Page 97 of Ghost of a Chance
“Yeah.You told me.”
“I did.Glad you did too,” he said.
There was a feeling blooming inside of her, like sunshine breaking through a cloudy sky, and she felt hot and excited and couldn’t stop smiling even though nothing had changed.But everything had.
“I have my book signing,” she said.
“Dan and I are going to go to the hotel and see what else we can find out about Hillerman.”
Of course they were.“Tonight I’m going to try another séance and see if it’s him.”Maybe now that she had the right name, things would go differently.
“Good idea.I’ll help you.You might think you don’t have any ability.But there is something that happens when you go into the trance.I can feel it and I think Gia can as well.You have something.”
“It’s scary to think that I do.Almost as scary as falling in love,” she said.
“That’s not scary, because you’re not alone,” he said, leaning down and touching her cheek.
No, maybe it wasn’t so scary after all.
Twenty-Three
The bookstore was decked out for Halloween with pumpkins in the window, horror and paranormal books on the tables near the front, and fake spiderwebs draping the bookcases.
Tim had space at the back of the store for her.There was a table and chair for her as well as chairs for guests.Some people were already waiting.Nervous tension made her stomach ache for a second.Then she took a deep breath as one of the readers shyly smiled at her.
“We have a few bigger book influencers driving over to see you.I’m going to ask you a few questions about your writing process and then we’ll talk about your latest release,” Tim said.
“Sounds good to me,” she said, taking her place at the front.Her phone pinged and she glanced down to see a text from Jasper.
Jasper: Wish I was there with you.Smash your talk!Love you.
She hearted his text.
Kirsty: Any leads at the hotel?
Jasper: Yeah.Hillerman had a heart attack while staying here.I called his wife and she said he was always loaning out his books to students who forgot theirs.He’d never have gone into a textbook.
Kirsty: Shit.
Jasper: Yeah.We can talk about it more tonight.I think your séance idea is a good one.
Kirsty: Thnx.Love you.
He hearted the text and she put her phone away.
The book signing and talk went really well.She took photos with a few readers who’d come just to meet her and then took them out for coffee after to keep talking.It was fun and didn’t involve the ghost-infested textbook that had been dominating her life recently.
“I saw on your socials that you’re working on the next book,” Jane said.
“I am, it was sort of slow going but recently I made a breakthrough and it’s really flying along now,” she said.
“Do you think Crispin and Eva are ever going to get together?”Lori asked.
Given the scene she’d just written and the underlying tension between the two characters… “Maybe.Neither of them really knows how to be in a relationship.So they’re struggling to figure that out,” she said.Thinking about herself and Jasper.They’d been struggling as well.
Her new friends left a few minutes later.Kirsty noticed that there was a big chocolate cupcake in the pastry case.“I’ll be right back.”
Gia nodded without looking up from her phone where she was posting the photos from the event.The cupcake would be a nice surprise for Jasper.A way to show him she cared even if he couldn’t be there today.
