Page 55 of Tangled Up In You

"Right now, my baby is this inn," Lizzie said. "But one day, I hope to have a couple of kids. I grew up in a big, loving family, and I want to create that with Justin. I also have to admit that Chelsea getting pregnant has made me want to speed up the timetable. I'm starting to get baby fever."

"You should speed up," Chelsea said. "It would be great to have kids close in age."

"We'll see," Lizzie said. "What about you, Gianna?"

"I'm still working on being a good stepmother to Hailey," Gianna replied. "But Zach and I have been talking about it. We both feel good about where we are right now and we would like to give Hailey a sibling, so maybe this time next year I will not be drinking the wine. But in the meantime, I have a design business to manage. I never thought working from Whisper Lake could be so lucrative. I thought I would miss out by not being in LA or in another big city, but it turns out that it doesn't matter where I am."

"Speaking of your design business," she cut in. "I have a teenager who's helping me with computer stuff, and he's come up with a template for a website, but he would love some input on design. It sounds like you don't have time, but—"

"I can make time," Gianna interrupted. "For my friends."

"I wouldn't ask you to do much, just an opinion or a few suggestions. He's good at building all the background stuff but isn't as confident about the look. I want the store to feel like it's a version of both me and Phoebe."

"That makes sense," Gianna said. "But what do you mean exactly?"

She had to think for a moment. "Phoebe was this wild, eccentric, quirky woman who was bigger than life, with her red hair and her mystical ways, and I'm not that. I believe in wellness products that create harmony between the mind and the body, but I'm certainly not a witch. I won't be reading tarot cards or tea leaves, and I definitely won't be having séances in the store like she used to do."

"The séances!" Hannah snapped her fingers. "We went to one with you, Molly."

"I didn't go," Gianna said.

"Well, I don't know where you were," Hannah continued. "But I was there with Molly."

"And me," Chloe put in. "I was a little terrified of what was going to happen."

"What did happen?" Lizzie asked with interest.

"There was a really cold breeze." Hannah's eyes lit up with the memory. "We were sitting around the table in Phoebe's back room. It was the three of us and Genevieve Robinson and her sister Julie."

The scene flashed through Molly's head. "That's right. Genevieve and Julie wanted to contact their father, who had passed away when they were children."

"What happened?" Lizzie asked. "Did the spirits speak to you?"

"There was an odd breeze," Chloe said, echoing Hannah's earlier remark. "It was weird because the windows were closed. But we all felt it. I remember shivering."

"Me, too, and I didn't even think I believed in that stuff," Hannah said.

"It was strange," Molly added. "It was cold and then it was hot. I almost wondered if Phoebe had played with the temperature controls to make it feel different. But she never got up from her chair."

"She had a faraway look in her eyes," Chloe continued. "Like she could see into another world."

"Did the other world talk back?" Chelsea asked impatiently.

Molly smiled at the rapt interest on the faces of those who had not been there. "Phoebe closed her eyes and then she opened them and looked straight at Genevieve. She said her father was there, and he was worried about his girls. He wanted them to stop hiding things from their mother."

"That's right," Chloe said. "Then Julie cried and told Genevieve they should have told Mom."

"We still didn't know what they were talking about," Hannah said.

"Genevieve looked at Phoebe in shock and wonder," Molly continued. "She asked Phoebe to tell her dad that she was sorry, that she wouldn't take the car again without asking first. Phoebe closed her eyes and mumbled a bit, and then she looked back at Genevieve and said he knows, and he loves you and your sister very much."

"Do you think Phoebe was just guessing that they'd done something like that?" Lizzie asked.

"Hard to say. But clearly they had kept a secret from their mom."

"Looking back, though," Hannah continued, "it seems like an obvious thing—that a teenager might keep something from her mom. Phoebe could have just been guessing."

"Maybe," she agreed. "But after you all left, I cleaned up our snacks, and Phoebe sat at the table for a long while. She had her eyes closed, but her lips were moving ever so slightly, like she was talking to someone. It was the strangest thing. And then she got a call on her phone. It only vibrated, but it seemed so loud. She opened her eyes and smiled. She answered the call and said, 'Caroline. I was just thinking about you.'"

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