Marlie's Mystery Man

“One of the sweet things has a sneeze like a water buffalo,” Marlie replied with a grin. “But once I knew where the sound came from, I had no problem sleeping through it.”

She glanced around the deserted lobby. “After the crowd this morning, it’s certainly quiet now. Where is everyone?”

“Out looking at the stars. Most of them won’t be in till the wee hours.”

“Then would anyone mind if I browse the hotel bookshelves and read for a while in the parlor?”

“Not at all. We want our guests to feel at home.”

“Be right back,” Marlie said as she headed up the old-fashioned staircase to pull off her hiking boots.

When Caid heard a key rattle in the lock, he turned away from the window and his perusal of the street below to deliberately step toward the center of the room.

The door swung open and a woman entered, switching on the overhead light as she did so. His roomie, apparently.

Somewhere between mid-to late-twenties, she had short tousled brown hair, a snub nose with a dusting of freckles across it, a generous mouth, and eyes that he couldn’t tell the color of but which were bordered with thick lashes the same shade as her hair. She was a little on the short side perhaps, but feisty with it, he could tell.

The woman was just plain cute, he thought, the kind of cute that in a puppy would make him want to take her home.

She also completely ignored him. A strange man stood in the middle of her hotel room and she didn’t so much as back up a step.

Caid rubbed a tired hand over his mouth and jaw. He’d been getting the same reaction all day…or lack of it. People he’d known all his life looked through him as if he wasn’t there. He’d gotten right in Durig’s face at the bank and yelled at him, but Durig hadn’t even blinked.

After failing to get anyone at the bank to notice him, Caid went to The Drugstore to buy aspirin and get a cup of coffee. Though he sat at the counter right in front of the kid behind it, no one waited on him. He finally dropped change by the cash register, took a bottle of aspirin off the shelf and left to walk to the garage where they’d towed his truck.

The vehicle was a mess and certainly not drivable, but when Caid tried to talk to Jimmy to get the lowdown on repairs, the garage owner ignored him, too. An oil stain had better conversation.

Totally frustrated and even more totally bewildered, Caid used a public telephone to call the ranch. He didn’t like what happened then, either.

“This is the Rollin’ M,” Waldo snarled, his usual way of answering the phone.

“Waldo, it’s Caid. I need you to drive into town and pick me—” Caid began.

“Hello? Hello?”

“It’s me,” Caid said loudly. “Turn up your hearing aid, dammit. I need you to…”

But he was speaking to a dead phone. Swearing, Caid dug into his jeans for more change and punched in the ranch number again.

“Rollin’ M, and buster, you better have somethin’ to say. I ain’t got time for this,” Waldo spat.

“It’s Caid. Can you hear me? I need—”

The response was an earful of profanity that would make a stevedore blush.

“It’s me!” Caid yelled at the top of his lungs. “Listen up, Waldo. I need—”

Dial tone.

Defeated, Caid replaced the receiver.

Next he tried to hitch a ride to the ranch with the owners of the property adjacent to his, but the Hendersons looked right through him and turned a deaf ear.

Not knowing what else to do, he at last walked back to the hotel, snagged a cup of coffee from the complimentary carafe in the deserted lobby and climbed the stairs to his room. His head felt like a mission bell at the noon hour and all he wanted at the moment was a handful of aspirin and a bed. He’d deal with the rest later.

Well, it was later, and even after a restless nap, he still didn’t know how to deal with it.

People just weren’t seeing him. He felt like the Invisible Man, except that guy could at least be heard.

The woman sat down on the side of the bed opposite the one he slept in and bent to untie the laces of her hiking boots. He’d like to ask just why the heck she’d commandeered his room, but knew it was probably a lost cause. No one else today had listened to him.

She’d tugged the second boot off when she paused, still holding it in her hand, and gazed for a long moment in front of her. Then she frowned.

Following her gaze, Caid looked to see what had captured her attention. All he saw was the bed he’d spent the afternoon in. The rumpled unmade bed.

“Bad housekeeping,” she finally muttered disapprovingly, then stripped off her socks and walked barefoot into the bathroom.

