A Date With the Other Side (12 page)

But she was real, and honest, and giving, and the sexiest woman he had ever encountered in his life, and he was starting to think that he could tell himself otherwise, but deep down he knew she was very special.

Which meant he could not take advantage of her. He couldn’t offer her anything beyond a quick hot affair, and that wasn’t fair to Shelby. She deserved better. She deserved love, and he wasn’t capable of giving that.

Not to mention that this was her town, and if they fooled around, everyone would know. He would leave and it wouldn’t matter to him, but it would matter to her. People would talk about it here for a long time, and that was something he just didn’t want Shelby to have to endure.

No, he couldn’t sleep with her. It was probably a good thing they’d been interrupted.

He nearly groaned at the thought, suddenly exhausted and wanting nothing more than to just tumble into his bed and sleep for about twelve hours. Except that he had to get up early tomorrow and go buy bricks to use as doorstops. He didn’t even know where one went about buying bricks.

In his experience, they just showed up on the side of buildings.

Boston sighed as he parked the car back at the White House. Maybe it was time to call Brett again and try and get himself the hell out of there.

Sleep would have to wait, Boston decided, when he walked around the back of the house and found a teenage boy with blue hair sitting on the back step, smoking a cigarette.

Shelby’s cousin.

“Hey, what’s up?” Brady said, blowing smoke to the side.

“Nothing. What’s up with you?” Boston debated lecturing him on the effects of tobacco, then realized he was too tired to be properly firm.

“I’m just looking for Shel. She around? Mrs. Danforth said she was giving you a tour.”

“I just took her home.”

Brady grinned in the dark, his white teeth flashing. “That was a helluva long tour, huh? She must have shown you just about everything.”

He would have to be an idiot not to catch Brady’s raunchy tone of voice, but he chose to ignore it. Putting his key in the door, he opened it and stepped around Brady. “Just the usual.”

Brady crushed out his cigarette on the stoop and scrambled to his feet. “I think it’s cool if you hook up with Shel. She deserves someone paying a little attention to her. This town treats her like Cinderella or something, man.”

Boston flipped on the kitchen light and looked at Brady curiously. “And that bothers you?”

“Hell, yeah. Pisses me off. I wish she’d leave this place and go somewhere new, then people would have to see her for who she is, not what they think she is.”

Boston liked Brady’s emotional and protective tone. He sensed Brady was also in a talkative mood, and Boston decided it was worth a little lost sleep to hear what the kid might be able to tell him about Shelby.

“And what is Shelby?” A giant moth flew past Brady’s blue head, attracted to the kitchen light, and Boston added, “Get in here and shut the door.”

Brady did, spinning the earring in his eyebrow as he moved. Watching the skin pull out made Boston a little nauseous, but he decided that was probably due to lack of nourishment. He hadn’t eaten since lunch.

“Shelby’s smart. She’s loyal. She doesn’t talk down to anyone and she doesn’t need fancy clothes and a house to be happy.” Then Brady shrugged like he’d gotten too sentimental. “She’s cool, that’s all.”

Boston pulled open the refrigerator and stared at its sparse contents. Brady’s assessment of Shelby was exactly what he’d thought of her. Too good for him.

He stood up so fast he nailed his head on the freezer door. Where the hell had that thought come from? Shelby was not too good for him. No one was too good for him, and he wasn’t that little kid anymore who just desperately wanted his parents to love him.

Irritated, he grabbed a drinkable yogurt and ripped the top off. He took a swig, then turned to Brady, realizing a second too late that he shouldn’t be eating in front of him. “Want one?”

Brady shook his head, lip curling up. “No way. That’s like girl food.”

“What do you want? A bloody steak and greasy eggs?”

Brady grinned. “That sounds good. With a beer.”

Boston found himself amused. “Yeah, in about five years.” He pulled open the deli drawer. “Best I can do is a ham sandwich.”

“Cool.” Brady vaulted himself onto the counter and leaned over, reaching into the drawer between his legs. “Here’s a knife for the mustard.”

Boston pulled out the sandwich fixings and set them on the counter. He went for a couple of plates. “So where’s your girlfriend tonight?” He’d never got a glimpse of Brady’s girlfriend, but he remembered her indignant squawk from behind the closed door.

