Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

W hen had things become so damned complicated?

Connor had come to Wicked Good Apples knowing that at worst he would leave with a killer episode on the councilman, and at best he would shoot his show into the next echelon by proving the paranormal existed beyond ghosts.

Now that he knew his suspicions about Holly and her family were right and that the photo he’d been sent of Aunt Daisy was almost certainly real, he should have been chomping at the bit to tear their secret wide open.

So why was he suddenly unsure if it was the right thing to do?

Connor had chosen this place to make a splash, to prove once and for all that the paranormal was real, and everyone who’d ever experienced it was not only normal but vindicated . Was he really going to throw away the chance to change so many lives over vague guilt about sharing a secret that wasn’t his? Since when had he ever let that stop him?

Connor was a storyteller at heart. That was what he’d come here to do, and damn it all, that was what he was going to do.

As for his relationship with Holly—she’d told him she wanted to cool things down, and he couldn’t really blame her. Like Charlotte had said, he was a relationship no-go. He was completely fine with keeping it professional from here on out.

Okay, so he might have lain awake thinking of the terror he’d felt when he saw her slip under that murky water, and then later he might have tossed and turned remembering how she’d looked in his clothes with all those soft, sweet curves hidden underneath, but all that proved was that it had been a while since he’d had sex, not that he had feelings or anything.

Everything was good. Everything was on track. She was right to pull back; it would make it easier for him to do what needed to be done.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this distracted,” Charlotte said, waving a stack of papers in front of his face.

Connor jerked to attention. “Did you say something?”

“Yeah, I asked if you got the shots you wanted.”

He’d spent the morning with his film crew taking video footage of the apple farm that would later be spliced into the program. He’d even brought them up to the attic, with Holly’s permission, where he’d filmed a monologue as he sorted through the old journals. One of the journals had been missing, and he suspected he knew who’d taken it. But why remove a blank journal?

“Yeah, I did,” he said.

After he’d finished filming, he’d spent the early afternoon compiling research and coordinating interviews. His crew was coming back at eight to set up lighting and cameras for the night portion with the electromagnetic field detector. The EMF reader was mostly for show—he doubted the councilman would appear on demand—but the apple orchards would be the perfect spooky backdrop for the theatrics. It was supposed to be a clear night with a full moon.

Restless and needing to stretch his legs, Connor dropped his notes on the small table in the trailer and stood. “I’m going to head over to the house and invite the Celestes to the filming tonight.”

Charlotte was chewing on a pen cap as she rifled through unofficial records of birth and genealogy charts dating from the 1800s, compiling all the Marys that had lived near Autumn and in the surrounding towns. She waved him away, and Connor escaped the confines of the trailer, relieved to breathe in the flower-drenched May air. The sky overhead was a rare seamless blue, leading him to believe the weather reports promising a clear night. Most of the apple trees were flush with shades of green, the leaves tender and new, the buds beginning to form into juicy fruit. Wicked Good Apples was truly a hidden gem.

A light breeze ruffled his hair as he took the steps to the porch. One of the boards gave, and he halted, remembering that he’d planned to fix them, and turned back to his truck. He lifted a toolbox from the truck bed and got to work shoring up the steps. He had a nail in his mouth and was kneeling on the ground, hammering a second nail into the board, when a prickling sensation on the back of his neck told him he wasn’t alone. He glanced up and found Holly leaning her forearms on the porch railing, watching him. Her hands were clasped together, the sunlight glinting off multiple rings on her fingers. She was in her usual uniform of jeans and a tank top, but she’d layered a blue plaid on top to combat the slight chill.

Connor brushed the hair out of his eyes and spit out the nail. “How are you feeling? Does your shoulder hurt?”

“It’s a little tender, but otherwise I’m fine. Fixing the steps was on Winter’s list,” she said, nodding to the boards.

“Well, now she can cross it off.”

Holly studied him, her expression pensive, but she didn’t say anything else while he worked. He finished hammering in the last nail and stood and stretched. “Anything on your mind?”

“Maybe.”

“Want to talk?” Connor ascended the steps and prowled toward her. She smelled like her usual Christmas scent and something sweeter beneath it, like cocoa-scented lotion.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

He halted before he reached her and forced himself to cross his arms over his chest and lean against the railing when what he really wanted to do was tug her close and taste her mouth again. “You smell nice.”

“You smell like sweat. And spice.”

“Is that bad?”

“I wish it was,” she muttered.

He reached forward and traced the thin gold chain around her neck. A crystal pendant hung at the end, snug between her breasts, as dark as midnight and polished to a shine. He hooked his finger under the chain and lifted it so that the pendant dangled from his fingers. “What is this?”

“Onyx,” she answered, her gaze falling to the gem. “It represents strength and self-control.”

“It must work, because you have boatloads of those.”

She gently pulled the chain from his grasp. “How so?”

“You keep this farm going and the family together, and you protect everyone. You never relax, never let go.”

“You don’t know that,” she said, tucking the stone back into her shirt.

“I know more about you than you realize.”

“You only think you do.”

“Oh yeah?” He arched a brow. “I know you love animals and books and apples. I know you’d sacrifice anything for this apple farm and your family. I know that you drink a ton of coffee, and you have vicious migraines after you control the weather.”

The color drained from Holly’s cheeks, and he knew he’d hit a nerve. After he’d tossed and turned into the wee hours of the morning fantasizing about her curves, his thoughts had turned to what he’d seen at the dock. Then he’d remembered the sudden rainstorms and freak gusts of wind that had hit the apple farm over the last few days, and he’d jumped out of bed to chart each instance of unpredictable weather and what Holly had been doing at the time.

It had been pouring the day she’d unhappily signed the contract, but he had no way of knowing if she’d suffered a migraine that night.

There had been a freak rainstorm the first day they’d been together in the orchard and he’d called her a witch. Later she’d had a migraine.

The wind had been wild enough to blow apple blossoms off trees and rattle the windows the day Jeremy had suggested the couple reality show. Again, she’d had a migraine.

She’d moved the puppy last night and had been rubbing her temples before he left her room. Based on the evidence, he’d concluded that somehow her power made her ill.

He’d been writing his list by the white light of a camping lamp when he’d thought of the secrets they’d shared in the attic before their first kiss. Holly had told him she’d been home crying and wildly upset the day her mother had died in a car accident after a storm tore through and her mother lost control of the car. Holly had claimed to have killed her mother, and now he understood what she meant. At the terrible realization, his heart had broken for the little girl Holly had been and what had clearly been an accident. He’d wanted to climb into bed with her and wrap her in his arms and comfort her for what she’d been through, for the guilt she’d held onto her entire life. But he hadn’t.

Instead, he’d found his notes about the strange happenings at Wicked Good Apples. There had been accounts of rain during dry summers and then dry grounds during floods. Was that because of Holly? What about the rest of the odd occurrences? The disease-free apples? The cider so good it was almost sinful? Did Aunt Daisy have anything to do with that, with her black smoke over the barrel of apples?

Holly didn’t say a word to him. She simply turned on her heel and walked inside, letting the screen door slam behind her.

Connor cursed and let her go. This was for the best. He’d been getting too close to her, so close that he’d begun to question his judgment. His show came first. It had always come first and it always would.

The trailer door banged open in the distance, and Charlotte stuck her head out and howled, “I think I found Mary!”