Kiss & Hell (27 page)

Clyde’s hands gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze before he left her alone in the kitchen.

Alone to ponder Lucifer’s next move and batten down the hatches.

Now, to find something to batten with.

fourteen

By late afternoon, they were no closer to finding out what had happened to Clyde than they were to finding the exact location of the Bermuda Triangle. Tia’s cell phone number had apparently been disconnected, Clyde couldn’t remember exactly where her brother lived, and he was unlisted. The North Dakota newspapers had not a single obituary listed for a Clyde Atwell in the last three months, and absolutely no mention of a police investigation involving his accident.

They sat together at her kitchen table with her laptop popped open, heads pressed together deep in thought. The dogs scattered at their feet sighed contentedly on occasion, stirring if Clyde made like he might move out of their direct line of vision.

Rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hand, Delaney asked, “How about a neighbor? Did you have a neighbor you were friendly with who might be able to tell us what the frig’s going on? Because this makes no sense, Clyde. It’s like you never existed.”

Clyde rolled his head from side to side, massaging the muscles of his neck with the palm of his hand. “I didn’t talk to my neighbors much.”

Delaney slapped her palm against her thigh. “How silly of me to think you might have actually been sociable. So backyard barbecues and block parties weren’t your thing?”

“Nope.”

“A friend? Got any? Even just one? Maybe someone you worked out with? You didn’t get that Body by Jake from sitting on your ass all day.”

He smiled, clearly pleased by her assessment. “Actually, it was Body by Chuck Norris and I jogged. No workout buddies.”

Te-rrific. He had to be the most isolated person she’d ever met. Aside from maybe her and she at least had a friend. Maybe it was only one, but one was more than none. “Oh, wait, I know! What about the freelance work you did? Couldn’t we call one of the companies you did work for and see if they know what happened?”

“Now there’s an idea . . .” Clyde’s posture changed from slumped in defeat to upright and ready to attack.

She reached for her cell phone. “Number?”

He slumped again. “Shit. I can’t remember it.”

“Name of the company?”

His face was completely blank.

“Clyde?”

Shock was an absolute in Clyde’s expression. “I can’t remember. Holy shit. I can’t remember.”

Convenient? Maybe. “You do realize how suspicious this looks, don’t you? You have no friends back home. There’s no obituary for you—no police reports. Tia’s number is disconnected and you can’t remember the company you were freelancing for. Crazy that.” Her response to his sudden blank spot was dry with sarcasm.

His fingers flitted across his temple as though he were searching for his memory. “I swear to you, Delaney, I don’t know why I can’t remember—I just can’t.”

“But you had no trouble remembering tons of other stuff about what your life was like, where all this work that blew you up took place, where your lab was . . .”

“I hear the suspicious tone in your voice, Delaney, and I’m not liking it. I can’t remember, and I’m not lying.
Don’t
go there.”

God, even if he was lying—it was hot when he did. Extra hot because Clyde didn’t strike her as the kind of guy who liked to throw down unless he had to. Conviction suited him—but he’d remembered plenty about his life before today, and that bothered her. “Well, where the fuck am I supposed to go, Clyde? You knew plenty of details a few days ago, and now you expect me to believe you can’t remember who you were doing work for?”

His blue eyes narrowed to slits. “Yeah, I do.”

“Why’s that? Because you got in my drawers?”
Oh. Low, Delaney. Way.
Even as the words slipped from her fresh mouth, she knew it was low. And so uncalled for. Weariness and frustration were always an ugly combo for her.

Clearly Clyde was preparing his windup, but they were interrupted by the tinkle of the chimes on the door of the store.

“Meees Delaney! I am here. Ju are better, jes?”

Crap on a stick.

Clyde looked at her with a question.

“Mrs. Ramirez—short, chubby Puerto Rican lady, remember?” she whispered, jumping up from the chair. “She helps me in the store. I’ve got to get rid of her before—”

“There ju are! Oh, Mees Delaney—” Mrs. Ramirez’s words stopped short when she came around the corner. The dogs jumped at her ankles, but she paid no mind. Her mouth fell open in the shape of a perfect
O
.

