The Ghost Exterminator (10 page)

“I wouldn’t?” he asked in a low voice, his strong arm hugging her tightly to his side.

She prodded the firm muscle of his bicep beneath his white-collar shirt with one fingertip. “How does a pencil pusher get arms like these?” she asked, grateful for the excuse of alcohol-induced dippiness so he wouldn’t suspect anything from the sudden subject change.

“I swim a hundred laps every morning,” he informed her. “Except for the mornings when I’m hung over because I’ve been trying to drown the ghosts in my stomach with a fifth of scotch.”

Jo smiled. “Silly Wyatt. You can’t drown ghosts. They’re already dead.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

“You do that.”

The highlight show ended and Wyatt idly flipped through the channels, passing half a dozen Halloween-oriented movies before he found another sports show.

“Am I keeping you away from other jobs?” he asked suddenly. “I imagine Halloween must be a busy time for a ghost exterminator.”

“You imagine wrong,” Jo said, mimicking his precise tone. “Halloween’s my lightest time of year. People who have ghost problems around Halloween keep ’em. It’s festive. Thanksgiving and Christmas, on the other hand, are crazy busy for me. A ghost that’s charming and atmospheric at Halloween is a royal pain in the ass with the in-laws coming to visit. My folks have gotten used to not seeing much of me around the holidays. I’ll make a cameo at the family Christmas feast, drop off presents for my sisters’ kids and disappear into the night, taking my weirdness with me. It’s better for everyone that way.”

“I’m sure they would rather have you with them. Even if you come with a fair amount of weirdness.”

Jo shrugged. “They have started making a big deal of Halloween lately. Huge family gatherings and all. My cousin Lucy even scheduled her engagement party for… Oh shit. What day is it?”

“Friday, October 28
^th
.”

“Is tomorrow Saturday?”

Wyatt laughed. “That’s usually what comes after Friday, yes.”

“Crap. My cousin’s engagement party is tomorrow. I have to go. She so would not understand if I bailed on her.” She twisted so she could see his face. “I suppose I could bring you with. Pretend you’re my date.” Jo laughed shortly, sobering up a bit at the thought. “My parents would love you.”

“Should I bring a present?”

“You don’t mind coming?”

Wyatt shrugged, the movement ricocheting through her where she was pressed against him. “How bad can it be? Maybe your cousin can even talk these ghosts out of me.”

Maybe. Except Jo couldn’t let Lucy do that. Karma had ordered her to leave those ghosts where they were.

Jo winced. Of course, Karma herself would be at the party. Even if she hadn’t been Lucy’s boss, the groom was her baby brother—although Jake hardly looked like anyone’s baby anything. Karma wouldn’t be pleased that Wyatt was crashing Jake and Lucy’s engagement party, but she
had
told Jo not to let him out of her sight.

Jo closed her eyes to block out the prospect of the morning. She burrowed against Wyatt’s side and focused on the strength and warmth surrounding her, pushing away all thoughts of lies, betrayals, and intrigues. She drifted off to sleep, completely forgetting that she was supposed to be keeping watch over Wyatt, both for Karma and for his own sake.

Chapter Fourteen: The Bubble Gum Wars

Wyatt fought to stay awake, but he was so thoroughly relaxed by an evening of beer and Jo, he knew he was fighting a losing battle. Even the stimulation of her curves mashed up against his side wasn’t enough to counter the soporific effect of her sleepy nodding and the soft, sleep-blurred murmuring of her voice.

“Jo?” he asked, hoping for a rousing argument about
Star Trek
, anything to keep him awake and keep the ghosts at bay, but her only reply was a breathy sigh, puffing warm air across his chest. “Captain Picard is a pussy.”

“Hmmm,” she purred agreeably.

He gave her a gentle shake. “C’mon, Jo. This is no time for sleep.” He glanced at the clock. Two a.m. Yeah, right, no time for sleep. He was exhausted. Maybe if he just closed his eyes for a second…

“No!”

Jo jolted against him at his shout, then hummed and nestled down against him, her eyelids not even flickering.

Wyatt flipped through the two a.m. TV options, looking for something that would keep him awake, but finding only infomercials and horror movies. Watching dippy actresses who had been surgically enhanced to have Jo’s body running up and down stairs in front of knife-wielding psychos was not his usual preference, but if it kept him awake, he just might become a convert to the horror genre.

