The Hitwoman Hunts a Ghost (10 page)

I was really tempted to go with option three. After all, I’d had a long day and was tired.

“You okay, Sugar?”

The Southern-twinged purr was delivered softly, but it still made me jump. Backing away from the door, I searched the shadows for Piss.

She sat a few feet away, staring at me intently with her one good eye.

“What are you doing here?”

Slinking over to me, she wound herself through my legs. “You were madder than a fire ant when you left. I was worried about you.”

Bending down, I scooped her up and cradled her against my chest. She was warm and solid and provided the anchor I needed desperately. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Life’s always a little better after a nap,” she suggested. “Let’s go home.”

“You know, that’s not my home,” I told her as I started to walk back toward the Bed and Breakfast. “My home blew up. My
life
blew up.”

“Home is where those who care about you are,” she admonished softly, her whiskers tickling my throat.

“That is the most dysfunctional excuse for a home,” I muttered.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she soothed, kneading my chest with her claws.

I almost dropped her. “What did you say?”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Beggars. Begs her.” I picked up my pace.

“What’s going on?” Piss asked.

“Armani’s prediction was ‘begs her,’ but you just said ‘beggar.’ They sound a lot alike.”

“So?”

“I don’t know, but it’s got to mean something.”

“If you say so.” The cat, nestled in my arms, didn’t sound like she believed me, but she didn’t say another word as I carried her the rest of the way home.

By the time I got back, the witches, or as the rest of the world refers to them, my aunts, had gone to bed. I crept down to the basement hopefully, but DeeDee wasn’t there.

God was curled up in the corner of his new terrarium snoring. The sound echoed off the glass, filling the room.

“Nap, Sugar,” Piss said, jumping off the couch I’d put her down on and disappearing into a corner.

I thought I was too wound up to sleep, but I lay down on the bed anyway, knowing I’d spend the night wrestling with my wayward thoughts.

The next thing I knew, it was morning. I knew that because I could smell coffee and the back of my eyelids, which I refused to open, were pink from exposure to the morning sun.

“Wakey wakey,” God taunted.

Despite the hour, I was too tired to be awake. Keeping my eyes squeezed shut, I pulled the pillow out from behind my head and threw it in the general direction of his voice.

“Ah, you’re up.”

The nearby male voice startled me so much that I sat straight up and stared at the source.

“What? What are you doing here?” I spluttered.

Instead of answering, Templeton, Aunt Loretta’s fiancé, held out a tray laden with coffee and fresh-baked muffins.

I took a pre-poured cup of brew and snatched up a serving of sweetened carbs. “What are you doing?” I asked again.

“I thought you might want to avoid Susan,” he said, calmly placing the tray on the nearest table.

“Have you ever heard of knocking?”

“I did.”

“He did,” God confirmed. “You were sleeping the sleep of the dead.”

“Oh.” I sipped the coffee before raising the mug in a toast. “Thanks for this.”

“You’re welcome.” Standing, Templeton began to nervously pace the length of the room.

I knew he had something to say, but I was enjoying my java and blueberry crumb too much to ask what was on his mind.

“I’m worried about her,” he finally blurted out, halting in his tracks.

“Susan?” I asked.

“Loretta. She’s under a lot of stress.”

“Because she can’t find that deed?”

He nodded. “If she loses her business…”

“You’ll lose your meal ticket?” I suggested before taking another bite of muffin.

There was no mistaking the pain in the man’s eyes.

The immediate guilt I felt for saying something so awful to someone who’d never been anything but kind to me made the food in my mouth turn to chalk. I tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

“She is not my meal ticket.” Outrage made his voice strident.

Spitting the muffin into a napkin, I tried to apologize. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

“I have my own income,” he assured me icily.

“From where?” I hadn’t known him to work a single day for the entire time I’d known him.

“That’s neither here nor there. I wanted to talk to you about your aunt.”

“What about her?”

“I told you, I’m worried.”

His concern seemed genuine, so I nodded sympathetically.

“You’re not?”

“Not what?”

“Worried about her?”

