A Date With the Other Side (5 page)

He laughed. “Not big enough yet, but I’m working on it.”

Shelby snorted. “Bigger than me.”

“The Haunted Cuttersville Tour doesn’t have you living in the lap of luxury?”

“No, just in Gran’s Yellow House and that’s charity because we’re related.”

“Then why do you do the tour?” He didn’t think it sounded like a whole lot of fun, tromping gawky tourists through houses day after day.

“Because it pays better than anything else I’m qualified to do, which is nothing. Cuttersville High trained me to do exactly what I did, become a farmer’s wife. Only I didn’t stay a farmer’s wife, and I’m not book smart, so I won’t go to college and torture myself.” She shrugged. “I could get a job at the factory, I guess, but I’m not ready for that. Too… restrictive.”

Boston had heard of people like Shelby. Had even met one or two. He just couldn’t fathom how their brains functioned so differently from his. His entire life was consumed by his career and its success. If he stopped moving, stopped pushing and shoving and striving, he wasn’t sure what in the hell would happen. He thought it was possible he would melt.

“So why don’t you move to Cincinnati or Columbus and get a better-paying job?”

That earned two eyebrows shooting up under her wispy brown bangs. “Because my family is here. I belong here. I’ll never leave.”

That said, she picked up his phone again and dialed.

“Jessie, we can’t do that.” Carl Hasan gave her a stern look and crossed his arms. “I’m sending John and Howie out to the house.”

“And after all I’ve done for you, not even a simple request is being respected.” Jessie crossed her arms right back. When she had gotten a frantic call from Susan, Shelby’s mother, moaning about Shelby in trouble again and burned chicken, Jessie had called her own voice mail and heard the message from Shelby.

Shelby was trapped with the hunk—rich hunk—Boston Macnamara. Gee, what a shame.

Sounded like the ghosts were on her side in this matchmaking business, because she knew for a fact that the door to the parlor didn’t lock, hadn’t in thirty years, and that every one of those windows should open.

Four or five hours trapped alone together could only be a good thing for Shelby and Boston. But Carl was acting like he was going to race the whole fire department out there and bust things up before it even got interesting.

Carl was only ten years her junior, and twice her width, but she had babysat his shiny backside once upon a time while Hitler was racing around Europe, and she’d be damned if he was going to pull professional rank over her.

“Shelby called and said she’s trapped, Jessie. We can’t ignore her!”

“She’s in the parlor, not a cave, for crying out loud. Just for a little while, that’s all I’m asking for.”

Jessie pulled out a couple of twenties and waved them in John and Howie’s direction as they walked past to their nonemergency truck. Both men stopped and looked at her in interest. “Just take a little detour on the way, boys, a little stop over at the Burger King, and get yourselves some dinner. An hour, tops, then you can go rescue Shelby. But if you break one of my windows, you’re replacing it, Carl.”

“It don’t work that way, Jessie. The fire department doesn’t pay for the damages made while rescuing people.”

“Well, why not? What are my taxes going for?” Took near half her damn income every year, at least the government could replace a broken window.

Lord, it was a good thing she was watching out for herself and Shelby, because no one else was.

Shelby was getting desperate. It had been half an hour since she’d called the fire department, and nothing. She and Boston were still trapped, and as the sun drifted westward, the lace on the windows was no protection from the pounding sunshine, forcing the temperature of the room higher, one hot degree at a time.

Or maybe it was her desire that had the room warm enough to cook a whole platter of ribs in five minutes. Boston had taken his shirt off.

She’d seen that chest before, just that morning in his bedroom. It had affected her then. Now it had her clasping her thighs together and praying she wouldn’t whimper.

Even the increasing needs of her bladder were nothing compared to the realization that it had been
three years
since she’d had sex. Three years that had flown by while she’d been living them, and now seemed like an abnormal, painfully large amount of time since her body was quivering and steaming and hissing, like the overheated engine of a Chevy.

Boston, who probably had sex scheduled in on the calendar of his fancy-shmancy computer every week with some suit-wearing, manicure-getting, leggy blond, looked oblivious to her problem. After a few minutes of polite conversation, he had checked the voice mail on his cell phone, then had moved to foraging through his e-mails on his laptop.

