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“They’re predictable.” He dropped his arms and began walking away from me, heading for his truck and his gear. “You probably hearin’ some screeching? Maybe finding some turds around the place, noticing a dog smell? Missing anything shiny?”
I stopped in my tracks. “Seriously?”
He glanced over his shoulder as he unloaded his gear. “I ain’t joking. Raccoons is serious business.”
The laugh that came out of me surprised Liam into spinning around.
“I mean it. Serious,” he said, chastising me for my humor.
“I believe you. It’s just...yeah, we have a raccoon problem for sure. Go ahead and take care of it.”
“The humane way or the easy way?” He paused. “Humane costs more, mind you.”
“Ah,” I was tempted to say the easy way, but I knew Daniel and Addie would definitely choose humane. “Better do it the humane way.”
“Gonna take a week or so.”
I nodded. “That’s fine.” We’d been living with them this long. “Hey, any chance of finding any of the stuff you think they snatched? They took my watch, I think.”
“Gotta find the hidey hole. Likely up in that tree.” He pointed. “I can look for ya.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling like a weight had just been lifted from my shoulders. Selling a haunted house was not an easy business. Selling a house with a recently resolved raccoon problem shouldn’t be nearly as hard. I headed back inside to let Liam get to work, but the more I thought about the idea of selling the house, the less I wanted to think about it. That was the goal, after all. But it would also mean the end of pretty much everything that had made me happy these last few weeks. Addie, our time together.
“Exterminator here?” Addie asked as I headed back inside.
“Yeah, and you’ll never believe what he said.”
“Zombie ants? Unkillable, right?”
I laughed. “No, he’ll get the ants, it’ll be fine. It’s the raccoons I was surprised about.” I told her what he’d said, and her eyes grew wider with every word.
“Raccoons?” She burst out laughing.
“So while it was a credible theory, it’s not a German Shepherd.”
“I was going to call you Elias all day to see if it helped!”
When the exterminator had finished—clearing us of ants and placing the traps to catch our nocturnal screamers—Addie and I each headed into town and off to our separate tasks. I needed to get into the store and inventory some of the supplies that had arrived this week, and Addie said she owed her mother some help at the Tin.
“Daniel will be here tonight,” I reminded her as she set off down the hill.
“So pizza?” She asked, grinning.
“Sounds good.”
I watched her disappear down the hill into town, and a deep contentment settled in my heart. What would it be like, I wondered, if this was my real life? If Addie was really mine, and we lived in this big old house and shared our evenings and our years together? What would that be like?
Whatever it might be like, it was unlikely to happen, and I vowed to enjoy it while it lasted.
* * *
When we allrose on Sunday morning—in separate beds, since Daniel had come back—each of us had tasks to accomplish. We were hosting dinner, and that meant showing the house off to a whole bunch of people. People who traditionally hated each other. Which was why I’d stocked up on whiskey and wine the day prior.
“Mom’s bringing the main course, and everyone’s bringing something, so we just need to get dessert done, finish up the rolls, and get a salad put together,” Addie said. It didn’t sound like a lot, but it seemed to take her all day in the kitchen. I tried to help, and chopped and washed as directed. As we finished up, Daniel wandered in from outside.
“Hey,” I said, smiling at him.
He watched me washing dishes and sat down at the counter, looking happy and relaxed.