Clyde rose from his chair, sticking his hand out to her. “Clyde Atwell. Pleasure.” He grinned all pearly white and gentlemanly.

Wherein, the romantic in Mrs. Ramirez appropriately melted. That perfect O her lips had created turned into a grin that spanned her entire face. Her head bobbed with understanding, her heavy floral perfume wafting to Delaney’s nose. She nudged Delaney with a secretive glance. “Now I know why ju are seeck. Ju are loveseeck. Ees soooo nice.” She nodded her approval while her eyes roamed the length of Clyde.

Hoo boy. She had some splainin’ to do. “No, Mrs. Ramirez—this isn’t what you think—”

“Ju no be chy, Delaney. Ees won’erful!” She clapped her hands together with a girlish giggle of pure delight.

“Chy?” Clyde asked.

“Shy,” Delaney translated. “Just hush,” she said out of the corner of her mouth.

Mrs. Ramirez made a circle around Clyde’s body, lingering momentarily on his backend. “Ees about ti’, too, jung ladee. Ju is always talkeeng to de dead persons dat nobody see but ju. Thass no good for de soul. Ju is alone too much. Now ju ees not alone. Ees soooo good!”

Delaney bit her tongue before saying, “No, Mrs. Ramirez, this isn’t what you think. Clyde’s just a friend and someone has to talk to the dead persons. That’s my job.”

Mrs. Ramirez clucked her tongue. “Ju make de persons up because ju are lonleey. Ees okay. I un’erstan’. An’ I don’ know no frien’ who looks at his other frien’ like dat. Ees okay. I no tell nobody.”

Right. An hour from now the entire East Village would be doing the wave in her honor because Delaney Markham’s dry spell was over. “I don’t make them up. And I’m telling the truth, Mrs. Ramirez, this isn’t—”

She flapped a pudgy hand in Delaney’s face. “Now, ju two go. Ees almost ti’ for deener. I watch de babies—ju go eat or someting. Ju take my Delaney so’where nice, hookay?” She patted Clyde on the back before rooting at her feet to scoop up dog number four to check his diaper. “Ju are wet, Meester Fancy Pants. We feex.” She gave Clyde and Delaney the stink eye. “Whe’ I co’e back, ju be gone.” She turned her back on them, making a beeline for Delaney’s bathroom and leaving no room for discussion.

Clyde held out his arm to her, his smile cocky and condescending. “So whaddya say we go and eat and you can attack my character, say, somewhere much more public? You know, so you can tell me how you really feel with a live audience.”

She pursed her lips, grabbing her coat and scarf. “You know, it’s not impossible that you’ve been lying to me, Clyde Atwell,” she said in hushed tones, letting him help her with her jacket. “This sudden blank you’ve drawn would be stupid of me to ignore.”

“Yep.” He sauntered to the storefront, opening the door for her.

“That’s it? That’s all the denial I get?”

“Yep. What good does it do me to defend myself when those wheels in your head are turning at a pace faster than the speed of light? It’s wasted energy.”

“Which is very practical,” she said, fighting the grin she wanted to let loose when he laced his fingers with hers. “However, not terribly passionate.”

“Passionate?”

“Yeah. Passionate. To defend yourself would show some passion.”

“To defend myself would be useless. You’ll think what you want whether I tell you differently or not. Until you have solid proof to the contrary, you want to find something to harp on me for, some imperfection, big or small, to make me a bad guy. That means when I go, which you were all about reminding me I have to do last night—you can console yourself with the fact that I was just a jerk. A liar. The other possibility is, if you can catch me in a lie, you don’t have to let your guard down. You don’t have to let me in. I get it.”

Delaney stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, ignoring the people who passed by. Right in front of Anthony’s (“All You Can Eat Kielbasa and Pasta”), she decided to let him have it. “Let you in? Where am I not letting you in to?” Besides her drawers. Done. She’d done that. In fact, she hadn’t just let him in, she’d thrown the door open for him.

