Page 111 of It'll Always Be Her

“What for?”

“Just to…make sure.” Bee grabbed her underwear from the floor and started to get dressed. She glanced at the clock. It was 12:23 a.m., so Halloween was over.

A few minutes later, they walked back up the hill to the library. In their haste to get outside, Bee had left the front door unlocked. Adam pulled it open and waited for her to enter before he followed her inside.

At first, she didn’t sense anything different. All was exactly as she’d left it—neatly shelved books, Halloween decorations, Puffalump…not in his bed.

Bee walked upstairs to the mezzanine, skimming her gaze over the sofa where Adam had first kissed her and the history section where the camera had caught the slight movement of Captain Marcus’s ghost.

She felt Adam behind her as she turned to climb the narrow staircase back to the cupola. He was quiet, as if he, too, was wondering if anything had changed.

Puffalump was in the cupola, padding around the base of the telescope, his tail swishing and green eyes gleaming in the light. He cast them a superior glance before resuming his explorations.

Bee stepped into the room. The air was still and silent. Even the skeletal trees and evergreens outside the windows seemed motionless. The moon hovered on the horizon, half concealed behind a thick wall of encroaching clouds.

The telescope was directed toward the lighthouse. She turned it back to the boardwalk and peered through the eyehole. The ocean current flowed across the lens, and cloud shadows moved over the pier, but everything else was static.

She pulled away from the telescope and turned to the display of nautical instruments, the sailor’s chest, and the shelves filled with Captain Marcus’s books, shaving kit, and pipe.

She opened the case and took out the pipe, The smooth weight nestled into her hand like…an old pipe.

She bent her head and sniffed the bowl, anticipating the fragrant scent of tobacco, but no. Just dust and old wood.

Slowly, she set the pipe back on the stand and closed the cabinet doors. Adam had stopped at the doorway, but she felt his gaze following her. As if he knew why she’d needed to come back here.

“He’s gone.” She turned to look at the painting of the captain that had watched over the house for so long.

“That was the point, wasn’t it?” Adam stepped into the room. “You wanted to give him closure. To set him free.”

Bee nodded, though her throat tightened. “I didn’t think about what that would actually mean. That setting him free meant he wouldn’t be here anymore. That he’d never wanted to be…at least, not after he died.”

The captain looked back at her from his portrait—proud and handsome, his twinkling brown eyes warm and…grateful? No, she was projecting her own wishes onto the painting.

But maybe he was grateful. After all, she’d done what she’d intended to do. She’d read all the signs correctly. She and Adam had reunited Captain Marcus with his long-lost love and set them both free.

It was her fault that she hadn’t realized giving the ghosts their freedom meant she’d be left alone again.

She pulled her gaze from the painting and looked at Adam. He was bending to scratch Puffalump behind the ears, and the cat was twining around his legs.

But she wasn’t alone, was she? Not anymore.

He glanced up, a crease appearing between his eyebrows. “Are you okay?”

A smile started deep inside her, spreading through her body like sunshine before reaching her mouth. “We need to delete the video.”

Adam straightened and shook his head as if he hadn’t heard her right. “After we send it?”

“No.” Bee hurried toward him and reached out to take his hands in hers. “Now. I don’t want anyone to see it.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because he’s gone.” She waved her hand at the portrait. “They’re gone. Captain Marcus didn’t even want to stay here. He loved this house, I’m sure, just like I do, but he also wanted to move on. He loved adventure and change. You were right. He was trapped here because he was clinging to what he’d lost. So was Millicent. But in being reunited, in finding what they’d both lost, they were finally able to let go of the past and move toward a new future. Which, in their case, was another plane of existence or something, but in my case”—her heart thumped against her chest—“inourcase, it’s a whole other life right here. Right now.”

Adam stared at her. “But what about the library? If the show and people in Bliss Cove don’t see the video, they won’t know that the ghosts are real. That they were here. And the producers will cave to Clyde’s demands and say the library was a hoax…and then no one will care. You won’t get any publicity or amateur ghost hunters or Halloween tourists.”

“Exactly.”

“Bee. You’ll lose the library.”

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