MacGowan's Ghost (10 page)

Damn. He would have taken the time to laugh, but he wasna used to being the sole cook. He was the proprietor, did the books, the figures, helped out when short-staffed. But Wee Mary and Katey did all the cooking and serving.

He was desperate. He had no choice but to accept Allie's offer.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he blew out a frustrated breath. “I hired you to bring to heel that meddlesome lot of spirits—who I'm fairly sure are watching us both right now. Not cook for the pub.” He stared at her. “Right. Search through the pantry and see what you can find. I'll be right back.”

“What are you getting?” she asked.

“Potatoes, milk, and crab. Can you do something with that?”

“Absolutely. And some onions if you haven't burned those, as well.” Allie stepped into the pub.

“Hey,” Gabe called. She turned and looked at him. He felt his bloody knees go weak. “Thanks.”

Another wide smile and Allie Morgan disappeared into the shadowy depths of Odin's Thumb.

And Gabe could do nothing more than trust the girl.

And pray she couldna tell just how much she'd started to affect him.

 

Twenty minutes later, Gabe hurried into Odin's. He pulled up short when he reached the kitchen.

He blinked.

Allie, with her mass of curls pulled up into a clip at the top of her head and one of Wee Mary's aprons tied on, surrounded by every single Odin's Thumb ghostly resident—and one extra soul, he believed—perched on counters and chairs, had cleaned up the mess he'd made earlier
and
had several ingredients pulled from the cabinets and pantry, lined up neatly on the counter beside the stove. Baden Killigrew said something and the whole room burst out laughing.

Allie, Gabe noticed, looked just as easy and at-home comfortable in his kitchen, with his ghosts—as if it were all a natural and everyday occurrence, to be laughing and carrying on amongst the dead.

He supposed, to her, it was. It had been some time since he'd allowed himself the same easiness.

“Hey, 'tis the soup burner, returned,” said Christopher Ramsey. “I say, lad, how does one burn soup, by the by?”

Everyone roared.

Allie just grinned.

Gabe set his bags on the counter and glanced at Allie. “We've a new soul here now?”

She began looking through the bags. “He's with me. Alexander Dauber, and I promise to take him home when I go.”

Gabe cast a look in Dauber's direction. The older ghost tipped the bill of his hat but didna say a word.

Gabe returned the nod.

With very little time before the lunch crowd arrived, he decided to wait until later to ask Allie Morgan why she'd brought her own spirit to Scotland. He wondered if Alexander Dauber was as mischievous as the Odin's lot. He glanced over, and Dauber's left brow raised. High.

That answered Gabe's question.

“Okay,” Allie said, interrupting Gabe's thoughts. “We need to get busy here. And since it's just me and you physically doing this, how about you chop the onions? I'll peel the potatoes.”

Gabe just stared at her.

She'd already found a paring knife and had started peeling. “What?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Are you always so bossy?”

“You don't know the half of it, sir,” Dauber answered.

The Odin's crew laughed.

Allie simply shrugged. “I grew up in a houseful of females. We're used to running the show.”

“I can tell,” Gabe said under his breath.

Together, with the spirited and lively souls of Sealladh na Mara, plus Alexander Dauber, looking on and adding advice wherever they deemed necessary, Gabe and Allie prepared the afternoon meal. In between chopping onions and wiping the tears streaming down his cheeks from the fumes, he watched her. Deft fingers moved over the potatoes, and the whole while not once did Gabe notice a smile not affixed to Allie's face. One of the lords would tell a raunchy joke, they'd all laugh, and Allie would come back with one even raunchier.

Finished with the potatoes, she dumped the whole chopped lot into the large pot Gabe had burned the last bit in, added water, and set it to boil.

Then she started cutting up various vegetables to cook fast over the flame. For the crab cakes, she said.

Forty minutes later, Gabe had pulled the plates and bowls from the cabinet. Allie was just finishing up the last of the crab cakes when the first of the lunch crew came through Odin's door.

Within minutes the pub was mostly filled.

