Page 19 of Ghost Note

This was the part where my whole world came crashing down around me, and I had no idea how to get out of this in one piece.

* * *

“Beechfield Park?”

“That’s what they said,” I told Gina after the girls had left the shop. I pressed my phone to my ear, and I chewed on my thumbnail.

“Okay, I’ll get Jackson to ride out.”

“We can’t keep using Jax.”

“If I’ve got to feed the kid and keep him alive, he can do me the odd favour here and there.”

She hung up not long after, and I slipped my phone back into my handbag and eyed the door. What if he came here? What if he challenged me, stepped over the threshold and told me he hated me for telling him he wasn’t welcome in Hope Cove?

The bell above the door rang out again, and I held my breath until Ben pushed through it with a smile on his face. I didn’t think about my next move—I rushed to him like he was a long-lost lover, and I curled my hands around his neck and buried my face in the curve of his shoulder before the door had even closed behind him.

“Damn,” he grunted, holding me tight. “Now that’s a warm welcome.”

I wanted to tell him to shut up and just hold me. I wanted to say that it wasn’t a welcome, it was a cry for help. But I couldn’t let him know that my weird outburst of affection had been brought on by my rotten ex, so I simply held him and had no response.

Ben must have sensed my mood because he didn’t say anything else. He rested his cheek against my head and held me until I was ready to pull back and look at him.

When I did, his amber eyes searched mine. “Sorry,” I offered.

“This have anything to do with the return of the rock star?” he asked with a raised brow. “The whole village is talking about him. There’s a stream of kids running over to the park as we speak.”

“There are?” I groaned, falling back on flat feet and peeling myself away from Ben.

“Yeah, he’s like the Pied Piper of Pubescents or some shit.”

I laughed at that, if only weakly, and I ran my hands through my long brown hair. “Well, I doubt he’ll be around for long. They may as well get the Danny Silver experience before he drifts off again.”

Ben opened his mouth to say something and obviously thought better of it as he smacked his lips together and smiled.

“What?” I raised a brow.

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “You just look a little…”

“If you say tired, I’m ending this thing with us right here, right now.”

Ben’s smile grew.

“What now?” I groaned again.

“That’s just the first time you’ve referred to us as a thing… of any kind.”

“Don’t turn girly on me, Ben.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He laughed before glancing outside to see another rush of girls tearing past the shop, screaming their cries for Danny’s band. When Ben turned back to me, he gestured to the outdoors. “Why don’t you shut up shop for an hour and let me take you for a walk? I have a feeling half the village is heading away from here anyway.”

“Sure.” I nodded, thinking it sounded like the best idea Ben had ever had.

“Maybe I can take you to the pub for a glass of wine, too.”

“I only swore against drinking an hour ago. Let’s take today one disaster at a time, huh?”

“Whatever mythingwants.”

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