Second Chance

by Audra North

  To his surprise, she shook her head, the fear gone from her face. Of course, with the lights out, maybe he had simply misread her expression, and she hadn’t been afraid, after all. “That’s—gosh, that’s really generous of you. But I’m sure it’s nothing. Ghosts! Ha!”

  Her laugh sounded forced, though. Was she upset that he had just kissed her? Nervous?

  “Marnie,” he began, “I wasn’t trying to be too forward just now. It just happened—”

  She stepped away, crossing her arms over her chest in a protective gesture. “It’s okay. Really, I have no objections. I mean, it was fine. I-I’ll just get my keys and we can go.”

  What had happened to the woman who had just sighed his name? One second, she’d been soft and relaxed in his arms, and the next she was stiff and closed off.

  He frowned. “Actually, that won’t be necessary. A car is coming for me. Rebecca dispatched a car as soon as she heard I was stranded and didn’t tell me until I was about to hang up. I was trying to tell you that, just a second ago, but the lights cut out.” He huffed out a breath, feeling unmoored without her nearby. “The car service should be here pretty soon. I’ll send someone tomorrow to tow mine.”

  She didn’t say anything in response, just nodded tightly and picked her way over to the wall by her office, fiddling with a switch panel there. He wanted to tell her that he could take care of it, that he was happy to take a look, but it seemed like she was just using it as an excuse, anyway, to put some distance between them.

  Shit, he was an idiot. He’d thought she was into him, but obviously not.

  It hurt. For the first time in years—hell, ever—it hurt that a woman didn’t want him. Because this time, it wasn’t his money or his connections that she knew about. It was him.

  And she’d turned that down.

  “Marnie, I—” He’d meant to apologize, but it all happened at once. A loud banging sounded at the front doors of the library, the lights flickered back to life, and that wooden box that she’d set on the circulation desk earlier slid off and crashed to the floor with a loud crack!

  They both jumped and shouted in surprise, but this time, she didn’t come running to him for protection.

  That…well, that really, really hurt, that she’d stayed away. Instead, they stared at each other across the space of the few feet between them, though it felt more like a deep, wide chasm.

  Bang bang!

  The knocking at the library doors sounded again.

  “That must be the driver from the car service.” Collin hesitated, just for a moment, hoping—for what? He wasn’t sure. That maybe she’d ask him to stick around? Go have dinner?

  Don’t be stupid. Go home. Do your job. Forget about this whole thing.

  Right.

  “That’s probably my ride. I’d better go.”

  She nodded and gave him a weak smile. “Good to see you again. Thanks for all your help.”

  We just kissed! Why are you dismissing me?

  He wanted to shout it, but instead he simply remained silent, and after another second’s hesitation, he finally forced himself to turn and walk away.

  Chapter Nine

  “What is the matter with you?” Bill popped back into view the second Collin left the building.

  “What do you mean, what’s the matter with me? You were the one acting like a jackass, trying to get rid of Collin!” Marnie was so confused, she wanted to cry. Had she made a mistake? It certainly felt like it.

  “I wasn’t trying to get rid of him!”

  “Then why were you making fun of him while we were talking?”

  “Because you were wasting time, talking about things that didn’t matter! You should have been kissing him. You should have been telling him you needed a guy just like him in your life! He should have been saying the same thing to you!” Bill huffed. “I mean, except for the guy part.”

  “Are you insane? You’ve got to be insane. Is that why you’re a ghost? People don’t say things like that to each other after meeting for the first time in years and spending an hour together!”

  “Well, they should.” Bill had stopped shouting now, at least. “Look.” He pointed to where the wooden box had fallen to the floor. Where he’d pushed it, most likely. “I think you should open the box.”

  It looked the same as before, except that there was a crack on the side from the impact of hitting the ground. But it hadn’t broken completely open. She eyed it warily. “Why, is something in it going to jump out and scare me? Just another one of your pathetic little parlor tricks?”

  Bill sighed. “We’re a ridiculous pair. Open the damned box, Marnie.” His words lacked heat, but rather were full of a weary resignation that tugged at her heartstrings. She might not like feeling manipulated, but she could see things from his point of view. Condemned to live out eternity in a library…she’d probably have pulled a few pranks and meddled in plenty of people’s lives by now, just to relieve the boredom.

  “Okay. I’ll open it. And…I’m sorry.” She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder in an automatic gesture of comfort, but her fingers went right through his body, like they were falling through an especially dense patch of air.

  “Oh, man, that feels creepy.” He shivered and eyed her warily.

  “Seriously? You’re saying that it feels creepy for me to touch you? Of all the nerve…” She was frowning at him, but inside she was relieved. At least he wasn’t so dejected anymore.

  She bent down and picked up the box, then set it back on the desk before opening the lid.

  Nothing jumped out at her. Just a slightly musty odor from the stack of paper and pictures inside. The box was full of them.

  She pulled the top photo of the stack and studied it. A handsome young man, somewhere in his early twenties, laughed at the camera. He was wearing rough work pants and a knit shirt with short, tight sleeves that showed off heavy arm muscles and a wide, strong chest.

