Chapter 1

One

B lake

Here she comes, her festive orange pumps clip-clopping down the sidewalk, headed straight into my bar.

Shit.

Any notion I had of escaping participation in the town-wide Halloween-gasm that is this year’s Harvest Festival blows out the door as soon as Dahlia Jordan, Tourism Director, blows in.

Her golden eyes sparkle and her perpetual smile broadens when she spots me behind the bar. It’s a smile so genuine, I almost feel an old, familiar twinge.

But then I remember she’s not coming in for a friendly drink after work. It’s noon on Halloween and her office is closed today. But under her relentless guidance, downtown is decked out in black cats and spiderwebs, and every food establishment is serving something pumpkin flavored.

The way she’s walking, I can tell she needs something.

Oh, Dahlia doesn’t need me personally; she needs something from me as the proprietor of the Southpaw Tavern. She’d better not be coming in here trying to convince me to serve pumpkin ale, because it ain’t happening.

Along with the gust of October air she pulls in with her comes her warm caramel apple pie scent, heavy on the cinnamon. Same as it was back when I had permission to take a whiff of her hair freely and on the regular. Same damn sweet energy as always, as if life has never broken her down.

In the two years since Dahlia and I broke up, she’s grown into herself. Me, I’ve been knocked around a bit. I lost my Gramps who raised me, inherited his bar, had to pay off his back taxes, and I’m still working on paying down a mountain of the business’s debt. Unlike me, the old man was a sweetheart who let a bunch of local barflies run up ridiculous tabs. Even if Gramps had known he would die of a sudden heart attack at the age of 65, I doubt he would have tried to collect the money some of those patrons owed him.

What is Dahlia doing back in this town, anyway? I’ve been asking myself that for the past six months, ever since she moved back home to take over the tourism office. I thought she’d be busy slaying every eligible bachelor in the big city by now.

Any man without his wits about him would fall all over himself to please this auburn-haired bombshell with the glowing skin and glossy lips.

But I do have my wits about me. I’m Blake Fuckin’ Pritchard, after all—the only bartender still serving cheap domestic beer in this up-and-coming little town. My bar doesn’t have Wi-Fi. I program the jukebox myself and fuck you if you don’t like it. Bouncing unruly customers with my own hands gives me joy. People fear me, and I like it that way.

So, I feel confidently immune to Dahlia’s charms. This gorgeous creature cannot distract me from the fact that she carries something under her arm—something that can only mean one thing for me: extra work.

“Happy Halloween, Blake! Here’s your jack-o’-lantern!” How can someone’s voice be both perky and sexy? Doesn’t matter. Has no effect on me.

“I didn’t order one,” I say, focusing on wiping down the oak bar in front of me and not the orange and purple blob she’s lifting onto the bar.

She laughs, unaffected by my rotten attitude. “Every downtown business gets a painted jack-o’-lantern. It’s part of the game.” Dahlia plops the thing down onto the spot I just polished.

I eye her suspiciously as I hand dry a rack of lowball glasses Kenny just pulled from the dishwasher. Dahlia talks with her hands, just like she used to do back when we were an item. The difference now is those hands are professionally manicured, with pictures of tiny ghosts festively adorning her fingernails. In fact, her entire look these days is deliberate and polished. I always liked her makeup-free face and air-dried hair back then. But I have to admit, I’m liking this current look just as much. Not going to say that out loud, though.

“I don’t know about any game; ergo, I’m not participating.”

Undeterred, she chirps, “Everybody’s participating. It’s a social media trick-or-treat game, but for grown-ups.”

I grunt and say to her, “If it involves me pretending I like tourists, then you can just skedaddle with that pumpkin.”

“Blake, come on. You don’t have to pretend you like people. It’s part of your charm.”

I stop wiping down glasses and look at her hard. There’s a whole lot more she’s not telling me.

I can see I’m not getting rid of her soon so I pour her the usual—an amaretto sour with a cherry—and set it down in front of her.

She thanks me and sips it. Her lip quirks.

“This is watered down,” she says.

