Нора Робертс - The Last Boyfriend

He broke away first, stared down at her like a man coming out of a trance. “What was that? What was that?”

“I don’t know.” And wasn’t sure she cared, not when his arms tightened around her again. She held that shimmering instant, leaned in.

Someone banged on the door.

“Owen? Avery?” Beckett called out. “What’s going on? Unlock the damn door.”

“Hold on.” Carefully, Owen released Avery. “Hold on,” he repeated, to her this time. Catching his breath, he crossed to the door. It opened smoothly.

“What the hell?” Beckett demanded, then tracked his gaze to the open porch door. “Oh.”

“It’s nothing. It’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”

“Murphy said you and Avery were in here.” Beckett glanced over his shoulder to make sure the kids weren’t close by. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. All good. We’re, ah, going for pizza.”

“Right. Make sure that door’s shut.”

“I’ve got it.” Quietly, Avery shut the porch door, turned the latch.

“Good enough. I’ll see you at Vesta.”

Beckett gave them both one last look before he walked away.

Staring at Avery, Owen stood where he was, one hand on the knob of the open door.

“I guess that was weird,” she began. “Was that weird?”

“I don’t know.”

“I guess . . . all that talk about romance and love . . . It just triggered whatever.”

“Yeah. Probably. Okay.”

She took a long breath, crossed to him. “I don’t want it to be weird.”

“Okay.”

“We should probably get out of here. This room, I mean.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going over to give Dave a hand.”

“Okay.”

She punched him in the chest. “Is that all you can say? Okay, okay, okay?”

“Right now it seems safest.”

“Safest, my ass.” She let out a long breath again. “It’s not going to be weird, and don’t say okay.”

She sailed away, and down the stairs.

“Okay,” he said under his breath.

He closed the door. When he stepped away he thought he heard the whisper of female laughter behind it.

“Yeah, some joke,” he muttered. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he scowled his way downstairs.

The cold gripped winter in a breathless, frigid stranglehold. Under the harsh blue skies, every breath of air blew bitter. Another hard frost slicked The Courtyard pavers as Owen trooped up the outside stairs with Beckett and Ryder.

“I don’t want to hear about any changes, flourishes, or what-ifs,” Ryder muttered.

“Let’s just take a look at this.” Beckett led the way into Jane and Rochester.

“Hell of a lot of boxes yet.” Ryder stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Looks like Mom bought enough lamps to light half the town.”

“We might as well take down what we can for N&N when we go back.” Owen gestured to the appropriate area. “What’s the problem in here, Beck?”

“I don’t know if there is one, but it’s about the only private spot in the building right now, and we’ve been surrounded since last night—plus you took off from Avery’s before I could corner you. Now, what the hell happened with Elizabeth?”

“For Christ’s sake.” Ryder pulled off his cap, dragged his fingers through his dense dark brown hair. “You brought us up here to talk ghosts?”

“Murphy was in that room,” Beckett reminded him. “Alone, hall door shut, porch door open. He just turned goddamn six. Clare’s not so freaked by Lizzy anymore. If it hadn’t been for Lizzy writing in the steam on the bathroom mirror down there—however she managed to pull that off—to warn us, we might not have gotten there in time when Freemont went after Clare. Still, Murphy’s just a little boy.”

“Okay.” Ryder stuck his cap back on. “Okay, you’re right about that. But this whole ghost thing’s irritating.”

“Park benches are irritating to you in some moods.”

“Depends on whether or not I want to sit down.”

Beckett just shook his head. “We got most of it out of Murphy. The kid’s got no off button. He decided to go pay her a visit, and went on in. He told her about school, about the pups. She asked after his family.”

“So Murph the Smurf had a social conversation with a ghost,” Ryder commented. “He needs his own TV show. Murph, Host for Ghosts.”

“Funny,” Beckett said dryly. “She went outside, but told him not to come out, that his mother wouldn’t like it. She’d worry. And she told him she liked to stand out there. How she was waiting for Billy. Now that the inn was being fixed, and there were lights and people, she thought he’d be able to find her easier.”

“Billy who?” Ryder asked.

“Exactly. Murphy didn’t get that part.”

“Why are you looking at me?” Owen demanded. “I wasn’t in on any of that. When I went in Avery was already there, and she had Murphy. We sent him up to Clare so she wouldn’t worry.”

“Yeah, then he chatted away about Lizzy, about you and Avery being in there. And I couldn’t get the door open. It wouldn’t budge.”

“So, she was playing games.” Owen shrugged, trying for casual, ending with a jerk. “It’s not the first time.”

“Won’t be the last,” Ryder muttered.

“No, not the first or the last,” Beckett agreed. “But when you opened the door from the inside, you looked like somebody’d knocked you stupid with a blunt object. I want to know what happened between the time you sent Murphy out and when you opened up.”

“Nothing. Especially.”

“Bullshit.” Ryder let out a snort. “You can’t lie worth dick. And if it was nothing especially, why were you all broody over at Vesta? Like a hen on a nest of cracked eggs, then you made noises about paperwork and took off.” Grinning now, Ryder nodded at Beckett. “It was something especially.”

“Cough it up, Owen,” Beckett told him.

“Fine. Fine. Avery filled me in on what Murphy told her. She’s all excited and dreamy. The ghost deal, the waiting for Billy thing. Like it’s a made-for-TV movie. Romantic, love beyond the grave, all that stuff. You know how Avery can get on a theme.”

“Not really.” Ryder shrugged. “I’ve never had a romantic, love-beyond-the-grave conversation with Avery. You?” he asked Beckett.

“Not as I recall. Then again, Owen was her first boyfriend.”

“Cut it out.” Caught between embarrassment and annoyance, Owen shuffled his feet. “She was like five, maybe six. Like Murphy’s age. Jesus.”

“She said she was going to marry you,” Beckett reminded him, snorting along with Ryder now. “And you’d have three dogs, two cats, and five babies. Or maybe it was three babies and five dogs.”

“You got her a ring, bro.”

Trapped, Owen bared his teeth at Ryder. “Out of a frigging gum ball machine. Just playing around. I was a kid, too, for Christ’s sake.”

“Kissed her, right on the mouth,” Beckett remembered.

“It just happened! That honeysuckle-smelling, short-tempered ghost of yours shoved the porch door back open when Avery was leaning against it. The next thing I know she’s wrapped around me, and . . .”

Brows lifted, Beckett angled his head as he studied Owen’s face. “I was talking about when she was five.”

“Oh.”

“But bring us up to date,” Ryder insisted. “You laid one on the Little Red Machine?”

“It just happened,” he insisted. “The door knocked her into me.”

“Yeah, anytime a woman trips, I’m all over them.”

“Suck me,” Owen said to Ryder.

“Must’ve been a hell of a just-happened lip-lock,” Beckett speculated. “Considering how you looked when you unlocked the door.”