Reba needed to put up a fake ghost. There was definitely something supernatural going on here. Still, if Reba wanted a sheet put up, she was going to get it.
He set down the cat and gave him a stern warning. “Stay away from the bunny.” Then he climbed up in the tree to help Ty. When the sheet was strung through the branches as convincingly as possible, he climbed back down to find Rhett Butler was gone. After some searching, he found the cat with the rabbit. Thankfully, Butler was not eating Roo. The cat was lazily stretched out in the sun sleeping while the bunny sat next to him, munching on a black-eyed Susan.
It appeared the animals had figured out they weren’t nemeses after all. He smiled. He understood exactly how that worked. He left the two animals in the garden and headed to his room.
Since he felt energized, he figured he’d get a lot of writing done. But when he set down at his laptop, he discovered he couldn’t keep his mind on his thriller story. It kept drifting back to the teenagers showing up on Halloween night and the story he’d written the day before about Aunt Dovey’s ghost. The two mingled together in his creative brain and soon a plot formed. A plot of six delinquent boys who were sent to a boys’ ranch and ended up becoming ghost hunters.
Once the idea was in his head, he couldn’t get it out. He opened a new blank file and his fingers moved at lightning speed over the keys as he fleshed out the plot of a new story. It wasn’t a thriller. It was a young adult ghost story geared for middle and high school kids.
For the first time in a long time, he felt like . . . himself.
Life could change so quickly. One second, you were floating in an amazing utopian dream. And the next second, you were crash landing into hard, cold reality.
Reba was still reeling from her crash landing.
Val was leaving.
Maybe not today. Maybe not even tomorrow. But he was leaving eventually. It was something Reba had forgotten—or maybe just put out of her mind—until this morning when she talked with Mike. According to him, Valentine had planned to leave for New York yesterday. She knew it was Aunt Gertie who had kept him there. If he hadn’t found out about her aunt collapsing and being rushed to the hospital, Valentine would be long gone by now. Without even a goodbye.
It was a cold slap of reality.
She had been so sure she saw love in his eyes. But it had only been her wishful thinking. Valentine didn’t love her or he wouldn’t have planned to leave. Like Billy Bob, he desired her. And desire didn’t hold a man. She should’ve learned that the first time around.
“Are you listening to me, Reba Gertrude?”
Reba was pulled from her thoughts and realized her aunt was talking to her. “I’m sorry, Aunt Gertie, I was daydreaming. What did you say?”
“I said you don’t have time to be lollygagging here at the hospital with me. You need to be back at the boardinghouse getting ready for the party tomorrow night.”
Reba didn’t feel like partying. And she didn’t feel like going back to the boardinghouse and discovering that Valentine was gone. She suddenly wished she’d never left her bed. She wished she was still cuddled close to Valentine’s body, breathing in his musky scent and stroking her hands over his warm skin. Or even better, he was making love to her in the slow, delicious way he’d made love to her that morning.
Except it hadn’t been love. It had only been sex.
“Reba!”
She looked at her aunt and accepted her fate. “Okay, Aunt Gertie.” She got to her feet. “I’ll head back to the boardinghouse and get ready for the party. And you need to get better so you can attend. Halloween won’t be the same without Miss Scarlett.”
Aunt Gertie waved a hand. “Psssh! I’m sure you’ll do just fine without me.” She smoothed the blankets over her lap. “Besides, Luc said he would keep me company on Halloween night.” She sniffed. “Of course, if that bad boy thinks a sexy smile and a few sweet words is going to have this woman fallin’ at his feet, he’s got another think comin’. We Dixon women are made of stouter stuff than that.”
Her aunt’s words stuck with Reba as she left the hospital. By the time she got to the boardinghouse,