Double Dating with the Dead by Karen Kelley (best fiction novels to read .txt) 📗

mouse. A shiver of revulsion ran over her. Eck, she hated the furry little creatures.

He cupped his hands and beat them on the side of the box, making noise but not disturbing the contents. When nothing moved, he opened the box and rattled around on the inside before pronouncing it safe for her to explore.

“Thanks,” she grumbled a half-hearted apology.

“I don’t think you’re going to find anything of value. Vandals have probably gotten all the good stuff.”

“Why would you think that?” She removed some of the newspaper. He was right, there wasn’t much inside.

“Human nature. Abandoned building. No one to keep a good eye on the contents.”

He shrugged when she looked at him.

“What about the furniture?” she asked.

“Not worth the trouble. Any antiques have been replaced with a hodgepodge of worthless junk.”

She paused in her scavenger hunt. “How do you know it’s worthless?”

“My mother has an antique store. I’ve helped her do inventory. After a while you start to learn the prices of things.”

“Prices. Is that what the items in your mother’s store mean to you? Prices?”

“It’s called being solvent. Making a living.”

All that history. She shook her head. What a waste.

“Ah-ha.” She laughed. Let that teach him a lesson. “A ring.”

He stepped nearer for a closer look.

“It’s beautiful,” she said with reverence.

He eyed her with more than a touch of skepticism, so she polished it on her shirt and handed it to him. He walked closer to the light and turned it so he could read the inscription.

“Mattel.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You’re rich now.”

She strode over and took it from him. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what? That you believe you can talk to the dead? Or that you’ve just found a priceless gem?”

She held the ring up to the light. Then clasped it in her hand. The gold plastic ring warmed. She could almost feel the lingering essence of the little girl that it had belonged to.

“I bet it’s worth at least a penny,” he snickered.

Arguing with him would be like arguing with a tree stump. So she wouldn’t.

Darn it, that wasn’t the way she operated. She wanted people to see past what something cost. The monetary value meant nothing. When you discovered the heart of something, that was when you found the true value.

But she was stubborn.

She opened her hand; the ring lay on her palm. It was a little bent, a whole lot tarnished.

“It’s not perfect, but that’s exactly what makes it perfect,” she told him. “Try to imagine what the little girl felt when she put this ring on her finger. Maybe she wasn’t as pretty as the other little girls, or her parents didn’t have as much money as other parents, but suddenly nothing mattered because she was transformed into a princess.” She looked at him.

“And the moral to your story?”

She wouldn’t let him goad her this time. “The moral to my story is that sometimes it’s okay to believe in what you can’t see or touch. That magic exists for each of us. You just have to open yourself up to it.”

“Sorry, I still don’t believe in ghosts.”

She sighed. “No, I didn’t think you would.”

The man was going to have a friggin’ heart attack when Wesley and Dixie showed themselves, and she was positive they would. It was an ego thing with ghosts. That, and she sometimes thought they enjoyed scaring the hell out of people.

“I think I’ve had enough of the basement. We have the next two weeks to forage through this junk.”

“Fine.” She was still a little jumpy after finding the mouse, anyway.

She started past Trent just as the light went out. Being in total darkness threw her off balance, and she stumbled into him.

He grabbed her, but instead of connecting with her arm, he connected with a breast.

His hand stayed there. She closed her eyes and swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat as she let the heat of his touch soak through her.

Then she came to her senses.

“You can move your hand off my breast any time now.” Except she knew she didn’t really want him to and her words lacked the conviction she meant to convey.

“Sorry. You fell against me.”

His fingers brushed across her nipple as he moved his hand to her arm. It immediately hardened. Damn it, did it have to feel that good?

“The bulb must’ve burned out. No telling how long it’s been since it was replaced.”

“Or a mischievous ghost did something.” She spoke louder than necessary, but she wanted Dixie and Wesley to know that she was on to their game.

“It’s not working,” he said.

“I think I’m aware of that. I mean, we are standing here in the dark.”

“No, I mean about your so-called ghost having done something to the light. I don’t buy it.”

“That’s okay because I’m not selling. Believe what you want, but when they do decide to show themselves and you have a heart attack, I might not start CPR.”

He laughed. Oh, his time was coming.

“Can we just get to the stairs?”

“We’d better hang on to each other as we make our way to them.”

“Whatever.” She would never admit to being directionally challenged. Right now she was completely turned around. She could stumble around down here for days, weeks maybe.

But when he glided his hand up her bare arm, it felt like a caress. The heat from his touch burned all the way down to her toes.

He’s the enemy, her affronted self warned.

But a very sexy one, her alternate, devilish side reminded her.

The dream she’d had last night didn’t help. All that sexy touchy-feely stuff—ah, Lord, her body throbbed from her head to her feet.

And the way he’d stripped for her.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat as a deep ache began to build inside her.

“I think we’re getting close to the stairs,” Trent said.

With more than a little effort, she pulled her thoughts back to the present.

“Here we are.” He led her hand to the rail. “Got it?”

“Yes, I’m fine now.” But she wasn’t. Not really.