"What a cold thought. We leave those decisions to a jury, not mobs or popular opinion." Tess stopped herself, since Andrew Thorne didn't need a lecture from her. "What happened to the wife?"

"Adelaide Morse." He set his roll on his bread plate. "She became a rich widow."

Tess looked out at the harbor, tried to imagine it in the mid-nineteenth century. "How did Jedidiah die?"

"He was lost at sea."

She almost choked, tried not to overreact. "When?"

"I don't know the exact date. Around the turn of the century, I believe."

"Then he's not buried here in Beacon?"

"No."

"But there's a record of what happened to him-"

"Not really. He went out in a fishing boat by himself and never returned." Andrew shrugged, matter-of-fact. "I figure that was his way of letting go."

Lost at sea. Alone. With no witnesses, no record. No body. Tess noticed Andrew watching her through narrowed eyes. She suddenly wondered if he and Harl knew there was a body in her cellar, suspected she'd seen it-suspected it was their unfortunate ancestor and wondered if she planned to stir up trouble.

She focused on Dolly and the harbor, counted buoys and seagulls. When their bowls of chowder arrived, Dolly immediately decided she needed to go to the bathroom. Tess offered to accompany her. The little girl shook her head. "I can go by myself." She jumped off the bench, then turned back to her father as she adjusted her crown. "Don't put crackers in my chowder. I hate crackers in my chowder."

She pranced off to the bathroom. "Well," Tess said, "she does have a mind of her own, doesn't she? And obviously a great imagination."

Andrew gazed out the window, a breeze churning up the surf. "Independence and imagination aren't necessarily a safe combination. Her life might be less complicated if she were one or the other, not both."

"Think of her as a ‘creative risk-taker.'"

"Is that what you are?"

"I suppose. I used to work in the design department of a major corporation, but I went on my own almost two years ago. It's been fun, unnerving at times, I admit. But, I haven't gone broke." She grinned at him. "Not yet, anyway."

"If you're trying to make me think you're sensible, you're already off on the wrong foot."

"I'm not trying to make you think anything."

"Aren't you?"

He was naturally taciturn, she decided, which made him seem gruff, even unfriendly, but he smiled at her, sending her insides humming.

He went on. "You let Ike Grantham pay you with a haunted carriage house that probably should have been bulldozed fifty years ago."

Undeterred, Tess ground fresh pepper onto her chowder. It smelled almost as good as her father's, although there were no pats of butter melting into the thick, creamy base. "I don't care if it's haunted. I don't believe in ghosts."

"Even after last night?"

She smacked the pepper grinder back down on the table. "I did not see a ghost last night."

"You thought you did."

"No, I didn't, and saying so isn't going to make me change my mind." He was direct, not a man to beat around the point he was trying to make, a characteristic Tess ordinarily would find appealing. Not, however, at the moment. "I grew up with know-it-all men. You can't intimidate me."

"I'm not trying to intimidate you. I'm just stating the facts. I know you saw something, Tess. I could see it in your eyes."

She snorted. "What do you know about my eyes?"

His went distant, and he said, "Not enough, no doubt."

Her throat went dry. "Then you can't-"

"Tess, you weren't just afraid of what you might have seen in that cellar. You were afraid of what you did see."

"I was, was I?"

Her hot look and sarcasm seemed to have no effect on him. "Yes."

"It doesn't matter what you believe. I know what I saw, and it wasn't a ghost."

It was a skeleton, and she almost told him about it. Only the thought of what she'd do if it turned out to be an obvious plastic skeleton left over from Halloween, a prank, stopped her. The teasing would be unending. She'd never live it down, and somehow, some way, Davey and her father and the rest of the guys at the pub would find out. She'd be getting skeletons for her birthday, Christmas, Valentine's Day for years to come.

"Go ahead. Think whatever you want to think." She decided to redirect the subject. "Do you want me to check on Dolly?"

"No, she'll be back any second. She likes to wash her hands about six times. When she was three and four, the bathroom runs could get awkward, but she manages well now."

"Her mother…" Tess spooned up some of her chowder, which was hot and generous on the clams. "I don't mean to pry."

"Joanna died three years ago. She was caught in an avalanche on Mount McKinley." Andrew tore open a packet of oyster crackers, focused on them as he spoke. "It was several weeks before a rescue team could bring down her body."

"That must have been awful." But at least, Tess thought grimly, there was no possibility it was Joanna Thorne's remains she'd seen last night.

Dolly returned, and they talked about the boats in the harbor, the different kinds of seagulls. Not about her mother, dead in an avalanche the past three years.

They paid for lunch and started back to Tess's car, with Dolly, well fed and reenergized, skipping ahead. "It's a gorgeous day," Tess said.

"Have you made up your mind about the carriage house?"

She smiled. "Not yet."

But as she drove back to the point, her good mood dissipated and she knew she'd have to confront whatever was in the dirt cellar. Alone. And soon.

She dropped off father and daughter at their front door. Andrew was studying her suspiciously, and a quick peek in the rearview mirror suggested she was noticeably pale. It would be another rotten night. Too much thinking, especially about Andrew Thorne and his wife lost in an avalanche, his ancestor lost at sea, his neighbor with a dead body in the cellar. The Thornes had crummy luck.

"If you need help with your window," Andrew said evenly, "give Harl or me a yell. We'd be glad to lend you a hand."

But there was something in his tone she wasn't sure she liked. She pretended not to notice as she turned cheerfully to his daughter. "I'll keep an eye on Tippy Tail and her kittens, okay, Princess Dolly?"

The girl nodded, solemn. "They're just babies. They need peace and quiet."

She climbed out of the car, and Tess could see Andrew biting back a smile as he shut the door. He leaned into her open window. His eyes were that amazing blue again, a mix of sea and sky, warm, mesmerizing. "Let me know if you'd like the guest room."

Definitely, she thought, her life would be easier if her neighbor were a nasty troll, an s.o.b. But she smiled, gripped the steering wheel. "Thanks. I'll let you know."