Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Holly watched Connor as his brilliant mind sizzled behind intense granite eyes. She’d worried that he was there for more than the ghost, and his taunt in the apple orchard and now this supernatural question all but confirmed it. What else had he discovered in the short time he’d been there? What had made him so certain that she and her family were more than just unlucky Mainers with a haunted apple orchard? Had someone in town said something to make him suspicious?

No one knew for certain what they were, but it was no secret that the Celeste name was divisive. They had their supporters—a staunch core of folks in the community who loved their heirloom apple farm and the quirky women who owned it, and who were die-hard devotees of Wicked Good Apples cider. Holly had an entire box of drawings of Prickles that kids had given her over the years, and he was practically a celebrity during the apple season. Many of those customers had become friends and were people Holly knew she and her sisters could count on if they ever needed help, and vice versa.

But there were others who were not so friendly, who downright hated the Celestes. They were the people who thought the rambling Celeste house was creepy, the sisters reclusive—or, in Missy’s case, trouble. They were the people who avoided the Celeste house on Halloween and told their kids to stay far away. They snubbed Holly and her sisters in the grocery store and whispered behind their backs—but the gossip always reached them. Holly was certain they were the folks who would have accused her of witchcraft two hundred years ago and thrown her into the lake to drown.

Deep down Holly knew that even though she and her family were good people, the instincts of their haters weren’t wrong. Some folks could just feel that the Celestes were different—perhaps it was a protective reflex that had evolved over time. Or maybe, since Aunt Rose and Aunt Daisy didn’t usually inspire the same reactions of terror and repulsion, it was an unintended consequence of the wells of power that seethed beneath Holly and her sisters’ skin.

Holly couldn’t fault people for their fear, but she did fault them for how they treated her and her family. The Celestes had been good community members for hundreds of years, and yet some people acted like they were monsters. Could one of those people have said something to Connor to make him so confident that the Celestes were hiding a supernatural secret? Or could he feel the difference too?

No matter how he had come to his conclusions, it frightened her that he was circling around the thing she wanted kept most quiet. “Are you supernatural, Holly?”

She mentally rolled her eyes. He probably still thought she was a witch.

“I’ll tell you why I really became a ghost hunter,” he said, “for a trade.”

“What do you want?”

“You decide what’s fair.”

“Deal.”

Connor’s sweat-darkened T-shirt was filthy with dust, his dark brown hair was mussed, and there was a streak of grime down his cheek that disappeared along his jawline, where he hadn’t shaved in several days. His tanned hands were clasped loosely together between jean-clad knees as he leaned on his forearms. Everything about this man rubbed her the wrong way, and yet her traitorous body only seemed to want more of that friction, even as he sat in her filthy attic accusing her of hiding secrets.

You have heat stroke, she told herself. It was the only explanation for the unreasonable stirring in her belly.

Connor rubbed his palm over his chin and said, “I was haunted as a child.” His expression was blank, as if he were expecting her to mock him. She kept her face neutral and waited for him to expound. “It was the ghost of a man who once lived in our apartment. He’d killed himself. When I was nine and Erikson was seven, we were both … visited by him. We were terrified and told our parents, but they just laughed it off. Except it kept happening. Every night, month after month, we’d lie in our beds, so frightened that our bodies were stiff. And then the room would suddenly chill until we could see our breath, and we’d know what was coming.

“He’d slip through the wall, his neck bent at an angle and his eyes wild, and he would stare at us hiding in our beds, and he would just cry, sob as if his heart were breaking. Eventually, he would stretch his ghostly pale fingers toward us, trying to touch us. That was when we’d run into our parents’ room, screaming.

“At their wit’s end, our parents eventually took us to see a psychologist, and then for more mental health evaluations. We stopped eating. We weren’t sleeping. No one could figure out what was wrong with us, and no one was willing to believe us when we flat-out told them we were being haunted. We missed so much school, either from sleeping in the day because we were up all night, or because we were at appointments, that half our education ended up being pieced together from books and Google.”

Without thinking, Holly reached over and grasped his hand. “I’m sorry no one believed you.”

He shrugged. “Why would they believe us? For most of the world, the supernatural doesn’t exist. When Erikson and I were old enough, we decided we were going to expose the supernatural, normalize it, so that people like us wouldn’t be shunned any longer.” He turned his hand over and laced his fingers with hers. His thumb idly traced over her own, sending chills straight up her arm even in the sweltering heat. She should pull away. And she would … in a moment.

“Whatever happened to your childhood ghost?”

