Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
The next morning Natalie was still reeling from her new reality and still not used to the weight of the absolutely perfect antique Victorian engagement ring Liam had chosen.
Engaged.
That was going to take some getting used to. Maybe some more coffee and finally getting around to texting everyone the good news would help it sink in.
“Hey, Nat, what are we doing for Halloween this year?” Gabe asked, walking through the back wall without knocking, since he couldn’t, and without Millie so only Natalie heard him. So much for her no ghosts in the apartment without an invite rule. That had gone out the window a while ago.
“Good morning. And I don’t know.” She turned to Liam. “Gabe’s here.”
“Yeah, I guessed that.” Liam’s lips tipped up ever so slightly in the smallest of smiles. It was a nice change from his usual scowl when Gabe showed up unannounced.
“What do you want to do for Halloween?” she asked Gabe, waiting for him to notice the ring on her left hand.
“I don’t know. I’m not as excited for it this year.”
“Why not? You love Halloween.”
Gabe shrugged. “Millie’s going to visit her family in Sharon Springs again. I mean she went last year too but I was with you in Utica so it didn’t matter so much.”
As Gabe talked, Natalie felt the blood drain from her face as the bottom dropped out of her nice, normal, boring life.
“Oh my God,” she breathed as her pulse began to race as even the joy of being engaged seeped out of her.
They’d made a huge mistake and there was no possible way to fix it now.
“What’s wrong?” Liam asked.
Gabe frowned at her. “Nat? You okay?”
“I can’t believe I forgot. How could I forget? And now it’s too late.”
They could never correct this situation. The brain was gone. Dumped in the ocean where they could never retrieve it.
“I’m going to need more words than that, babe or I can’t help you,” Liam said.
She turned to Liam, panicked. “Halloween. The ghosts. They can travel farther. Much, much farther. Like—how many miles away is Utica?” she asked feeling the coffee churn in her stomach as the realization of what they’d done took hold.
“More than seven,” Liam answered, obviously now thinking the same thing she was. The Mariana Trench wasn’t deep enough. At least not during Halloween when the ghosts could travel freely.
Like Gabe said, they’d been with her in Utica last year. An hour and a half drive away from Mudville. Yet somehow she’d forgotten. And it was not just on October thirty-first, but also the days leading up to it.
“Why didn’t I remember that?” Natalie hung her head, defeated.
Liam shook his head. “You’d been mentally and physically attacked. Twice. You can’t blame yourself for not remembering. I’m the one who should have remembered. I was there in Utica too. I just… forgot.”
Natalie spun on Gabe. “Why didn’t you remind us!”
Gabe held up both hands, palms forward. “Hey, now. Don’t blame me.
I thought you remembered. I didn’t say anything because what other option did we have?
Send the damn thing to the moon on a rocket?
I don’t know why you’re worried. First of all, it was a new ghost and it was not at all social.
It won’t even know it can travel on Halloween.
Hell, it won’t know what month or date it is at all down there.
And even if it tests the boundaries every single day for lack of anything better to do out there in the ocean, what are the chances that a ship will sail over that spot at exactly the same time the brain ghost pops out of the water? ” Gabe asked.
When he said it like that, it did sound unlikely .
She still didn’t like it, but Natalie finally allowed herself to take a breath. “I guess—”
“Whoa! What is that on your finger? Is that an engagement ring?” Gabe demanded leaning low over her hand.
“Yes.” And selfish as it was in light of possible Halloween shipboard carnage, she even smiled.
“Well, congrats! About time the big guy decided to commit. Good for you. Wait until Millie hears. She’s going to be so excited.
Did you tell Harper yet? She didn’t say anything.
” Apparently Gabe had moved right past the horror of the Halloween realization and right onto wedding stuff. She supposed she could too.
“Um, babe. I could really use a recap of whatever Gabe is saying right about now,” Liam said.
She caught a glance at his concerned expression and realized he hadn’t heard any of Gabe’s reassurances that they shouldn’t worry about the brain ghost.
“Gabe’s not worried. And he says congratulations on the engagement.”
It took a beat as Liam absorbed that, but then she saw the stress melt away as he nodded. “All right. If Gabe’s not worried then I’m not worried. And you shouldn’t worry, either.”
“You’re right. No worrying. Just happy thoughts and wedding plans.” She smiled.
But as Gabe asked about the wedding and Liam stood to go work on more brain research in his cadaver lab, she couldn’t help thinking there was no way that she and Liam could possibly have that nice, uneventful, boring married life they’d talked about…
but as long as she was with him that was okay with her.