A Date with the Other Side (Cuttersville #1)(8)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Scooting back so she wouldn’t impede his pushing, she observed that he was wearing jeans. Not butt-huggers, but just enough room there to provide fuel for her imagination without giving it all away. He had an expensive black leather belt, and still wore his pricey watch, but he was barefoot. Even so, he looked out of place in Cuttersville, in the White House’s nineteenth-century parlor with fussy lace curtains.

“Whoever locked this door, I suggest you open it immediately. I’m not amused,” he called through the door as he struggled with it.

Shelby thought he sounded a hell of a lot like her third grade teacher, Mrs. Gunther. Except Mrs. Gunther had more whiskers.

There was silence for a moment, then came a woman’s voice, hushed with awe. “None of us have touched that door. But we all saw it shut on its own.”

“Bullshit,” Boston said, bending over to run his finger along the door frame and shaking the door violently.

Like that was going to do anything. Shelby called out, “Hey, Ernie, try the door from your side.”

The click lock turned back, unlocking the door. Or so Shelby thought.

When Boston pounced on the door and shoved, it still didn’t move. “What the . . . ?” He locked and unlocked the latch again and nothing moved. “It’s stuck or something.”

Wary gaze floating around the room, Shelby ignored the renewed swearing of Boston and the lock rattling of Ernie and waited for a ghost to vaporize before her eyes. She wanted out. Oh, Lord, she was scared all of a sudden. And cold. Maybe the ghost was projecting that on to her. Maybe the ghost was in her.

Shelby screamed and launched herself at Boston’s back. When she crashed into him and his nose crunched against the pocket door, he said, “Ow, dammit! Get off of me.”

There was something every woman dreams a man will say to her.

Her irrational fear disappeared as quickly as it had risen. Replaced by embarrassment that she’d pressed her br**sts against his hard back like a bimbo coed in Scary Movie.

“Sorry. Something walked on my grave there.” She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms.

Ernie called out, “Door won’t budge from this side.”

Boston rubbed his nose. Shelby rolled her eyes. Like it hurt that much. She’d been skipping the Krispy Kremes lately, so he could stop acting like a truck had plowed into him.

“Does your grandmother have a key to this door?”

“I don’t know. I never knew it locked before. I could call her and see. Or we could just toss you out the window into the petunias.”

His eyes lit up. “The windows. Good point, Shelby. We can climb out the window.”

He shoved aside lace, unlocked the flimsy brass locks that had been tacked on the frame of the old window next to the sofa, and grimaced. Boston wiped his hand on his jeans, and Shelby wanted to laugh. Mr. Clean didn’t like a little dust and lead-paint chips on his hands.

Then he shoved, giving her a mighty nice view of his back and shoulders straining. The window didn’t open. Boston shoved again. And again. Until Shelby was bored with watching him, even that little jerk his cute backside gave each time.

She listened to him swear and move on to another window.

“There’s nothing wrong with this window, I don’t know why it’s not opening. It doesn’t look painted shut.”

“It’s not. There’s no air-conditioning in this house and every single window opens.”

“Then why the hell won’t they open?” He pushed so hard his foot slipped on the hardwood floor.

She sank to the floor and crossed her legs. “Don’t you think we should call Gran?”

“Just let me try the rest of these.”

Sure, let him get all sweaty. She leaned against the wall and called out to her seniors’ group. “Folks, it looks like I’m stuck. I’m afraid we’ll have to cancel the tour and I’ll refund your money.”

There was some grumbling and concerns for her safety for about thirty seconds, then they abandoned her, their footsteps echoing in the front hall, the door slamming shut behind them. With them went her grocery money for the month.

Shelby allowed herself a sigh. Sometimes a girl couldn’t catch a break, and if she were a believin’ sort, she’d think the spirits were trying to tell her something. Not that she did believe. But if she did, she wished they’d make their desires more obvious.

Because right now they either wanted her to starve to death or be driven to insanity by the stubborn, fastidious, control-freak Boston Macnamara. Neither of which she could claim to be her immediate goals in life.

“Got a phone?” she asked him, sure his cell phone was close to his body in a place of deference. Like next to his heart or in a pocket alongside his third leg.

Boston stopped pushing the last window and turned around, breathing a little harder than normal. She hoped he wasn’t going to go postal on her, and throw a lamp through the window. But he just relaxed his shoulders and dug deep in his pocket, confirming its importance in his life to her. He flipped it two feet to her.

“This is unreal,” he said.

“So is this phone.” Shelby caught it and studied the cracker-size cell phone. She shook it. Tossed it from hand to hand. “Is this thing real? It looks like a kid’s toy.” And it was metallic blue, showing a whimsical side to Boston she never would have guessed.

“Yes, it’s real. Don’t you have cell phones in Cuttersville?” He turned and tried the window again.

“There’s not much business here that’s pressing enough to require instant communication. And if I broke down in Gran’s old clunker, it would only take two minutes before someone I know would stop and help me.” Shelby pressed random buttons trying to find something resembling on. “And it’s rude of you to keep implying that we’re hicks. Don’t they teach manners in the big city?”

Boston watched Shelby double-fist his phone, eyes narrowed, lip bit in concentration, and he felt annoyance all over again. “I don’t have manners? Who walked into my house without an invitation?”

“That’s different,” she said without looking up. “I came for the tour.”

Then her eyes lit up as she figured out how to turn his phone on, and started dialing, making a face as she left a message on her grandmother’s voice mail. He bet her grandma had a cell phone.

Boston wiped his hands on his jeans and tried to ignore the fact that Shelby’s knees were slowly falling apart, and that her denim shorts were pulled taut right between her thighs, hugging her body. He also didn’t want to notice that the shorts had wide leg holes, and he could see right up them, past lots of golden skin to a flash of red panty. Hot red. Candy apple red. Cherry red.