She was all in black, with her hair done up on top of her head, and she was holding a knife.”
“Sometimes Loretta likes to take a nip of sherry to start the day off right,” Mr. Pease told Ivan.
“I didn’t have a nip of sherry, you old coot. I’m telling you, there was a woman here.”
Stephanie took the older woman’s hand and began collecting information. Loretta Pease was obviously shaken. Her face had been white when they’d arrived, but color was flooding back into it now. Her palm was moist, her hand unsteady. Her glasses were neatly lying on the shelf above the small sink, Stephanie noticed. She remembered Mrs. Pease had pushed her glasses down her nose and looked over them to search for the fish eye in her soup. That meant she was nearsighted. Coupled with the fact that the cabin was dark, it meant she probably hadn’t gotten a very good look at the woman. “Did this person touch you or say anything to you?” Stephanie asked.
“No. She just stood there with this big knife.”
“Can you tell me approximately how old she was?”
“It was too dark. I couldn’t see her face well, but I swear, she had the biggest knife I’ve ever seen. A great big carving knife. Do I smell coffee?”
“You bet,” Ace said, popping into the cabin. “Fresh brewed aboard the Josiah Savage. Everyone can come below and get some, drink up, then we’ll search the vessel to flush out this woman from hell.”
“The coffee was a good idea, but I think we could soft-pedal the woman from hell stuff,” Ivan told him.
“Just an expression,” Ace said affably.
Stephanie held Mrs. Pease’s plump hand. “Why don’t you get dressed and come down to the galley? You can have some coffee and help me make blueberry muffins for breakfast.”
An hour later Ivan dropped in to see how the baking was going. He told himself he was checking on Loretta Pease, but he knew it was a lie. Stephanie Lowe fascinated him as no other woman ever had. She’d been a cop! So how did he feel about that, he asked himself. A little threatened? Definitely. And very curious, and very aroused, and oddly pleased. It seemed to suit her. He picked a clump of muffin dough out of Stephanie’s hair. “You’re a mess.”
“Flatterer.”
He poured a cup of coffee. “Everything okay here?”
“We’ve made enough muffins to feed the whole Pacific fleet,” Mrs. Pease said, taking a big basket of warm muffins topside.
Ivan sipped his coffee. “Ace and I have searched the ship and haven’t turned up anything unusual.”
Stephanie followed his gaze to the butcher block knife holder and gave him a silent affirmation that his discovery was correct. There was a knife missing.
She moved next to him and kept her voice low while she filled the last muffin tin. “It’s suspicious but hardly conclusive. I’m not familiar enough with the galley to be sure the knife is missing. Lucy could have lost it or misplaced it.”
He stared at her for a minute, absorbing the pleasure of being near her, feeling the need to tease her out of her self-imposed silence about her past. He didn’t want to be shut out. He’d go very slowly, he decided. He’d keep it light until she felt comfortable. “Were you like Eddie Murphy?”
“What?”
“You know, Beverly Hills Cop. Did you go around sticking bananas in people’s tailpipes?”
Stephanie smiled. “Figuratively, yes.”
“And as a former professional, what do you make of this?”
“I think Mrs. Pease saw something. I’m not sure what.”
Ivan nodded. “Whatever it was, it vanished into thin air.”
Stephanie stood statue still, a spoonful of dough poised over the batter bowl. “Like a ghost? Aunt Tess have any homicidal tendencies?”
Ivan shook his finger at her. “Don’t even think it! ‘Vanished into thin air’ is just a figure of speech. Aunt Tess doesn’t go skulking around wielding carving knives. She’s a nice old lady. Besides, ghosts don’t look human. They’re… gauzy or something.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“Well, no, not actually.”
Stephanie put the last batch of muffins in the oven. “Then how do you know what they look like? For that matter, if you’ve never seen a ghost, how can you be sure your house is haunted?”
“My mother’s seen Tess.”
Stephanie raised her eyebrows.
“Tess only shows herself to women.” Ivan took a warm muffin and broke a piece off. “That’s the legend. Only the women of Haben have seen her. And not all of the women. She’s picky about who she scares.” He popped the piece of muffin into his mouth and chewed appreciatively. “These are good!”
“You sound surprised.”
“Mrs. Pease must have made them.”
“Boy, that really hurts.” She put the bowl into the sink to be washed and pushed her hair behind her ears, wondering about the legend, wondering if she believed it. “We have muffins and coffee on deck at seven, right?” Stephanie asked Ivan. She unconsciously caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth and stared at him, only partially listening to his answer, her mind still occupied with thoughts of ghosts.
He grinned at the fresh swipe of batter clinging to her bangs. “Yup. And full breakfast in the galley at eight.” He took a tray and began arranging mugs on it. “So, what do you really want to know?”
Stephanie wiped her hands on her sweat-pants and realized with a start that she’d been telegraphing her inattention. There’d been a time when she would never have dared do that. Now, there was Ivan, seeing right through her, and she was loving it. It was a good feeling. All those years of evasive answers and role-playing and never letting down her guard were behind her, thank heaven. She’d lost patience with it. She wasn’t all that good at relaxing yet, but she was getting better. “Do you honest-to-goodness believe this Aunt Tess business?”
Ivan fed her a piece of his blueberry muffin. “This is not the time or place to discuss such mystic matters. I think we need to arrange a rendezvous.”
“A simple yes-or-no answer would be fine.”
“A simple yes-or-no answer wouldn’t be nearly enough. First of all, you should talk about spooky things when it’s dark. Everybody knows that. And fog helps a lot.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “And a little moonlight wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”
“Moonlight talk always makes me nervous.”
He fed her another piece of muffin and purposely stroked her lower lip with his fingertip. “It’s my duty as the descendant of a famous pirate to make women nervous once in a while.”
“Gee, Red would be proud of you.”
He pinned her against the counter. “Red would think I was a wimp. You know what real pirates did to their women?” he whispered, letting his lips brush against the sensitive skin just in front of her earlobe.
Stephanie shivered in anticipation.
“They ravished them,” Ivan told her. “It wasn’t a pretty sight.”
“That’s it? No details?”
Ivan threw her a stern look. “You’re not cooperating here. You’re supposed to be intimidated.”
“You know what intimidates me? The thought of making breakfast. According to Lucy, I’m supposed to whip up a cauldron of oatmeal, three dozen eggs, and seven pounds of bacon.”
“Sounds about right.” He took the tray of mugs and turned toward the stairs. “I’ll meet you on the poop deck tonight at ten, Cinderella. Wear something appropriate for ravishing.”
At ten o’clock Stephanie took the last of the blueberry pies out of the oven and damped down the fire. Now she knew why Lucy made pies first thing in the morning. If you tried to make them in the afternoon, when the ship was under way, the filling slopped over the sides and baked on the bottom of the stove. So you had your choice of making them at night or making them in the morning. Since Stephanie wasn’t a morning person, she’d decided to make them at night.
She looked down at herself and took an inventory of everything she’d cooked: oatmeal, spaghetti sauce, cookie batter, blueberry pies, and coffee. Wonderful. And she hadn’t washed her hair since the previous morning or changed out of the sweats she’d slept in the night before. On the positive side, she’d cooked a damned good dinner of fried chicken, biscuits, green beans, and corn on the cob. Cooking wasn’t much different from police work, she
