A Date With the Other Side (15 page)

Shelby watched Boston hit the hallway running and sagged back against the porch railing. This acting sexy business was a strain.

But in the two days since her dinner with Danny, she had come to a conclusion. She wanted to have an affair with Boston Macnamara. She wanted to know once and for all whether or not she was capable of feeling passion, or at least of achieving an orgasm without an act of God.

If even the hot feelings she had for Boston resulted in so-so sex, well, then she’d go back to Danny and take him up on his offer.

If the sex with Boston turned out to be more explosive than the Cuttersville Fourth of July fireworks, well, she would still remarry Danny and settle down once and for all.

Because Boston couldn’t give her the cozy country home and children she craved, and he would never even want to try. Whereas Danny cared about her, and they knew each inside and out, and they could have a good solid life together.

Running her tour was fun and she didn’t regret leaving Danny and exploring life out on her own for the last three years. She’d needed to prove her independence to herself and to search for that illusive passion. But she couldn’t see herself at forty-five, still traipsing people through the White House, single and living with Gran.

She wanted to have a child, to stop ignoring the grief she’d felt when she’d miscarried, and get on with her life.

But first, she wanted Boston.

And he looked perfectly willing to oblige her.

He came back out the door wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and expensive-looking hiking boots. “Aren’t you going to be hot in that?” she asked doubtfully. Even though it was six-thirty, it was still hovering in the upper eighties.

“You said to change.”

“I meant casual clothes and shoes other than sandals, that’s all.”

Boston was down in the drive already. “These are my walking shoes. So, where are we going first?”

He seemed incredibly eager to be off. Shelby sat on the steps and pulled her gym shoes over to her side. She’d taken them off because her feet were hot after walking over from Gran’s, but the prospect of pulling sweaty socks back on wasn’t very appealing.

“Well, this is usually the middle of the tour, so we’re going out of order, but first we’ll go down to Miller Road, where a jilted lover waits to interrupt amorous couples. He shakes their cars during make-out sessions.”

“This town is full of jilted lovers, apparently. First Rachel, now this guy.” He stood with his hands on his hips while she dragged on her socks. “And the curiosity is killing me… who is the Blond Man? You never told me.”

Shelby laughed. “It’s not worth losing sleep over. No one knows who he is, but a young man with blond hair and an early twentieth-century suit has been seen in the parlor and the dining room. He’s usually just standing there and he’s smiling. Sometimes he winks or waves or laughs before shimmering out of sight. They say he looks real enough to touch.”

“Maybe he is. Maybe some enterprising local guy is dressing up to freak people out.”

Now he was reaching. “That’s totally irrational.” She finished lacing her shoes and stood up.

“No more irrational than seeing ghosts.”

Shelby started down the road past him. “Maybe. So are you sure you don’t have a female friend with blond hair, long legs, and designer clothes?” That woman on Main Street had been bugging her, especially since Gran had confessed she’d rented the Gray House on Bell Street to her for two months, and that she was in fact from Chicago. She’d also never hesitated to pay Gran four thousand dollars rent up front, which Gran had been pleased over and Shelby had been appalled by.

Her grandmother was raising her rents left and right to unsuspecting newcomers and not feeling the slightest ounce of remorse for doing so. Gran had actually sported an ear-to-ear grin when she’d told Shelby the news.

“I probably know a lot of women like that, but I don’t have a specific female friend that meets that description. Why?”

Boston was keeping a fast pace and Shelby felt a little winded already. “No reason.”

He shot her a suspicious look but let it drop. “So, does the town advertise your tour and its Most Haunted status? Cuttersville could cultivate a whole bed-and-breakfast clientele interested in the paranormal.”

“You know, I don’t really think so. I mean, it’s kind of just word of mouth.”

“Does the town have a web site? They could promote there, and maybe have a town Halloween party every year. Register the various sites on your tour and document all the alleged sightings to distribute and generate interest. People would enjoy popping down here for a weekend.”

