Building Celebration House: The Celebration House Trilogy, #1

By Annette Drake

A dying woman. A handsome ghost. Can the two make her final dream come true?

Carrie Hansen won't let her failing health stop her from fulfilling her own last wish. Vowing to transform an aging plantation house into a beautiful wedding venue, she plans to live out her last days celebrating happiness. But between renovation problems and family interference, Carrie fears she'll never see anyone walk down the aisle.

Civil War soldier Thomas Gentry took his final breath back in 1861 and has been haunting the crumbling manor ever since. So when the new owner messes with his routine and starts renovating the place, he vows to preserve the status quo. But his frustration melts as his heart is struck by her beauty and passion…

With the support of the ruggedly attractive ghost, Carrie makes progress on the house while fearing for the unlikely couple's impractical future.

With her own time running out, will Carrie have a chance to celebrate her own happy ending?

Building Celebration House is the first book in the charming Celebration House paranormal romance series. If you like courageous characters, heartwarming humor, and good-looking ghosts, then you'll love Annette Drake's delightful cozy read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baskethound Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781393536772

Annette Drake

Annette Drake is a multi-genre author whose work is character-driven and celebrates the law of unintended consequences. A member of the Romance Writers of America, she loves ferry rides, basset hounds, and bakeries. She does not camp. She makes her home in Washington state.

Book preview

ANNETTE DRAKE

BUILDING CELEBRATION HOUSE

BOOK 1 OF THE CELEBRATION HOUSE TRILOGY

Copyright @ 2017 Annette Drake and Baskethound Books

www.Annettedrake.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the production of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook distributor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Editor: Leigh Michaels

Copy Editor: Dave Burton

Cover Designer: Elizabeth Mackey

E-book Formatting: Maureen Cutajar

ISBN: 978-1370074341

Building Celebration House is dedicated to the men and women to whom I provided cardiac nursing care for more than two decades. Your courage never failed to inspire me.

Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks to Leigh Michaels and Dave Burton, both of whom polished this manuscript despite my tight deadlines. Also, thanks to Rick McGowan for always saying yes when asked to read my early drafts.

Thank you to the members of my weekly (weather permitting) critique group: Sandy Mason, Sue Eller and Beth Camp. See you Wednesday.

A shout-out to Mary Rose Cole, Kathy Drake and Tonya Hayden, my loudest cheerleaders. Yes, I finally got it done.

Finally, my thanks to Chris and Jack. You two are my heart.

Contents

Prologue

PART ONE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

PART TWO

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

PART THREE

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Sneak Peek: Stay at Celebration House.

About the Author

Prologue

Carrie Hansen checked her watch a third time. She yawned and rubbed her eyes. How much longer was this office visit going to take? After working a twelve-hour night shift, she’d come straight here from the hospital. She wanted to go home.

Glancing around the small exam room, Carrie wondered what the name of the shade of beige paint was that covered the walls. Sit and Wait Off-white, she thought, or maybe, Calm-down Cream. She refused to sit on the exam table with its crinkly paper. She’d sat on enough crinkly paper, so she occupied one of the two office chairs in the corner and stared at a poster that listed the symptoms of congestive heart failure. Fatigue? Check. Shortness of breath? You betcha. Swollen legs and ankles? Yep again. Damn. She had almost all of those symptoms.

When Dr. Henry Lionel, her cardiologist, entered the small exam room, his nurse, Beth Kozera, came with him. Carrie knew both providers well. Beth sat in the chair next to her. Dr. Lionel pulled up the rolling stool he usually perched on during their frequent visits.

Carrie’s pulse quickened; they never both came in during an office visit.

Dr. Lionel took off his eyeglasses and cleaned them with his tie, stalling.

Carrie blurted, It’s bad, isn’t it?

Neither nurse nor doctor said anything for a minute. Dr. Lionel put his eyeglasses back on and sighed. It is, Carrie. I can show you the images from the echocardiogram, but here’s what matters: your ejection fraction has dropped again. Now, we estimate it’s about twenty percent. It was sixty after the transplant. The symptoms you report – fatigue, shortness of breath, difficulty lying flat – all point to one answer. Your new heart is failing.

Carrie nodded. I was afraid of that. What do we do now?

We contact the transplant team and work you up for another heart. At your age, you’re a strong candidate.

What’s Plan B? Carrie interrupted.

There isn’t one. We can adjust your medications, but it’s another transplant or...

