Nonetheless, she was a little nervous bringing up the topic of what had happened at the top of the lighthouse.
And that spectacular kiss in the hot spring—that being Elephant Number Two, of course.
But clearly he was nervous as well.
So… She lifted her wine in a small, private toast, and thought: To exposing elephants in the room. Why the hell not?
Oscar had managed to keep Teddy from veering into conversational topics he preferred to avoid—at least so far—and they were already halfway through their main courses. He found it was fairly easy to send her off on different tangents by asking a question or making a comment about anything unrelated to ghosts and whatever that other “elephant” was.
Though he had a suspicion he knew what she was talking about.
He hoped it wasn’t what he thought it was, because the last thing he wanted to do was have a discussion—and, clearly, with Teddy Mack, it would be a Discussion—about how he’d turned a quick, impulsive “thank you” kiss into a full-fledged, hot-blooded, toe-curling, passionate one.
He lifted his wine to take a larger-than-normal drink and managed to keep from ogling her mouth. Much, anyway.
“So,” he said as the previous topic of conversation (whether she traveled for research for her books) wound down, “I was wondering—”
“Nuh-uh-uh,” she said with a cheeky grin that revealed three tiny dimples at the corner of her mouth. She waggled her fork at him. “You’ve avoided the topic long enough, Dr. London. And quite expertly, too. My turn to steer the conversation.”
“How are your scallops?” he asked, a little desperately.
“They’re gorgeous. Fresh, perfectly cooked, and smooth as silk.” She grinned knowingly at him as she gently moved her nearly empty plate aside. “Nice try, but don’t you think it’s time we actually talked about what happened on top of the lighthouse?”
“Do we have to?”
“I think it’s best. Unless you’d rather discuss the incident in the pool first.”
He gritted his teeth, grew a pair, and dove in. It’d be better if he drove the direction of that track himself. “Given the choice…perhaps that is a better topic. Addressing the—er—incident. In the hot springs.”
“Really?” She seemed surprised—and perhaps even a little bashful about the topic, if the extra pink in her cheeks was any indication. Which he didn’t get at all, because she’d been the one to bring it up—twice.
He would never understand women.
“Because I owe you an apology,” he told her. “For—er—taking things to a—er—different level. I realize you were simply, um, exuberant in that moment, and didn’t mean anything by it.” He cleared his throat. “I should have said something before now, but you were busy and I didn’t want…to disturb…”
Teddy’s expression had his voice trailing off. It was a combination of shock and maybe a little bit of— Well, he didn’t know what it was. He had no idea how to read women. Especially one like Teddy Mack.
“You’re apologizing for kissing me back after I flung myself willy-nilly into your arms and kissed you?” Her brows had drawn together with little furrows between them.
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
“I’m not certain whether to be insulted or overcome with laughter, Oscar. Did you feel me fighting you off? Pushing you away?”
Oh my God. His heart dropped and he broke out in a cold sweat. His ears rang. “No! No, I didn’t. Christ, Teddy, I didn’t realize—”
But she was goggling at him as she began to shake with laughter. “No,” she managed to say, wagging her head vehemently as she tried to catch her breath and form words. “No, Oscar, geez,” she said, tears streaming from her eyes, “that’s not what I meant.” She wiped them away, settled herself, then looked him dead in the eye. “I was trying to say: did you feel me pushing you away or fighting you off, because—no, I wasn’t. It was a mutually enjoyable moment,” she said. Her voice had gone schoolteacher prim, and he imagined she’d capitalized the phrase in her mind. “There’s no need to apologize.”
With that prissy tone came a little bit of reserve, too; she eased back in her chair a little and picked up her wine as if it were a barrier.
“I see.” He felt a little faint with relief. A mutually enjoyable moment. He could get on board with that.
“Good.” She set her glass down, folded her hands in front of her, then leaned forward. “Now, Dr. London, why don’t you grow a pair and let’s talk about what happened at the top of the lighthouse.”
He stifled a groan, then picked up his glass. “Fine. You first,” he said, gesturing toward her.