The cool night air settled between them before he spoke. “Your life. Don’t kid yourself into thinking I don’t get you, Delaney. You’re as isolated as I ever was. My situation was work related, yours is just situational, but it’s the same damned thing. You haven’t had a relationship in a long time, and now you’re afraid. You’re ready to condemn me because it’s as good an excuse as any to stop any more intimacy between us. That means you can’t be hurt when I have to go. That’s because you like me. If this is your way of subconsciously telling me you’re freaking out because last night was that good, let ’er rip, but don’t hide.”

She didn’t even lower her voice when a young couple strolled past them hand in hand. “Wow, Freud, thanks. My life in a paragraph. And quit patting yourself on the back about last night, Dr. Love. You’ll pull a muscle.” She cast him a scathing glance, tucking her purse back over her shoulder.

“I’m only speaking the truth, and, I might add, I did it with passion.” He chucked her under the chin, then kissed the tip of her nose.

But she shook him off. “I’m not accusing you of lying because I don’t want to sleep with you again, Clyde.” Or was she? Was she just looking out for herself and the possibility that if she let Clyde have too much of her, she’d end up hurt because there was absolutely no doubt he was hitting another plane and soon? It dawned on her that she was afraid she’d become too attached. This fear she carried around didn’t solely have to do with the terror of retribution from Satan if he found out Clyde wasn’t breaking her.

His gaze held hers for an uncomfortable period of time before he responded with an easy smile. “Yeah, you are. You don’t want to get too attached. Each time you’ve gotten attached to someone or something, it ended. And that hurt. I make it worse because I understand your gift. I believe in it, and it doesn’t freak me out. It’s not something I couldn’t learn to live with. That makes me one step ahead of everyone else you’ve been involved with. The others found out about it by circumstance and freaked out and the relationship ended—with a navy sea captain, as I recall. If you can keep me from you by pretending I’ve been lying to you, not only will you not end up being what you call played, you’ll protect yourself from the end result of this fiasco. Me leaving. What I wonder is this. What’s going to happen when you find out I’m telling the truth, Delaney?”

Her stomach rose and fell like the swell of the ocean; her heart pounded in loud, harsh beats. The neon light of Anthony’s blared with its annoying redness, exposing her. Horns blared, people meandered along the sidewalk, yet all she could feel was the night swallowing her whole.

Okay, so she didn’t want to get too attached and for all her “I’m an informed, mature woman of the new millennium” talk last night, for all the “this has to end” rhetoric, Clyde had hit the nail on the head. It must not be in her to live for the moment. She wasn’t the kind of chick to tap it and skip back off to her life with a satisfied smile. Her desire to have children, to create a family, was stronger than even some mind-blowing sex. She wanted more, and even if she wasn’t sure something like that could ever develop with Clyde at this early stage in their relationship, he had so many of the right qualities that it sent her into a full-on freak.

But there were facts she couldn’t ignore.

He liked her dogs. They loved him to the point of ignoring her as of late. He was wicked-ass hot, but had no clue how brick shithouse he was. He was smart. Most of all, he understood the life she’d been living—the ghosts she communicated with. That was half the battle in finding someone to share her whacky life with, and that he’d have no choice but to go before she could get to know him better just plain sucked wankers. That she wanted to know him beyond this fairly superficial level troubled her more.

“Ms. Markham? Care to elaborate? Maybe fight back with some of that
passion
?” he taunted.

“No.”

“Sulking much?” He grinned, obviously to show her he was teasing, but she wasn’t laughing.

Her arms crossed in protective mode over her chest. “What’s all this about anyway, Clyde? You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who likes to get deep unless it’s knee deep in H
₂
O
₂
, or whatever it was that you creamed yourself with.”

The hand that had held hers tucked deep into the pocket of his jeans; his lips were grim. “I think I’m turning over a new leaf. Maybe it’s a little late, maybe it’s well past the time it was due, but there it is. I spent ridiculous amounts of time buried in books about life, but I didn’t gorge on life itself. Looking back, I would have done it differently. So I’m paying closer attention, and paying closer attention means that I see you, Delaney. I know you and how you tick. I want you to see that interacting only with the dead has left you with blind spots to everything else. I want you to see what I see now that I’m dead. And I don’t want you to miss out on what you want because you won’t at least try or realize that you’re not really trying at all.”