There was also a smell that permeated the space, something that reminded me of wet dog. I tried to slow my breathing. Hyperventilating would only let me smell more of the fetid perfume the ghosts had left.
“Do ghosts have a smell?” I asked, trying to remember if that was something I’d heard, along the lines of haunted spaces feeling chillier than the rest of a room.
“I guess so,” Michael said.
There were no ghosts here now, but clearly something or someone had been here. We had proof. I wasn’t crazy. But a search of the house revealed—unsurprisingly—nothing at all.
17
Drool Can be Sexy
Michael
Our late night adventures might have led to a late morning sleeping in, only the sun streaming in through the filmy bedroom windows had us stirring at the crack of seven.
I watched Addie for a few minutes, lying on my side on the floor not far from her bed. The morning light was illuminating her golden skin, and her dark hair spread across the pillow. Her dark lashes fanned across her cheeks, and her lips were rosy as she frowned the tiniest bit in her sleep. The tiniest little drizzle of drool left a dark spot on her pillow, and something about that—about seeing something that reminded me that for all of her seeming perfection, she was very human—it made me feel closer to her.
The dark eyes fluttered open as I watched, and I rolled to my back, stretching and trying hard to pretend I hadn’t just been watching her sleep like some kind of creeper.
“Morning,” she said softly, her voice still dreamy.
“Good morning,” I said.
She glanced at Daniel, who lay sprawled, arms flung over his head, one leg kicked free of his sleeping bag.
“He won’t be up for hours,” I told her. “His record is two p.m.”
“Wow.” She chuckled and sat up, stretching her arms overhead in a way that made her long-sleeved T-shirt pull across her chest. I forced my eyes away as she slid from her bed, still in the sweats she’d worn to watch the movie. They were casual and cute, and I had a fleeting feeling that we were playing house, that maybe this is how it would be if we were really together. Not the waking in separate beds part, but waking up together, getting to see one another in those pre-breakfast moments when we are all just human.
“Shall we knock out the rest of the floors?” She asked. “I’ve totally mastered that sander. Made it my bitch yesterday.”
“Oh really?” I asked, laughing at that statement coming out of this particular woman’s mouth.
“Totally.”
“Breakfast first. Coffee,” I said, wishing I could pop out of bed feeling ready to conquer the world. But I was fueled on caffeine, and there wasn’t much to be done about that.
“Meet you in the kitchen in ten,” she said. And the most impressive thing about Addie Tanner? She let me have the bathroom first.
Ten minutes later, I entered the kitchen, embraced by the scent of coffee and the sight of Addie at the sink, holding a mug and gazing out the window at the side yard.
“Those floors look good,” I told her. I’d walked through the parlor and foyer again before coming into the kitchen. Addie had done a good job. “You weren’t kidding about telling that sander what’s up.”
“I never kid about my mastery of power tools. Now I just wish I could master them well enough to get the front porch put back together. I want to drink my coffee out there on a rocking chair.”
I laughed at Addie’s power-tool confidence. “Really? Have you mastered a lot of power tools? In New York City I can’t imagine you were doing a lot of home renovation.”
She turned and leaned against the counter as I sipped my coffee. “No, not really,” she said. “I’m handy with an electric screwdriver if you need me to put up some curtains, though.”
“Might need those to avoid waking at the crack of dawn every weekend.”
“I like being up early,” she said as I joined her in leaning against the counter. “The day feels like it could still go perfectly.”
“And then it gets rolling and you realize that perfect doesn’t exist?”
“Something like that.” Her words were so leaden with disappointment, I wanted to ask her why. I wanted to know who had let her down so terrifically. I suspected the answer would be the man she’d talked about in New York, and I knew I had no right to ask. But I had come to feel a little bit protective of the woman at my side—Tanner, though she was.
“I like that idea,” I said, hoping she might open up a bit more. “That the day is stretched out ahead of us, perfect and full of possibility.”
That earned me a smile, but her gaze lingered on my face and the smile turned into a half frown, like she was trying to figure something out.
“What?”
“You’re not an optimist by nature,” she suggested.
“I haven’t found a lot of reasons to be optimistic,” I said.
“Someone left you a house out of nowhere. And two hundred thousand dollars to use to fix it.”
“Came with a few burdens,” I quipped. “Like a Tanner in residence.”
Addie elbowed me in the side, and despite the coffee that sloshed over the rim of my cup, I thrilled at that little familiar touch. “You’re not so bad, I guess,” I said.
“Oh, thanks.” She looked into her own cup. “I’m working on my own optimism. So we can work on it together while we fix the house, I guess.”
“Are you a reformed optimist?”
She looked at me, and I could feel the change in the air between us the second she decided to confide in me. “I am. I used to believe the best of people. I believed you could count on them, depend on them if they said you could. But I know better now.”
“Who let you down, Addie?” I put down my mug and faced her.
Addie met my eyes, and the depth of sadness there lit a fire inside me. Whoever had turned this pretty, smart, independent woman into a pessimist deserved to be unhappy for the rest of his life.
“His name was Luke. I thought we were going to get married. Have kids. I waited eight years for him to think the same thing.”
I sighed. Clearly, it hadn’t gone that way. I was sad for Addie, but didn’t feel terribly torn up about it really. He clearly didn’t deserve her.
“I came home from work one day to a letter. More of a note, actually.”
“A note?” Fury stirred inside me, despite the fact I’d had only a half cup of coffee. No asshole should write anyone off with a note.
“He said I was holding him back. That he’d had an opportunity to join a symphony in Europe and had turned it down once already because of me. He took it this time and left.”
“Seems like that’s more of a conversation after eight years. Not a note.”
“Right?” Addie stared into her cup. I could almost feel the self-doubt that asshole’s actions had lodged in her otherwise confident persona.
“Hey,” I said, touching her hand. Her skin was warm, soft. “That’s on him. That wasn’t about you.”
“I wasn’t enough to make him want to stay.” Her expression was so defeated, I felt like I’d do anything to wipe it from her face, change it to a smile.