Free True Believer by Nicholas Sparks

stacking books. No doubt he was trying to stay ahead of the rush. Southern efficiency was legendary, Jeremy observed. Very impressive, this place.
In the small, cluttered office on the upper floor of the library, she stared through the window. She’d known he would be coming.
Doris had called the moment he left Herbs and told her about the man in black from New York City, who was here to write about the ghosts in the cemetery.
She shook her head. Figures that he would have listened to Doris. Once she got an idea about something, she tended to be pretty persuasive, with few concerns about the possible backlash an article like this could cause. She’d read Mr. Marsh’s stories before and knew exactly how he operated. It wouldn’t be enough to prove that ghosts weren’t involved—and she had no doubt about that—but Mr. Marsh wouldn’t stop there. He’d interview people in his own charming way, get them to open up, and then he’d pick and choose before twisting the truth in whatever way he wanted. Once he was finished with the hatchet job that would pose as an article, people around the country would assume that everyone who lived here was gullible, foolish, and superstitious.
Oh, no. She didn’t like the fact he was here at all.
She closed her eyes, absently twirling strands of her dark hair between her fingers. The thing was, she didn’t like people traipsing through the cemetery, either. Doris was right: it was disrespectful, and ever since those kids from Duke came down and the article showed up in the paper, things had been getting out of hand. Why couldn’t it have just been kept quiet? Those lights had been around for decades, and though everyone knew about them, no one really cared. Sure, once in a while, a few people might head out to take a look—mostly those who’d been drinking at the Lookilu, or teenagers—but T-shirts? Coffee mugs? Cheesy postcards? Combining it with the Historic Homes Tour?
She didn’t quite understand the whole reason behind the phenomenon. Why was it so important to increase tourism around here, anyway? Sure, the money was attractive, but people didn’t live in Boone Creek because they wanted to get rich. Well, most of them, anyway. There were always a few people out to make a buck, beginning first and foremost with the mayor. But she’d always believed that most people lived here for the same reason she did: because of the awe she felt when the setting sun turned the Pamlico River to a golden yellow ribbon, because she knew and trusted her neighbors, because people could let their kids run around at night without worrying that something bad would happen to them. In a world growing busier by the minute, Boone Creek was a town that hadn’t even attempted to keep up with the modern world, and that’s what made it special.
That’s why she was here, after all. She loved everything about the town: the smell of pine and salt on early spring mornings, the sultry summer evenings that made her skin glisten, the fiery glow of autumn leaves. But most of all, she loved the people and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. She trusted them, she talked to them, she liked them. Of course, a number of her friends hadn’t felt the same way, and after heading off to college, they’d never returned. She, too, had moved away for a while, but even then, she’d always known that she would come back; a good thing, it turned out, since she’d been worried about Doris’s health for the past two years. And she also knew she would be the librarian, just as her mother had been, in the hope of making the library something that would make the town proud.
No, it wasn’t the most glamorous job, nor did it pay much. The library was a work in progress, but first impressions were deceptive. The bottom floor housed contemporary fiction only, while the top floor held classic fiction and nonfiction, additional titles by contemporary authors, and unique collections. She doubted whether Mr. Marsh even