Page 2 of Bump in the Night

Whew. Here goes. Mouth twisted, I push my cleaning cart over the threshold, wheels rattling.

Despite the coppery tang, it smells weirdly good in here—like laundry detergent, coffee, and male musk. The clean kind.

“Anybody home?” I say again, peering around the shadows.

Nope. And it’s quick work to throw the curtains open and let the daylight in, dust motes spinning in the weak sunshine. I change the sheets and make the bed, swap out the towels in the bathroom, and fill up my laundry bag, whistling as I work.

I don’t touch the desk. Don’t read the scribbled notes or scroll on the laptop. None of my business, is it? And besides, there’s only so long I can put off those bloody walls.

Arms folded, mouth pressed in a line, I stare up at the sticky wallpaper. The worst patch is over the bed—right above the headboard. Figures. Whichever ghost haunted this room last night wanted maximum creep factor, but in the morning sunshine… not a peep.

“Come on,” I murmur a few minutes later, shoes kicked off as I balance on the mattress, scrubbing at the wall. The bed I just made is already ruined, and loose strands of hair are plastered to my sweaty forehead. Cleaning’s hard work, especially in this muggy heat. “Come out, come out, ghosties. Don’t be shy.”

“Actually, I’d rather they kept away.”

The room tilts as I whirl around, bed frame creaking, and I nearly lose my balance and go crashing to the floorboards. Mattress springs plunk as I stare at the man in the center of the room, my heart slamming against my ribs. I squeeze my cloth hard.

Longish black hair, serious green eyes, and a bemused smile. Wire-framed glasses and a wine-red buttoned shirt. This man looks solid. Very solid. No glowing blue outline or seeing the furniture through his chest.

Those eyes flick around the tidied room. His smile fades. “I meant to clean up before you came,” he says, frowning at the chaotic desk. “You shouldn’t have to pick your way through my mess. Apologies.”

“It’s fine,” I squeak, because since when do hotel guests care about making things easier for the maid?

“Even so. I’m afraid I quite lose my manners when I’m working on a book. When I was a teenager writing stories instead of doing my homework, my mother used to say I went feral.”

His British accent makes my pulse flutter, but I push that reaction away, because the man is staring up at me expectantly. Should I be doing something? Saying something?

Dazed, I glance at the red-stained cloth in my hand.

Oh yeah. I’m cleaning blood off his walls.

Right. Duh.

“I won’t be much longer,” I say brightly, lurching back around the scrub the worst stains. “If you’d like to wait in the guest library, I could—”

“Perhaps I might help,” the man says, suddenly much closer. He stands at the edge of the bed, hands half raised.

Those are big hands. Long-fingered and elegant.

Ahem.

“It’s fine—”

“You look like you might fall down at any moment.” Another strained smile, like this handsome stranger is as thrown off kilter by this conversation as I am. “Please don’t make me watch you fall when I could have caught you.”

Caught me? The image flashes across my brain—his hard chest under my hands; our bodies colliding.

It doesn’t sound so bad.

Biting my lip, I turn back to the stains and scrub steadily, because it does not matter that this man smells weirdly good and has kind eyes. I will not leap into this man’s arms like a deranged salmon. I have more self control than that. I do.

Even if something about his steady gaze calls to me, making me feel jittery and calm at the same time. Even if I’m not scared, not an ounce, even though he’s big and strange and older than me, and we’re all alone in here…

“Tell me about the walls,” I say, to distract myself more than anything else. It’s been hot and stuffy in this hotel all morning, and I’m so flushed right now, I need to fan myself. There are so many wrong thoughts chasing across my brain. “What happened, exactly?”

“You’ve never seen it?” The man sounds surprised, because yeah, I work in this famously haunted hotel, but I’ve never seen the good bits. I only run clean up, and it’s more maddening today than ever.

“Nope.” The word comes out too hard, and I clear my throat and keep scrubbing. There’s a long pause, but I keep my eyes fixed on the stained wall, the blood coming away slowly but surely. My fingertips on my cleaning hand are stained pink.

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