I sigh heavily and let my head loll back on my neck, as if the tacky stained-glass Bud Light pendant lamp hanging above the bar will tell me how to win this argument—the same argument we’ve been having since she moved back here to her hometown. “We’ve been through this before, Dahlia. No, it’s not.”

She shrugs. “Tastes watered down.”

I huff. “It’s on the house, then. I don’t know what to tell you, D. It’s amaretto, simple syrup, and lemon juice—that’s it. If you don’t like it, why don’t you order a beer instead of a sorority sister drink?”

She frowns, but still manages not to look offended. “I wasn’t in a sorority.”

I snort. “You order drinks like you are.”

“Is this abuse necessary?” she says with a wink.

I come around to the front of the bar to polish the brass rail. I don’t want to get closer to her but some of the people who drink here are slobs, and I don’t want their fingerprints on the rail. I’m pretty particular about this whole new handcrafted set-up. As I should be; it was my hands that did the work after my Gramps died and left the bar to me. Gramps, who was one of the most famous left-handed pitchers ever in the American League, retired to this town and lived out the rest of his days slinging drinks. Why? Because he loved talking to people and people loved hearing stories from his glory days. I didn’t inherit that extrovert gene. But this place meant a lot to him, so it means everything to me.

“Abuse? You’re the one who accused me of watering down my drinks, which I do not do. Maybe your tastes are changing.”

“Excuse me?”

I don’t really feel like elaborating, but she brings it out of me. “I read an article that says every seven years your taste buds change. Foods that tasted bad to you when you were younger, maybe you like them now. Maybe your favorite thing isn’t your favorite anymore.”

She leans forward against the bar, engaging us in an odd game of chicken. As I polish the brass rail with a rag, I keep getting closer to her, but she fails to move her body out of my way.

“Excuse me,” I say and she moves back, but I’m in such a rush and she’s not quick enough, so my bicep grazes her boob.

“Whoops. Sorry,” I grunt.

I finish the job while she stares at me, speechless for once in her life.

Neither of us say anything for a few painfully long seconds. Finally, I move on to cleaning the tables that don’t need cleaning while she recovers her composure.

Dahlia says, “You do realize you’re saying this to someone who is extremely loyal to her own tastes and sensibilities. My taste buds are exactly the same as always.”

After whipping the towel into a laundry bin behind the bar and grabbing a clean one from the fresh pile that Kenny brought down from the dryer in my upstairs apartment, I say, “That sounds like a personal problem.”

She takes another sip and shrugs. I guess free drinks taste better.

“Back to the subject at hand. You just have to stand there and be your usual self.”

I could bounce her for beating around the bush. I’ve tossed plenty of dude bros out of my bar for lesser offenses, such as wearing Axe body spray. “What are you up to?”

She downs the drink, and her eyes focus on the ceiling to avoid meeting my gaze for a moment as she gathers up her courage.

“Dahlia.”

Her shoulders drop. “Ugh. Fine. You just have to stand there while people take a selfie with you and/or Kenny.”

“The fuck are you talking about? I don’t do selfies.”

But she’s in tourism director mode. Winning personality, dauntless enthusiasm. “Everyone who attends the Fall Festival gets a map of all the downtown businesses that have a painted jack-o’-lantern somewhere in their stores. They take a selfie with the proprietor and then post it on social media with the hashtag?—”

“Nobody is allowed to say the ‘H’ word in here. Also I don’t have Wi-Fi.”

She ignores me and continues. “…With the hashtags printed on the map and they’re entered in a drawing. It was Amanda Hall’s idea. She’s one of my volunteers today so this definitely has to happen.”

Fidgeting, I twist my towel around my hand. Mentioning the mayor’s wife’s name isn’t going to help bring me around. The last time the Halls were in my bar, it was to drop weird, indirect hints that I should stop putting in my low-cost construction bids for small parks projects. Screw the Halls.

“Lot of rigmarole to enter a drawing. I’ll make it easy for you. Have everyone put their business card in a fishbowl, shake it up…”

“Bo-ring!” she chuckles and dismisses me with a wave of her hand.

