“Bored? No way. And who says I don’t have aspirations. Like I said, I like to know a little bit about a lot of things. A modern renaissance man.”
“Like gardening,” I supplied with a slight grin. “And makeup.”
He nodded.“And ghosts.”
Oh, good. He’d given me the lead in I needed. I jumped for it. “Actually, I was wondering about that.”
He hung his head and laughed.“Of course, you were. You don’t think I knew that in the parking lot?”
I stopped walking and stared after him.“But you—“
He also stopped a few paces ahead and then turned to study me.“I turned the situation to my advantage. I’ve been wanting to take you out for a long time. I figured this way you’d want it, too.”
“Sneaky.” Now my smile was so big it was busting at the seams.
He winked at me.“Or genius.”
“I’ll stick with sneaky,” I answered with a laugh, then began walking again and looped my arm through his once more. “So are you going to tell me about the ghosts?”
“Ghost,” he corrected. His smile had been replaced by a clenched jaw and furrowed brow. “I’ve only ever seen the one.”
“Tell me about it,” I practically begged as I gave his forearm a little squeeze.
His expression lightened again.“Well, I guess I got what I wanted out of tonight—that is, some extra time with you. I suppose it’s only fair to give you what you wanted. One ghost story coming right up.”
He cleared his throat to begin…
8
“Okay, so it was a dark and stormy night…”
I groaned and flung my head back dramatically.“Seriously?”
“If you want the story, then you’ve gotta let me set the scene,” Drake said, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he smiled at me from just one side of his mouth.
I rolled my eyes and motioned for him to go ahead.
“Like I was saying, it was a dark and stormy night.” He widened his eyes and glared at me, daring me to protest.
When I kept mum, he smiled with the other half of his mouth, too.
“I’d just turned twenty-one, which meant I’d finally come into my trust fund, and now I was in the process of driving all over the country in search of a new place to settle down. The only requirement? That it be as far away from my parents as possible. I was on my way to Miami when a giant storm whipped up, so I pulled over to the side of the road to wait it out. While I sat there, this lady in white appeared out of nowhere.” His eyes became vacant as he journeyed deeper into the memory, and I had no doubt he was seeing the scene unfold anew in his mind’s eye.
Drake took a deep, stuttering breath before continuing.“She wore this old-fashioned gown and no shoes. I could barely see her through the thick sheet of rain, but it was enough to tell that she was semi-transparent.”
I gasped.“Wow, you really did see a ghost.”
“Why would I lie about it?” he asked with one dark eyebrow raised in question.
The intensity of his gaze made me let go of his arm and take a small step to the side.“You’re right. I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
He shrugged.“There’s not much else to tell. Another car showed up, almost drove straight into the thing, but then skidded off road at the very last minute. A soccer mom van stopped to help the person who’d crashed. Eventually the rain stopped, and I carried on toward Miami. Stayed there for a few months but got sick of all the sun. I came back up to Georgia, looking for the place I’d seen the ghost. Eventually I gave up my search. That was when I saw the help wanted sign at Harold’s and decided to settle in Elderberry Heights.”
“Wow,” I whispered in awe, even though I had yet to process his story in its entirety. “So you definitely believe in ghosts?”
“Definitely,” he declared unequivocally as if he’d been asked whether the sky was blue. “I’ve toured haunted houses and talked to psychic mediums in the time since, but everyone I’ve found has been a fraud.”
I grabbed him by the shoulder and waited for him to bend down so I could whisper,“What if I told you I had a ghost materializing in my house right now?”
Drake’s eyes lit up with intrigue. “Then I’d ask what we’re doing out here. Can I see it? Can I talk to it?” He looked like a kid at Christmas.
“I’m not sure it can talk yet, but I know it’s there. Weak, but seems to be getting stronger.” I was proud of myself for not mentioning the cats in my explanation.
I worried that he’d ask questions I didn’t know how to answer, but instead he whipped around and began walking quickly back toward my house, so eager he was to see this ghost for himself.
“That’s my biggest regret, you know,” he said as I struggled to match his pace. “That I just sat in my car the whole time rather than getting out and trying to communicate with it.”
“But you said that a car ran it through,” I reminded him, wrapping my arms around my torso as we walked. Even though it wasn’t the slightest bit cold out, I still needed that added bit of comfort to counteract how this conversation had started making me feel.
He nodded.“Yes, another car scared it off, but there were several minutes of the spirit just floating there. It seemed like maybe she was waiting for someone or something.”
This was getting creepy. I mean, it had already started pretty creepily, but the more Drake shared of his otherworldly experience, the more I began to worry about how my own might play out.
Could my house ghost even be scared off? And if I tried too hard to get rid of it, could the cats and I end up missing an important message from the other side?
If only I knew…
9
I led Drake back to my house and invited him inside to meet my baby ghost. I felt much better allowing him in this time. He now knew where we stood as far as this evening’s non-date, and he’d already confided in me with his ghostly experience.
Granted, I still hoped he’d clear out before the cats returned from Nocturna. I didn’t think I could endure another merciless round of their teasing.
“Well? Where is it?” he asked eagerly, glancing all around the house as if he’d be able to see it with his naked eyes.
“I’m not sure it’s out yet. I think it’s strongest at night, and the sun has only just gone down,” I explained as I pointed to the top corner of the narrow hallway leading to my bedroom.
Drake marched right over to the spot I’d pointed out and reached up a hand with outstretched fingers.
“What are you doing?” I guffawed, resisting the urge to slap my palm into my forehead. “Trying to give the thing a high five?”
He turned back toward me and made a face, not embarrassed as I’d expect but more playful. “I’m checking to see if there’s a temporal anomaly.”
I chuffed at this.“And? Is there?”
“Well, I just realized that I have no idea what a temporal anomaly would feel like. Yeah, I’ve seen a ghost before, but that was more dumb luck than anything.” He tilted his head to the side. “How did you know it was here?”
My heart thudded in my chest. I hated lying, but telling him the truth about Merlin would result in me being locked away in some dodgy magical prison for the rest of my life. That one simple fact made lying essential, but it didn’t make me good at it.
“Oh, it’s my, uh, intuition,” I hedged. “Sometimes I can hear things other people can’t.” That was true, if only because the cats chose to talk to me instead of most other humans.
His eyes widened, and he seemed to look at me with a fresh perspective.“Whoa. So you actually heard it, then? Did it speak to you, like in words?”
I shook my head quickly.“No, no words. It’s more like the sound of, uh, waves crashing softly on the beach.”
“How does one crash softly?” he asked with a chuckle.