I managed to go six whole months without stumbling over a dead body—a personal record for me. A record that shattered like delicate crystal on a fine summer morning. Don’t laugh; you probably have your own hurdles in life, and I hope they have nothing to do with the dearly departed.

Unfortunately, mine do.

And that was why my dog, Molly, dropped to her haunches and whined. The sight of a pair of skinny legs sprawled across the rocky trail at the bottom of the slate quarry didn’t surprise me as much as it should have done. I knew those legs by the three-inch cuffs and frayed material. Only one man in town wore flannel-lined jeans even in the burgeoning heat of early June.

“That’s Delly Harper,” I said, and from what I could see, old Delly wasn’t moving. My hand flew up to cover my mouth as I rushed forward to call out, “Are you all right?”

Utter silence but for the distant sound of running water told its own tale.

Not too far from where we stood, a bend of the Mooselick River brought it close to the long-defunct Barrow quarry where Drew had brought me to face my fears after nearly dying there almost a year before. Neither of us expected to find anything other than my lost courage.

“Do you see him?” Distracted, I let go of Molly’s leash and clamped my hand on Drew’s arm. “He’s not moving. I think he’s dead.”

Of course, he was dead. How could he be anything but dead with his eyes all glazed over and staring directly into the emerging sun? He had to be dead, or else he’d have blinked by now—probably not the most astute of observations, but it’s amazing the random thoughts that pop into one’s mind during moments of great stress.

Too late, Drew spun me away. “You don’t have to look.”

“Can’t unsee him now.” The sight was already burned into my corneas. With shaking hands, I pulled out my cell and checked to see if I had a signal. One bar. Not enough. And wouldn’t you know, the only spot in the belly of the pit that had more than two bars was almost on top of the corpse—just my luck.

But even with my feet planted far enough away and leaning over the body, the connection refused to go through the first time. While I waited, I got an uncomfortably close look at the awkward way Delly’s head no longer lined up with his body.

“Broken neck,” Drew stated the obvious. “Looks like he fell.”

My mind helpfully supplied an imaginary movie of Delly sliding over the edge, his arms pinwheeling as he tried to keep his balance. I even heard the faint echo of a startled cry.

A shudder shook me as I tapped 9-1-1 into my phone again. “How sad to die out here alone.”

Just saying the word alone sent my guts into knots, but I dismissed the fluttering sensation and waited for the phone to ring on the other end of the line. Finally, it did.

Whether or not the dread settling in the pit of my stomach came from a sixth sense or just from close proximity to yet one more dead body, I couldn’t tell. It wasn’t my first time, so I knew better than to disturb anything as I leaned over the body and listened to the phone ringing.

My least favorite dispatcher picked up on the second ring. “What’s your emergency?”

“Hey, Carol Ann. I…uh…need to report an accident.”

“Ernie,” she shrieked loud enough I had to yank my phone away from my ear. “It’s that Everly Dupree on the line. Says she needs to report an accident. Probably killed someone again.”

“What do you mean again?” I heard disdain in her voice and the sucking sound of her straw draining something out of a plastic cup. “Just put Ernie on, okay?”

The next thing I heard was the terse voice of our town lawman. “Polk.”

“I did not kill anyone.”

A sigh. “You never do, and yet someone’s always dead. Who is it this time?”

“Molly,” I shouted when Molly’s head went up, and she raced out of sight in a blur of sleek chocolate fur and pounding feet.

“Molly who? Have you gone mad?” I could all but hear Ernie yank the phone away from his ear.

I didn’t waste time arguing the point. “Sorry, my dog just took off. It’s Delly Harper. We found him in the quarry.” I pictured our location on a map in my head. “Near where the river bends in toward the pit. Behind the Jackson place.”

Ernie and I might not see eye-to-eye on everything, but there were two things I knew about him. One, a little judicious flirting might get a girl out of a ticket, but he was a good cop even when it cost him dearly. And two, he didn’t—as a rule—spout profanity on the job. Until today, anyway, but I sensed true grief behind the spate of cussing.

“I told that half-witted fool to put a fence along the edge of that cliff.” He swore some more. “Probably got himself half-snockered on cheap wine, went digging for those stupid jars again, and lost his footing.”

