In the Air Tonight (28 page)

“You can tell me.”

Sometimes he felt as if Raye could read his mind. Which was as crazy as all the rest of it.

“Tell you what?”

“Why the idea of psychics and ghosts makes you so angry.”

“When people die, Raye, they don’t come back.”

No matter how much we might want them to.

“They don’t come back, no, but some of them might hang around.”

“And go bump in the night?”

“Has anything gone bump in your night?”

“Just you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What do you mean?”

Her eyes flicked to his, then to the far corner of the room. Though her lips curved a little, she seemed sad. “You’re haunted, Bobby.”

The chill that had been pressing on his chest jolted through his blood. “What?”

Her gaze returned to his. “You’ve lost someone.”

“Everyone’s lost someone.”

“Not like you have. It hurts.” She set her hand on his cold, cold heart. “Here.”

He couldn’t help it. He tangled their fingers together. Hers were so warm and alive. “You’re psychic now?” He put all the scorn he felt for the “profession” into the word.

“I’m not.” Silence fell between them. She drew their joined hands to rest on his knee. “Tell me,” she said, and though he’d sworn never to speak of it again, he did.

“Everything started with Audrey.”

A crease appeared between Raye’s eyebrows.

“We weren’t married,” he said quickly, and the crease deepened. “You asked if I was married, if I’d ever been married. I wasn’t. We weren’t.”

“Okay.”

“I arrested her.”

“For?”

“What I arrested her for in the first place isn’t the issue. The issue is what I should have arrested her for later and didn’t. Then she died. End of story.”

“That isn’t the end of her story.”

“It was for me.”

Raye’s lips tightened, released. “How did she die?”

“Overdose.”

“Accidental?”

He shook his head, swallowed.

“All right,” Raye said slowly. “You feel guilty that you didn’t know what she was doing? You didn’t stop her? You weren’t there? What is it?”

“I wasn’t there
because
I knew. I couldn’t stop her from using. I did try.”

Raye peered into his face. “There’s more.”

Bobby tried to pull away, but this time she wouldn’t let him. “I…” he began, meaning to tell her that he hadn’t just left Audrey, but also— “I can’t. I—” To his horror, his voice broke. He had to swallow or choke, and then he had to keep swallowing or sob.

“It’s all right,” she said.

“It isn’t,” he managed, his voice both dry and damp—hoarse and brimming with tears.

“I know.”

She pressed a kiss to his temple, lifted her palms, and cupped his face. He stared into her eyes, and that cold weight on his chest shifted. It didn’t go away, but it lightened. He didn’t understand why. He hadn’t shared his burden, but still she seemed to understand.

He couldn’t help himself. He kissed her.

And then he couldn’t stop.

*   *   *

I should have pulled away, backed away, run away. I’d been so close to getting Bobby to tell me everything. If he stopped now, would he ever share? And if he didn’t admit everything, everyone, that haunted him, how could I admit everything and everyone that haunted me? How could we have a future if we didn’t?

We couldn’t and we wouldn’t, which meant I should stop this. But at the first brush of his mouth I was lost. I wrapped my fingers in his shirt and held on.

I tasted tears, though he’d shed none. Perhaps if he had, he wouldn’t taste of desperation too. He needed me, needed this, needed us. Whether to forget or to avoid, I didn’t know. Right now that distinction didn’t matter.

Later,
I promised myself.
Later.

He licked my lips, lifted his own. I opened my eyes to his frown. My fingers tightened. “Don’t.”

I wasn’t sure what I was protesting, then he lifted a hand, traced my cheek, turned his finger upward and I understood the taste of tears had been my own.

“Why?” he asked.

I shook my head. How could I tell him his daughter followed his footsteps every day, sat next to him in the night, worshipped him, ached for him, and would not leave until he let her go?

“Raye,” he whispered, and the sound of my name in his broken voice only caused more tears to flow. He kissed them away as if I were a child, making me think he’d done the same before.

Though it wasn’t the same; it couldn’t be.

“He’s always so sad.”

I jerked at Genevieve’s voice, closer than she’d been before.

“Hush.” Bobby pressed his lips to my hair.

