“Maybe, if it turns out to be haunted, maybe you shouldn’t have kept the floors.”
He smiled and hugged her tighter. “You think so? You think maybe something dastardly happened on these wood floors, and they’re cursed?”
She laughed…a little nervously. “Well, if something had happened, it was more likely to have happened on the floors than the ceilings.”
They were almost to the music room. He wasn’t sure what he’d use it for. Neither of them played instruments, and there was a nice library in the back for her. “Unless someone was levitating above the bed like in a demonic possession and….”
“Clay!” She hugged him tighter.
“You didn’t even notice that I used the word dastardly. You made me learn all these big words for my tests and then you don’t even give me credit when I use them.”
“Are you sure it was dastardly? A very similar sounding word comes to mind when I think of you right now.” She almost sounded amused. That was good. At least she wasn’t pulling away, and they weren’t near a quick escape. When they reached the window, her hold loosened even more as they stared out. “Huh.”
Yeah. Huh. Everyone else had electricity besides them. “Maybe faulty wiring?”
She gasped and pulled back. In the dim light streaming through the window, he could see horror on her face…more horror than earlier actually. “My dad did the wiring in here! Are you saying he did a bad job?”
Wow, it really was impossible to say the right thing to her. “So, you’re hoping for supernatural forces then?”
“Maybe you forgot to pay your power bill.”
“I didn’t forget to pay my power bill.”
“But maybe you did.”
“Duck, even if I did, they don’t shut your power off at night. They show up and threaten to shut if off during the middle of the day if you don’t hand them a check.”
“You sound like you have experience.” She was using her librarian voice on him. All snooty and patronizing, and it made him love her more, but also…he seriously couldn’t say a thing right.
“This is my thirteenth house—things happen.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she edged closer to him. “This is your thirteenth house?” She went still. “Wait, when you say ‘things happen’ are you saying like spooky things happen or like forgetting to pay power bills happen?”
Before he could answer her, there was a sound like something rolling across the roof…skidding and bumping and…what the hell?
“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.”
Her reaction was instantaneous. She stood up a little taller. Her shoulders went back. And she smiled. It was how she’d held herself at fifteen…back before he’d screwed up…back before her dad had told him to stop salivating over Cory like she was dessert. And, okay, he hadn’t been able to so he may have sort of pulled away from her until their senior year and then he’d really screwed up, but her dad wasn’t in the clear as far as blame went.
It was likely why he was helping tonight.
That was decent of him—as long as he fixed all his ghostly pranks.
“You know, it’s my fault you didn’t
date in high school.”
Her shoulders dipped a bit. “Oh?” He might have to read her body language instead of relying on what she said.
“I told all the guys at school that you were mine and to back off.”
She rolled her shoulders back and then folded her arms as her eyes narrowed. “You dated a bunch of other girls senior year.” Okay, well he hadn’t needed body language to translate “pissed.”
“To make you jealous. It clearly didn’t work.”
She relaxed again and tilted her head while smiling. “It did.”
He took a step toward her and when she didn’t move, he took a few more until they were toe-to-toe, and he slipped his hand into hers. “So, what do you think?” he asked, nodding at the walls.
In answer, she towed him over to the corner with the sleeping bags and dropped down cross-legged. He settled down behind her, with a bent leg on either side of her and dragged her back against him as he leaned into the corner.
“I think it’s a lot less haunted than I expected.” She pulled the top off the canister of red licorice and pulled a stick out. “I brought one of these too.”
“Oh, so we should be set for tonight, huh?”
“Yup.” She unzipped a sleeping bag and dragged it across them as she turned sideways and settled into his arms and against his chest. Cory took a bite of the licorice and then offered him a bite. “It’s funny that a fake haunting finally exorcised the ghosts of this place.”
He slid his hand along those soft jeans of hers. It felt as good as he’d expected. “You know seventeen year old me may have made a few mistakes, but I see where he was going with this.” He slid his hand along her hip and up to her waist. She used to be ticklish when they were kids. It’d be interesting to see if she still was.
How To Bring Your Love Life Back From The Dead Page 15