Kiss Me Hello by L. K. Rigel Page A

my mother used to say.” Sara grinned. She couldn’t imagine Rocklin voting in a ghost whisperer for mayor. “So are you psychic? If that’s not too personal a question. How do you see ghosts?”
    “Of course not, hermosa, ” Spot said. “Anybody can sense the spirits if they open their mind. Sometimes it’s a sudden heat or chill in the air or an unexplainable noise. If a ghost harbors a lot of anger or grief over its death, it remains bound to the material plane. In that case, it can concentrate its energy and use it to move objects.”
    “Have you seen that happen?”
    “At the Chase Me Inn, yeah. Its ghost is a little girl who lived there in the 1880s when it was a private home. She got into the kitchen lye and died. She had a favorite doll she used to sit with in a window seat, watching the ocean. The day she was buried, the mother found the doll, and in her sorrow she took it to her room that night. The next day, the doll was back in the window seat. The mother put the doll back in her bedroom, but what do you think?”
    “The doll wound up in the window seat again.”
    “Exactly. The mother even put the doll away in a trunk one time, and still the next day it showed up in the window. The little ghost was taking the doll to sit with her and watch the waves on the rocks outside. She wasn’t ready to let go of life.”
    “Oh, that’s so sad.”
    A new customer took the seat next to Sara, and Spot put a coffee mug down on the counter in front of him. “Eh, jefe . The usual?” Spot called in an order without waiting for the answer.
    The customer was an older man with freckled pale skin, slightly sunburned, and feathery strawberry blond hair gray at the temples. He was dressed in good-quality jeans and a black knit polo shirt with Poole Haven Wines embroidered in silver over the pocket.
    “ Jefe , this is Sara Lyndon,” Spot said. “Amelia’s niece.”
    Sara didn’t bother to correct the last name.
    “It’s good to meet you.” The guy extended his hand. “Gracien Poole. We lease Amelia’s grapes. Please, call me Gracien.”
    “But didn’t Spot just call you Heffie?”
    “Our mayor has a habit of giving people nicknames. Jefe means boss.”
    Sara wondered what hermosa meant.
    “ Jefe is the biggest boss around,” Spot said. “My biggest contributor, anyway. He donated that sign to my last campaign.” Spot pointed to a banner high over the door: FOR MAYOR, AGUILA HITS THE SPOT.
    “I wondered how Aunt Amelia could run Turtledove Hill all by herself,” Sara said.
    “All she has to do is cash the checks,” Gracien said. “I’ve been trying to buy the fields outright from her for years, but she won’t hear of it. I sure hope she’s going to be okay.”
    “She has a bad infection, but they’re giving her antibiotics. She was sleeping when I got into town yesterday, but I’ll be seeing her soon.”
    “Please give her my regards.”
    “Thank you, Gracien. I will.”
    She couldn’t eat another bite. She fished her wallet out of her bag and left a tip on the counter. Peekie had it right about The Coffee Spot: Good food and too much of it; horrible coffee and too much of it .
    Spot met her at the register with a paper cup with a lid on it. “A cup of Joe to go,” he said. “Tell Amelia we’re all praying for her.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Aguila.”
    “Mr. Aguila is that guy.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the cook. “Call me Spot.”
    On the sidewalk Sara passed a trash can and tossed the liquid acid masquerading as coffee. She’d get a decent cup at the nursing facility. But then Marnie Sims met her in the lobby with such a stricken look that Sara forgot all about caffeine.
    Aunt Amelia was worse. The antibiotics had failed.
    Sara sat down beside her aunt’s bed and took her hand. She was so pale, worse than yesterday. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing sounded raspy and uneven. “Has she had sleeping pills again?”
    “Nothing today,” Sims said