She didn’t want him to go. “Are you going to call Frank?”
“I called him when you and Andrea were in the ladies’ room at the Legion of Honor.”
“Oh. Good.” She should have thought of that.
He put his hand on the door.
She still didn’t want him to let him go. “Thanks for talking to Andrea about not running away again.” Or whatever it was they’d talked about. “I didn’t know what to say except yell at her.”
“You’d have done fine.”
“Yeah, well...” She shrugged and tucked her hair behind her ear. “You did a great job with her.” He smelled so good, a big, strong man good. His kiss was electric, their lovemaking like something out of one of his songs. She was going to miss him so badly her insides literally shrieked at the thought of leaving Masterson, she couldn’t help him let go of his grief and guilt. She would never get him to see. Only Cole could do that himself.
“I gotta go,” she said. And she meant so much more than merely tonight.
“Yep.” If he said one more word...
He didn’t. Instead, he opened the door and climbed out. Jami was forced to do the same. He smiled, saluted her where she stood on the sidewalk, then disappeared inside his house. She noticed he didn’t even turn on a light.
Damn. She couldn’t just stand there by the side of her SUV. Yet when she drove away, she knew she’d left a piece of herself behind with him.
* * * * *
Hell and damnation. In the dark house, he stood three feet from the window and watched her drive away. His gut screamed, yet he ignored it. He wasn’t good for her. He could never be the man she needed. He could never be the man any woman needed.
If he’d been capable, though, he would have loved her.
He could still hear the echo of their girlie chatter as he’d driven. She and Andrea had talked about everything, from boys to parents to Darryl to Jami’s nieces and her mother’s obsessive need for a grandson. Christ, it felt like they were taking a family vacation where Dad did all the driving, the women folk did all the talking, and they had to pull in at every freaking rest stop along the way. It had felt too damn...normal. Too good.
The pit of his stomach ached. The last two days had fundamentally changed him. He couldn’t go back to ignoring Andrea. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t want Jami for more than one night. He couldn’t have that, but he wouldn’t pretend he didn’t want it badly.
He was still standing in the dark long after her taillights disappeared. The house was silent as a tomb. Stephie’s tomb. His own.
He punched in Frank’s cell number. “I’ve got a favor to ask,” he said after Frank’s brief Yo.
“Shoot, man.”
“I need you to help me clean out the extra bedroom.” Stephie’s room.
Frank was silent so long, he might have thought he’d lost the connection if it weren’t for the clamor of Easy Cheesy in the background. “Sure, man. Whatever you need.”
That’s why Frank was his only friend. He never asked questions; he simply did whatever Cole asked of him.
Cole would never let go of Stephie. He would never absolve himself of his guilt. He would forever miss her face, her smile, her laugh, her girlish scent, and the sweet sound of her voice. Yet he needed to clear out the things she would have gotten rid of long ago if she’d lived. Her memories were his, but her stuff? Well, hell, it was kind of sick to leave her clothes laying on the floor where she’d thrown them when she took them off. No kind of about it. It screamed lunatic.
“Tomorrow,” he finished.
“Sure thing, Cole.”
Then he hung up. There was nothing left to say.
* * * * *
Should she pack her bags and get out of Dodge now? Or wait until tomorrow and at least say good-bye to Frank, Ruby, and Andrea? God, she was going to miss Easy Cheesy. She’d been so happy there for a little while.
Isadora was on the phone when Jami walked through the front door. She’d pulled the long cord across to the couch and sat with the princess phone in her lap.
“No, really, I can’t.” She looked at Jami with wide eyes and drooping mouth.
The son. He was calling about money again.
“I know, honey, but that just isn’t possible.” Isadora’s feet barely touched the floor. “Please don’t say that.”
That kid needed a piece of her mind. How old was he? Thirty-five? Her own age. And he was a whiner.
Jami went into the kitchen to boil water for Isadora’s green tea. The lady was going to need it when she got off the phone with the little twerp.
