“I’ll be right in, Mom. God, gimme a minute.” Hoping her embarrassment didn’t show too much, she turned back to Gavin. “I, um, gotta go.”
“I understand. Perhaps we could meet later?”
“I’d love that.” Don’t gush, Maya! Then she remembered Blake would be at her house after work. “Um, but I’m getting together with friends later. How about we meet tomorrow afternoon? Around four-thirty?”
His lips curled up in a half-smile that promised hard, rough kisses. “I’ll be counting the hours.”
“Um, cool, I, uh--”
Maya’s mother saved her from further embarrassment by opening the door again. “Maya! We’ve got tables waiting! Shake a leg.”
“Sorry. I really gotta go. See you tomorrow.” She fled into the noisy safety of the diner before her tongue made her sound like a complete spaz. But he’d been so handsome! Then there was no time to even think about the encounter as her mother pushed an apron into her hands and told her to bring coffees to table seven.
It wasn’t until her shift ended that she realized she hadn’t given Gavin her number, or gotten his.
Great. That’s twice this week you’ve acted like you’ve never met a guy before. At least Blake, thanks to his being dead and all, had a way of finding her. The only thing Gavin knows is where you work. Which means hanging out by the diner after karate practice tomorrow, hoping he’ll show up.
That thought led to another. What about Blake?
She knew what Lucy would say. “It’s a no-brainer. You just started dating Blake. You’re not married to him. You’re not even going steady or anything. You’re totally free to see someone else. Especially a McHottie like Gavin.”
The imagination-Lucy was right. She wasn’t tied to Blake. Forget the fact he was a ghost. They hardly knew each other. Besides, what if Gavin turned out to be the right guy for her. How would she know if she didn’t at least go on one date with him?
The weird thing was Gavin was the total opposite of Blake. The fresh-faced, serious kid vs. the darkly sensual man. Day vs. night. Good guy vs. stereotypical bad guy. You knew they’d both open a door for you, but you also knew Gavin would check out your butt, maybe even snap a pic of it on his cellphone, as you walked past. Blake would always be there for you. Gavin would burn like fire for a month, and then you’d find out he had a girlfriend back in Boston. Or maybe two. Blake would become friends with your friends. Gavin would try to date them.
And yet somehow, she felt drawn to Gavin, as if a dark, dangerous gravitational field surrounded him and it was pulling her in.
The Lucy in her head laughed and rolled her eyes. “So do the horizontal mambo with Gavin and then go back to Blake.”
“God, Lucy, all you think about is sex.”
“Excuse me?”
Maya turned from hanging up her apron and saw an elderly woman by the bathroom door giving her a confused look.
“Um, I said, this hook is loose; it’ll fall off next.”
The spinster-type stared for a moment longer then went into the ladies room, shaking her cotton-topped head.
Great. Now I’m talking to myself. Get a grip, Maya. What are you gonna tell Blake when you see him?
By the time she reached her house, she still had no answer to that question.
Chapter 10
When she saw Blake sitting on her front porch, a wave of guilt washed over Maya. How could she think about hurting him? He already looked like a scared puppy, hiding in the corner, afraid someone might kick him.
“Hi, Blake.” She put extra sunshine into her greeting, and he rewarded her with a smile.
“Hello, Maya. I got here early. I hope that’s all right. I didn’t really have anywhere else to go.”
“No, that’s fine.” Maya rummaged through her pockets until she located her house keys. She found it really didn’t bother her, either. Yet, if Stuart had done something like that while they were dating, she’d have bitched him out, told him how creepy it was.
Is that because Blake is dead and no one could see him there anyhow? Or because he’s a decent guy, and Stuart was kind of a creep?
“Is this a good time to talk? I really need to tell you what’s going on. You could be in--”
“So, this is the guy you dumped me for?”
Crap. Not now. Wondering if thinking about Stuart acted like a spell and called him to her, she turned to face her ex-boyfriend, feeling her face already drawing into a frown.
