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He shook his head. “What, exactly, is a Juno sign?”
“Juno is an asteroid goddess who represents love and marriage. Whatever sign Juno was passing through at the time of your birth is the sign of your soul mate. Allegedly.”
Adam’s heartbeat kicked up a notch. No, he didn’t believe in astrology and signs, but…damn. He’d never been so grateful for being born a Capricorn.
“Interesting.” He slanted her a glance.
She poked his side. “But remember, you think astrology is a bunch of hogwash.”
“I might be persuaded to change my…” His voice trailed off as he caught sight of a couple standing beside an apple cider booth.
Light glinted off the sequins of Marilyn Lawford’s mermaid costume. She laughed as the man whispered something in her ear and ran his hand over her hip to her ass.
The man who was…Clyde Constantine.
Unease clenched Adam’s gut. During their shoots, Clyde regularly hooked up with local women for a few days, so it wasn’t a surprise to see him nuzzling Marilyn. But she was no fawning groupie.
“Oh, let’s get our ghost map,” Bee said.
Glad she hadn’t caught sight of the groping couple, he followed her to a booth where her friend Grace and a tall, dark-haired man were dressed as Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
Bee introduced Adam to Lincoln—an author who’d moved to Bliss Cove last summer—and explained that he’d designed this year’s ghost map.
Adam no longer found the idea of a ghost map at all strange—at least, not in this town. But he almost didn’t recognize himself as the guy who studied the map and plotted out an efficient course to the locations of potential ghost sightings.
Each spot was marked with an orange star. About a dozen of them were scattered over the map, including one at the end of the boardwalk. Right where he’d seen that strange illusion.
An optical effect from a light wave bending around atmospheric particles, likely water droplets, or two light waves combining in constructive interference—
“Where should we start?” Bee turned from talking to Grace and reached out to take the map from him. “The Fog Forest and the old Peabody Mansion will be crowded because there’ve been ghost sightings there for as far back as anyone can remember. But there’s usually one or two new sightings, and those are always fun to visit.”
“The courtyard of Sugar Joy and the boardwalk weren’t on last year’s map,” Lincoln said. “Destiny told me she saw an apparition on the boardwalk, and a couple of people claim an entity was making their doughnut holes levitate at the bakery. I’m guessing that was a hallucination brought about by sugar overload, but I liked the story, so I put the sighting on the map.”
Though Bee responded to Lincoln’s comments with a murmur of interest, she kept her gaze on the map.
Adam could almost see the wheels clicking and whirring in her mind. She said goodbye to her friends, then grabbed Adam’s arm and hustled him toward Starfish Avenue.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. But we have to find Destiny again.”
Adam smothered a groan. “You just told me she’d cursed me.”
“Only if you believe in magic, which you don’t, so you should be just fine.” She patted his shoulder consolingly and hurried through the street, one hand on her witch’s hat to stop it from flying off.
Adam followed—of course—as Bee wove through the crowd. Considering Destiny could stand out at a sci-fi/fantasy convention, it took less than three minutes to spot her chatting up a tall, good-looking guy dressed as a gladiator.
Bee dashed up to them, ignoring Destiny’s mild glare. “Sorry for interrupting, but can I talk to you?”
“About what?” Stepping away from the gladiator, Destiny slanted her gaze to Adam and gave a little sniff. “You clearly aren’t interested in heeding my warnings.”
“This isn’t about him.” Bee waved her hand toward Adam as if she were swatting away a bug, then shot him an apologetic look for being dismissive.
He shook his head to let her know he didn’t care—which he didn’t. Because if Bee had “heeded” Destiny’s warnings, she’d never have let him so close to her. She wouldn’t have let him in.
But she had. The realization that she’d rejected her friend’s dire warnings in favor of trusting him—trustingthem—made him feel something that was oddly close to awarm fuzzy.
“Lincoln said you saw an apparition on the boardwalk.” Bee pointed at the spot on the map. “When was that?”
