Kiss & Hell (21 page)

Those facts were no surprise to Delaney. “And how old was Clyde when he died?”

“Almost thirty-seven.”

“That’s a long time to not do any of the things you wanted to do.”

There was definitely a trace of sadness to his next words. “Yeah, yeah it is. But I was sick for the better part of my early years and in bed more than out—books, facts, figures, television, and eventually the Internet were my friends. I had trouble relating to people because of it.”

“Sick?”

“Long story.”

One he wasn’t ready to share by the closed-off look his face took on. She got that. She could wait. If she were to treat him like any other crossing, she’d do it with a light, noninvasive hand. That’s what the plan was for now. “Were you close to your parents?”

The smile on his lips was fond, his whole being lighting up with affection. “I had great parents.”

“And they’ve passed?”

“Yeah. My mom just last year of pancreatic cancer and my dad about four years before in his sleep. I was a late-in-life baby for them. My mom found out she was pregnant when she was thirty-nine and my dad was forty-five. According to them, after almost twenty years of marriage, I was a miracle.” He shifted positions, dropping his feet and pulling the stool closer to where she was checking her inventory. “So how about you? I know about Kellen. Any other sisters or brothers I need to watch my ass with?”

Her laughter filled the store, but her eyes strayed to the floor to avoid his. “Sorry about that. Kellen’s very protective, and part of that has to do with the fact that we only have each other now. My mom died about thirteen years ago of Alzheimer’s and my dad a couple of years before my eighteenth birthday of a heart attack. So Kellen and I look out for each other.”

“It’s good to have someone to lean on.” His statement held hidden emotions she guessed had to do with not having any family left when his parents were gone.

“And you were a scientist or something smart, huh?”

“Freelance chemical research consultant. I was my own boss.”

“So where did Clyde Atwell hang his hat?”

He cocked his head. “I never wore a hat.”

Delaney sighed. “I didn’t mean literally. I mean figuratively. Like where did you live?”

“North Dakota.”

Well, there went the idea of making a visit to his swinging bachelor pad. Though, now that she had a definitive place he’d once resided, she could look more closely at the obits online in the North Dakota newspapers. But what the hell was Tia doing in New York if she was from North Dakota? And why had she shown up at that specific deli—one Delaney frequented every Sunday for lunch . . .

Suspicion reared its ugly head again. “If you’re from North Dakota, what was Tia doing in New York?”

“That was her brother you saw her with. He lives here—works as a stockbroker. She came here often to see him—so I’m vaguely familiar with the area.”

“You saw him?”

“Yeah, and thanks for trying to protect me from seeing what you thought was her boyfriend.”

“Don’t you find it suspicious that she was in a deli I go to every Sunday? That she was right in our immediate vicinity?”

“Not even a little. I think it was just a really big coincidence. Nothing more.”

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe Tia knew more than Clyde thought. Hmmmm.

While she was dipping her toes in the pool of Clyde, she decided to wade further in. “So how about Tia? I’m sorry about that. Bet seeing her cut deep.” She was being a meddling, nosy bitch—even if she was sorry he’d lost someone he clearly still loved. But by God, she had the craziest urge to know how deep their relationship had run. It didn’t make her a bad person—just a curious one.
And this information will help you cross him over, how, Delaney? Curious isn’t the only thing you are . . .

“Don’t sweat it,” he offered as though they’d seen his dry cleaner or the bagger at his local grocery store in that deli rather than the woman he’d loved.

Her heart clenched. Maybe he was trying to hide his pain over seeing her by drowning his sorrow in his banana Slurpee and pride laced with testosterone. “Do you need some time alone?”

“Why would I need time alone?”

She clucked her tongue at him. “Because you just saw the woman you love and you couldn’t even talk to her. That has to be hard. At the very least, frustrating.”

Clyde was so obviously confused, she thought the word “huh?” might transcribe itself on his forehead like a stigmata on a grilled cheese sandwich. “And that means I need to be alone?”

What. A. Simpleton. “Well, yeah. Like time alone to do unmanly things like sulk, pout, maybe even cry.”

Clyde’s lightly tanned brow wrinkled. “Why would I do that?”

