Must Love Ghosts (10 page)

He must think he could charm her out of a crushing feeling of betrayal.

She whirled and sprinted out the front door, flew down the steps to the sidewalk below. Footsteps pounded behind her and she took off running down the block, blindly, not knowing where she was going or what she would do.

“Tia, for God's sake, wait!” His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her off her feet and swinging her around. “Will you stop for one damned minute?”

She kept her eyes on the toes of his running shoes. She would not let him see her cry, dammit. “Go back to your meeting, Dec. We'll talk later.”

She'd never trust him. She should have seen this coming, but she'd been blinded by her raging hormones. And when he left again, her whole world was going to fold in on itself.

He put a finger under her chin and gently tilted her head up, forcing her to look at him. The hot anger in his eyes stunned her. “You think I'm betraying you, don't you? You heard enough from that producer to decide I'm going to destroy your precious career. Despite everything, that's how little you think of me.”

Outrage stiffened her back. “You've never made a secret of the fact that you want the world to know the paranormal is real.”

“I told Wes there was no deal unless we kept your name out of it. He was just giving you his sales pitch, trying to change your mind.”

She could read between those lines easily enough. She took a step back and his hand dropped to his side. “But you never bothered to tell me you were talking to him in the first place.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “I planned to talk you, but the guy arrived in town early. Before I figured out a way to bring up the whole idea of a TV show.”

“You mean before you figured out how to talk me into whatever you wanted.”

“I was wrong. I'm sorry.”

“It doesn't matter. We're finished, both of us. I just met with Jules. Cassandra left us a pile of money to start a paranormal research institute. But Jules is filing a lawsuit. He says he's going to destroy both of us for being fr-frauds.” She stumbled over the word, her heart catching. God, how had it come to this?

“Tia, look at me.” He tipped up her chin again and she met his gaze with her watery one. “We didn't do anything wrong. You know that. Invite Jules over here. We'll show him the truth.”

“Billy is gone! What are we going to show him?”

“The tapes and photos I made.”

“God, Dec, you're so naïve. He'll just say we faked everything.” A bicyclist sped past. Someone's garage door rumbled open. She rubbed her hands over her forehead, pressed her temples. “We have to tell Jules we don't want the money. Maybe if we sign everything back over to him, he'll drop the lawsuit.”

Dec shook his head. “No. If we do that, it looks like we're guilty. We're
not
guilty of anything.”

She wiped her eyes. “Like that's going to matter. You know exactly what our situation looks like. I'm sure the jury will come to the logical conclusion.”

“So you're going to cower, pretend none of this is true?”

“What else can I do? I've lost everything!”

His face closed up, like a door slamming shut on their future. “No, you just think you have. You like to pretend you're above all the petty emotions that make up life, but really you're driven by fear.”

The air sucked out of her lungs. She'd tried to trust her feelings, go with the flow like Adele had said, and look where it had gotten her.

“Whereas you,” she spat out, “are so driven by your need for external validation, you're blind to the human wreckage you leave in your wake. I don't want any part of your quest. I just want my life back.”

His face froze. Only the muscle jumping near his jaw gave any sign of life. “Do what you need to do. You were right back in the beginning. We're too different. This thing between us will never work.”

He turned, walked back up the street to his house without once looking back.

Tia clutched her arms around herself, watching him go as warm, fat raindrops started to fall.

Ryan handed Dec a bottle of Sam Adams and flopped down on the couch next to him. “How's next weekend for helping me finish my office? Looks like you won't be busy.”

Dec didn't answer. He popped the bottle cap and took a swig. Late-afternoon sun slanted through his windows, casting irregular columns of light on the floor. Ryan had shown up a few minutes ago, and without a word, turned on the basketball game and made himself at home.

“I haven't seen an epic fail like that since senior year.” Ryan's voice turned nostalgic. “You were homecoming king and I stole your queen away right from under your nose.”

Dec turned up the volume on the game. “Beth was only using me to make you jealous.”

“My point is, for all you got the good looks in the family, you're a real screwup when it comes to women. You should have told her about the producer, man.”

Like he didn't know that already. He was a world-class idiot.

He'd been afraid to talk to Tia about the reality TV show because he'd only just gotten her back and he didn't want to mess up their fragile new beginning.

But by not talking to her, he'd destroyed everything.

In the corner of the room, his old-fashioned, silver radiator rattled, followed by a big pop, and then Billy appeared.

“Jesus Christ!” Ryan jumped to his feet. The beer bottle slipped from his fingers and crashed to the floor.

Dec didn't move. “Ryan, this is Billy. Billy, my cousin Ryan.”

Billy grinned and gave a bow.

“Wow.” Ryan poked Billy, as though testing his solidness. “You were impressive on the video, but in person… Wow.”

“Hey, mitts off. I'm a ghost, not a wax statue.”

Ryan dropped his hand.

Dec raised his bottle to Billy. “I thought you were gone for good.”

“Don't know as much as you think you do. I wanted a break from looking at your ugly mug until Cassandra joined me. Didn't think you'd screw things up so badly without me.”

Dec grabbed his bottle again, took a swig, and leaned back into the cushions. “It's going to be one of those nights, is it?”

“You're an idiot.”

“I know.”

“My grand-niece is a terrific woman. A slob like you could do a lot worse.”

“That's for sure,” Ryan said.

“So glad we could have this chat.” Dec turned back to the game.

Billy moved in front of the television. “Get your ass over there and apologize.”

“How do you even know what happened?”

Billy grinned. “Secret of the afterlife. Point is, you're throwing away a good thing. Cassandra and I missed out on our lives together, but at least it wasn't our fault. You're throwing away happiness with both hands.”

