“Jamie, you should ask Terry about the happy haunted stuff,” Zarar says suddenly.

I take a few steps backward. “Holy shit, you’re right.” How did my brain not jump to this immediately? I ram into the front door, throwing it open again. “Terry, darling!” I shout, “I’d love a word in private out here, please, stat!” I slam the door again.

I smile at Zarar while we wait for Terry. “Well, your parents are going to think I’m insane.”

“No, I’ve told them you’re a character.”

“A character?” I say cynically.

“They know that you’re eccentric in the most wonderful, unpredictable ways and have an amazing heart.”

I squint at him. “What?” I ask, perplexed. “What else have you told them?”

“That we’re dating.” His barely there smile rears its head.

I bite my lip. “You wily bastard. We go out one time—”

The door opens behind me and we both look up at Terry.

“Terry, thank god.” I slump.

“You were happy haunted?!” Terry screeches five minutes of explanation later. She’s over the moon.

I grin at her. “Wow, could you look more thrilled about my distress? Were you happy haunted or do you happy haunt people? What’s the deal, Terr?”

She reaches out and tries to touch what must be my phantom braid and steps back. “I— Wow. You don’t know how nice it is to know for sure I’m not the only one this has happened to.”

“What happened to you?!”

Terry takes a deep breath and settles her hands on her hips. “Six years ago, after my divorce—”

“You were divorced … at twenty-six? This is your second engagement? Terr, what the hell happened?”

She shoots me an exhausted look.

“Yeah, sorry, reflex. Irrelevant. Keep going.”

“After the divorce, I went on a road trip by myself to see the country. I was looking for something in my life that I could call mine. Something I cared about. I didn’t know exactly what that was. I was an art teacher already, and I loved that, but I had summers free and I had an entrepreneurial spirt bounding around inside me, so I hit the road.

“I was hoping to figure out what I wanted to do with that as I was hiking and renting cars and driving. I loved being out of touch with everything.

“Eventually I was out there in Colorado, and I swear I followed the trail out to the retreat area and it was just wilderness. No cabins, no head cabin. I found the signs for the trails that are out there behind the cafeteria with all the different mantras. I hiked Luck, thought about how nice it would be to have a retreat of sorts out here, how it could help people find the peace that I’m finding, how I’d love to help people start down their own journeys.”