When she returned, she rummaged in a dresser drawer, came up with a clean pair of socks, picked up a bottle of lotion from the top of the bureau and sat down in the chair near the window, brushing by Caid in the process, actually touching his shirtsleeve—well, her shirtsleeve—without so much as breaking stride.

What she did next had Caid groaning inwardly. The woman poured a generous dollop of lotion into her palm and proceeded to massage her cute little feet.

As soon as the peppery smell of lavender filled the room, Caid sneezed.

The woman jumped a mile.

She’d heard him! But before Caid could say anything, he sneezed again. This time, however, she paid no attention, just went on slathering lotion.

Caid sneezed again. And again.

Finally, eyes streaming, he walked to the open window behind her chair and took a deep whiff of clean, unscented mountain air. By keeping his nose pressed to the screen, he managed to keep from sneezing until she closed the bottle, put on her clean socks, picked up her key from the dresser and headed for the door, obviously not bothering with shoes.

Good. As soon as she left, Caid was finding the nearest trash receptacle. Bye-bye, lavender lotion.

But she didn’t exit the room immediately. Instead, after pausing at the door, she backtracked and picked up his Stetson where he’d left it on top of the dresser.

And then she stood stock still, eyes wide and startled, her luscious mouth slightly parted as she stared in apparent amazement at his hat.

Or rather, at the blue feather he kept in the hatband.

Chapter Two

With a tentative forefinger, the woman touched the blue feather, for some reason far more interested in it than Caid’s rattlesnake hatband.

“Coincidence,” he heard her whisper to herself. She turned the hat over to look inside the crown.

Then, to Caid’s total amazement, this cute button of a woman did an extraordinary thing.

Gazing at herself in the mirror, she put his hat on her head, where it immediately sank past her ears to cover her eyes and rest on the bridge of her nose. Grinning, she pushed it up again.

“Howdy, partner,” she greeted her image in an exaggerated drawl.

Fascinated, Caid watched as she stuck her thumbs in her belt loops and set her hips to rotating in a slow swivel.

“Ah’m an ol’ cowhand,” she sang nasally, “from the Rio Grande, but mah…something ain’t…something, and mah cheeks ain’t tan….”

Smiling broadly by now, and forgetting completely to keep his nose out the window, Caid turned more fully into the room, the better to appreciate the performance of that enticingly generous derriere.

He sneezed.

The woman stopped midtwang.

Dammit, he’d swear she heard him, but instead of turning toward the sound as any normal person would, she just laughed and shook her head at the far wall, causing his Stetson to drop over her eyes again.

This time, however, she took it off, replaced it on the dresser, flipped off the light and left the room.

The show, apparently, was over.

Disappointed, Caid sighed.

And sneezed.

Well, hell. If he was sharing the room with this woman, he was damn sure getting rid of the lotion she’d just used along with anything else she had that was lavender scented.

And he was sharing the room. At the moment, it was the only place he had to hang his hat, literally, until he could figure out what was going on. Besides, the hotel owed him. Maybe he hadn’t paid for it yet, but he’d reserved the room before they gave it to the woman. Come to that, she owed him, too.

He sneezed.

It wasn’t late when Marlie slowly walked up the staircase to return to her room, but after her active day she could barely keep her eyes open. She’d read for an hour in the hotel’s charmingly Victorian front parlor and now clutched the Agatha Christie mystery, planning to take it to bed with her.

Earlier, she’d asked Ann if the Hotel Limpia had any resident ghosts, but the desk clerk merely laughed, saying the only one she’d heard about, but never seen herself, mind you, was that of a soldier from the old fort.

But it wasn’t a soldier Marlie thought she’d seen. For a split second, as she’d been wearing the hat with the coincidental blue feather and acting silly in front of the mirror, she thought she’d caught the vague outline of a cowboy standing near the window behind her. But then her neighbor sneezed, and of course there was nothing reflected in the mirror but herself.

The Hotel Limpia, with its antique furnishings and bygone western charm, certainly had a way of sending the imagination into overdrive, she thought, unlocking the door to her room.

Once inside, she didn’t bother with the overhead light but switched on the lamp near her bed. In the dimness outside its glow, she eyed with disfavor the double bed that matched her own. Its sheets and covers were lumpy and rumpled just as they’d been this morning.

