Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Connor and Charlotte worked in the attic until late afternoon. They didn’t speak much, which was fine with Connor because his mind was fully occupied with thoughts of Holly and the Celeste family.

The kiss had been staggering. He’d been completely unprepared for the layers of passion, tenderness, and lust that had ridden on a single touch of Holly’s lips. Connor adored women; he loved kissing them and finding mutual pleasure with them, but the kiss with Holly—that had been something entirely different. The problem was he wasn’t sure what it had been. What had transpired between them had felt intensely right, as if she’d always been meant to be in his arms.

Connor blanched at the unexpectedly sappy thought. Thank God no one could read his mind, because although he believed in ghosts and witches and all manner of things that went bump in the night, the concept of soul mates was a bit too far-fetched even for him. Ghosts had been acknowledged for centuries. Soul mates were a greeting card and Hollywood invention.

While he shifted furniture and sneezed through dust clouds, Winter’s warning played over and over in his head. “Holly is one of a kind. She deserves the best.” Had there been hidden meaning in her words? Was it an allusion to Holly being a kind of something, or had it just been a sisterly threat?

Then there was the truth of the statement. Holly was unique—he wasn’t sure how unique yet—but interacting with her was like taking a breath of fresh air after a lifetime of living underground. When had he ever met a woman with a pet hedgehog, an ass that could make a man cry, a penchant for Christmas shampoo in May, and a fierce commitment to her family legacy?

Never.

“She deserves the best.” Was Connor the best? Hell, no. Connor was married to his show, as Holly had established; he’d never had a relationship that lasted longer than six months; and he moved around frequently. He wasn’t an asshole, or at least he liked to think he wasn’t. He didn’t cheat or make promises he didn’t intend to keep, and he did his best never to lead his partner on. Things with Holly had spiraled out of control, but if this was a road they were going to go down—and God it was a road he really wanted to go down—then they’d have to have a discussion about expectations. Because when it came down to it, he might not be the best long-term boyfriend for Holly, but he could be her best fling.

Connor frowned and kicked an iron shoe. For some reason, the thought of being Holly’s fling irritated him.

By dinnertime Charlotte was sneezing continuously, and the lighting in the attic was too dim to get any more work done. After hours of backbreaking labor, they’d finally reached the rafters, and tomorrow when it was light again he’d go through any items he found there.

“You owe me dinner,” Charlotte said hoarsely as he dropped her off at her trailer.

“I’ll get you in half an hour,” he promised.

Connor showered and dressed in clothes that weren’t grimy, then spent fifteen minutes catching Erikson up on the progress they’d made so far at Wicked Good Apples. Erikson was in Montana, hunting down leads on reported hauntings in an old gold mining town where a famous mine had collapsed on a dozen men in the 1800s.

“Do you need my help?” Erikson asked. “It sounds like you’re getting in pretty deep over there.”

Connor frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose. What had he said that suggested he was getting personal to the case? Maybe it was just that he and Erikson were so close it was hard to keep secrets from each other. Their shared ghost trauma had cemented their relationship at a young age. Connor was two years older, but they’d been equals since their first psych eval.

“No, I’m fine. I’m almost certain I know what they are. I just need to prove it.”

“What about Holly? You’ve mentioned her more than anyone else. You think you can get her to open up to you?”

Connor drummed his fingers on the cover of a research book. “I don’t know. They’re a tight-knit family, so I need to tread lightly.”

“You still think they’re witches?”

“Yes.” Connor rubbed his eyes. “No. I don’t know. A lot of things that have happened on the farm seem witchy: the rain during droughts, avoiding the apple disease that wiped out the neighboring orchard a decade ago, the photograph of Daisy’s hands over the barrel, and even the fact that they’ve never visited a doctor. Not one of them, ever. They don’t exist in a single medical database that Charlotte could find, Erikson. That’s bizarre, right? And yet it doesn’t feel like a perfect fit. It feels like I’m missing something important.”

Erikson sounded worried when he said, “We’ve come in contact with some supernatural things before, but we mostly deal with ghosts, Con. Be careful. This is pretty new territory for us.”

“You be careful too. Don’t go climbing into any old gold mine shafts.”

“Who would be that stupid?”

“You would.”

Erikson laughed. “Well, I won’t this time. Text you later.”

