Page 22 of With All My Haunted Heart

A gentle sound, caught between a moan and a sigh, escapes her lips. Her voice dances down my spine, my heartbeat suddenly settling between my legs. Elle’s entire body seems to deflate, and she braces her free arm on the table, resting her head on her bicep. “Fuck, I feel boneless.” The hand that rests in mine inches up my wrist, up my forearm, as the top half of her melts against the table.

“A good boneless, I hope?”

When she flicks her gaze to mine, her pupils have expanded to blot out all but the tiniest edge of green. “Very good.”

We sit there, her hand curling around my forearm, and I can’t stop myself from brushing the hair out of her face. I want to ask if she’s okay. To ask what emotion weighs so heavy on her heart that the sigil has left her like this, but my phone alarm blares loudly between us, shattering the moment.

Elle pulls herself away from me as she leans back in her chair. I ignore the way my heart lodges itself in my throat as I silence the alarm and gather my books.

“Going somewhere?”

“I found a couple a few towns away who have a poltergeist in their home. I’m going to remove it for them.”

She scowls, all the connection I thought we’d shared evaporating in an instant. “When I hired you for the month, I expected your undivided attention.”

Frustration builds in my chest, the static before a storm. Her lack of trust is borderline insulting. “I’m going for you. There’s only so much I can learn from books. This is the perfect opportunity to test my research.”

“I don’t want a poltergeist in my home, Pippa.”

“Obviously, I have no intention of letting a poltergeist stay here. I need to bring it in to test the security measures, and then I’ll banish it over the veil, like I would in any other cleansing.” The storm in my chest whips into something fierce. “Despite what you think, I’m not incompetent.”

Elle maintains the challenge in her glare.

My second alarm—the get your ass out the door now one—rings. I silence this one, too, and step away from the table. “I have to go.”

“Pippa, wait.” Her chair scrapes against the floor, and then her touch is back, fingers slipping around my wrist. “I’m sorry. When I’m worried, I get snippy.”

Her fingers linger on my skin, gentle but there, and curiosity curls around my heart. “Worried about what?”

“Besides everything?” The ghost of a smile crosses her lips. “Alex and I put everything into this B&B. Every penny we’ve ever saved, including our retirement accounts, despite the penalties. I gave up my apartment. We both moved several hours from the lives we’d built down in the city. This is it for us, and whenever I think it might not work, that it might fail spectacularly…”

“You worry,” I say, understanding settling around my ribs. “I get that. I love my business, and the thought that I could lose it all in a matter of months…” Grief pulses in my chest, but I shove it down. I refuse to accept a future where I lose the life I’ve built a second time. “I get it, is all. And I promise, I’m doing everything I can to haunt this place for you. I think this trip will move us closer to a solution.”

Elle nods and finally releases her hold on my arm, a flush of pink brightening her cheeks. “Do you know when you’ll be back?”

“Sometime tonight. Why?”

“I’m making chicken and dumpling soup for dinner,” she says, and I swear that bit of pink in her cheeks deepens. “Alex said it’s one of your favorites. Will you be back in time?”

My heart does a dangerous little flip in my chest. “I’ll try.”

Chapter

Eight

The drive to the clients’ house is beautiful, all early-autumn leaves and rolling hills and bright blue skies with perfect, puffy white clouds. I follow the directions on my phone, but my mind is everywhere it shouldn’t be.

Elle’s hand sliding up my arm as my magic rippled through her. The soft moan that the boneless calm pulled from her throat. Her fingers around my wrist. The worry she spoke to life between us.

At a stop sign, I pinch the bridge of my nose, my eyes squeezed tight. I need to get this woman out of my head. She’s paying me for a job. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Alex said it’s one of your favorites.

A honk blares behind me, and I refocus on the road. I continue past the stop sign, where no other cars are waiting except the one behind me. My GPS leads me through the final few miles, and I force my attention back where it belongs. On the couple waiting for me. On the possible poltergeist terrorizing their home.

Before I left the B&B, I packed everything I thought might be useful. There are the usual tools—bundles of dried lavender for cleansing and tumbles of peridot, obsidian, and amethyst that I’ll leave behind for continued protection—but also a few…unorthodox options.

Ground cinnamon and a cypress-scented candle to hopefully entice the spirit to speak with me.