“I don’t know. Eventually our family moved out of the apartment—a last-ditch effort to get Erikson and me to sleep and eat again. It worked, but the damage was already done. Our parents divorced a year later, and Erikson and I never once forgot that we were responsible for destroying our family. I haven’t gone back to the old apartment. I haven’t … faced that yet.”

“Why do you keep your haunting a secret? It seems like something your audience would accept.”

He shook his head. “I need to appear ‘normal’ so that I can be convincing to those just on the edge of belief. No one will believe a dude who cried ghost as a kid, but a man who’s skeptical and yet keeps proving the supernatural could exist? Now that introduces doubt, and it makes people wonder.”

It was a clever tactic, but she was sorry he had to keep such an important part of his past hidden away.

“Your turn,” he said.

Holly bit her lip as she considered. She’d been planning to say something stupid or silly, but he’d shared a painful secret with her, and it wouldn’t be a fair exchange if she repaid his vulnerability with a flippant comment.

Dammit.

“I was not popular in high school,” she started, “which you’ve probably already gathered after meeting Amy. I wasn’t particularly welcome either.” Was she really going to tell this famous TV personality one of her most shameful memories? It was something Holly never talked about, not even with her own sisters. She didn’t know why this was the incident that had come to mind after he’d told her about his childhood haunting. Holly rubbed the toe of her boot on the floor, creating a little circle in the dust.

“Stop,” Connor barked, releasing her hand and rising abruptly. “I don’t want to know.”

Holly blinked in confusion. “Why not? You shared your story, now it’s my turn. A deal’s a deal.”

“I shouldn’t have asked for anything in return,” he growled. “It was my choice to share. I wasn’t coerced and I won’t coerce you. You’ll tell me some other time. Or maybe you won’t. Whatever—it’s your choice.”

Holly stood too, the space between them inches at best. She lightly touched his arm. “I want to share it with you.” She was surprised to find that was true. Maybe it was because Connor had dedicated his life to believing the unbelievable, to validating the fears and tragedies of others. Whatever the reason, she felt safe sharing this memory with him, the last person she’d ever expected to show vulnerability to. “Maybe it needs to be said.”

Connor studied her face for a moment, nodded, and sank back down. Holly leaned against the edge of the dollhouse and crossed her arms over her chest. “When I was in eighth grade, I killed my mom.”

To his credit, Connor hid most of his shock. Only the slightest widening of his eyes gave away his surprise. “How did you kill her?”

Holly focused over his shoulder on a faded oil portrait of her great-aunt propped against a box. “My sisters were at school, but I was home. I told my mom I was sick, but the truth was that a rumor was going around school that I didn’t wash my clothes and only had one pair of jeans. You know how cruel middle school kids can be. They called me a dirty scrub. They said since my dad had left, we’d gone broke and my mom couldn’t afford to buy us clothes. That maybe she shouldn’t have been such a bitch to him. They were repeating what they overheard at home, but none of them had the facts. My father didn’t leave; my mom kicked him out for being a dickwad. They never know the truth when they’re dragging your name through the mud.”

Connor nodded in understanding. “In middle school Erikson told his best friend we were visited by a ghost and had to move because of it. His ‘friend’ told everyone. I think I would have chosen another year of being haunted over those two years of merciless teasing and snubbing.”

She grimaced. “Middle school is brutal. I definitely didn’t handle the rumors well. I couldn’t bear to go to school, so I stayed home the day she died, and cried and cried and cried. It started storming out when my mom was driving home from the grocery store, and she lost control of the car. By the time the paramedics arrived, she was dead.”

“Oh, Holly,” Connor breathed. He stretched out his hand as if to touch and comfort her, but halted midair and dropped it. “You couldn’t have stopped that.”

Holly rubbed her hands over her arms, feeling oddly chilled even though it was sweltering in the attic. “I could have. If I hadn’t stayed home, she wouldn’t have gone to the grocery store to buy me soup and crackers. If I hadn’t lost control of my emotions … if I hadn’t let those stupid kids rile me up so much, she’d still be alive today.” She turned her head away. She couldn’t say more, couldn’t make him understand how it had been her fault, without giving away her secret. The storm had killed her mother, and Holly had been the storm. After the funeral no one in her family had ever brought up the car accident again. Their silence was meant to ease her conscience, but nothing would ever erase her guilt.

“Did your father raise you after that?”

Holly scoffed. “No. He was a drunk, and the only things he was generous with were his fists. He had no interest in his children beyond what he could use us for. Aunt Rose and Aunt Daisy got custody of us. They gave up their independent lives so they could watch over us. They sacrificed to keep us safe.”

