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“No one really knows.” Bee shrugged. “Based on his letters and diaries, Halloween was Captain Marcus’s favorite holiday. Trick-or-treating wasn’t a thing back then, but he would throw a big party where people danced, sang, and told fortunes and ghost stories. In a letter to one of his brothers, Captain Marcus said the parties were to dissuade kids from ‘making mischief’ since Halloween used to be more about playing pranks. Sometimes, the pranks escalated into vandalism, so Captain Marcus invited everyone to his All Hallows’ Eve party so they could have fun and stay safe.”
“So maybe now he’s off partying with other ghosts on Halloween,” Adam suggested.
“That’s as reasonable an explanation as I’ve heard, although he’s never been spotted with any of them.”
“Themmeaning the other ghosts?”
“Yes, they’re known as the October ghosts,” Bee explained. “Most of them come out for the Spooktacular Festival, but others show up only on Halloween. The Gardenia House isn’t the only haunted site in Bliss Cove.”
Adam rubbed his forehead. He wanted to ask more for the sole purpose of having an excuse to keep talking to her, but he really didn’t want to know about theOctober ghosts.
“Don’t look so disgruntled.” Amusement rose to Bee’s eyes as she picked up a stack of picture books. “Ghosts can’t be the only phenomena you haven’t been able to prove with scientific evidence.”
“I’m not trying to prove their existence,” he reminded her. “Idisprovethem.”
“But you still can’t take away people’s beliefs,” she pointed out. “Chances are, you can’t explain them either. Some things can never be either proven or disproven by science.”
Like the way his heart rate soared every time she looked at him. Like the heat that filled his blood when he was close to her. Like the fact he sometimes couldn’t figure out what to say around her. Like the way the sunlight revealed the multiple shades of brown in her hair—chestnut, mahogany, umber.
Well, okay, that last one could be explained by the different types of melanin in her genes and the ratio of eumelanin to pheomelanin as far as—
Adam shook his head. Bee didn’t need any explanations or proof. She justwas.
A tendril of her hair fell forward as she looked at the picture-book titles. Her collar had gotten crooked, with one of the scalloped edges caught under her sweater.
Just to have an excuse to touch her, he reached out to straighten it.
Her gaze met his, her eyebrows lifting. He tugged her collar out from the sweater and straightened it, ensuring the rounded ends were even. Her blouse was unbuttoned at the neck, exposing a delicate chain holding a little silver pendant shaped like a book.
He started to pick it up with the intention of looking at it more closely. His fingers brushed her smooth skin.
The contact sent a bolt of warmth clear up his arm. His gaze locked on to the pendant, then moved down to the slight shadow of her cleavage and her round breasts under the—
Crash!
Bee startled, jerking slightly away from him. He dropped the pendant and stepped back.
“Oh, no.” Rebecca, the library assistant, jumped up from her desk and hurried toward the counter, where stacks of at least two dozen books had fallen to the floor.
Bee turned to stare at the pile scattered in a jumble over the carpet. Jolting himself into action, Adam pushed past a stuffed library cart and bent to pick up the books.
His heart was hammering. He told himself it was from the contact with Bee and not the sudden interruption.
“How in the world did that happen?” Rebecca placed a few books back on the already-crowded counter. “It’s like they jumped off the counter by themselves.”
Adam grabbed up the books and put them in a pile. “They were probably stacked unevenly or too close to the edge.”
“No, they weren’t.” Bee maneuvered around the copier to pick up another few books, and her scent of vanilla filled his nose. “I put them there.”
Biting back the urge to tell her that—contrary to what Rebecca had said—inert objects did not move unless a force like gravity was applied to them, he took the books from her and stacked them on the counter.
Rebecca made her way back to the desk, edging past the carts and the copier. Bee straightened the piles, ensuring the books were set well back from the edge.
Adam willed her to look at him, to reestablish whatever force was pulling him closer to her. It definitely wasn’t gravity, and if it was magnetism, then it wasn’t like any he’d experienced before.
“Thanks for your help.” She glanced at the clock and picked up the picture books again. “I have to get ready for morning storytime. You have my number, so text me if you need anything.”
He nodded, though texting was no substitute for physical proximity. Looking at her, smelling her, touching her—
