Page 21 of Demon Loved
Either way, she knew she wouldn’t have been able to keep this secret for very long…if she even needed to.
After all, this wasn’t the bad old days. She could date anyone she liked.
Theoretically.
But their waiter wasn’t a McAllister, so she relaxed a little as they ordered wine and pizza and one of Bocce’s famous wood-fired veggie salads. Once that was taken care of, she asked, “So…did you sketch the rest of the afternoon?”
“I did,” Bill replied. “There are a lot of very interesting structures in Jerome. I even saw a building that looked as if it had collapsed and slid down the side of the hill.”
“The Cuban Queen,” Bree said, naming the former brothel that had once occupied a spot behind Hull Street. Some efforts had been made over the years to try to prevent the whole thing from going south — or east, she supposed, since that was the side of the hill that it now occupied — but the expense had proved to be too much for anyone to want to take on the project. “The hill is unstable in some parts, thanks to all the pit mining they did in Jerome back in the day. There wasn’t any way to save it, and after a windstorm knocked it down and its ruins began to slide down the hill, trying to remove them might have created more instability, so the town decided to leave the debris where it was.”
Bill shook his head. “This is why Jerome is so fascinating to me. You see things here that you couldn’t possibly find anywhere else.”
His gaze lingered on her as he spoke, and she could feel her cheeks beginning to heat up.
The waiter came by with their glasses of wine, though, so she was saved from having to make a reply that acknowledged his remark without actually commenting on its content. And once their server was gone, it just seemed easier to clink their glasses together and then have a sip.
“Jerome is kind of a trip,” she admitted. Bill’s brows drew together for just a fraction of a second, as if he was trying to puzzle out the meaning of the word when she used it in that context, but then he smiled.
“It’s definitely a fascinating place. I hadn’t expected it to be quite so haunted.”
She tilted her head, amused. After all, Jerome prided itself on its spirit population, so she couldn’t be too startled by his comment. “You’ve seen a ghost?”
“Oh, yes,” he replied, then sipped some of his chianti. “And felt them all over the hotel — and in other places around town.”
“So…you’re psychic?” She didn’t feel too strange asking the question, just because she knew for a fact the ghosts were real, even if she hadn’t directly communicated with any of them herself. On the other hand, she was a little surprised that Bill would make such an admission when a lot of guys didn’t want to venture into such woo-woo territory.
His shoulders lifted. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Many people who aren’t psychic have had encounters with ghosts. And, for whatever reason, their presence seems to be very strong here in Jerome.”
That was true. She still didn’t like to take the elevator at the Grand Hotel because it positively gave her the creeps. Angela had said once that it had been used to transport a lot of very ill people from their rooms to the operating center on the lower level, and some of them had died en route, so that was a lot of negative energy concentrated in a very small space.
She supposed that same concept could be applied to the town as a whole. Sure, there had been plenty of law-abiding people in Jerome back then…but there had also been a whole lot who weren’t.
“You should be glad you didn’t stay at the Connor Hotel,” she remarked, and he sent her a questioning look. “The hotel above the Spirit Room,” she explained, then went on, “There are lots of stories of people having the covers yanked off their beds, or hearing a baby crying in the hallway when there isn’t anyone there. And there’s also a ghost kitty that comes and sleeps on your bed, although most people don’t have as much problem with that. While there are also plenty of ghosts at the Grand Hotel, they generally aren’t quite as in your face.”
“Then I suppose I made the right choice,” Bill said.
For a moment, his gaze met hers, and once again she got the feeling he wasn’t referring to the actual topic of their conversation.
“If you want to get some actual sleep, yes,” she responded, taking care to keep her tone light. “If you’re trying to do some ghost hunting, then I suppose it might be a toss-up.”
“Ghosts weren’t the main reason I came to Jerome,” he said. “Maybe they’re the cherry on top?”
She couldn’t help smiling at that comment, and then the waiter came by with their appetizer, effectively ending their discussion of that particular topic. They dished some portions onto the small plates their waiter had also brought along, and when the conversation resumed, Bill had apparently decided to move on to something a little less supernatural.
“How many people will be performing at the folk festival?” he asked.
That question was easy enough to answer. “Twenty,” she replied. “There’ll be eleven of us on Saturday and nine on Sunday, since the festival ends earlier that day. We each get a half-hour set.”
Which, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t make her bat an eye, since she routinely played forty-minute sets or even longer when she was working the tasting rooms. During those sorts of performances, though, she was only providing background music. She wasn’t there to be the center of attention.
Whereas on Saturday, all eyes would be on her.
Deep down, she knew that wasn’t precisely true. People would still be wandering up and down Main Street and visiting the shops and not paying any particular attention to what was happening on the main stage of the festival.
But there would still be plenty who’d come there to listen and nothing more.
She wouldn’t speak about those insecurities to Bill, though, not when she had a hard time admitting them to herself.
