Page 34 of Spark
As she watched, Matt parked in front of Grandma Elle’s house and got out of the truck. He unloaded a big metal hay dolly from the back, lifting it effortlessly out of the truck bed, and she guessed that he’d just finished his morning chores.
She watched as he dragged the dolly up the road to the barn, thinking that his ass looked unbelievably hot in a completely unselfconscious way in those worn jeans he was wearing.
Sophie forced her attention back to the article displayed on her tablet. Even with the coffee, her eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, and her thoughts were foggy.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Matt’s voice startled her sometime later, and she nearly dropped her tablet.
He stood at the bottom of the porch steps, and she had to swallow hard at the sight of him.
Yep. He'd been doing chores. Nice, sweaty chores.
The parts of him that weren’t gleaming with perspiration were dusty. Bits of hay clung to his faded red t-shirt…which was tight enough that she could count every muscle in his wide chest and the six-pack on his stomach. His hazel eyes were shaded by a battered straw cowboy hat, but his smile was as genuine and warm as ever.
He always looks so glad to see me. I’ve never been invisible, not to him.
It was a disturbing realization.Great. Now I’m developing a crush on Matt, too? Because things aren’t already complicated enough?
“Oh, hi, Matt,” she managed. “Want some coffee?”
He took the porch steps in a single effortless bound, and landed with a hollow thump.
“I’d love some,” he replied, adding when she set aside her tablet and began to get to her feet, “No, you stay put. I know where everything is.”
“Okay,” she said, but he had already vanished inside the house.
Not that it mattered. It was a blessing—and occasionally a curse—when you had friends with super-hearing.
“How’s your investigation going over at Bearpaw Springs?” Matt asked a few minutes later, emerging from the house with a steaming mug in his hand.
He flopped down in the rocking chair next to hers and looked at her expectantly.
She caught him up on everything she had learned so far. He listened without interruption until she mentioned her unsuccessful attempt to interview Javier, and her subsequent conversation with Annika,
“I wonder…” Matt said slowly. “Do you think the haunting at the police station might be connected to the ghost at the Bearpaw Springs Resort? Silvio Ornelas killed himself in one of those basement cells, didn’t he?”
Until Matt mentioned it, Sophie hadn’t even considered the possibility. “Maybe,” she said. “But there’s no way to tell for sure.” She frowned down at her tablet. “But it would make a great addition to the story, that’s for sure.”
“Well, why don’t you try talking to the ghost?” Matt suggested.
Chapter Eleven
Sophie looked at Matt with incredulity. Is he teasing me?
But no, his expression was serious. And he wasn't the type to try to yank someone’s chain, not like Chris.
“Are you serious?” she asked, just to make sure.
“Yeah.” Matt looked surprised. “I mean, if you can see ghosts, maybe you can communicate with them. You said that the thing that attacked Javier acted like it heard you when you told it to stop, right?”
He was right. And she liked it that he’d really been listening to her, instead of just smiling and nodding.
Sophie nodded. “I don’t know if it would work, but I could try,” she said, slowly.
Since developing her strange ability, she’d been trying to hide it—and also ignore the disquieting apparitions she spotted from time to time. She’d never actually tried to see a ghost on purpose, much less talk to one.
“Ask Mary. I’m sure she’d let you take a look at the cell,” Matt said, sounding eager.
“Um.” Sophie thought about marching into the police station and asking the town’s police chief whether she could go ghost-hunting there. The thought made her cringe inside.
