Better Homes and Hauntings (6 page)

HOURS LATER, IN
the light of day, surrounded by freshly turned earth and mulch, it felt silly to have been so frightened by a bad dream. Nina pushed up from her knees, pressed her hands to the small of her back, and stretched, ignoring the house that loomed behind her. It was easy enough to do, since she didn’t actually have to work
inside
the house—for which
she was eternally grateful. She kept her eyes trained on the fountain, which, as it turned out, featured a beautifully rendered stone water sprite underneath a cocoon of brambles. She refused to look anywhere near the roof. She would not have a repeat of her shadow-person sighting. She would get through this first day, and then the next, for the rest of the summer, without having a ghost-based nervous breakdown in front of the rest of the staff, ruining what little reputation she had left.

Behind her, a smooth voice sounded. “That looks really nice.”

Nina yelped, whirling around, clippers in hand. Deacon’s eyes showed alarm, and he stepped out of range. “Sorry, sorry!” he exclaimed, holding up his hands in a defensive,
please don’t clip me
gesture. “I thought you heard me.”

Awesome. She had threatened her boss with sharp implements.

Despite the implement swinging, Nina was starting to like Deacon. He was kind and careful with the people around him. She’d read that when EyeDee first monetized and the worth of the company skyrocketed, Deacon gave out stock options to every employee, from the cleaning lady up. Increased shares were given to employees who had been with him since the company had started in Deacon’s dorm room. Jake was given stock just for being the one who made sure Deacon occasionally ate and showered when he was doing the initial programming. And despite his financial difficulties early on, Deacon had never opened up the Crane’s Nest to tours. He never let in one of those “paranormal
hunters” reality shows, even though it would have been pretty lucrative for him to do so. That showed a certain amount of character.

“No, I’m sorry. I was in the thinking zone.” Nina sighed, dropping the clippers into her tool basket and wiping her hands on her faded jeans.

“I get that way at work,” he said, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. “Back when I first started out, I’d stay up for three days straight, hopped up on Mountain Dew and espresso jelly beans, writing code. Jake said he could have thrown a brick at my head and I wouldn’t have noticed. I guess I’m lucky he never tried.” When she didn’t respond, he cleared his throat a little and added, “Because, you know, damaged gray matter doesn’t produce good HTML. It produces . . . something else . . .”

Nina’s brow furrowed. Awkward small talk seemed to be something of an issue for Deacon. “Was there something you needed, Mr. Whitney?”

“Oh, I was just finished with my conference call and wanted some fresh air. The work you’re doing, it looks nice,” he told her.

“I’m just clearing away the weeds,” Nina told him.

“Still, you’re making a lot of progress for the first day,” he said, nodding to the water sprite. “I remember her from the few times my parents forced me out to the house when I was a kid. She’s Metis, one of the primordial figures in Greek mythology—”

“The first wife of Zeus,” Nina said, yanking loose brambles away from the fountain and tossing them into a pile. “After he had his wicked godly way with her, Zeus feared a prophecy that Metis would give birth to
children powerful enough to overthrow him. Of course, it didn’t occur to him to worry about that
before
he had his wicked godly way with her, but that’s beside the point. To work his way around the prophecy, he drank Metis in as water. A little while later, he had a splitting headache, literally, and Metis’s daughter, Athena, sprang out of his skull and took her place as the goddess of wisdom and battle strategy.”

Stop talking! Stop talking! Stop talking!
Her brain screamed at her.
He’s a product of several very fancy private schools, and he probably doesn’t appreciate a lecture on stuff he learned in kindergarten!

But there she was, giving him a speculative look, practically daring him to scoff at her retelling of one of the less offensive birth stories in the Greek canon.

Looking mildly impressed, Deacon pursed his lips. “I suppose with a company name like Demeter Designs, I should have known you would be familiar with Greek mythology.”

“Ever since I was a kid,” she said with a nod.

“That’s sort of a weird subject for a kid to be interested in.”

She gave a shrug that personified the word
noncommittal
. “Not really.”