She beamed at him, and his insides went a little mushy. Dammit, Teddy Mack was just so pretty to look at, with her gleaming blue eyes and that thick, cocoa-colored hair—and those soft lips. Her cheeks were flushed pink from the bout of giggles, and he had to keep dragging his eyes up and away from that dark, shadowy vee at the neckline of her dress.
“All right. Let’s talk facts first. The door slams shut—somehow. It didn’t feel windy enough for it to blow closed from being flat against the window behind it. Did it?”
“No. It wasn’t. Nor was what wind there was coming— Wait.” He shook his head and lifted a hand. “Let me try again. The wind was not coming in a direction that could have blown the door closed—according to physics, anyway.”
“Right. So what happened?”
“Freak of nature?”
She narrowed her eyes at him again, the way she did when she was about to spear him with a question or comment. He fought back a grin as she said, “How about a ghost?”
Ugh. Why did she have to say it out loud? He marshaled his efforts. “Why would you think it was a ghost? If such a thing even exists.”
“And what makes you think they don’t?” she purred.
He sighed and had to concede. “I don’t know.”
“Well, now we’re getting somewhere.” Her smile turned feline, matching her tone, and her dimples winked slyly at him. “Seriously, Oscar, what other explanation for the door mysteriously blowing closed—and locking—then mysteriously becoming unlocked right after that horrible screaming sound? Not to mention the freezing air, and that glowing thing—”
“Some sort of alga blown in from the lake—”
But she shook her head and kept talking. “No. It had to be a ghost—or some sort of supernatural event.”
“Are you talking about ghosts, Teddy Mack? I thought you stuck to spies and saving the world. Ghosts are my thing.”
Teddy was already up and out of her seat to greet a tall, good-looking man whom Oscar deduced was Ethan Murphy. The newcomer was accompanied by an attractive woman who was elegant in a Jackie Kennedy sort of way—even her hair was similarly short and dark, and she wore a slim lavender dress that looked summery and cool.
“What a small world. It’s so great to run into you here in Wicks Hollow,” Teddy said as she shook Ethan’s hand. “This is my friend, Oscar London. He’s a professor at Princeton, so you two can commiserate about how you have to fight off all the young coeds on campus,” she said with a wicked smile.
Oscar had already risen and was shaking Ethan’s hand—and trying not to be mortified by her comment. Which, unfortunately, was true. He had more than a few young female students—and, twice, male students—make it very clear that they’d like some extra, private tutoring in the lab. It could make things very sticky sometimes, not to mention contaminate any lab samples.
“It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it,” Ethan said as he shook Oscar’s hand. “Nice to meet you. What’s your area of study?”
“It’s not ghosts,” Teddy said, and gestured to the table as Ethan laughed. “Have a seat; join us for a drink, won’t you? It’s Diana, isn’t it?” she added, turning to Ethan’s date. “I’m Teddy.”
“T.J. Mack—it’s a pleasure to meet you! I love your books,” Diana said, shaking Teddy’s hand and then reaching across to do the same with Osca
r. “I’ve just started reading for pleasure again—taking more time for myself and slowing down my crazy workload—and I just finished Dead End. Couldn’t put it down!”
“Thank you,” Teddy said. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
As they all sat down, Oscar accepted that he was now part of a four-person group instead of an intimate dinner for two. Which, he realized, was fine with him.
So, as he didn’t really want to talk about ghosts—and the fact that Ethan had already indicated his comfort with the topic—he jumped into the conversation. “We’re celebrating that Teddy just finished writing her sixth book.”
“Sixth? Wow. I’m just finishing up the notes on my second,” Ethan said with admiration and a touch of envy. He waved at Trib, who’d been hovering nearby as the group meshed. “How about a bottle of that Prosecco we had a couple weeks ago when Fiona and Gideon were here? A finished book is always cause for celebration.”
“Thank you,” Teddy said. “While some people think the most wonderful words in the English language are ‘I love you,’ I think there are no two sweeter words than ‘the end.’”
