Spirits of Spring (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 4) (7 page)

“Well, I explained a lot of things to your dad tonight. I
didn’t really go into detail but I gave him a rough idea of what
Lucas did and why he did it.
And then I told him about our
conversation in the car—the one about us deciding to wait. I
figured that it was time to face your dad man to man and I think
I caught him off guard. Looks like my strategy worked. He said
I could stay until you fall asleep and then he’s going to give me
a ride home.” There—another reason why I loved Zach.
He
was brave enough to do battle with the scariest creature of all
in order to be with me—my dad. And determined enough to
find a way to win that battle.

While I knew that we both had things we wanted to say
to each other, I asked Zach if I could go first just in case I fell
asleep before we were finished talking.
I explained what
happened during the play—that I only took my ring off at
Lucas’s urging and only for the sake of costume consistency. Of
course I felt like a fool for listening to him now, but at the time I
trusted him and never dreamed that it was all a part of some
evil plan to break up my relationship with Zach.
The kiss
obviously wasn’t something I saw coming, either.
But the true
nature of Lucas’s scheme didn’t become clear to me until Zach
revealed the missing piece—Misty.

“I ran out of there before Stacy could finish her story
but I think I put the rest of it together myself. I think Lucas
having car trouble that day we met him was definitely the truth
and I don’t think he ever dreamed that you actually knew his
brother. He didn’t grow up with his twin so your reaction
caught him off guard. I don’t think Misty knew anything about
Lee or Lucas, either, until after Lucas moved to town. His dad is
working for Jack Wolfe and I think that’s how he met Misty. If
he made even the slightest mention of being at Rosewood, she
would have pumped him for information.
One thing led to
another—he was desperate for cash and she was more than
willing to provide it in exchange for Lucas turning your life
upside down. If it makes you feel any better, he was using the
money to help his dying mother.”

No, that didn’t make me feel even the slightest bit
better.
The whole thing was too much for my tired mind to
grasp. There were only two things that could bring any solace
right now.
First was
sleep which was
naturally
about to
overtake me. The second thing was safely tucked in the pocket
of my jeans.

“I can barely keep my eyes open. Will you do one last
thing for me tonight?” I asked Zach, knowing full well that I
could ask for the moon and he would somehow find a way to
pull it down for me.

“There’s something in the pocket of my jeans that I
need.
I left them lying on the bathroom sink. Can you bring
them to me?”

Zach sprang up like a man on a mission and returned
with my jeans in hand.
I dug inside and found what I was
looking for. My ring. The ring that never should have left my
finger in the first place and definitely never would again—even
if I
did
decide to make meatloaf. I held it up for Zach to see and
made my request.

“Will you put this back on my finger for me? I could
have done it myself but I wanted you to do it.
I thought it
would be a nice way for us to mark a turning point in our
relationship—kind of like a commitment to starting over the
right way. Another reinvention if you will.”

“That sounds perfect,” he said as took the ring from my
right hand and placed it back onto my left. “There—now
everything is back to normal.
No, scratch that—everything is
better than normal.
You are now officially ghost-free and we
can start focusing on other things again.”

“Ghost-free,” I repeated as my eyelids fluttered shut.
The last thing I felt before I drifted into sleep was the warmth
of his hand in mine and the wonderful feeling of normalcy that I
was so poorly acquainted with.

The first thought that came to mind when I awoke was
the fact that my ring was back on my finger where it belonged.
I could feel the metal pressing against my skin the same way it
always did except for two differences. One, I knew for certain
that it was there to stay. Two, it was cold—ice cold. My room
was as warm as it usually was but for some reason that one
finger alone was freezing cold.
It reminded me of the icy chill
that invaded me at the time of Zach’s accident. Could
something else bad have happened to him in the middle of the
night? My eyes flew open and flashed quickly to my left hand.

“AHHH!” I screamed and pulled the blankets tightly
around myself when I realized that I wasn’t alone. “Clay! Get
out of my bed this instant!”

“Chill, Ruby,” he replied with a chuckle, “I wasn’t up to
no good—Scout’s Honor. But
you
may have been. You were
dreaming about me again, weren’t you?”

“I most certainly
wasn’t
!” I countered. Was I? Who
knows.
I was just thankful to have not had any nightmares
after all of the epic wretchedness of the night before. “And
what exactly do you mean by ‘again’? I don’t recall ever having
any dreams about you.”

“It’s okay—I understand. You’re in love with Zach and
all. It wouldn’t do you any good to admit that you have secret
fantasies about me. But if you died, you know you’d want me.”
My stony, un-amused expression brought about an apology.
“Oh, and I’m sorry if I woke you up—I was just admiring your
ring. It’s nice to see that you and Zach were able to work things
out. Love stories don’t always have a happy ending, you know.”

Random encounters with Clay were becoming more and
more frequent and I had a nagging suspicion that this wasn’t a
good sign. He hadn’t popped in at an awkward moment in my
life—yet—but waking up to find him in my bed was getting too
damn close to inappropriate for my liking.

“Thanks, I know,” I replied, “but you still need to get out
of my bed. Being dead is no excuse for bad behavior. Don’t
forget—you don’t really seem dead to me. Waking up next to
you is like waking up next to any living boy who shouldn’t be in
my bedroom. So get up already!”

“Fine.” Clay made an exaggerated display as he hauled
himself out of my bed as though he were a ninety year old man
with arthritis. “But I wouldn’t be half as tempted to get into
bed with you if you would stop flirting with me every time I see
you.”

Flirting? He couldn’t be serious! “In what way have I
ever flirted with you?” I asked as I sat up in bed to get a better
look at the clock. Great. Clay woke me up a full hour before my
alarm was set to go off. Well, I certainly couldn’t get any more
sleep with a ghost in my room.

