“Would you look at that, girly?” he chortled. “Seems you’ve hooked yourself a live one.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’ll keep him though,” she argued. “I might just decide to throw him back.”

  He laughed and laughed. “Oh no you don’t. This one’s a keeper. He’s got your number. He knows how you function, and you’re all over him.”

  “I most certainly am not,” she stated crossly.

  “You are too,” Thomas countered. “There’s got to be some advantages to being here without a body. We see energy, as you well know.”

  She groaned. “You don’t have to tell him that you can read my energy,” she muttered. “And isn’t it time for you to go off for a spell and do something else?”

  “Nope, I’m going to sit by and watch how this plays out.”

  “Damn it,” she muttered. “I really don’t want an audience while I try to figure out this relationship.”

  “Well, don’t take so long to figure it out then,” Thomas replied. “I don’t know what’s to figure anyway. You like him. He likes you. Boom. It’s done.”

  “Hardly,” she said. “I like a lot of people in this world.”

  “Really?” he asked. “How come I never met any?”

  She glared at him, but he was too busy having fun with his own joke. At that, Elena called down from upstairs, asking if Skylar would be long.

  She groaned. “Not too long,” she called up, “but I have to close up the shop yet.”

  Then she spent the next hour and a half cleansing the energy and closing up the shop. By the time she said good night to everybody downstairs and headed upstairs, Elena was sitting outside on the rocking chair, moving gently in the evening air.

  “Are you going out with him tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” Skylar replied, an edge to her voice. Everybody was asking her questions that she just didn’t have answers for.

  Elena immediately held up a hand. “Not trying to push.”

  “Yeah, I can tell. Come on. Sure you are,” she stated. “Just like Thomas, you want to see me happy with a partner.”

  “Of course I do. Is that so wrong?” she asked, as she gently smoothed her nonexistent skin. “Youth only lasts for so long, you know.”

  “Well, we rarely have death in childbirth anymore,” she noted, “so it can last a whole lot longer than you’re thinking.”

  At that, Elena smiled. “You’re getting edgy again, which means I’m getting close to pissing you off, and you know what? I think I’m okay with that.”

  The longer the ghosts hung around, the more they had started to talk like Skylar, as if the ghosts were learning all the idiosyncrasies of modern day English. It was both fascinating and irritating because now Elena could swear with the best of them.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Skylar groaned. “Gage mentioned going out tonight.”

  “Perfect,” Elena said. “You need to.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because he really appeals to you, and you need time with him to see if something’s there.”

  “That’s a more realistic answer than Thomas came up with.”

  “Well, Thomas is male,” Elena said. “He’s probably all worried about the physical aspect and getting down to business.”

  “Maybe I don’t feel like getting down to business.”

  “Of course not, you want to be wooed with romance first.”

  Skylar didn’t want to bring that up, considering Elena’s past, but Elena was already nodding her head.

  “Yes, even though you’re not asking, I was treated very well. He was very anxious to receive my affections.”

  “Well, I’m sure the trinkets he kept bringing you helped,” Skylar teased.

  “Very much so,” Elena replied, with a light twinkling laugh. “It’s nice to know a man understands how to get to a woman’s heart.”

  “There are definitely other ways to get to a woman’s heart,” she stated.

  “But none quite as effective as jewelry.”

  “I don’t know,” Skylar replied. “In my case it seems to be food.”

  Elena stopped for a moment, then burst out into beautiful laughter. “Oh my, that is so true,” she said. “He keeps feeding you, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she muttered. “And, dammit, it’s working.”

  Still chuckling, Elena nodded. “Everybody is different. Every relationship will have its own bond,” she noted, within a surety that drove Skylar nuts.

  “That’s hardly a fair way to look at it though,” she countered.

  “How else would you like to look at it?” Elena murmured. “If you think about it, he already has your number. He’s just waiting to see what it’ll take to coax you out a little further from that fortress you keep yourself guarded in.”

  “Hey, I like to have walls up,” she stated.

  “Absolutely. I have walls up too,” Elena noted. “But that doesn’t mean you have to keep them up all the time.”

  “Maybe not,” she murmured. “But, for a while, I will.”

  “That’s fine. He has already gotten under them a couple times anyway. I have faith in this one. He seems like he knows what he’s about.”

  “He’s just a big businessman.”

  “Business is good,” she noted, with a trill. “They make money.”

  And, of course, in Elena’s world, it had been quite simple. As long as she was well kept in the manner that she wanted to be, Elena was quite fine with whatever happened. She hadn’t lived long enough to see the darker side of these relationships. And it seemed like her education hadn’t matured over time either. Skylar wondered at that. “You do know that our relationships aren’t like yours, right?”

  “I know,” she agreed. “I’m not a fool. I do understand that things were much less than they could have been.”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Skylar muttered. “And even today things are much less than they could be.”

  “Well, I think that, as long as you are content and happy,” Elena stated, “nobody gets to judge you.”

  Skylar smiled. “You’re really taking this nonjudgment stuff, women’s independence, and doing what you want thing to heart, aren’t you?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” she asked. “It’s a magical world out there for you women today.”

