Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(55)

Darrin is clearly visible among the trees, watching them.

“Jacy!” She whirls toward him and clutches his arm. “He’s here!”

“What? Who? Where?”

She points . . . then realizes he’s gone.

“He was here! He must have seen me see him, and he took off!”

Without another word, Jacy starts running. He tears into the woods at high speed, expertly weaving around obstacles.

There’s no way Darrin is going to be able to outrun him.

What’s going to happen when Jacy reaches him?

Calla starts to chase after him, panicked. “Be careful, Jacy!”

She trips on a vine, nearly falls.

The sound of Jacy’s running footsteps grows fainter. She’ll never catch up.

Nothing to do but wait, her nerves on edge, for him to come back.

Please don’t let anything happen to him. Please don’t let Darrin hurt him.

At last, to her relief, Jacy appears in the distance . . . alone.

“Did you see which way he went?” he calls.

She throws up her hands helplessly, and he darts away.

Calla sinks onto the fallen log again and looks back at the spot where she saw him.

Or did she?

She wasn’t dreaming this time.

Maybe you’re just losing it.

Maybe everything—all the stress, and the emotion, and the lack of sleep—has taken a toll on her. Maybe something has just snapped inside her brain.

When Jacy shows up again—alone, of course—she apologizes. “I really did see something.” Darrin.

“I looked everywhere,” Jacy tells her, “and there was no sign of him.”

“I saw him.”

No response.

What else can she say? “Maybe it was just a trick of the light.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Must have been.”

He doesn’t believe me. And I don’t blame him. I don’t believe me, either.

“Come on,” he says, and hand in hand again, they make their way back to the school building.

Inside, Jacy asks, “Want me to walk you to your next class?”

Calla thinks of Evangeline and shakes her head, reluctantly pulling her fingers from his protective grasp.

“No, thanks. See you later, in math.”

“Okay. Hey, what about after school? No track practice today. Maybe we could do something?”

“I can’t,” she says wistfully. “I’m babysitting. Maybe tomorrow?”

“I have practice. And Wednesday, too.”

Right. And Wednesday she has her date with Blue.

I’m definitely going to tell him I’m seeing Jacy now, she decides.

It’s the right thing to do.

Even though the Lily Dale grapevine will wind the news right back to Evangeline.




Calla was dreading having her hands full with the Drumm kids after a long, exhausting day at school, but being around them seems to have worked some kind of magic on her mood. Despite everything that’s going on, she actually finds herself smiling again.

“Again, again, again!” Ethan claps his chubby toddler hands and bounces his little butt on the couch, legs outstretched and blond curls flopping.

Calla reaches for his bare big toe. “This little piggy went to market . . . this little piggy stayed home . . .”

Ethan squirms with delight as she finishes the rhyme and tickles him.

“Again, again, again, again!”

She glances at his big brother, Dylan, kneeling on the floor in front of the coffee table, busily coloring.

“Why don’t we do something together?” she suggests.

“Dylan, do you want to play a game?”

“Okay. Candyland.”

She should have known. She’s played more rounds of Candyland in the past few weeks than she did in her entire childhood. Dylan loves it because, as he points out every time, his name is in the title. Ethan loves it because he loves life in general. He’s the most exuberant kid Calla has ever known— and quite the opposite of his big brother.

Not that Dylan is a downer. He’s just . . . intense. Especially for a five-year-old. And he’s an incredibly gifted psychic whose imaginary friend, Kelly, Calla suspects, might actually be a spirit guide.

He actually warned Calla that a bad man with a raccoon eye was going to hurt her just before Phil Chase—sporting a black eye—attacked her.

She hasn’t told Paula about her son’s prediction being legitimate—she doesn’t dare tell anyone what happened to her—but she’s been paying close attention to Dylan’s mentions of Kelly ever since. Mostly, they just seem to play together, which is reassuring.

“Toes!” Little Ethan shouts, thrusting his feet at Calla.

“Toes again!”

“No, Ethan, we’re going to play Candyland with your brother now, okay?”

“Candyland! Candyland!” Ethan starts to dive off the couch with glee, and Calla collars him in the knick of time.

“Come on, Dylan, let’s go upstairs and get the game.”

Calla struggles to hang on to a wriggling, giggling Ethan.

“Okay. This is for you.” Dylan finishes his picture with a flourish and holds it up.

“Wow, for me? Thanks!” She sets Ethan on his feet and bends to look at the crayon drawing.