Chapter 4 #3
Wren threw up her hands and laughed. She had to, because it was so damn ridiculous.
Dane smiled at her, placing his hand low on her back to steer her to the door.
His hand was warm, broad, and light, his fingers barely made an impression before they fell away, but she felt like she’d been hit with ten-thousand volts from a stun gun.
This man affected her like no other—even Alex—ever had; he made her feel, made her react, made her skin bubble and pop, her stomach flip over.
Around him, her whole body came alive. It was as if she could feel each hair root, each pore, the twitch of micro muscles. She was hyper-aware of him.
If she was going to have a drama and man-free summer, one where nothing more exciting would happen than her getting a tan and dropping her stress levels, then she needed to avoid him. Keep her distance…
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” she replied.
Yeah, great start, Dunlop.
* * *
The ghosts sat in the presently empty back corner booth of the Night Owl Diner, their eyes on the couple across the room.
Silas frowned at them. The doctor and the dancer hadn’t stopped talking since they arrived, and neither had dropped their eyes from the other’s face.
It was like no one else existed in the little bubble they’d created around themselves.
Maybe Miss Lila was right; the living had no idea how obvious they could be when they were falling for each other.
Silas watched the waitress carry a carafe of coffee past his nose, and sent it a longing look.
Coffee was the thing Silas missed most. On the battlefield, a cup could lift morale and steady nerves before a fight.
And when he caught a tiny hint of its rich aroma sliding through the veil, he remembered sharing early-morning cups with his friends, the mist rolling over their boots and shrouding the trees.
The mist temporarily hid them from the gruesome reality the day would bring: the blood and screams. They were all aware there was a very real chance one of them, maybe more, would not be present the next morning.
Silas shook off his melancholy. The Night Owl, the town’s always-open diner, was a regular haunt and the five of them met there often. When they’d arrived, they found the doctor and the dancer already there, not surprising since he’d heard them agreeing to meet for coffee.
Lila placed her elbows in a small puddle of strawberry milkshake, and he knew she wanted to find out what Ma McMaster wanted from Ruby. He couldn’t help feeling a little curious himself. It had to be important if Ma had deemed it necessary to come back from wherever they went after this.
He looked across the table to where the three females sat, all with their chins in their hands, all their attention on the couple across the aisle.
“Ruby, what did Ma McMaster want with you?”
Ruby’s eyes didn’t leave the other table. “She wants me to scare a bride into running from her wedding.”
Normally, this would cause a flood of chatter—How? Where? Why?—from the other woman, but this time there was, in modern parlance, crickets.
He couldn’t understand their interest in the dancer and the doctor.
From where he sat, nothing was happening at all.
Their conversation had died off and now the couple weren’t speaking—weren’t even moving.
They were simply sitting there, facing each other, eyes locked.
They hadn’t said or done anything for, he estimated, a long minute. Maybe more.
And yet the air between them felt … electric.
The way they looked at each other troubled him.
Call him melodramatic, but it seemed like they were having a deep conversation without a word being spoken—and it wasn’t one he, or the others, should be privy to.
It felt intense, intimate, and a little dangerous.
And somehow and strangely, ridiculously improper.
He shifted his weight, uncomfortable, vaguely scandalized. And hot. Strange because ghosts were immune to temperature.
Lila sighed and looked at Silas. “I heard you managed to manifest some music in the dance studio,” she said, impressed. “That’s some high-level energy work, Captain Blackwood.”
Silas nodded. “I’m not sure how I did it. I was angry with that boy for walking away from his duty.”
“Boy?” Lila scoffed. “Please. He’s a man in every sense of the word. And if I were younger and not dead, I would flutter my eyelashes and swish my beads in a bid to catch his attention. And if he saw me dance, he would drop straight to his knees in awe.”
Silas shook his head. Lila had no issues with blowing her own trumpet.
She was frequently absurd. But he knew she tried everything she could to separate herself from the legend, the girl with the broken body and shattered skull, the one whispered about on ghost tours and written about on the Meet Our Locals Who Refuse To Leave pamphlet they handed out to tourists.
She hated being treated as a cautionary tale instead of being celebrated.
Lila believed she’d been destined to be famous; maybe she would’ve been if fate hadn’t played such a mean trick.
Ruby’s eyes had yet to leave the couple. “Anyone with a brain can see the heat rolling off them. I’m surprised the table hasn’t caught fire.”
Silas understood her words but not her meaning. What did the table have to do with the couple and the way they looked at each other?
Ruby’s naughtiest grin flashed. “Anyone want to wager how soon they’ll end up in bed?”