by Amy Lane
While Tucker gaped and floundered for words, he saw Josh looking at the clock for the third time in five minutes and decided that was his cue.
Somebody wanted to get laid, and Tucker was a third wheel.
“That’s my signal to leave, isn’t it?” he asked, finishing his sandwich off with an easy smile.
“Sure, hon,” Rae said, standing and taking their trash to the can under the sink. “That’s considerate of you—but don’t think we don’t want you back someday when we don’t have a date.” She winked at her husband as she washed her hands and then moved to let Tucker do the same. “In fact, I think you should make it a point to call us up before the week is out.”
“Hey!” Josh said quickly. “We need to give him directions to Margie’s. He wants a cat!”
Tucker dried his hands on the offered towel and thanked Josh gratefully. Suddenly, the idea of a pet and neighbors who knew and liked him sounded like the ultimate in luxury.
“I do indeed.”
Rae tilted her head again, regarding him steadily. “You’re here in time for one of Margie’s kittens. That is interesting.”
“Rae Anne!” Josh growled, and his wife actually waved him off.
“They’re spooky-assed kittens, Josh. He’s going to notice.”
Whatever. How spooky could a kitten be? “I promise, it won’t put me off,” Tucker vowed. “But I need directions first.”
A few minutes later, Tucker bid the couple a cheerful goodbye as he started his newly purchased truck. He paused before he backed out and pulled the pentagram out of his pocket, where it was starting to burn uncomfortably. With care, and a wink in Rae’s direction, he laced it over the rearview mirror, hoping the spell of protection would work on the truck instead of making Tucker’s skin burn through his 501s.
Rae nodded, and Tucker backed out, wondering about the symbol and its sudden decision to jump ship off its happy little corkboard. Protection—wasn’t that what pentagrams did? Well, Tucker always needed more, right?
“You look happy,” Angel said, taking a seat next to him as soon as he cleared the driveway.
“Augh!” Tucker had to work really hard not to wreck the truck. “God, Angel, could you at least warn a guy? How do you do that, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Angel said vaguely. “It’s fuzzy. I didn’t used to be able to go off the property when Ruth was there, but I can with you—but only you. That is so weird.”
Tucker waited to turn right on 49, always a challenge because there seemed to be more cars on it than someone would expect for a town of less than two thousand.
“Yeah, everything about this situation is weird. But yes, I look happy.”
“Why?” Angel asked, sounding a little tentative and half afraid.
“Well, if you want to know the truth, I might have a chance to have friends.” It was perfect, actually. Life was informal around here. If Tucker got invited to dinner and felt the pull instead, he could politely decline and ask them over the next day.
“Why couldn’t you have friends before?” Angel asked. “You’re not like Ruth. She saw ghosts all the time, not just at Daisy Place. If she tried to leave for a long period of time, she’d come home more exhausted than when she left.”
Tucker frowned. “I see them sometimes—enough that it’s common, not enough that I can’t take a crap.” His first playmate had been a ghost, a little girl who had died in his parents’ house nearly fifty years before Tucker had come along. He remembered that about the time he hit puberty, playing with her had become a chore, like playing with a little brother or sister. “I wonder if it’s an effect of living at the mansion.”
“What were you thinking?” Angel asked, sounding puzzled. His new form didn’t look like the sensitive type—Tucker wondered at the contrast.
“I was thinking about my first ghost,” Tucker said. “I… I was stupid. I got too old to play.”
“What does that mean?”
Tucker grunted. “It’s like when you have a little brother or sister, you know? You think you’re too old or too cool to play with them and make a big deal about how they owe you. But she was trapped there, and I was her only company, and one day she just….” He rubbed his cheek, and he could almost feel the cool touch of her gentle, understanding kiss. “She said it was okay, I could grow up, and that it was time for her to go see her parents anyway.” He’d watched, helpless and miserable, as she’d faded into thin air for the final time. He’d missed her acutely after that, not quite as grown up as he’d thought he was.
“This memory makes you sad,” Angel said, sounding puzzled.