“Maybe. I’m not getting any closer than I have to, but I don’t smell booze on him from here.” I went on to describe the condition and approximate location of the body, but the quarry pit wound a fair way and looked very different from below than from above. One path through rocks and bushes looks a lot like any other, and while I had a general idea where we were, I couldn’t give exact directions.

“I’ll have Drew hike back out to the main road and wait for you. He can show you the way.”

Given a choice between dealing with the dog while keeping an eye on the body and getting turned around on a path I hadn’t paid enough attention to on the way in seemed like a no-brainer to me.

“Don’t touch anything. I’ll be there in ten, fifteen at the most.” The line clicked dead.

“Like I didn’t know that already.” At least this time, the death looked to be from natural causes. Still, once the call ended, I put some distance between myself and the body just in case Delly’s spirit hadn’t gone yet.

“Your hands are shaking,” Drew took them in his, stilled most of the trembling with his touch. A deep breath took care of the rest and let me center myself again.

After my marriage ended in a bitter divorce, I hadn’t planned on dating anyone. Not ever. Once burned and all that jazz. I hadn’t counted on meeting Drew Parker when he opened up a gym in Mooselick River, and it wasn’t only his body that sparked a powerful attraction between us right from the first moment.

Drew carries an ineffable air of calm and reassurance—and yes, I realize I’ve just made him sound boring, but he’s not. He’s the perfect blend of confident but not cocky. Hot, but not conceited. And if attraction had been all I felt, I could have resisted falling into a relationship. I’ve worked hard at not being the type of woman to be led around by her hormones.

But there was more to it, to him and to us, than that. It’s hard to describe, but being with him made me feel both protected and more resilient—and not only because of the self-protection skills he’d taught me. This morning’s quarry hike had been Drew’s idea. He thought it would empower me if I faced the fear brought on by nearly dying here. It was the first step, he said, toward us eventually rappelling down the face of the quarry in tandem.

That would not be happening, but he still held out hope. I like that about him.

From not too far away, I heard a short bark and then the unmistakable sound of my dog’s paws pounding the ground in the opposite direction she’d left from. One of my favorite things about Molly is that she runs as she does everything else—with great abandon but absolutely no sense of style or grace.

“See, here comes Molly back again. I think we should wait for her and then you can come with me. There’s nothing more to do for Delly, and it’s not like he’s going anywhere.”

A sharp chill that had nothing to do with the damp morning crept over the small clearing and over me. When Drew didn’t so much as bat an eyelash, my heart sank. Dead body, creepy chill in the air—all signs pointed to one thing: ghost

And that was why, when Delly shivered into sight behind Drew, I wasn’t even a little bit surprised.

Accidental death?

Probably not. Every ghost I’d met so far had been the victim of either out-and-out murder or, in one case, unsolved vehicular manslaughter. I could get lucky and find out Delly had some other type of unfinished business that kept him on the wrong side of the veil, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

“No.” I sighed, shrugged the backpack straps off my shoulders, and settled down on a flat rock away from the body. “He’s not, but it doesn’t seem right to just leave him here alone. You go, Molly will stay with me. I’m okay now, and we’ll be fine. The faster Ernie gets here, the sooner we can go home.”

Delly paced the few steps between his body and the trail, his gaze darting left then right before he locked eyes with me. He picked up on my subtle head-shake, and though he quivered like a nervous chihuahua with the effort, kept silent.

“Go,” I repeated. “You’ll move faster alone.”

“Okay, but stay right here. Don’t go off on your own. Take this.” Drew pulled a leather-sheathed knife from the side pocket of his hiking shorts. “Just in case.”

In case of what, I wondered as he kissed me.

I noted the crestfallen look on Drew’s face. “I’m sorry we won’t get to finish our empowerment exercise.”

Not many men I’d known would have heard a woman utter that phrase without rolling their eyes, but Drew had used it first.

“It’s okay. Another time.” He kissed me again, then before I could do more than frown at the false note I heard in his tone, he headed back the way we had come, leaving me temporarily alone with Delmar Harper.

Panting with her efforts, Molly arrived before Drew’s backpack disappeared from sight. She danced up to me, dropped a piece of moldering red cloth at my feet, and went into a crouch with her hind end up in the air—her waiting for me to throw the ball pose.

While I eyed the filthy remains of what I thought might once have been part of the bodice of a dress, Delly spoke.

“She’s gonna die if you don’t save her.”