There! Got in before him.
Next to her, she could feel Ethan going from seeming rather stiff to practically bristling, but maybe he was just annoyed that she’d stolen his line.
Margot blinked again, a look of slight confusion crossing her face. “Oh… okay. That’s kind of you to bring someone you don’t know well here to where they can find some help! But, uh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you, I meanthim.”
Margot gestured a little at somewhere in Ethan’s general direction, and again Chloe found herself confused.
Ethan? Or… is there really another customer standing behind us, and I just didn’t notice them come in?
Chloe glanced behind her, peering around Ethan’s tall, broad frame.
Nope, nobody there.
There was nothing but bookshelves and the door they’d come in by behind them.
“Oh!” Margot’s shocked gasp had Chloe whirling back to face her again, only to find her with a slightly horrified look on her face, her fingers covering her open mouth. “Or maybe you didn’t know you were being haunted?”
Chloe’s eyes widened, her own mouth dropping open.
Haunted?!
Chapter 5
Thanks. You couldn’t have been just alittlemore subtle?
Retreating into sarcasm wasn’t the most helpful approach, Ethan knew, but he thought he deserved a little vent, even if it was just an internal one.
This whole situation had devolved into a complete shitshow within the space of five minutes. Not only was he at risk of losing his job and further disappointing his father; not only was he being haunted by a confused specter that was making his pegasus even more insufferable than usual;not onlydid his mate just drop him squarely into the not-even-friends zone, which stung way more than he could have ever imagined…
But now, an overly friendly bookstore owner just had to go and blab to all and sundry that he was in the company of a ghost. In front of his human mate, no less. Just because his life couldn’t get any stranger.
Does that woman have no filter?
Margot wasn’t a shifter, he could tell that much. But that didn’t mean a whole lot – there were plenty of non-shifters who knew about things outside of the normal human experience.
And Margot’s bookstoredidpretty much scream ‘outside of the mainstream’. There were some definite…vibesin here. His pegasus was also feeling some suspicion toward her, though he suspected that that was more due to snobbery than any particular threat she posed. Well, beyond the threat to his sanity, anyway.
On top of all that, Curtis was also wandering around and poking his nose into everything, making comments that Ethan knew he couldn’t answer without looking like a crazy person in front of Chloe. The four separate conversations he had going with his mate, his pegasus, his ghost, and his… whatever the hell Margot was… werereallystarting to get tiresome.
He wondered if he could get away with Margot’s slip-up. Laugh it off.Haunted? What are you talking about? Of course there’s no such thing as ghosts! Don’t worry, Chloe – she’s just a small-town kook with an overactive imagination!
He opened his mouth to speak.
“Oh, shoot!” Margot exclaimed. “I really should be more careful about these things.”
That, my dear, is an understatement,the pegasus muttered.
“Forget I spoke,” Margot continued hastily.
“I don’t think I’m going to do that,” Chloe said firmly. She turned to Ethan.
Oh, crap.
“Haunted? What’s she talking about? Are you saying that there’s a ghost following me around?” Chloe said, the smile on her face clearly strained. “Is this… a joke or something?”
Ethan swallowed hard as he desperately flailed about in search of the best possible answer.
He couldn’t lie – not to his mate. Not only did he not want to, but his pegasus wouldn’t allow it. Even being evasive was out of the question. He’d already pushed its tolerance forthatto its limits, reasoning with it that he had to get to know Chloe betterbefore he told her about the ghost following them around, or she’d never accept him as her mate.