Holly knew now the extent of what her aunts had done for her and her sisters. When Lilac had died, they’d left careers they’d loved without a second thought, and had moved to the apple farm. They’d been cautious people, unlike their boisterous sister, whom Missy took after, and they’d instituted a number of new rules to keep the girls’ powers under wraps. At the time, Holly had thought they were being strict or that maybe they were punishing her for what she’d done. As an adult, she saw their rules for what they’d really been: a way to keep the girls safe. Sometimes Holly wondered if the tight faces and silent looks she remembered from that time weren’t so much their grief, but a deep and chilling fear.

She blew out a breath. “My aunts gave up everything, and my father didn’t even have to pay child support. I’ll never understand what my mother saw in him. It makes me worry that I’ve inherited some sort of flawed gene where I’m drawn to all the wrong men. Jeremy is the most recent example of that.”

“I think it’s the opposite. You’re single because you refuse to settle for what your mom had.”

Holly gave him a half smile. Somehow he’d managed to put a nice twist on her tragic dating history. “After my mother’s accident the rumors at school got worse. I swear my tormentors smelled the complicity on me. They whispered that I was wicked, a devil worshipper, a murderer. They terrorized me, and that trickled down to my sisters. I kind of ruined high school for Winter and Missy.”

“ They —not you—ruined high school for your sisters.”

“That’s technically true, but I was responsible for letting it bother me in the first place. My mother’s death taught me that I was never again going to let the opinions of a few ignorant people dictate how I felt.”

It had also taught her what happened when she lost control. She’d been experiencing strong emotions lately, which was dangerous for more than one reason. Her mother’s death was a reminder of how important it was that she keep a lid on her feelings.

That, and the fact that displays of power could get her noticed by dangerous people.

“You can’t hold yourself responsible for an accident, Holly.” Connor unfolded his large body and stood so that she was forced to tilt her chin to keep eye contact. “You were just a girl who stayed home sick one day.”

Holly blinked away sudden tears and turned her face, embarrassed by emotions that still hovered close to the surface even after all these years.

“Holly.” Connor’s voice was deep, low, gentle. She lifted her gaze, drawn to the shades of his voice like a sailor to a siren. They held eye contact, the air thickening around them. She checked to make sure it wasn’t her—but no, it was something else, something created by the way he was looking down at her, not with pity or disgust, but with tenderness and understanding.

A tear slid from the corner of her eye, trailing down her cheek. Connor lifted his hand slowly, as if waiting for her to move away. When she didn’t, he gently dragged his thumb across her cheek, wiping away the wet track.

Holly inhaled, conscious that less than half a foot separated them in the narrow pathway they’d cleared. For the past half hour, they’d brushed against each other, bumping and jouncing and exchanging murmured apologies, until Holly was flustered and overwhelmed by her body’s response to him.

She didn’t want to like Connor Grimm. She didn’t want to feel sympathy for his past or understand his mission to validate those with the same experiences. She didn’t want to feel seen by those intense gray eyes. She was supposed to want him gone. She was supposed to be the smart one, the steady one who took over protecting their family now that Aunt Daisy and Aunt Rose no longer could.

And yet she felt frozen there, the wall of heat from his body and his scent wrapping around her like tethers keeping her in place. She should turn away and keep working, forget all about this heart-to-heart that had widened what had previously been only a tiny vulnerability when it came to Connor Grimm.

Because now he wasn’t just the sexy paranormal ghost hunter sniffing around her family. He was a man who’d once been a traumatized boy, a person with the desire to do good in the world, even if he couldn’t see how his actions might harm people like her.

Hesitantly, she lifted her hand and pressed her palm to his chest. His T-shirt was slightly damp and dusty to her touch. The air in the attic was oppressive, their skin slick with sweat. “Do you want …?”

His heart kicked beneath her palm, and his voice was thick when he asked, “Do I want what?”

She didn’t know what she was going to say, and felt stupid having even started the sentence. She started to remove her hand, but he caught her wrist in a light grasp. “Say it.”

Holly licked her lips. She wasn’t good at this, never had been. She didn’t know what she wanted with Connor past this one moment, although she certainly knew what she shouldn’t want. But right now, in defiance of all good sense, what she wanted was to press her mouth to his. Just once. Just to get it out of her system. If she did, maybe she could walk away and feel pleased to have discovered it was no big deal. She would have banished this ghost of attraction hanging over her head, muddling all her decisions. She would be able to remind herself why he was the absolute worst person for her to be attracted to, and then comfortably put it behind her.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

His lips parted slightly, and his eyes darkened. “ Yes .”