That smile of hers could win over an angry Shrek. But it’s not working on me. “I like boring. Boring, same old customers pay my light bill. One-time visitors and transient millennial newcomers do not.”

“But that’s kind of the point. We attract new people, and those people come back and become regulars, improving your bottom line. Also, you are a millennial as much as I am.” She points at me, not letting me get away with my rant.

I shake my head. “This bar’s bottom line hasn’t improved in years and I don’t need it to. I didn’t inherit this fine establishment and its elite clientele from Gramps,” I say, waving my arm toward Sleepy Ernie, passed out in a booth in the corner, “expecting to get rich.”

“Is he OK?” Dahlia asks, switching from a winning smile to genuine concern, leaning forward to get a better look at the man in the corner booth.

Nobody ever asks about Sleepy Ernie, but of course Dahlia does.

I wave in his direction. “He works a rotating shift at the plant, and it fucks with his circadian rhythm. This is his after-work drink. He’ll wake up in an hour and I’ll have a donut for him, then he’ll shuffle home to sleep for real.”

Dahlia smiles at me with her mouth closed. It’s a knowing smile accompanied by a series of rapid blinks. Her face is an emoji with heart eyes.

“What?” I ask.

She squeaks. “You do like people. You take care of Ernie.”

“Let’s not get carried away.”

She continues, “And who said anything about getting rich? Come on, where’s your Halloween spirit?”

“I have plenty of Halloween spirit,” I say, flailing my arms. I’m losing my patience. “This is the only bar that hands out candy to the downtown trick-or-treaters, and I hand out full-size Reese’s. I don’t fuck around with fun size .”

Dahlia cocks her head and gives me big doe eyes. “I’m so glad you have a heart for kids. Because, in other news…” She bites her lip in hesitation.

Shit. I knew I shouldn’t have said all that. “Oh god. What now?” I ask, pausing my table polishing to face her, because I can’t believe she’s asking me for even more help.

“Well…that brings me to my other scheme…”

I nod and cross my arms over my chest. “At least you admit it’s a scheme. Go on.”

Dahlia ignores my jab and goes on. “Since you’re so full of Halloween spirit then you should have no problem whatsoever filling in for Doctor Howard at the dunk tank in five minutes. He usually does it but he has an emergency appendectomy.”

I go from nodding to shaking my head in defiance. “No. No fucking way.”

Dahlia presses her palms together pleadingly. “Come on, Blake, the town is counting on you.”

I turn away and get back to wiping down the table tops. “No, they count on Doctor Howard. Everybody loves him. Nobody is going to pay money to throw a baseball to dunk me”—I thump my chest with my towel-wrapped fist for emphasis”—into a tank full of water.”

The cackle that bursts out of her is so loud it’s uncalled for. “Plenty—and I mean plenty —of people would love to dunk you. And it’s for charity.”

I rub the scruff on my chin. For what charity would I allow myself to be humiliated, not to mention risk hypothermia?

“How cold is the water?” I ask.

As soon as I say this I know I should not have. “What kind of a man asks that question?” she says, brow furrowed in disappointment.

Not that her opinion of my manhood matters, but I won’t have my masculinity called into question. I stare her down with a look that usually sends dude’s nuts shrinking up into their body cavities. Dahlia, however, doesn’t seem fazed at all.

I scratch my fingertips across my scalp, sending my hair flopping to the side. “If you tell me it’s to raise money for the tourism bureau, you can forget it.”

She rolls back her shoulders in a huffy, prissy, and adorable way. “As a matter of fact, it’s for the children’s library. As you know, the city overshot its budget with the construction of the new clock tower, so they had to hold off on renovations to the children’s wing of the library. A very generous anonymous donor will match whatever funds we raise to help renovate it.”

Well now she’s got me. Our little town’s library is in dire need of everything. And that stupid clock tower, in my personal opinion, was nothing but a boondoggle.

I slap my towel on a table and gruffly tell Kenny to take over for me.

“Fine. Show me where to go.”

