Page 23 of Ghost Business (Boneyard Key #2)

Fifteen

Eventually Terry kicked them all out. Not because it was closing time, but because, as he said, it was just too weird to have so many people eating at his restaurant. Sophie could relate; at the end of a long day she was usually sick of people too.

For a few minutes the disparate group hung around awkwardly on the sidewalk in front of Poltergeist Pizza, in that weird space of the evening being over but no one really wanting to admit it.

Finally, Theo turned to Jo. “I never knew you could do that,” he said. “You know, the thing with the hat. Does it work on anything?”

Sophie let out a gasp. “The painting!” How had she not thought to suggest that? She felt like an idiot.

Theo kept talking like she hadn’t interrupted. “I have this painting, in the museum. Of this woman that no one’s been able to identify. I’d love to know more about her…er, I mean about the painting…” His voice trailed off and he swallowed hard.

Jo shrugged. “Worth a try. You want me to stop by sometime, when the store is closed?”

“Yeah.” His nod was an awkward bob of the head. “Yeah, that would be great.”

Meanwhile, Nick was talking to Tristan, the two men under the glow of the streetlight. “You should come by the house. Next week sometime. Dinner?”

“Really?” Tristan looked surprised. “Yeah, I’d love that.”

Sophie and Libby both turned wide eyes to Cassie, betrayed. But Cassie had a small smile on her face as she leaned into them. “It’s Sarah,” she murmured. “She wants to have a word with him about that pirate story he keeps telling in front of the house. She’s, uh. Not happy.”

Sophie did her best to hold in a snort. Tristan had looked wary enough in front of Mystic Crystals not too long ago, and that had just been Aura in one of the upper windows with a plastic skeleton, a bedsheet, and a green light bulb.

Then he’d almost come out of his skin tonight when the Parmesan cheese had been delivered.

Getting an actual dressing-down from a ghost was going to send him screaming off into the night.

If only it were that easy. God, she really couldn’t wait till October, when he would be out of her town and out of her life. It was a familiar refrain by this point, but somehow she couldn’t drum up the same old vehemence against him.

Part of it was that dream, of course. Earlier tonight he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves and her throat had gone dry. Just seeing his lightly tanned skin, arms sprinkled with blond hair, had brought on the visceral memory of pink-flamingoed board shorts and salt water, his mouth moving on her neck…

Which had never happened , she reminded herself firmly. Because it had been a dream . But it was a hard thing to remember when the subject of that dream was right across from her, shooting her a hesitant smile.

There’d been something else about him tonight, a vulnerability in his expression.

Especially when he talked about his top hat.

It was still really stupid, but it was obviously more than a silly costume to him.

He’d seemed almost human this evening, with his sweat-damp blond hair and rumpled shirtsleeves.

She’d even let him steal a slice of her pizza, which was very unlike her, and had felt a warm glow inside when he went back for a second piece, declaring it the best pie on the table.

Eventually everyone split up to go their separate ways.

Nick and Cassie left first. They’d each grabbed a drink to go—a bottle of water for her, a longneck beer for him—and they headed toward the break in the seawall by The Haunt.

Libby tagged along with them, breaking off to the right at the corner by Mystic Crystals.

Theo and Jo left next, still talking about Theo’s mysterious painting as they walked up the downtown streets toward their neighboring shops.

Now it was just Tristan and Sophie, standing together under the glow of a streetlight. She turned to him, and he at least looked as awkward as she felt.

“Can I walk you home?”

The question made her bristle. He noticed. “I’m not trying to be friends,” he rushed to add. “I promise. No friendly thoughts here. It’s just that it’s dark and I want to make sure you get home okay.”

“Oh,” Sophie said. “No. It’s not far. Lots of streetlights.” She gestured down the street in illustration, which looked too much like something she did during her tours, so she shoved her hands in her pockets. “Besides, this is Boneyard Key. Not a lot of mugging goes on around here.”

His laugh was an exuberant puff of breath. “Point taken.”

Silence fell between them again, so total that she could hear the buzzing from the streetlight above them. Enough. She was tired and wanted to go home. “Well,” she finally said. “Good night.”

“Yep.” He rocked on his heels. “Good night.”

Was he waiting for something? Or maybe he just didn’t know how to end their conversation.

So Sophie took charge, throwing a little wave over her shoulder before turning south on Beachside, heading toward The Haunt and eventually her condo.

When his footsteps followed after a few moments, she didn’t think anything of it.

It was still early; he was probably stopping at The Haunt for a drink before heading back to whatever ivory tower he was living in.

Not that Boneyard Key boasted a lot of ivory towers, but over in the new section of town there were a lot of expensive homes.

Ones that rich people built with a killer view of the Gulf, that they stayed in for a week or two every year, not caring that their fancy-ass houses drove everyone else’s property taxes through the roof.

She passed The Haunt, kept heading south, but the footsteps behind her remained. Slow and measured, keeping pace with her. She stopped at the next corner and turned around, fuming.

“Quit following me!” She glared at Tristan, about a half block behind her.

“I’m not following you!” His eyes were wide as he protested.

She motioned at the rapidly dwindling space between them as he kept walking closer. “Then what do you call this?” She put her hands on her hips, waiting while he caught up to her.

“I call it walking home,” he shot back. “Am I not allowed to do that?”

