by Anthology
It didn’t matter. Adrianne wasn’t ready or willing to share Mason.
“Dammit.” She quickly looked around, then grabbed his hand and pulled him across the street and through the wrought-iron archway over the sidewalk leading to Herschfield House. The haunted house for the weekend.
“Where are we going?” he asked, following her without hesitation, which she appreciated.
“Somewhere we won’t be found.” She pulled him around the side of the house and then through the door leading to the kitchen.
“I think we’re supposed to go in the front.” He sounded amused.
“I helped set this damned thing up,” she told him as they walked. “If I can’t duck in a side door, somebody’s gonna get yelled at.”
“You helped set the haunted house up?”
Once through the side door, instead of stepping through the cobwebs into the room where they were going to be threatened by a chainsaw-wielding Dracula, Adrianne turned right and tugged Mason along with her behind the black curtain that separated the victims from the actors who needed to periodically jump out or grab people as they walked by.
She ducked the elbow of a man with a plastic ax lodged in his head and dodged the two zombies heading for the front of the house.
“I helped set everything up for the festival except the rides and games that the carnival company brought in. I did the craft fair, the quilt show, the pie shop, the beer garden…and this.” She pulled him with her up the back staircase to the second floor.
“Why do they have a haunted house at the town festival anyway?” Mason asked. “I’ve always wondered.”
She’d thought it was strange too, but Hailey had insisted it was a tradition that would not end during her reign. Hailey didn’t call it a reign but Adrianne knew that’s how she thought of it. “It’s fun.”
“To be scared?”
“Yeah.”
“Then this doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know this is fake, right? No one would let a bunch of people walk through a house with a real ax murderer in it. So it’s not really scary.”
She chuckled. “Right, but you suspend disbelief during the experience.”
“Why?”
She rolled her eyes but grinned. In the candle-lit hallway, he couldn’t see her anyway. “Because it makes it fun.”
“So you’re fooling yourself into thinking it’s fun.”
“I…guess.”
Adrianne stepped into the first bedroom on the left with Mason right behind her. When she stopped, he bumped into her and steadied them both with his hands on her waist. And he didn’t let go. Or move back. In fact, he seemed to press closer. At least part of him pressed closer. She felt his breath along the side of her neck and then he trailed his lips along her skin.
She sighed. God, that felt good.
The sound of a chainsaw and a chorus of screams interrupted the fantasy she had going of his mouth continuing on down.
“Crap.” She stepped out of his hold, closed the door and then locked it. “We can hang out in here for a while.”
“We’re hiding.”
“Yes.” From the whole town, the whole world, for at least a week if she could arrange it. “So you’ve never been in a haunted house before?”
“No.”
“Why not? It’s been a part of the festival for years. Wasn’t it here when you lived here?”
The distant sound of screams drifted up the stairs.
“Yes. But I have trouble with the whole suspension of disbelief thing.”
“Right.” A smart guy like him was probably too logical for something like fantasy. Which was a bit of a bummer considering some of the impure thoughts she’d had going lately.
“And a very hard time with fooling myself into anything.”
“Especially something fun,” she said dryly. Maybe she could show him how fun fantasy and imagination could be.
There was no bed nearby, but they could make do.
Herschfield House had once been an actual residence but now served as a sort of town museum. Sort of. This room for instance, held clothing and furniture that people felt were historic. For the most part, it was just old, but it was true that some of it easily dated back to the 1930s. The ladies of the Museum Guild—many of whom had donated a lot of the clothes and furniture—kept the rooms clean and somewhat organized. Like the room of historic dishes or the room of historic books—old yearbooks, cookbooks and scrap books.
The first-floor living area was used for events like Mother’s Day tea, bridal and baby showers and club meetings—book clubs, Garden Club, Sewing Club—and of course, the Haunted House at Halloween and festival time. It was the oldest house in town, was right on Main Street and was huge with a multitude of rooms that lent itself perfectly to a haunting.
“Why not have fun for real?” He moved to the far side of the room and grabbed the cushions off an old couch. He propped them up against the wall by the windows, then took a seat, stretching his legs out in front of him.
“Like what?” She’d love to know what Mason Riley thought was fun.
“Whatever’s fun for you. What do you like to do?”
She tried to gauge if he was being suggestive, but it was hard to tell. She sat next to him and positioned herself like he had. “I like to…”
Why was it such a hard question? It wasn’t that she never had fun, but she…stayed home a lot. It didn’t feel un-fun, but it wasn’t the interesting trips or late nights at clubs and parties and shows that she used to have. “I love movies. I read a lot. I…” Go to bed early. Grocery shop with an obsession for food labels. “How about you?”
She felt him lean more fully into his pillows. “Honestly? I have to make myself go out. Or more specifically, my partner, Lauren, has to make me go out. I work too much.”
“Your partner?”
He nodded with a smile that had her feeling a little jealous of Lauren. It was clear that Mason had a lot of feelings for the other woman.