Ignoring her, that’s what he was doing. No, that wasn’t true. He wasn’t ignoring her; he was just carrying on without her. Unimportant, that’s what she was. Irrelevant.

Every physical need her body required—thirst, hunger, sex— were all rearing up and begging for attention simultaneously, making her so uncomfortable she wanted to roll around on the floor and groan. Except that would make her bladder pressure worse. Yet Boston just sat with his legs apart, computer in his lap, eyes scanning, clicking and working and looking fit as a flipping fiddle.

He had no right to turn her on doing nothing.

Jerk.

Then he dug into the pocket of his jeans, lifting his hips up a little, a mock thrust, denim pulling, straining… and popped a LifeSaver in his mouth.

Her stomach cried foul. “You’d better have another one of those.”

“Huh?” He glanced over at her.

“That piece of candy. Give me one too. I’m starving.” She thought about adding a
please
, then thought better of it. This whole thing was his fault anyway, for being such a dingleberry about letting her in the house. If he’d just been reasonable from the get-go, she wouldn’t have walked into the parlor, and they wouldn’t be stuck here together.

He’d be stuck alone.

Poor baby.

Boston tucked the candy into his cheek. “I’m sorry. It’s the last one.”

He looked genuine enough to believe him, but Shelby had male cousins. They’d tell her they were handing her a piece of candy, and wipe a booger into her hand instead. She knew not to trust a man until you’d gotten his measure. She didn’t know Boston that well yet.

“Where’s the empty wrapper?”

Boston tried to process Shelby’s words. Her thoughts moved in directions he didn’t understand, and sometimes it took him a minute to follow through to the conclusion. Then he fought a smile. She thought he was keeping a secret stash of Lifesavers from her.

Like he needed to hoard hard candy for survival. Despite the slow appearance of the Cuttersville Fire Department, he was convinced it was only a matter of another hour or so before someone managed to spring them from the parlor. But Shelby looked suspicious, and hot, and impatient.

Her forehead was shiny, damp curls sticking to her temples, ponytail drooping, and that white T-shirt was clinging to her breasts. She’d tucked the bottom of the shirt up through the neck hole, tugging it down to create a knot, exposing her stomach. The country version of air-conditioning. She looked like Daisy Duke, feisty and independent and sexy in a really strange, dusty, natural sort of way. If she put on heels with those denim shorts, he was going to be in trouble.

Except that Shelby would probably fall over if she put on heels, and he wasn’t supposed to be shopping the local merchandise anyway.

“The wrapper’s in my pocket. Would you like to inspect it?” Boston patted his pocket, sucking the cherry flavoring of the candy over his tongue, feeling rude for eating in front of her. He wasn’t used to thinking about other people’s feelings. He lived alone and he worked hard to get ahead, and while he could schmooze with the best of them, genuine courtesy wasn’t really a major part of his life any longer. Maybe it never had been. His parents hadn’t exactly been founts of thoughtfulness.

“Toss it this way.” She held out her hand.

Boston balled up the empty wrapper and threw it toward her.

Catching it, Shelby gave a heartfelt sigh. “It really was the last one, wasn’t it?”

He set his laptop down, not able to concentrate anyway, and dropped onto the hardwood floor next to her. Shelby gave him a disgruntled look and held his empty wrapper back out for him.

Stuffing it back in his pocket, he pushed the candy forward and caught it between his teeth, flashing her a glimpse. She glared at him and lust rose in his gut—plain, vicious, ball-gripping lust— which made him toss her a smile.

“Shelby, I’ll share it with you.”

Rich brown eyes widened. “Whatta ya mean?”

What did he mean? He wasn’t exactly sure, just that he didn’t like to see her so uncomfortable, and he was curious if she felt even a pang of attraction for him too.

Retrieving the sticky slippery candy from his mouth with his fingers, he tapped it against her bottom lip with a light teasing motion. “You can have the rest.”

Her tongue slipped out and licked the sugary red droplet the candy had left on her plump lip. “Mmm, that’s good,” she said, eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment, sending Boston into a frenzy of sexual awareness. “I’m so hungry.”