Deacon waited for a long moment, staring at her expectantly. “This would be the part where you tell me how you became interested in mythology.”

Nina’s full lips quirked, but she resisted the urge to smile. “It would be.”

“Pardon me for saying so, Ms. Linden, but you seem a little . . . ‘Twitchy’ would be an offensive term to use, wouldn’t it?”

Nina’s first instinct was to snort-giggle, but she tamped it down. “Yes.”

“OK, you seem edgy, then, and not just in the ‘spending extended amounts of time with one of the
Forbes
top ten entrepreneurs’ way. Like in an honest, ‘I am so uncomfortable right now, I wish your face would melt like something out of
Flash Gordon
’ sort of way.”

She sighed. “I never pictured your face melting like General Kala’s.”

An impish grin brightened his whole face, and she felt the tension in her shoulders relax by degrees. “You know
Flash Gordon
?”

“My mom had an abiding, irrational love of Queen’s music,” she told him, narrowing her eyes. “Did you really just drop that
Forbes
reference on me?”

“I think in some cases, I should be allowed to use that
Forbes
reference,” he said, shrugging. “It makes some people nervous.”

“So why would you bring it up?” she said.

“A little conversational quirk of mine,” he muttered. “No matter what I’m talking about, if I start thinking about the things I
don’t
want to say, that’s what I blurt out. I think, ‘Don’t try to impress her with lame media references,’ and that’s the first thing that pops out of my mouth. It’s made meetings with investors a living hell.”

She laughed.

“So, I’ve shared one of my psychologically formative secrets with you, not to mention made myself sound like a bit of a tool with the
Forbes
thing. The least you can do is tell me how young Nina Linden became so
interested in Greek mythology that she named her business after the goddess of the harvest.”

She offered him a shy smile. “When I was seven, I got the chicken pox. It was just awful, one of the worst cases my pediatrician had ever seen. I had them in my ears, on the soles of my feet, just
everywhere
. I was miserable and itchy, and I was making my parents equally miserable. And one day, my dad brought home a big stack of videos from the Rental Hut.
Annie
,
The Apple Dumpling Gang
,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
, anything to keep me quiet and still for a few minutes at a time. But the one I watched over and over, to the point where my mom was afraid that I was going to wear the tape out, was this weird animated collection of Greek myths. Hercules and the twelve labors. Icarus and his melting wax wings. King Midas and the golden touch. And my personal favorite, Hades tricking Persephone into staying in the depths of the Underworld three months a year, making her mother, Demeter, so miserable that she kills off all the plants and creates winter.”

“Sort of dark for a seven-year-old.”

“It was,” Nina agreed. “But I was hooked, couldn’t stop watching it, which was probably not healthy for me. Dad ended up having to buy the video from the store or pay more in late fees than the tape was worth. I started reading everything I could find in the library on Greek myths. I learned all about the gods and goddesses and their symbols and alliances and powers. And I loved the idea that Demeter had a fairly wimpy power—plants not being as lethal as lightning or the sun or the ocean—but she managed to bring the whole world to
a stop because she was ticked off about her daughter being taken away. I started growing beans and avocados in cups on my windowsill, which led to my next crazy phase, gardening.”

“And you turned out to be a nice, normal girl, so clearly the overindulgence in animated mythology didn’t warp you too much,” he said, grinning at her, making her insides turn all warm and fluttery. That wasn’t good.

“What makes you think I’m nice and normal?” she asked, her tone far more challenging than what was advisable.

“Extensive background checks.” Deacon’s cheeks flushed, although Nina couldn’t tell whether it was embarrassment or sunburn. “You know, I tried to send you an EyeContact request to help us keep in touch during the project, but I couldn’t find you. Even with my supersecret admin privileges.”

Nina was willing to let the background-check comment slide for now. She had expected as much, dealing with someone as rich and security-conscious as Deacon. What surprised her was that she’d passed the check. She pasted on a cheeky smile, even if she wasn’t feeling quite sassy yet. “Well, this is probably going to hurt my chances of continued employment, but I don’t have a profile on EyeDee.”

