Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(59)

Spooked, Calla returns the book to the shelf, steps back, and narrows her eyes at it.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

Okay, you’re talking to a book.You realize that, right?

In the grand scheme of things, that’s the least of her problems, but still . . .

Come on.You can’t freak out about this. Just do your homework. Get your mind off it for now.

Feeling helpless, Calla sinks into the desk chair, opens her calculus notebook, and wishes she could manage to shake the pervasive feeling that she’s being watched.





EIGHTEEN

Wednesday, October 3

8:15 p.m.

“Want to come over for a little while?” Blue asks as they drive back to Lily Dale after a bad movie at the small cineplex in nearby Dunkirk.

Well, maybe it wasn’t so bad.

It’s not like Calla was paying all that much attention. Sitting there in the darkened movie theater, with Blue’s arm around her shoulders, her thoughts were a million miles away.

She can’t stop thinking about Darrin.

“Calla? Do you want to?”

“Hmm?”

“Want to come over to my house?” Blue repeats. “It’s still early.”

She glances at the dashboard clock. He’s right. It’s not even nine yet.

She’s exhausted, though. Emotionally and physically. “I don’t know . . . it’s a school night. I think I’d better just go home.”

“Come on. You said you’d take a look at that English essay I wrote—it’s due Friday.”

True, she did tell him, earlier, that she’d try to help him with it, when he confessed he’d gotten a D on his last essay. His grades, Blue said, aren’t terrific, and he’s worried about getting into a decent college.

“Isn’t everyone?” Calla replied, and he looked surprised.

“I figured you were straight As all the way.”

“I was, back home in Florida. Here, I’ll be lucky if I don’t fail math.” She mentioned casually that Willow York is her study partner. No reaction from Blue.

“So do you want to come over?” he asks now.

She hesitates. She is exhausted and she’s still so stressed . . .

And she hasn’t told him yet that she just wants to be friends.

You really should, she reminds herself.

“Maybe you can meet my dad,” Blue adds. “He should be home by now—he’s been away since Monday morning, but he was supposed to fly in tonight.”

So David Slayton left town the day after his son got out of the hospital, leaving him in the care of Mrs. Remington, their longtime housekeeper, as usual.

Wow. That’s cold. If she were injured and on crutches, Dad would never leave her side.

“Okay, sure,” she says reluctantly, feeling sorry for him.

“I’ll come in, just for a little while.”

Blue laughs and shakes his head. “Works every time.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just . . . everyone always wants to meet my dad.”

“That’s not why!”

“Just do me a favor and don’t ask him for an autograph, okay?”

“But I wouldn’t do that!”

“He loves it, actually.”

“Huh?”

“My father,” Blue clarifies. “He loves it when people ask him for autographs.”

“Oh. Then maybe I should.”

“Please don’t feed the ego. It’s a monster as it is.”

Blue turns down Dale Drive, heading toward the big house on a knoll above the lake. The Slayton House has gingerbread trim and cupolas and a wraparound porch, but it’s at least five times the size of the cottages located beyond the entrance gate, inside the Dale. Recently built, this is a neo-Victorian—not the real thing.

“These days, David Slayton is all flash,” Odelia likes to say.

Calla knows that her grandmother, like many of the other mediums in town, doesn’t entirely approve of Blue’s father, who used to be “one of them” before he hit the big time. But Odelia’s disapproval doesn’t stem from professional resentment.

It bothers her that David Slayton spends so much of his time courting the cameras in New York City and Hollywood, leaving his only son alone with the housekeeper in their sprawling home.

Blue’s mother took off years ago, Odelia told Calla.

Kind of like Odelia’s husband—Calla’s grandfather, Jack Lauder, who left when Mom was just a kid. Nobody ever likes to discuss him, though. Mom didn’t, Odelia doesn’t, and Dad is probably clueless about the details.

“Looks like he made it home,” Blue mutters as he parks his BMW behind a black Mercedes at the top of the winding driveway, which circles around in front of the porch.

The oversized house is on par with those of Calla’s private school classmates back home in Florida, but it’s definitely out of the ordinary for this part of rural upstate New York. That’s why she was surprised, when she first met Blue, to find that he went to public school.

Turns out he didn’t always. He was kicked out of at least one private boarding school. Calla doesn’t know the details, and she’s probably better off.

Blue, always the well-bred gentleman, hobbles over on his crutches to open her car door for her, then leads the way up to the well-lit front porch. Balancing on one crutch, he opens the door and dismantles an alarm system—pretty much unheard of in the unassuming homes inside the Dale.