Connor hung up and left his trailer to knock on Charlotte’s door. When she opened it, she was dressed in a bathrobe, and her eyes were so red and swollen that he flinched. “Christ Charlotte, what happened to you?”

“You!” she snapped. “ You happened to me. I have allergies, and hours in that stupid dusty attic have done me in.”

“Char, I had no idea. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because I’m an idiot.” She pressed a baggie of ice to her eye. “I’m going to lie down. Bring me back a salad.” She turned away, muttering about being rail thin by the time she left this vegan-hating town, and Connor quietly closed the door.

He was striding toward his pickup truck when he noticed the black sedan parked behind Holly’s ancient Kia. He instantly recognized it as belonging to Jeremy. What was that jerk doing back here? Connor thought of Winter’s plea for Holly’s calm head hours ago, and he turned on his heel and walked straight to the Celeste house.

It was none of his business. He should turn around, find a diner, and leave the family to their affairs.

He knocked on the door. A moment later Winter opened it with a flat expression that gave away nothing about how she felt at seeing him on her doorstep. “I was expecting you.”

Strange. He hadn’t said anything about stopping by. Maybe she’d assumed he’d come to see Holly after what she’d nearly caught them doing in the attic today.

Connor tucked his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I see Jeremy’s car is here.”

“Yeah, he and his girlfriend have been invited by the aunts and Missy.”

“Is that so?”

“Yup.”

It was a standoff. She wasn’t moving aside to let him in, and she wasn’t divulging any extra information, but she wasn’t shutting the door in his face either. Winter was an enigma. Connor still didn’t have a solid read on the woman, but he had the very distinct feeling that if she’d been born a few centuries earlier, she’d have wielded a battleax, and he would have been rightfully afraid of her wrath.

He was considering his best course of action when the door opened wider, and Holly appeared. Happiness flickered in her eyes when she saw him standing there, but she quickly hid it. Interesting. “What are you doing hanging around outside?”

“I saw Jeremy’s truck and wanted to make sure everything was all right.”

Holly threw up her hands in exasperation. “Who knows? Missy has been very secretive. Want to come in?”

Connor was stepping over the threshold before he’d even made the conscious decision to join her.

Winter had disappeared, so it was just him following Holly down the wallpapered hallway that led to the living room. Her jeans were faded and skintight, her feet bare, and her silky black hair was curling down her back. Connor battled the urge to slide his palm against her waist and pull her flush to him so that he could taste the side of her neck.

Holly halted outside the living room door and faced him, her lips parting slightly when she caught sight of his expression. “You can still turn around.”

Connor couldn’t tear his gaze from her mouth. “Why would I want to?”

“I have a feeling that whatever’s about to happen is going to be ugly. Missy was purposely vague this morning when she was trying to convince us to attend her grand pitch, but if her scheme involves Jeremy and Amy, it can’t be good.”

“I want to stay.”

“For now, anyway.”

What was that supposed to mean? Before he could ask, she pushed open the living room door.

The two aunts were sitting beside each other on a long floral couch, their white braided hair wrapped around their heads in identical hairstyles, the only difference being the type of flower tucked in each braid. Rose wore a fabric rose, and Daisy wore a fabric daisy. Connor’s eyes flickered to Daisy’s hands. Where Rose’s hands were sprinkled with rings, Daisy’s were encased in thin black gloves even though it was warm inside. Every time he’d seen her—apart from in the photograph—she’d been wearing them. What could it mean?

Missy paced near an unlit brick fireplace, twisting her fingers in either excitement or agitation; he wasn’t sure. Prickles was curled in a snoozing ball on the multihued rag rug, safety sheltered underneath the antique walnut coffee table that separated the aunts from a loveseat positioned in front of an entire wall of books. Sitting on that loveseat were Jeremy and Amy. Jeremy’s dress shirt was buttoned so tightly that it looked like some of his blood was being retained in his head.

When Holly entered, Amy placed her hand possessively on Jeremy’s leg. After glaring at Holly, she shot Connor a look filled with jilted vengeance. “Who invited the ghost hunter?”

“I did,” Holly said. Connor liked that she didn’t justify her decision.

Jeremy scowled when Connor’s hand accidentally brushed against Holly’s. It was so obvious the guy wasn’t over her that Connor couldn’t believe Holly didn’t see it. Connor might have felt bad for him if he weren’t such a dickhead.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Grimm Productions,” Jeremy said in his nasally voice.

