True believer - Nicholas Sparks [42]
He’s not what you imagine him to be.
And what might that be? A big-city type? A ladies’ man? Someone in search of a quick fling? Someone who would make fun of the town the moment he left? Someone out for a story and willing to find one any way he could, even if it ended up hurting someone in the process?
And why on earth did she even care? He was here for a few days, and then he’d be gone and everything would return to normal again. Thank goodness.
Oh, she’d already heard the gossip this morning. At the bakery, where she’d stopped in for a muffin, she’d heard a couple of women talking about him. How he was going to make the town famous, how things might get a little better around here businesswise. The moment they saw her, they peppered her with questions about him and offered their own opinions as to whether he’d find the source of the mysterious lights.
Some people here, after all, actually believed they were caused by ghosts. But others clearly didn’t. Mayor Gherkin, for instance. No, he had a different angle, one that regarded Jeremy’s investigation as a wager of sorts. If Jeremy Marsh couldn’t find the cause, it would be good for the town’s economy, and that’s what the mayor was betting on. After all, Mayor Gherkin knew something that only a few others knew.
People had been studying the mystery for years. Not just the students from Duke. Aside from the local historian—who seemed to have fathomed a plausible explanation, in Lexie’s opinion—at least two other outside groups or individuals had investigated the claim in the past without success. Mayor Gherkin had actually invited the students from Duke to pay the cemetery a visit, in the hope that they wouldn’t figure it out, either. And sure enough, tourist traffic had been picking up ever since.
She supposed she could have mentioned that to Mr. Marsh yesterday. But since he hadn’t asked, she hadn’t offered. She was too busy trying to ward off his advances and make it clear she wasn’t interested in him. Oh, he’d tried to be charming . . . well, okay, he was sort of charming in his own way, but that didn’t change the fact that she had no intention of letting her emotions get the better of her. She’d even been sort of relieved when he left last night.
And then Doris made that ridiculous comment, which essentially meant that she thought Lexie should get to know him better. But what really burned her was that she knew Doris wouldn’t have said anything unless she was certain. For whatever reason, she saw something special in Jeremy.
Sometimes she hated Doris’s premonitions.
Of course, she didn’t have to listen to Doris. After all, she’d already done the “visiting stranger” thing, and she wasn’t about to go down that road again. Despite her resolution, she had to admit that the whole thing left her feeling a little off-balance. As she pondered it, she heard her office door open with a squeak.
“Good morning,” Jeremy said, poking his head in. “I thought I saw a light on in here.”
Swiveling in her chair, she noticed he’d draped his jacket over his shoulder.
“Hey there.” She nodded politely. “I was just trying to get caught up on some work.”
He held up his jacket. “Do you have a place I can put this? There’s not much room at the desk in the rare-book room.”
“Here, I’ll take it. The coat hanger’s behind the door.”
Entering the office, he handed Lexie the jacket. She hung it next to hers on the rack behind the door. Jeremy looked around the office.
“So this is mission control, huh? Where it all happens?”
“This is it,” she confirmed. “It