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ChapterFour
“Man, if she’d been my hometown librarian, I’d have even slogged throughWar and Peaceand then gone back for more.” Assistant director Harry nudged gaffer Jay in the side as they both peered over the creaky staircase railing.
“Right?” Jay agreed. “Did you notice her legs? And damn if she doesn’t have an incredible ass—”
Adam cleared his throat loudly.
Jay jumped and spun around, his face coloring. “…ociation,” he finished. “She has an incredible…um, association here at the library.”
“Get back to work,” Adam ordered. “Paul can’t get the mics or the audio recorder to work, so go help him out.”
Ducking their heads, Harry and Jay hurried to the stairs.
Adam looked down at the lower floor, where Bee was helping a patron at the circulation desk. The lighting in the old library came from a few overheads and some wall sconces, which cast a soft, warm glow on Bee’s chocolate-brown hair. Her gentle laughter floated upward like a buoyant little soap bubble.
Though Adam didn’t put much stock in stereotypes, he’d unintentionally formed a distinctive picture of Beatrice Delaney before his arrival.
A few months ago, the Explorer Channel producers had received her request to film a show at the supposedly haunted library. The massive ramshackle Victorian mansion tucked away in the foothills, the quiet little seaside town of Bliss Cove, the old boardwalk and rocky coastline—it was a perfect setting for a show about the paranormal. Especially in late October with the portent of ghosts and goblins hanging in the air.
As they made the arrangements, the showrunner kept referring to “Librarian Delaney,” which had conjured images of an elderly woman in a starched black dress who sported a stiff, tight hairdo.
That picture couldn’t have been more wrong.
Bee was at least thirty years younger than Adam had expected and strikingly attractive with a heart-shaped face and thick-lashed brown eyes behind her glasses. Her mouth was like a ribbon with a deep notch in the upper lip that he wanted to press his finger—and tongue—against.
After the coffee disaster, she’d changed into a pleated skirt rather than a shapeless black dress. It fell just above her knees and showed off her—yeah, he’d noticed—slender, pretty legs. Her breasts rounded the front of her white blouse, and there were just enough buttons unfastened to reveal a tempting triangle of pale skin.
Adam understood his crew’s fascination with the librarian, no question—even if it made him want to knock their heads together to stop them from gawking at her.
She looked up suddenly, catching his stare. His heart jumped. Even from the distance of an entire floor, her eyes seared through him like a bolt of concentrated sunlight.
With effort, he pushed away from the railing and tried to refocus on the job. He’d always let the showrunner make arrangements about where to film episodes ofHex or Hoax?
Adam never cared if the show was shot in a hotel, a house, a former prison, a railroad depot, an inn, a lighthouse, an asylum, or any one of the dozens of locations they’d visited over the years.
No matter where they went, most of the “paranormal activity” was the same—cold spots, alleged apparitions, strange noises. Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.
Every now and then, though, he noticed the outright appeal of a place. He understood why the producers had quickly agreed to film an episode in the Bliss Cove Library.
The overdone mansion with its interior of narrow corridors, staircases, secret passages, and old rooms—not to mention the fact that much of it looked like it was on the verge of collapse—practically screamedhaunted.
Interestingly, the Gardenia House wasn’t on any of the “most haunted places” websites and hadn’t caught the attention of paranormal fans. Outside of Bliss Cove and the Explorer Channel’s top brass, no one seemed to know or care about the rumored ghost.
Except for Bee, of course.
Adam spread a blueprint of the library out on a table in the conference room. The room looked like it had once been the front parlor of the house and was so small that it could maybe host a “conference” of no more than six people.
Still, Adam had worked in far worse conditions, and he wasn’t about to complain to Bee, who clearly loved the library.
He didn’t usually regret smashing people’s illusions about ghosts and other crap—those who wanted to believe still did, regardless of the mountains of evidence to the contrary. And he really didn’t mind exposing the fraudsters who tried to profit from lies about their “haunted” inn or hotel.
But he was already having a hard time thinking of Bee Delaney as a scammer. Yeah, she wanted the show to claim that the library was authentically hexed, but he had the uncomfortable sense she truly believed it was.
Otherwise, why would she risk approachingHex or Hoax?
Of course, he’d met plenty of people—including most of the crew—who believed in the paranormal and the supernatural or whatever bonkers theory they could devise for anything that happened without an immediate explanation. He never saw the point of arguing with them or trying to change their minds.
But for some reason, it was a different story with Bee. He liked her determination to prove him wrong almost as much as he liked the challenge of debunking the so-called ghost. Not to mention, it meant he’d have to spend more time with her.