Allie wiped her hands on her apron, stood before Gabe, and looked up. “Okay. No menus, right? People just come in, pay one price, and they get whatever it is you're serving for the day. Right?”

Gabe looked down at her. “Right.”

Allie grinned.

“What's so funny?” he asked, and started dipping the bowls full of potato soup.

“You have a great accent. The way you roll your r's—I like it.”

For some reason, Gabe liked that
she
liked it.

But he shrugged it off. “You Americans—you all like this,” he said, waving a hand about.

“What?” she said, exchanging her apron for a clean one.

“The Scottishness.”

She grinned. “Hmm. I can't say how much I liked it before.” She lifted a tray laden with three large pitchers of water. “But I like it now.”

And with that she left the kitchen.

Chapter 9

A
llie hadn't run so much since she'd waited tables in college. All the patrons were locals—plus a few from the neighboring village—and everyone was genuinely courteous and patient. While Gabe served up the plates in the kitchen, Allie had run from table to table, pouring tall glasses of water. Once finished, she helped him serve. Bowl of soup, two crab cakes, hard roll. It was really quite simple. No menus, except for the one outside the pub. And that one listed daily what was being served at lunch and at dinner.

Dinner.
She hadn't even asked what it was. No doubt that as soon as they had everything cleared and cleaned from lunch it would be time to start preparing for the next meal.

“Lass, dunna tell Wee Mary this,” said Willy MacMillan, the fishmonger. “But those were the best crab cakes I've ever eaten.” He squinted. “Canna quite place the difference—”

“American,” she whispered, and wiggled her brows.

Willy laughed, shook his head, and pulled on his cap. “So it is, then. Good day to you, Allie.”

She watched him go through Odin's front door, the last patron to leave. The ghostly souls had dispersed, going their own way and doing whatever it was they did when not in the presence of mortals. Even Dauber left with Captain Catesby, off to see something at the wharf.

“I canna believe you have that old grouch eatin' out of your hand in just three days,” Gabe said, suddenly behind her.

She glanced at him over her shoulder and grinned. “I had him eating out of my hand the
first
day, sport.” She grabbed a tub from beneath the bar and started loading up the dirty dishes from the tables. Gabe followed suit.

And every time Allie would look up, she'd catch Gabe watching her. Together they loaded all the dishes in silence, but the glances were still there. Finally, Allie set a bowl in the tub, tossed in the silver-ware, and met his gaze. “What?”

He looked away. “Nothin'.”

Gabe grabbed the heavy tub and headed to the kitchen. Allie followed. “So, where do they go?”

Gabe set the tub next to the sink. “Away.”

Good Lord, getting information out of Gabe MacGowan was like pulling teeth. “Away
where
?”

He began to load the dishes. “I dunno. They visit others, go to places from their life before.” He shrugged. “For the most part, the Odin's lot stays in Sealladh na Mara, where they have freedom.”

Before Allie could comment on that, the front door swung open and Jake came barreling through.

“Hiya, Da!” the boy said, and ran straight to Gabe and threw his arms around his waist. “Captain Catesby says you and Allie made lunch for everyone.”

“Ms. Morgan to you, lad, and aye, we did. Wee Mary was sick today,” Gabe said. “Have you homework, then?”

“A wee bit,” he said. “Can I do it later?”

“Nay, boy. You go straightaway to your room and do it now. After, I'll make you a snack, aye?”

“Aye,” Jake said grudgingly. He turned to Allie. “Al—I mean, Ms. Morgan, do you wanna throw pebbles in the wharf with me after homework?”

Allie studied the pair of MacGowans. One big, one little. One with dark hair, the other auburn. Jake had that adorable little cowlick right at the hair line, a few freckles trekking across his nose, and the bluest eyes.

Eyes completely unlike Gabe's green ones.

“Ms. Morgan doesna want to be bothered, lad—”

“Well,” Allie said, “here's the deal.” She gave Jake a stern look—probably a lot like the one her mother used to give her. “You get your homework finished, your snack in your belly, and I'll get busy cleaning up this mess.” She glanced at Gabe. “If it's all right with your dad, I'll go throw pebbles with you before we start dinner. How's that?”

