guide returns to us then, leading us out of the bar and onto the brightly lit, busy Savannah riverfront street.
“The next place is extra creepy,” he informs us as we walk. He’s really gung-ho about the ghost thing but can also read the vibe from our group. It’s telling him that we don’t give a shit about ghosts or haunted bars, but we like a good drink from a good pub, so he’s left us alone to enjoy that for the most part.
It’s not lost on me that I’ve only had one beer tonight. I don’t have the strong urge to get lost inside a glass of whiskey, and I know exactly the reason why. The sweet obscurity of Mea is still swimming through my system, and its power gives me more strength than a drink ever could.
It gives me hope. Just because my mother was a drunk and now she’s gone, it doesn’t mean that I now need to turn to alcohol to cope. It just causes more problems, especially with Mea. I’ve always wanted my own life separate from the shitty one she gave me, and I’ve made that in Lone Sands. The fact that she passed away rocked me through and through, but I can’t change who she was or what she lacked as a mother. I can only live for today, and right now a big part of my today includes this small tornado force of a woman.
We pause outside the next stop. “This is the Tucker Inn,” our tour guide informs us. “It’s said to be haunted by the ghost of a lonely man who used to frequent the pub at the turn of the century. Come on inside and we’ll tell you the rest.”
The dude is so excited about the prospect of this ghost that he speeds inside. Jeremy is shaking with laughter, and Grisham elbows him hard in the ribs as he leads the way into the dim tavern.
We hear the girls before we see them. They’re making a ruckus right at the front of the place. Apparently, the little group has been taking turns buying Berkeley her drinks as well, because she’s spinning in a slow circle in the center of them, wearing a pageant sash and tiara. When she spots Dare, she books it across the bar and leaps into his arms.
Catching her easily, he buries his face in her neck and begins murmuring something that I can’t and probably don’t want to hear. Removing my eyes from the spectacle, I search out Mea.
She’s a fucking temptress in tight black jeans and a pair of black, scuffed-up cowboy boots. Her top, flowing around her like it contains currents of its own energy, hangs off of one shoulder. It exposes creamy mocha skin, and my feet carry me toward her before I realize I’m moving. Her eyes lock in on me, drinking me up the same way I’m swallowing mouthfuls of her vision like a man dying of thirst.
“Hey, you,” she murmurs as I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her soft curves right up against me. She sighs as the fingers of my other hand trace tiny pictures on her bare shoulder.
“Hey, sweetheart. Miss me?” My voice feels like its buried somewhere under stacks of sandpaper.
My dick twitches when she stretches up on her tiptoes to whisper in my ear. Her lips touch my skin, and I’m a live wire. Ready to burst into flames with a mere touch.
“I don’t do clingy, remember?” Her husky voice is everything.
I want to pull her to a dark place in the back of this bar and let her tornado suck me up.
“I remember.” Then my mouth catches hers, and the sexy slide of her plump bottom lip against mine makes me groan.
Too soon, we have to pull away. Both of our tour guides have chosen that moment to gather our group and tell a ghost story.
“The ghost that haunts this bar is affectionately known as Lonely Joe. He fell in love with the bar owner’s daughter, who lived in the apartment upstairs with her family. She worked in the bar, helping her father with the bartending and other bar duties. They had a torrid affair, but when the bar owner found out, he put the kibosh on the whole thing. The daughter was heartbroken. She jumped off the balcony at the top of the bar. After she died, Joe disappeared. No one ever saw him again. But ever since, customers and workers