Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Connor’s interview of Lionel Hardy had been a bust. The man had been vague in his recollections of the ghost at Wicked Good Apples, and every time Connor had asked him a deeper question, he’d deflected so that the footage had been all but useless.

Charlotte had chosen to ride back with the van crew so she could look over some of the video, and Connor was following behind in his truck when his phone lit up with an unknown Maine number.

“Hello?”

“Connor!” a woman shouted. It was noisy wherever she was, music and voices crowding together in the background. “It’s Missy!”

“Hey, Missy.” He switched the phone to Bluetooth and rested one hand on top of the wheel. He’d given all the Celeste women his number, but Missy was the first to use it. “Is everything all right?”

“Better than all right!” she yelled. She sounded drunk as hell. “I’m at a party with someone who has the best ghost story about my orchards. Jenny—what’s your name?” A voice mumbled and Missy said, “Jenny Cole! Never met her before, but she seems nice and she’s sooooo pretty. I bet she’d look amazing on camera! I texted Winter and told her all about it, and she was like, ‘You should call Connor right now ,’ and so I was like, ‘Okay!’”

Connor grinned. “That’s great, Missy. It’s pretty late, though. How about you text me Jenny’s number, and I’ll get in touch with her tomorrow.”

“Ugh, Connor, you’re missing out now !” Missy whined. “What?” Her voice faded as she talked to someone next to her. “No, I don’t … I don’t know where Holly is. She went outside a while ago.” Her voice returned to the receiver, louder this time. “Connor, are you still there?”

Holly was at the party? For some reason he was surprised. In the short time he’d known her, she’d seemed like a content-at-home sort of person, but for all he knew she could be attending weekly bong bashes. Missy’s other comment, not meant for him, stuck in his head. Holly had gone outside “a while ago” in this weather? Alone? Rain dribbled down his windshield, and the branches of the trees lining the road bounced up and down in the wind.

“Give me the address.”

Ten minutes later he pulled into the dirt driveway of a fancy house decorated with white lights and packed with cars pulled onto the lawn. This was definitely the place.

He jumped out of his truck as thunder rumbled overhead and lightning flashed across the sky, momentarily illuminating the dock down an embankment. When Connor spotted the abandoned pair of heels and purse, his heart twisted with savage fear. He sprinted toward the embankment and slid down, coating his jeans and boots with mud.

Where was she? Had she fallen in the water? Had someone hurt her?

Connor scanned the water and spotted a woman half submerged in the black liquid. Not just any woman—Holly. She was carrying something small and trembling in her arms; her wet hair was clinging to her neck, and her eyes were round with fear as thunder vibrated the very air.

Connor shouted for her, but she didn’t hear over the thunder and what sounded like a freight train of wind tunneling down the center of the pond. His skin prickled when she held out her arms and the wind lifted the dog from her hands and carried him to shore, setting him gently on the grass near Connor’s feet.

Buzzing awareness zipped through his bloodstream as he dragged his stunned gaze from the dog to Holly. Carefully controlled hurricane-force winds simply didn’t exist—at least not in the natural word.

Their eyes met and held. Emotions swirled in her gaze, but before he could get a solid read on her expression, lighting struck with frightening violence, searing through the post of the dock as if it were slicing through butter.

The scent of burnt wood stung his nose as the post toppled straight onto Holly.

“HOLLY!” he roared, and plunged into the icy water. Silt sucked at his boots as he splashed up to his waist, inhaled, and dived under.

Panic. Pure, vein-freezing panic. Connor had never felt anything like it as his hands pushed against the velvety water, searching and seeking and not finding her body. His lungs were burning, and he was going to have to lift his head for air when his fingers brushed against the skin of her bare arm.

He grabbed her above her elbow and hauled her upward, her wet hair gliding across his arm until they broke through the surface. She started coughing immediately, and he lifted her into his arms and cradled her to his chest, water dripping in streams from her saturated dress.

Their exit from the water was treacherous and slow as his boots slipped on rocks and sank into the muddy bottom of the pond. It felt as if the pond had wet, grasping fingers that were reluctant to let them leave. At last he managed to carry her out of the water and onto the slick grass slope of the embankment.

He gently laid her on the ground and knelt over her, brushing her hair aside. She was coughing and retching up water, but after a moment she rolled to her back and opened her eyes. “Bad timing for a swim?”

“You scared the shit out of me, Holly! Are you all right?” He probed her temple with his fingertips, feeling for a wound. “Where were you hit?”

“My shoulder,” she said hoarsely. His hand dropped lower, and she flinched when he found the spot, but to the best of his quick assessment, it didn’t look like anything was bleeding or broken, only tender. “The post dragged me under for a few seconds.”

“You almost drowned.” He knew he sounded angry, but there was no helping it. His heart was still hammering against his ribcage like a mallet. “What were you doing out there in the middle of a frigging thunderstorm?”

She struggled to sit, and Connor helped her up. She wrapped her arms around her knees and pointed her chin down to the dog. Connor had completely forgotten about the little fur ball. The puppy had inched closer, still shivering, and was now sitting curled into her side. Her hand moved to rest protectively on his head. “He was stuck on a rock in the water.”

