How To Bring Your Love Life Back From The Dead (23 page)

“What is that? An acorn or a
pinecone maybe?” she asked.

“Probably.” Or it might be—if there
were any trees at all around the house. He’d had to cut them down.
They got hit with rot, and he didn’t want a windstorm dropping them
onto his house. There went another one.

Suddenly, Cory melded herself to his
side and nearly cut him in half with her hug. “Clay, you don’t have
any trees nearby.”

Another thing snicked and skidded
down his roof, and the gorgeous woman in his arms nearly pushed
herself through him.

“Shh shh shh. It’s fine. You’re
fine.” He rubbed her back in long slow strokes, and she loosened up
enough that he could breathe.

“Is this what happened before?” she
asked.

“Before what?” This time when it
dropped and skidded down the roof it actually made a spot between
his shoulder blades itch, and the hair on his neck stand up. “What
is doing that?”

“You said this house was haunted.
Was that what you were talking about? I thought you were being
stupid.”

His mother had told him the truth
was always the best policy. She’d neglected to say that lies could
literally haunt you. Another one dropped and ran like a weighted
raindrop down the roof. “That has got to be the most eerie and not
eerie noise I can imagine.”

And then the footsteps started.
Thud. Thud. Thud.

And Cory went back to trying to push
herself through him. Okay, the footsteps were worse than the
pinecones or whatever.

“It sounds like someone is in my
attic,” he said.

Cory nuzzled her face against his
chest and then pulled one of her hands from around his waist to
cover the ear not pressed up against him.

“Cory, how about we get out of here?
We can head over to your parents’ house and have your dad come back
and take a look at it with me?” Enough was enough. He really didn’t
want her to end up having nightmares for the rest of their lives.
Her parents’ house was within walking distance—just two blocks
away.

He took her lack of disapproval as
agreement. He shuffle-stepped them out of the music room, back into
the hall, past the front room—that he’d really thought she’d
like—before the house had turned against them.

“Okay, Duck, we’re at the front
door, I’m going to open it, and then we’ll go to your parents’
house, okay?”

She was still pressed up against him
like a second skin, but she pulled away long enough to say, “This
counts, though.”

“Counts?”

“I said if you leave, I can leave.”
Then she pressed herself against him again.

“You’re right. Consider the bet won.
Start picking house paint colors.” So much for the house. He’d
actually have to sell it rather than give it to her as a wedding
gift. This had all gone to hell. It was ridiculous how much this
had blown up in his face. He reached out, grabbed the doorknob…and
the doorknob came off in his hand. “You’ve got to be kidding
me.”

“What?” The top of her head hit his
chin as she jerked it up and looked around.

“Nothing.” He set the doorknob in
the window beside the door. “I was thinking we should take one of
our cars just in case.”

The footsteps had stopped at
least.

“We can’t get out of the garage with
the power out,” she said.

“No, there’s an emergency release.
The door will weigh a ton, but I can open it manually.”

“Oh, okay.”

He slid them back the way they’d
come. When they reached the kitchen, his conscience was screaming
at him…and usually it was pretty quiet.

“Cory,” he said, sighing. He owed
her the truth. Once he got her to her parents’ house, she might
never want anything to do with him. He’d never have guessed he was
actually asking her to spend the night in a haunted
house.

“What?”

“I had no idea this house was
haunted. This whole year, I’ve never been here at night. Your dad
stayed late a few nights last week, but he didn’t mention any of
this and I….” He stopped. Clay had heard the sound of her dad’s
footsteps up in the attic enough to recognize what they sounded
like, and they only sounded slightly more ghostly at night. The
attic had an access point outside but why would her dad be scaring
the crap out of his daughter? And the rolling sounds had continued
even while the footsteps were happening. That meant that there was
more than just her dad out there. But why?

“What?” She stopped and looked up at
him.

Her arms were tight around his
waist, and the light from the neighbor’s porch light filtered in
through a back window making her glow like she was a ghost herself.
She’d been haunting him for most of his lifetime.

They were right near the granite
countertops, and he grabbed her around the waist pulled her away
from him and set her on the counter. This way they’d talk face to
face and maybe, if he saw her expression, he could keep from
screwing up even more.

“What?” she asked again.

“I owe you the truth. Straight.
Flat-out truth.” It was much easier in the dark actually. He should
have done this right when she’d gotten back into town when he’d
realized ten years hadn’t changed a thing for him—he still wanted
Cory. No one else could replace her, and even when he’d thought
about doing what she’d done and leaving here for good—he’d changed
his mind when he’d heard she was coming back. He belonged to Cory,
whether she wanted him or not.

“Okay,” she whispered, and her body
went stiff as if she was preparing for a blow.

“I love you. I’ve loved you since we
were kids. Ten years ago, I made this bet with you because I was a
stupid seventeen year old who wanted you for twelve hours—just to
myself. Tonight, I conned you into coming here because I want you
for the rest of our lives—just you and me, but I’ll put up with
your parents.” Outside the back window, a lantern bobbed seemingly
in air. He gestured behind her. “Oh, look, there’s my mom. That’s
my grim reaper costume from when I was sixteen.”

Cory looked over her shoulder. “Oh,
I remember that costume.”

The lantern continued its journey
around the side of the house.

“Wait, so the whole point was to
stay with me—both these times? You weren’t trying to make me look
stupid?”

“Of course I wanted to stay with
you. I even thought I said I’d be staying with you ten years ago.
Clearly, my ability to express myself…well, I think you’ve got your
work cut out for you, I think I might need English tutoring for the
rest of my life. And I couldn’t make you look stupid even if I
wanted to—which I never have.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Look, I’m
sorry I got picked to tutor you. I swear I’m not trying to
sound…pretentious or patronizing.”

