Read Online Bartholomew 02 - How to Marry a Ghost by Hope McIntyre - Free Book Online

father’s womanizing image but given that he was found wearing a dress, it’s a cinch it’s all going to come out. Maybe Shotgun will wind up putting it in the book. That’s the kind of stuff folks are going to want to know.”
    “So what is his mother like?”
    “Shotgun’s ex? Well, you’ll get to find out for yourself when she comes back to pick up her son.” Franny gestured to the urn.
    “I will? She’ll be back soon?”
    “Who knows? But you’ll be here because I’m going to ask you to watch Eliza while I run out and do some errands.You see, I was nice enough to tell you where to do your shopping so I thought maybe you’d like a chance to return the favor.”
    “Oh, you’re good!” I smiled. “But I’ve absolutely no experience looking after babies.”
    “She’s asleep,” said Franny, grabbing her purse and heading for the door. “How hard can it be?”
    Not hard at all if Eliza stayed asleep but Franny banged the

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    screen door so hard behind her that her baby woke up and began to bawl. Two women chose that moment to come in and begin gathering groceries.
    “Don’t pick her up,” said one as I moved toward the baby carriage. “You’ve got to leave her. Never let her think she’s the boss, that way she’ll grow up spoiled.”
    “Oh, that’s nonsense,” said the other woman. “Poor little thing. She needs a cuddle and maybe her diaper needs changing.
    You don’t want her to think she’s abandoned, do you?” She looked at me sharply.
    I didn’t know what to do so I compromised by rocking the baby carriage back and forth and then I went into a state of panic as I realized these women would want to pay for something and I had no idea how to work the cash register.When I said as much, the first woman reassured me.
    “Oh, for goodness sake. We just leave money in that can over there”—she pointed to an empty Maxwell House tin perched on top of the freezer—“and we take the change if we need it. Franny leaves the place to run itself half the time while she’s off checking people’s yards and stuff.”
    Eliza was still howling when they left and as I bent over her, I caught a pungent whiff that told me the diaper-changing theory was definitely the correct one. I recalled how Franny had sent Rufus upstairs to find a diaper in the bathroom but when I tried the door to the apartment above, it was locked. I didn’t know much about babies but I could hazard a guess that Eliza would not shut up until I changed her.
    And then I saw the solution. Boxes of Pampers were lined up on the top shelf in the back of the store. I couldn’t see a step-ladder or a chair but there was a broom propped against the door so I used the handle to knock one of the boxes off the shelf.
    I had never changed a diaper before and the countertop cov-

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    ered in powdered sugar was not the best place to start but I had no option. Eliza wriggled and screwed up her little features until she was red in the face. She knew I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. The smell was overpowering and what on earth did I do with the old diaper? There was no convenient bucket or trash can close at hand. Then I realized I hadn’t broken open the box of diapers before removing the old one.While I wrestled with that, Eliza would probably roll off the countertop and crack her skull open. And wasn’t I supposed to wipe her clean with baby lotion or something? I saw the magic words “baby wipes” on a package over on a far shelf. I reached for them and just as my hand closed over the package, out of the corner of my eyes I saw Eliza begin to roll over.
    “I think you need some help there.”
    The voice was quiet and low and the accent was British with a mid-Atlantic inflection. She was a tall woman somewhere in her fifties. She was wearing a tailored black pantsuit and a white shirt, and her eyes were obscured by a pair of oversize dark glasses. Her mouth was a slash of dark red