“Agreed on that,” Ethan said.
“Do you actually type ‘the end’?” Diana asked. “Most books don’t actually end with those words, do they?”
Oscar watched as Teddy’s eyes began to sparkle in that way they did when she talked about her work—at least, when she wasn’t tied up in knots over writer’s block. This would be nice, having the extra couple here. Then he wouldn’t have to manage the conversation, or even participate in it—and he could just enjoy watching her. She was so animated, with such vitality—and it was such bullshit that she claimed she was an introvert. He was an introvert.
“I do, because it’s a major cathartic moment to type them,” Teddy said. “And a lot of authors I know still do. It came from a tradition back when writers would send their work to the publisher in hard copy—and sometimes in batches. The words ‘the end’ let the editor know it was the end.” She shrugged. “Like I said, I do it because it feels so good to know the bloody thing’s finished.”
“So, tell me about Sargent Blue,” Diana said, leaning across the table a little. “Is he based on someone you know?” She had to move back almost immediately, however, because Trib had arrived with four champagne flutes and the bottle of bubbly. “I’m madly in love with him, and I just love that he has to wear reading glasses.”
“Move over, honey,” Trib said as he began to work out the Prosecco’s cork. “I already laid claim to the man—even though Teddy here says he’s only a figment of her imagination. Her fantasy, I think she said.”
Yes, that was what Teddy had said. Oscar remembered that because it got him to thinking about just what that fantasy was. A guy whose hands were lethal weapons, but had to put on a pair of glasses to read his dinner menu? What sort of fantasy was that?
Still, he wanted to know.
Teddy, who’d been given the first taste of sparkling wine at Ethan’s request, sipped and put down the flute. “It’s lovely. Thank you, Ethan. And yes, well, I confess—Sargent Blue is a sort of conglomeration of things I like in a man.”
“Tell me about it,” Trib murmured as he leaned over to fill the glasses.
“Such as?” Ethan had picked up the thread now, and he seemed to be watching the rest of them carefully. He’d settled back in his seat, lounging comfortably in a casual shirt and shorts, with perfect dark hair and a face any woman would find attractive. He looked more like a minor celebrity than a boring college professor like Oscar.
“Well…Blue’s smart. And quick on his feet. He’s got a quirky sense of humor,” Teddy said.
Oscar snorted. “The guy’s a librarian turned agent. He spies on people and kills them if he needs to.”
Teddy leveled a serious look at him. “He only kills people in self-defense—or if they’re about to kill someone else. That’s part of his code, and part of—”
“What makes him so compelling,” Diana said on a breathless sigh that seemed so out of character for a woman who appeared as buttoned up and elegant as she did.
“So a moral code makes a man compelling,” said Ethan, lifting a brow at his date. “Fascinating. Let’s talk about that a little more.
“And here we go—the anthropologist has arrived,” Diana said with an affectionate laugh.
“Of course it does,” Teddy said. “And that’s often the core of what writers write about—characters who have a moral code and what they do when that code is challenged. How they act or react when the easy decisions are taken away from them, and they’re faced with a Sophie’s Choice sort of thing.”
“That’s what makes a story compelling. And that’s part of what makes your books bestsellers,” Diana said earnestly. “That and the nonstop action and that well-sketched characters. But I do have to say—I loved the scene in Blind Alley where Blue had to put on his glasses in order to see the wires so he could defuse that bomb beneath the restaurant. It just made him so real to me—not this incredibly talented superhero sort of person who’s so far removed from anyone normal.”
Teddy smiled. “I’m glad it worked for you.” Her gaze scanned the table and landed on Oscar, who’d been less vigilant about the conversation topic since it had gone off on the tangent of “fantasy men.” He realized this just as she smiled at him with those cat eyes and said, “So, I think Dr. London and I have a ghost at Stony Cape Lighthouse.”
Oscar nearly choked on his wine. Why did she have to keep calling him doctor like that? It sounded so…flirtatious.