Wyatt watched with macabre fascination as blood flew wildly across the screen in an almost comic pantomime of death, cold beer in one hand, warm Jo in the other, and realized for the first time in a long time, he felt pretty damned good. Ghosts and all.

Wyatt had dubbed this the Night of Normalcy, but the truth was there was nothing normal about it. On a normal Friday night, he wouldn’t have left work until after ten. He would have come home to his empty condo, maybe ordered in a pizza and watched the highlights from last night’s game, but he would have done it all with a stack of work in front of him instead of a warm woman at his side.

Jo had been cautious at first, keeping her distance until she was well into her third beer. Wyatt figured she’d probably been read the riot act by her boss for fraternizing with a client. He could have brought up their little indiscretion, just to put her mind at ease that he had no intention whatsoever of repeating the mistake, no matter how peachy she smelled, but he didn’t want to disrupt their tentative truce.

Nothing had been solved. There were still ghosts, allegedly, in his house and his stomach. He still had an image to protect and a business to run. But for
tonight
, at least, he had put all his troubles aside and enjoyed the temporary cease-fire in his combative relationship with the crazy ghost girl.

Wyatt ran his fingers idly through Jo’s god-awful black-dyed hair and relaxed to watch another sorority girl get her come-uppance.

Wyatt opened eyes that felt gritty, like he had slept with his eyes open all night, and rubbed his aching jaw. He frowned when his hand came away sticky, then realized the stickiness was from his hands, both of them covered with traces of a pink glue-like substance and a sugary-sweet smell.

“What the…?”

Jo had slumped down during the night until her head was pillowed on his thigh. He glanced down, one hand already moving to run his fingers through her hair when he froze.

“Holy shit.”

Jo murmured sleepily and stretched, turning her face up to him as she opened her eyes. “G’morning.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, panicked horror washing through him. “I didn’t— Oh, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”

“You didn’t fuck?” Jo mumbled thickly, blinking slowly in sleep-fogged confusion.

“Don’t be mad. It wasn’t me. I fell asleep. Oh God, I’m so sorry I fell asleep.”

“What wasn’t you?” she asked, coming awake fully now as his panic began to penetrate her muddled state. “Why does it smell like cotton candy in here?”

Wyatt gave a short, hysterical laugh. “I don’t think that’s cotton candy,” he said direly. “I think that’s bubble gum.”

Her confusion lasted only a moment longer, then her eyes widened in horror. She bolted to a sitting position, her hands going instinctively to her hair.

Her scream echoed off the walls.

Jo tried to pull her hands away, but clumps of bubble-gum-matted hair stuck to her fingers. “Those little bastards!” she shrieked, struggling to untangle her hands.

She jumped to her feet and ran to the bathroom. She was back before Wyatt could even stand up to follow her. “You little punks!” she shrieked at him—or rather, at his chest. “I’m on your side, you ungrateful little—oooh!” Words failed her and Jo stomped in a circle, her grunting shrieks of anger and dire looks thrown at his rib cage consuming all of her attention.

She did, admittedly, have a right to be pissed off. His ghosts didn’t do anything by half measures and they had sure done a number on her hair. Wads of bright pink, gooey bubble gum started about three inches from her scalp and covered her entire head like the shower cap from hell.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Where could they have gotten bubble gum? I’m sure there’s none in the condo.”

Jo had wrestled her tantrum under control and was now standing in the middle of his living room, panting in pink-headed rage. “My bag,” she bit out angrily. “One of my sister’s brats is addicted to the stuff, but Beth thinks it’s bad for her teeth and won’t let her have any, so I always smuggle in some contraband when I see her. Damn it! What time is it? Lucy’s engagement brunch thingy starts at ten.”

Wyatt glanced at his state-of-the-art diver’s watch, but found it stopped. “What the hell? This thing is supposed to live longer than me.”

“Wyatt!” Jo shrieked, her hysteria barely held in check. “
What time is it
?”

He looked to the display on the cable box. “Eight-forty. Don’t worry. We’ll get you an emergency hair appointment somewhere and be a little late to the party.”

“No,” she shook her head wildly. “No. The party’s at Beth’s house. We’ll go there first. We’ll get there early and she’ll fix it. No problem.”

“Jo,” Wyatt said hesitantly, “I think this might take more than a comb. I think we need specialists.”