“Doesn’t matter,” Holly replied. “My house, my rules. You seem to have a hard time understanding that.”

Aunt Rose tsked. “Now, now, Holly. You and Winter seem to have already made up your minds, and you promised Missy this morning that you’d consider her proposal. Let’s hear her, Jeremy, and Amy out.”

Holly crossed her arms over her chest, and the air shifted at Connor’s back as Winter slipped into the room.

“Great, now everyone is here.” Missy clapped her hands once. “Are you ready for this bit of genius? Jeremy and Amy called me this morning with a proposition that I think is worth serious consideration.”

Connor studied Amy’s expression as she waited for Missy to reveal this grand plan of theirs. She was so smug he almost couldn’t look.

“This was Amy’s idea,” Jeremy said immediately. For some reason Connor doubted that. He didn’t know what Jeremy’s end game was, but Connor had trusted ghosts more than he trusted Dickbag. Jeremy tightened the already tight knot on his tie, and Connor didn’t know how he was still breathing. “She was emotionally wrought by the window incident yesterday, and by Holly bringing her—”

“Uninvited rodent into my house!” Amy cut in shrilly, eyeing said “rodent” sleeping underneath the coffee table with disgust.

“He is not a rodent,” Holly snarled.

Jeremy patted Amy’s knee. “As you can see, Amy is still very much disturbed by the assault.”

Assault? These two were out of their minds. Connor had seen petty and selfish come out of the woodwork more times than he could count: when fame and money were on the table, good neighbors and loving family members could change in ways that were hard to fathom. He understood that Amy and Holly’s feud went back to high school and that Jeremy’s part in it only complicated feelings, but assault by hedgehog was a new low, even in his line of work.

“But eventually Amy calmed down like a good girl—”

Condescending jerk.

“—and in the interest of being decent people, we’re willing to drop the lawsuit in exchange for something that could be mutually beneficial to us all.”

Missy was bouncing on the balls of her feet, as if she couldn’t stand to wait any longer. “Dating with a ghost!” she shrieked.

Holly and Winter exchanged a confused look.

If Missy noticed, she was undeterred. “After the Grimm Reality episode airs, we’ll be hot for a minute, and we need to take full advantage. Amy came up with the idea, so she’ll be credited as the creator when we pitch the idea to a few TV networks. The concept is simple: the cameras will follow around one of the owners of Wicked Good Apples as she and her boyfriend contend with an intrusive third party—Wicked Good Apples’ very own ghost.”

Missy did a half curtsy as Daisy and Rose slowly clapped, appearing torn between wanting to support the idea and worrying about the consequences of it. Holly was frowning, and Winter was, typically, blank-faced.

“What’s your part in it?” Holly asked Jeremy.

He grinned at her. “I’d be the boyfriend, Hols.”

“If you think I’m going to let Amy pretend to be an owner of this apple farm, then you—”

“No, no,” he chuckled. “Amy would stay behind the scenes. You would be the girlfriend, Holly. We already have a history together. It would be easy to act like we were a couple again.”

Holly stiffened beside him, and Connor felt his own body go cold. Jeremy wanted her to do what ? Play girlfriend on national television with him and some ghost? Riding the coattails of Connor’s show was one thing, and Connor would never begrudge Holly the business, but this was something else entirely. Jeremy no doubt hoped the close proximity and media exposure would endear him to Holly again. Was Connor the only one able to see the other man’s endgame? Was Amy too blinded by potential dollar signs to see how her boyfriend pined for his ex?

Connor crossed his arms and leaned against the wall and said absolutely nothing.

“You told me you had a reality show idea to pitch in the wake of the Grimm Reality episode airing,” Holly said, directing her anger toward Missy. “You didn’t mention you wanted me—or him —to star in it.”

Missy opened her palms. “That’s because I knew you wouldn’t hear me out.”

Jeremy walked over to Holly, his expression soft and pleading. He took her hands in his and said so quietly that Connor could barely hear, “Give it some thought, Hols. You and I were so good together. It would be completely believable. We’d make enough money so that when the show was over we could support the orchards without worry, and the exposure would make me a shoo-in for the town council. It would be a win–win for both of us.”

