Better Off Dead in Deadwood (35 page)

I admired the view, letting my imagination ride off with him and then some. My body responded in fine mating form, throbbing in places that left me tingling.

Jeez!
What was wrong with me? Was I ovulating?

I pulled up in front of him and cranked down my window, telling myself to play it cool—no drooling.

“Hey, stranger,” I said, pushing my sunglasses up. “Looking for a ride?”

Doc strolled over and leaned on my window frame. His hair gleamed in the morning light, looking almost blue-black. Shadows angled his face, adding an air of ruggedness that made me want to explore the texture with my fingers.

“That depends,” he said, his voice throaty, his gaze locking on my lips.

The heady scent of him drifted inside the cab, making my pheromones bounce around like Mexican jumping beans.

His eyes traveled down my neck, darkening as they slid into the deep neckline of my pink cardigan. “Are you glittering?” he asked.

I looked down at where the silver zipper tab lay nestled in my cleavage. The sunlight streaming through the Picklemobile’s front window hit me at chest-level, making the shiny flecks infused in my new coconut-scented lotion sparkle.

“Let’s see,” I said and made a point of peeking down the front of my sweater. “Hmmm.” I let my sweater fall back into place and dragged my fingernail along the swell of my breast, flirting with him from under lowered lashes. “It appears I am—all over.”

His focus jerked back to my face, his lust in plain sight. “Prove it.”

My heartbeat got all hectic. “You’re smoldering again.”

“I haven’t stopped smoldering since you dropped your skirt in front of me, Boots.”

“Oh, really?” I purred. I should probably end this little game of seduction before someone lost control and melted all over her seat, but Doc was so fun to tempt. “Do you like to watch me take my clothes off?”

“I like to watch you, period. Touching is even better.”

“Prove it,” I threw back at him.

His grin surfaced, looking both playful and seductive. “I will, vixen. I will. And when I do, you’re going to pay for all of the cold showers I’ve been taking lately.”

“We could skip our visit to Prudence and go back to your place.”

Doc shook his head at my suggestion. “I think it’s your turn to smolder for a bit.”

“I don’t smolder.” I just plain combusted, like a Phoenix, only with less flash and more screams.

His hand slipped down to trail up my pant leg, from my knee along my inner thigh. “Are you sure about that?”

Those dark, dark eyes of his nearly suckered me into grabbing his hand and hurrying him along. Instead, I stopped his hand just before he hit the point-of-no-return. Responsible mothers didn’t participate in foreplay in parking lots, I reminded myself, and neither did employees at risk of losing their jobs. I made a T with my hands. “Time out.”

One of Doc’s eyebrows lifted.

“It’s been too long and I’ve been aching for you way too much, especially after last night’s call.” His detailed description of his latest shower-idea had left me writhing. “If you keep traveling up that path, I won’t want you to stop, and with my luck, my boss will drive by right about the time I start screaming your name.” I removed Doc’s hand from my leg and placed it back on the door frame.

“You’ve been aching for me, huh?”

I was too discombobulated from his flirting to play it cool, but I was still armed with sarcasm. “I haven’t reached the point of writing your name with little hearts around it on my notebooks yet, so don’t get all cocky on me.”

“Cocky?” Doc’s grin spread, creasing his eyes, which sparkled with mirth. “I’ll try, but you do make
it
hard.”

Good looks and quick wit—it was no wonder he’d had me at “I want to buy a house.”

My cheeks warmed as if my brain weren’t totally corrupted by now. I matched his grin. “Then try to keep your cockiness in your pants so I don’t get into any more trouble with my boss. I’d bet my mother’s collection of John Denver records that Jerry’s official rule book doesn’t allow foreplay in Calamity Jane’s parking lot.”

“Jerry has a rule book?” Doc asked.

“We’re talking at least another foul. Maybe two.”

“What do you mean ‘another’ foul?”

“I already have one for going to jail.”

Doc scoffed. “He’s giving you fouls now?”

I nodded. “Life is one big basketball game to Jerry. He used to play for the pros, you know. His nickname was The Slammer.”

Doc snapped his fingers. “That’s where I know him from.”

“I got one foul for going to jail. Four more and I’m done. I can’t afford to foul out.”