“Really?” Trib, who’d been flitting by, halted in an exaggerated comical fashion. Resting a hand on the back of Teddy’s and Diana’s chairs, he leaned forward. “Another ghost in Wicks Hollow? Shocker.”
“Don’t you have customers to see to?” Ethan asked with a grin.
“I do, but this is much more interesting,” Trib replied with a flap of his hand. “And if you don’t spill, Teddy Mack, I’m going to out you to Maxine and Juanita. And then they’ll tell Iva, and you’ll really be in trouble. Iva loves her ghosts.”
“Who are they?” Oscar asked as Ethan said, “Ouch. That wouldn’t be good.”
Ethan looked at Oscar. “You haven’t had the pleasure, then. Lucky soul. And how does one explain Maxine and Juanita—and the rest of the Tuesday Ladies?”
“Never mind that,” Teddy said. “Oscar’s just trying to change the subject again because he doesn’t want to talk about the weird things that have been happening at the lighthouse.”
Damn. Foiled again. Oscar gave her a weak smile and lifted his champagne flute in a white-flag toast.
“Tell us. Can’t be any weirder than what happened last summer when my Aunt Jean was haunting me,” Diana said as blithely as if she’d been ordering a glass of water. She glanced at Oscar. “Don’t worry—I didn’t want to believe it at first myself.”
“But then she really had no choice because ghostly Jean began throwing books around, and she messed up her kitchen once,” Ethan said. “And that’s when Diana called me over to rescue her from the specter.”
Her eyes widened and began to shoot sapphire sparks. “That is completely not true. You never rescued me, you—” She began to laugh. “You did that on purpose.”
“I just like to see you get all stiff and prissy so I can soften you up later.”
“Oh, get a room, you two.” Trib snorted. “Some of us don’t want to live vicariously through your hot and heavy romance.”
“Why are you complaining? Did things go south with Lionel?” Diana touched his hand. “You two seemed to be getting along so well.”
“No—well, I don’t know,” Trib replied, his voice approaching a distraught whine. “He’s just been so—distracted lately. I don’t know. Anyway, forget about me—I want to hear about the ghost at the lighthouse, Teddy. Do you think it could be Stuart Millore?”
“You mean the man who jumped—or fell—off the top?” Teddy replied.
“Or was push
ed,” Oscar added, and was rewarded when his housemate gave him a warm smile. His insides, dammit, lurched.
“Or was pushed. Maybe he was pushed. In fact, Oscar, wait—don’t you remember? That’s exactly what we were talking about when the door blew shut and inexplicably locked. About whether he might have been pushed. Which would make it murder,” she added unnecessarily.
The sparkle in her eyes should have made him wary—after all, she was excited over someone getting killed?—but Oscar thought he was beginning to understand how her mind worked. A little strange, but logical in its own way.
“And if there’s murder,” Ethan said, “it makes sense for a ghost to be attached to the location.”
“And for said ghost to scream bloody murder at one thirty every night in a reenactment of its dying moments as its corporeal person catapulted from the top of a lighthouse,” Teddy said, her eyes still dancing.
“Every night?” Oscar repeated weakly.
“Yes. Surely you’ve been hearing it too.” She gave him a sharp look.
Well, yes. But he didn’t realize she had been hearing it.
“Anyway, I don’t think you can deny it, Oscar. There’s a ghost haunting Stony Cape Lighthouse.”
Nine
“You have some questions,” Teddy said, resting her head back against the seat of Oscar’s Jeep. She was relaxed and happy, had been well fed and well entertained this evening, and best of all: the book was done.
She’d had just enough wine to make her a little loose, but far from sloppy or goofy. And she couldn’t stop thinking about how cute Dr. Oscar London was—and what a fun dinner partner he’d turned out to be.
“Just a few,” he said, his mouth a little grim as he followed the broad sweep of a curve along the wooded road. “Why didn’t you mention hearing the scream every night?”
“I was too busy trying to finish a bloody book,” she said. “I had other more important things on my mind than a ghostly presence. Why didn’t you mention it?” she countered, enjoying her companion’s adorable sense of unease.
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