Chapter 26
Grant
Edith sipped her tea, sitting across from me in one of the velvet chairs. Evening light filtered in through the windows. It had taken a while to close the case. She had a ton of questions. Mostly, whether they could stay open next December. I assured her, there wouldn’t be any residual hauntings.
“I’ll have the agency send over some final paperwork, and you’ll receive an official report after the holiday,” I said, pushing to my feet.
She nodded, satisfied. “You two heading back to the city tonight?”
I hesitated, a half grin curving my mouth. “I’ll have to check with the boss.”
But even as I said it, I hoped the answer was no. I wanted one last night in our currently not-so-haunted inn.
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and I couldn’t remember the last time I was so eager for the holiday.
Probably never. But this year, I had Valerie.
And we'd just solved our first cold case.
Working together. The same fates that used to laugh at us were probably licking their wounds now, stunned we'd proved them wrong.
“Well, you’re welcome to stay,” Edith said. “Just lock up when you leave. I have to get back to the house before my husband lets our grandkids eat all the sugar cookies I baked.” She muttered something about saving some for Santa as she shrugged into her coat and headed for the door.
I took the stairs two at a time, then slowed as I reached the doorway of our room. Valerie sat cross-legged on the bed, wearing one of my button-downs, her hair still damp from the shower. She ate a cherry straight from the jar, red juice staining her fingertips.
My heartbeat kicked hard, the sound loud in my ears, like my body hadn't gotten the memo to play it cool. How did I get this lucky? I must’ve saved Christmas in another life; racked up some serious karma credit.
She looked up and smiled, eyes gleaming. “Hey. Want one?”
I crossed the room and took the jar from her, setting it on the nightstand before pulling her into my lap. “You’d share your coveted cherries with me?”
She swayed sharply in my arms to reach the jar. Then she plucked a cherry between her fingers and held it against my lips until I opened my mouth.
“Yes,” she teased. “But only because I want to taste them on you.”
I groaned, my stomach bottoming out as she circled her arms around my neck and kissed me. My hand slid up her spine, palm flat against her shoulder blades, pressing her closer. She sighed into my mouth, and I rolled her onto her back, my body molding over hers against the mattress.
I was going to keep supplying this woman with cherries for the rest of my life.
Which was exactly when she whispered, against my lips, “Grant, I was thinking—”
“Don’t think.” I nipped her shoulder with my teeth.
She giggled, then drew in a breath that caught halfway through and ended on a soft moan.
“No. Listen.” Her hands sank into my hair. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about this now…” She hesitated, breath trembling at my jaw. “But what if I didn’t use the key? What if I just… kept it for a while?”
For a second, I thought I'd misheard her. The words didn't fit the moment—her fingers were still in my hair, her eyes still glassy with want. Then her meaning hit, and everything in me locked up.
What if I just kept it for a while?
My hand froze against her cheek. The room went painfully still, filling with the kind of silence that makes you realize you've already started to lose something. The echo of what she’d said ricocheted in my head. She still needed an exit. An escape hatch.
“You want to keep it.” The words came out colder than I meant, but she’d stolen all the warmth from me. “Why? So if I make a mistake, you can just erase everything?”
She blinked, her smile faltering. “No, that’s not what I meant. It wouldn’t be like that.”
“Then how would it be?” I demanded. “We’d spend every day together, work side by side—you’d be my wife, with that key hanging over my head.”
I heard how harsh I sounded even as the words left me, but I couldn't stop myself. She sat up, fingers twisting in the hem of my shirt like she could anchor us there. I almost wished she'd let go. It would've been easier to pull away if she had.
“Grant—”
“It’d be one thing if we just didn’t work out,” I cut in. “If it ended after we tried everything. After I fought for you, Spells. But this? You want to keep something that can end us before we even begin.”
I swallowed hard. I could live with failure. I'd done it my whole life. But not with being erased.
My voice roughened. “We'd wake up and all of it—every memory, every feeling—would be gone.
We wouldn't remember what it was like to kiss for the first time, or to find the perfect gift, or to look ridiculous in front of strangers and know it made us stronger. Every good thing we built would vanish like it never mattered.”
She pressed a hand to her chest, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Please, listen. I was just trying to be careful. Give us time. I don’t want us to end.”
She looked at me like she was offering something—an olive branch instead of permanence. And that was the thing. She thought she was giving me hope, but all I could hear was maybe.
My throat worked around the words I wanted to say, but they came out jagged. “Let me play it out for you. I’m going to screw up. We’re going to fight. And when that happens, you’ll reach for that key and find the man you’ve spent your life searching for.”
“Don’t be cruel,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“I know.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I know you wouldn’t. But it’s what scares me. You've spent your whole life chasing the one person who could be everything. You think I don't know that?” I broke off, shaking my head. “The agency never should've offered that damn key”.
The anger bled out of me, leaving only exhaustion. The kind that went bone-deep.
She reached for me, fingers brushing my sleeve. “I didn't mean to hurt you. I thought I—” She drew in a sharp breath. "Look. We can figure this out.”
I wanted to believe her. But then the fear crawled back in, whispering that I'd only be holding onto something borrowed.
“You say you need time to think. Maybe you’re right,” I said.
She shook her head hard. “No. I don’t want time, Grant. I don’t.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But I do.”
The words felt wrong the second they left me. I almost took them back just to stop the look in her eyes.
The silence stretched between us, heavy as snowfall. She didn't move, and neither did I—almost as if once we broke the spell, it would be the beginning of the end. Every second widened the space between us.
I stood and reached for my bag, my movements automatic. The zipper’s rasp sounded too loud in the small room.
This felt like my cousin all over again, standing in a life that was never meant to be mine, pretending it could last if I just tried hard enough. But that delusion had finally caught up to me. Only this time, I wasn’t just a disappointment; I was losing a piece of myself.
She rose to her knees. “Please don’t go like this. It’s Christmas. Stay with me.”
I paused, my hand gripping the doorframe. My voice was barely steady. “I want to, Spells. More than anything. But I couldn’t take it if this was our last.”
Her lips trembled, the sound she made small and breaking.
I looked back once, just long enough to memorize her, sitting there in the dimming light, achingly beautiful even through tears that made me want to crawl back to her on my knees.
I was a fool. I should’ve taken whatever time she offered and prayed that if she ever used the key, I wouldn’t remember what it felt like to love her.
But I couldn’t be temporary again; the man filling in for someone else.
And so I left.
The door clicked softly behind me, and it felt like I'd created another ghost, one that would haunt me for the rest of my life.