Alrighty then, her sympathy cup had just been bled dry. “Because you
loved
her. Because you
miss
her. Because now you’re going to spend the rest of your eternity with winged people, if all goes as planned, and not the woman you love!” Nimrod.

“Oh,” was his dull response.

“Oh? Ohhh?” she almost shrieked, throwing her clipboard down on the counter between them.

The glance Clyde gave her said he was tired of explaining things that were rational to the exceptionally irrational, slightly overreacting ghost talker. “These are the cards I’ve been dealt. I can’t go back to Tia now. It isn’t practical or logical. What’s the use of mourning something that won’t ever happen? I think you have a very romanticized view of love, Delaney. I think it’s pretty clear, ‘happily ever after’ only lasts for so much ‘after’—everything changes when one half of the equation kicks the bucket. I kicked the bucket. How fair would it be for me to show up and make her life a mess, only to have to leave again if you can cross me over?”

How very no-nonsense and unbelievably logical with a big side order of insensitive and about as romantic as a trip to the gyne cologist. How totally Clyde. “Well, I dunno if my view’s been romanticized, demon. I mean, if I’d had a girlfriend as wonkable as, say, Tia, and I blew my ass all over the joint, yet never had the chance to say good-bye, never was able to say a final ‘I love you’ to her, I’d be feelin’ some regret. So, yeah—color me romantic. My view is idealistic. But you, on the other hand, can’t even seem to remember what your last moments with her were like. And you call yourself decent? What kind of boyfriend are you?”

“Well, from your point of view, I’d say I was a pretty shitty boyfriend,” was the sarcastic reply.

The snort she spat in his direction returned his sarcasm. “I’ll say. How can you so callously dismiss what you shared with her? I thought, from the look on your face when you saw her, that you were a guy who’d been in complete love. Maybe your bad judge of character is rubbing off on me.”

His one eyebrow rose above the frames of his glasses. “That look was for the pastrami on rye. It’s been a long time since I had one, and I’m not callously dismissing anything. There wasn’t much to dismiss. Do I regret not having the chance to say my good-byes? Yep. I do. But I don’t just regret not being able to say good-bye to Tia, I regret not being able to say good-bye to several people. Mostly my cat, Hypotenuse.”

She shoved all the bottles back on the shelf with disgust. “You know what, Clyde? You’re a schnutz. Chivalry really is dead and that death unlives in you. That you miss your cat more than Tia says a lot about you.”

“What does it say about me, crazy dog lady?” His remark was glib and, she was sure, meant to remind her that if not for Kellen, she’d have some dogs to say good-bye to and not much more. But that wasn’t so much by choice as it was by circumstance. No one wanted to hang out with, date, or even do something as simple as take a walk with someone who talked to dead people—not to mention live with the threat of Satan walloping your ass if you got too close to the medium.
Thanks for the reminder
.

Her eyes narrowed and her fingers twitched. “Don’t you dare compare us, Clyde Atwell. My life isn’t anything like yours. Mine is all about connecting and even if it’s just with dead people, it’s for a good cause. My situation isn’t by choice. Yours was, filled with cold, sterile labs and some law of averages. I think what yours says is that you think love is a useless emotion that takes up too much of your time—time that could be spent researching the Striped Marsh Frog or something. It says that you don’t think love can be bigger than you are. That you can’t be swept away by it. And now that you’re deader than the extinct Wannanosaurus, you’ll never be able to find out. That should make you very, very sad. Instead all I’m hearing in your voice is dismissal for the silly medium and her idiot notions.”

“Ahhh, the Wannanosaurus. Probably one of the, or maybe even the, smallest bone-headed dinosaurs. Not one of the more infamous either. I’m impressed.”

“Thanks. I’ll tuck that away in my ‘useless bullshit’ files. I think I’m done for tonight.” She threw her inventory sheet on the countertop, then yanked off the full-body apron she always wore in case she spilled a bottle of oil and threw it on the counter.

Rising from the stool he’d been sitting on, he clasped her arm in a light grip when she tried to pass him. “Why are you so angry?”

Yeah. Why was she? Maybe because he’d debased the idea of falling in love to a level that made her feel mocked for believing in it. He’d simplified it, analyzed it, deglorified it to something silly and wasteful. Like it was some chemistry problem to be solved on a chalkboard. And the really horrible thing about that was it was her deepest desire. It was like attacking her dream with an AK-47 and unloading the cartridge.