Shelby crunched gravel beneath her feet and thought over the whole idea of taking her tour and Cuttersville to the next level. Her first reaction was no way, she did not want a bunch of ghost-seeking strangers invading her quiet town. But then she thought about the locally owned restaurants, gas stations, drugstore, and candy shop. As well as the half-dozen or so folks who had big old Victorian houses that would serve well as B and Bs. It could strengthen the local economy, but she wasn’t sure how the locals would feel about it.

It was worth thinking about, she supposed.

“You could call the Cincinnati and Columbus news channels and have them run a story on Haunted Cuttersville, right in time for Halloween this year.”

“Cuttersville on the news?” The idea was unfathomable.

“Shelby Tucker’s tour on the news.” Boston grinned at her and reached for her hand, stroking her thumb beneath his.

Except in six months there probably wouldn’t be a Haunted Cuttersville Tour. She would probably be hunkered down on the farm for the winter and counting the days of her cycle to get pregnant.

The thought made heat rush through her body and her heart pound in anxiety.

“Hey, you alright? Your face just lost all its color.” Boston stopped walking and bent over her in concern, pressing his lips to her forehead. “You feel clammy.”

Clammy. How sexy. “I’m fine, just the heat got to me for a second.” The heat and a sudden overwhelming panic that she didn’t know what the hell she was doing. What she wanted or where she was going or why five minutes earlier she’d thought it all made sense.

Except she knew she wanted Boston—that was the only thing she seemed to be clear on.

“Do you want to hang out in the shade for a minute?” Boston started to tug her off the road to an overgrown copse of trees.

His concern was sweet, and truthfully, more than she would have expected of him when she’d first met him. But the Boston she’d come to know over the last few weeks was more than that aggressive corporate shark he portrayed to the world. He was kind, and funny, and just a little bit needy, whether he realized it or not. He wanted someone to love him.

Shelby thought it wouldn’t be that hard to let herself do just that. And maybe it would be okay to fall a tiny bit for him, while she had a wild summer affair to remember fondly in her old age. To give something back to Boston and to feel daring and alive and sassy once before she settled down and did what was right with her life.

“No, I’m fine. We’re here anyways.” She pointed to a little pull-off in the road that dead-ended with a sign that read
NO DUMPING
.

“This is it?” He looked dubious. “Why would a ghost haunt this place?”

“Because this is sort of like Cuttersville’s Lovers’ Lane. Cars park off the road here and couples make out.”

“Here?” Boston looked horrified. “There’s nothing but a scrubby bunch of trees and a pitted road. What’s romantic about that?”

Nothing if you thought real hard about it. But most people who came there were thinking only about each other, not the scenery.

“No one from the road can see you,” Shelby said wryly. “And when you’re eighteen and every living soul in town knows you, your car, and your parents, you’ll take any hidden spot you can.”

Boston turned back to her. “Did
you ever
make out here, Shelby Tucker?”

His tone was teasing, so she tossed him a saucy grin. “Of course. All the time. Still do.”

“Oh, really?” Boston started toward her, obviously going to put her words to the test.

But Shelby darted back onto the road, out of his reach, laughing. “So the story goes that William Sherman loved his lady most devotedly.”

Boston followed her, stalking her, looking intent on getting his hands on her. “I don’t care.”

“Of course you do. You want to hear all about Haunted Cuttersville—that’s why you wanted a private tour.”

“I wanted a private tour so I could be alone with you.”

Even though his words sent a sharp pang of desire below her belly, she teased him again. “But with the spirits of the undead around, we’re never really alone, are we?”

He gave a grunt as he reached for her, a sound that could have meant agreement, disgust, or a rock was wedged in his boot. Shelby laughed and took off running, his fingers slipping over her elbow but not getting a good enough grip on her to halt her progress.

“But William Sherman’s girlfriend fell for another man and stood poor Will up a month before the wedding,” she called over her shoulder. “So he killed himself, as distraught brokenhearted lovers are wont to do, and now when couples are out on the road here, getting fresh with one another, William doesn’t like it.”

The thick sultry air moved around her, the sweet scent of wildflowers clinging to the air, and Shelby breathed deeply as she ran.