He shook his head. “You need a new boss.”

“Don’t say that too loud. After what happened to my last boss,”
poor Jane
, “Cooper might hear you and throw you in jail, too.” That reminded me of something I forgot to ask Doc last night on the phone. “Is Cooper dating Tiffany?’

He shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“So Tiffany didn’t mention Cooper the last time you talked to her?” And when exactly was the last time Doc had talked to the hussy? Yesterday in the library?

Doc chuckled and tugged on one of my loose curls. “Violet, the last time I talked to Tiffany was in front of The Old Prospector Hotel with you standing there next to me. I don’t recall her mentioning Cooper’s name at that time, do you?”

I frowned, wanting to stuff my insecurities in a box and toss it down one of Homestake’s mine shafts. “Was I that obvious?”

“Your eyes gave you away.”

I looked away, trying to hide my peepers from him. “I wish you’d picked an uglier ex-girlfriend,” I grumbled.

He caught my chin and turned me back toward him, rubbing his thumb along my bottom lip. “I wish I’d met you first and avoided that pothole altogether.”

“Yeah, but I’m full of potholes.”

He tipped his head to the side as if considering my words. “You’re not a pothole—more like the Grand Canyon.”

What did that mean? “That doesn’t seem like a good thing.”

“You’re looking at it through the wrong lens.”

What lens should I be using? Probably a wide-angle one after all of those pancakes I gorged on this morning.

Doc stepped back from my window. “Now are we going to see a ghost or not?”

“Might as well since we’re not gonna have sex.”

He laughed aloud. “I’m going to enjoy watching you smolder, Boots.”

I pointed my thumb toward the passenger side. “Get in before I shut off this damned truck and drag you off behind a tree.”

I’d planned to drive to the Carhart’s for good reason. If Prudence’s show and tell session today was anything like the one Doc had experienced last time, we’d be returning with him half comatose in the seat next to me.

Doc zipped around the back of the Picklemobile and climbed in next to me.

I waited for him to belt himself in before asking, “Is there anything we need to do to prep for this?”

Like dust off the Ouija board? Round up some Rune stones? Buy more double-D batteries?

“Nope.”

“Are you ready?” I sure as hell wasn’t. Knowing that he trusted me to keep him out of trouble in the netherworld had me sweating in unlady-like places. I couldn’t even keep myself out of trouble in
this
world.

“I’ll be ready after I take care of one thing.”

“What’s that?”

He pulled me toward him and kissed me, hard and hungry, almost bruising. My internal furnace flared, lighting me on fire Phoenix-style again. I sank my fingers in his hair, pulling him even closer, hitting him with my own need.

“Smolder, Boots,” Doc whispered against my lips. “Smolder.” Then he retreated as quickly as he’d attacked, leaving me stranded, breathing hard and sparking.

“Okay, now I’m ready,” he said, chuckling at my huffs and snarls. “This is the part where you put the pickup in drive and hit the gas.”

I certainly felt like hitting something. Shifting into gear, I steered the Picklemobile toward Lead.

Just when I thought I had a grip on the reins of this thing between Doc and me, he cracked the whip and my libido shot off yet again at a full three-beat gait.

“How much time do we have alone in the house?” Doc asked.

I’d let him know last night that I was able to get us into the Carhart house without Wanda there, convincing her to go shopping while I showed the place.

“I told her that I needed at least an hour.”

“She doesn’t know it’s me?”

“No, she didn’t ask and I didn’t give names. I think she just wants to be free of the place.” Which made me feel bad since I was giving her false hope today. I’d have to make it up to her by selling the damned haunted house.

“Can’t say I blame her.” He let his head rest against the seatback, closing his eyes, going silent.

I glanced at him several times on the three miles up to Lead, giving him space to prepare for whatever was about to happen. I just wished there were a guide book for whatever I’d need to do to get him back safely.

I rolled into the Carhart’s drive and then cut the engine.

Doc opened his eyes and looked over at me. “Your forehead is one big wrinkle.” He grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers. “Tell me why.”

To start with, “What’s going to happen once we get inside the house?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wow,” I said, my sarcasm back for another round. “Surprisingly, that’s not comforting at all.”