It was only an opinion, and not one she hadn’t heard before from plenty of men. Why it rubbed her raw because it came from Clyde made no sense. “I’m not angry. I just find this conversation pointless. We have very different views on what love is or isn’t. I’m all about diversity. Vive la ‘behave like a stupidhead.’ I’m good.” And that didn’t sound at all sullen or spiteful. She tried to shrug away from his grasp, but he wouldn’t let her.

Realization spread from one corner of his face to the other. “Ah, wait. I get it. Because I’m not totally wasted, all curled up and fetal over never seeing Tia again, I’m a cold-hearted asshole, right?”

Right
. “Whatever.”

Clyde let her arm go, folding his arms over his chest, and loomed because, it would seem, he was gifted like that. “Here’s a little something you don’t know. Tia and I were once involved, yes, but was she the love of my life? No. Was I hers? I doubt that because if that were the case, and your version of love is real, I gotta think she wouldn’t have been skipping off to New York to visit her brother just three months after I annihilated myself. We did date for
two
years. If your version of love was what she and I had, she’d still be home, sobbing in her pillow and wearing one of my old shirts while her hair got greasy and her hygiene became less of a priority as she grieved me. I liked Tia a lot, but at the point of my death, she was pretty fed up with me and my single-mindedness. She was halfway out the door of our relationship when I blew myself to smithereens. And I wasn’t
in
love with her, though I did care a great deal about her. I guess if I had been, my work wouldn’t have interfered the way it did. It isn’t that I’m mocking your views on happily ever after, it’s that I haven’t experienced that kind of desire or need with anyone.”

So, yeah. Shit, she’d gone all fist to the sky in protest on him. “Oh,” she muttered with far more contrition than she liked hearing.

“Yeah.
Oh
.” He stuck his face in hers, craning his neck down at her when he did.

A faint woo to the hoo that Clyde hadn’t been wild about Tia, Hawaiian Tropic hot as she was, made her a little giddy. Dangerously so. She knew what her love-starved mind was toying with, and in her head, she knew that shit had to come to a screeching halt. Loneliness could make you do stupid things. It put your defenses at an all-time low. It was her loins that just didn’t seem to want to play. They needed to be girded. She gave him a coy glance. “Okay. So I made an assumption about you that was unfair. That makes it my turn to apologize again. Sorry.”

Clyde’s gaze eased just a little, shifting from the arrogant cast it had to it to a more affable, albeit cocky smile. “For someone who’s so open to life after death, and ghosts and demons and all the other crazy shit that really does exist, you can be just a bit judgmental, but apology accepted.”

In guilt, she looked down at her toes. “You’re right. I was being judgmental and biased because of your fascination with facts and figures, and obscure shit like music trivia. You yourself said you were wrapped up in manuals and your research. Those can be cold things. They don’t allow for gray areas. Possibilities that involve emotions.”

Clyde’s fingers tilted her chin up so she was forced to look at him. “So you immediately came to the conclusion that I’m incapable of believing in things like soul mates and true love. Which also meant I’d be attacking what you hope someday you can have. A husband. Children. Someone to love you until death do you part. So here’s something else you don’t know—my parents had that. I’ve seen it firsthand. I lived it with them. Their marriage was a testament to true love. A deep, unconditional match made in soul mate history. I wanted the same thing—I just didn’t find it with Tia. Conclusions without all the facts can be a tricky thing, Ghost Lady.”

Delaney gulped, but the truth was the truth, painfully naked as it was. “I did jump to conclusions.”

His eyes compelled her to hold his gaze, his grip on her chin almost forcing her head back and her neck to arch. “I’m not done. A few months ago I might have agreed with your assessment of me. I’m the first to admit, I didn’t believe in a lot of things. Then Satan called my bluff. My perspective on things has changed since then. I had three months in Hell to give a great deal of thought to a lot of things in my life—things I missed out on, even some regrets. And while the logical side of me reminds me I can’t go back and undo the time I didn’t spend with people or the Christmas dinners I missed because I was wrapped up in my work, the other half of me, the half that’s become maybe just a little sentimental, bordering on maudlin, wishes he could.” His nostrils flared, his eyes flashed her “take that information and shove it up your ass” signals.