Dahlia slips her hand into the crook of my arm—the arm that I hadn’t offered.

I don’t pull away from her. I should pull away, but I kind of don’t want to. We’re not a couple. We haven’t even discussed our terrible breakup since she moved back here six months ago. All she’s done is pester me at my bar and all I’ve done is give her a superficially hard time while I serve her drinks.

At the moment, though, my body doesn’t listen to my mind. My blood pressure and my mutinous cock have at this moment decided they still like her. My body would very much like to give her a different kind of hard time…up against the bar. But that would be a bad idea.

It’s just a chemical thing, I tell myself. Or a muscle memory thing. Not a heart thing. If she wants to walk arm in arm, whether just to be friendly or to ward off other dudes, then I’m all about that. Or, maybe she’s afraid I might run away. That’s not out of the realm of possibility.

As we make our way down the street on this sunny afternoon, I practice my scowl while she chatters away. A few people waiting in line for their corn dogs are staring at us. If Dahlia’s not careful, she’s going to make people think we’re an item again, walking around arm in arm in front of everyone in town.

Then again, she does this to everybody, as I recall. Dahlia is not only the town cheerleader but she’s very touchy with people she’s close with. She’s one of those comfortable, born-and-raised-here locals who shakes hands for a really long time. Who gently grasps a friend by the shoulder when they make her laugh. So I shouldn’t read anything at all into the fact that we’re traipsing around with our arms locked together.

We pass by the pumpkin pound cake contest, where about seven cakes total are spread out on a gingham tablecloth, each with a small ballot box for everyone to cast their votes.

“But why pumpkin pound cake? Why not pumpkin pie?” I ask.

She replies as if she’s telling me facts and not opinions. “Halloween is about candy and pumpkin-flavored things leading up to the pie months. November and December are the pie months.”

“November is tomorrow,” I remind her.

“Exactly. Not pie month for another seven hours.”

Has this lady become more bonkers since we dated? I steal a curious glance at her as we walk on. Her long hair curls around her shoulders in drapey layers, framing a fine-boned face with plump lips. Huge eyes that dance when she talks about Halloween. She’s not cute. She’s not beautiful. She is devastating, especially as the afternoon sun casts golden rays across her luminous skin and makes her lips shimmer and her eyes sparkle.

If she wasn’t totally bananas about the town, and about dragging me along with her for the ride to Crazyville, I might find her irresistibly kissable. I might find myself wishing she would turn to me and twine those long, curvy legs around my thighs without warning, like she used to do. Two years plus change has done nothing to diminish her overall allure. Objectively speaking.

We stroll past the craft bazaar, where artists are hawking garden gnomes and handmade wreaths, homemade candles and soaps, and hand knit scarves. “After you close up you can come join me on the midnight ghost tour,” she says, like that’s also something I should know about.

I scoff. “Ghost tour? Come on. This town has no ghosts.”

She abruptly stops by a small booth with a bunch of brochures fanned out on the table. She holds one of the leaflets up for me to see.

“Bite your tongue, sir. See?”

“I will do no such thing,” I reply. “What are you shoving in my face?”

She shakes it. “This. This ghost. I’ll have you know that the tourism bureau just came into ownership of the Milton House and it is definitely haunted. Maybe even two ghosts now that poor Esther died, may she rest in peace.”

I’m embarrassed for her. “The what house? You mean the house with the lady who would sic her doberman on us if we so much as sneezed when we rode our bikes past her grass?”

She beams. “That’s the one.”

I shake my head. “We’re calling it ‘Milton House’ now? It sounds like one of those places with a pretentious plaque from the register of historic places.”

“It is one of those places!” she retorts.

“Says who?”

“Says the National Register of Historic Places, just as soon as they approve my application.”

I have to rub my temples.

“And how many people do you have signed up for this so-called ghost tour?”

She chirps, “None yet, but I just came up with the idea this morning so word hasn’t gotten around yet. I think that once people are feeling nice and festive after the scavenger hunt…”

“Drunk,” I interject. “You mean after people get drunk.”

“…I’m sure to have some takers.”