“Peanut butter. That gets out bubble gum, doesn’t it? Beth will have peanut butter. She’s a mom. All moms have peanut butter. Besides, she used to be a stylist before she decided motherhood was her calling. She’ll know what to do. C’mon.”

She charged toward the door and Wyatt jumped up to chase her toward his front door. “Jo! Wait a second, would you? I can’t just show up at your cousin’s engagement brunch wearing clothes I slept in without a shower or even a pause to brush my teeth.”

Jo spun to face him, and the look in her eyes was terrifying. “Mr. Haines,” she bit out acidly, “In case you hadn’t noticed, I have enough bubble gum in my hair to keep Violet Beauregard chewing for the rest of her natural life. I am not going to sit around twiddling my thumbs while you go through your morning toilette. I am going to my sister’s house. You can come with me or I will see if I can figure out how to hotwire a Bentley, because I am going
right now
.”

Wyatt decided it was safest not to ask who Violet Beauregard was. Instead, he grabbed his keys, his shoes, and a towel to wrap around Jo’s head to keep her from getting stuck to the upholstery, and sprinted out the door after her.

“Christ on crutches, Jo Ellen, when Momma sees this new style of yours, she’s going to shit kittens.”

Jo winced and waved a hand between Beth and Wyatt. “Wyatt Haines, uptight, haunted CEO, I give you Bethie Carter, potty mouth poster-mom for the PTA.”

Beth shook Wyatt’s hand automatically, even as she made a face at Jo. “None of the kids can hear me. Why are you so early? I thought you’d pulled clean-up duty. Last I heard you’d claimed anything before ten a.m. was inhumane and made Kim drag her ass over here at six in the morning to help me set up. At least, that’s what Kim told me when she showed up this morning.”

Jo glared at the most annoying of her sisters, i.e., whichever one was in front of her. “I’m having a little bit of a bad hair day, in case you didn’t notice.”

Beth shrugged and eyed the pink and black rat’s nest on Jo’s head. “You can’t exactly be pissed at me for not thinking anything of it, after some of the shit you’ve done to your hair in the past, saying it was a fashion choice.”

“I’m sorry if my style isn’t Sandra Dee enough for you. Can you just help me out? Please.” The last word was a distinct effort, but it did the trick.

Beth shot her a smug little smile and said ungraciously, “Fine. Come on inside and I’ll see what I can do. Your boyfriend can go around back and help Kimmie set up.”

“He isn’t my boyfriend,” Jo said automatically, before she remembered she was supposed to be passing Wyatt off as just that.

“Fine, your fuck-buddy can go around back and help Kimmie set up.” Beth turned to Wyatt and smiled her suburban princess smile. “Just do whatever Kim tells you,” she told him sweetly. Then she turned, grabbed Jo none-too-gently by the arm and started pulling her toward the house like a disobedient eight-year-old. “God, what is that in your hair? Is that fucking bubble gum? Were you going to bring Dinah bubble gum? I swear to God, Jo Ellen, if you give that girl one more cavity…”

Chapter Fifteen: Safe in the Bosom of Family

Once Beth had time to assess the damage, her demeanor suddenly became a lot more sympathetic. It also didn’t hurt that her youngest was watching with intense fascination as Mommy poked at Aunt Jo’s pink and black snarls. Jo sat through it all, trying not to scream or cry.

“Sorry, honey. We’re gonna have to cut it all off. Shelby, go get Mommy’s haircut bag, would you?” The four year old nodded silently and ran from the room on a mission. “How did you even do this to yourself?” Beth asked incredulously. “It looks like the kind of thing you and Kim would have done to each other when we were kids.”

Jo arched a brow—at least her eyebrows weren’t covered with gum—until her sister amended.

“Okay, fine, it’s the kind of thing I would have done to you and then tried to blame on Kim. It still doesn’t explain how a twenty-four—”

“Twenty-six.” Ever since Beth had started lying about her age, she had started lowering Kim and Jo’s ages to match. Kimmie loved it; Jo corrected her every time.

“Twenty-whatever-year-old woman got bubble gum in her hair. Although, I’d like to state, for the record, if this is some kinky sex thing, I don’t want to know. Although your guy is pretty hot. Kind of smelly and rumpled, but I bet he cleans up well.”

Jo felt the first twinge of remorse for not giving Wyatt five minutes to get ready. “He does clean up well. In fact, he’s usually so clean he squeaks, but I was so freaked out this morning by the bubble gum thing I didn’t give him a chance to change out of the clothes he slept in.”