There was zero hesitation in his voice, and it made her stomach tighten with anticipation. He lifted his palms to cradle her face on both sides, tilting her so that she was staring into those stormy irises. Time slowed; nothing stood between them but humid air and dust motes. He dipped his head and hovered a few centimeters over her lips, but he didn’t kiss her.

She realized he wasn’t going to, that even now he was going to wait for her to make the first move. Holly pushed up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.

The moment their lips touched, something strange happened to her power. It flared without her consent, wind lifting strands of loose hair off the back of her neck and swooping around them in a gentle whirlwind. She barely noticed, and thankfully neither did Connor. His lips were soft and skilled, one hand sliding from her face to the side of her neck so that he could angle her better for him. He slanted his mouth, deepening the kiss by painstaking degrees until he touched his tongue to her bottom lip. Holly parted her lips to the request and his tongue swept inside, mingling with her own, tasting her with the single-mindedness he usually reserved for his show.

She settled her hands on his hips, the wind fluttering her shirt and brushing across the small of her back. Connor was big and warm, and he dominated the space, his large hands handling her with both care and command. His thumb stroked down the front of her throat and settled against the hollow at the base, the entire touch so unintentionally possessive that she burned.

“Hello!” Winter hollered. “Is anyone up here? Holly? Grimm?”

They froze, and in a split second Holly became fully aware of her power playing and leashed it so that the gentle breeze died down. The reality of what they were doing spilled over her like a bucket of cold water. She had been kissing Connor Grimm, the man who was determined to out her family, and not only that, but she’d nearly done the work for him by exposing her power.

Had she really just justified that kiss by hoping it would get him out of her system? Had a person ever been so reckless or stupid?

Connor’s eyes met hers as he slowly withdrew his hands. Her cheeks were burning from embarrassment, the heat of the attic, and a kiss so mind-blowing she was still reeling from it. The first thing he said was, “Where did that breeze come from?”

Holly gulped and took a hasty step backward, bumping into a tower of boxes behind her. “I opened a window earlier,” she stammered.

He frowned but didn’t question her further.

Holly pressed her fingers to her lips, stunned by what she’d done and painfully aware that if she kept living in denial like this, she was going to do even more damage. She had to acknowledge the facts: despite all rational reason, she was attracted to Connor. Everything about him was wrong. He was addicted to his work, he traveled ceaselessly, and he was a threat to her family, so it shouldn’t have surprised her that she was drawn to him. That was what she did: she picked the wrong men.

No, this could be salvaged, she told herself desperately. Yes, she’d lost her senses for a moment, but it wasn’t like it meant anything. It was just a kiss. She could totally come back from this. Holly Celeste was going to turn her narrative around and make a wise decision about a man for once.

“ Holly? Grimm?”

“We’re back here!” Connor called out.

Holly quickly fixed her bun and tugged on the hem of her tank top. Connor rubbed his hand over his mouth and said, so that only she could hear, “I’m not sure that will help. Your lips are swollen.”

“What I hear you saying is that it looks like we’ve been kissing.”

“It’s kind of sexy. I like that the woman I’ve been kissing is all rumpled and marked by me.”

Holly wiped a bead of sweat from her temple. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for the primal, mate-marking kind of guy.”

At her comment his eyes flickered with some emotion she couldn’t identify, but before he could reply, a box was knocked over, and a plume of dust rose into the air. Winter kicked the rotted cardboard in frustration. “What are you guys doing back here? This place is a junk pit. I say throw it all out.”

Holly bent over a box and pretended to be looking through it. “We’re making a path to the back of the attic. We’re hoping to find some of Autumn’s possessions.”

Holly peeked over her shoulder, but Winter’s attention had been caught by a crate of records. “Yeah, well, we have a little bit of a situation downstairs, and I could really use Queen Naysayer on my side.” Winter was a music junkie and couldn’t help flipping through the records. “You know how it goes: Aunt Rose and Aunt Daisy and Missy get caught up in all these wild, romantic schemes, and you and I always have to—” She paused, as if just remembering Connor’s presence. “Well, anyway, I could use your help.”

“Okay, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Winter nodded, and not having found anything worth salvaging from the record crate, started back down the path. Halfway there she paused and looked back. “You’d better not be using her for some ulterior agenda, Grimm. Holly is one of a kind, and she deserves the best.”

After she left, Holly dropped her head into her hands.

“How the hell?” Connor seemed mystified. “You barely even looked up. I thought for sure we’d gotten away with it.”

“Nothing gets past Winter.” Holly stood and edged around him, determined not to be drawn into his arms like some kind of predictable magnet. She backed down the crooked pathway and said to his narrow-eyed expression, “You should keep that in mind.”