Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(10)

Ramona sighs. “He’s normally much more communicative.”

He is? Calla’s never witnessed it, but who knows? Maybe Mason turns into a real live wire when she’s not around.

“I’ll see you later, huh, Mason?”Dad says.

Mason—who lost both his parents before he was old enough to remember them— actually looks up. “Sure. See you later.”

Watching the two exchange a brief smile before Ramona leads the group down the hall again, Calla can’t help but feel a tiny flicker of jealousy.

It suddenly occurs to her that Mason—and Evangeline, too— will be sharing a house with her father now. And that she herself won’t be.

She had thought it would be a good thing to keep him at arm’s length, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe she’s missed him too much for that.

“This is it,”Ramona announces, and opens the door to the guest room with a jangle of bracelets.

There’s a bed, dresser, and small bedside table that holds a fan of magazines and a vase of purple asters obviously cut from the clump growing beside the Taggarts’ front porch.

“This is charming,”Dad declares, and turns to Calla. “What do you think?”

“Charming,”she agrees.

“And the best part of all is that your dad will be right next door,”Ramona drapes an arm around Calla’s shoulders and squeezes her. “I know how much you two have missed each other.”

“We have. Thanks, Ra—”Calla breaks off, stunned to see one of the magazines flying off the bedside table. It seems to hover in midair before landing on the floor at her feet.

Her father, with his back to the table, didn’t see what happened, but Odelia and Ramona did. They exchange a nervous glance.

“I must have bumped into this. I’m such a klutz. Oh well, my secret is out,”Ramona says lightly, reaching for the magazine.

Her secret is out?

Calla braces herself, thinking she’s about to reveal her supernatural abilities.

Her grandmother obviously thinks the same thing because she shoots Ramona a look of dismay.

“What secret is that?”Dad asks with interest.

“That I’m the ultimate pack rat. I never throw anything away. See?”

Calla all but sighs in relief as Ramona holds up the magazine’s cover. On it is a photograph of a smiling, familiar woman and the headline AN INTERVIEW WITH NEW FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with outdated reading material,”comments Odelia, whose cluttered coffee table brings to mind a dentist’s waiting room. “Right, Calla?”

“Right,”she murmurs, and looks around the room for a wanton spirit who might be responsible for the mishap.

She can’t see anything, but that doesn’t mean there’s no one around.

“I’m a pack rat, too,”Dad comments. “It used to drive my wife crazy.”

There’s a moment of awkward silence.

“It didn’t bother Mom all that much, Dad,”Calla feels obligated to say. “As long as you kept your mess out of her way.”

“Stephanie liked things to be or ga nized,”Gammy explains to Ramona.

“I wish I could be like that. Me, I’m just the opposite.”

“Same here.”

Ramona and Dad smile at each other.

Calla and her grandmother look at each other.

She’s thinking what I’m thinking. She knows something’s going to happen between them, too.

Somewhere downstairs, a door slams.

“I’m home, Aunt Ramona!”Evangeline’s voice calls. “And Russell’s with me, so if you’re coming downstairs, make sure you’re decent!”

Odelia snorts. “You have a habit of being indecent?”

“Yeah, well, sometimes I’m about to get into the shower and realize I left the oven on or I forgot something, and I run downstairs in a towel,”Ramona admits with her usual free-and-easy candor. “But I’ll make sure I change that habit now that Jeff is here.”

“Oh, don’t change your habits on my account,”Dad says with a wave of his hand. Then he turns a bright, burning red. “I mean . . . it’s not that I want you to be indecent or anything . . . just . . . you know . . . I, uh, I don’t want you to, uh . . .”

Under different circumstances, Calla might find it sweet, the way he’s stammering and fumbling like a kid with a crush. But he’s her father, for Pete’s sake, and Ramona is . . . well, not her mother. Plus, she’s a kooky medium.

Not that all mediums are kooky.

But Ramona sure is. She’s a total free spirit.

A total free spirit who’s definitely looking for love. Ramona has shared plenty of amusing hard-luck dating stories with Calla since they met a few months ago.

Which is part of the reason Calla has always liked her so much . . . until right about now.

“Aunt Ramona?”Evangeline calls again from downstairs. “Anybody home?”

“I’ll be right down! And I’m not alone so I hope you’re decent!”Grinning, Ramona leads the way back to the first floor.

Calla really wishes she hadn’t allowed Dad and Gammy to drag her over here. Evangeline hasn’t exactly forgiven her for going out with Jacy, her longtime crush. Still, when they saw each other at school on Thursday, Calla did her best to make amends, and Evangeline seemed to melt just a little.