“I hurt her feelings,” Tucker muttered. Jeez, ya baby. Do you think all I have to do with my day is stay here and play dolls? God, were all thirteen-year-old boys assholes? “It wasn’t very nice of me.” It was maybe his first real lesson in how careful you had to be with human feelings and the supernatural world. Too bad he hadn’t learned.
“I’ve done that,” Angel said, and now he sounded sad. “It’s a hard lesson to learn.”
Tucker eyed him sourly. “What are you doing here, Angel? I actually had sort of a good day.”
“Are you going to get a cat?” Angel asked curiously.
“It’s on the list.” Tucker had been planning on visiting a shelter before Josh told them about their friend.
“May I help?”
Tucker had to remember to close his mouth. “That’s unexpected.”
“It’s just,” Angel said with dignity, “that I don’t know what my presence will do to an animal. You need to find one that….” He floundered, and his broad hands gestured as he tried to find words.
“Likes you?” Tucker supplied, semiamused.
“For lack of a better word.” Angel let out a breath—which should have been impossible, but Tucker could almost feel the breeze of it when he turned his head. “We need to find an animal that the presence of the supernatural does not torture.”
Oh hell—he had a point. “Cats are pretty savvy to you guys in between worlds, aren’t they? I mean, that might be a problem.”
Angel turned a winning smile toward him, and Tucker couldn’t help but notice that the redhead he was wearing today was handsome and capable, and his smile looked like sexy sin.
Again, it was unexpected.
“We will hope,” Angel said, like he was speaking to a child.
Well, Tucker suddenly really hoped he was right, so there was no argument coming from that direction.
But there was another subject at hand.
“So we hope. Sort of like we hope the dimensional void over the graveyard doesn’t swallow up the house?”
“You saw that,” Angel said in the same tone someone living might have said, “You saw the stain on the carpet,” or “You saw I ate the last of the cake from your birthday party.”
“Yes, I saw that! What in the hell is it doing there?” And more importantly, “Did Aunt Ruth know?”
“No,” Angel said with a sigh. “It didn’t start getting bad until she was bedridden and couldn’t release souls anymore—”
“That’s bullshit,” Tucker said. “The locals have been watching it get worse for more than thirty years.”
Angel gasped. “Really?”
Tucker risked a look at him and saw real alarm. “You don’t go look?”
“I’ve been busy,” Angel said defensively. Then he sighed. “And it scares me. So many souls, and I can’t do a thing for them. It’s unpleasant.”
“Will bad things happen if I go there?” Not that Tucker wanted to go there—not really. The lurid green-lit prospector wasn’t going to leave his inner eye alone anytime soon.
“I don’t know.” Cold seeped through Tucker’s T-shirt, and when he looked, he saw Angel resting his hand on Tucker’s bicep, as unselfconsciously and as naturally as any human. Any good-looking, fascinating human. “Please don’t, Tucker. Let’s just do our job for a while and see if it gets better.”
Tucker sighed. “Yeah, sure.
Wait—is that Tornado Alley?” He stopped for a second and laughed. “That’s really sick.”
“What’s sick?”
They’d come to a small trailer park—the kind with the really big, fancy, well-appointed trailers that had more square footage than most permanent homes.
“Naming this place Tornado Alley when it’s in the middle of the woods. Not even flatland woods, but mountain woods.”
“Tornadoes don’t hit the mountains?”
Tucker brought the truck to a stop in the driveway of 1313 Tornado Alley and turned around to study Angel before killing the ignition. “There’s too much disruption to the air flow up here. When were you born, Angel? Most kids get that sort of thing in school. Or on TV. Or on computers?”
“I was in Daisy Place when your aunt was around fifteen years old,” Angel answered, returning Tucker’s look levelly. “She only recently got the internet and cable.”
His image flickered, and when he came back, his lower lip was fuller and his chin just a little more square.
Between that and the limpid green eyes, Tucker was remembering what it was like to have a choice in who he crushed on, something he hadn’t believed in since he was seventeen.
