Page 25 of Chasing Your Ghost

Hugh looked at her with sad sea-blue eyes. “When she left you and your father, she was just a young and scared girl, barely older than you are now. I don’t know what happened between you that made you not want to see her anymore, but you should know that Edith was a complete wreck when your dad called her to tell her there would be no more visits. She was depressed and broken, but that didn’t stop her from calling your dad every second day to ask him how you were.”

Riley knew about the phone calls. Her dad had never hidden them from her.

“At dinner time, she would catch us all up on what was going on in your life. We heard about all the ballet competitions you danced in, she told us what grades you’d gotten on your report cards, what your favorite subjects were, even what your favorite color was. She printed every photograph your father sent of you and framed and hung up her favorites. She was so proud of you, and she found a way to still be part of your life, even if she couldn’t see you or speak to you.”

“You probably think I’m a heartless monster,” Riley replied quietly, her spoon slowly stirring her bowl of now limp and sad-looking Corn Flakes.

Hugh was shaking his head before she’d finished speaking, his blue eyes filled with such genuine sympathy and sadness that Riley had to look away. “That’s not true,” he insisted. “I understand why you’re angry and hurt. I only hope that you can see how much Edith loves you and find a way to forgive her.”

“We’ll see,” Riley replied, not wanting to give him too much hope but not wanting to seem like even more of a cold and unforgiving shrew by saying there wasn’t a chance in hell of that ever happening.

He looked at his watch and sighed. “I better get going, but we’ll be back in an hour or two.”

“No problem. I’ll probably have a swim while you’re out.”

“Okay, we’ll see you later then.”

He rushed out to join his wife and daughter in the car, and Riley listened as the engine turned on and the tires rolled down the driveway. She ate her breakfast, barely tasting the mush, and though she knew she should eat something more substantial, Riley went to the pool house and changed into her slightly damp swimsuit instead.

She pulled a white cover-up over it, put on her sunglasses, grabbed her book and a towel, and made herself comfortable on the same pool lounger she’d used the previous day. She’d managed to read two pages of the fantasy before the French doors of the main house opened.

Riley scratched the back of her tingling neck as Noah walked out with two other guys. The first would usually have grabbed all of Riley’s attention with his dimpled smile, his dirty blonde crew-cut-styled hair, and his ridiculously muscular arms, but it was the second one, with his jeans and white T-shirt, who stole all her focus.

It was the ghost she’d seen outside the house. The incredibly attractive one with the chiseled jawline and pale eyes. The one she might have thought about more than once since he’d vanished. Asher. It had to be.

The prickling at the back of her neck intensified as his eyes landed on her. Riley took off her sunglasses. As soon as the barrier was gone, the ghost frowned and stopped walking. He looked behind him, seeking an explanation as to why Riley was looking right at him, but with Noah and the other guy ahead of him and walking around the pool, nobody was there.

His eyes, now wide with shock and confusion, swung back to her. “Wait, can you see me?” he asked, the words holding such hope.

Riley nodded, the movement small enough to hopefully go unnoticed by the other two. The ghost—Asher, she assumed— laughed and shook his head in disbelief.

“You can see me,” he whispered, his voice catching with emotion.

Affected by his joy at being seen while also hating what it meant, Riley sent him a small and fragile smile. Though his soul lingered in this slightly translucent and gray-tinged form, Noah’s friend was dead, and Riley would have to be the one to help him cross over.

7

“Riley, this is my friend Chris,” Noah said, snapping her attention away from the ghost standing across the pool. “He’s starting at Georgetown in the fall too, and he’s on the football team with me.”

Hoping she hadn’t looked too demented, Riley blinked and pulled her gaze from Asher. She forced her eyes to settle on Noah and his flesh-and-blood friend, who were both now standing in front of her pool lounger. If they’d thought it weird that she’d been staring at nothing, they didn’t show it.

“Chris, this is my stepsister Riley,” Noah finished.

“Hi,” she said, getting off the lounger and moving to stand in front of them. This close, she could see Chris looked almost as haggard as Noah. He had bags under his eyes, but it was their redness that gave away how hard he’d been hit by the lack of news about his missing friend. “Nice to meet you.”

“Hey.” He tilted his chin at the unoccupied loungers beside her. “Mind if we join you?”

Riley stole another glance at Asher before focusing her full attention on her stepbrother and Chris. She had gotten far too much practice ignoring ghosts over the years until she could find a way to speak to them alone, and she told herself this could be no different, regardless of who Asher was to Noah. She sat back down on her lounger and stretched her pale legs in front of her.

“Oh, I mind terribly.” She punctuated her words with a grin to ensure they didn’t take her sarcasm seriously. “You’ll steal all my sun, and I just can’t have that when I’m trying to tan.”

“You’re right,” Noah agreed, making himself comfortable on the lounger beside hers. “The sun is bouncing so hard off your legs I nearly went blind. You obviously need the sun more than we do.”

Riley looked down at her legs. “I’m not even sure I possess the ability to tan.” She looked at Chris’s bulging, tanned arms and sighed. “You’re one of those annoying people who never burn, aren’t you? You just go all golden, never having to suffer through your skin going bright red before it starts peeling.”

He'd probably never had a freckle in his life, unlike Riley, whose cheeks and nose had a light dusting of them despite always wearing a moisturizer with SPF.

“Guilty as charged,” Chris replied with a dimpled smile as he lay down on the lounger next to Noah’s.

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