“What, you’re spying on me now, Stuart? Why don’t you just get a life and stay out of mine?” She walked across the porch and stood at the top step, staring down at him. A cold presence against her back told her Blake was standing close to her.
Stuart Newman’s square face turned red as he approached the stairs. “Don’t tell me what to do. You’ve got some nerve after you lied right to my face about seeing someone else.”
“I never lied to you.” She had to bite down on her lip to keep the rest of her sentence to herself. At least not about the dating part.
“I call bull on that.” He pointed past her. “And there’s the proof, just like Mary Ellen told me.”
“Oh, so now you believe the Wicked Slut of the West instead of me? You’re getting more whacked by the day. Just go home and leave us alone.”
Stuart came up the steps until he was only inches from her. “Oh, I’ll leave you alone. Soon as I teach your little friend here that it ain’t okay to steal someone’s girlfriend.”
Before Maya knew what had happened, Stuart pushed her to the side and charged Blake, his right hand already formed into a fist and swinging.
Blake just stood still, a blank expression on his face, as if resigned to his fate.
Maya watched with sick fascination as Stuart’s fist passed right through Blake and kept going. Thrown off balance by finding only air where he expected solid matter, Stuart’s body followed his hand, falling forward and hitting the railing with his waist. With a surprised grunt, he flipped over the railing, looking very much like the football players he tackled so well for the Coronado Bay Pirates each Saturday.
He landed hard, his head striking one of Emily Blair’s garden statues with a sound like someone dropping a melon on the sidewalk.
To Maya, it seemed as if the world stopped. Nothing moved. The only thing she heard was a buzzing in her ears. Even the air paused, like an invisible animal ready to pounce.
Then, her lungs heaved in a deep breath, and the world turned back on.
“Oh, crap.” She ran down the steps. Stuart lay atop her mother’s azaleas, his head next to a cement mushroom, his eyes closed. She slid her hand under his head. A sizeable lump was already forming, but her hand came back free of blood.
“He’s okay, I think. Just stunned. But I better call a doctor.”
For someone who had no actual blood, Blake looked paler than normal. “Maya, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. Let me help you.”
She shook her head. “It’s not your fault. He’s an asshole. That’s why I dumped him. But it’ll be better if you’re not here when he wakes up. Hopefully he won’t remember what happened.”
“But--”
“I’m sorry, Blake. I know you want to talk. I wanna talk, too. But I have to go call an ambulance, so you’ve gotta get out of here. I promise, we’ll sit down and talk about whatever you want.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No. Tomorrow I’ve got karate class after school and...and then a study group,” she finished, hating the guilt demon squirming inside her, hating herself for lying to him. Why couldn’t she just be like Lucy and cheat without a conscience? “But definitely Tuesday. Tuesday for sure. Now go.” She pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911.
Stuart moaned and moved his head.
“Hurry. He’s waking up.”
When Blake didn’t answer, Maya glanced up and saw he’d already left.
It never occurred to her he might still be close by.
Blake watched from behind the neighbor�
�s house as the white vehicle with the flashing lights pulled into Maya’s property. He’d recognized the word ambulance when she’d said it, but the screaming vehicle that arrived had nothing in common with the ambulances of his time other than the color. Two men in white uniforms examined the boy Maya called Stuart, placed him on a rolling table, and then slid him into the vehicle. Maya and one of the men, who Blake assumed was a doctor of some kind, got in the back with Stuart and shut the doors. The other doctor drove the vehicle away.
Once Maya was gone, Blake stepped out into the open, knowing he couldn’t be seen by anyone else.
What do I do now? Sooner or later Gavin or his men will find Maya again. And whatever they do to her, it will be bad. Very bad.
He had to find a way to get her to listen to him. But it seemed fate had something else in mind and was taking personal pleasure in throwing obstacles in his way. And, Maya’s personality didn’t help. Unlike the demure, sedentary girls of his time, she never sat still for a moment. She also talked more - much more - than the girls he’d known when alive, making it hard to even start the conversation he needed so badly to finish.
