He grinned. “There’s more than one?”
She patted his bare forearm, a quick pat that sent a bolt of attraction up his arm. She jerked her hand back and released a shaky laugh. Yep, she’d felt that, too.Interesting.
“The True Believers think there’s a community of them out there, but there are a couple who are famous.”
Oh, this was going to be entertaining. He rolled his finger, silently asking her to elaborate.
“Let me try and remember my ghost history,” she said, thinking. “There’s Captain Blackwood, descendant of one of the town’s original founders. He was a Civil War soldier, died in a battle, very upright, very moral. Lila, of course, she’s a vaudeville dancer, and she died after a fall and an encounter with a horse’s hoof. Cedric is the town historian and keeper of spectral records. Don’t ask. Uh… The Reverend, era unknown, a bit fire-and-brimstone-y. Effie is the most famous one of all.”
“She’s our treasure,” Marigold told him, before glaring at her companion, lace vibrating with annoyance. “And a draft doesn’t turn off the espresso machine at exactly three thirty-three every afternoon, Earl.”
“Your coffee machine goes off because the breaker trips. The breaker trips because you’ve got seventeen appliances plugged in at once,” Earl told Marigold, his face reflecting the grim determination of a man who’d fought this war before. He looked around. “And, since there are only locals in the shop right now, you’ve got to stop telling tourists the ghost likes oat milk.”
“Are you a local?” Wren asked Dane in a whisper.
“Sort of, I’m here for a summer break,” he replied. “Taking an extended vacation.”
“Me, too. I mean, I am a local originally, but I’m also only here for the summer.”
Marigold slapped her hands on her hips, affronted. “Effie does like oat milk! She told me so in a dream.”
“Yeah, and I dreamed I was married to Dolly Parton,” Earl muttered. “Doesn’t make it true.”
Wren looked up at him, rolled her eyes, and smiled. Dane’s heart nearly stopped. That had never happened before. “What you are witnessing is one of the many battles that happen daily in Halloween Town between members of our two tribes,” she explained, keeping her voice low. The couple didn’t notice.
Marigold crossed her arms, the beads on her bracelets clinking like tiny, disapproving ghosts. “You have no poetry in your soul, Earl Turner. You think this town runs on logic? It does not! It runs on wonder! On mystery!”
“Two tribes?” Dane asked, fascinated.
Wren gestured to Marigold. “A True Believer.” She opened her hand to Earl. “A paranormal skeptic. Think: paranormal turf war meets tourism board drama.”
Dane fought the urge to laugh.
“This town runs on your overpriced lattes and gullible weekenders,” Earl shot back, not backing down. “All this ghost nonsense is just good business. You don’t believe half of it.”
Marigold’s eyes flashed. “I believe enough to respect the veil between worlds.”
Earl gave her a flat stare. “I believe in John Deere, good bourbon, church on Sundays, and my God-given right to common sense.”
Wren choked on her drink, trying not to laugh. The espresso machine hissed dramatically—right on cue—and Marigold threw her hands in the air.
“There! You see? She hears you, and she’s offended!”
Earl rolled his eyes so hard that Dane was worried he’d give himself a traumatic brain injury. “What I see and hear is steam, Marigold. Steam and, frankly, bullshit.”
Dane grinned. This town was a circus, and its performers were unfiltered, industrial-grade crazy. It was going to be a very interesting vacation.
* * *
Hot Exercise Guy opened the door for her, and Wren thanked him, a little mesmerized by his observant blue eyes and those big biceps shown off by his sleeveless workout shirt.
He’d been impressive from a distance, but up close… Wow, he was quite the package: super masculine and outrageously hot, with a slightly rough, wholly sexy voice. She hadn’t had this reaction to anyone in … God, years. If ever. The urge to go up on her tiptoes, just to taste him, was stupidly strong—so strong it made her grit her teeth and swear under her breath.
Okay, Dunlop, calm the freak down. You’re a woman in your late twenties, not a horny teenager with no self-control.
She took a sip of her coffee and immediately grimaced. It was hot and black …ugh. Right, this was Hayes’s cup. She looked around for her old friend and saw him sitting on a bench outside The Veil Between, where Madame Calliope (real name Glynis Smith) conducted her psychic readings, steadily working through her absurdly long waiting list.
Madame Calliope, who had the deepest, brownest, most luminous skin she’d ever seen and piercing obsidian-black eyes, had both terrified and fascinated her as a child. As teenagers, and on a dare, she and Poppy had visited Madame, and Madame had said something about Wren chasing the wind and the wild—but finding a harbor in an unexpected place. Vague enough for it to mean nothing. And also anything and everything.