In all other respects, the hotel service was first rate, but its housekeeping staff left a lot to be desired. Marlie had meant to say something to Ann earlier and forgotten, but she was telling the desk clerk first thing in the morning. There was no excuse for an establishment of this caliber leaving beds unmade.

Gathering clean panties and her pajamas, she headed for the bathroom and a long hot bath, but after stepping out of her jeans and partially unbuttoning her shirt, she remembered the soap she’d found today in one of the shops.

Ah. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Traipsing back to the bedroom, Marlie rummaged through a couple of sacks until she found it. But just as she turned toward the bathroom again, she thought she heard a breathy whistle from next door.

It was just a whisper of sound, but for no apparent reason she suddenly became very aware of her bare legs and half-open shirt.

She grimaced. Too bad there wasn’t another room available. As it was, she had a double room too big for her single self when what she needed was double walls.

All was forgiven, however, when she lowered herself into the deep bathtub. Hot water and lavender soap. Life didn’t get any better.

Unless, of course, a handsome someone scrubbed her back.

Unh-huh. Cut that last thought. Nicholas wouldn’t scrub her back. He’d just tell her how bad hot water and perfumed soaps were for her skin.

Forget Nicholas. And forget hats placed strategically by an interior decorator to enhance an old hotel’s western decor. Forget, especially, hats with blue feathers in the hatband.

A half hour later, too pleasantly lethargic from her hot bath for even Agatha to have appeal, Marlie called it a day. Turning off the lamp, she sank into the old-fashioned bed’s very modern and oh-so-comfortable mattress.

And heard a giant sneeze.

Oh. Good. Grief.

Still, if she could hear the people next door, they could surely hear her. “Don’t you have anything to take for that?” she asked the wall loudly.

Silence.

One might even say stunned silence, it was that thick. Apparently the elderlies in the next room didn’t realize how thin the walls were.

There was another sneeze, followed by a muttered, “Well, hell.”

“Bless you,” Marlie called out, grinning.

“You can hear me?” a voice asked diffidently.

Aha, Marlie thought. Masculine. One of the supposed maiden ladies still had some energy.

“Yes, and you really ought to take something for that cold. We’d all sleep better.”

“It’s not a cold,” the voice replied. A husky voice, with a hint of drawl. And it didn’t sound like that of an old man, either. It sounded velvety, downright sexy even, if a trifle cranky and stuffed up. One of the dears must have found herself a young stud while she was stargazing.

“It’s allergies,” the voice continued. “I’m allergic to your soap.”

And Marlie could swear that whoever spoke was right beside her. She heard a rustling in the other bed.

With a shriek, she reached out and turned on the light.

Nothing. Even better, no one.

Sinking limply against the pillows, she sighed….

Ker-choo!

And bolted up again.

“If you’d bathe with something besides lavender soap, we’d both be happier,” the voice said.

“Where are you?” Marlie whispered.

“In the bed opposite yours. Don’t get your britches in a knot, lady. I won’t hurt you.”

Throwing back the covers, Marlie bolted for the door, fumbled with the lock, threw the door open and was about to slam it behind her when she realized she heard no pursuit. She paused, uncertain, but stayed poised to immediately run and/or scream, whichever was needed.

Cautiously reaching over, she flipped on the overhead light. How could she describe the intruder to the local badge if she didn’t know what he looked like?

Nothing. No one. Nobody.

“Are…are you there?” she whispered into the seemingly empty room.

“I’m here.”

“Where?”

“I told you. In the other bed.”

The covers on the bed in question rose and fell as if they’d been given a disgusted shake. Marlie’s heartbeat rose and fell with them.

“I’m…I’m going for the police,” she warned, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice.

“Go ahead. If you can explain this to someone you’ll be doing a hell of a lot better than I did today. And Fort Davis doesn’t have police. We make do with a sheriff and a couple of deputies.” Ker-choo!

“You’ve got a sneeze like an atomic blast,” Marlie said dryly. “I don’t think I’ll have much trouble explaining things.”

“Have at it,” the whoever or whatever it was responded, and blew his nose.

