Read Online Ghost at Work by Carolyn Hart - Free Book Online

with Lucinda, then going to the Baptist church because they have the biggest youth group in town. Friday night they’re having a Halloween skating party at the roller rink in their gym and tonight Bayroo’s at Lucinda’s helping plan our Spook Bash. It’s on Saturday from four to eight. Last night she went to the youth meeting with Lucinda. There are some on the vestry who don’t like the idea of the rector’s daughter going to the Baptist youth group on Wednesday nights.
    â€œBill stood up to them and said he was glad Bayroo wanted to go and learn Scripture verses, and if they played games in the Baptist youth group and had fun, too, so much the better. He pointed out how he’d proposed building a youth center and the vestry hadn’t agreed. Daryl Murdoch was the main obstacle, insisting the church couldn’t afford that kind of expenditure even if the Goddard family was willing to put up the major portion of the cost.”
    The Goddards. That was an old name in Adelaide dating back to the time when the first oil field was discovered. How nice that some of the family still lived here and still served as patrons of the church. But we were getting rather far afield from Daryl and Raoul. Or Raoul and Daryl. “You were fed up. What did you do?”
    â€œI decided to take Spanish at the college—”
    One of Adelaide’s charms is Goddard, the four-year college established shortly after the city was founded, the land donated by the Goddard family. The campus is in the historic part of town not far from the rectory. Adelaide is hilly and Goddard’s ivy-twined, red-brick buildings spread over three hills.
    â€œâ€”and Raoul Chavez was my teacher. He seemed to like me and I was one of the best students and we got into the habit of having coffee in the union.”
    â€œHandsome?” I pictured the young Anthony Quinn I’d seen in Turner Classic Movie reruns.
    She nodded. “He has a wonderful laugh.”
    â€œSingle?” Did I need to ask?
    Another nod. “He told me he’d never met the right woman.” She bit her lip. “Until he met me.”
    I wished I could place my hands on each shoulder and give Kathleen a gentle shake. Or maybe I should get her a primer: Single Men Who Flirt with Married Women Are Up to No Good . “All of the fun and none of the bother.”
    She looked at me blankly.
    Kathleen was definitely naive for a girl who grew up in Chicago. “Of course he liked you. You were married and obviously at loose ends or why else take Spanish, and you probably had long soulful conversations over coffee about life, love, meaning, the universe, and his hand brushed yours and there were looks.”
    She was genuinely impressed. “Were you there?”
    I was startled when I realized she was serious. “No. I’ve just now been dispatched here. Had I been there, I would have spoken to you about the primrose path.”
    She blinked.
    The allusion didn’t register. I said gently, “Beware a stranger bearing gifts.”
    Her face crinkled in thought.
    I put it baldly. “He had designs on your virtue from the moment you walked into class. Flattering, of course.”
    She gasped. “But I thought—he was so reluctant—he said he knew we had no future—”
    Except, of course, for idyllic sweet-sorrow assignations at his apartment and no danger of entanglement.
    â€œâ€”and he knew he’d always love me and we might have just a brief moment together—”
    â€œHe invited you to his apartment one rainy afternoon, and when you came…”
    Her cheeks turned rosy red. “I walked in and looked at him and all I saw was Bill and Bayroo and I turned around and walked out.”
    â€œYou felt cruel, leaving his wounded heart behind you, and you didn’t go back to class and dropped the course. But somehow Daryl Murdoch found out.”
    She was astonished. “How do you