Boston was keeping pace by jogging, just behind her. She knew he could catch her easily if he wanted to, but he merely watched her with dark, dark eyes that raked over her body and seared her with lust. “Oh, yeah? What does he do?”

“He chases people, just like this, down the road for a long frightening mile and just when they think he’s gone…” Shelby stopped running and whirled around. “He jumps on their car and shakes.” She gripped Boston’s shoulders and rattled them back and forth. “Until the terrified couple speeds on, vowing never to engage in sinful behavior at Lovers’ Lane again.”

Boston jerked a little under Shelby’s powerful grip and felt an arousal he had never experienced in his entire long and lust-filled life. Shelby’s eyes were wide, bright with humor and the mischievous tone of her tale, her voice eerie and quiet, rising at the proper places to spook him, and he thought she was the most fucking gorgeous woman he’d ever seen in his life. He wanted to take her right there in the goddamn road, then whisk her away to the White House and let Nanny Baskins lock her up in his bedroom forever.

Being with her, under the Cuttersville sky, on a dusty road in the middle of nothing, listening to her silly story, was the most fun he had ever had in his adult life, and he wanted to show her that, appreciate her fully and completely.

“Did you ever see William Sherman?”

She shrugged with a crooked smile. “Nah. I never saw anything at all until you came along.”

Her pale soft lips were calling him, and he was close enough, her hands still on his shoulders, that if he leaned down, he could taste her there, on the side of Miller’s Road where the jilted lover haunted.

“If I kissed you right now do you think he’d chase us?”

Shelby pushed back some of that wild horse’s mane she called hair and glanced around, breath catching in excitement. “I suppose he might.”

Boston bent with the intention of taking her mouth, possessing her fully beneath him, and slaking his burning hunger for her, but she darted backward. “Just where the hell are you going?” he asked.

“To the Bigleys’ barn, just down the road. Next stop on the tour.”

Her sexy little behind sauntered off, a definite feminine sultry swagger in her walk that he’d never seen before. She was toying with him, turning him on intentionally. He suddenly realized she was
seducing
him, with the tight shorts and the no bra and the teasing comments.

He liked it. It was working. He was just about completely fried into a drooling idiot in desperate need of sexual release.

“Does the Bigleys’ barn have another victim of love’s cruelties?”

Shelby veered off the road into a field, mindless of weeds tall enough to rival her. “Nope. The Bigleys’ barn has a cow.”

“You’re taking me to see a cow?” He had no interest in livestock. The only way he wanted to encounter a cow was medium-well on his dinner plate. “We could probably skip this one, Shelby. I prefer to meet cows after their death.”

She laughed and ducked around a particularly violent-looking weed with spikes. “Well, you’re in luck. This cow is dead.”

Boston gave the weed doubling as a weapon a wide berth and was grateful he’d worn his jeans. “Dead? You know, let me rephrase that. I don’t want to meet any cow, ever, that isn’t cooked into some sort of meal. Before it reaches that state, I’m not interested.”

Shelby popped out of the weeds into a clearing, and a big red barn rose in front of them. It had an Ohio bicentennial flag painted on the side and looked a lot more solid than he had been expecting. He glanced around half expecting to see a cow corpse littering the ground.

Hands on hips, she shook her head at him. “You’re just downright ridiculous, you know that? This cow, Strawberry, is a ghost. She died in nineteen eighty-six, struck by lightning.”

“Cows can get struck by lightning?” The things he was learning were just phenomenal. He would be returning to Chicago with intimate knowledge of mosquitoes, bacon grease, and paranormal cows. How many Samson execs could boast that?

“Strawberry went to that big grassy field in the sky sure as shootin’, but for whatever reason she’s still here in the Bigleys’ barn, mooing on many a summer night.”

He’d heard enough. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Why would a cow be haunting a barn? Did the lightning blind her and she couldn’t find her way to the light?”

Shelby snorted and slapped him on the arm, giggling. “You know, you really make me laugh sometimes.”

Whether that was a compliment or not, he was going to take it as such. “No one’s ever really thought I was funny before.”

“Really?” Shelby headed toward the barn. “You’re kind of witty in a pretentious sort of way.”