Sweet God.
I was sixteen when I met Alex. He appeared at my car as I left a party I’d only been invited to as entertainment. I was drunk and hysterical and attempting to open my car door with a house key, and he charmed me with his arrogant good looks and convinced me to walk home instead. We took the long way by a diner and he sat with me as I bought a hot chocolate and a muffin.
He was old, I thought at the time. Thirty-one, he told me. Almost twice my age, but he had that sexy, confident, hot-as-hell older-guy thing going for him. He laughed at my bumbled attempt at flirting and told me to drink my hot chocolate. I was too buzzed to notice the other patrons that cut their eyes my way and whispered about that loony Dani Shane talking to herself again. Or maybe I was just hardened to being the town joke.
Call him my guardian angel, or whatever, but he probably saved my life that night. And unlike the others, he didn’t move on. He became my only friend. I won’t deny that my hormone-ridden brain played out more than a few fantasies involving Alex. He was hot for a dead guy, and funny, too. It was easy with him. Instant. Like I’d known him all my life.
When I left for college at nineteen, he left a white rose on my windshield, and that was the end of it. At the time I thought I’d at least see him when I came home to visit, but no. He was done with me.
Until that moment, when he chose to chat it up with Riley as a grand entrance.
With Riley.
My head said to walk forward, but my feet went numb. Then he looked my direction, and suddenly I was head-to-toe buzz with blood rushing in my ears. I took a deep breath and attempted normal as I made it down the steps without tripping.
Riley saw Alex. Riley wasn’t supposed to see people like Alex.
She had her usual folded-arms-with-one-hip-jutted stance, looking annoyed as hell, while Bojangles circled the yard in a frenzy with his nose to the ground. Alex slowly took off his glasses and locked his blue eyes in on mine with that arrogant little smile of his. I felt heat radiate from every pore.
“Dani,” he said, low and smooth, and all the breath left me. “My God, look at you.”
I opened my mouth to say the same thing, that after twenty-plus years he still looked exactly the same, hot enough to melt my shoes. But then the mommy gene stood up and waved and I remembered Riley was there.
He laughed, a deep throaty sound, as he pointed at Riley.
“I knew it had to be.”
A nervous noise squawked from my mouth. Nothing profound like I always imagined it would be.
“The eyes were the first clue,” he said with a wink.
Riley frowned, her expression a mix of disgust and wariness.
“God, you know this perv? He was here on the car watching me and won’t tell me who the hell he is.”
He smirked. “The sweet, gentle nature was the clincher.”
I couldn’t quit staring. Alex—right there in front of me. My whole past poured down over me in a whoosh, as I locked eyes with the one person that had made it all bearable.
“Mom!”
Riley’s voice jolted me back and I jerked her direction. “What?”
Her face screwed up in disgust as she studied me. “Ew.”
“What?” My eyes widened as I imagined boogers on my face or something.
“God, Mom, could you be more obvious?” she said under her breath as she looked from me to Alex. “What, did y’all date or something?”
Alex laughed, and I felt my jaw drop a little, and I briefly wondered if my deodorant would hold up to the nervous breakdown coming on.
“Not exactly, sweetheart,” he said, his gaze hardwired into mine.
The disgust came back again, as I knew it would.
“I’m not your sweetheart, and you can do googly eyes with my mom all you want but stay away from me.” She turned to go and then threw back over her shoulder, “By the way, it’s summer. The all-black thing is a little Goth.”
I stared after her, trying to process it, then closed my eyes and willed it all away. I had never once had a three-way conversation with Alex. No one had ever seen him but me. That whole circus act with Riley had my brain on meltdown.
“Surprise.”
His voice was soft and low and when my eyes popped open, his expression had gone just as soft.
“What?”
“Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Chapter 2
“WHAT the—” I blinked, turned and walked a few steps, and turned back again. I suddenly felt too hot, and my hair smothered me. I lifted it from my neck and held it there.
“Evidently, you didn’t know.”
