How To Bring Your Love Life Back From The Dead (22 page)

She traipsed across the garage
nearly dragging the backpack. She’d been pigeon-toed as a kid, and
she still had a goofy walk. For whatever reason he’d called her
Duck…she had reason to be self-conscious.

“Does everyone know why you call me
Duck?” she asked, stepping on the first of the three steps going
into the house.

His forehead wrinkled as his
eyebrows drew together. Behind him, she could see the kitchen all
lit up. If ever there was a house that looked less haunted, she
hadn’t seen it. It looked like a mash-up of old Victorian and cozy
modern, and it was lit up like it was noon. “Nobody ever asked.
They knew we’d known each other practically from diapers. They must
have assumed it was a nickname. You’re the first person who’s asked
that I can remember.” He stared at her for a second.
“Why?”

She took another step up. It was
time to be brave and exorcise those ghosts from her past. “Because
it makes me feel….” Pathetic. Needy. Obvious. “Stupid.”

“I should really stop
then.”

She nodded even if felt like she was
losing something—that connection to him that said they’d known each
other longer than anyone else they had relationships
with.

He shrugged. “I’m not going
to.”

She tried to look
disappointed.

“I earned the right to call you
that.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Come
again? You earned the right?”

He stepped back so she could go past
him, but he didn’t step back that far. She’d still have to turn
sideways and be within a foot of him, facing him. Maybe he was
still trying to intimidate her into welching out of the bet. When
she slid in front of him, he stopped her right in front of him with
a hand on her waist as his other hand grabbed the backpack from her
hand. It felt like she’d stepped into the middle of the desert. Her
whole body flushed with heat, and her mouth went dry.

“Remember when I lost both my front
teeth? I got my mouth washed out with soap for yelling ‘Duck’ after
you when you swiped my bike overnight. My mom thought I’d said
something completely different.”

She smiled and relaxed. “You always
had the better bike.”

“I still do. I’m going through a
mid-life crisis and bought a Harley a week ago.”

“You’re going through a mid-life
crisis at twenty-seven? Wow, your parents should take out a high
life insurance policy on you.”

His hand was still at her waist, and
his thumb was rubbing across her hipbone making her tingle in ways
that were far less friendly than this conversation. “You made off
like a bandit when we were kids when it came to bikes. You knew you
could swipe mine, and I’d let you…and you always had pink bikes so
I couldn’t return the favor.”

“That is why I picked pink
bikes.”

“Oh, I know it.”

They dropped into silence, and
silence when you’re only about eight inches apart was…charged. Her
lips even itched as if they were remembering the kiss earlier. He
was a good six inches taller than her so their mouths were over a
foot apart, and he’d have to make the first move…but…why was she
even thinking about this? He wasn’t. He was probably wondering why
she was letting the heat out of his kitchen by lurking in the
doorway.

She went to move but his hand held
her in place and then he did lean down and press his mouth against
hers.

Guys in Chicago had been far more
interested in her than all of the guys in Rye Patch combined, so
she wasn’t new to kissing, but it sure felt like her first time
even though they’d kissed earlier.

And this was not like their kiss
earlier. His lips pushed hers apart, and his tongue brushed hers,
and she felt the caress straight down to her toes.

Whoa.

At first, her brain short-circuited
and all she could think was
Clay is kissing me! Clay is kissing
me!
But then, that little voice inside her that was awfully
good at keeping her from getting her heart broken said
Clay
lives here. You’ll be seeing him every day. If you mess this up, if
you make a big deal of it, you’ll never live this down. He made
close to five hundred dollars kissing last fall—of course he’s
good.

She pulled back and stared at him.
“Why did you do that?”

He looked stumped before he said,
frowning, “Because I wanted to. You’re reading a lot more into my
motives than is there…trust me.”

If he’d dumped a bucket of ice water
on her, it wouldn’t have shocked her as much as his words, and he’d
once dumped a bucket of ice water on her, so she would know.
Basically, he felt like indulging his hormones, and she was here.
She looked back at her car. She had to get out of here. Bet or no
bet, this was going to create all new ghosts in her
life.

“Whoa! Cory, that came out wrong. I
swear.” He dropped the backpack and put his other hand on her waist
to keep her from bolting.

She blinked back the pin-pricks of
tears and stared at his chest. “There was a way that didn’t sound
like you’re a total bastard?”

He sighed. “Come in. I swear…I’ll
behave. Let me show you the house.”

She waffled as she stood
there.

On the one hand, they’d already
crossed a line. It’s not like they’d be seeing much of each other
after he’d gone and done that, and there was the bet, and it was
hard to make a quick escape when you’d parked in a garage. She’d be
better off running out the front door and leaving her car behind.
And maybe he had said it wrong—but he would had to have said it
really wrong…and been saying everything wrong for half their
lifetimes.

On the other hand, this was Clay
Matthews, and the last time he’d hurt her feelings she’d tried to
disappear for an entire year before running away from home for
good. She was an adult now, and adults didn’t run away from home.
They ran like hell out the front door and away from the haunted
house—the haunted house that had more ghosts than all of the east
coast combined. She was wearing sneakers. If she took him by
surprise, she could make it out his front door before he even
caught on that she was running.

And no one else knew about the
bet.

