Page 64 of A Love Like Candle Light

As soon as I open it for her, she darts inside and finds Dick and Shadow, and joins them for a nap.

It's unusually quiet here. Once I spot Kieran, I understand why.

“Is someone a little hungover today?” I ask cheerily and take a seat next to him with, grin as wide and voice as annoying as I can make them.

His head is on the table, eyes closed. He groans, and blindly pats the air, trying to find me. “I'm dying.”

“Oh, you shut up.” Nic flicks a cookie crumb my way.

“No hangover?” Lauren sounds as though she's about to cry. “Tell me your secret. Pronto.”

“Good genes, I guess. Sorry, y'all.”

“Don't be sorry. Suffer with us.” Kieran shoots me a glare. The poor guy. He’s paler than the milk Caleb is pouring into my coffee right about now.

“Hey, Caleb.”

My head shoots up. That's Harry. What timing! I almost didn’t recognize him without a clipboard in his hands. Maybe he knows a more about who owned my plot of land a hundred years ago. Because a theory is forming in my head.

I need to gather some information, before I share it with anyone, though. So I jump up.

“Hi, Harry.” I approach him with a friendly grin and extended hand. “I'm Kylie. I bought the fourth house on the lakeshore. So good to officially meet you.”

“Ah yes, Kylie. Welcome to Wayward Hollow.” He shakes my hand.

“Listen, Harry, I'm a curious gal. Is there some kind of archive in Wayward Hollow with old land records?”

“Yes, sure.” He draws his eyebrows together in confusion. “What are you trying to find?”

“Oh, nothing in particular, I’m only curious.” I lean in closer and lower my voice. “I think my house is haunted, so I want to see what used to be on my plot of land.”

“Okay.” He stares at me as though I just grew a second head. “Give me five minutes and we can go right over there.”

“You're the best, Harry.”

“So these are all the records from 1850 to 1900.” He points at a giant shelf to our left. “And these are what we have from 1900 to 1950.” He points to the right. “Is that about the time frame you were looking for?”

“Yes,” I say and clap excitedly.

“Now for your plot of land.” He stares at the piles, ducks to read the ones on the lower shelves, then gets on his tiptoes to grab one from the very top. “This might be it.” He flips through a few pages. “Yes, right here,” he mumbles and hands it over.

“Thank you so much, Harry.”

Without hesitation, I open it and flip through a few more pages. It's a little hard to read, so old it's still handwritten in a cursive font that hurts my eyes. But one name catches my eye.

“O'Brien.”

Chapter 22

Erik

My phone rings as I pick up the traffic cones to clear the scene.

Cho.

I lower my hand holding the cones. It’s unusual to hear from him so often. My hand runs over my stubble, longer than I’m used to since I didn’t shave at Kylie’s place.

And for the first time, I’m not sure if I want to answer it. Yesterday and this morning were wonderful. I’m in a good mood for once. If I answer now, I will get my hopes up again, only to get my heart broken shortly after. I just know it.