Carrie finished his sentence. Or I die.

Silence filled the small room.

How long? she asked.

He looked at her over his glasses and smiled. C’mon, Carrie. You and I both have been asked that question time and time again by patients’ families. We both know there’s no answer. This is overwhelming news. Take some time. Talk to your parents.

Carrie grimaced. I lost my dad last year, just before I got sick. Now this. I’m not sure how much more news my mom and sister can take.

You need time to process this, Beth said.

Carrie squeezed Beth’s hand. Thank you. You’ve always been so kind to me. But maybe time is the one thing I don’t have.

We’ll start the process of getting you back on the transplant list today. I’ll call the surgeon myself, Dr. Lionel said.

Carrie shook her head. No. No. I won’t go through that again. I can’t. I’ve had enough of hospitals and doctors and surgery to last me – well, the rest of my life. No more.

After she left the doctor’s office, Carrie returned to her small apartment. She shed her clothes and crawled into bed. Six hours later, when she awoke, she brewed a cup of tea and turned on her computer to comb through all the websites she’d already visited, looking for a kernel of good news. National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, CardioSmart, and WomenHeart. Nothing.

She opened one of her favorite pages, IHeartOldHouses.com. She loved looking at the historic properties for sale. She clicked on the listing for Missouri and saw a new advertisement. Four bedroom, one bath, Greek Revival. A project home.

Carrie chuckled and clicked on the property. She scrolled through the photos that showed a home clearly in disrepair. When she saw the façade of the house, she gasped.

Oh my God! I know this house.

Carrie mapped it. Yep. It was on the same road where her grandmother’s home had been. That house was gone now, lost to land developers who had bulldozed it and turned the rolling farmland into another subdivision. But this house... this house needed saving. And so did she.

Part One

One

It hasn’t been lived in for a while. It does have electricity, though, the Realtor said, pushing a button on the switch plate. The weak overhead light sparked and, with a loud pop and a puff of white smoke, shorted out.

Standing in what she guessed was the front parlor, Carrie stepped to a large window and drew back the heavy moth-eaten curtains. Sunlight poured in, further illuminating the forgotten room. Thick dust covered every surface, including forgotten pieces of furniture left behind by a former owner. Over in a corner, Carrie saw a large rat inspecting her. His black beady eyes reflected the sunlight. His nose twitching, he stood on his hind legs to better study the newcomer.

Carrie turned back toward the large glass paned window. She rubbed a clean spot in the dust and looked outside. Peering back was an older woman with mahogany skin. She wore a long faded floral dress, and her hair was tied up in a scarf. She squatted to examine Carrie, who could see through the shimmering, translucent woman to one of the four massive porch columns behind her. The woman’s eyes grew wide when she realized Carrie saw her.

Carrie winked. Boo!

The black woman vanished.

Turning back to face the Realtor, Carrie announced, I’ll take it.

CARRIE KNEW HER OLDER sister would call as soon as she found out about the house purchase. Melanie did not disappoint. She called the night the sale closed.

This is insanity, Carrie! she shouted. Have you put down earnest money? Can you change your mind?

Carrie pulled the cell phone away from her ear. I don’t want to change my mind. And yes, I’ve bought the house. It’s too late.

If Dad knew this is what you would do with the money he left you, he would be so disappointed. Do you know how much you’ve upset Mom?

This is what I want, Mel.

Oh, great. Well, let’s be sure you get what you want. Never mind the rest of us.

It’s my life.

Have you talked to Dr. Lionel about this?

He knows. I called his office today to ask that my records be sent to my new cardiologist here.

There was a long silence before Melanie whispered, You... you can’t do this alone. You’ll never finish it.

I have to go. I’ll call you later. Give my love to Mom.

Carrie, we love you. Please come home.

Carrie hung up. "I am home," she said. She looked around the empty hotel room.

Melanie’s right. I won’t live long enough to finish restoring Stratton House. What have I done? I must have been crazy to think I could do this.

Her wristwatch alarm interrupted her thoughts. Time to take medication.

On the small faux marble sink top outside the even smaller bathroom sat an array of medicine bottles and her two-tiered pillbox.

Before her surgery, she had struggled to remember to take a daily vitamin. Now this drug regimen. She was an experienced critical-care nurse, but even she needed frequent reminders. Not easy when she was taking pills six times a day.

You are a fool, she said into the mirror, and smiled. Her outburst reminded her of one of her dad’s favorite sayings: God looks after fools and children. I’m covered on both accounts.