He turned toward the trailer with an effort, wondering if Angel had chosen that form deliberately to dick with him.
“Wow. This woman never met a wind chime she didn’t like,” he said, the awe completely legitimate.
“They’re pretty,” Angel defended, sounding dignified.
“They’re chaos,” Tucker contradicted grimly. He shivered, remembering the sound in his head as he’d held… as he’d held…. “Bad memories.”
Angel frowned at him. “How could you have bad memories of wind chimes?”
The side door of the trailer opened, and Tucker hushed him. He didn’t want to talk about that.
The woman who came out was in her early fifties, slender, vital, with recently dyed hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore sporty little capri jeans and a tank top, the sort of outfit that would have done Laura Petrie proud.
“Hi. Are you here about the kittens?” She smiled, and Tucker had a sudden yearning for his own mother. She’d been like this—cute, hip, friendly—the kind of woman who didn’t seem to age because she didn’t let herself get old.
“Yeah, did Rae Greenaway call?” Tucker could easily see the two women being friends.
“She did indeed. But she didn’t tell me there’d be two of you. I’m Margie Miller, so pleased to meet you.”
Tucker barely managed to shake her hand.
He and Angel gaped at each other for a moment, and then Margie turned back toward the stairs. “Come along. They’re all in the playpen right now. You can see which one you want.”
Seen
“UH, SURE,” Angel said after a quick glance at Tucker, who shrugged. “How many kittens are there?”
“Seven—a lucky number. You two are the first to come by, but they’re more than weaned and ready to go home.” She looked over her shoulder at Tucker. “Mr. Henderson?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tucker said, that hint of infatuation Angel had seen in his eyes when he looked at the woman present in his voice. Tucker seemed to have an affinity for this woman. For a moment Angel’s temper flared—dammit, Tucker seemed to have an affinity for everybody except Angel, but as Angel took a breath (a breath), he reminded himself that sometimes affinity wasn’t sexual. This woman could see Angel. Maybe they were simply resonating as people who could see the supernatural.
“Rae told me you bought some pet supplies at the hardware store. You did remember food, didn’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tucker confirmed, darting a glance at Angel. “Kitten food.”
“Good. Kittens need food, comfort, and a bed, hopefully near their human. And they need to be fixed.” She scowled, and it was not Angel’s imagination—the woman’s sharp brown eyes took them both in. “This mama just wandered in, but usually I get all my cats fixed immediately, you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Angel said in reflex, and she seemed to be fine with that.
Still, Tucker took the lead up the small flight of stairs to the landing, and he made sure to hold the door open so Angel could walk over the threshold without walking through the door itself.
And straight into heaven.
“Oh dear,” he said, his heart sort of exploding. Seven of them? Had she really said seven? They were adorable, frolicking, sleeping, purring little puffballs, all of them as excited about being alive as Angel had ever seen another being.
He was not aware of sitting down in front of the pen and staring longingly at the little creatures, but when Tucker sank down with a little thump beside him, he could not guard his heart.
“Oh, Tucker,” he whispered in awe. “They’re beautiful. What a marvelous idea. Are we really going to bring one home?”
Tucker’s lips curved up wryly. “Yeah,” he said, and the word was gentle.
“Go ahead,” Margie told them. “I’ll go get you two some iced tea—it’s hot out there! You stay here and pet kittens.”
Margie practically danced into a kitchen that, all told, was as large as the one in Daisy Place, which was saying something. Tucker and Angel were left to pet kittens and try to figure out how to not give away the fact that she was looking at a ghost.
“Here,” Tucker said after a couple of awkward moments where the two of them looked at her over their shoulders and then looked at each other. “Let me get one. Any preferences?”
Angel shook his head. They were all equally lovely. Except the particularly squishy little gray one, lying on its side, trying to eat its own feet. Well, he did seem to be just a tiny bit… more special than the others.
