The Last of the Moon Girls(82)

The words seemed to hum in the charged air. “You’re saying . . .”

“I’m saying I’m the last Moon girl.”

“So no husband and no kids. Sounds pretty final.”

“It’s meant to.”

“It also sounds lonely.”

Lizzy shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s the only fair thing to do. Women worry about passing on all sorts of things to their daughters—bad skin, wide hips, a latent crippling illness. I don’t worry about those things. I worry about bringing a little girl into the world who has to hide who she is, who’s afraid to make friends and doesn’t fit in anywhere. I lived that life growing up. I won’t do it to a daughter of mine.”

“At the risk of sounding presumptuous, it is possible to marry and skip the kids. Lots of couples do.”

“Yes they do, but it’s not just about kids. It’s all of it. Marriage is hard enough when both people are normal. But I’m not normal. My family’s legacy isn’t a liability I’m willing to foist on either a husband or a child. That’s what I meant by complications. No . . . attachments.”

Andrew arched a brow. “Luc wasn’t a complication?”

Lizzy sighed, knowing just how bizarre all this must sound to someone like Andrew, who’d grown up in a family that always colored inside the lines. “Luc wasn’t anything. He didn’t have expectations about us, and neither did I. That’s why it was safe. He didn’t want the white picket fence and the minivan. But you’re not like Luc. You want something I can’t give. And I want something I can’t have.”

Andrew’s face softened, and a slow smile appeared. “All I heard you say just then was that you want me. I did just hear that, right?”

“I was speaking figuratively.”

“Were you?”

Lizzy stared at him without blinking. To falter now would be unfair. “Yes.”

He touched her cheek, brushing it lightly before dropping his hand. “Just as well. This isn’t exactly how I imagined our first romantic encounter—in a barn.”

Lizzy felt her cheeks go pink. “You imagined a romantic encounter with me?”

“I was eighteen years old. And male. Of course I imagined it. I still imagine it. But not here. And not if it isn’t what you want. But don’t count me out. I waited twenty years for that kiss. I’ll wait another twenty if that’s what it takes.”

He turned then and headed for the door. Lizzy watched him go, her response stuck in her throat. Had he not heard a word she just said?





THIRTY-ONE

August 17

Lizzy woke with a nagging headache and a knot in the pit of her stomach. Andrew had kissed her last night. And for one disastrous, weak-kneed moment, she had kissed him back. Until she remembered what was at stake. Her heart. Maybe his too. At least she’d put a stop to things before they went too far.

It would be weird between them now, because that’s what happened when you kissed someone you shouldn’t. Things got weird. And they stayed weird. Until you started inventing reasons to avoid each other.

But that wasn’t what she wanted. Andrew was the truest friend she’d ever had—the kind who knew all your secrets and stuck by you anyway—and for whatever time she had left in Salem Creek, she wanted him to remain a friend. They’d go their separate ways soon enough. The farm would sell, and that would be that. She’d have nothing tying her here, no reason to ever return.

The thought evoked a hollowed-out sensation she preferred not to name. Labeling a thing made it real.

“That you, little girl?”

“Yes, it’s me,” Lizzy answered, rounding the corner to find Evvie seated at the kitchen table. “Have you seen Rhanna? I wanted to ask her about some of the stuff in the attic.”

“Blew through here a little bit ago,” Evvie mumbled from behind her paper. “Made a pot of that devil’s brew y’all drink, then headed out to the shop. She’s been working her backside off out there for days.”

Lizzy filled a mug with coffee and joined Evvie at the table. “She’s painting again, did she tell you?”

Evvie glanced up, her face stony. “There’s another article.”

Lizzy sighed into her mug. “Of course there is. What does it say?”

Evvie’s brow creased as she scanned the article. “Let’s see. Here it is. A source familiar with the investigation told the Chronicle that lab results had proved inconclusive. Kerosene has been confirmed as the accelerant, but no fingerprints were found.”

“Which means no suspects.”

“There’s more.”

Lizzy rolled her eyes. “Do I want to know?”

“They’ve got a quote here from the organist at First Congregational—Miriam Summers. She says she’s not surprised bad things are happening at Moon Girl Farm since it’s bound to be haunted by the spirits of those poor dead girls. Actually used the word haunted. Can you imagine a newspaper printing nonsense like that?”

Sadly, Lizzy could imagine it. As fate would have it, Chief Summers’s wife had been in the coffee shop the day of Rhanna’s unfortunate outburst, and had heard it all firsthand. She’d been only too happy to fan the town’s outrage back then, and it seemed time had done nothing to soften her opinion. Except this time she was the one causing the outrage, and not Rhanna.