“Of course I am,” I countered automatically. But the truth was, I really hadn’t been. I was worried about where DeeDee had disappeared to, how I was going to find Ghost, when I was going to whack this guy, Ira Frankel, and whether or not I was crazy. Honestly, Loretta’s problems were pretty low on my list of things to worry about.

Templeton stood there, staring at me like he expected me to pull a solution to Loretta’s problem out of thin air.

“What?” I asked him.

“You’re the problem solver in this family,” he said. “Solve the problem.”

I drained the remainder of my coffee while I considered his statement.  My knee-jerk reaction was that he was crazier than my mom, but when I thought about it for a second, I realized he was right. Somehow I’d become the person everyone turned to when they needed help. Aunt Susan and Marlene needed help with each other, Aunt Leslie needed help with her sobriety, and Aunt Loretta needed help holding onto The Corset Closet. I needed more time if I wanted to be able to help everyone.

“When did that happen?” I muttered aloud.

“When did what happen?” Templeton asked.

“When did I become the responsible one?”

He shrugged. “Will you help her?”

I nodded slowly. “I’ll do what I can.”

To indicate his appreciation, he took my empty coffee mug and refilled it.  I could see some of the charm Loretta saw in him.

Leaving the tray with muffins beside me, he said his thanks and skittered up the stairs, making his escape before I could change my mind.

“I’m the responsible one,” I said out loud, trying to make sense of the words. Pride swelled in my chest.

“Yes, yes,” God interjected, effectively bursting my bubble. “So responsible you lost the slobbering beast.”

“Can it, Mr. Sunshine,” Piss ordered, jumping off my lap and stalking toward the glass enclosure.

“Save me!” God shouted, panicked.

“Both of you, cut it out.”  Rising, I inhaled half the mug of caffeine. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

One of the best things about staying in the basement of the B&B is the shower. It’s not fancy, or large, but it is close to the hot water heater which means you don’t have to wait ten minutes for the steaming stuff to snake through the pipes like you do when you’re in a second or third floor bedroom. It’s pretty much instant on.

Soon I was reveling in the water beating my skin a lovely shade of pink. For some reason, either because I was still thinking about how I was going to off Ira or because I was puzzling over Armani’s prediction, I started humming “Ice, Ice Baby”.  I always think about that song when I think about Armani since the song was a prediction she failed to heed… hence her tragic run-in with a Zamboni.

I wordlessly crooned the melody while I rinsed shampoo suds out of my hair.

God shouted something from the other room, but I couldn’t make out what he said, but had no doubt he was mocking my choice of tunes. I took a great deal of pleasure in humming even louder, knowing that it was driving the lizard crazy.

Hopping out of the shower, I wrapped a towel around myself.

I threw open the door so that I could dance into the room
and belt out the chorus.

The word died on my lips as I realized it wasn’t just the lizard and cat listening to me. A pair of human eyes watched my antics too. I froze in place.

Green eyes sparkled with amusement.

The hot water might have turned my skin pink, but the embarrassed flush that heated my skin no doubt turned me lobster red.

“Don’t let me stop you, Mags.”

Instead of responding, I spun on my heel and dashed back into the bathroom, slamming the door.

Patrick’s chuckle drifted through the door.

“What are you doing here?”  Wiping away the condensation on the fogged mirror, I scowled at my drowned rat reflection.

“I was worried about you.” He spoke quietly and I realized he’d moved so that he was standing on the other side of the door.

Sidling up to it I asked, “Why?”

“I saw you at my place last night.”

A painful lump lodged in my throat as the idea that he’d deserted me in my time of need sunk in.

“Mags?”

“You knew I was there and you didn’t let me in?” I asked, not bothering to hide the betrayal that made my voice squeak.

“Of course not,” he sounded offended. “Open the door.”

“Why should I? You didn’t open the door for me.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“But you said…”

“I saw you on the security recording.”

He hadn’t abandoned me. Relief flooded through me.  “You have security?”

“Will you please open this thing?” Patrick cajoled. “I came to talk to you, not a door.”

