as Andie had ever seen from him. “How nice to see Mother,” he said to North.

  “Don’t blame me.” North looked at him without sympathy. “I told you not to come here.”

  “The Beast of the Nightly News had him,” Andie told North, trying to find her way back to sanity. There were ghosts, but North was there. It might even out, especially if she threw herself at him again, and distinct possibility given the way her mind was going south just from his sheer proximity. “Southie was helpless in her clutches. She truly is a blot on humanity.”

  “Excellent,” North said, looking down at her with that beautiful, serious face. “Mother’s been spoiling for a fight. Let her have the Blot. You take me someplace, give me a drink, and tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Yes, Andie thought, but she said, “I think we’d better go in with the Blot. “I’m not sure your mother can take her.”

  “Nonsense. A good stake through the heart and she’s done.” North looked at Southie. “I beg your pardon, Sullivan, I should have asked. Do you love this woman?”

  “God, no,” Southie said.

  “Then let Mother have her.” He smiled down at Andie again. “And in the meantime, you can tell me what’s happening. It can’t be nearly as bad as you sounded.”

  “It’s worse,” Southie said. “We—”

  “Southie,” North said. “Go away.”

  “What?” Southie blinked at him. “Oh. Right. Sure.”

  He went back into the Great Hall, and North looked down at her and said, “Where were we?”

  “Well . . .” She stopped, knowing if she told him the truth, that there were ghosts, that he’d be calm and rational and probably have her committed.

  “If it’s that bad,” he said as her silence lengthened, “give me the short version.”

  She took a deep breath and said, “There are ghosts. We’re having a séance to get rid of them, but it’s not working. Kelly O’Keefe is here sleeping with her cameraman and Southie at the same time and all that emotion makes the ghosts stronger. The kids won’t leave because the ghosts kill anybody who tries to take them away. Your mother is furious with Kelly O’Keefe and that’s making the ghosts stronger. And my mother is here, too, and you know how she and Lydia are when they get together, so we’re all just feeding those things and I can’t get the kids out and I’m so tired . . .”

  She stopped, overcome suddenly by how awful everything was and now he was going to have her committed—

  He said, “What do you want me to fix first?” and she felt all her tension go.

  “Save the kids,” she said. “I don’t give a damn about the rest of them, but get the kids out of here.”

  “We can do that,” he began, and then Alice screamed bloody murder in the library, and Andie took off at a run.

  Andie threw open the library door and saw Alice shrieking in the middle of the room, turning blue from lack of oxygen. Her screams weren’t her usual “NO NO NO,” they were deeper, coming from a place of so much fear that Andie scooped her up and held her close and said, “It’s okay, Alice, it’s all right,” as calmly as she could while Alice screamed and screamed.

  “What happened?” she said to Carter, patting Alice frantically, and he nodded to Will. Andie turned on Will. “What did you do?”

  He looked horrified as he stared at Alice thrashing in Andie’s arms. “I told her she was going to come to Columbus to live with us.”

  “Jesus, Will! Why—”

  “He told us we didn’t have any choice,” Carter said flatly, and Andie thought, You fucking MORON, but then Alice’s screams deepened, her eyes rolling back into her head, and she forgot Will entirely. She turned to take her out of the room and saw North in the doorway, surveying the mess calmly, and pushed past him and into the hall, carrying Alice with her, past Southie, who looked alarmed, and Lydia, who looked confused, and a distressed Flo, and a sympathetic Dennis, and an avid, staring Kelly, up the two