Genevieve leaned over and kissed him. He closed his eyes, and the tears fell.
“Good-bye,” he whispered at the exact moment she did.
His hair stirred as she disappeared. He opened his eyes. I traced a tear from his cheek with my thumb. “You okay?”
“I think so. Ever since she died I felt…” He struggled to find a word.
“Haunted?”
“Yeah.”
“And now you’re not.”
“No,” he agreed.
“Except for that one guy.” At least Geraldine had moved on.
He straightened. “What?”
“Cold case.” I lifted my gaze to said guy. “We’ll talk. Run along.”
The guy went poof.
“Did he?”
“He did.”
“About that marriage proposal…”
“Bobby, I…”
“You’re going to say no?” He sounded almost more surprised about that than he’d been about the ghosts.
Of course I did love him. But— “Just because your daughter’s gone doesn’t mean I won’t still see the dead, and that bothers you.”
“It did. But really, Raye, after all that’s gone down, that’s the least of our worries.”
He was right. The Venatores Mali were still out there. They still wanted me dead. Probably more now than before.
“Mistress June?” I asked.
“No sign of her. Franklin and Cassandra are on it. And their boss…” He shook his head. “That was one weird old dude. But he said he’d find the woman. I wouldn’t want to be Mistress June when he does.”
“What about the others?”
“Clammed up tighter than clams.”
I assumed that was tight. No idea. Never seen a clam.
“Brad?”
“You cracked his skull.”
“Whoops.”
“You don’t sound sorry.”
I wasn’t.
His lips twitched. “Probably for the best that he’s out of it, and in protective custody.”
“Because?”
“Your little friend wants him dead. She scares me.”
“She should.”
His half smile faded. “If you don’t want to marry me, fine.” He didn’t sound fine, or look it either. “But I’m not leaving.”
“You have a job, a life in New Orleans.” And I had both in New Bergin. I might have considered leaving with him, even for superbly haunted New Orleans, if it hadn’t been for my sisters. I’d never met them, but I couldn’t leave them behind.
“You’re my life,” Bobby said. “And I have a job here now.”
“You what?”
“Brad’s a little incarcerated, and Chief Johnson … well, he isn’t up to dealing with all of this.”
“Who is?” I asked.
“Me.”
“You gonna tell him that?”
“Didn’t have to. He retired.”
“Just like that?”
“Can’t say I blame him.”
I didn’t either, but—
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life, Raye. But if you’re not—”
“No.” I stared into his eyes, and saw that in a world of complications, some things were so damn simple. Like this. “I’m sure too.”
Of Bobby. Myself. Us. Everything. For the first time in a lifetime, I belonged.
To him.
Epilogue
Henry stood at the edge of another forest, in another town, watching another daughter.
The sky above split open, spilling lightning. The earth below shuddered with approaching thunder. Henry couldn’t help it. He was both afraid and furious—two traits that often manifested in a storm.
The Venatores Mali hadn’t raised Roland. Yet. But they weren’t going to stop trying.
Pru appeared at his side. They gazed at their middle child, framed in the window of her apartment. She had no idea what was coming. They hadn’t wanted her to, had hoped they would succeed in New Bergin and there would never be any reason to disrupt the life she had made here.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Pru lifted her nose to the stormy night sky and howled.
Read on for an excerpt from Lori Handeland’s next book Heat of the Moment
Available July 2015 from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Chapter 1
I glanced up from my examination of a basset hound named Horace to discover the Three Harbors police chief in the doorway. My assistant hovered in the hall behind her.
“Can you take Horace?” I asked, but Joaquin was already scooping the dog off the exam table and releasing him onto the floor. Before I could warn him to leash the beast—my next scheduled patient was Tigger, the cat—Horace had trotted into the waiting area and found out for himself.
Indoor squirrel!
Since childhood, I’d heard the thoughts of animals. Call it an overactive imagination. My parents had. That I was right a good portion of the time, I’d learned to keep to myself. Crazy is as crazy does, and a veterinarian who thinks she can talk to animals would not last long in a small northern Wisconsin tourist town. I doubted she’d last long in any town. But Three Harbors was my home.
Woof!
Hiss.
Crash!
“Horace!”
Tigger’s owner emitted a stream of curses. Joaquin fled toward the ruckus.