None of that matters. I’ve got to find a way. If anything happens to her, it will be my fault.
Frustration boiled over. He kicked out at a nearby lawn chair, which remained perfectly stable as his foot passed through. “Damn!”
Next to him, sparks burst from an electrical socket on the outside of the house.
Blake’s anger drained away as he stared at the smoking outlet. Did I do that?
He’d previously thought only Gavin could affect the physical world, that it was somehow related to his use of magic when alive. What if it’s something all ghosts can do? Something I could do again?
And if he could do it again, could he learn to control it the way Gavin did?
More importantly, would it be enough to stop Gavin and his plans?
* * *
Maya lay in bed, her cell phone cradled against one ear, only half-concentrating on her conversation with Lucy. Her body and head were at war, and it was distracting her to no end. All her body wanted to do was go to sleep, but her brain resisted. It was in hyper drive, unable to slow down after everything that had happened.
“So, what did they say at the hospital?”
“What?” Maya tried to focus on Lucy’s words. It sounded as if she were eating popcorn, which made the whole listening thing doubly difficult. “Oh. He’s fine. No concussion. But he can’t play football for three days.”
Lucy laughed. “I’ll bet that went over real well.”
“Yeah, he’s even more pissed at me now. I’m telling you, he scared the crap out of me. I’ve never seen him so mad.”
“Forget about him. Tell me more about this Gavin guy. He sounds like a drop-dead hottie.”
“He is.” Just thinking about Gavin brought his image into Maya’s head, his dark eyes burning with so much intensity he seemed to be looking right through her and into another dimension.
“So, spill already. What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know. It’s like I’m living in a tornado. I thought my life would be so simple after I dumped Stuart. Now I’ve got two new guys asking me out and a psycho ex-boyfriend stalking me.”
Lucy made a noise that was supposed to be a violin playing sad music, but which came out as a sort of spitting sound. Maya pictured pieces of popcorn hitting the phone. Lucy was many things, but demure would never be one of them. “Oh, poor baby. Boo hoo. So many men she doesn’t know what to do. It’s simple, sweetie. You see both of them. You’re sixteen, you don’t need to be tied to one guy. You’ve been there, done that. Now’s the time to live a little.”
“I’m not like you, Lucy. I can’t bounce between guys.”
“And, you don’t bounce on them, either,” Lucy said, not the least offended by Maya’s comment. “That’s even worse. You need to lighten up, girl. The way I see it, you’ve only got one real problem here.”
“One? I can think of a dozen. Which one are you talking about?”
“Who you gonna ask to the dance, Blake or Gavin?”
Long after she hung up with Lucy, Maya still couldn’t answer that question.
Chapter 11
On Monday, Lucy refused to drop the subject of Maya and her romantic problems. Since Maya couldn’t get her relationship issues, or lack of them, out of her head anyhow, Lucy’s one-track mind didn’t get on her nerves as much as it normally might have.
“The worst part is, I can’t get in touch with either of them,” Maya said, as she and Lucy sat down to eat lunch. Monday meant meatloaf with instant mashed potatoes, so they’d both opted for salads.
“Why not?”
“Blake doesn’t have a cell phone, and I...I can’t call him at his house. And I forgot to get Gavin’s number, or give him mine. It’s like I turn into a complete dork around both of them.”
“Practice makes perfect,” Lucy mumbled around a mouthful of salad. After swallowing, she continued. “It’s like learning to drive a car. You’ve got to remember to look in the mirror, use the blinkers, and work the pedals. But pretty soon you’ve got that baby rockin’ and rollin’ like a superstar.”
“Are you talking about cars or sex?”
Lucy raised one eyebrow. “Dude. If I were talking about sex, I’d use better metaphors than blinkers and pedals. Nastier, too. It doesn’t matter anyhow. You don’t have to worry about either one of them. You’ll see them sooner or later, and my guess is sooner.”
Maya frowned. “How do you know that?”
“Because, silly, they both know where you work, and Blake knows where you live. You just better hope they don’t show up at the same time!”
