Eva actually had a bigger filter than anyone would ever think of her, considering what shedidlet spill out.
A loud crash echoed on the far side of the barn. Her mind immediately went to her stalker, and she jumped again.
Cole’s hand went to her back to soothe her. “Relax. Probably just a raccoon.”
She nodded. “Yeah.” Raccoons were cute, right? She hoped that he didn’t care that she was leaning a little closer to him than before. “This is so creepy.”
And she loved it… well, sort of. Fears of stalkers and Lacy Lynch were getting in the way of her natural inclination to glom onto anything remotely fun like True Crime or spooky barns. Anything with a mystery or an interesting history attached to it, she ate up, but not so much when… when she couldn’t clear her mind of other things.
It was no way to live. She’d face her fears if it killed her.
Eva took a rallying breath. “You sure that you don’t want to turn the pumpkin patch festival into a haunted house instead?”
Cole grinned. “Halloween’s over, and believe it or not, we can make the barn less… uh… creepy. We’ve even had weddings in here.”
“Really?” She stilled. Images of her wedding to West actually swallowed her earlier panic. “How did you manage it?”
“No idea. It wasn’tmegetting married.”
His joking was enough to extinguish the rest of her fears. “I guessedthat, silly, but how was the barn decorated?”
“Well.” He led the way through the dark shadows. “We put in a lot more lighting than this, brought in some heating lamps, bales of hay. There were fairy lights everywhere.”
Eva couldn’t help it. She picked up her phone and started taking pictures. Forget planning out a one-day kiddie festival, this could be where she got married. The columns holding up the hayloft could be where they cut the cake. Cole pointed out an empty room in the back, and she snapped more pictures. That could be where the caterers set up.
And that shadowy crawlspace in the corner? They could cover that up.
She whipped around to smile at Cole. “I love it. Who did they hire to decorate the place for their wedding?”
“Themselves, but… are you thinking of getting married here? I don’t think that you want to actually…”
“I do!” she said. “I do! We could always bring in a decorator from Nashville, and it wouldn’t be like…”
“West’s ex got married here,” Cole brutally cut her off. She stiffened. “Liv and River… you know them. Anyway, so I’m pretty sure that West wouldn’t want to follow in their footsteps. Besides, he and Liv used to sneak out here when they were in high school…”
She shook her head to stop him from saying more. “Yeah, it’s better as a haunted house.” Maybe the fact that West’s ex got married in such a quaint barn was the reason for his reluctance to do the same thing, but why hadn’t he told her? That would’ve saved her some unneeded drama.
She wandered to the crawlspace, seeing a trapdoor at the edge of it. Her spine turned all tingly. “What is that?”
“Oh, we used to keep goats down there. You picking up that weird decaying smell?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s where that comes from. No matter how much bleach we take to it, it’s pretty sickening… especially down there.”
Her eyes latched onto the solid oak boards. For some reason with Cole at her side, she felt braver, and her curiosity was quickly overtaking that caution that she hated so much. “I want to see.”
“Not if you want to face down another raccoon.”
“I’mnotafraid of raccoons.”
“You aren’t?” He turned from her, but not before she saw his grin.
Her heart lurched. He thought that she was a scaredy cat. She wasn’t! Okay, maybe shewasright now, but it was a temporary condition. And besides all that, he was big and strong, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been down there before, and she was super intrigued. What better way to overcome her fears?
“C’mon!” She tugged on his jacket. “Come down with me.”
“No, no, you’re playing with fire. Nash and Porter trapped Hudson down there once, uh… with Mimi. It was not cool.”