“No,” I whispered. It wasn’t meant to be a whisper, but that’s all that came out. “How—did I miss it?”
“You need to talk to her.”
I laughed weakly at that. He wouldn’t blink and it gave me a twitch.
“Oh sure. ‘Honey, see that girl over there? Yeah, I know you like her shoes but don’t go tell her that because she’s dead and people are watching.’” I rubbed a hand over my eyes. “God, I shouldn’t have come back here.”
“It’s not geography.”
A fat, random water droplet landed on my arm and I cast my gaze toward the heavy grayness rolling overhead. “Maybe not, but it’s stronger here. Like a magnet.” I looked back at Alex. “She never did this before.”
“Coincidence.”
The panic rolled over me as I checked my watch for a reason I didn’t really have. “Maybe we can still go back to Dallas. I’ll—find something.”
“Dani.”
“I don’t want her to have to live this life,” I said as I bit my lip and lowered my voice. “I didn’t come back to have to worry about her, too.”
“Keeping it from her doesn’t protect her, Dani, it makes her have to struggle like you did.”
Looking into his eyes as he said that brought back those memories in a rush. Things I’d locked away and put behind me. The weight of the soggy air pushed at me, and my frayed nerves pushed back.
“Talk to her.”
“Okay, okay. I get it, Dad,” I said, folding my arms tight around myself. “Hi, by the way. Nice to see you again. Get lost, did you?”
His mouth twitched into a smile and he pushed off the car, resting both hands in his pockets.
“Walk with me.”
Of course. What the hell else would I do? Typical Alex diversion. I fell into step beside him, glancing around for Riley. I heard the dog bark inside so I figured she’d gone back in with him. My head spun as the thoughts bombarded me. What had I come back to?
“By the way—the dad comment? Math doesn’t work that way anymore, Dani.” He leaned closer and whispered, “You’re older than me.”
I made a sound of disgust. “Oh, that’s just wrong.”
“I’ve always thought older women are hot.”
“No, you didn’t.”
He laughed again. “No, I didn’t. But—” At his pause I looked up and his eyes set me on fire again. “I do now.”
I stopped, ignoring the need to fan myself. The buzz—the rush that always pulled at me when around him—was the same, but I didn’t remember being this drawn to him before. Maybe because back then he was old.
“Where’d you go, Alex? Where have you been?”
There was the intensity in his eyes that I remembered, playful and dead serious at the same time. Infuriatingly hard to read. An almost-smile pulled at his lips.
“How was college?”
I blinked. “Uh—two decades ago,” I said, laughing for the first time since I’d seen him talking to Riley.
“Okay, how are you doing since the layoff?”
I felt my smile dissipate. “How do you—” I stopped and licked my lips. He wasn’t a mind reader. He wasn’t God. He never just knew things like movies portray. “Been keeping tabs, Alex?”
He didn’t respond, but his expression turned soft. His left eye twitched, a sign of failing composure for him. He turned to face the water a
head of us, and I followed his gaze to the dock. Sporadic sprinkles dotted the river, and the smell was unmistakable. I looked back to see that his eyes had gone hard and faraway. He was done talking; I knew the signs. Just as I knew as I resumed walking down to the dock, he wouldn’t follow me.
The ground was spongy under my feet, leaving impressions that got progressively soupier as I approached the shoreline. I didn’t care anymore about the raindrops. I had only about a half hour, maybe less, to feed the itch the storm was causing in me. I closed my eyes and inhaled the undeniable aroma of the Gulf. The storm was pushing it up the river. I loved the saltiness of it on my lips. The heavy feel of it pressing through the air, like it was pushing against me and pulling the breath out of me at the same time. It was exhilarating, like it was just for me to absorb. When the wind picked my hair up, though, I opened my eyes. I knew it was time to go in. Everything after that always scared the hell out of me.
I rinsed dishes blindly that night while the thunder rattled the window in front of me. My dad had a dishwasher, but living plate by plate didn’t warrant much use of it. I felt the need to make it feel loved.
