Ty didn’t like to come out and say things like:ghosts aren’t real. Not to Lara anyway. She liked to think her dead loved ones were wandering around spraying perfume or sending dimes, and more power to her. He didn’t want to shit all over that. It was kind of sweet.
But insisting the museum was haunted was something else, and the idea of signsandghosts gave him the damn creeps. Especially because there had been a handful of unexplainablethings over the years. But those were just weird coincidences he wouldn’t have evenconsideredbeing ghosts if not for the Townsend women.
They’d put the thought in his head. So it was just…suggestion, notreal.
And it was a topic best left ignored.
Harder to ignore with old timey slow dance music playing all around them, and lighting that leaned towardromantic. He pulled the cowboy hat off his head and placed it on the hat hook. Then he made sure to put some distance between him and Lara.
“Do you remember that dream you had?” Lara said, her voice overly bland and innocent. Which meant he knew exactly what topic she would not be dropping.
He scowled at her. “Lara, I’m warning you.”
She pulled the apron up off her head and carefully hung it up. “Just come here for a second.”
He knew he should refuse, except that was childish. She was going to try to creep him out with one of her ghost stories, but he was a grown man. Not scared of things that didn’t exist. He wouldn’t let her get to him, and then she wouldn’t keep trying to.
She led him to an exhibit that was new since the last time he’d paid attention. It was a kind of decades wall, highlighting different significant figures in the town. She pointed to the early 1800s and a paragraph about the history of the nearby fort.
But he didn’t read it, because his gaze was stuck on the picture of a man in old-timey clothes standing on a rock.
“His name was Jack Lawrence,” Lara said. “He was a fur trapper and trader. This picture was taken toward the end of his life, so probably 1870s or so.”
He knew why she was showing him this, and he knew why she was telling him this, and he didn’tlikeit.
Maybe…maybethat picture looked like the guy from hisdream—because no matter what Mary Lou or Lara had said atthe time, hehadto have been asleep—but again thinking this picture looked like his dream was just the power of suggestion. Not real memory.
Just like the faint whiff of cigar smoke hedefinitelywouldn’t be smelling if Lara hadn’t put the idea in his head a couple years ago when he’d asked if someone had been smoking in the basement.
He shuddered in spite of himself.
“Must have been some life,” Ty managed to say, sounding vaguely bored—becausethatwould irritate her.
She rolled her eyes and moved back for the counter.
“Let’s grab a pizza on the way home so Grandma doesn’t feel the need to cook for us.”
“Sure,” he replied, forcing himself to look away fromJack Lawrence the fur trapper, and to walk toward the stairs. They went back down into the basement where Lara gathered her coat and purse.
They both paused a little at the door. Would it stick this time?
But after the initial pause, Lara opened it without a problem, and they both stepped out into a chilly, windy evening. Lara locked the door, then they both walked down the stairs and onto the pathway that would lead up and around to the main drag.
Ty refused to look out at the ocean—the rock he’d oncedreamedhe’d seen some figure of an old man standing on. He kept his gaze fully on his feet.
Until Lara nudged his arm with her shoulder.
“You’resofreaked out.”
“I am not.”
Since she was laughing and seemed happy instead of that determined kind of depressed from earlier when they’d talked about Adam, he slung his arm over his shoulders as they walked.
“If a ghost jumps out, you’ll protect me, right?” he said.
Her laughter vibrated through him. “I’ve got you, Ty.”
Chapter Four