Holy God, did Connor want to punch this guy in his face. Connor hadn’t missed the we that Jeremy had slipped in there. Jeremy and Holly had broken up six months ago, and Jeremy had moved on with a woman who treated Holly like dirt. Now, all of a sudden, when her orchards were going to be on national TV, he realized he wasn’t over her?

Connor had thought Jeremy’s longing for Holly was a case of the other man finally smartening up to what he’d lost, but in actuality his motives were pure selfishness. Jeremy didn’t want Holly because she was incredible and complex; he wanted her because she could boost his social currency.

Connor was seething, and it took him a full thirty seconds to realize he wasn’t just pissed at Jeremy for being a shitty human being—he was jealous . Connor didn’t do the jealousy thing—especially not over a woman he wasn’t even dating. For frigs sake, he and Holly had only kissed . He took a deep breath and focused on Holly’s reaction.

Holly was trembling when she pulled her hands from Jeremy’s, and her eyes were flashing with rage. At that moment thunder rumbled overhead—another evening storm. It must’ve been the daytime heat that was causing them. He’d rarely seen such volatile weather as he had over the past few days.

“Oh shit, Holly. Seriously?” Missy planted her hands on her hips. “This is a killer idea.”

“She doesn’t like it because I came up with it,” Amy said sulkily. “It’s not like it would be real. Jeremy is completely over her.” But the expression on her face said she wasn’t so sure about that.

Holly ignored Amy. “Missy, if you want to do the show so badly, you shack up with him.”

Raindrops appeared on the window and dribbled down the glass. The apple trees, which were in view out the window, waved in a long roll down the hill.

“Wait a minute.” Jeremy grabbed Holly’s hands again, and Connor fought the urge to knock them away. “I want you , Holly. We’re perfect for TV. We even have built-in conflict for the story arc: couples therapy! We’ll work on some of the problems you mentioned when we broke up for real. I could work on making you happier with … you know.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Amy glared at them from across the room, her eyes reflecting an open battle between greed and jealousy. She wanted the show and what it could do for her, but she hated that it meant her boyfriend would be spending so much time with his ex.

Jeremy continued, oblivious to the lancing stare of his girlfriend. “And you could work on not being so emotional. You could take a class!”

Connor thought Jeremy might be the dumbest man on earth.

Holly ripped her hands out of Jeremy’s for a second time. “The answer is no . No way, not ever, not in any universe. If this family wants to pitch a reality show, have at it. I’ve been outvoted about everything else, so you all might as well do this too. But I will not be taking part in it.”

Jeremy’s face darkened into something embarrassed and ugly. “Is it because of him?” he spat, jerking his chin in Connor’s direction. Connor gave him a wolfish smile, and that only made Jeremy’s cheeks redden further. “Are you worried he’d be jealous? Are you already fucking him?”

Connor’s smile faded.

Winter stiffened, and even Missy narrowed her eyes.

Everyone waited with bated breath to see what Holly would do. Damned if she didn’t surprise him when she very calmly said, “What I do or don’t do is none of your business any longer.” She strode to the living room door and shoved it open. “Sue me, Amy. I’d rather that than see the two of you ever again. Bye.”

Jeremy’s cheeks were puce when his eyes darted to Missy. “I’ll call you, Missy.”

Missy’s face could have been carved from stone. “Don’t bother.”

“Now wait just a minute! You can’t be angry with me. I have every right to know if she’s sleeping around like some slut.”

The windows rattled in their frames with a strong gust of wind at the same moment that Connor realized he’d had enough. He grabbed Jeremy by the front of his shirt and dragged him through the door. “She said bye ,” he growled as he shoved the stunned man down the hallway. He heard Amy’s heels clapping after them. “If she has to say it a second time, it’s going to be bad for you.”

Jeremy stumbled to a stop at the front door and straightened his tie while Amy squeezed past Connor to his side, her chin jutting with indignation. “You think you’ve won, Grimm,” Jeremy snarled, “but in a few weeks you’ll move on and I’ll still be here, biding my time. Eventually she’ll come around.” He glanced down at Amy and lamely added, “To doing the show.”

“Holly will make her own choices, but if I had to bet, I’d say you won’t be one of them.” Connor leaned forward so that only Jeremy could hear his next words. “And if you ever call her a slut again, I’ll knock your fucking teeth out.”

Connor took great satisfaction in slamming the door in Jeremy’s shocked face.