Bartholomew 02 - How to Marry a Ghost Read Online Free PDF Page A

bridesmaid . . .
    Now, in the early hours of the morning following my mother’s ceremony, I struggled to come to terms with the fact that I could no longer turn to Tommy for reassurance. As I slowly hung up the phone, I realized I was on my own, sitting up in bed in a far-flung wing of a house I had likened to a mausoleum.
    I didn’t dare to attempt sleep again in case I had another nightmare. I lay, rigid with tension, until seven o’clock when I forced myself to get up and go downstairs in search of a cup of coffee.
    To my surprise, I encountered Rufus padding about the kitchen in sweats and an old pair of sneakers, leaving a trail of sand wherever he went. A maid was anxiously monitoring his progress, poised to sweep up after him.
    “Lucia, chill. I’ll clear it up, I promise. Don’t I always clear up after me?”

    2 2 P
    Hope McIntyre
    “No, Mr. Rufus. Never.”
    “Well, at least I try, which is more than Scott ever does. Hi Lee, how’d you sleep?”
    My face must have given me away because he pulled out a chair and took my arm, guiding me into it.
    “Not much, huh? I’m not surprised.What a night! I was down at the beach already and let me tell you, the rumors are starting to fly about the guy in the wedding dress. He was going to be married and his fiancée jilted him at the last minute so he took her dress and waded into the water in it. Or maybe he was a cross-dresser and he wandered down to the beach drunk after a party.You name it, they’re throwing it all out there.”
    Rufus grinned at me and I began to relax. I’d had the distinct impression that he was his father’s favorite and I could see why.
    “Rufus is the wild one,” the Phillionaire had told me. “He was an afterthought, came along fourteen years after Scott. Bit of a shock to the system for his mother, we were both in our forties.
    He dropped out of college and spent a year on the draggers—
    fishing,” he’d added when I’d looked bewildered. “Then he settled out here—although settled isn’t exactly how I’d describe him.
    He works all over the place, clamming, landscaping, chopping wood, carpentry, construction, I can’t keep up.”
    I was thinking how different he was from Scott, who his father had told me had been through an acrimonious divorce and now rattled around in solitary splendor in a palatial mansion on the ocean, when Lucia approached me with a coffeepot.
    “You want?” she asked me.
    “No, she doesn’t. I’m taking her out to breakfast. Lucia, can we put these in the washing machine?” Rufus was holding up a bag of laundry. “They left, by the way.”
    “Who did?” I asked.
    “Your mom and my dad. They took off last night when the

    How to Marry a Ghost
    P
    2 3
    party ended, went back to the city to start their committed life or whatever you call it. But don’t feel you have to rush off.You can stay as long as you like and I’ll be at your disposal.”
    I felt suddenly rather awkward. Now that my mother was no longer around I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stay without being in the way. I had spent the previous week in New York cooling my heels at the Phillionaire’s apartment while I waited to be summoned for my interview with Shotgun Marriott. But it hadn’t happened and now with the tragedy of his son’s death, who knew how long it would be before my fate was decided.
    Rufus saw my hesitation.
    “It’s okay, really.” He assured me. “You’re family now.”
    He smiled at me and I relaxed a little. He was right, I supposed. He and I were almost related in some way. I was an only child and all of a sudden I had a “little brother.”
    I smiled back at him. “Thanks,” I said. “As a matter of fact, if I could stay a couple days until I sort myself out, it would be great.
    Do you live here?”
    “I crash in the pool house when I don’t have anywhere else to go.” He nodded his head toward the window. I could see a pool and beyond it a small shingled building.
    “Does Shotgun