“But I live this way.” She gestured down the street, toward her building. They were nowhere near the rich side of town; where could he possibly be going?

A terrible thought occurred to her. She squinted at him warily. “Where do you live?”

He gestured in the same direction she had. “A couple blocks that way. My dad has a condo there. He’s letting me use it for the summer.”

“A condo,” she repeated faintly. She looked doubtfully down the street, as though there could be another condo building this way, one that she didn’t know about. But no. There was only one apartment building that had been turned into condominiums a couple blocks down this way.

Her building. He lived in her building.

Great.

She gusted out a sigh. “Fine.” She started walking again, and Tristan took her resignation as an invitation, falling into step beside her.

It was a warm night, and even though the sun had set, the humidity in the air held on to the day’s residual heat.

It was irritating, and it was Sophie’s own fault.

No one had told her to wear jeans. At least she wasn’t wearing Tristan’s whole stupid getup.

“It’s going to be too hot to wear all that soon.

” Her voice was snappier than she intended, but the heat made her cranky as she gestured at his costume, half of which he wasn’t even wearing anymore.

He carried his top hat in one hand and his lantern in the other, his tailcoat draped over one arm.

“Believe me,” he said darkly, “it already is.”

Her gaze lingered on his hat. “Everything Jo said. About your hat. It was really true?”

“Yeah.” He looked down at the hat in his hand. “That was…that was wild, to be honest.” He glanced over at her. “Has she ever read anything for you?”

Sophie shook her head, but that was only a little bit of a lie.

“I asked her to read a couple things after my aunt Alice died. Some of her jewelry. Her favorite book. But she couldn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

” That was the thing about Jo’s ability.

She read the energy that was left behind on objects.

She couldn’t communicate with anyone after they’d gone.

Not that Sophie knew of, anyway. No, anything that Sophie had forgotten to ask her aunt Alice before she died was going to be forever unasked.

It had taken a long time to accept that, but she was getting there.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was low. Sincere.

Sophie hated that. She didn’t want sincerity from him.

It was too much like his voice in that dream she’d been trying to forget while he’d been sitting across from her.

She stuffed her hands lower in the front pockets of her jeans before they betrayed her by trying to touch him or something. That would be a disaster.

They walked in relatively companionable silence, both turning into the parking lot of the condo complex. Sophie gestured to the squat stucco building. “You’re sure you live here?” The question reeked of desperation.

“I am.” A smile played around Tristan’s mouth.

“Been here a few months now.” He switched his jacket to the other arm as they went through the pedestrian gate of the condo complex and through the parking lot.

“My question is, how have we never run into each other all this time, if we live in the same building?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” Any second now he was going to peel off from her, head to another section of the building. But Tristan kept pace, up the center staircase and then hooking a left to walk down the breezeway.

“Really,” she said. “You don’t need to walk me home.”

“Still not doing that,” he said cheerfully.

“Seriously?” Her heart sped up as they walked down the exterior corridor on the second floor. There were only five doors ahead of them. Then four. Three. Then two.

Sophie came to a stop at her door, and Tristan barked out a laugh from behind her.

Her heart pounded in her throat, and ridiculous thoughts swirled in her head as she fumbled for her keys to unlock her door.

Was he going to attack her? Strangle her, throw her dead body into the Gulf?

That was one way to get rid of the competition, right?

“You have got to be kidding me.” Instead of whipping out a knife and taking her out, he walked briskly past her to the very last door.

The corner unit with the perfect view of the Gulf.

Of course. “All this time, you’ve been my next-door neighbor?

” He grinned over his shoulder as he took out his keys. “What are the odds?”

But for a long moment Sophie couldn’t breathe.

Anger-based adrenaline had been replaced by fear-based adrenaline, and now it was replaced by something else.

While she’d been having that erotic dream about him last night, he’d been sleeping a few feet away, on the other side of her bedroom wall? This was messed up.

“You want to come in?”

“What?” She looked up sharply. Tristan had unlocked his front door and ditched his lantern, and now he lounged in the doorway, his jacket still draped over the crook of his elbow.

He’d unbuttoned another button of his shirt at some point during the walk home, and now the white line of his undershirt peeked through.

He practically glowed under his front light, and a sprinkling of blond hair was visible just below his collarbone.

It was too much like the dream, the one that had snaked its way into her blood and hadn’t let go.

He’d said that before, when Dream Tristan was half naked and shin-deep in the surf. You want to come in?

“Too many sharks,” she whispered. That response had made a lot more sense in the dream than saying it out loud now.

“Pardon?” He took a step toward her, and her breath caught. Green now, slate-green eyes. They’d been blue in the dream. Hadn’t they?

“Nothing.” She shook her head hard. He shouldn’t be so close.

She’d been okay when they had a table separating them at the pizza place.

She’d even been fine when they’d been walking home side by side, but now, this close, where she could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the way his lips parted just a little when he was about to speak…

it was too close. Too much like the dream.

“You don’t want to come in?” He gestured behind him. “We could…”

She didn’t know what possessed her. What absolute insanity had washed over her, but she couldn’t help it. She had to know.

Sophie took a step closer, stretching up onto her toes. She had just enough time to see Tristan’s startled expression, see those lips part in a gasp before she pressed her mouth against his.

Kissing him felt just like her dream. And she never wanted to wake up.