Pecked to Death
Page 20
She nodded. “I am.”
“You found a television job in the middle of Virginia?”
“No, I’m opening a business.”
He stared at her, trying to figure out what possible business she could open in their tiny town. “Like a boutique?”
“No, more like a detective agency.”
He snorted a laugh that quickly died when he realized she was serious. He shoved the box back into her hands. “Wait, what?”
“Aunt Abby and I are opening a detective agency together. I’m moving in with her, with you.” She smiled sweetly and jammed the box against his chest. She hadn’t shoved it hard enough to knock the wind from him, but that was how he looked.
“No,” he said, handing the box back as if that were the end of the discussion.
“What do you mean no?” she asked.
“I mean no. You cannot open a detective agency. For one thing, it’s not 1984, and you’re not Tom Selleck. This is the digital age, and you still record shows on VHS. How do you expect to compete when you can’t program numbers into your cell phone?”
“Technology changes, Luke, but people don’t. Aunt Abby and I can read people. They talk to us and tell us things. We can find what is hidden, we can solve riddles.” She eased the box back into his hands while he was distracted with indignation.
“While I might normally find it amusing that you think you’re going to open a detective agency, I am in no way amused that you think you’re going to move in with me.”
“I don’t think anything; I know. It’s not your house—it’s Aunt Abby’s, and it’s all been arranged.”
He glanced down, blinking in consternation at the box as he realized he was holding it again. “We can’t live together,” he said. This time when he handed her the box, he crossed his arms over his chest so he would be sure not to get it back.
“It’s mind boggling how such a dork can make something innocent sound illicit. We’re going to be living in a mansion with an eighty-year-old chaperone.
“We don’t get along. We don’t like each other,” Luke pointed out.
“Of course we do. We’re best friends.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Yes, we are.”
“Since when?” he asked.
“Since forever. Where have you been all our lives?”
“I’m pretty sure I was there from fourteen until now. Believe me, we are not best friends.”
Sadie shifted the box to one arm and waved her free hand in the air. “I’m over that. We had a spat. Big deal. Best friends argue all the time. I’m tired of not getting along with you, so I’ve decided we’re best friends again.”
Only Sadie would be able to condense a fourteen-year feud into a “spat.” “You’ve decided,” he said.
She nodded.
“What if I don’t agree?”
“Of course you will,” she said.
“What makes you so sure?”
“In order to say no, you would have to hurt me, I mean really hurt me. Such a thing is beyond your nature.”
He gave her a petulant frown; she had him there. He might be able to peck at her, but he could never do anything to make her bleed.
“You can be our handyman,” she offered.
“I’m not handy. Have you forgotten how I almost died when I tried to fix your toaster?” he asked.
“Your heart barely stopped. The point is that Aunt Abby needs you. I’m going to be busy starting the new business and moving in. Someone has to manage the house.”
He would grant her that; Aunt Abby did need him. “Fine, but what about all the other stuff between us?”
“What other stuff?” she asked, looking down at the contents of the box as if they were suddenly fascinating.
“The spark.”
“There’s no spark,” Sadie said.
“There’s a spark. We both know it. Don’t lie.”
“There’s always a spark between two healthy young people of the opposite sex. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’m a teacher in a school where the female/male ratio is forty seven to one. Believe me when I tell you that the kind of spark we have is not indicative of all male/female relationships. There’s a spark.”
“Maybe there was a spark once, but there’s not anymore. We both realize we’re better off as friends. Like brother and sister.”
“Bull.”
“Which part?” she asked. She was getting exasperated, and the box was getting heavy.
“All of it. There’s a spark, you know it, and we are not brother and sis…” The word cut off when she stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his. Nothing happened. The world didn’t shift, no fireworks erupted, nothing.
“There,” Sadie said, a smirk of self-satisfaction branded across her lips. “I told you there was no spark.”
Luke took the box and bent over as he set it aside. “You’re forgetting the fundamental rule,” he said, straightening as he turned toward her.
“What’s that?” Without the box, she had nothing to do with her hands. They fluttered nervously to her hair.
“It never works when you kiss me; it only works when I kiss you.” He pulled her tight, crushing her against him, but he didn’t kiss her right away. He waited until the much-maligned spark surfaced between them. It sprang up like a Roman candle on the fourth of July, hovering, glimmering, shooting off bits of fire. He had proven his point then; he could have let her go. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Even though it was of his making, he was as caught up in the moment as she was.
So he kissed her. Later Sadie wouldn’t be able to put a name to what she felt in that moment. But she did remember thinking that it seemed wrong that of all the men she had kissed from several walks of life, the one who did it best was the one she had known all along. After a few minutes, she realized they were no longer kissing. When she was finally able to pry her eyes open, Luke was gone.
Her gaze rested on her possessions, now strewn about her car, awaiting the move next door. She bit her lip. Luke was right—there was a definite spark. Living in the same house, sharing Aunt Abby with him wouldn’t be easy. There was a part of her that wanted to flee for self-preservation. And it was that realization that brought her up short and made up her mind. She might be tempted to run away, but it was no use; she had nowhere else to go.
Tucking her hair behind her ears, she bent and picked up a box, forcing herself to whistle a merry tune as she headed next door.