Last Dance by Linda Joy Singleton Page B

uneasy? He’d been nothing but helpful, yet I still didn’t feel comfortable around him. Like there was something unspoken between us.
    Frustrated, I turned away and glanced around over at the clubhouse. The large picture window offered a clear view of the lot. Had someone inside witnessed the vandalism?
    Dominic was still talking on the phone, pausing now and then to ask Thorn questions about her car. They didn’t notice when I slipped away to the clubhouse.
    When I entered the overly warm, stuffy room, I was disappointed to find it nearly deserted. The TV was off and there weren’t any card players. A hunched man sat at a chair near the window, which would have given him a clear view of the parking lot. Only as I started toward him, I saw his white cane and the Braille book he was touch reading. The only other people around were two women chatting as they crocheted and a silverhaired man working a crossword puzzle. But none of them were anywhere near the window.
    Discouraged, I turned to leave, until my gaze fell on the man quietly working a crossword puzzle. He wore a jaunty naval cap with impressive emblems—the sort a retired admiral might wear. Curiously, I stepped closer.
    He looked about old enough to be Chloe’s fiancé. And his blue-and-dark-orange aura vibrated with a strong sense of strength and confidence. But how could I find out for sure? You just didn’t walk up to a stranger and ask him if he’d been engaged to a ghost.
    While I tried to come up with a good opening, he swiveled in his chair to look directly at me. “Young woman, if you have business to discuss, please state it swiftly and succinctly so I can go on with my crossword. I find being stared at quite disconcerting.”
    “I didn’t mean to stare,” I said with a flush.
    “The most well-meaning individuals are usually the most intrusive.”
    “I’m sorry … but are you Theodore?”
    “Retired Admiral Theodore Alexander Viscente or Teddy to my friends,” he said in a clipped tone. His blue eyes were faded with age, but there was a sharpness to his gaze that made me lift my shoulders and snap to attention. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
    “I heard about you.” I clasped my hands. “Weren’t you engaged once to Chloe … the ghost?”
    “Humph! All this ghost nonsense is an insult to her memory.” He tapped so hard on his pencil the lead point broke. “As a rule, I don’t discuss her, but I’m tired of how this town glorified her death rather than her short life. She was a beautiful, sweet girl and if she hadn’t died tragically, she would have been my wife.”
    “It must have been really hard for you,” I said sympathetically.
    “It’s been over fifty years, water under this old bridge. Life goes on.”
    “But you must have loved her deeply.”
    “She was the only one for me and always will be.” He paused to regard me sharply. “So why the third degree? You’re too young to be with the media.”
    I bristled at being called too young, but hid my annoyance with a shrug. “I’m just curious about Chloe.”
    “A lot more than curiosity brought you all the way out here. Most folks in Pine Peaks tend to forget we old geezers exist.”
    “I’m just visiting. I had hoped to see Eleanor Baskers—she’s a … relative, only she isn’t back yet. I read Chloe’s biography, and I’m surprised there’s no mention of your engagement.”
    “That book is full of inaccuracies. Any fool can write a book, and Kasper has to be the biggest idiot I’ve ever met. An outsider like him has no right to present himself as the authority on Chloe. He never even met her.”
    “But he knows all about ghosts,” I said.
    “So he’s a nutcase like the others who flock here every October. What a lot of rot.” He snorted with disgust. “If ghosts were real, don’t you think Chloe would have shown herself to me?”
    “Well—I guess.”
    “Of course she would. I was very close to her parents, too and I have yet to be visited