“Hang on a sec.”  Even though the mirror had fogged over again, I ran a hand over my hair to smooth it and made sure my towel covered the important bits before opening the door.

Leaning against the frame, he smiled down at me. “Much better.”

He slowly ran his gaze up and down appreciatively. When he finally focused on my face, his eyes glittered with desire.

I shivered, not because I was cold, but because his blatant perusal had me flushing with a heat more intense than my earlier blush.

“Cold?” he asked, stepping into the bathroom, causing me to back up until the back of my legs hit the cool porcelain of the toilet. “We shouldn’t let the heat out.” He pulled the door shut, locking the two of us in the enclosed space.

I waited for him to make his move, but he just stood there with inches of space separating us.

The temperature ratcheted up exponentially, but it had nothing to do with steam.

“So you were looking for me?” he prompted softly.

I nodded dumbly.

“Why?”

“I—” I trailed off trying to recall what I’d been thinking the night before. I couldn’t remember. All I could think about was how close he was and how I was half-naked and how I wished he was too.

I shook my head, trying to dislodge the lusty thoughts filling my head so I could focus on the conversation. My wet hair whipped my face and a strand stuck to my cheek.

Slowly he raised his hand to pluck it away. His fingers against my cheek were cool.

Before he could drop his hand back to his side, I caught it and pressed a kiss to his palm. Keeping my mouth against his skin, I looked up at him as I nibbled my way to the sensitive flesh at the inside of wrist.

His gaze sharpened as he watched me.

Dropping his hand, I stood on tiptoe to press my lips against his. His mouth was cool to the touch, but his guttural groan melted my core.

With an answering moan, I kissed him with no thoughts about the space, or the heat, or the damp towel. All I knew was that I couldn’t get close enough.

Pulling me tight against him, his hand, splayed across my back, burned through the towel, branding me, and I reveled in his ownership.

I was breathless when he yanked his mouth away from mine and muttered in my ear. “I promised myself this wouldn’t happen.”

“What wouldn’t?” I panted, looping my arms around his neck, loving how strong and solid he felt in my arms.

“This.” He pressed a long slow kiss to my throat, making my knees buckle in the process. “I promised myself I wouldn’t get distracted by this and then you come out in that towel, all wet and pink and luscious, and I had to have you.”

“Luscious?” No one had ever called remarkably unremarkable me “luscious” before.

“Good enough to eat,” he murmured, nipping at my earlobe to illustrate his point.

“But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Why are you here?” I slipped both hands into the waistband of his jeans, causing him to gasp.

He grabbed my hands before I could move them lower.

“Because last night you were acting crazy.”

Dumping me into a vat of ice water would have been less effective in cooling my ardor. I’d done my best to control myself when it had been inferred that I was crazy a number of times in the past few days, but hearing it from him of all people pushed me over the edge.

“Crazy?” I shrieked, shoving at his chest, sending him stumbling back against the door.

Bewildered, he stared at me, wide-eyed.

“Get out!” I shouted.

“Shhh,” he begged, holding up his hands in supplication. “Does this have something to do with your mom? Cuz I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant you seemed upset.”

“Get. Out,” I ordered through clenched teeth.

Turning, he hurried from the room. I waited until he’d closed the door before allowing the tears burning my eyes to fall.

I quickly dashed them off my cheeks, determined not to fall apart just because he’d called me crazy. Just because I’d banged on his door and talked to my cat didn’t give him the right to call me a nutjob.

“Mags?” came through the door.

I didn’t answer him. Forcing myself to take a couple of deep breaths, I shrugged into the robe that hung on the hook inside the door. It was one of Loretta’s discards, which meant it was satin and lace and sexy.

Squaring my shoulders, I thought,
Fine. Let him see what he’s missing.

Chin held high, I threw open the door and leveled what I hoped was an icy glare at the redhead who was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for my appearance.

“I’m really, really sorry. Maybe ‘crazy’ wasn’t the best choice of words,” he said carefully.

“Ya think?” Because he stood only a foot away, I had to tilt my head back to continue subjecting him to my death glare.