The Stroke of Winter(61)

Wyatt took a sip of his wine. “It’s hard to coalesce it into one reasonable explanation, but look at the strange things that have happened here. You know that, a few years ago, the Cliffside Manor, a Retreat for Artists and Writers, burned down, just outside of town.”

“I had heard about that,” Tess said. “It was on that stretch of road . . .”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “That stretch of road where so many people have gone off the cliff. Rumors have been circulating for years about the strange circumstances around that place burning down. People say it was haunted. And not by your dearly departed aunt, so to speak. Something more sinister than that. It doesn’t surprise me, what with the building starting its life as a tuberculosis sanatorium. All of those people dying there . . .”

Tess shivered. She had indeed heard the rumors.

“And then there’s the story of my family and the origins of this town,” Wyatt went on. “A whole village disappearing, John Wharton awakening as though he was in some sort of old Irish folktale and finding all of the people he had been living with, and loving, maybe weren’t people at all. Maybe he had somehow inadvertently stepped through that thin veil into—I don’t know—another time. An ancient time. And somehow, during the night, he crossed back over into his own.”

“Do you think that’s what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Wyatt said. “Like I said before, it might just be an old tale. But what if it wasn’t? What does it say about this place?”

Tess let that sink in. What, indeed?

“And then,” he said, leaning forward, his eyes widening, “there are stories from almost every old place in town about resident ghosts, strange happenings. Harrison’s House—I’m surprised Simon hasn’t told you about it—and LuAnn’s boarding house top the list. Her cook—and husband—Gary, calls the ghosts in their place ‘passers-through.’”

“Passers-through?”

“Yeah, like they’re traveling, on their way to somewhere else,” Wyatt said. “And to get there, they pass through LuAnn’s.”

“That’s crazy,” Tess said. “Maybe not so crazy in Wharton. My family has gone to LuAnn’s for the fish boil on Friday nights in the summer. I’ve been there a few times, actually. It’s quite the production.”

Wyatt smiled. “You know, maybe that’s where I’ve noticed you before. You looked familiar when I met you, and I’ll bet that’s why.”

Tess remembered how crowded those fish boils got, with people in the restaurant and spilling out into the backyard and even the parking lot. Being at the same crowded event with Wyatt at some time during her past, not knowing she was across the room from the man who would become her . . . her what, exactly? She didn’t want to get ahead of herself, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that this might well be something important.

It all rang true to Tess, the magical, strange, and otherworldliness about Wharton. She had never quite thought about it before, but that could be why the town was so special. So apart. Growing up visiting Wharton, she hadn’t been aware of all the strangeness that swirled in the air here. Maybe now she was a part of that swirl. She was slipping into the enchantment.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT



After cleaning up the dinner things, Wyatt turned on a movie, and the two of them settled in in front of the fire. Tess made it through a grand total of about fifteen minutes before falling asleep. She woke up snuggled next to Wyatt, his arm around her shoulders. The television was off, and he had a book in his lap.

She lifted her head and sighed. She noticed the fire was just a small flame on a bed of embers. “How long was I asleep?” she asked, blinking the sleep out of her eyes.

He smiled at her. “Long enough for the movie to be over, and for me to take the dogs out,” he said. “I was going to roust you in a bit to move you upstairs. I figured you didn’t want to sleep the night down here.”

“I’m sorry I passed out like that,” she said, running a hand through her hair.

He pushed himself up from the couch and held out his hand to Tess. She took it, and he helped pull her up. “I sort of liked you curling up with me,” he said. “It felt good. And you were exhausted. I was glad you could drift off. I wasn’t surprised at all.”

He led her down the hallway, turning out lights as they went. Storm appeared from another room and followed them up the stairs.

“Your guardian is following you to bed,” Wyatt said.

Tess smiled. “He always does.”

At the door to the guest room, Wyatt hesitated. “Tess, I . . .” His words stumbled over each other. “I guess I should leave you here. Right?”

He was adorably nervous, Tess thought.

“I wouldn’t mind it if you tucked me in,” she said, leaning against him.

“Give me a second,” he said, and stepped down the hall to what Tess presumed was his bedroom. She took that time to brush her teeth and slide under the covers, her stomach knotting up. Was this going to happen? Did she want it to happen? She hadn’t so much as slept in the same bed with a man other than her ex-husband for a long time.

Wyatt returned in a soft T-shirt and plaid flannel pajama pants. He slipped under the covers and leaned on his side facing her.