Page 83 of Broken Bonds

“Exactly. I’m going to be the best auntie there ever was. You’ll see.”

I shake my head and smile, and she turns the radio back up, a new 90s hiphop playlist rolling this time.

* * *

Our trip continues without a hitch, and we have a blast. We visit a few of the more well-known, popular ghost towns, but we also search out the ones that are less known.

Each place we visit is more interesting than the last, and I love that stepping back into time feeling. It’s magical, and yeah, a little creepy in some of the places because a lot seem to have a famous ghost story attached to them.

Our last stop before we make our way back home is actually a place close to Crystalwood. About an hour and a half out from our lively little city sits Lovelace, a town that, like all the others, was once bustling. Founded by Martin, Travis, Michael, and Corinne Lovelace, a pack of alpha oil tycoons and their omega. They brought the town to life when they settled in the area and struck oil in 1874.

It used to boast everything from a town doctor’s clinic to saloons and general stores. When the oil dried up sometime between 1890 and the early 1900s, the Lovelace’s abandoned the town, leaving the locals to fend for themselves. Most followed their founders’ lead and abandoned the town as well. The few who stayed suffered until the bitter end, refusing to give up on their homes.

It’s said that you can still see some of the residents that stayed behind in the windows of their homes or walking the road through town.

Surprisingly, Lovelace isn’t owned by anyone now. It’s just been left to wither away, and few really know about it. Maybe a few amateur ghost hunters here and there, but that’s about it. As it’s public property now, anyone can come out here, but since it’s rarely ever talked about, it’s mostly been forgotten.

Despite being abandoned, the structures throughout the town are still in mostly good condition.

We walk through one of the saloons first, and in my head, and I imagine what it must have looked like in its glory days. What’s left of the original furniture is still scattered about, the lace curtains on the windows moth eaten and dirty. An old piano that’s falling apart and missing most of its keys sits in a corner. Dust and debris cover the floor and other surfaces on this level, and I feel a shiver run down my spine as we stand in the center of the room. I’d swear I can hear lively laughter and upbeat piano music, but that’s silly.

Jillian and I look at each other, mirroring expressions on our faces.

“Do you hear that?” she whispers, eyes wide.

I swallow and nod, my hand going to my belly instinctively as a nervous jitter courses through my veins.

“Let’s get the hell out of this one,” she says, and pulls me along with her back outside.

I’m a bit slower thanks to not being able to even see my damn feet, but whatever. I waddle my ass as fast as I can out of that saloon. I didn’t sign up for a haunting this trip. I’ve already got a few alphas haunting my dreams back home. Anyone new at this stage in my pregnancy just won’t go well. That’s at least got to wait until I get these babies out of me.

“Fucking creepy,” Jillian says with a shudder, and I have to agree with her.

“Do you want to keep going or should we call it and get back home?” she asks after a few minutes.

“What? No way! This is our last stop and I’m not missing out on checking this place out just because of some… noises,” I say, ending my speech with a strangled sound.

She sighs and shrugs.

“Whatever you say, but if I think you’re going to pop a kid out in the middle of an abandoned building, I’m throwing you over my shoulder and carting you out of here as fast as my little string beans can carry you,” she warns, narrowing her eyes and pointing a finger in my face.

I laugh.

“Jilly, there’s no way you could lift one of my ass cheeks at this point, much less my whole body. But I’d fucking pay to see you try.”

She rolls her eyes, and with the mood lightened, we carry on. We visit the clinic next, though it’s barely standing by now, with holes in the roof and sagging walls. Luckily, there’s no more paranormal activity —or whatever the hell that was in the saloon— as we make our way through the town.

Tucked away from everything else in the town, we find Dollhouse Manor that looks to be in better shape than all the others, and grin like children as we step past the white fence that surrounds the front of the house. It’s bigger than all the houses in Lovelace, which leads me to believe it belonged to the Lovelace’s themselves.

The outside is painted a light gray with black trim and a black roof. More windows than I could count adorn the entire house, I’d assume to allow for natural light to get in. All of them are arched and some of the ones upstairs look to have colored glass in them. The front of the house boasts a covered porch and above it is a balcony of the same size that must go to the master bedroom.

When we step inside, our footsteps echo around the empty home as I note beautiful hardwood floors covered by layers of dust.

“Oh, this place has hidden secrets. I can feel it,” Jillian says, her excitement bubbling over.

“Let’s find them,” I tell her, her enthusiasm bleeding over into me.

We search downstairs first but come up empty in all the rooms we find. What once was expensive wallpaper has peeled on most of the walls, and some rooms have obvious water damage on the walls and ceilings. The original wood floors that span the entire house have probably seen better days, but look to still be in good enough condition they could probably be repaired.

---