“She’s also my best friend,” Mason said.
“Tell me about her.” Adrianne knew she shouldn’t sound so possessive.
“She’s awesome. Everything we’ve done, we’ve done together.”
“She’s a genius too?”
“Not literally, but she’s incredibly bright. She’s the leading authority on water and soil conservation in the United States.”
Yeah, but could she make candy? Adrianne rolled her eyes at herself. She made candy, she was the assistant to a small town mayor, because they’d been sorority sisters. What did she have that would interest a guy like Mason?
“So you work together and socialize together? Does that get complicated?” she asked, meaning, of course, have you ever slept together?
“No. I’m her charity case. I make her feel good about herself.”
“Charity case?” Adrianne asked. As if feeding third-world countries wasn’t enough?
“Yeah, she keeps me on the normal side of the spectrum. Whenever I start to drift in the nerd direction, she pulls me back.” He smiled. “Kind of like how you rescue me when I’m in a situation that’s going to make me look bad.”
That got her attention even as she grimaced. She wasn’t sure if he appreciated that or not. But she couldn’t seem to help herself.
“You think of yourself as a nerd?” she asked.
“I am a nerd, Adrianne. I’d rather read scientific journals than novels. I’d rather play with my plants than go to a nightclub.”
“Your passion is science. And you’re doing things most people can’t even imagine not to mention do. There’s nothing at all wrong with that, or you, Mason.”
He looked surprised by her vehemence. She was too. But she meant all of it.
“Wow, why couldn’t you have gone to my high school?” he asked with a little grin.
She smiled and settled back against the cushion again, having realized her passion about his normalcy had made her sit up st
raight. “I’m sorry to say that I was probably not as enlightened about what makes a man truly attractive at that age.”
“You were a cheerleader, class president, homecoming queen?” he asked.
She sighed. “Yes.”
He laughed. “No need to sound embarrassed. That’s normal stuff. What everyone wants. Even nerds. At least on some level.”
At those words, she felt a twinge near her heart. Different from the others Mason had been causing. This felt like—she wanted to hug him rather than ravish him. The desire to ravish was under the surface for sure, but she would have been okay with simply hugging. For now.
“You didn’t feel normal?”
“Never here. Well…rarely.”
She wanted to know more about those rare times, but he wasn’t sharing more at the moment and she hesitated to push.
“You would have liked to golf with the guys today?” she asked.
“I would like to think that I’m to the point where I can have a normal conversation with normal guys.”
“Why do you care about talking with those guys?” Part of her really hated that Mason had never felt normal, but she also hated that he was measuring normalcy by Drew, Tim and Steve.
“I can talk to anyone else. Mostly. I have to think through what I’m going to say, but I generally hang out with people I have something in common with, so it’s easier.”
She grinned. “You see these guys as a challenge then.”
He grinned back. “Something like that.”
She really liked him. She wanted him to feel normal, accepted, appreciated.
“Maybe they’ll invite you to go golfing again,” she said.
He looked at her. “Do not tell them to invite me to go golfing, Adrianne.”
Okay, so he was kind of on to her and the whole plan to make him happy. “Okay, I won’t say anything to them about golfing.”
“Adrianne.” His voice was deep and full of warning.
She looked up at him.
“Don’t tell the guys to invite me to do anything with them.”
Dammit. She’d been thinking they could invite him for more cards. Or fishing. Or beer. That pretty much summed up the men’s social activities in Sapphire Falls.
“Fine, I won’t say anything.”
“Thank you.”
“So when you make yourself go out, what do you do?” she asked, knowing it wasn’t playing cards, fishing or drinking beer in someone’s backyard.
“Shows, dinner, parties.”
With women, she was sure. He lived in Chicago and rubbed elbows with some very interesting people. The high-class parties and weekend getaways she’d experienced were probably nothing compared to what he was invited to.
“I like comedy,” she said. “There was a club in Chicago I used to love: Picadilly’s.”
“Never been there.”
“No? You should go.”
“So, it’s like jokes and stuff?”
She smiled. “Right.” She could only imagine his reaction to the raunchy, politically incorrect stuff he would hear at Picadilly’s.
They sat quietly, listening to the muffled screams and pounding going on below them.
“Did you hear about the cat that ate the ball of yarn?” Mason asked.
“No.” She was already smiling. Mason Riley was telling her a joke.
“It had mittens.”
There was a long pause and then she burst out laughing. Holy crap, he’d told her a joke and it was…corny, dumb and something she could tell a Sunday-school classroom. She loved it.
“Did you hear about the skeleton that walked into a bar?” she asked in return.
“No.”
She could hear the smile in his voice. “He ordered a beer…and a mop.”
Another long pause, and then Mason chuckled. “Nice.”
“I can do corny jokes all night long.”
They lapsed into silence again for nearly a minute.
“You didn’t like Chicago then?” Mason finally asked.
“No, I love Chicago. I needed…a break.”