Jake squirmed where he stood. “Canna, Da?”

Gabe met Allie's gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “Aye, I suppose so.”

Jake took off up the stairs.

“Dunna hurry through your homework, lad,” Gabe called after him. “I'll be checkin' it.”

“Aye-aye,” said Jake, his voice growing fainter as he raced up the steps and disappeared down the corridor.

Gabe gave her a direct look. “You dunna have to entertain my son, Ms. Morgan. 'Tisna what I hired you for.”

Although Allie knew it was meant sternly, she decided the best way to handle Gabe and his grumpy mood swings was to laugh them off. Something greater than anything she'd imagined weighed heavy on Gabe's mind, and perhaps she'd find out just what that was. Until then, she could only be her usual, chirpy self.

She threw him a big grin. “You didna hire me to cook and do dishes, either,” she said, mimicking to the best of her ability Gabe's Highland brogue. “Yet here I am, apron and all, me hair a mess”—she blew a loose strand and it flew skyward—“and potato all over me trousers.”

And then it happened.

It nearly knocked her over where she stood.

Gabe threw back his head and
laughed
.

Allie didn't think a man could look so beautiful.

Gabe shook his head and scrubbed his eye with the heel of his hand. “You are crazy, woman.” He looked at her and shook his head again. “Bloomin' crazy.”

Allie shrugged. “Maybe so. I've got a meeting with your lot of spirits tonight, Mr. MacGowan, and I'll try to see just what's going on with them and their hauntings. I now have a pebble-throwing date to get ready for, so if you don't mind, I've got to get busy getting this mess picked up.” She lifted an empty tub and started past him.

With a firm yet gentle grip, he stopped her. She glanced up, his jaw flinched and his eyes bored into hers, and her mouth went dry.

“Thank you, Ms. Morgan,” he said, his gaze dropping briefly to her lips. “Again.”

“Absolutely,” she replied, thankful the sound didn't come out as a squeak. She started for the dining area, and it wasn't until she was there, and he was in the kitchen, and dishes were clinking together as Gabe placed them in the dishwasher, that Allie took a long, deep, steadying breath.

What in God's name was happening to her?

Somewhere deep inside, so very deep that it wasn't even a clear and consciously formed thought, she was afraid she knew.

And she, Allie Morgan, for the first time in quite a long while, was absolutely petrified.

Allie followed Jake. He'd changed from his school uniform of a white collared shirt and blue trousers to a pair of rough and tumble little boy jeans, a sweatshirt with a Celts logo on the front—a
football
team, apparently—and a blue jacket with yellow piping. They walked down to the wharf, over the rocks to a small tidal pool. Jake squatted down, scooped up a handful of pebbles, and dumped them into Allie's hand.

“Do you have a husband?” Jake asked, tossing a pebble into the water. “Back in America?”

Allie laughed. “I sure don't. Why do you ask?” She tossed in a pebble, too.

Jake shrugged and threw a couple more. “Why are you here all by yourself?”

Allie studied the boy. The late afternoon light had faded, the air had grown colder, and a gust of wind ruffled Jake's hair.

She suspected the little sneak had lured her here to question her about Odin's Thumb.

Smiling, she picked a few choice pebbles and skipped them into the water. “I go everywhere by myself. Why?”

Again, he shrugged. “My mother died.”

Allie froze. Damn, she had no idea. When Gabe had mentioned he was raising Jake alone, she thought he'd meant that Jake's mom had simply run out on them. He'd never mentioned being a widower. Leave it to a six-year-old to be brutally honest and spill the beans.

She took in a breath. “I'm sorry, Jake. How long ago?”

“I was little. I don't remember her, really.” He peered up at her. “I have a picture by my bed, though. She's pretty.”

Allie smiled and smoothed his cowlick. It sprang back up. “I have no doubt about that.” She wondered how Jake's mother had died, but she didn't want to ask. Perhaps after he got to know her a little better, he'd tell her.