Read Second Chance for Free Online Page B

don’t talk to myself, I don’t usually scare so easily—the attic incident notwithstanding—and I can handle a little ghost.”
    “Hey, who are you calling little?”
    She laughed then, at his fake-belligerent expression, and he smiled as he put out the cigar in the air and threw it somewhere past the shelf, making her scoff in disgust. “I was just beginning to warm up to you, you know. And then you had to go and do that.”
    “I think you might be less sane than you say you are. You’re talking to a dead guy but me tossing my ghost cigar into the stacks is what gets you bent out of shape?” He sighed at her belligerent expression. “You really do need a lesson.”
    “So, is that true, too? You appear to people who need to be taught a lesson? And was that really you who made my dad fall this afternoon on the carpet?”
    He snarled, as though the very mention of Marnie’s father got him angry. “Your Pa’s a real piece of work. He deserved what he got. Too bad he was holding on so tightly to Patrick. I didn’t mean for the kid to trip, too, even though neither of them were really hurt.”
    At least he seemed to have some sense of honor, even though he liked teasing her. “Yeah, well, now that it’s already done and only their pride was bruised, I’m willing to say that maybe he got what he deserved.”
    “You never saw that kind of behavior back in my day. Brats, sure, but not that kind of disrespect. Of course, back then everything was different. Still. No six-year-old like your little brother would have lasted long.”
    “He’s not my little brother.”
    “Isn’t he your dad’s kid?”
    “Yeah, I mean, biologically he’s my half-brother. But he doesn’t know that and my—Brent acts like he doesn’t know me at all. As far I can tell, Patrick doesn’t know that we’re related. I don’t think he even knows that my dad was married before, that I even exist as someone other than the mean librarian.”
    Bill laughed at that. “You’re nothing compared to that Mrs. Waters that was the librarian before you.”
    “Did you ever appear to her?”
    “Hell, no!” She probably would have ignored me, anyway, like she ignored everything else except her damned books.” He pulled another ghost cigar out of his pocket and a match appeared out of thin air. “You’re different, though, Marnie. I’ve been watching you.”
    “Oh, good, because that’s not creepy or anything.”
    “Oh, come on. I don’t have anything else to do. It’s not like I follow you into the ladies or hide in the air vents and try to look up your skirt.”
    “You—you what ?”
    “I said I didn’t do those things. Sheesh.”
    “I cannot believe we are actually having this conversation. Of all the inane—”
    “Look, I’m not trying to work you up. But maybe you need to just let go a little. You know, have some fun. Kiss a guy who saves you from your shit-for-brains pops and handsome old ghosts.”
    “Saves me from—wait. Do you mean Collin? You’re telling me that I should kiss him?”
    “Yeah, I mean,” Bill raised his voice to a falsetto and clasped his hands in front of his chest and sighed, “Collin.”
    “You are the weirdest ghost…” She stopped herself. What was she doing, talking about this kind of thing with a spirit ?
    “I do not need a man. I do not need to fall in love or settle down—which even sounds awful—or be anything but on my own. I took care of my mom. I put myself through school. I’m fully capable of anything that life can throw my way without help. I can change my own oil and I can pay my own bills and I’ve fulfilled the most fundamental requirements of existence by my own merit .”
    There. Discussion over.
    But instead of disappearing like she’d half-hoped he would, he just shrugged as though everything she’d just said didn’t matter at all. And then he asked, “But at what expense?”
    At what expense?
    They were staring at each other, she and Bill, those words hanging in