“Squeaky clean isn’t usually your type.”

Jo’s mouth twisted in a wry grin. “You can say that again.”

“Although, if you were going to bring a date to Lucy’s shindig, at least you brought someone vaguely human. Mom would have flipped if you’d shown up with another biker.”

“Mom’ll flip if she finds out that Wyatt has two ghosts camping out in his body and is a client of Karmic Consultants until I can figure out how to get them out.”

Beth froze in her poking and prodding at bubble gum wads. “No shit?”

“Here’s your bag, Mommy.”

Beth turned with her perfect housewife smile firmly in place. “You didn’t hear Mommy say the bad word.”

“Of course not, Mommy.”

“Good girl. Now go help Aunt Kim set up for the party, okay, pumpkin?”

Shelby handed over the bag and shoved her lower lip out into a pout. “I wanna stay and watch.”

“Not this time, sugar-bear.”

Shelby sulked out of the bathroom and Beth kicked the door shut behind her.

“So, next time my hair is gunked up by prankster ghosts, she gets to watch you fix it?”

Beth looked up sharply. “Ghosts? That’s what happened to your hair?”

Jo rolled her eyes. “What did you think, Beth? It’s not like I’m ever around live children, besides yours and Kim’s.”

Beth frowned and set what looked like a large makeup case on the vanity in front of Jo. “It’s not natural,” she complained as she bent over a combination lock that held the case shut.

“Neither is padlocking your past, in my opinion, but I guess we’re all nuts in our own special ways.”

Beth made a face. “I’m not padlocking my past,” she protested. “It’s the scissors. A couple years ago, Dinah found them and decided to play stylist on Shelby. A five-year-old waving sharp shears in range of the eyes and ears of my baby was enough to convince me to invest in a lock. I thank God the only thing Shelby lost that day were her cute little baby curls.”

“You said you cut off her curls yourself because they were getting in her eyes.”

“I lied. And frankly, I’m amazed you all believed me. Even Mike never suspected and he knew how much I loved our baby’s curls. And don’t change the subject, how could ghosts do this to your hair? I thought they didn’t have bodies.”

“They don’t. Except when they inhabit a living body. Like Wyatt’s.”

Beth spun, shears in hand and glared at Jo. “If he’s dangerous, you shouldn’t have brought him here. I can’t believe you would bring him into this house knowing—”

“Cool it, Bethie, I never said he was dangerous. He’s haunted, but as long as he’s awake, he’s in complete control. When he falls asleep, the ghosts take over, but bubble gum in the hair hardly deserves ax-murderer-level panic.”

Beth pursed her lips, made a few experimental snips in the air with her scissors and then bent to her task. “I still don’t understand why you brought him here. It isn’t appropriate to bring business acquaintances to family events, Jo Ellen.”

Jo rolled her eyes as Beth channeled their mother’s disapproval. “Karma doesn’t want me to let him out of my sight until we figure out what’s going on with his ghosts. So it was either bring him with or skip out on Luce. I figured this was the lesser of two evils.”

“Karma,” Beth sniffed. “I should have known she’d be involved.”

“She is my boss and she owns the company,” Jo said wryly. “If it has to do with Karmic Consultants, it has to do with her.”

Beth huffed and snipped, sending long locks of sticky black hair sliding to the floor. “She’s the Pied Piper of crackpots,” Beth grumbled, snipping more aggressively now. “You were normal before you started working for her.”

Jo snorted, but was careful to keep her head perfectly still. She trusted her sister to turn the gummy mass of her hair into something salvageable, but she didn’t want to end up with a bald spot because she hadn’t been able to contain her irritation with her family for five minutes. “I was never normal, Beth. Karma just gave me permission to be myself by showing me there were others like me.”

“Be yourself? Dressing all in black, dying your hair, and spending your nights in graveyards? That’s who you really are?”

“I don’t spend my nights in graveyards and I happen to like the color black.”

“Black isn’t a color. It’s a denial of life.”

“Then I guess it suits me since I work with the dead.”

Beth huffed, the sheers flying fast now. “I may have to accept that Karma woman into the family because Lucy is in love with Jake, but I don’t have to like it. She’s made you weird.”

“Damn it, Bethie! She hasn’t made me anything. If anyone made me weird, it was you guys telling me over and over again that ghosts
aren’t normal
. If I had been allowed to be a normal girl who just happens to talk to ghosts, do you think I would have turned into Goth Girl and started hanging out with bikers in order to find someone who could accept me?”

