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Her eyebrows lifted slightly as if the question surprised her. “Well, no one really knows for sure. I’ve always assumed he’d intended it to be his forever home.”
“His what?”
“His forever home.” She gave another bell-like chuckle. “That’s a phrase my friend Aria uses for her foster cats…when they’re up for adoption, she says they’re looking for their forever home. A place where they can live with a loving family forever. So I assume Captain Marcus built the Gardenia House with the same idea in mind.”
“Was he married?” Adam asked.
“No. He had a big family, though, so he might have wanted the space for his brothers and his nieces and nephews.”
“Did John ever live in the Gardenia House?” Adam asked.
“Yes, he moved in before it was fully finished, actually,” Bee replied. “He lived in the western section of the house while the builders finished the rest of it. Though he was a bachelor, he had a lot of friends, and his four brothers visited him frequently. John was very active in town as well and was an accomplished musician. He’d been in the Gardenia House for a little over a year before he went on a sea voyage to bring a load of sugar and other goods back from Hawaii.
“Unfortunately, the ship was lost at sea, and Captain Marcus never returned. No one has been able to find out what happened to him or the ship. But less than a week after he went missing, people began to report strange sightings at the Gardenia House. They saw a man’s shadow passing across the cupola windows and heard music—a violin and indistinct singing—late at night. Over the years, many other strange phenomena have been reported by both the house’s owners and visitors.”
“What happened to the house after Captain Marcus was lost at sea?” Adam asked.
Bee looked at him, the golden flecks in her eyes almost sparkling in the bright camera lights. “The house was put up for sale about six months after John was declared dead. A man who’d made his fortune in the redwood industry purchased it for his family. But they lived there for less than a year before moving back to San Francisco. They never said why they left, but everyone speculated that the family was scared away by the hauntings.
“They’d planned to have the house torn down so they could sell the land, but John’s brother ended up buying it back to prevent the destruction. Unfortunately, he had to move back East and couldn’t live there himself, and he was unable to find another buyer.
“From my understanding, a local woman was instrumental in convincing the Bliss Cove town council to purchase the house. It was a town oddity until 1931 when the council elected to turn it into the local library. Ever since, it’s been both the library and the home of Captain Marcus’s ghost.”
If anyone else had been speaking, Adam would have been wondering—again—how his life had gotten to the point where he was interviewing a librarian about the ghost of a ship captain.
But now? He was wondering if it would be inappropriate to ask Bee out for drinks or dinner.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her—not only because her beauty was such a magnet but also because of her earnest expression and the absolute conviction in her voice. A few locks of wavy hair curled around her neck, and she sat with an utterly straight posture, her hands folded in her lap and her legs to the side and crossed at the ankle.
A finger jabbed his shoulder hard. Jerked from his reverie, Adam glanced at Paul, who gave him a “snap out of it” glare.
Adam cleared his throat. “Okay, that’ll do for now, Miss Delaney. Thank you. We’ll let you know if we need more from you later.”
“Sounds good.” She bent to pick up her handbag from under the porch swing.
As the crew dismantled the lights, Adam stepped forward to hold open the door for Bee. She flashed him a smile.
Adam’s heart bumped against his ribs, even as he told himself again it would be stupid to try to start anything with her. Not only was he in Bliss Cove for a week at most but he also had his parents’ anniversary party to deal with, and he finally had some potential for reviving his old career.
He sure as hell couldn’t let himself get distracted by a pretty librarian, even if just the sight of her tugged at something low inside him. A pull he hadn’t felt in…well, ever.
As he followed Bee to the circulation desk, he tried to push the feeling down deep. To smother it. Growing up, he’d learned that life was smoother when you didn’t let emotions cloud reason and practicality. It didn’t make life easier, but at least it was less bumpy.
“Are you planning to film at the Spooktacular Festival on Saturday?” Bee squeezed behind the desk, pushing a library cart out of the way. “We always hold it the weekend before Halloween.”
“We’ll get some shots, yeah.” Adam stopped on the other side of the desk. “I heard the library is also holding a haunted house on Saturday?”
“Yes, it’s part of the festival.” Bee stashed her purse under the counter. “The high school kids are in charge of the haunted house, so they come over and set everything up. I don’t know if the producers told you, but you and the crew might as well take Halloween off. You won’t find Captain Marcus here on October thirty-first. He leaves Halloween to the other ghosts.”
Adam tried not to groan aloud. All he needed were more ghosts.
“We’re planning to be finished filming before Halloween,” he told her. “But what do you mean when you say Marcus leaves it to theotherghosts?”
“Halloween is the one time of the year when he’s not around,” Bee explained. “Or rather, no one has ever seen him on Halloween. It’s like he wants to give other spirits a chance to be in the spotlight. It’s quite sweet, really.”
Asweetghost. Aside from Casper, Adam had never heard of such a thing.
“What’s the story behind that?” he asked.