And there was no forfeit price on
the bet.

And when it came to her heart—all
bets were off.

He was about fifty percent certain
he’d screwed up beyond repair. She’d been standing there, and he’d
wanted to kiss her more than he’d wanted to breathe. Delayed
gratification wasn’t something he particularly enjoyed. But, then
again, she was reading most of his actions as being cruel. So,
however she’d interpreted him saying, “I don’t have any other
ulterior motives besides being in love with you,” it hadn’t been
good.

Her body went tense, and he knew
he’d lost her…and then the lights flickered and went
off.

The whole house went
dark.

Cory yelped and jumped toward him,
wrapping her arms around him. He caught her, hugging her. She’d
always had a low tolerance for spooky things. She only read books
like Dracula outside in the sunlight. It’d been why he’d thought of
this ten years ago. Getting the girl he was hot for all jittery and
in need of protection sounded ideal. Now, it sounded like the power
must have gone off for the whole neighborhood or he had somehow
screwed up on the electrical wiring, but he had Cory in his arms,
so even having to rewire the entire house sounded fine. Not
ideal…but fine.

“Hey…hey…hey…you’re okay, Duck, I’ve
got you.” He grabbed her backpack and edged her in through the
door, closing it behind him. It was good he’d lived and breathed
this house for almost a year now, and that there wasn’t any
furniture to trip over. Dropping her backpack to free up his hands,
he put his arms around her.

She had him in a bear hug, and she
wasn’t about to let him go. He could feel her shivering. He stroked
his hand up and down her back, trying to soothe her. Wow, she felt
good in his arms. He’d never been so grateful for the power going
out. His chin rubbed against her hair and he hoped she wouldn’t
notice if he pressed his lips against her head and breathed in the
scent of her. Mmm. Cory. If they could stay right here, forever,
that’d be fine by him.

On the other hand, she was
shivering, shuddering against him—and that wasn’t fine. Seeing her
this scared made his gut wrench. And it was strange that the power
was out.

“Let’s go to the front window and
see how far the power is out, okay?”

She pulled back. Her swallow was
audible in the dark house. “You think that’s all it is?”

“Yeah, it’s a weird
coincidence—probably.”

“Really?” She sounded so adorably
hopeful, but she was also pulling out of his arms.

“Probably,” he said again. Geez, he
was a bastard, but he’d take her spooked if it gave him enough time
to explain. “C’mon. Let’s go the front window and see. You can stay
holding on to me—I know this place blindfolded.” Actually, the
front window was near the door. “You know what, we’ll go to the
music room, it’s closer.”

She kept one arm around his waist,
and he kept his arm across her shoulders as he said, “Okay, see,
here on my right is the granite countertops I put in last week.
They’re nice. You’ll like them. I put in a double farmhouse sink. I
know you once said you liked the one at my mom’s house.” He was
rambling, but it was calming her down, and he was unlikely to say
something utterly stupid while talking about this house. They
shuffled slowly across the floor. “In a second, we’ll go off the
tile onto the hardwood floors. This house actually had really nice
hardwood floors if you can believe it. I tore almost everything
else out—gutted it, but I left the floors.”

“Maybe, if it turns out to be
haunted, maybe you shouldn’t have kept the floors.”

He smiled and hugged her tighter.
“You think so? You think maybe something dastardly happened on
these wood floors, and they’re cursed?”

She laughed…a little nervously.
“Well, if something had happened, it was more likely to have
happened on the floors than the ceilings.”

They were almost to the music room.
He wasn’t sure what he’d use it for. Neither of them played
instruments, and there was a nice library in the back for her.
“Unless someone was levitating above the bed like in a demonic
possession and….”

“Clay!” She hugged him
tighter.

“You didn’t even notice that I used
the word dastardly. You made me learn all these big words for my
tests and then you don’t even give me credit when I use
them.”

“Are you sure it was dastardly? A
very similar sounding word comes to mind when I think of you right
now.” She almost sounded amused. That was good. At least she wasn’t
pulling away, and they weren’t near a quick escape. When they
reached the window, her hold loosened even more as they stared out.
“Huh.”

Yeah. Huh. Everyone else had
electricity besides them. “Maybe faulty wiring?”

She gasped and pulled back. In the
dim light streaming through the window, he could see horror on her
face…more horror than earlier actually. “My dad did the wiring in
here! Are you saying he did a bad job?”

Wow, it really was impossible to say
the right thing to her. “So, you’re hoping for supernatural forces
then?”

“Maybe you forgot to pay your power
bill.”

“I didn’t forget to pay my power
bill.”

“But maybe you did.”

“Duck, even if I did, they don’t
shut your power off at night. They show up and threaten to shut if
off during the middle of the day if you don’t hand them a
check.”

“You sound like you have
experience.” She was using her librarian voice on him. All snooty
and patronizing, and it made him love her more, but also…he
seriously couldn’t say a thing right.

“This is my thirteenth house—things
happen.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper, and
she edged closer to him. “This is your thirteenth house?” She went
still. “Wait, when you say ‘things happen’ are you saying like
spooky things happen or like forgetting to pay power bills
happen?”

Before he could answer her, there
was a sound like something rolling across the roof…skidding and
bumping and…what the hell?