Page 1 of Ghost Town I Do (Seawolf Beach)

The rain came down in sheets, making the world on the other side of the glass gray and distant. Colt stood at the front window of Hart’s Vinyl Depot, intensely focused as if maybe a hard stare would change the weather. It did not.

A beach wedding in mid-March had seemed like such a good idea a few months back.

Temps were on a warming trend, and if a brief rain shower popped up they could easily work around that, right?

All they had to do was wait a while and the rain would pass.

Just a few people would be affected, since the wedding party was small and there weren’t going to be many guests.

At least, that had been the plan.

He heard Anna approach, even though her step was soft. She joined him to stand at his side, staring much as he did. Until this moment she’d been such an optimistic bride. Would she be a bride at all? Well, yes, but maybe not today.

He put his arm around her shoulder; her blond ponytail brushed his arm as she turned her head to look up at him. “We should’ve eloped,” she said wistfully.

Colt didn’t respond. He’d said all along that he didn’t care, that he’d be glad to elope any day.

Any time. But Anna wanted a wedding. The white dress, the flowers, the ceremony that would mark their commitment to one another.

Even though she’d been married before, this was new.

It was fresh. It was a celebration of them , of the future, not the past.

Her mother wanted a real wedding even more than Anna did. Nina Miller was the reason the original small guest list had grown the way it had. Colt would’ve been happy on the beach with a preacher, a best man, a bridesmaid, and maybe three other people. He wanted to be married but the wedding…

Their simple wedding plan had gotten complicated, and now the storm was ruining even that.

“Maybe it’ll clear up before this afternoon.” Anna tried to force a hint of cheer into her voice.

“Nope,” Colt said. They had hours before the scheduled wedding start time, but he’d checked the weather radar several times and it didn’t look as if they had even a slim chance of a clear afternoon.

The location of the ceremony had been Colt’s idea, so this was entirely his fault.

When he was on the beach the ghosts that were a constant part of his life left him alone.

Here in this old depot that had been turned into his record store and his home, in the loft upstairs, spirits were everywhere.

He saw them; they knew it. He’d managed to keep his ability a secret for years, but these days so many people knew that secret he might as well tell everyone.

Maybe a new sign. Records, Coffee, and Ghosts . He wasn’t ready to go there.

Anna huffed, sighed, and screwed up her nose.

“Are you okay?” Colt asked.

She looked up at him and forced a smile. “Sure.”

“You say that but you’re not, not really. I see the truth on your beautiful face. If it’s a rainy wedding that’s bothering you we can elope. Here, now, go get it done and tell everyone else after the fact. If it’s me, if you’re not sure…”

She took his face in her hands. “You know it’s not you. I love you, so much.”

“I love you.”

Anna glanced out the window again, then turned back to him. “I do have some news. I was going to wait but I can’t.”

“Good news or bad?”

“Good. The best, although…” She hesitated and grimaced a little. “The good news is, I’m pregnant.”

He grinned. They’d talked about the possibility of having a kid or two, but when it hadn’t happened right away they’d accepted that it might not. “What’s the although part.”

His bride-to-be pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “The doctor said this is a geriatric pregnancy, because of my advanced age. Geriatric! Thirty-six isn’t all that old. Is it? Women do have healthy babies well into their forties.”

“That they do. Thirty-six isn’t old at all.”

She looked out the window again. There it was. Another sigh. “I guess we could postpone the wedding for a week or two.”

The news of a baby on the way decided it for Colt. “No. Absolutely not. We’re getting married today.” He kissed her. “I’m going to get a shower and think. We’ll come up with something.”

Before this day was over, he was going to be married. Rain or no rain.

* * *

Anna watched Colt walk up the stairs to their loft apartment.

Normally she’d follow and shower with him, but she was so distracted, so discombobulated!

Between the excitement of her wedding day, the crappy weather, and the baby growing inside her…

it was too much. Her mind jumped from trying to figure out what to do about the wedding, to cursing the rain, to wondering if they were going to have a daughter or a son.

She turned her back on the window and sat on the old depot bench to think.

Focus! The planned beach wedding was out.

Wasn’t going to happen. Colt didn’t want to delay the wedding and to be honest neither did she, but it was too late to start the planning all over again.

