Page 1 of Road Trip With the Ghost Hunter

CHAPTER ONE

Li

My hands shook, gripping the steering wheel as I backed my old, chipped beige Nissan onto the street of my childhood. Lining up the car to go, I kept my foot on the brake, feeling incapable of leaving. My vision blurred with hot tears, but even without clear vision, I knew every detail of my lao lao’s home.

The yellow siding with pale blue window shutters that once housed homemade flower boxes we planted every spring and summer. The third front porch step up that always creaked, no matter how many times I carefully snuck back home after curfew. Even the scent of lao lao’s lotus mooncakes, she tried helping me perfect every fall since I was a teen, but for the life of me, I always managed to not clean out all the lotus seeds. I swear, I picked out every green center. But once baked, I couldn’t deny that I missed some of the bitterness from the aftertaste.

The warm streams on my cheeks ran down my chin, splashing on my worn, oversized sweater. My eyes shifted to the red letters:SOLD. Losing both parents at seventeen was a formative experience that led to moving in with my grandmother, my lao lao. Losing paw paw to the war, I only ever knew her. Now, at twenty-nine, life threw me into the dark once more.

“Love you,” I whispered, lifting my foot from the pedal and letting the car roll away, knowing I’ll never return here again.

My breath stuttered as I sucked back the sobs that threatened to wrack my body. I had a twenty-hour drive to Rustic Junction, Colorado. It was going to be long, lonely, and rural, meaning I couldn’t break down. I needed to focus and safely leave Tennessee toward–I immediately stopped that train of thought. My hands squeezed the steering wheel even tighter, causing the leather to give a dull squeak.

I had nowhere to go.

I had to sell the only home I’d known since losing my parents to cover lao lao’s medical bills which the insurance wouldn’t cover. I couldn’t even save her antique shop, which I passed just then. No longer hers, but now a comic book shop. How easily a life gets snuffed from this earth, and the world moves on.

Should I have tried harder to keep the shop and her house?

I tried. Damn it, I freaking tried.

Once my grandmother got sick, she needed round the clock care for those last two years. I thought…I thought if I took good care of her, gave her my best, she’d stay.

At the stoplight before the gas station on the corner of Maple Street, I closed my eyes at the red and tried to slow the rhythm of my breath.

“Get it together, Li,” I whispered a forceful chastise.

Swiping at my cheeks and eyes, I inhaled deeply and turned left once the light turned green, pulling into Benny’s station and mechanic garage. I parked on pump three but took a minute to look out the windshield as another memory took over.

“What’s the rule?” lao lao Fang asked my fourteen year old self.When my parents’ traveled—which was often for business—I’d stay a week or two here.

“Just one,” I answered, skipping over to the aisles inside the gas station.

My lao lao closed her antique shop the first three days of every week. Her business mostly attracted the weekend tourists. So, for those three days off, she’d pack up the car and take us on a road trip. It was never extravagant, and it never had to be too long a distance. She loved exploring new spots, be it an hour from home or five. She’d spend all Sunday cooking and prepping Chinese foods and snacks that traveled well while Lindy, the freshman in college, worked the last shift at the shop.

Once set to hit the road, we’d always stop at Benny’s gas station, and she’d say,“You’re allowed one American treat. Just one,” she pointed her finger at me.Her tone was stern, but the softness around her warm, brown eyes made me grin as I gave a resolute nod and ran inside to dance in the aisles, grazing my fingertips over the endless options I wasn’t usually allowed to indulge in.

“You’re Chinese American, my Li Li but if I don’t help you stay true to your roots, the American part of you will snuff out thousands of years of history and ancestors that are one with your soul.”lao lao only moved to America when my mother got pregnant with me at twenty. My dad worked, and as they say, it takes a village. Lao lao Fang was a proud Chinese woman, but a modern one at that. I admired the hell out of her.

I missed the hell out of her.

My body jolted at a loud horn from a car in the mechanic bay.

“Just one,” I whispered as I got out of my car and slung my crossbody bag she crocheted over my sweater.

Knowing I wanted sour gummies and exactly where they were—back aisle by the sodas—I headed straight there, taking in the familiar smells of stale coffee brewing, fried foods rotating on the hot top, and motor oil drifting from next door, Benny’s attached garage.

“Yeah, man. I’m in Tennessee, two hours from Missouri. Gonna drive through the night.”

The voice was deep but smooth. Why this man’s particular voice practically stopped me in my tracks, I couldn’t say, but somehow, some-freaking-how, I knew he was going to be gorgeous. Turning the corner, I almost rolled my eyes. First, of course, he was standing exactly where I needed to go for my sour fix. And two? My breath caught at the massive, beautiful Viking of a man. Focused on the candies before him, he continued his conversation on his cell.

“Bjorn, I hear you. I do. But,” he paused, his brow furrowing. “I gotta do this,” he finished softly, almost as if he hated admitting that to whoever this Bjorn person was.

His eyes flicked right, catching my wide ones because, of course, I was just standing in the middle of the aisle like a goober who totally got caught eavesdropping on his phone call.

Wow. Those frosted blue eyes were hypnotizing. Tennessee was saturated with cowboys. This man was not a country boy. He was so tall, and holy hell, his body had to be a work of art. Firm muscles painted in tattoos up his arms. That naturally pale blonde beard and hair made him look like a Nordic warrior.

And, oh my heck on a shit stick!I realized instantly what I looked like. Red rimmed eyes from crying, no makeup, bedhead, I didn’t bother running a brush through—at least it was clean—and my worn, oversized college hoodie with leggings. I didn’t even go to whatever college was on this sweatshirt I was rocking.

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