“Dude, she has like the most unreasonable curfew you’ve ever heard of in your life. She has to be home by ten-thirty. I mean, what’s up with that?”

Taking in Brady’s blue hair sticking up in spikes, his eyebrow ring, the silver tongue stud that flashed from time to time when he spoke, and the spiked bracelet, Boston wasn’t surprised. Brady’s T-shirt had what looked like a bleeding head on it. “Maybe they’re protective.”

As he started to assemble sandwiches, Brady snorted, kicking his legs against the cabinets. “There’s overprotective and then there’s a fucking bubble, man.”

Brady swiped a piece of ham from one of the open-faced sandwiches and tossed it into his mouth. “And here’s a little warning for you. The chicks in this town want commitment. We’re talking a ring, the wedding, the whole forever bullshit. So you just watch your back.”

“All of them?” Shelby didn’t strike him as eager to jump into marriage again.

“All the ones I ever met. Joelle wants to get engaged. Isn’t that
nuts
! We’re like fifteen. She’s cool and all, but man, I want to see what’s out there. Shop around.”

Boston couldn’t disagree with that. He’d done quite a bit of shopping himself. He cut their sandwiches in half and handed a plate to Brady.

“Thanks. I mean, look at you. You’re like, what, forty?”

Boston paused with his sandwich half to his mouth. “I’m only thirty-two.”

“See, that’s still pretty old. And you’re not married. What’s the rush?”

None, as far as he could tell. It wasn’t like he had any ambitious hopes for a happily ever after anyway. “I’ve been building my career.”

A ham sandwich waved in front of him. “See? Exactly.”

“So, why did Shelby divorce Danny?” That bothered him. It had since he’d first seen her with Danny outside the diner, looking way too friendly for exes.

Brady shrugged, downing the last bite of his sandwich. “Hey, got anything to drink? And I don’t know, Shelby never tells me personal stuff like that, and I was just a kid anyway. Eleven or twelve when she left him. I thought my Aunt Susan was going to have a stroke, though. Man, I remember that. She screamed herself hoarse.”

Boston dug two soft drinks out of the fridge and arched one through the air to Brady. “Why?”

“They didn’t want Shelby to leave him, thought she was making a mistake. My aunt thought Danny took good care of her.”

He popped the top on his drink and took a sip. Something about Brady’s comment bothered him. “What do you think of Danny?”

Another shrug. “He’s cool. But hey, if Shelby doesn’t want to be married to him, I don’t see that it’s any of Aunt Susan’s business, you know? And Shelby doesn’t need anyone to take care of her. What is this? Like the fifties, man? Come on.”

Boston was liking Brady more and more with each passing minute. But he was left even more with the impression that he needed to stay away from Shelby Tucker. He couldn’t get involved with her, no matter how appealing she was. Brady had said that women here wanted commitment, and he couldn’t give that. Not even close.

“It’s because she’s dyslexic, you know.”

Those words brought him back to attention. Shelby had a learning disorder? “She is?”

“Yeah. She’s real smart, but being dyslexic messed her up in school.” Brady scowled at him. “She can read, though, I don’t mean that, it’s just stuff is harder for her and her mom was a total freak about it, acting like she’s disabled or something.”

Which was probably how she’d tumbled into marriage and now haunted house tour guide. Nobody had encouraged Shelby to aim higher. The thought made him feel anger and sadness and a few other emotions, all of which were inappropriate for a woman he planned to stay the hell away from.

They finished eating in silence until Brady cocked his head and pinned him with a stare. “What is up with your hair tonight? You’re always like Mister
GQ
, but tonight you look like shit.”

Boston glanced at his reflection in the microwave. Nice. He looked as if a wool sweater had landed on his head. He’d taken the mousse out of his hair during the shower, but hadn’t had a chance to put his regular products back in. All night he’d been with Shelby, fuzzy-headed and deodorant-free. That must have made quite an impression.

“I didn’t have time to put my hair stuff on.”

“What do you use?” Brady touched his own hair. “I’m not getting a good hold with what I’m using.”

“It’s forming cream. Twenty-five bucks a jar, but it does the job without looking shiny.”

“What brand?”

“I don’t know. Want me to go up and get it?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“No.” Boston took the steps two at a time and laughed to himself. Brady had thought yogurt was feminine. What did discussing hair products qualify as?