“You didn’t want to tutor
me?”

“Well, I figured it would bother you
even if you were better in other things than me, but….”

“I requested you as a tutor,
Cory.”

Her head snapped up. “You did? I
thought it was random.”

“That would be some crazy good luck
but, no, I figured if I had to study for those stupid entrance exam
tests when I really didn’t want to go to college, I could at least
have fun doing it.”

“So, you wanted me as your
tutor?”

“Of course I did. It was the best
excuse to spend time with you. Your dad couldn’t complain even if
it wasn’t also your senior year.”

In the distance, he heard the window
to the master bedroom open and close. Hopefully, they were leaving
the lantern and getting the hell off his property before he called
the police on their parents. At least it appeared he had her
father’s blessing or whatever you’d call it when your future
father-in-law tried to haunt you.

“Why didn’t you just ask me out?”
she asked.

“Well, ten years ago, you avoided me
like I was a leper, and I think you would have turned me down if I
had managed to corner you.”

“But I’ve been back in town for a
year now.”

“And I bought this place and tried
to get it ready for tonight so I could figure out what went wrong.
Do you have any idea how many times I’ve played that day in the
library over in my head? When I said this place was haunted, I
meant I’ve been haunted. That day, that bet…it’s been in my head
this whole time. And there wasn’t a single time, when I went over
it, that I ever thought what you thought. I figured it was your way
of telling me you weren’t interested when you never showed
up.”

“You came here—that
night?”

“Yep. Stayed until
midnight.”

“Oh.”

It ranked as one of the worst nights
of his life actually. Apparently it wasn’t a great memory for her
either. This place was haunted with bad memories.

“Well, but what about this year?
We’ve seen each other all the time.”

“I’ve been trying to get close to
you for a year now, but I always manage to say the wrong thing.” He
grabbed her hand. “Come on, I want to show you
something.”

She didn’t move. “Are you sure this
place isn’t haunted?”

He leaned forward and looked her
right in the eyes. “I’m positive it’s not haunted, not with those
types of ghosts. I’ve got pretty good hearing and, just before you
turned to look, the grim reaper stumbled and said a word that I’ll
insist gets her mouth washed out with soap because that, most
definitely, wasn’t ‘duck’.”

She scowled at him. “You’ve called
me Duck all these years because I’ve always followed you around. If
you like a person back, it’s not the same as them having a pathetic
crush and hanging on you.”

He blinked and blinked and blinked.
It was like they were having completely different conversations. He
might have to take night courses in how to speak Corrine. “You used
to follow me down to the lake to go swimming when we were five, and
you had that duck towel with the hood. You looked like a baby duck.
I only corrected you earlier today because I didn’t want you
believing I thought you walked like a duck. I figured it’d make you
self-conscious if you thought that.”

“Ohhhhh,” she said, her shoulders
relaxing. “I liked that towel. Tommy Roger’s Rottweiler had puppies
in it. It was pretty much dead to me after that.”

“Okay, c’mon.” He dragged her off
the counter and towards the master bedroom. “Stick close to me. The
stairs to the two upper bedrooms are right here. I painted one room
yellow because you used to have your room painted yellow, and you
said you liked it.” He tapped open a door as they passed it.
“There’s the library for you. I put in recessed bookshelves,
because it seemed safer for if kids were in there—also I just like
the look of them. I was going to use cherry wood, but when I mapped
it all out on the computer—that amount of cherry wood made the
place look like it fit that Poe book you had me read. It was too
much red. I figured with this place already having the reputation
of being haunted…we didn’t need a blood red room.”

He could feel her relaxing beside
him as they shuffled slowly down the hall. Maybe he wouldn’t have
to sell this place after all. He could see the glow of the lantern
from beneath the door at the end of the hall. If he hadn’t figured
this out, that would be straight out of a horror film.

Cory stopped, and her hand clutched
his.

“It’s okay. They must’ve seen I’d
tossed our sleeping bags in there. Plus, your parents and my mom
knew how much time I spent trying to pick a color for that room.
They knew I’d want to show you.”

She nodded and then looked back over
her shoulder. “So, what color is the wood in the
library?”

He smiled and tugged her closer to
his side. “I took a chance and went maple. I thought if you didn’t
like it, I could always stain it.”

“Oh.” He wished he could see her
face better. She sounded stunned—like she’d been when he’d kissed
her. Apparently, it’d never occurred to her that he felt like this.
The whole town knew. He’d never been that subtle.

Clay pulled her the last few feet to
the master bedroom and opened the door. The lantern was electric,
but had a pseudo-flicker to make it look like an old kerosene
lantern. He should have guessed as much. There was no way her dad
would take a chance with an oil lamp when he could use a
battery-powered one. Hopefully, whatever he’d done to the
electricity would be fixed by morning. The lantern bathed the large
room in soft light, and the blue paint was a good call because it
looked like early morning and not at all haunted in this light. It
was a good first impression for a spooked Cory.

She dropped his hand and took a few
steps into the room looking around. He couldn’t read the expression
on her face, but he caught a quick smile when she saw the sleeping
bags tossed into the corner. He’d brought a few other necessities.
Pretzels. Red licorice. Tiny chocolate donuts.

“Why…blue?” she asked.

That’s why he’d brought her in here.
Also, this room had taken a lot of work, and it showed. He almost
wished she had seen this place ten years ago so she could
appreciate how not-haunted it looked now. “It’s the color of your
eyes.”