Until then, the possibility hadn’t even occurred to her. But once in her head, it refused to go away.
For the rest of the afternoon, Maya kept her mental fingers crossed.
* * *
“Focus, Maya!”
Maya clenched her teeth and nodded at Master Spiegel. As much as she wanted to tell him to stop picking on her, she knew she wasn’t bringing her A-game to the mat, as her father liked to say. The praise Spiegel had given her for successfully defending herself had rapidly devolved into, first, annoyance, and then barely-hidden frustration as she constantly missed her marks and was late blocking strikes from her opponents. The sting of being hit on the face and chest only compounded her aggravation further.
So, it was a relief to both of them when the class ended, and she was able to head to the locker room to change.
“Maya.”
She stopped when Spiegel called her name, too embarrassed with her performance to even turn and look at her instructor.
“It’s obvious something’s on your mind. My suggestion is to go home and do some intense meditation. Clear your head and, then, you’ll be able to think about whatever’s troubling you without your emotions getting in the way.”
Keeping her back to him, she nodded again. “Yes, Master Spiegel.”
Like that’s gonna help. My emotions are what’s troubling me. As in, I’m attracted to two guys, and I have no freakin’ idea what’s the right thing to do.
In the locker room, she changed back into her street clothes, wishing for the millionth time the dojo had showers. She hated putting on clean clothes after sweating like a pig for forty-five minutes. She always made sure to go right home after her class, not even stopping for a soda anywhere. It was tough enough as a girl in a small town to compete with people like Mary Ellen Gordon, who somehow always looked picture-perfect, even after gym class. She had no desire to get spotted walking through town looking - and smelling - like she’d just run a marathon.
So she was relieved when she got home without seeing anyone she knew. Looking forward to a long, cool shower followed by a giant glass of ice tea, Maya was digging through her purse for her keys as she approached the porch, and never noticed the figure standing there until he spoke.
“Hello, Maya.”
Maya’s heart did a fast dance, and she dropped her keys as she looked up.
Gavin! But how did he know where I lived?
Her brain answered even as her mouth managed to stammer out a weak hello.
Hello, brain dead much? All he had to do was look up the address in the phone book.
The idea that he might have followed her never even crossed her mind.
“I hope it’s all right that I waited for you here. No one answered when I knocked.”
“Um, yeah, it’s cool.” Startled and mortified and slightly turned on all at once, Maya bent down and grabbed her keys, her eyes never leaving Gavin. He looked dangerously out of place on her porch, in his black pants, frilly white shirt, thigh-length black coat, and tall black leather boots. With his pale complexion and raven hair, he had an almost Goth look that went enticingly well with his ‘I-don’t-give-a-damn’ attitude. Even from ten feet away, he caused funny feelings in her stomach, what Grandma Crompton always called butterflies.
She wondered how he could look so cool, not a single hair out of place or a drop of sweat on him, dressed in such heavy clothes, while she felt like a potato roasting in the oven, thanks to the overly-warm afternoon.
That reminded her of her own sweaty, sticky body. Oh, God, I probably smell like old gym socks. I wonder if I can get past him fast enough so that I don’t repulse him too much.
Keeping her arms tight against her sides, Maya hugged the railing and post as she edged by Gavin, who just stood there, not moving closer - thank God! - but not giving an inch, either. One corner of his mouth tipped up in a slightly sardonic fashion, as if he were aware of her discomfort and considered it humorous.
Maya unlocked the door and stepped inside, immensely grateful for the cool air conditioning washing over her body and drying the perspiration. “C’mon in,” she said, giving him a wave, and then found he was already inside, his crow eyes flitting back and forth, taking in every detail of the living room.
Although all she wanted to do was run upstairs and get in the shower, Maya forced herself to play the good hostess. “Do you want something to eat or drink? We’ve got ice tea, soda, water, and I know there’s chips and crackers. Maybe cookies, too. My parents are always bringing the leftover desserts home from the diner.”
Ghosts of Coronado Bay Page 7