  “This is you.” She gave a little wolf whistle. “You were pretty hot.”

  He glided over, peering over the shoulder at the photo before she flipped it over. “1922. How old were you then?”

  “Almost twenty years old in that picture.”

  She set the photo down and took the next thing off the stack in the box. This time, it was a small piece of folded paper with the name Etta scrawled on it in small cursive letters. She unwrapped the little packet carefully and found a lock of dark hair, straight and fine.

  “Etta,” whispered Bill, and that ghostly hand moved forward, phantom fingers stroking over the strands of hair. Marnie could feel the energy of his spirit, pushing through her. Sad. Full of regrets.

  She made a sharp sound of dismay.

  “I loved her. I loved her, and I let her go. Like an idiot.”

  His voice was low and quiet. Marnie sank into the chair next to the desk and looked at Bill expectantly. He’d just yelled at her for letting Collin go. He’d been upset that she hadn’t been more forward and taken a chance. It was starting to make sense why, but she wanted the whole story.

  And Bill obliged. “Her name was Henrietta Mary Cole. This was her house. Well, her father’s, anyway. John Cole. He was the son-in-law of Theodore Wilford and owned Cole Textiles. The two most powerful families in town united when he married Theodore’s daughter, Ruth. They had eight children. Henrietta was the youngest and the most beautiful, intelligent, cultured girl you could imagine, while I…”

  He trailed off, staring down at the photo of himself.

  After a minute, he spoke again. “I came from the wrong side of the tracks. My parents were never married, which back then was reason enough for a kid to be shunned, as though I had some kind of sickness that would rub off on the better kids. My mom took in washing and she cleaned some of the bigger houses, like this one, just to survive.”

  He gestured toward the stacks, near the section that now held books about gardening. “The first time I kissed Etta was there. It was the music room back then. My mom was here, clea
ning, and I tagged along. I had been doing that for a while, supposedly to help my mom with some of the heavier lifting, but every time I ended up just talking to Etta. Spending time with Etta.” He closed his eyes, as though he were really flesh and blood, trying to get lost in a hazy memory. “I was listening to her play something on the piano. I don’t even remember what it was, but I remember thinking that she was the most amazing woman I’d ever known. And when she was finished playing, I leaned down over the bench and kissed her.”

  Marnie sighed. That sounded pretty romantic. Not quite what she’d expected of the sarcastic prankster. “So what happened? Did her parents object because you weren’t rich?”

  He shook his head. “We didn’t even get that far. I was the one who kept us apart. I wanted more out of life than to grow old in a small town where everyone thought I was destined for failure. I wanted to prove them wrong so badly, it hurt. When my cousin sent a letter that said he was looking for young men who could work hard and take on responsibility to build up a manufacturing plant in Georgia, I took it. Etta asked me not to go. She said she loved me and that she wanted to marry me, and that we’d find a way to get her parents to understand. But I ignored her. I went, anyway. I didn’t realize…I should have stayed and enjoyed what little time we had left together.”

  Oh, no. Marnie already had an idea of how this was going to end, but she kept listening, already bracing herself for the pain.

  “By the time I realized I’d made a mistake, a couple of years had gone by. It took me that long because I was that stupid. And I hadn’t heard a word from her in all that time. I’d given her my forwarding address, of course, and I’d written her a letter as soon as I got settled in Atlanta, but I never got anything back. I stomped around in my stupidity and told myself she was too proud for me. It never occurred to me that there might have been something else wrong.”

  Bill turned and looked at her then, his ghost eyes uncannily alive-looking, and Marnie wanted to shrink from the pain in them, but she held her ground. She’d been through worse, even though right now it felt like her heart was breaking along with Bill’s.

  “My first letter probably would have reached her right around the time she first took ill. From the time the first symptoms showed up until she died was about sixteen months. She died on Halloween night, 1925. I came back to Wilford to spend Christmas with my mother that year and to beg Etta to take me back. I had planned to kneel before her and offer her my ring, and instead I found myself kneeling in the snow, crying over her headstone.”

  She couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. What must it have been like for Bill, to struggle through youth as an outcast, to finally find someone who loved him for who he was, and then miss his chance to be with her because he had to get over his pain first? Because that’s what it was. No matter how much he wanted to call himself stupid, he probably needed to feel he was worthy of her love before he could return to her.

  And when he had, it had been too late.

  She sniffled and looked at him in pity. “Is that why you died, then? Of a broken heart?” she whispered.

  Bill recoiled as though she’d slapped him. “What? Hell, no, woman. You read too many romance novels.”

  She blinked, her tears drying a bit. “Oh.”

  “I didn’t die until ’48. Worked myself to death and had a hard attack when right before my forty-sixth birthday, woke up trapped in this place. Surrounded by memories of Etta. And regret,” he added wrly. “Plenty of regret. Though I hope I’ll see her again someday.”

  After a second of silence, he sighed and smacked his hands on his knees, a surprisingly loud sound for someone who wasn’t supposed to have a corporeal form. “In the meantime, young lady, you’d be a damned fool to make the same mistake I did and let your fella go.”

  “I didn’t let him go! I—”

  “He kissed you and you ran him off! Same thing!”