“Well,” he said as he walked around my bedroom
inspecting random things, “you keep telling me that you forget
that I’m dead and that’s the closest thing I’ve come to a
compliment in a long time.
And a compliment is like a kiss
through a veil, you know.”

Why did he frustrate me so bad? Why did he always
have to go and make me feel sorry for him as soon as he’d
whipped me into an angry frenzy? Why did he whip out poetic
phrases as easily as he handed out pathetic pickup lines? Why?
Because dead or not, he was still a boy. Boys simply loved to
play dumb little games like that. Thank goodness Zach wasn’t
like that. Okay, at least Zach wasn’t like that
all
of the time.

“Okay, well this concludes our little get together. I have
to get up and get ready for work now. So….” I waved my hand
in the air to shoo him along.

“Much later,” I called out behind him. I waited for the
faint sounds of his laughter to die away before crawling out of
bed. So much for my ghost-free existence. What in the world
was I going to do about Clay?

Ask Rita, that’s what I was going to do. While I didn’t
mind talking to him once in a while, waking up with his dirty
jeans-wearing ass in my bed was the last straw. There had to
be some way to keep him from popping in and out of my life
unexpectedly. I defeated a wraith, for cryin’ out loud—I wasn’t
going to let a friendly ghost like Clay get the best of me!
I
unlocked the door to Something Wick-ed with determination.
Ruby Matthews, Wraith Slayer.
That would make an awesome
TV show!
Hmm, but who would they cast to play me?
Wait a
second. After my performance at the Bantam, I wouldn’t
need
an actress to play me—
I
was an actress now and could play
myself! I wonder if they would consider customizing my star
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
A red star would be nice.
Really. Nice.

Rita interrupted my private walk down the Walk of
Fame and nearly scared the pants off of me. “Ruby, I really
need to talk to you about that wraith.”

“And a pleasant good morning to you, too, Rita” I
responded with sweet sarcasm. “What are you still doing here?
I thought you would be off ghost hunting by now.”

“Nope, I’m taking the weekend off. Andy and I have
plans. I’m only here long enough to talk to you about Allison
and
then
he
and
I
are
heading
to
Niagara
Falls
for the
weekend.”

“Ooh, Niagara Falls, huh? Sounds pretty romantic! I
mean, if you’re willing to miss out on a good ghost hunt to
spend time with him, it
must
be true love!”

Despite firm denials that their relationship wasn’t all
that serious yet, Rita couldn’t stop smiling—or blushing.
If
there was one thing I knew and knew well when I saw it, it was
love. I could still remember looking in the mirror to check my
hair before some of my earlier dates with Zach and noticing
that no matter what I did, I couldn’t get rid of that smile. Not
just any smile,
the
smile. The one that was an obvious sign to
the world that you simply adored the person you were with.
Come to think of it, I had that same smile on my face right now
just thinking about Zach. Nine months later, he was still able to
make me giggle like a twelve year old girl. I was so glad that
our dark times were behind us now. All I needed to do was find
a way to fix my little problem with Clay.
It should be easy. I
didn’t even need to get rid of him completely—I actually
enjoyed hanging out with him on occasion. I just needed to find
a way to make hanging out with him a choice not an obligation.

“Well that makes two of us. How about we make a little
deal?
If
I agree to help you, you
agree to help me—fair
enough?” Rita glanced at her watch and flipped the sign to
“open”. “Oh and don’t worry, I was here early enough to do half
of your job for you—the cash drawer is already ready to go.”

Whoops. I wasn’t always the best employee but she
certainly was the best boss
ever
. “Sorry! I just love my boss so
much that talking to her made forget that I was at work.
I
promise you that it will never happen again—Scout’s Honor.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth I knew I shouldn’t
have said them. I felt like a magician. Abracadabra and a rabbit
pops out of my hat—a big, dirty blond rabbit wearing red
flannel and ripped jeans.

“Clay! You
have
to stop doing that,” I shouted out of
sheer frustration even though I knew that his appearance was
totally my fault this time. “For real!”

He gave me the sad puppy dog eyes that he’d gotten so
good at lately and walked away. I didn’t mean to make him feel
bad but his random appearances were starting to annoy me. I
managed to squeeze in a quick “Sorry, Clay,” before he
disappeared.

“Yes, I have another ghost,” I said as I took a seat behind
the counter. Quickly, I filled her in on the details, being careful
with
my
words in
case
he
returned in
the middle of our
discussion. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings any more than I’d
already done. “So all I need to know is how to stop these
random visits. Other than that, he’s no trouble whatsoever.”

“The only way to stop him from visiting you is to set his
soul to rest. He’s carrying around some sort of sorrow that he
can’t let go of. Once you get rid of the sorrow, you’ll be rid of
him for good.”

“For good? You mean I’ll never see him again? Ever?”
That wasn’t exactly what I was after here. Weird or not, he was
my friend. He helped me during my kidnapping in ways that no
living person ever could have. I was kind of attached to him—
sort of. Grr! Why couldn’t I spend a single day of my life
without some sort of frustration involved?

“Never. I know you’ve gotten kind of attached to him
but you can’t let your friendship interfere with his eternal rest.
He shouldn’t still be here, Ruby. He needs to move on and you
need to help him do that. You guys bonded during a moment of
crisis and that bond is only going to get stronger as time goes
on. When he finds peace, you will find peace.”

I knew she was right—the time had come for me to find
out what kept Clay earthbound. It wouldn’t be dangerous like
my other missions but it
would
be sad to see him go. But before
I embarked on another ghost adventure, I would have to talk to
Zach about it.
My days of lying and hiding things from him
were over.