“You’re going to trip over your feet if you wear that,” Ruth said.
“I wear it every year,” Alice said stiffly.
“And you fall every year. I swear, Alice. If you break one bone, I’ll give you some moonshine to dull the pain and move on. This is too important for you to screw up.”
I glanced at the folks who’d already arrived. I easily spotted Buster and his portable smoker. The man was six foot and two hundred forty pounds. A stained white apron was wrapped over his bulging belly.
My gaze shifted to Oscar, with his lithe frame and gallon jugs of clear liquid.
Death in a jug, I figured. Anyone who made homemade moonshine was taking risks in my opinion.
Right then, two more ATVs pulled up. Four old women, around the same age as Ruth and Alice, climbed out. They were dressed in camouflage as well, only one of the women’s hair was woven into a huge beehive.
“Who are they?”
“They,” Ruth said in a biting tone, “are Birda Grice, Tallulah Tomlin, Pearl Matthews and Cora Wall.”
“They look serious,” I said, noting the scowls on their faces.
“Oh they are,” Alice chimed in. “Years ago Birda wrote a best-selling book on haunted houses calledHauntings in the South.Tallulah, Pearl and Cora are all ghost hunters with her. Birda wanted to open an investigating store like we did.”
Ruth smirked. “But we beat her to it. She thought the book would be enough to keep her memory alive, but it turned out a lot of folks have forgotten about Birds and her ghost investigation team.”
I quirked a brow. “So she’s jealous of you? Is that why she’s scowling?”
Ruth patted her pockets in search of something. “Yes, that would be correct.”
“Well, maybe everyone will be nice tonight,” I murmured.
I turned away from Ruth and Alice and was about to straighten my own clothing when a voice popped up beside me.
“Well, look at you. Did someone dip you in shrink-wrap or just your clothes?”
I groaned. Great. The one person I didn’t want to see me dressed like this was here, in the middle of the forest at this strange haunted tailgate.
I slowly turned around and came face-to-face with a lumberjack-like chest. My chin tipped up, and my gaze kept traveling north until it landed on a brown-haired, brown-eyed hunk of man with a lopsided grin.
“Did someone just add water to you?” I said smartly. “Looks like you’ve got growth hormone on overdrive.”
Roan laughed. He swiped a finger under his eye. “You got me. I haven’tstoppedgrowing, and someone stunted yours. Let me guess—too much caffeine as a child?”
I swatted his chest playfully, and Roan pulled me into a bear hug. He smelled of cinnamon and coffee. He’d probably eaten a cinnamon roll on his way over. I briefly wondered if he’d brought any for me, and then I remembered he wasn’t even supposed to be here.
When I eased from his embrace, I tilted my head back. “Why are you here?”
He draped a hand over my shoulder and pivoted me back toward the crowd. “You’re kidding, right? Look at all this—there’s barbecue, illegal moonshine, old women in camouflage. I’d have to be dead to miss this.”
I bit back a laugh. “No, I’m serious.”
He shrugged. “Ruth and Alice called. They wanted to make sure that in case you went commando, I’d be here to rein you in.”
I shot him a scathing look. “Very funny.”
Roan shrugged. “I wanted to come to see if there was anything to it. I’ve heard about the banshee all my life, but I’ve never seen her. Now that I can maybe see some ghosts, I thought I’d give it a shot.”
A few weeks ago Roan’s latent demonologist powers had woken. He still wasn’t exactly sure what all he could do, but from what I’d seen—which was that I watched him send a spirit to the bad afterlife—Roan’s gifts were strong.
Stronger than mine, even.