When the tea was brewed, she pushed through the door once more to find Isadora a boneless mess on the sofa. Jami set the cup on the table in front of her. “Want me to put on some Tom Jones?” She fished Isadora’s loaner CD out of her bag.
Isadora simply wagged her head. Oh no. Things were really bad when even Tom Jones couldn’t bring her out of the doldrums. “He hates me.”
It was on the tip of Jami’s tongue to ask if Isadora meant Tom Jones. But really, making a joke at a time like this was tactless. They both knew Isadora was talking about her son. “He doesn’t hate you.”
“He says that witch of a wife of his is going to leave him if he doesn’t get the money for a house.”
“Can’t he just get a mortgage like everyone else?”
She shook her head. “They don’t have the down payment. My son was never very good at saving money. Even as a boy, he was always breaking into his piggy bank.”
Jami didn’t know what to say to make Isadora feel better. Instead, she handed her the tea. “Drink up. This will calm your nerves.”
Isadora pulled herself upright and took the offering. “You’re a very nice girl, you know. I wish my son had met someone like you.”
Jami almost laughed. Yeah, she’d been batting a thousand with men lately. The thought made her realize she had to stop ramming her head against a door that wasn’t going to open. She put her hand over Isadora’s. “You know how much I love living here, don’t you?”
“I certainly hope you do, dear.”
“But I’m going to have to be moving on soon.” Isn’t that what she’d told Cole to do?
“Oh no.”
Isadora’s teary eyes wrenched her heart all over again. “I’m afraid so. I’ve really got to get my life in order.” Or was it just running away again?
Except Cole had shoved it down her throat that they couldn’t be together, would never be together, no way, no how. She couldn’t hang around another seven years waiting to see if he changed his mind.
Isadora patted her hand. “I understand, dear.”
She didn’t think Isadora did.
“You know what I’m going to do?” Isadora wriggled forward on the sofa and rose to her feet. “Take a nice herbal bath. That’ll do the trick. It’ll put me right to sleep, so if Mr. Rogers starts toddling around the house, I won’t hear a thing.”
“I forgot. Did Betty bring her exorcist?”
“The woman was a quack. She carried a candle and said all this crap about going into the light, and”—her eyebrows shot up to her hairline—“she wanted a hundred dollars.” Isadora sniffed. “I gave her twenty-five because it was a good show.” Picking up her teacup and heading to the stairs, she said over her shoulder, “Besides, I’ve gotten used to Mr. Rogers haunting us.”
With the sound of the bath running upstairs, Jami carried the princess phone back to its table, locked all the outside doors, then went to her own room. From somewhere close to the tub, Tom Jones serenaded her through the wall with “She’s a Lady.” Kinda scary, but she was actually starting to get into Tom in a big way. Plugging in her computer, Jami booted up. Leo’s e-mail was waiting for her. In addition, she’d neither listened to nor erased his voice mail.
Her finger hovered over the delete key. Instead of pressing it, though, she moved his e-mail, still unread, into her deal-with-it-mucho-later-or-hope-he’ll-forget-about-it folder.
&nbs
p; She could hear her sisters’ voices making phantom chicken noises. But really, why did she had to give the man even the two minutes it would take to read his e-mail or listen to his message?
“I’m so done with you,” she muttered, ignoring the teeny-tiny voice whispering that she’d never be done with him until she figured out why she’d let him make her wait seven years to decide he didn’t want to marry her. Saying she liked the status quo or hated change wasn’t good enough.
“Shut up.” She rubbed her temples. It occurred to her that she always let men dictate the terms of the relationship. Just as she’d done this morning with Cole. That was different, however. He’d suffered a terrible tragedy. She could understand why he’d have an issue.
She started packing her belongings. She’d stop by Easy Cheesy, give Frank some pointers on keeping the books in order now that she’d fixed them, say good-bye to everyone, then...home. She had to start dealing with her future and forget about the past.