She wasn’t going to tell him all about her heart. She wanted to, but that would be too much. They barely knew each other really. And he was still maybe a little mad, or at least suspicious. He didn’t need her dumping on him or sounding like a freak, as she knew she often did when it came to her heart stuff. She smiled. She and Mason had a lot in common. They were both…quirky.
“I had a really high-paced, high-stress job and I wanted a change. I knew the travel and strange routines were not good for me. When the chance came up to move to a small, quiet, slow-paced place like this, I jumped.” She sighed. “And I love it here. There are no sales quotas and high-pressure meetings. There’s no politics, no hidden agendas. I sleep in. I eat food out of my own garden. I kick back. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been.”
“You like Sapphire Falls better than Chicago?” He sounded completely disbelieving.
She understood. Three years ago, she wouldn’t have believed it either. But she knew exactly what it was that made her love the small town.
“I was popular,” she said. “I was on the inside. I was that girl, seemed to have a lot of friends. But people were always putting on an act. I went to parties and had money but didn’t really ever have fun because I couldn’t fully relax. I was always first in everything and always came out on top, but I never felt satisfied.”
And all of it had almost killed her.
“So I gave it all up and came to a place as opposite from all of that as I could find.”
“That’s an understatement,” Mason muttered.
She shook her head. As much as she wanted everyone to genuinely like him, she also wanted him to like Sapphire Falls. Because she loved it.
“Did you know that Steve raises extra-sweet corn so that he can supply all the little old ladies at church all summer? And Mrs. Langston feeds stray cats? And Phoebe works after school teaching some of the adults Spanish? And Drew voluntarily drives the snowplow in town because he’s got insomnia and is the first person awake?” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I could go on.”
“I didn’t know any of those things,” Mason admitted.
“Are you surprised?” She truly wanted to know.
Mason paused and then said, “Not really, I guess.”
“These are good people who let me be who I am,” Adrianne said. “I would never judge any of them because they’re way better than me. I’m glad they let me be a part of this town.”
They were quiet for nearly two minutes. “You don’t miss the city at all then?” Mason asked.
She could honestly shake her head. “Except for the shopping, no.”
“You ever come for a weekend shopping spree?”
She looked over at him. Was he hinting at something? “I haven’t for a long time. But I think I’d like to.” She paused and waited. Then she chuckled. “I don’t know if it’s the dork thing again or what, but now would be a great time to say we could go to Picadilly’s if I come to town. And so you know, I’d say yes.”
“Damn.”
She sat up. “Damn?”
“Yeah, I…” He started patting his pockets. “Something…I need to take some notes.”
Memories from the farm—it seemed like a week ago—hit her all at once and she had to catch her breath and clear her throat. “Oh, okay.”
She leaned over to search her purse for a pen as Mason pulled one from his pants pocket along with a little notebook.
Darn it anyway.
No, she wasn’t going to lose out to him being better prepared this time. She wanted him. She wanted him to know it—and to do something about it.
“You know, I’d love to be a part of saving the world. I want to do my part.” She stretched back as he turned toward her.
“What do you—”
She slid her legs out straight, inched up the hem of her shorts and stretched her arms overhead. “Plenty of note-taking surface. If you need it.”
>
It was the most bizarre seduction/flirtation/whatever that she’d ever been a part of, but it fit. And it seemed to be working. Mason’s gaze flared with heat and he licked his lips as he took in all of the bare skin she was offering.
“Believe it or not, I almost never get stuck like I have been for the past few weeks, and ideas don’t generally jump out at me in the midst of other normal conversations,” he said.
“How do your ideas usually come to you?”
“While working in the lab, or as a tangent from something else I’m doing, or when I’m brainstorming with Lauren or the team.”
“Never out of the blue?”
“Rarely. Maybe if I’m alone, reading something or on a run, but never when I’m doing something else. I promise you that I was focused on you and what we were talking about.”
She rolled to her side and reached out a hand, laying it on his arm. “We were telling dumb jokes and chatting. I’m not offended.”
“But I was focused on you. Completely. Like I was at the farm. These ideas…it’s like…”
She raised an eyebrow and waited.
He sighed. “It’s like you shake something loose for me.”
She laughed. “That doesn’t sound complimentary, but if it means that it’s helping you then I’m good with it.”
He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “It’s a good thing. But it’s not very…romantic.”
“You’re trying to be romantic with me?” Sure, they’d kissed—almost a hell of a lot more than that—but romantic made it sound more serious.
“I’m not that good at it,” he admitted.
She scooted closer. “That’s not what I meant. Mason, I…” Want to take my clothes off every time I see you. That would certainly reassure him that he was good at something.
“We’re off script here so I’m not sure what’s next.”
She didn’t know what that meant, but he did look a little confused. “Off script?” she asked.
“Things are usually very predictable with me. I’m usually in control, smooth, sure of what the next step is, but with you it’s all been—crazy, off the charts, erratic.”
She could tell that bothered him, but she really liked it.