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Right then, she couldn’t square that circle.
It hadn’t been Parker’s fault; it had been hers. She was the one who had allowed herself to become distracted – there was no excuse.
“I’m going to take Verity to the house and her daddy,” Jennifer said, scrambling off Evie’s lap before she could grab her.
“Jennifer!” Evie said, but the child ignored her and ran towards the ghost. Strange that they looked the same age. If it wasn’t that their clothes were so different, Verity wearinga dress from another era, they could have been best friends walking along the sand. “The tourists,” she said, remembering the audience taking in the eclipse.
“It doesn’t look like they noticed, or if they did, didn’t care,” Parker assured her. He held out his hand to help her up, but she ignored it and pushed to her feet. Her body felt heavy, her insides were quivering, and she knew that had nothing to do with Parker’s presence.
“We should go,” Evie said. “Jennifer’s with a ghost, and we don’t even know if it’s a Casper.”
“Casper?” Parker asked, confused.
“A friendly ghost,” Evie said, following after Jennifer and Verity.
~
“Hope!” Grandpa called across the room.
Hope turned, surprise registering on her face at the sight of the elder. She hadn’t seen him in a while, but he hadn’t changed. With salt-and-pepper hair and a snowy white beard that was a good length of stubble, he beamed at her mischievously. “Grandpa?” Hope said, darting a look at True as she walked in behind the elder and Faith. True shrugged and pointed to Faith as the culprit. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s always good to be seen by you,” Grandpa said with a cheeky grin that only the Irish possessed.
Faith elbowed True as her sister came to stand beside her. “De, diddly, diddly, dee!” Faith chuckled.
“I hate you,” True said, turning on her heels and groaning as she started for the kitchen, someone needed to be in there, and Amy and Dani had followed them inside and were busy eyeing her grandpa.
The danger from the ship had gone, but a new threat had taken its place; Nana killing Grandpa was very much alive and well, and she wanted nothing to do with it.
It was time that Faith dealt with the consequences of her actions.
~
With the eclipse passing and the witches safe, Lex still couldn’t relax.
When he had calculated the time it would take him to rescue the child from his position and Parker’s estimated arrival time, he’d decided there were mere seconds in it. Besides, the witches seemed to have the ship well in hand, and he didn’t want this guy slipping away from him before he saw what was on that camera.
Lex could go up to the man now and perform a little vampire routine that would have the man handing over the camera. He could wipe not only the memory card but also his memory of the whole event, but after watching the whole child rescue thing unfold, he was feeling generous.
Lex decided that he’d let the man continue snapping pictures, and later, when it was all over and done, he’d only wipe the memory card and the man’s memory of what he might have seen or picked up on film.
In days gone by, he might have wiped any evidence of the man and his camera off the face of the earth – just to be sure – but he considered he was mellowing, and some would say that was a good thing – for his part, Lex was undecided.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
~
“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” Faith bit out from the sudden pain of her sister’s death grip on her arm when True manhandled her into the stockroom without warning. “Where did you learn the Vulcan death grip?” She asked, turning back to True as her sister kicked the closed the door behind them.
“Grandpa, really?” True berated her with her opening salvo. “What were you thinking?”
“Didn’t we have this conversation? I figured two heads were better than one and that you and Nana would turn on me eventually, so…” She raised her arms at her sides and shrugged.
“You could have called any member of our insane family down the tree, but you decided to call the one person who will drive Nana crazy, and she’s texted me a thousand times already,” True said. She got where her sister came from with Nana but still didn’t like it. “Send him home.”
“Not negotiable,” Faith said. “I just remembered you had sex in here.” She turned her nose up at the thought as she watched her sister’s cheeks flood crimson.
“Stop deflecting and start getting your grandpa speech ready as you send him on his way,” True replied.
