Page 75 of Ghost Walk
“I’m your Partner?” He demanded, sounding desperate to believe it. “You’re sure it’s truly me?”
“I’m sure. You make me believe in magic.That’swhy I’m doing this and why I’ll keep on doing it, no matter how many times you try to leave me. Because I can’t bear to go back to my boring, lonely life without you. You’re the only one I feel totally safe with.” She gave him a smile. “I love you, too, Jamie Riordan.”
He moved down onto her step and rested his palm on her cheek. “I love you so much.” He whispered in awe. “So much, I donea have words for it.”
Grace’s heart swelled. “Does the historical version of you love me, too?”
“Aye.” He nodded with absolute certainty.
“So if I travel to 1789 and ask you to sail away with me, will you go?”
“Sail away with you?” He echoed. “How the hell could you do that?”
She shrugged. “I’m going to travel to the past and stay there.” That was the heart of her new plan. A way to solve all their problems. “I told you I could think of a way to fix things, if you gave me some time. Well, it took me all last night, but I finally figured it out. You want me to have someone alive? Well, I wantyou. …And you’re alive, back in 1789.”
Jamie blinked like she was speaking in tongues. Which her Aunt Veneration actually did sometimes and it soundednothing like her perfectly reasonable plan.
“This will work, Jamie.” She insisted when he just stared at her. “So long as I don’t touch Clara Vance’s blood, I’m not going to travel back to the present. And it’ll be real hard to touch her blood if we save her life, catch the killer, and sail off to search for mermaids in Jamaica.” Grace was pretty proud of the idea. She was even willing to wear her stupid tour guide costume one last time, in order to see it through. “I’ve always had a hankering to see mermaids, you know. As an added bonus, you can’t hang if you’re a thousand nautical miles from Virginia.”
Unfortunately, the ghost version of her future (or possibly past) husband wasn’t sold on the idea. “It’s too dangerous, Grace.”
“It’s not! We know where the murderer will be tonight. We have the jump on him. And you’ll be beside me the whole time. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
Jamie rubbed his forehead. “Even if everything goes according to your plan… you’d be stuck in 1789.”
“So?”
His brows compressed. “So your family is here and I know how much you love them.”
“My family is whereyouare, Jamie.” Grace did love her nutty relatives, but any Rivera would do the same thing for the man they loved. Her cousin Chastity had moved a mountain for her Partner. Literally. And it had been a big Western-y one. “Now will the other you agree to leave Harrisonburg with me or not?”
Jamie studied her for a long moment. “I’ll go anywhere you ask.” He said quietly. “Every single version of me belongs to you, Grace. You know that.”
Yeah, she kinda did.
“Alright then.” She gave a firm nod and headed down the stairs. “That’s our new plan. Hopefully the memory potion will kick in and I won’t have to explain it all to you again, because it’s a little confusing. I’ll probably have to make flow charts or something.”
“Take your blouse off and I’ll believe anything yousay.”
She flashed him a grin. “You know former Sunday school teachers very rarely allow pirates to have their wicked way with them. You’re lucky I’ve discovered I’m kind of a pizza-tramp where you’re concerned.”
“Believe me, I thank my lucky stars each and every day I found you.”
Grace reached the bottom of the steps and pushed open the door to the storage room. No one had locked it. Why would they? Everything valuable was upstairs on display. This was where the museum kept the broken, objectionable, and/or oddball bits of the collection. All the stuff that had been donated because its owner died and nobody else in the family wanted it. The junk that wouldn’t even sell on eBay. The cluttered room wasn’t exactly the warehouse at end ofRaiders of the Lost Ark, but it was still a hell of a lot of boxes to sort through.
Grace puffed out an irritated breath. This was going to take a while. “I think the Revolutionary era stuff is over by the window.” She squeezed through the rows of crates and dusty shelves. The buzzing florescent lights overhead were already giving her a headache. “It’s all separated into categories. Look for a box with an X on it. That’s the museum’s code for ‘this item is never, ever going on display.’”
“Why are they holding onto it, then?”
“Because it’s amuseum. You think people are going to will them stuff if it gets out they’re tossing away antiques?” She shook her head. “It’s easier to just store it all.”
“Seems a waste.” Jamie paused to frown at a hobby horse that was missing its back half. “They could at least fix some of these objects and put them to use.”
That sounded exactly like something she might say. Grace sent him a smile. “They don’t have enough money for a lot of repairs. Especially not since Robert authorized a twenty percent raise for himself.” What had she ever seen in that idiot? “No one cares about this stuff. It’s an appalling attitude for a museum to have, if you ask me.”
“Not everybody has your passion for giving old things a second life, lass.” He winked at her. “Speaking as one of the old things you’re trying to save, we thank you for it.”
“You’re welcome.” She began prying the lids off all the containers that looked promisingly forbidding. “Now focus on our mission and not flirting with me. Anything left from the murders would have ended up down here, hidden away from tourists’ eyes.”