By midnight, the house was quiet, Isadora having long since poked her head in Jami’s room and blown a motherly kiss goodnight. Jami’s stuff was packed, everything was ready, but she was still listening to the tick-tock of Isadora’s old-fashioned alarm clock on the bedside table. She’d slept maybe half an hour, then her eyes popped open...and sleep eluded her. Tick-tock. She stuffed the clock in the bottom drawer.
Tap-tap.
She opened the drawer and stared at the damn clock.
Tap-tap-tap-shuffle.
It wasn’t the clock. The sound wasn’t even in her room. It was the attic again. All right, she wasn’t going to be afraid of going up into any old attic by herself. Catching Mr. Rogers in the act of haunting took precedence.
Jami threw aside the covers and was about to thump her feet on the floor. But no. This required stealth. She was going to catch Mr. Rogers, or the burglar, or even Isadora if she was the one prowling around up there getting a fur fix.
She wouldn’t think about the creepy devil thing.
Isadora, however, was a lump in her bed, when Jami checked. A real lump, since Jami could detect the now familiar rumble of her ladylike snore.
Gliding to the spare room and into the closet, she opened the attic door as quickly as possible, eliminating the slight squeak of the hinges by lifting up on the handle and pulling out. First there was a sickly scent...she’d smelled it before...a too-sweet men’s cologne that first night she thought she heard thumping in the attic. Peering up the stairs, she detected...was that light or moonbeams? For that matter, could she hear the sounds anymore?
She shone the small flashlight on the steps so she didn’t trip. The big Maglite would have been too bright, giving her away, and no way was the intruder getting away again. Close to the top, she poked her head over the banister.
Tap-shuffle-shuffle-shuffle-thump.
If that was Mr. Rogers, he wasn’t a see-through apparition. He was a full corporeal being with a bald spot on the back of his head, his scalp sweaty with exertion.
Did ghosts perspire?
He didn’t notice as Jami sneaked closer. Tugging odds and ends out of a steamer trunk, he set them gently on the floor, then straightened to hold something up to the bare light bulb over his head. It glittered like crystal.
Neither particularly tall nor overly heavy, his pants were tight, with a slight bubble of flesh over the waistband, as if he’d only recently gained weight and hadn’t gone shopping for new clothes. Or he hoped to lose the extra five pounds. His biceps strained the short sleeves of his striped polo shirt as he pulled yet another gewgaw from the trunk. And sighed.
A ghost the man wasn’t.
“I have my cell phone ringing 911. So don’t move or I’ll scream bloody murder.” Of course, she should have brought her cell phone up here, but that hadn’t occurred to her until right this moment. But he didn’t know that.
The man dropped a silver candle stick with a thunk. As he turned, Jami shone the flashlight beam in his eyes. She hoped it was enough to blind him so he couldn’t see through her lie about the cell phone. Just in case, she held her hand to her ear.
A round face, a dimpled chin...and Isadora’s snub nose.
“Who are you?” she asked even though the nose gave him away. If he wasn’t Mr. Rogers, then he was Isadora’s son.
He sagged down onto the lid of a trunk on the other side of the narrow aisle and put his face in his hands. Then he looked up. “You don’t have to call the police. My mother will vouch for me.”
“Who’s your mother?” She wanted to hear him say it.
“Isadora.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Oscar.”
Jami snorted. “She’s never mentioned it,” she said, giving him the impression that Isadora didn’t speak of him.
His wince made her feel better.
“If you’re her son, why are you sneaking around up here in the middle of the night?” Moving closer, she shook the flashlight at him for emphasis, realizing belatedly she’d dropped the pretend cell phone from her ear.
“She used to say she needed to clean out the attic.”
“So you came in the middle of the night to clean it out for her?” Jami raised an eyebrow. “She still thinks you’re in San Francisco.”
“Yeah.” Elbows on his knees supporting him, he let his chin sag down onto his hands.
“And you’ve been coming up here for at least a week?”
He nodded.
“How could you do that to your mother?”
“I need the money,” he whispered.
Jami had to strain to hear. “Why?”
