I whip around and laugh as Logan advances on me from across the room.
He climbs up onto the counter, pulls me into his arms, and kisses me.
“How’d you get back here before everyone else?” I ask him as he takes off his suit coat and wipes sweat off his forehead. “Last I saw, you were on the back of a horse playing hero.”
“I told my brothers I had a hot date at the bar.” He grins and takes the glass from me. “And I never got my pre-wedding drink. Come on. Let’s go somewhere private.”
He takes my hand in his free one and we walk down the hall toward the liquor room. As we approach the half-closed door—
Bang!
I freeze and look at Logan.
“That sounds like somebody’s in there,” I say.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Stay here.” Logan puts his hand on my arm.
“Are you kidding me? Of course I’m not gonna stay back…”
I push past him to look inside the liquor room. Mr. Bingley is safe in his bed, relaxed as can be, and—
Cell Number One is wide open.
I clutch Logan’s hand.
“What the fuck…” He rubs his eyes and then looks again.
I walk closer to the jail cell.
“Oh, my.”
A blooming cactus flower is growing right in the center of the cement floor.
Logan drops his drink in the doorway, and it splatters everywhere.
I turn my head. And that’s when I see her. Through the large round window behind my desk—
A white form is heading toward the sky.
She stops briefly, and I swear she waves at us. I wave back and she’s gone from view.
Logan and I don’t speak for over a minute.
“Holy shit,” he finally says. “That was weird, right? Did we just see Jane Austen’s ghost? And why did it all kind of make sense?”
“People are going to go crazy when they come back inside and see this.”
“So let’s get out of here.”
I grab his shirt in my fists and kiss him. “You’re such a romantic underneath it all.”
“With you I am. I’m not sure about the rest of it.” He looks toward the hallway. “Did you hear that?”
Stomping feet echo louder and louder.
“They’re coming back inside,” he says.