  “In some ways, yes,” Skylar agreed. “In other ways, not so much.”

  “So, you have to strengthen the ways that are good and deal with the ways that aren’t,” Elena noted, shaking her head. “This guy is for you. You need to spend time with him and see just what there is between you.”

  “Hey, I’m not even talking about some permanent thing right now. We were just talking about a dinner date.”

  “A date is a good start, but you’ll never be a person who takes a long time to get to know them.”

  “I was hoping to.” Skylar glared at Elena.

  “Nope, not happening.”

  “Why not?” she muttered, almost petulantly, knowing all the while that there was no way to get answers from these ghosts if they didn’t want to give them.

  Elena went on. “Because you’ll find that connection, and that connection is real. You’ll know it. You’ll feel it, and it will be a done deal, just like that.”

  “And what if I haven’t already felt it with this guy?”

  At that, Elena looked over at her and started to chuckle. “You have felt it,” she exclaimed. “That’s one of the reasons you keep the walls up, so you don’t have to actually let him in. He’s knocking on that door, whether you like it or not, and it’s up to you to open up and to say yes or no. He won’t hang around forever, so do you really want to be alone for the rest of your life?”

  “That’s not fair,” Skylar said. “Just because this guy is here doesn’t mean he’s the only guy on the planet.”

  “You’re not getting any younger,” Elena stated, with a condescending note.

  She groaned. “Thank you, Elena. Thanks for that.” Skylar hopped to her feet. “On that note, I’ll go have a shower.”

  “Yeah, you should do that, since he’s already on his way.”

  “What do you mean, he’s on his way?” She turned to look at Elena.

  She shrugged. “I suspect he’ll be here within about twenty minutes.”

  “Great.” Skylar picked up the pace and raced through a shower.

  Thankfully it was about twenty-five minutes before Gage rang the bell to her shop. She let him in, locked up again, and brought him upstairs to her balcony, where Skylar sat down on the rocker beside Elena and looked over at Gage.

  “I wasn’t sure if you were interested in going out to eat,” he stated, his thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his jeans, as he studied her. “I was thinking maybe dinner out on the river.”

  “That would be lovely,” she replied, with a smile.

  He looked at the second rocking chair, and his eyes widened.

  Skylar noted it was rocking. “Meet Elena.” She gave a casual nod of her head.

  “Hi, Elena,” Gage said carefully. A gentle rose smell wafted through the air. He sniffed it. “Is that her?”

  Skylar nodded. “It’s her favorite scent.”

  “Wow. You really do have them everywhere, don’t you?”

  “I sure do, whether I like it or not.”

  “And the rocker rocks all the time?”

  “No, only when she’s here, or when she’s being difficult,” Skylar noted, sending a look at the ghost in the rocking chair. “She has very definite ideas of what I should be doing.”

  “And what is it that she thinks you should do?”

  “Honestly, she thinks I should go out with you.”

  “Oh, I like her,” he said instantly.

  At that, the rocking chair almost jerked, as if the woman seated there was laughing hard.

  He stared, fascinated. “I really wish I could see her.”

  “And she is memorable,” Skylar stated, “because she’s so beautiful. An absolutely stunning woman who died in childbirth a very long time ago.”

  “Everyone has a story, don’t they?” he asked softly.

  She looked up, smiled, and said, “Very much so.”

  “Why does she hang around you?”

  “I’m not exactly sure why she hangs around me, but she does.” She turned to look at Elena and asked, “Why do you hang around me?”

  Elena laughed. I’ll hang around you until you find somebody to look after you, she shared. And, until that point in time, I guess you’re stuck with me.

  At that, she turned and looked at Gage. “She says that she hangs around with me because she doesn’t think I can look after myself. So she’s waiting for somebody to step in to do the job for me.”

  “And then she can leave you alone?”

  She turned to look at Elena, who just shook her head. “Well, she’s shaking her head, so I’ll say no.”

  “Wow, so it won’t even matter what happens?”

  “They get curious,” she noted. “Even though I’ve tried hard to get her to go home, she won’t.”

  “Any particular reason in Elena’s case?”

  “Not so much,” she stated. “She died very young and feels like she has missed out on a lot and isn’t too interested in heading back in that direction, without getting the full experience here. I keep telling her that, if she would go back toward the light, she could recycle into a whole new experience and come alive again, but she’s not too interested in that because, since there’s no proof of it, she doesn’t believe me.”

  “Wow.” Gage shook his head. “I never before thought about trying to get souls to cross over or to get them to try to experience coming back, because you always tend to think that’s what they would already want to do.”

  “Not all of them.” She frowned. “There is no shortage of those who seem to just want to hang around me.”

  “You in particular?”

  “Yes,” she stated, “and mostly because they can talk to me. I give them …” She stopped and frowned again. “It’s not really a reason to be here because that would be even worse for me. But it’s almost like, because they have that connection, they don’t want to lose it. They don’t have any guarantee of a connection on the other side, so they don’t want to make that step to cross over and then to find out they made the wrong choice. And, of course, they can’t come back,” she noted with a smile, “or at least not in the same way.”