I rested my cheek on his chest and met Genevieve’s gaze. She was still crying. Poor kid.

“Tell him it wasn’t his fault. Mommy fell asleep and I ate her candy.”

I shuddered in sudden understanding, and his arms tightened. “Are you cold?”

I was so cold I’d probably never get warm, but I shook my head.

“He likes you,” Genevieve continued. “He’s never liked anyone before the way he likes you. Can’t you make him happy?”

I could, but not while she was watching.

As if in answer to the thought, maybe it was, Henry appeared. He held out his hand. “Come along, child.”

She went with him as if she knew him; she definitely trusted him. Her tiny, pale fingers tangled with his much larger ones. For an instant I mourned the thousand and one times I’d never been able to hold his hand like that, as well as the thousand and one times I never would. I’d never be able to hold my mother’s hand either. She no longer had one.

Together they walked through the eastern wall of my home. I remained where I was, enjoying the steady beat of Bobby’s heart beneath my ear. He ran his palm over my hair. My eyelids grew heavy, and I straightened.

“What’s wrong?” He tried to tug me back.

“I’m supposed to be soothing you.”

His head tilted. “Who said?”

I nearly blurted,
Genevieve
. I was more tired than I’d thought.

“You’re upset,” I began.

“I wasn’t crying.”

“Sure you were.”

In places no one could see, which was the very worst kind.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said.

He undressed me like an overtired toddler, and I did the same for him. We crawled beneath the covers, and I laid my head on his shoulder, pressing my hip, my leg, my foot against his.

“I don’t want you to go to work tomorrow.”

“I have to. It’s a small town. There aren’t very many subs.” And the ones there were didn’t sign on for a return engagement to my room. Freaky things happened in Miss Larsen’s kindergarten class all the time, but when there was a substitute, they happened worse. For some reason, Stafford took my absence as a personal affront.

“Everyone deserves a day off.”

“I just had two.” Though they hadn’t been very restful.

“Raye.”

I kissed him. It was the best way to stop an argument. With Bobby, sometimes it was the only way.

I worshipped his mouth—kissing, nipping, suckling, licking. I hadn’t made out like this in … ever. Because I’d never done so naked, in my own bed, with a man who knew what he was doing.

He took possession of the embrace, slowing me down, revving me up. By the time he touched my breasts, I was so aroused just by the play of our mouths, the brush of his toe along my instep, the tickle of the hair on his legs against mine, I cried out and arched into his hand. One tweak of my nipple between his thumb and forefinger and I came, gasping.

He slid into me while I shuddered. His mouth played over my eyelids, my cheeks as he thrust—over and over—deeper, harder, and somehow my orgasm continued, or perhaps the first just ran into the second. Who knew? Who cared?

I opened my eyes as his breath caught, our gazes met, and he shuddered too. Eventually he lowered his forehead to mine.

“I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t.”

“That’s right.” He rolled to the side, stared at the ceiling. “Because I’m not going to let you out of my sight.”

*   *   *

“Are you a grown-up?” Genevieve asked.

She and Henry stood outside Raye’s apartment. Sunday night in New Bergin and they were the only souls on the street.

“I’m a ghost,” Henry said. He wasn’t sure if that made him a grown-up or not.

The child studied him, lower lip caught between her tiny, slightly crooked teeth. “I don’t think he meant you.”

“Who?”

“Stafford.”

That beastly ghost child who had been tormenting his daughter for years. Henry had tried to get rid of the fiend, but Stafford wasn’t a fool. He knew if he told Henry why he was still here, Henry would make certain he soon wasn’t. The child had avoided him of late, and Henry had been too overburdened with the
Venatores Mali
to notice. Or perhaps he’d just been so glad not to see the imp he hadn’t wanted to.

“What did he say?” Henry asked. If the urchin had upset her he would—

“He told me something that no grown-up is supposed to know.” She worried her teeth harder. If she’d had blood, she might have bloodied them. “But I think someone should.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “It’s bad.”

Henry sighed. When wasn’t it?