Deacon’s jaw dropped, and it was his turn to laugh.

He had a very nice laugh, Nina noted. It made his whole face relax into something just a little younger, a little less burdened. And she resolved that she would try to make that happen at least once a day, if for no other reason than that it might keep her in a job that much
longer. Gardener-slash-court-jester was a perfectly respectable position, right?

“I don’t know whether to feel insulted on a professional level or worried about hiring a hermit.”

Nina scoffed. “I’m not a hermit! I just don’t have that many people I want to keep up with from high school. I have friends, and when I want to talk to them, I have this new invention, it’s called a phone. It’s like magic. I hit these little buttons, and suddenly, my friend’s voice comes out.” She pulled her thick, early-model cell phone from her pocket.

Deacon’s mouth remained open as he marveled at the relic in her hand. “Is that a Zack Morris phone? Seriously, Ms. Linden? Are you going to call for a carryout order from the Maxx?”

“It’s just a phone.” She sighed. “It works. That’s all I ask of it.”

He shook it like a faulty flashlight. “Can you even get text messages on this thing?”

She snatched the phone back and crossed her arms, peering up at him. She’d changed her mind. She wouldn’t make him smile anymore, particularly if she was to be the source of his amusement. Because right now, that smile was doing funny things to her belly and making her knees all jellied. And surely, throwing herself at her boss while shouting
Flash Gordon
quotes was not the mark of a composed professional.

She needed to think of something else to talk about, something business-related, something that would catch his somewhat scattered attention and redirect it from her cave-phone.

“Why did you hire me?” she blurted out. “There
were much larger firms up for the job. Firms that have more of a track record with large estates. Why me?”

Really, brain?
She huffed internally.
That’s what you came up with? Making him question why he hired you in the first place?

And there was the boyish grin again. “Plant samples. You were the only landscaper I met who thought to bring plant samples, so I could grasp what the gardens would smell like. I liked that. It showed an attention to detail I thought was lacking in the other presentations.”

“Oh.” She chuckled, surprised and pleased that he’d noticed. He rubbed the back of his neck, staring down at his feet. “And is there a reason you haven’t hired a security staff? If nothing else, I’d assume that you’d be a prime kidnapping target. What with the
Forbes
top ten entrepreneurs list and everything. I mean, if I were a criminal, I would kidnap you.”

Oh, dear God, brain, we are not friends anymore. Clearly, my id is going to take the wheel from here.

She cleared her throat. “Anyway, you’ve isolated yourself out here in the middle of nowhere without protection. Why not keep the security team on site?”

“It seemed unfriendly,” he said. Nina snorted, which made him smile. “Not that many people know I’m out here. Besides, before we arrived, I had a security system installed. It’s armed every time the day crews leave the island. Any motion within twenty yards of the shoreline sets off the sensors, and I get an alert on my phone, which includes a live feed from a nearby video camera. There’s a panic room installed just behind my office. There are cameras focused on every square inch of the property. And this little button on my watch? There’s a
private SWAT team standing by at an undisclosed location on the mainland who can make it here in six minutes by helicopter.”

“I don’t know whether to be impressed or terrified.”

“Maybe a mix of both?” he suggested. “You could be imperrified.”

Nina laughed. “That’s awful. I hereby forbid you to create portmanteaus. It’s for the greater good.”

“Well, you know what the word ‘portmanteau’ means, which is one up on, oh, ninety percent of the population.”

“So if we have the SWAT team on the six-minute call window, why can’t Anthony stay on the island? Surely, scary military personnel could handle a medical evacuation.”

Deacon nodded. “They could. And I added a medical rescue service when I found out about Anthony’s heart condition. He’s the best, and he came highly recommended by Jake, so I wanted him. But his wife, Marie, would worry herself sick if she couldn’t see him every day, and that seemed cruel.”

“That was very kind of you.”

“Not really,” Deacon protested. “Marie brought three dozen of her indescribably awesome Italian lemon-drop cookies by my office and promised me another two dozen every week for the next year if I let her Tony stay at home while he worked on my ‘little house project.’ ”