“The house. I can’t afford that house.”
“And you think you’re going to find something up here in the attic worth enough to buy a house?”
“She’s got years of antiques up here. It’s a gold mine.”
“Right, a gold mine,” Jami muttered. “From years of buying junk at the church bazaar.”
“Some of this stuff up here belonged to my grandparents and great-grandparents. There could be treasures if she’d just let me have it appraised.”
“So first you wanted the trust money that was meant for your kids, now you want your mother’s heirlooms.”
He stabbed a finger at his chest. “They’re my heirlooms, too.” Then he grimaced. “And that is my money, even if my dad decided it was better putting it in some trust for mythical kids I might never have.” His true bitterness came through. “He didn’t even trust me to keep it safe.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have raided his piggy bank as a kid.
Jami closed the lid of the trunk through which he’d been foraging and sat down to face him. He had a weak face, lips too full for a man, and a slight double chin that she might not have noticed but for the light bulb hanging over his head.
Okay, so what was she supposed to say?
“Your mother thinks your wife’s a bitch, and quite frankly I agree if she wants you to buy a house you can’t afford.”
Hmm, no. Come to think of it, why did she need to say anything about that at all? It wasn’t her business. “You make Isadora cry.”
He hung his head. “We’ve never really gotten along.”
“That’s a bullshit excuse.”
At her crude language, he glanced up. “Actually, it’s her and my wife.”
Jami huffed.
He gave a short, disgusted laugh. “Another bullshit excuse?”
“I’ll say.” Not that she wasn’t the queen of bullshit excuses. What was the one she’d used for Leo? Oh yeah, he needed that raise or he needed that next promotion or he needed to make partner at the firm. She’d bought into it because it was about their future. Bullshit.
Oscar put his hands up in the air. “I just don’t know how to please women.”
“Nobody does.” Well, it was true, despite the disrespect to her own gender. “All I’m going to say is that you shouldn’t break into your mom’s house—”
“I didn’t break in. I have a key.”
<
br /> She gave him a disgusted look he couldn’t help but interpret. “And you shouldn’t take her stuff without her permission just because your wife wants a house you can’t afford.” Though he was her age, she felt like she was talking to a child.
“So my mother has been talking?”
“Actually I was eavesdropping.”
“You gonna tell her I’ve been here?”
She thought about that. “I will tell her it’s my considered opinion that her house isn’t haunted by Mr. Rogers’ ghost. It’s haunted by her son.”
He didn’t say a word.
She rose to her feet and clicked on the little flashlight to guide her way out. “But I’ll probably forget to do it until tomorrow afternoon so maybe you ought to talk to her in the morning.” She turned back before she’d gone three steps. “And whatever you do, don’t touch the furs. Because I’d really have to get nasty.”
Downstairs, Isadora was still snoring. Upstairs in the attic, there was a few more minutes of quiet shuffling and tapping—he was probably stealing the furs since she’d pointed them out to him—then she detected the light sound of footsteps out in the hall. A few minutes later, a car engine hummed to life and finally faded away.
She was a lot like Oscar, looking for answers in all the wrong places. She’d run away to Masterson to look for the man of her dreams—God, it hurt to think of Cole—instead of dealing with the reality of unemployment. She’d been so afraid of being on her own that she’d made excuse after excuse for Leo’s lack of commitment, instead of making her life happen the way she wanted it to. Mom was right, she wasn’t as together as her sisters. It was her own fault she didn’t have a family of her own. She was still taking the cowardly way out, avoiding confrontation. Avoiding Leo’s phone calls and e-mails.
It was yet another symptom of her problem, her philosophy of life; the frying pan is better than the fire, even if you totally hate the pan, because the fire might be worse. Then there was the whole universe thing. Don’t over-think, serendipity, fate, destiny, and all that. Stand back and let the universe provide exactly what you need. Right. Sure the universe provided, but if you sat on your duff for seven years, whatever the universe was going to provide had long since passed you by.
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