*   *   *

Morning came and with it the usual rush, made even more so because I wasn’t used to sharing my space. Everywhere I turned, there Bobby was. At the sink, in the shower, on my way to the coffeepot. But we managed.

Bobby insisted on driving me to school rather than walking, which helped me to be more on time than when I had to wait for—

“Jenn!” I shouted as we rolled down Main Street.

“Where?” He glanced around, frowning when he saw no sign of her.

“I’m sure she’s still putting on her ankle breakers or searching for her most expensive, inappropriately tight shirt.”

His frown deepened. “She works at an elementary school.”

“Preaching to the choir.” I pointed in the direction of her cottage. “Pull over and I’ll—” I had my finger poised above her number on my cell when the front door opened, and Brad Hunstadt stepped out.

“Oh, that’s not good.” It got worse when Jenn followed, and they proceeded to play tonsil hockey on the front porch. I winced. “No one wants to see that.”

“I think you’re wrong.” Bobby indicated several passersby that had stopped to watch.

“They’ll be married by sundown.”

“Really?”

“If they aren’t she may as well buy her scarlet letter today.”

“She’s a big girl.” He eyed Jenn once more. “Figuratively speaking.”

“He spent the night. She’s toast.”

“I spent the night.”

My eyes met his, and my heart skittered. Hell.

I was toast too.

Chapter 22

When had he fallen in love with her?

First kiss? First touch? More likely first sight.

Since Bobby had driven into town and almost driven over her, he’d been tumbling head over heels in this direction.

What was he going to do about it? He couldn’t stay here forever. Or could he?

She muttered something that sounded like a curse as Jenn followed blond beauty around the corner of the house. Seconds later a boxy blue Ford four-door with Brad at the wheel and Jenn in the passenger seat turned onto First Street.

“She didn’t even text,” Raye murmured.

“Must be love.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Must be.”

They were both in big trouble, even without the crazies that were trying to kill her.

Bobby followed Brad’s car to the school, pulled into the lot just behind but lost sight of it in the traffic. Seemingly every teacher in the place had arrived at precisely the same time. As they climbed out, Bobby leveled his cop stare at several gawkers.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Trying to keep you from earning a scarlet letter.”

“That ship has sailed.”

He came around the car and took her arm, planning to escort her through the front doors and to her classroom, but she held back. “You don’t have to stand right next to me all day.”

“I’m protecting you.”

“Is that what you call it?” She lowered her voice and wiggled her eyebrows. “Protect me again.”

Now he was the one whose cheeks warmed.

“We have top-of-the-line security,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I—” He swallowed and straightened. “So will I.”

“Why wouldn’t you be?”

That was a conversation he didn’t plan on having.

“I—uh—I meant I wouldn’t interfere with your day. Do you have a computer in your room? There are things I can work on.”

“Uh-huh.” Her gaze went to his holster. “You’re going to have to lose the gun.”

“No, thank you.”

“You aren’t getting that through the metal detector.”

“I’m one of the good guys.”

“A metal detector can’t tell good from bad. It only knows metal.”

“What if the
Venatores Mali
come? They have guns.”

“So far, they don’t.” She held up her hand before he could protest. “They won’t get a knife through security either.” She set her fingertips on his arm. “Put it away, please. It makes me nervous to have a gun in a kindergarten class.” Her lips tightened. “In any class.”

“I could be a guest speaker. Cop for a day. The kids will love it. I’ll answer questions.”

A bead of sweat ran down his cheek. He felt a little ill. The idea of going inside was bad enough. But talking to them, listening to them, learning their names, seeing their faces—

“What’s wrong?”

He swallowed or tried to. His throat was so tight he coughed instead. Her expression told him that this was a fight he wasn’t going to win. In truth, he was afraid he’d be so distracted by the kids, he might not keep as sharp an eye as he needed to on his weapon.

Bobby withdrew his gun, popped the trunk, and stowed it.

“Thank you.” She began to reach for his hand, glanced about, thought better of it and led the way inside.

By the time they reached her classroom, Bobby had broken out in a cold sweat all over, and the tightness in his throat had spread to his chest. If he hadn’t felt this way before—every time he saw kids the age of his daughter when she died—he’d think he was having a heart attack.