Page 32 of Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places
A low groan rolled through the ceiling overhead, spreading out and down the walls of the dining room.
“That better be the fucking pipes,” Georgia angrily whispered.
Lucky stood up, grabbing her plate. “Thank you for breakfast, Maverick. Excuse me.” She hurried away from the table, dashing through the kitchen and out to the backyard, not stopping until she stood on a dirt path between two orange trees, breathing in and out, trying to calm down. It took thirty seconds longer than it should’ve for her to realize she’d made it to the orchard.
She spun in a circle looking around—she didn’t even have shoes on. “Shit.” Cold mud seeped through her thin socks and in between her toes. “Calm down, calm down,” she commanded. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. “Walk yourself through it.”
She remembered standing up. Excusing herself. Picking up her plate…and now she was outside. Half-empty plate and all.
How did it pull her outside? Every second of every day she’d felt the tug of the orchard but had compartmentalized it to measure the duration of her resistance. It must’ve had enough of her doing that and found another way in.
Was the orchard separate from the house? Or did Hennessee want her out here? She sniffed the air—grass, dirt, flowers, citrus, sweet-smelling fruits, and the faintest notes of peppermint. It was fading fast as if it were running away from her.
“Lucky, hey.” Maverick hustled toward her, breathing as ifhe’dbeen running. “There you are. Are you okay?”
“I don’t…know.” She hoped she didn’t look as bewildered as she felt. “But I think I’m going to stay? Out here? And do stuff?”
“Why are you barefoot?”
“I don’t know. Yet.”
Maverick sighed, then pressed his lips into a firm line. “What kind of stuff?”
“Gardening? Trimming bushes, I don’t know—oh, pet house!I’m going to build a pet house,” she said confidently. “There’s a cat somewhere. That’s what’s in the box. Cat supplies courtesy of Xander.”
“Are you going to build it right here?” he asked calmly.
“No?”
“Okay, how about we set you up near the gazebo, then?”
“Well, I—”
“Distance doesn’t make a difference,” he said, gently taking her plate from her. “Let me guess: You got upset and don’t remember walking out here?”
Her reading and translation had gone so well with Maverick, and yet she still landed right back in the dark place she’d shaken loose after college. She thought she’d be able to handle being treated like a shiny new toy, but no. The second they started interrogating her, she’d felt cornered again, rapidly losing control of the situation. She wanted people to believe her without forgetting she was still a person with feelings.
Lucky eyed him, wary. “How did you know that?”
“Because it’s happened before,” he said. “I think, and this is the only time I will ever admit to this, the house thought being out here would make you feel better. It did the same thing to the first caretaker, Bobbi, when she was crying. She got news that her guinea pig died. Old age.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s it,” she said. “When I first arrived, it felt like it was pulling me outside. I ignored it and—” She stopped because Maverick was nodding.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but that happens to everyone. Xander suggests thinking of it as the house being proud and wanting to show off its best feature. Come on.”
Lucky groaned as she followed him back to the house. “Rational explanations are the worst.”
“To be fair, it’s only half-rational. The house temporarily hijacked your body to lead you somewhere it thinks of as peaceful.”
“In comes Maverick with the silver lining. What would I do without you?”Shit.Why did she saythat?
He laughed. “Did it at least help? Are you feeling better?”
“Sure,” she lied.
“We’re used to working a certain way,” he said, apologetic. “I wouldn’t say we’re skeptics, I mean look where we’re at, but it’s not every day we meet someone like you. I’m sorry we got carried away.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I put myself in that situation by using a half-baked plan and leaving things too open-ended. I can’t blame other people for saying things they don’t know will upset me.”