Riley was up in her new room, formerly the guest room, trying to get a cell signal or channel ghosts maybe? God, I didn’t know, but the whole thing had my stomach in knots. Dad morphed at my side and leaned against the counter.
“You didn’t talk much at dinner.”
I smiled up at him and looked away again quickly. I was afraid he’d see my struggles again, and I was afraid to let him down. Lightning flashed through the window and I winced as I waited for the next rumble. One…two…three…
“Just tired, I guess.”
“A lot on your mind.”
“Yeah. Thanks for all this, Dad.” I put a dish back in the sink and gave him my attention. “Getting Riley’s room ready like that, it’s great.”
“Well, I just want her to feel at home.”
At home. “Thank you.”
“I’m proud of you, you know.”
I gave him a hug around his bulging middle and picked the dish back up.
“Saw you outside today.”
I froze in mid-rinse and looked forward, focusing on a tile with a red teapot stenciled in it. The warm fuzzy of the previous moment vanished and the familiar tension settled in my bones.
“Okay.”
There was a long pause, and I wanted to nudge him so he’d get it out there.
“Is it—” He stopped and fidgeted with a dirty fingernail. “Are they back, Dani?”
“They?”
“The—whatever they are.”
I had to chuckle at the simplicity of that. Another flash lit up the yard like daytime, and I put the dish back down, wiped my hands, and faced him. One…two… I felt the vibrations ripple from my ankles up, like the house was welcoming me home.
“Dad, it’s not a group that—follows me around.”
He rubbed at his face, his beard. He looked like I felt, and it made me realize what he must have gone through with me.
“Well, I don’t know that much about all this, and it’s been a long time, so bear with me.”
I looked around to make sure Riley wasn’t anywhere nearby.
“People just—stick around sometimes, you know? Afterward. They don’t even have to be local. They’re just—there.” I looked down. “And for some reason, I can see them.”
He nodded and narrowed his gaze. “And someone was here today? I saw you talking to nothing.”
I closed my eyes. Talking to nothing. “Yes.”
“I don’t know, Dani.” He pushed off the counter and picked a coaster off the table absently and balanced it on its side. “I guess when you did so well up in Dallas—you never talk about it anymore. Not even on visits. I guess I thought it was over.”
I laughed softly. “Not over. Just new, and I knew how to hide it there.”
Bright white light flashed along with a concussion that shook the earth, and I jumped. The storm was on top of us.
“What about Riley?”
I looked away, feeling the burn in my chest. “Yeah, about that.”
“Aren’t you worried about her seeing you?”
I bit my lip. “I was out there today because I found Riley talking to someone.”
His look was blank.
“An old friend. The dead kind,” I added.
He flinched as if I’d poked him with a lit match. “What?”
I pointed at his face and chuckled. “Yeah, that’s probably what I looked like.” I nodded. “She could see him, talk to him. Freaked me the hell out.”
My dad looked gray. “She—can see them, too?”
The deep rumbles resonated through the walls, making the countertop buzz under my fingers. The air itself felt unstable.
“Evidently. But I’ve never seen her do it till now.”
“She didn’t say anything?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think she knew.” At his bewildered expression, I continued. “They look like we do, Dad. It took me years to figure out the difference.”
“Which is what?”
I shrugged. “Eye contact. Intensity. Hard to explain. Plus I get all skin prickly when one of them is nearby.”
He blew out a breath. I felt bad bringing this all back to him. “What are you gonna do?”
I rubbed my arms and watched the sheets of water transform the window. I had no idea.
I sat with the car in park, cold air on full blast for the moment after my dad semi-rigged it. I stared at the building in front of me, at the faded brick, the windows dulled by twenty years of dirt with plastic sale signs taped to them.
My dad heard talk that they needed help booking the fishing guide boats for Sabine Pass. Scheduling the routes and selling the tackle. And since I knew the river and swamp from the shoreline pretty well once upon a time, evidently it was the natural progression of things.