Once the woman marched her straight-backed, swishy-bottomed little self out the door, Caid got out of bed, went to the closet and retrieved his jeans. If on the off chance someone could finally see him as well as hear him, he wanted to be decent. He wasn’t holding out much hope, however.

Still, for the first time today he’d actually exchanged conversation with someone. Perhaps whatever the heck it was that had happened to him was starting to wear off.

When Marlie returned, she had Ann with her. After hearing the story, the desk clerk had talked her out of going for the sheriff.

Ann looked around the quiet room. “I don’t see anything or hear anything, Ms. Simms. Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

“I hadn’t gone to sleep yet,” Marlie replied shortly. “And I know what I heard. A man talked to me and he sneezed. He said he was allergic to my lavender soap.

“Hey,” she called out to the seemingly empty room, feeling brave now that she had company. “Are you here?”

“I’m here,” the voice answered.

“Where?”

“Standing about three feet in front of you.” Ker-choo!

“There.” Marlie turned to the desk clerk in triumph. “You heard that, didn’t you? I’ll bet people in the next county did, too.”

But Ann merely gazed back at her in confusion. “Ms. Simms, I, uh, didn’t hear anything.”

“Sure you did,” Marlie told the desk clerk bracingly. “That sneeze registered on the Richter scale.”

But by now, even though she wasn’t but a few years older, Ann’s look had turned motherly. She put a comforting arm around Marlie’s shoulders.

“Ms. Simms…Marlie, I think you had too much sunshine and thin mountain air today. You crawl back into bed now, honey, and I’ll bring up a nice cup of herbal tea to help you sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Ker-choo!

“You didn’t hear that?” Marlie asked in a small voice.

“No, sweetie. You get a good night’s rest now and I’ll bet you feel tip-top by tomorrow.”

Marlie sighed. “Perhaps you’re right. But I don’t need any tea. Really. Thanks for coming up, though.”

She walked Ann to the door and was about to shut it behind her when she noticed the bathroom trash basket sitting by the doorway in the hall. In it was her brand-new, used only once, very expensive tablet of lavender soap.

Marlie debated pointing this bit of evidence out to the desk clerk, who was wishing her good-night again, but in the end decided it probably wouldn’t do much good.

After closing the door, she leaned against it to gaze accusingly into her seemingly empty bedroom. “Say something, darn it. I know you’re still here.”

“That makes two of us.”

There was the sound a deep sigh followed by a massive Ker-choo!

“Oh, for goodness’ sake! Do you have to keep doing that? Ghosts aren’t supposed to sneeze.”

“I’m not a ghost.”

“Could’ve fooled me. What are you then?”

“Alive, for one thing. For some reason, people just can’t see me, and so far the only person who can hear me is you.” Ker-choo!

“Well aren’t I just the lucky one,” Marlie said nastily. “How delightful that the whole world now thinks I’m crazy.”

“Not the whole world, just Ann Jergin. But she’s a nice girl. She won’t tell anyone.”

“You know her?”

“Of course I know her. We were in the same grade all through school.”

Marlie frowned in the direction of the voice, now coming from the vicinity of the other bed. In fact, the bed looked a little depressed on one side, as if someone were sitting on it.

“Who are you?” she asked slowly.

“I’ll tell you after you shower. Lifebouy, Irish Spring, Dove. Take your pick. Any scent but lavender.”

“How do I know you won’t float into the shower with me? You might be anywhere for all I know.”

“Lock the damn door,” the voice snapped. “I can’t walk through walls. I already tried.”

“You could be lying.”

“Yes, ma’am, I could. You’re just gonna have to trust me now, aren’t you?”

Why should I, Marlie wanted to ask, but didn’t. A ghost with allergies seemed…trustworthy, in a bizarre sort of way.

Good grief! She was certifiably crazy.

But she headed for the bathroom. Just before she closed and locked the door, however, she stuck her head out again. “Where are you?”

“Here,” he replied, his tone one of long suffering, but the sound of his voice came from the bed. “Now get a move on. I’m tired, I’ve got a hell of a headache and I don’t want to stay up all night yakking.”

What a crab.

When she returned, showering in record time, the woman smelled like nothing but cleanliness. Caid had never thought of eau de clean as erotic before, but as he watched her prance across the room, then hop into bed, he had the overwhelming urge to hop into it with her.