She refused to meet his gaze as they both silently remembered what he’d seen.

“We need to get you to the hospital.”

“No. Honestly, Connor, I’m fine. I just want to go home.”

Right. Because the Celestes had never seen a doctor. Never been to a hospital. What magical cure waited for her at home?

A myriad of emotions fought for space in his brain: worry that she’d been hit too hard, utter relief that he’d been there to drag her out of the water, confusion about what he’d witnessed, and pure gratitude that he’d been driving close by when Missy called.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

The sky continued to weep, the rain dribbling down her cheeks and dripping off the ends of her hair. She was shivering nonstop, so Connor pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her. Her skin was ice-cold, and she smelled of pond water and Christmas.

“We’ll talk when you’re dry. Come on. I have clothes in my truck—a benefit to always being on the road.”

She pulled out of his arms and scooped up the puppy. “We can’t leave him.”

“No, we can’t.”

When they reached his truck, he opened the passenger door, and she gratefully slid inside. He rounded the hood, started the ignition, and turned the heat on high. Once the air was blowing full force, he rummaged in the rear seat for the backpack he always had on hand. In his line of work, he never knew when he was going to need a change of clothes, a toothbrush, or a flashlight.

He fished out a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that, although too big for her, were infinitely better than the sopping wet dress plastered to her body. He handed them to her and said gruffly, “I’ll look away.”

Holly situated the dog on the leather seat beside her and took the dry clothes from him. “I need you to unzip my dress.”

He silently groaned. Of course she did.

She turned her back to him and pulled her hair over one shoulder, baring a smooth, braless back in a little black dress that didn’t leave a lot to the imagination.

Connor tugged on the zipper tab that ran from her lower back to the top of her ass, the black fabric parting to reveal a lacy pair of panties.

He was being tortured, he thought. It was the only explanation.

“Thank you,” Holly said through chattering teeth. “You’re soaking wet too. I’ll be fine. You should take the dry clothes.”

Connor glared at her. “That’s not happening. Do you need help taking your dress off?” He half hoped she did, half hoped she didn’t.

She shook her head, and he turned away to stare out the window. There was a wet slap as her dress hit the floor, and he tried not to imagine how she looked right then: full breasts, tight nipples, a soft belly and curvy hips—all of her bare and a mere two feet away from him. Connor pressed his forehead to the cool glass. He wasn’t doing a very good job of not picturing her.

After a minute she said, “You’re safe.”

Not by a long shot. He turned and felt a stab of satisfaction at seeing her dressed in his clothes. The black T-shirt practically hung off her, as did the navy sweats, but she’d rolled the waistband to make them fit somewhat better. She’d rubbed off the smudged makeup, and her hair hung in ropes over her shoulders, wetting patches of the T-shirt. Even though she was wearing dry clothes, she was still shivering, and her cheeks were nearly bloodless.

Connor took her hands between his and rubbed them to warm them up.

“I think the dog has an owner,” she said. “I felt a collar.”

He brought her hands to his mouth and blew on them. “I’ll look in a minute.” The blue dashboard lights illuminated the frown line that had formed between her brows when he accidentally grazed her palms with his lips. “Want me to take you home?”

“Yes, but let me text Missy first so she doesn’t worry.” She withdrew her hands and patted the pockets of the sweatpants, only to realize her phone and whatever else she’d brought with her were still on the dock. “Shit.”

“I’ll text her, and then I’ll grab your stuff.”

By the time he returned, Missy was standing outside the truck, her head stuck through the window while she talked to Holly and rubbed the dog’s head. They were exchanging furious whispers, and Connor was one hundred percent certain they were discussing what he’d seen at the pond.

When he approached, Missy gave him a bright smile and pulled the pup through the window. “His collar says he belongs to Mike, my friend who owns the house. I’m taking this puppy inside and finding him a warm bed and ripping Mike a new one for not keeping an eye on him.”

“Do you want to come home with us after?” Holly asked, somewhat desperately he thought.

Missy gave Holly a long look. Connor could smell the rum on her breath from where he stood. “No, I don’t think I should.”

Holly glared at her, but Missy was already backing away with the puppy curled on her chest. “Text me if you need me,” she said to Holly in a singsong voice.

Connor climbed behind the wheel, and once Missy was safely inside the house with the puppy, he put the truck in reverse and backed out of the driveway onto the road.

The only sounds were the pattering of rain, the swipe of windshield wipers, and the low hum of the engine. After several minutes Connor said, “I was headed home from an interview when Missy called. She said there was a woman at the party who’d seen the ghost at Wicked Good Apples.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

As casually as he could manage he said, “That hurricane gust of wind that carried the dog to shore was pretty strange, wouldn’t you say?”

“So freakish. The weather guy did say that strong gusts of wind were likely this evening.”

He glanced at her in the glow of the dashboard lights, and she smiled at him as if he hadn’t just witnessed magic.