Beth’s hands paused above her hair. Jo watched her sister in the mirror, but Beth wouldn’t meet her eyes. “And have you found them?” she asked hesitantly, focusing intently on Jo’s hair to avoid looking at her. “These people who would accept you?”

Jo gave a short humorless laugh. “Not really. Would you believe I’m not dark enough for them? Too normal to fit in there, not normal enough here. I just can’t win. I guess it’s just as well that I’m losing my hair.” She fingered a matted, foot-long swatch of black that had fallen into her lap. “Goodbye Goth Girl.”

Wyatt was being ordered around by a four year old. On the plus side, it was a living four year old.

As soon as he stepped out onto the back patio, he knew why they had chosen to have a backyard brunch engagement party. The yard was twice as big as the house and landscaped to within an inch of its life. A wide stone terrace descended down three shallow steps to a neatly clipped lawn, where round tables had been artistically scattered. At the far edge of the lawn was a white gazebo, nestled among a grove of old-growth oak trees. To his left, where the house curved away toward the front, there was a small swimming pool flanked by long buffet tables groaning under the weight of covered catering platters.

Between the complex floral arrangements and the air of panicked excitement, he might have thought he had walked into preparations for an actual wedding, rather than the casual backyard BBQ-style engagement party that Jo had described.

He didn’t have much time to dwell on that—or his completely unsuitable attire—for long. As soon as the ringleader—a peppy, thirty-something cheerleader dictator who could only be Jo’s other sister, Kim—saw him standing there, she promptly put him to work.

He was fairly certain he saw at least half a dozen different little blonde girls fetching and carrying for Kim, but it was hard to count them since they all looked so damned similar and bounced past him so quickly. The one assigned to run herd on him had introduced herself with a sweet little smile and a lisp as Shelby and then proceeded to channel a drill sergeant for the next half hour, ordering him around with her hands imperiously planted on non-existent four-year-old hips.

Wyatt, cowed by residual guilt over what he’d allowed to happen to Jo’s hair, obeyed each demand to the letter, even when those demands involved climbing up and dangling from a tree branch in order to get the “Congratulations!” banner to hang straight.

By the time Jo emerged from the house, Wyatt was at least twice as grubby as he had been upon arrival and completely unfit for polite company, but all thoughts of his own appearance vanished as soon as he caught sight of Jo’s.

The bubble gum was gone, along with most of her hair, but instead of leaving her looking like she had been scalped by an inexperienced Indian, which he had half-expected, she looked like she could have stepped off the runway of a chic fashion show—provided runway models ever grew breasts.

Her hair had been cut off just beyond where her roots had grown out, leaving her with black-tipped blonde spikes, artfully arranged around her face in a funky, sexy style that was insanely hot and extremely Jo.

It also didn’t help his equilibrium that she had traded her day-old Black Sabbath tee for a scoop-necked scarlet blouse that must have belonged to her sister, because it was at least two sizes too small across the chest.

Wyatt tried not to swallow his tongue as he took in the brand new Jo. And he’d thought she was fuckable before. All thoughts of steering clear of her vanished. They didn’t have to have a relationship—at least not a public one—but he was getting her into bed with him if it was the last thing he did. Wyatt thought he might just be in love with those ghosts for getting rid of her god-awful hair and turning her into this sex-goddess.

“You look—” Wyatt stopped himself, realizing belatedly that
edible
was not a compliment he could issue in front of the rotating cast of short, blonde people who were rushing past him. “Good. You look good.”

She smiled self-deprecatingly. “I’m sorry I was such a raging harpy this morning. Beth says you can use one of their bathrooms to freshen up and borrow a shirt from her husband Mike for the party. He’s a little bigger than you, but I thought you’d prefer to have something clean.”

“I would. Thanks.” He started toward the house where Beth was waiting for him, but turned before he had gone more than three feet. “Jo, I’m sorry about falling asleep on you last night, but your hair really does look great.
You
look great.”

Jo beamed. “Be careful today, Mr. Haines. Banks family get-togethers are minefields of smiling faces and unspoken criticism.”

“I can take it,” he bragged, loving the way her smile lit her face as she shook her head fondly at his arrogance. He turned and continued toward the house, wondering when he had become such a softy, grinning like an idiot from one of Jo’s smiles.