Huh, he thought. So she had great legs. The real attraction was probably because he could talk to her. Communication could be a powerful aphrodisiac.

And strangely, though sharing a bed with the woman had strong appeal, going beyond sharing didn’t seem to…suit the moment.

“What’s your name?”

They’d asked the question at the same time.

“You first,” the woman said. “And your story better be good, buster.”

“Or what?” Caid asked, truly curious.

“I’ll think of something. Don’t think I won’t. Now start talking.”

Caid grinned. “Yes, ma’am.” But his story was no laughing matter and he sobered immediately. “I’m Caid Matthews,” he said. “Kincaid Matthews the Fourth, owner of the Rolling M.”

“That’s your feather on the dresser, isn’t it?” she said wonderingly. “I mean, your hat. Your name is inside. I thought it was part of the hotel decor.”

“Only since yesterday. I forgot it when I went back to the ranch.”

He heard a startled little movement in the next bed. “Oh my Lord!” the woman exclaimed. “You’re the rancher who was involved in the accident. The one they took to the hospital last night.”

“No, ma’am. I’m the one who ran into a tree, all right, but I never went to the hospital.”

“But…but when I checked in last night, they said you’d been taken to the hospital. That’s why they gave me the room.”

Caid was beginning to get irritated. Whose story was this? “No, ma’am,” he contradicted stubbornly. “I was right here in this bed last night.”

There was a long silence. “Oh.”

Though it hurt his head to do it, Caid raised up so he could look across the intervening space at the opposite bed, part of which lay in a pool of light cast by the lamp on that side of the table between them.

The woman sat against a bank of pillows, gazing into space and chewing her bottom lip, obviously thinking deeply.

“Do you remember how you got into town?” she asked at last.

Caid could tell she was keeping her tone carefully noncommittal and it riled him no end.

“Yes, I remember how I got into town. Three cowboys from the MT gave me a lift. They found my truck and I hitched a ride into town with them. But my head was killing me, so I let them talk to the sheriff and I came on here.”

Uh-oh. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that “killing me” part. The woman’s own ideas were bad enough.

“But did you actually talk to them?”

She just wasn’t going to leave it alone, was she? “Hell yes, I actually talked to them. Well, some. Maybe not a whole lot, but I told them I’d ride into town with them. Then I crawled into the back of their pickup and we came on to Fort Davis.”

“You told them? They didn’t ask? And they let an injured man ride in the night air in the back of the pickup? That doesn’t sound strange to you?”

“Not particularly,” Caid replied shortly, though come to think of it, it did seem a little harsh even for West Texas cowpokes. Nobody had even offered him a handkerchief to sop up the blood.

“Did you get a good look at your truck?” the woman then asked.

“Yeah, I saw it. What about it?”

“There was blood all over the seat.”

“Doesn’t mean anything. There was blood all over my head and my shirt, too. I probably had a mild concussion, but so what? I’ve had worse. And how do you know there was blood on the seat?”

“Your truck was the sensation of the morning, Mr. Matthews. When I had breakfast, everybody was talking about it at The Drugstore this morning, so I walked down and looked at it, too. You could see the bull’s-eye in the windshield where your head hit. Why in Heaven didn’t you wear your seat belt?”

Caid felt his ears turn red. “I forgot,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“I forgot, dammit, just like I forgot my hat and just like I forgot the blasted papers in the first place. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

There was another long silence.

“Something else was being talked about in the restaurant this morning, Mr. Matthews,” she said at last.

“Caid.”

“Um, Caid. People were talking about the latest news from the hospital after the ambulance took you to the emergency room. They said…”

She paused, and Caid had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what came next.

“They said, um, Caid, that you were…on life support.”

It was Caid’s turn to be silent for a long moment. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, hell. All I know is, I’m not in the hospital, I’m sitting right here on this bed talking to you, and the only thing wrong with me is a humdinger of a headache.”

And then she just had to say it. “But no one can see you or hear you.”

“You can.”

“I can hear you, but I can’t see you. Mr. Matthews…Caid…I’m sorry to have to say this, but I—I think you died. Life support keeps the body going, but it doesn’t necessarily keep the spirit going.”