  Well. Bill had a point, there. But it’s not like Collin had really wanted her, anyway. If he’d wanted her, he would have stayed despite her awkwardness.

  Oh, dear. That sounded ridiculous, even to her ears.

  Bill made a sound of frustration. “I’ve done everything I could to teach you both the lessons you need to learn. I mean, damn. These new cars are a lot easier to break, but a lot harder to get into. All those electrical things in them, you know. Not to mention that leaving the library just to go to the damned parking lot pretty much destroys me. Takes every ounce of spectral energy that I’ve got.”

  “Wait a second. You broke Collin’s car?”

  Bill pffed. “He can afford to get it fixed. But you two only had one chance to realize that you’re both idiots! And you’re a fool for letting him go!”

  “What are you implying? Are you saying it’s my fault that he left? It’s my fault that he went away? That he didn’t love me enough to stick around, that I’m not good enough for him to even acknowledge now?”

  She stopped, letting out a little squeak of despair.

  Bill came closer, and she felt a strange pressure surround her. Almost like a hug made of compressed air. “Are we still talking about Collin?”

  “No.” It came out small and weary, and in that second, Marnie realized that, in so many ways, she’d been like Bill. Needing to prove herself, somehow. But that she never really had to, in the first place.

  She had let Collin go.

  She’d been a fool.

  “I always felt like it was my fault. First dad leaving, and then Mom’s cancer not getting diagnosed in time. I blamed myself for that, you know. For somehow…I don’t know. Not checking in on her enough. Or something. For so long, I felt responsible for her death. Like it was somehow my fault for her getting taken away from me, too.”

  Bill stared at her agape, looking horrified and contrite and awkward for the first time. “Hell. I’m sorry, Marnie.”

  “It’s okay. I—I needed to say it to someone. I’ve felt this way for so long and didn’t even realize it until just now. It makes sense that I pushed Collin away before he could leave me. I’d know it was my fault if he did that. I make everyone do that. I make—I make everyone leave.”

  “You don’t, Marnie. You know you don’t. Just like Etta didn’t make me leave by choosing to stay here. I chose to leave. I’m the one that broke us apart by doing nothing to show my love. That’s what I’m worried about for you. I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did and have to spend eternity haunting a library.”

  Is that really what would happen? The very prospect spurred her to action.

  “I’m going to try to find him.” She stood up to go to her office, to get on the computer and look up his name and development company, but she’d barely taken a step when someone banged on the front doors.

  “At least one of you has good sense,” Bill muttered.

  He must be talking about Collin.

  Oh God. Collin.

  She practically ran to front entrance, sliding the lock back and flinging the door open.

  “Collin,” she breathed.

  He stood on the other side of the threshold, looking a bit rumpled. Sexy.

  Her smile nearly hurt her face, it was so big. “What are you doing back here?”

  He gave her a wary smile. “Uh…trick or treating?”

  “This had better not be a trick.” She said it teasingly, and the wariness fell from his face.

  “Is it okay if I come in? I forgot—I mean, I need to tell you something.” He took a step forward, just over the threshold, and she took a step back to let him in.

  “Yes?” Another step forward. Only half a step back this time.

  “I wanted to know if maybe I could have a second chance.” One more step. She stayed where she was. They were standing so close together that the fabric of his shirt brushed against hers.

  Second chance? Yes. Please, yes.

  The allure of forgetting past mistakes. The promise of something better this time.

  Even though he’d aske
d her to give him a second chance, she felt like she was the one getting the opportunity to try again.

  It was the greatest thing he could have offered her.

  She didn’t answer with words. Just tipped her head back, letting his lips land on hers, and she didn’t pull away. This time, she felt worthy of his kiss, and everything that she knew would come with it.

  When they finally parted, a glimmer in the foyer caught her eyes. She turned to see—not surprisingly—Bill, standing there and watching them with a loopy grin on his face. But what surprised her wasn’t his sappy smile. It was the shadowy figure standing next to him, of a petite woman with long, dark hair, wearing an old-fashioned dress and grinning just as widely as Bill.

  Etta.

  “A second chance,” she whispered, watching as Bill and Etta faded away just before Collin kissed her again so thoroughly that neither of them noticed the library lights fading into a soft glow.

  Thank you!

  Thank you so much for reading Second Chance! This story is a slight departure from my usual works, because it contains light paranormal elements. So I hope you enjoyed it!

  If you’d like to continue reading, the following section contains an excerpt from Falling for the CEO, the first book in the Stanton contemporary romance series from Entangled Publishing.

  Interested in leaving a review for Second Chance? Please do! Reviews help readers connect with books that work for them. I appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative.

  And for more information on my other works, visit my website, or sign up for my newsletter. Happy reading!

  Audra

  Falling for the CEO by Audra North

  A ball. A dress. All that’s left is for her to win the prince…

  Finance genius Meredith Klaus prefers numbers to people, especially around the holidays. At least the large sum of money that’s mysteriously vanished from the company accounts will distract her from the ghosts of Christmases past. Until her sexy boss asks her to be his last-minute date to a fundraiser gala, that is, and the promise of a special evening calls to something long-buried in her.