My head throbbed to the point I felt it might push my hair out, and I flipped an air vent to blast right at my face. From a promising future at a hot graphic design firm in Dallas to booking boats at the Bait-n-Feed.
“How sad is my life?”
The rap on my window answered me. I jerked to the side and looked into the face of warm brownies and ice-cold whole milk. A big porch painted green where I sat cross-legged with a giant stainless-steel bowl and snapped beans while Miss Olivia LaChance spit sunflowers seeds into a paper cup and quizzed me about her dead relatives.
Miss Olivia was maybe the only live person I could talk to openly about my “situation.” That’s what she’d call it. Miss Olivia wasn’t known for subtlety and hated gossip, so she paid no mind to the townsfolk yapping about me. She just out and out asked me one day why I was so odd and wasn’t going anywhere till I told her everything to her satisfaction.
That became a habit, a habit I came to like because it was like unleashing a flood. I didn’t have to filter my words first with her to make sure they made sense or keep my secret to myself. My “situation” wasn’t creepy or contagious around Miss Olivia. It was interesting. Sometimes too much so.
She was widowed with no children, so I helped her out and she got some company. She must have had a million people die in her lifetime, because there was always an endless list. I never could quite convince her that it was a random thing. That I didn’t see every dead person in the world and I couldn’t summon them up. They were just there when they wanted to be.
“My own momma don’t come see me,” I told her once. “Why would yours?”
She squinched up her eyes, shaded by the brown straw hat she always donned. “Why do you think that is, Dani girl? That your momma don’t make herself seen for you?”
I never answered that question. It was the one thing that seemed the most unfair.
As I looked into those same old eyes outside my window, I felt the familiar surge of relief. Miss Olivia was the only person in all of Bethany I ever bothered to look up when we came in. No one else would have cared anyway.
She tapped on the window with a pale pink painted fingernail, and I quickly obeyed, rolling it down. The heat rushed in and settled on me like a wet blanket.
“Yep, I knew that was you, Dani Lou Shane.” She rapped knuckles on the door, which meant I needed to get out of the car, so I did and closed the squeaky door behind me.
“Hey, Miss Olivia,” I said, giving her a hearty hug.
“You haven’t changed one bit, girl,” she said as she pulled back to study me.
“You just saw me last year,” I said, squeezing her arm.
“Yeah, but I keep getting a different perspective.” She laughed and adjusted her giant bag. “The rate I’m shrinkin’, I’ll probably need a booster seat in a year.”
Miss Olivia was a frailer, thinner version of the woman she used to be, but the eyes never changed. Full of piss and vinegar, she’d say.
“You should see Riley now,” I said. “This past year, she went from skinny with braces to a body that scares the hell out of me.”
“I imagine I will at some point, eh? I heard you were back. Back for good?”
My mouth opened to form the words, but oppression that had nothing to do with the heat weighed me down. I looked around at the dusty building, the cracked pavement, the handwritten scribble on a piece of notebook paper in my hand telling me about this job—and just smiled. What the hell else could I do? Cry? Not in public.
“Looks kinda that way,” I finally forced out. “I’m here to see if they’ll give me a job.”
Miss Olivia paused on that a second, then nodded and patted my arm. “Well, things do as they do, you know? All we can do is hold on and hope for a good seat.”
I chuckled. “Guess so.”
“Well, let’s get in out of this sun, girl. I don’t need more spots, I’m speckled enough.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We walked in together; I took her bag that seemed to lob her to one side and smiled in spite of it all. If anyone could see the sunny side of a pile of shit, that woman could.
I followed Miss Olivia to the counter and hauled her bag up for the lady to see when she gestured for me to do so. She upended it, and handmade soaps of every possible color and scent tumbled out, each meticulously wrapped in plastic wrap and tagged with a pink ribbon.
Reason Is You (9781101576151) Page 2