Wildly, Boldly (Return to Culloden Moor #4)

Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39

#AlaskaLife #GhostHunting #DancingInTheLights #TrueBelievers

“ R eadings are steady,” Sophie said, checking her monitors. The mountain air bit through her jacket, but the excitement kept her warm. This was her last official solo investigation before starting the new show—assuming the network agreed to her counter-offer.

Wyatt helped adjust one of her sensors, his movements confident after weeks of practice. “Elizabeth’s journal mentioned this spot specifically?”

“Right here.” Sophie had gone back to read the journal and take notes under Greta’s watchful eye. “ She wrote about figures dancing in the lights.” Sophie glanced at him. “Like what you saw that time on patrol.”

He stilled. “I never said?—”

“You did, actually. On the ghost tour.” She bumped his shoulder. “Unless you want to take it back?”

Before he could answer, her equipment started beeping. The aurora was strengthening, ribbons of green and purple painting the sky in otherworldly light.

“There,” she pointed to where the lights seemed to pool in the valley. “That’s exactly what Elizabeth described—the way they gather in certain spots.”

“Could be the topography—” Wyatt stopped mid-sentence, his whole body tensing.

Sophie followed his gaze upward and her breath caught.

In the heart of the aurora, two figures danced. Not just vague shapes or tricks of light, but clearly defined forms moving with impossible grace through the curtains of color. As she watched, they turned in what looked like an old-fashioned waltz, their forms glowing with an inner light that had nothing to do with the aurora.

“Are you seeing...” she whispered.

“Yes.” Wyatt’s voice was rough.

Her equipment was going crazy, readings spiking off the charts, but Sophie couldn’t look away from the dancing figures. They moved like lovers, lost in their own world of light and magic.

Then they turned.

And looked directly at Sophie and Wyatt.

The female figure smiled—Sophie would swear to it later—and raised her hand in what could only be a gesture of blessing. The male figure nodded once, then drew his partner close.

In the next breath, they were gone, leaving only the usual dance of the aurora behind.

Sophie realized she was clutching Wyatt’s arm. “That...that actually happened, right?”

He swallowed hard. “Yeah. It did.”

“Just like what you saw before?”

“Similar, but...” He turned to look at her, his expression stunned. “This was clearer. More real.”

“Ha!” She punched his arm lightly. “And you’ve been giving me grief about ghost hunting all this time!”

“Sophie...”

“No, no, let me enjoy this moment.” She grinned up at him. “The great skeptic himself, witness to?—”

He kissed her, cutting off her teasing. When they broke apart, he was smiling despite his obvious shock.

“You know what this means, right?” she asked.

“That you’re never going to let me live this down?”

“Besides that.” She turned to look at the still-dancing lights. “Think about it—if we saw this on our first real investigation together, imagine what else is out there. Alaska must be full of stories like this, mysteries we haven’t even begun to understand.”

Her eyes were shining with possibility, and Wyatt felt something in his chest expand.

“Could take years to explore them all,” he said carefully.

“Lifetime, maybe.” She glanced at him sideways. “Good thing I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

Above them, the aurora continued its dance, but the ghostly waltzers didn’t reappear. They didn’t need to. Their message—if that’s what it was—had been received.

“You know,” Wyatt said after a while, “my grandfather used to tell stories about lights in the mountains. Dancing figures, mysterious music...”

“The ones you never believed?”

“Maybe I should have listened better.” He pulled her close against the night’s chill. “Seems there might be more to this ghost hunting thing than I thought.”

Sophie’s laugh echoed across the mountain. “Was that actual admission that I might be right about something supernatural?”

“Don’t push it.”

But he was smiling as he helped her pack up her equipment, and Sophie caught him glancing at the sky more than once, like he was hoping for another glimpse of the dancing figures.

She didn’t mind that they didn’t return. Some gifts were meant to be given just once, at exactly the right moment.

Like finding love in Alaska.

Like seeing magic in the lights.

Like knowing, finally and completely, that she was exactly where she was meant to be.

Besides, they had plenty of time to chase more mysteries. Together.