  “And is that really what happens? They come alive with a whole different life?”

  She smiled. “I guess for some of those questions you’ll have to wait and experience it for yourself.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Then let’s go get dinner. I’m actually really hungry. Like really, really hungry,” he said. “I don’t think you shared lunch with me at all,” he accused.

  “Oh, that can’t possibly be true,” she teased, “but I was certainly working on getting enough for myself. Where do you want to go?” she asked, hopping to her feet and heading for the stairs.

  “I don’t know. I was hoping that a local might be able to show me.”

  “I’ve only been here a couple years, but I do have a few favorite haunts,” she said.

  “Well, Skylar,” he replied, with a bright smile, “show me something in New Orleans that I haven’t seen yet.”

  “There are a lot of choices,” she added, with a hint of warning.

  “And that’s okay too. I’m game to try a couple things.”

  She looked over at him, seeing his energy a little bit on the rattled side. “Has something else happened?”

  “No, not really. Just a sense that everything is changing. And I’m changing with it.”

  “Does that mean you’re eager for change or are you feeling hesitant?”

  He shook his head. “Honestly, I think I’ll say, Both.”

  “And that’s not a bad thing either.” She looped her arm through his, just as they hit the block on the street level. “Come on then. It’s time for a night out on the town.”

  *

  The next morning Gage woke up, still feeling slightly buzzed from the previous night. He didn’t think it was alcohol-related as much as it was energy-related, resulting in a glow. A part of him had hoped maybe that Skylar would end up in his bed overnight, but that hadn’t happened.

  At the same time, he’d had a blast. They had danced, drank, and danced some more. It had been an awesome evening, one that had allowed him to totally forget all the troubles weighing on his heart. It had allowed him to really step back from all that and to step forward as his true self. He didn’t know whether she would like that or not, but it was who he was, and, if he hoped to have anything with her, he needed her to see him, even though he was very different than he had been before the accident.

  Before then, he’d been a man of decision, a high-powered CEO, driven by ambition to do the best at all times. And yet that lifestyle hadn’t served him all that well. He hadn’t had a permanent or even long-term relationship and was on the outs with several board members. Stress had been clawing away at his insides, and it had been hard to see his future as anything other than a heart attack waiting. The accident, in a way, had been almost inevitable, except that his best friend had died, which had hurt beyond measure. The suggestion that it might have been deliberate or possibly intended to take out Gage as well had just added to the hurt. There are just some things that you never know.

  Gage still desperately wished he could talk to his friend and could make sure Linden was okay. Gage desperately hoped that the accident hadn’t been a suicide attempt—or an attempt to kill them both at the same time—but Linden’s actions at the time held so much determination that either his intent was to take them both out or he just didn’t give a damn if Gage had died too.

  His friend had been so angry at the time that Linden’s knee-jerk reaction almost made sense. Gage understood temper. He’d had a bad temper himself prior to the accident, but he didn’t remember losing his temper at all since then.

  However, now with the additional thought that maybe Linden had been in love with Gage, Linden’s rage took on another level. Here Gage had sought to better his life, to sell his company, when Linden probably saw it as Gage never wanting to see his best friend again—a breakup of personal and professional magnitudes that, unfortunately, Gage only comprehended now.

  Linden must have felt rejected by Gage on so many levels: in love, in friendship, in business. Gage sighed, shaking his head, feeling such remorse that he had failed to see his best friend, to really see him, and to actively listen to him throughout all those years. I must do better in this reiteration, for me, for Skylar, for those in my new world.

  As he lay in bed, he checked his watch and noted that Skylar’s store would be closed on a Sunday, or at least it should be. He frowned at that; this was a pretty heavy high-tourist area, so maybe her shop wasn’t closed. He quickly sent Skylar a text, asking about it. She texted back almost immediately, saying she kept it open every day during the summer season.

  Then you never get a holiday.

  Sometimes I have a friend or two come in and look after things for me, so I can leave for a few hours in the afternoon. Why? Did you have plans?

  He smiled. Not yet, unless you have a suggestion.

  No, no suggestion, she texted, but it’s possible if you want to do something.

  I do.

  Fine, she typed. I’ll see if I can get Regina in to cover for me.

  He waited for a bit, wondering what that would mean, and then she texted back.

  Fine, free from one to five this afternoon, and then I’ll come in and close.

  Perfect. Any suggestions?

  There was no answer at first, and then she wrote, I kind of want to go to a different cemetery.

  He winced at that. I guess I’ve inhibited your ability to continue your graveyard work, huh?

  A happy face emoji showed up.

  He smiled. Can I come with you then?

  Sure. Be here at noon then. A thumbs-up symbol came back to him.

  He checked his watch, already nine o’clock, so he really hadn’t left himself all that much time. He got up, had a shower, and, by the time he was dressed and ready to head out, his phone rang. Thankfully it wasn’t her canceling. Instead it was his brother. “Hey, what’s up?”