Chapter 1
Wesley
“…andthe entire regiment was never heard from again,” I said, drawing the words out and pausing, letting the silence grow heavy before I leaned closer to the lantern, which flickered in the middle of the store, casting long shadows stretching across rows of shelves and stacks of books.
My midnight-on-Halloween audience—all adults—sat scattered on beanbags and mismatched chairs normally used by kids, their faces tipped toward me, wide-eyed, waiting for the last line of the story. I could feel their anticipation, the delicious edge of fear I’d stoked with every twist and pause. Dressed as the ghost said to haunt the old Whitaker house on the edge of town, I moved closer into the soft light of an old lamp I’d found in the storeroom when I first bought theplace—the story lantern that gave this place its name—and whispered the final words, savoring the silence.
“Blood and bones, an eerie presence—that’s all that remains. And that, my friends, is why no one dares spend a night in the Whitaker place. Not if they hope to leave alive.”
Gasps and a chorus of “oohs” and “aahs” rippled through the twenty or so people, the sound breaking the tension before laughter followed as I sat back in my chair. The ghost story I’d first spun three years ago, when I’d moved here and opened The Story Lantern bookstore, had taken on a life of its own, whispered and retold until it was turning into a Wishing Tree urban legend. What started as a bit of fun for me was now the kind of tale kids dared each other to repeat in the dark, and seeing that happen made my chest swell with something equal parts pride and wonder.
“I’m never going up that road again,” Brooke Haynes whispered to her husband, leaning into him with a dramatic shiver. “Not unless my big, brave husband comes with me and protects me from every creak and shadow.”
Callum snorted. “‘Brave’? You married the wrong guy if that’s what you’re after. I’m running away faster than you.”
“You’d leave me to the ghosts?” she teased, smacking his arm lightly.
“Absolutely,” he shot back, earning laughter from those around them.
I loved Brooke—she volunteered here for story hours and special events, and of course, she visited all the time with her kids. Charlie and Alice were avid readers who devoured everything I gave them, and although Willow was only three, she had already memorized her favorite picture books and insisted on turning the pages herself. Brooke had started taking on some of the invoicing side of the business, not that I’d asked, but apparently, it gave her a break from real life, and she loved it. At least with her handling the invoicing, it meant she caught mistakes, and I didn’t miss paying people or receiving money. She hadn’t said anything about what she saw, but I noticed her frowning as she checked items off the bank statement yesterday.
I hated that she saw how close I was to losing everything, but luckily, she never brought it up, so I could pretend it wasn’t real. And hell, someday, I might even be able to pay her back for what she did.
If I managed to keep the store.
People stretched, giggled, and stumbled to their feet, a little drunk on the pumpkin punch Brooke had shared liberally, then began drifting toward the door, chattering and laughing as they broke off into small groups, clutching each other as they stepped out into the crispbite of the November night, searching for ghosts. It was past one in the morning, and Halloween in Wishing Tree had ended not with candy, but with whispered tales and a lantern glowing in my bookstore.
I wasn’t exactly sober myself—not really drunk either. I’d had one pumpkin cocktail and three caffeine-free coffees, but I was buzzing. One cup of spiced yumminess wasn’t enough to do anything but warm me, yet the high of telling stories, of watching my bookstore come alive, filled me until I almost forgot the stack of bills on my desk in the back office. Almost.
“You’re awesome, Wes!” Brooke exclaimed, flinging her arms around me in a tipsy hug that nearly knocked me off balance. She clung tight until Callum, laughing, pried her away and steadied her with an indulgent, long-suffering shake of his head. They’d made a point of telling me the kids were staying with his brother Bailey, and they had the whole night to themselves, and boy, were they enjoying it.
Giggling, shouting, ghostly wails, and laughter trailed up the street, and then a gruff voice cut through the night. “It’s one a.m.! What the hell’s going on down there?”
The crowd scattered like guilty kids. I tilted my head back, lantern light spilling through the window, and there he was, leaning out from his second-floorapartment next door. Hunter McCoy, owner of The Real McCoy coffee shop, was my big, scary neighbor who looked about ready to call the cops. His scowl was ferocious, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning up at him. My grin widened because damn if Hunter didn’t look unfairly hot when he was irritated. Broad shoulders filling the window opening, that dark, mussed hair begging for fingers to be raked through it, a scowl that made his full lips more distracting. I’d never admit it out loud, but watching him glower down at me made my stomach twist in a way no ghost story ever could.
“It’s the magic of midnight storytelling, Hunter!” I shouted.
“It’s a noise at midnight violation!”
“Oops,” I called guiltily.
“What the hell are you wearing, Darkwood?” he snapped.
I glanced down at my costume. Dressed as a dead man—pale face paint, ragged Civil War uniform spattered with fake blood, a length of rusty chain dragging at my boots—I had piled on every ghostly stereotype I could think of.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No.”
“I’m a fallen Civil War soldier, doomed by a series of tragic events that saw my entire regimentslaughtered on the old Whitaker homestead just outside Wishing Tree!”
Hunter stared down at me, unimpressed. Then, with a sigh that carried months of his exasperation with me, he muttered something about how the 14th Vermont Infantry had never marched that close to town, his tone not rude but historically disdainful enough to make the remaining onlookers snicker. I turned to shrug at them; the only ones standing were Brooke and Callum, and they grinned back at me.
“Historically accurate Hunter is grumpy,” I summarized, and they were laughing as they left. I felt a bit mean then; I didn’t mean to make fun, but the pumpkin punch made my head spin.
“Keep the noise down!” he said and then slammed the window shut.
Not even Grumpy-McGrumperson Hunter McCoy could stop me from smiling as I slipped back inside, locked up, and turned off the electric lantern—no candles in a bookstore—then wrapped my arms around myself with a sigh of happiness. The store was mine; the stories I made up were mine, and the freedom from my family, from my old life, was mine. I might be a little lonely when the place was quiet in a way that sometimes reminded me I was alone. I never missed my parents, nor my bullying idiot brothersBenedict or Lewis, but my kid brother, Rupert? Yeah. I missed him.