“She doesn't make me that happy.” Even as he said it, an image of Tia laughing flashed into his mind, followed by an image of Tia naked in his bed. “Okay, she makes me happy. But what kind of future do we have together? She'll do anything to pretend to the world that ghosts—you—don't exist. The whole point of my work is to prove the existence of ghosts to the world.”

“Oh? I thought the whole point of your work was to help people,” Billy said.

Dec opened his mouth, closed it again.

Ryan snickered. “Told you.”

“She's got a right to worry how far you'll go chasing the wrong dream,” Billy continued. “You broke the law once, at her expense. What if you two have kids and one of them is a sensitive like you? Gonna exploit your kid to help your cause?”

Dec shot to his feet. “I'd never do that.”

“Sure you would. That's what all you guys do who're in it for fame and glory. It's not enough to know, deep in yourself, that you're doing good work? That's what we used to call being a man. Guess that's one of the things that have changed from the good old days.”

“I have it on good authority that the good old days never existed.”

“Some things don't change. Honor. Loyalty. Love. So what's it gonna be, Declan? You gonna be a man?”

The next evening, Tia stormed into her house, dropped the urn on the little table by the door. She stripped off her coat and threw it onto the couch. She'd snapped at her students, let her mind wander during a session with a patient, and generally been unfocused, unproductive and unhappy. That could mean only one thing.

She was in love.

Totally, stupidly, painfully in love with Dec.

She glared at the framed photo of Nana on her mantel. Nana, who always told her to follow her heart. “I had to fall in love with the most stubborn, impossible, pain in the ass…”

And because she loved him, she was going to go against her own best interests and make sure he got the thing he wanted most. If she didn't, she would never be able to live with herself.

She knew how hard his life had been. How much he deserved public recognition instead of public scorn.

That didn't mean they had a future together, but she'd do this one thing for him.

Different. They were different, that was for sure. She wasn't going to let him toil in obscurity for his whole life, or go on his cockamamie scheme to give Jules some photos and videos—things easily written off as special effects. But what would convince Jules?

Her gaze landed on the elegant blue urn, gleaming in the waning light.

She'd locked the urn in her office last night while she and Adele holed up at her friend's house eating chocolate, listening to sad songs, and commiserating about men. Had she missed something important?

She'd assumed Billy and Cassandra had moved on to wherever the departed went next. But why would Cassandra bequeath her the urn, unless she was coming back?

Or, she could be wrong and nothing might happen after dark.

A chance she'd have to take.

She pulled out her cell phone. The first call she made was to the television producer. Next, she punched up Jules's number.

The hard stuff done, she made herself comfortable on the sofa, where she could keep watch on the urn. She had a few hours to kill, and nothing better to do than map out a new life for herself. She was
not
driven by fear, and she was going to prove it.

“Dr. McGarry,” Jules said stiffly, standing on her front doorstep, the porch light burnishing his Armani suit. “If you'll just hand over my grandmother's urn, I'll be on my way.”

She swung the door wider. “Please come in.”

“I don't think that's necessary.”

“I insist.”

He sighed loudly and entered her home. “I'm glad you had the decency to voluntarily turn over the urn.”

Her back stiffened, she didn't argue. “Mrs. Jameson's ashes belong with her family.”

Jules followed her into the living room. “This seems to be the day for everyone's better nature to assert itself. Mancini called me shortly after you did. He's refusing the inheritance.”

Tia froze. “What do you mean?”

Jules cast his eyes around the room, smiling when he saw the urn. “Mancini confessed everything. Said he was responsible for staging a fake haunting of your home and trying to convince my grandmother that the ghost of her dead lover had returned. I've agreed not to press charges in exchange for his voluntarily signing back the money. Frankly, I'd rather people not find out Grandmother was starting to lose it at the end.” He tugged on his cuffs, annoyance creasing his forehead. “Mancini also insisted I tell Richard to reinstate you on the research project. Apparently, I was mistaken about your involvement with Mancini, so I felt that was fair. I won't be filing a grievance with the university, obviously, and you're free to pursue your research with a grant from the Jameson Foundation.”

Tia reached for the back of the sofa, needing something solid to keep her standing. Dec had…Dec had
lied
for her. Lied about the existence of ghosts, gone against everything that drove his quest in life, not to mention put himself at risk of going to jail, all to save her career. All to give her what he thought she wanted.

“I…I don't know what to say.”

Jules waved his hand. “I'd rather forget all this unpleasantness, if you don't mind. May I have the urn now?”

The doorbell rang. “Please give me a minute. I need to talk to you about this business with Dec.”

She wasn't going to let Dec sacrifice himself for her. As long as Cassandra put in an appearance tonight, all would be well. She hoped.

Jules sighed and seated himself in an armchair while Tia hurried to answer the door. Was Adele stopping by to check on how she was surviving her breakup? Whoever it was, she had to get rid of them fast.

She peered through the peephole, then rocked back on her heels. It was Dec.

The doorbell rang again.

“Are you going to answer that?” Jules called irritably.

Tia swung open the door. Dec stood there, a lock of dark hair falling into his eyes and a somber look on his face.

They needed to talk. Had a lot of issues and emotions to process. A relationship to discuss. She had to be calm and cool and mature.

“I love you,” she said and threw herself at him. He caught her and she wrapped her legs around his waist, kissing him as though her life depended on the soft brush of their mouths again each other.

“I love you too.” He braced her back against the doorjamb and deepened the kiss.

“Jules told me everything,” she said when she came up for air. His eyes darkened and she brushed the lock of hair off his forehead. “I won't let you do it. I already called your television producer and told him I'll go on the show. And I'm telling Jules I won't sign over the money. He can't take it back without both our signatures, and I want you to have your research institute.”

His shifted his grip so he could free one hand to tangle in her hair. “No. I don't need it. Someone reminded me my life's work is helping people, not proving the existence of ghosts.”