I’m smiling now, but not because I’m at all interested in signing on to this lunacy. “What other stops do you have on this ghost tour?”

She shrugs. “If you’re not interested in ghosts, then I’m not going to tell you.”

Fine by me, as long as it’s not the empty lot down the street where a moldy old inn used to stand, and where the town’s more dotty locals insist Abraham Lincoln once slept. I need to stop asking myself why Dahlia moved back here and start asking myself why I stayed.

“Oh, I’m interested, all right,” I tell her. “Interested in debunking all the chicanery of so-called ghost tours.”

She juts out her luscious bottom lip, like she has no idea what she’s tempting me to do to it. “Why do you have to be such a party pooper?”

I consider ending this argument by sucking that pouty lip right into my mouth and licking it until we both forget what we’re arguing about. “I’m not a party pooper. I’m a realist. There is no such thing as ghosts.”

She clears her throat and thrusts out her chin. Uh oh. I know that move. She’s going to try to challenge me to something. Feats of strength, maybe? See if I can toss my shoe clear over the roof of the bar? “Blake, I’ll bet you $100 that I can make you a believer.”

I snicker. “Hey, let’s make it more interesting than money. If you make me believe in ghosts, I will do anything you ask me to do. For the town. In perpetuity.”

She stops abruptly and squints up at me. “Even serve on a subcommittee?”

I grit my teeth because that sounds like the most painful punishment anyone could dole out to me. I would rather eat glass than go to a meeting. “I’ll do anything you ask,” I grit out.

“But how will I know if I’ve actually convinced you?”

“Am I an honest man?”

“Yes. Brutally honest sometimes.”

This comment makes me wince. I know exactly what she’s referring to. She’s remembering some of the things I said to her when we broke up. In fairness, we were both pretty brutal to each other.

“OK. Then on my honor. And if I can prove to you that it’s all a bunch of baloney, I don’t have to do any stupid town things ever again.”

She surveys me and taps her chin in thought. I take the opportunity to look away from her before I say anything that will make her mad or inadvertently volunteer my services for something else. Some services I would not mind volunteering for, especially if they involved warming her up. That sleeveless black dress she’s wearing is totally unsuitable for the weather.

I bite the inside of my cheek as I look around and take in the scope of all the things she made happen today. I have to say, despite it being a bit over the top and a little looney, I’m impressed. She worked hard. The entire town and then some have turned out for this year’s Fall Festival, which is more than I can say about years past.

“The thing is, proving or disproving the existence of ghosts could take a lot longer than a one-hour ghost tour,” she says.

“Probably true.”

“So what do you propose?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I could spend the night?” Whoa. Did I just say that? The smell of funnel cakes and cotton candy must be going to my head.

“Excuse me?”

“At the supposedly haunted house.”

She shakes her head and points in the direction of the hill, atop which sits Milton House. “I can’t let you spend the night alone. The lawyers would have a fit. Besides, I haven’t physically been inside the house yet, myself. Once we took possession, I changed the locks, but that’s all that’s been done up there. It could be dangerous.”

And then my mouth totally runs away from my brain. “Fine, then you stay in the house with me.”

Dahlia cocks her head to one side. “Blake.”

Oh, but I’ve boarded the train and now I have to ride it all the way to Whackjob City. “Don’t think of it as a sleepover. It’s just friends, making a bet, on Halloween. For science,” I say.

She squints at me, like she doesn’t quite believe my motivation but is sort of into the idea despite both of us knowing it’s a terrible one. “Well, if it’s for science. You’re on, Blake Pritchard.”

We stand there for a second, just looking at each other like a couple of dopes.

“Well, here we are,” Dahlia chirps, gesturing toward the row of carnival games in front of us.

“This is ridiculous,” I huff, looking at the large dunk tank with a hunk of timber suspended over it that looks barely large enough to sit my ass on.

Her golden eyes are so bright, I feel like they might leave a mark on me. In a way, they already have, but that’s old news.

Perceiving my gaze on her as hesitation, she reminds me, “It’s for the kids, remember?”