How she missed her dad. The loss was like an ache, a soreness that, just when she thought it was gone, crept back and ached again.

He grew up in Lexington, Missouri. Once a year, he’d bring his small family back to the Midwest to visit. Carrie thought during those trips, he seemed happiest. Content. Here was home. She remembered him telling her mother that he had no need for a map here; he knew every street in this small town thanks to a paper route he’d worked as a boy.

He always knew just the right thing to say to Carrie, depending on the occasion. When Carrie’s husband had declared he’d found his once-in-a-lifetime love with his twenty-two-year-old secretary and ended their marriage, her father had said, I never did like that fellow. He was always putting on airs.

Now, here she was. In Lexington, Missouri.

Is this an attempt to reconnect with Dad? Maybe. What would he say to me now?

Certainty arose within Carrie. Her voice was strong and clear in the empty hotel room. He would say, ‘What are you waiting for? Get your butt to work!’ She chuckled. Okay, Dad. I will.

USING HER INHERITANCE, Carrie paid cash for the old house that hadn’t been lived in for nearly ninety years. That left about a hundred thousand dollars to spend restoring the three-thousand-square-foot house.

She hoped it was enough. That was all the money she had.

She had learned from the Realtor that Colonel Bartholomew Stratton, a wealthy horse trader from Kentucky, had built the house in 1845 on two hundred acres of land outside Lexington, Missouri. The colonel had moved north to further his fortunes by outfitting the wagon trains that rolled out of Independence. He had built the large house as a bribe to lure his wife, Virginia, north. She preferred the south with her extended family, but the bribe worked. After he wrote and described the high ceilings, the ornate walnut moldings, and the lush household furnishings, she had come, bringing with her their four young children and household servants.

The Greek revival house had always been called Stratton House. The family had lived there until the late 1800s. They survived the American Civil War, except for one son. When pioneers began to take trains west rather than make the journey with horse and wagon, the family’s financial health declined.

In the early 1920s, Colonel Stratton’s great-grandson lost the house in a poker game. The new owner, delighted with the history and tradition of the structure, poured money into it. He installed electricity and updated the plumbing to include the luxury of an indoor toilet. Unfortunately, he wasn’t always a lucky poker player, and sold nearly all the land, except the twenty acres closest to the house.

He died shortly thereafter, and when his wife followed a few years later, the house remained empty. At first, it was tied up in probate court – the poker player’s widow left no will – but then the townspeople lost interest in the house. There was no shortage of antebellum mansions around Lexington. During the town’s heyday in the mid-nineteenth century, much grander houses than Stratton House had been built.

But there was something else. The house itself seemed strange to townsfolk. There were whispers of lights going on and off, and tales of unexplained accidents.

A real-estate developer from Kansas City bought the house for delinquent taxes. When he inspected the property in person, he fell down the stairs and broke his leg. He told anyone who would listen that he’d been pushed, and put the house back on the market.

Teenagers gathered for drinking parties at Stratton House – until the night two boys dared each other to sit on the front porch and drink. With a few cans of courage already behind them, two pimply-faced youths strode up the brick walk, jumped over the waist-high picket fence, and made themselves at home on the front porch. Their friends shouted cheers of encouragement from outside the gate. The two boys sat there, grinning, and clinked their cans to toast one another. After a minute, they heard a loud whisper.

Leave this place, the voice said, like a mother scolding a naughty child in a church pew.

They glanced around the deserted porch. The wind whipped up, and the branches of the willow tree in the front yard beat against the wooden fence. One boy reached down for his beer can and felt grinding pain in his hand.

An old man glared down on him and dug the heel of his leather boot into the teenager’s fingers. Get off my porch! he screamed.

The two boys bolted from the house. The front gate wouldn’t open. The wind whipped the willow branches, striking the boys’ faces and necks. Finally, one of them kicked the latch and broke it. They ran to their pickups and drove away as fast as Chevrolet could take them.

Two

Carrie checked out of the motel. It was clean and convenient, but she wanted to stay at her house. She bought a sleeping bag, cot, propane lantern, and stove at a camping outfitter. She grabbed a few essentials at the Piggly Wiggly store and drove to her house.

After asking around at local lumberyards, Carrie hired a general contractor to oversee the extensive restorations. But she knew, before any work could start, she’d have to talk to the current residents.

Driving up to the house, she smiled. She