“Sorry, Violet, but this is what I deal with every time I enter someplace that might be haunted. Prudence may rush us as soon as we step inside, or she may not even show up for the party.”

“What happens if she rushes us—rushes you?”

“I let her lead me down her memory lane without any of my road blocks in place this time.”

Even with his blocks in place last time, she’d knocked him flat. What would it be like with his defenses down?

“So, I sit there and wait for you to wake up?” I should have brought something to knit.

“No, you watch me, make sure I don’t stop breathing, count to thirty, then pull me back out. You’ll be my lifeline.”

That “don’t stop breathing” part made my hands tremble. I looked out the front window at the Carhart house, not wanting Doc to see my panic. Lifelines are supposed to be calm, not scrambling for paper bags to breathe into so they didn’t pass out.

As much as I wanted to call this whole thing off, I tucked away my fears of losing him and focused on the task at hand. “Is thirty seconds long enough?” He’d been under three times as long last time with her.

“Time moves differently when I’m in
their
world. I need long enough for Prudence to relive the memory so I can see what she was up to before her killers arrive. Then you can work your magic and pull me out before I get slammed with the surge of energy that will come with her death.”

Right, the surge that could fry his brain. “What if I don’t know what magic to do?”

“You do. You’ve done it before.”

He sounded so sure of me. I wished I felt the same.

His hand touched my leg, comforting. “Violet, I know you can do this. If I weren’t sure of it, I wouldn’t go in that house.”

“What happens if I can’t?” I whispered, grimacing.

“I don’t know.”

“Again, not comforting.”

“Welcome to my world,” he said and squeezed my thigh. “Let’s go get this over with.”

The porch steps didn’t creak, but the front door did as it swung open. My feet didn’t need many more reasons to turn around and run the other way, especially after my last visit to this spook-joint with Harvey in tow.

Doc shut the door behind us and deadbolted it, sealing us inside.

When I nailed him with a wide-eyed glance, he caught my hand. “She’s just a ghost. She can’t hurt you.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about at the moment.”

“I like it that you’re worried about me.” He pulled me toward him, his gaze narrowing to an exaggerated squint. “Damn my eyes,” he said, sounding a little like Clint Eastwood, “I find that kind of touchin’.”

His impression of Hogan from
Two Mules for Sister Sara
didn’t quite hit the mark, but he made me smile anyway. “I think I like your impressions of Bogart better than Clint.”

“I collect blondes and bottles, too,” he mimicked Bogart in
The Big Sleep
, and then led me into the sitting room where Harvey and I had scarfed down brownies.

I breathed in the now familiar scents of the Carhart house—vanilla and a hint of floor wax.

Doc stood in the center of the room, sniffing for a whole other reason.

“Is she close?” I asked, checking the pallor of his skin—still normal.

“No, but she’s here.” He pointed at the chair next to him. “Is that where Prudence spoke through Wanda?”

I nodded, skirting the chair to peek out the front window at the Picklemobile, my touchstone of normalcy.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he said.

Without a word, I followed him up to the bedroom where Prudence had accosted him the last time we’d toured the place.

I watched him walk to the dresser, noticing how he used the furniture to steady himself. “Are we getting hot?”

His skin had paled enough to be noticeable, but not as drastically as I’d witnessed before when Prudence had hovered in the doorway.

“Yeah,” he looked behind me into the hall. “She’s close.”

Goosebumps prickled my arms. “She’s not standing right behind me again, is she?”

“No. I think we need to go up into the attic.”

“That sounds like what someone would say in a slasher movie right before getting chopped into pieces.”

“She’s just a ghost, Violet,” he reiterated.

“Yeah, but a chatty one.”

“Better than one with a grudge, like Wilda.”

I shuddered at his mention of Wilda Hessler, the long-dead sister of my first client. Wolfgang Hessler had tried to burn me alive in his upstairs bedroom. I’d never forget the acrid odor of lighter fluid as Wolfgang poured it around me while claiming his dead sister sat in the corner watching with glee.

The ghost of Wilda Hessler still had me double-checking shadow-filled corners, especially after Cornelius told me a few weeks back about a blonde girl ghost who’d approached him in a dream and wanted him to relay the message that I was invited to her tea party.