Phantoms of Fall (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

decorate the spare
rooms.
Shelly hoped to have the murder mystery bed and
breakfast up and running by spring and there was a lot of
work to be done. But since it was Rachel’s first day, I figured I
could squeeze in a little time to talk to her about last night.
    By the time I finished getting showered and dressed,
Rachel was already hard at work. I found her and Shelly in
one of the rooms discussing color schemes so I slipped away
before they saw me. Shelly and Dad loved Zach—I couldn’t let
them find out about his fits of rage at the party. The last thing
I needed was for them to change their minds about him.
So I
sent Rachel a text telling her that we needed to talk. I forgot
to text her last night so I knew she would be curious to see
how things went. The minute Shelly left her alone, she replied
for me to join her.
    “You didn’t text me last night—I was worried about
you,” she scolded, “And Zach, too, of course. But when I got
home around 12:30 he was
already in
bed sleeping so I
figured everything must have turned out okay.”
    How could he possibly fall asleep that fast?
I lay
awake for
hours
in
a hormone induced haze
while
he
apparently slept like a baby. Maybe I just didn’t have the
same effect on him that he had on me. Could that be why he
wasn’t making any effort to sleep with me? I thought talking
to Rachel would make me feel better, but suddenly my selfesteem was in the toilet.
    “Yeah, we talked about it a little. And then we kissed
and made up.” Could Rachel hear the sadness in my voice? I
certainly could.
“Just kissed?” she teased, “You aren’t holding back any
juicy details now, are you Ruby?”
    “No. No juicy details to withhold. All we did was kiss.”
All we ever did was kiss. I almost asked for her opinion but I
changed my mind—he was her brother after all.
Being best
friends with his sister used to work to my advantage but that
wasn’t always true anymore. Sharing intimate details of our
relationship—or lack thereof—didn’t seem appropriate now.
It was okay when we couldn’t do anything but just plain weird
now that he wouldn’t . Time to change the subject.
    “So I didn’t exactly fall into the pool last night—Misty
pushed me in.” Rachel would forget all about my non-existent
sex life after hearing that .
    “Shut up!! She didn’t! I knew she would be pissed
about you and Zach but I never thought she would go that far!” Wallpaper samples fell from her hand and fluttered to
the floor. “What are you going to do about her?”
    Good question. What was I going to do about Misty?
What was I going to do about any of my problems? My senior
year was going to suck big time.
    “I don’t know Rachel. Zach thinks I should just ignore
her, but how can I?
She wants to hook her talons into my
man!” I thought about it for a minute and then added, “What
would you do?”
    Rachel twirled her hair
between
her fingers
and
thought about it for a while. “I guess I would just show her
how much you love each other, you know, pretend like she
doesn’t exist. You do know my brother would never cheat on
you or anything, right?”
    “Yeah, I know.” But it grinded every one of my gears
to know that he’d gone further with Misty than he had with
me. That was something Misty could never find out.
    “Cheer up, Ruby. Things will work out for you two, I
just know it. Zach’s clearly head over heels for you and in the
end, that’s all you really need.”
    She was right. We survived a wretched summer and
came out of it stronger than ever. If I could handle a vengeful
ghost,
I
could
certainly
handle
a
jealous
harpy
of
a
cheerleader.
“Thanks, Rachel. I guess I better let you get back to
work now.”
     
“Okay,” she said as she gathered the samples from the
floor, “If you need to talk, though, I’m here for you.”
    I smiled and nodded my head as I left the room. With
several hours to wait until Zach would be done at the shelter,
I needed something to do.