Read Online Treasured Legacies (A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery) by Terri Reid - Free Book Online Page B

pick up the girls and let them ride in their car.”
    “Exactly,” Erika said and she added with a small smile. “Or
they have a secret steady and they both act like they’re free.”
    “And where do they go?”
    “They just drive, up and down Galena,” she said.
    “Just up and down the same road?” Mary asked.
    “Yes, it’s called cruising,” Erika replied. “We cruise the
drag.”
    “Why?”
    “So people can see us and we can see other people.”
    “Couldn’t you just all see each other here at the ice cream
parlor?”
    “Are you from this century?” Erika asked.
    Mary just smiled. “Sorry, I guess it’s a new concept to me.
It sounds like fun,” she tried to sound enthusiastic. “It’s just seems like a
waste of gasoline.”
    Shrugging, Erika spun on her stool. “So, it’s only a quarter
a gallon,” she said. “No big deal.”
    “A quarter a gallon,” Mary repeated. “Wow.”
    “You sound like my dad,” the ghost replied. “He says that’s
highway robbery.”
    Then Erika peered past Mary and sighed.
    “What’s wrong?” Mary asked.
    “He’s late again,” she said, her face dropping. “He promised
he’d be here.”
    She stood up and walked to the plate glass door and peered
out.
    Mary followed her to the window. “Erika, how long have you
been waiting for him?”
    Erika paused, considering Mary’s question. Finally she
turned to her. “I think I’ve been waiting a long time,” she said, her voice
dropping to a whisper. “A very long time.”
    “A very, very long time.”
    Then she faded away before Mary’s eyes.

Chapter Fourteen
    Mary sat in the dark restaurant for short while longer,
hoping to catch another glimpse of Brandon. But as the wall clock echoed loudly
in the relative quiet and the various machines went through their cycles, no
other supernatural event occurred.   Finally, Mary placed her hands on the counter, pushed herself up and
walked across the darkened ice cream parlor to the front door.   Turning, she took one last look around the
large room.   Everything was still and in
place for the next morning. Shrugging, she unlocked the door and stepped
outside to the street.   Maybe Brandon and
Erika would contact her at home, now that they’d made a connection with her.
    Locking the door behind her, she hurried to her car and
drove back in the quiet streets to her home.
    “So, how’d it go?” Bradley asked her as she walked into the
house. “Did you make any new friends today?”
    Chuckling, she nodded. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did,”
she replied, slipping her coat off and hanging in the closet. “I met Erika, a
teenager from the fifties. She was waiting for someone to take her cruising,
but they never showed up.”
    He turned from the desk he was sitting behind. “She’s been
waiting a long time,” he said.
    “Yeah, I hate when dates go that way,” she said. “You wait
for half a century and they still don’t show up.   That’s just plain rude if you ask me.”
    Standing, he walked over and wrapped his arms around her.
“I’m sure you never had to worry about being stood up for a date,” he said,
placing a kiss on her head.
    She looked up at him with disbelief on her face. “Excuse
me?” she asked. “I do recall sitting around in a sexy black dress for several
hours while my date was otherwise occupied.”
    “Well, there was a train derailment,” he said.
    “Oh, yeah, the old train derailment excuse,” she teased. “I’ve
heard that one a hundred times.”
    He pulled her closer. “I promise you I would have much
preferred to be in the company of you and that sexy black dress,” he murmured,
trailing kisses down the side of her face. “But, as I recall, I did make up for
it later.”
    She turned her face, so her lips met his. “Oh, yes, you
did,” she whispered just before she kissed him back.
    Lifting her into his arms, he carried her to the staircase.
“Why don’t we continue this discussion upstairs?” he suggested,