Maybe they could have a few people in her old house, which had recently been declared livable again.

The repairs had taken much longer than she’d thought they would, but it was now done.

Her mom and the new boyfriend were staying there at the moment.

She hoped Harlan was staying in Jack’s old room, but that was probably not the case. Ewww.

The guest list was small, so the living room would do. That seemed to be the logical answer.

Now that Colt had been told about the pregnancy, she’d have to tell her mother. Anna had mixed feelings about that. Nina Miller didn’t like Colt all that much, but then she didn’t understand why he’d lived such a solitary life for the past few years, or why he talked to himself so much.

By the way, Mom, the squirrelly boyfriend you don’t like all that much has knocked me up. Maybe she’d be so thrilled to become a grandmother that she wouldn’t care who the father was. Yeah, right.

The window-rattling knock on the glass door made Anna jump.

The sign posted there made it clear the depot was closed today, and for the following week.

Colt never took a vacation, but he’d insisted.

They would have a honeymoon. She stood, intending to shoo whoever was at the door away as nicely as she could.

When Anna saw the woman standing there, peering in, she knew no shooing would be necessary.

Olive had become a close friend in a matter of a few months.

Ghost business had brought them together.

Funny how ghost business could do that in record time.

Nate Tucker, Tuck to pretty much everyone, had been the one to convince Olive to stay in Seawolf Beach.

Since the first of the year she and Colt had been on a couple of double dates with Olive and Tuck, and the two women had lunch and/or coffee on a regular basis.

It had been a long time since Anna had called anyone a best friend, but now there was Olive. Olive, who was going to be her maid of honor. If there was a wedding.

She unlocked the door and swung it open.

A damp Olive, wearing a massive yellow raincoat, stepped inside.

Her car was parked at the curb, just a few feet away, and still she’d needed that raincoat.

Earlier in the day, during a brief conversation over the phone, Anna’s mom had called this a frog strangler. She wasn’t wrong.

Anna closed and locked the door.

Olive shed her raincoat, tossed it onto the back of the bench, and looked directly at Anna. A former ballerina, the dark-haired, dark-eyed Olive was small but undeniably strong. “So, what’s the plan?”

“The plan?”

“I assume a beach wedding is out, so what’s the plan?”

Anna sighed. Her shoulders drooped. “I don’t have any idea. Maybe in Mom’s living room…”

Olive dismissed that option with a wave of her hand and a smile. How rude, to smile at a time like this!

“You do know I’m an event planner,” she said. “Well, I was, and I will be again. It hasn’t been so long that I’ve lost my chops.”

“If you have a better idea than the living room in my old house, you could’ve just called,” Anna said.

Olive blew air between her lips, in a way that revealed her disgust at that idea. “You would’ve brushed me off and told me everything was fine, and that would’ve cost us hours. We don’t have hours to waste. Besides, standing here I can see the worry on your face.”

Of course she was worried! “I can’t think of any option other than Mom’s living room.” Unless she and Colt decided to live there, which they would not, the house would soon be up for sale. They hadn’t yet reached that point. “The living room isn’t huge, but there won’t be many guests so it’ll do.”

“No,” Olive said sharply. “Everyone in town has been so looking forward to this wedding, it would be wrong to exclude anyone.”

Everyone? “Just a few people have been invited.”

“It was supposed to be on the beach and y’all have been talking about it for weeks. Everyone knows, and they want to be there. Surely you realized there would be wedding crashers.”

Well, no. “What alternative do we have?”

“Tuck said you’re welcome to use The Magnolia, if you don’t mind getting married in a bar.”

That wouldn’t be ideal, but at least they’d be married by the end of the day. “I don’t know. Colt doesn’t care for the ghosts there, he’s told me that much.”

Olive pursed her lips. “I know they’re everywhere, but I swear, I don’t want to know about it!” She laughed as she critically scanned the record store. Her eyes narrowed. “What about here?”

Here?

Anna studied the space. Hart’s Vinyl Depot was massive, there was plenty of room, wall to wall.

But it was crowded with record bins and racks of T-shirts, as well as a couple of old wooden depot benches.

Where would people gather to watch? She and Colt could say their vows by the checkout counter, and wedding guests could stand between the bins. “I don’t see it.”

Olive patted her arm. “That’s ok. I do.”

* * *