“This one,” Tucker said promptly, picking up the foot-eating wonder. “I can see you gazing at him longingly.” Tucker picked the cat up with an unanticipated gentleness, and Angel was caught between looking at the cat as it melted into Tucker’s capable hands and looking at Tucker’s capable hands.
“Hello,” Tucker mumbled, burying his face in the kitten’s ruff. The kitten played with his fingers and then gave it up and tried to eat its feet again.
“Look at its paws,” Angel mumbled, scooting into Tucker’s space and running a finger along the smooth pink of the kitten’s paw pads. “They look like squishy little beans.”
The kitten lifted a paw and batted at Angel’s finger, and Angel batted back, fascinated. Its fur was soft—so soft—and Angel could feel it against the backs of his knuckles. He gave a little yelp when the kitten sank its teeth into the pad of his thumb.
And then he rocked back on his heels, locked eyes with Tucker, and gasped.
“Angel…,” Tucker breathed, “what was that?”
“He bit me,” Angel said, half laughing. “It hurt.”
“But you are a”—his voice dropped—“ghost. How did that happen?”
Angel thought carefully to make sure he told the truth. “I have no idea. I am not supposed to be corporeal.”
The kitten, unimpressed with their great and existential matters, started kicking at Tucker’s wrist, catching it with his back paws.
“Easy there, Squishbeans,” he said, holding the kitten up to his face. Tentatively, Squishbeans patted his nose, and Tucker smiled. Then he looked at Angel with consideration and held the kitten up to Angel’s face. The kitten’s cool little paw hit his nose with a tiny barefoot sound.
Angel gasped and then blew a cool stream of air across the kitten’s nose.
Squishbeans closed his eyes and let the breath fan its whiskers.
“This,” said Angel, “is very interesting.”
“It’s not interesting, son—it’s a kitten!” Margie laughed as she came back in, a tray of iced tea in her hands.
Angel risked looking up into her eyes. He saw nothing but a warm smile and a somewhat motherly woman fussing with iced tea.
“It’s a lovely kitten,” he said formally. “Tucker, is this the one you want?”
“Possibly,” Tucker said, pulling Squishbeans into his lap. “But I think I shall have to pet every one.” He looked meaningfully at Angel, and for the first time, Angel got the hint. Angel needed to pet every kitten to see if they all reacted to his presence like that.
“I’ll do the honors,” Angel said, reaching into the pen.
He didn’t try to pick them up—mostly he just chased them around, because no, the kittens did not like his presence. He could feel them batting at his hand, but when they didn’t connect, they’d hiss and go pounce on the next kitten down the line.
“You’re stirring them up,” Tucker said, his voice quiet. Squishbeans was still in the crook of his arm, purring.
“We know the one we want anyway,” Angel agreed, something swelling in his chest, sweet and piercing.
And then he saw it, the slight quirk of disappointment in the corner of Tucker’s mobile mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Angel said, suddenly not mindful of Margie in the least. “This was supposed to be a thing for you, and it turned into a thing for me. That wasn’t supposed to—”
Tucker winked and hugged the kitten even closer. Squishbeans started to purr so loudly Angel could hear him from four feet away. “It’s a thing for both of us. We’re roommates. It’s okay.”
“That’s roommates in the code way, right?” Margie said, breaking the intimacy that had fallen over them.
Angel blinked at her. “What does that mean?”
“She’s asking if we’re lovers,” Tucker said dryly. “And sorry, Margie, but we just coexist together in Daisy Place. Angel is there to sort of clean the place out, and I’m going to fix it up when he’s done.”
“Oh.” Margie’s mouth drooped. “Well, that’s too bad. You’re perfect for each other. But I suppose you could be good for Josh’s son, Andover.”
“Andy!” Tucker sputtered. He reached above to the coffee table for one of the glasses of iced tea so he could take a hasty sip and compose himself.
“This surprises you?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those horrible bigots who thinks that’s awful.”
“No, I’m just not used to being set up with my friend’s kids. Besides, his parents already mentioned the possibility, but he’s too young for me. And I didn’t know his name was Andover—that was definitely a surprise.”