That would be what she’d look like coming apart under him. Hot and damp and dewy-eyed, flustered and sensual, slow movements and sliding tongue. Rolling eyes and murmured approval.

Clearly not dating since Sheila had petulantly declared him a workaholic and walked out six months ago had been a mistake. He was as horny as a fourteen-year-old with a Pamela Anderson download.

But nonetheless, he took the candy and pressed it against her closed lips, forcing her to open for him. Both the candy and his finger slipped inside her hot moist mouth, and when the tip of her tongue traced his skin, he felt a raw groan rush up from somewhere deep in his gut. He managed to stifle it in time to prevent long-term humiliation.

Then she sucked.

He jerked his finger back faster than a stock market crash.

Swallowing and tucking the candy into her cheek, Shelby spoke in a low, breathy voice. “Thanks, I appreciate it, Boston.”

“Anytime.”

Anytime she wanted to torture him, he was right here, stuck in Cuttersville, with nothing to do but contemplate the many ways he could pleasure Shelby Tucker.

Her eyes widened. “Look out!”

Sluggish from the sugar rush and the surge of hormones coursing through her body at the feel of Boston’s finger in her mouth, it took Shelby a second to realize a lamp was winging across the room right at Boston’s head.

She yelled, he turned to look behind him, and Gran’s faux Tiffany lamp, with the pink glass tulips on the panes, clipped Boston on the shoulder.

“What the hell?” He jumped to his feet, rubbing his arm and working his shoulder around.

Shelby gaped at the lamp, now resting right side up on the floor, cord trailing behind it, still plugged in to the wall socket. She judged the distance from point of origin to Boston’s shoulder to be four feet or more, which was so doggone weird a scream rose in her throat.

Not wanting to look like a wuss, she clamped down on it, and glanced around the room for any other mobile inanimate objects. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just my shoulder and it didn’t hit with all that much force.” He looked a little wild-eyed, left hand still resting on the sleeve of the opposite arm. “But how the hell did that lamp move?”

“I don’t know.” But she had an idea, one that was more than a little unnerving. One that had goose bumps rising on her skin despite the heat, and she crunched the remains of the candy in her mouth hard, with excess nervous energy.

“Boston, do you believe in ghosts? You know, spirits of dead people hanging on?” First-class skeptic, she’d always been, though now and again she’d wondered if there wasn’t some truth to it. But in all her tours, she’d never encountered anything that wasn’t explainable.

An acrobatic lamp was unexplainable.

Boston’s eyebrows rose. “I know what ghosts are. I just find myself hard-pressed to believe in them. Most sightings occur in the presence of people who want to see a ghost for whatever reason. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

“I’ve never been one to think much of it either, despite my job. I mean, I’ve lived here my whole life, in Ohio’s most haunted town, and never saw a single otherworldly occurrence.” She shivered and stood up. “But that was nuts. That lamp just rose off the table and came right at you, like it was aiming for you.”

“So you’re saying I’ve offended a possessed lamp?”

Shelby could see the temptation to wing something at him. He was so condescending sometimes, though she wondered if he knew he was or if it was just a by-product of being successful.

“No, you must have offended one of the two ghosts who are known to be in this room from time to time. Red-Eyed Rachel or the Blond Man.” Shelby sincerely hoped it was the Blond Man sharing space with them, but she had the sneaking suspicion it was Rachel instead, which made her want to karate-chop her way around the room, clearing the air.

And where the hell was the fire department anyway? She was locked in a room with a sexy Samson VP and a looby ghost. It wasn’t helping her overextended bladder in the least.

Boston picked up the lamp, turned it over, inspected the cord, set it down again. He walked the distance between the table and the lamp, then back again, obviously searching for a logical explanation.

“I think it’s Rachel. She lived in this house, you know, back in 1887 with her folks.”

Boston put the lamp back on the table and sighed. “Oh, God, you’re going to tell me a ghost story, aren’t you?”

The last thing in the world he felt like listening to was an overexaggerated local legend about some poor biddy who froze to death in the Great Winter. He was starting to feel claustrophobic and was considering calling the fire department again, or just taking the ugly pink lamp and throwing it through the nearest window to escape.