A minute later, he slapped the jar in Brady’s hand, who had slid off the counter.

“We can’t buy anything like this here,” Brady said, inspecting the jar. “It sucks to live in the sticks.”

“You can order it on-line.”

“No computer.”

“You can use mine.”

“Seriously?” Brady looked up at him as he unscrewed the lid, surprise on his face.

“Sure. You can come here and use it some night.”

“Thanks, man.” Brady smiled, then frowned when he looked at the forming cream. “This stuff is nasty looking. No offense or anything, but it looks like you shot your wad into the jar.”

It took Boston a second to infer Brady’s meaning, and when he did, he couldn’t help laughing. “It does not.”

“Yes, it does.” Brady stuck a finger in and pulled out a dripping white glob of forming cream.

Boston saw the resemblance immediately and decided he would be switching to clear-colored pomade.

Brady put down the jar, then rinsed his dirty plate under the faucet and set it in the dish rack.

“Well, I’ve gotta head out, but I might help Shelby out tomorrow with the tour if it gets out of hand, so I’ll see you then.”

Boston felt a touch of alarm. “Out of hand? Why?”

“Word’s out that the spirits are talking, locking doors and shit. People want to see. I’d expect double to triple the number of gawkers tomorrow.”

Oh, wonderful. And he couldn’t even bitch about it because he knew how much Shelby needed the money.

Brady left with a wave, leaving the back door open behind him.

Boston went to close it, but it glided shut on its own before he even got there.

Stopping in the middle of the sunny yellow kitchen, Boston glanced around suspiciously before deciding to head to bed. “Thank you,” he said to the empty room as he passed through to the hallway.

The only answer was the click as the kitchen light turned off behind him.

He was avoiding her. Shelby sighed, standing on the front porch of the White House, pulling the door closed behind her. Seven days, a whole blinking week, and she hadn’t seen him once.

Not since she’d interrupted him on the verge of giving her an orgasm and had leaped out of his bedroom.

What kind of a woman was dumb enough to do that?

She was, apparently. And all week she’d been feeling like someone must have whacked her with a stupid stick. A really big stupid stick.

It was an understatement to say she was regretting her actions. But she’d been in the middle of feeling all kinds of strange swirling emotions about Boston, confusion and embarrassment and a panicked sort of anxiety that he’d find her about as sexy as a block of ice, when she’d looked up and seen that door roll open.

An escape route from a man who had her feeling like she was way too old to be acting so ridiculous.

Only seven days and seven long frustrating nights later, she was rethinking things a bit. At night she dreamed about him.

During the day she traipsed her way through his house twice on the tour, smelling his aftershave lingering in the hall and seeing his bed neatly made, his coffee mug unrinsed on the counter. Not to mention she was constantly having to talk about him, explaining to the tour-goers what exactly had happened the times they’d been locked in rooms together by unruly spirits. Well, she left out the bit about her springing off the bed half naked, and the actions immediately preceding it.

Gran nudged her. “You’re supposed to be the guide. Tour’s leaving without you, Shelby.”

A serious lack of energy left her shoulders sagging and her wondering if she needed a multivitamin. And she could actually afford a ten-dollar bottle of pills now that her tour was just about busting at the seams every day. Everyone wanted a chance to see the White House’s increased paranormal activity.

Shelby stepped onto the lawn and tried to put some enthusiasm into her actions. “Thanks for helping out, Gran.”

“Oh, I’m enjoying it, hon. Having all these people swarm around is more excitement than I usually get.”

Glancing at Gran, wearing a tennis visor, Shelby tried to smile but wasn’t quite successful. The twenty tour-goers were heading down the road, impatient to get to the next stop, the spot on Miller Road where a long-dead jilted groom was known to pop out at couples getting amorous and rock their cars.

“They’re starting to get mad, Gran. Since Boston and I got locked in his room, no one’s seen a darn thing. They all wanted to see something, and nothing’s happened, and they’re liable to turn on me any day now. I could be out of business by next week.”

Maybe she was exaggerating, but she was starting to get nervous. Normally, people
thought
they saw or felt or heard something, and the tour really only promised the possibility of ghosts. But since word had flown around town about the incidents with Boston, people took the tour expecting to see something obvious. Lights flashing, objects moving, doors slamming, cold winds, the whole kit and kaboodle.