Meg Cabot - Haunted

While I myself do not hold my stepbrothers in very high esteem - with the exception of David, of course - that didn't mean I could sit idly by while someone maligned them to my face. At least, not Jake, who was, for the most part, fairly inoffensive.

"What's wrong with my brother?" I demanded a little hotly. "I mean, my stepbrother?"

"Well, nothing against him, really," Craig said. "But, you know . . . well. I mean, I know Neil's just a freshman and impressionable and all that, but I warned him, you can't get anywhere at NoCal unless you hang with the surfers."

I had, by that time, had about all I could take from Craig Jankow.

"Okay," I said, walking to my bedroom door. "Well, it was great to meet you, Craig. You'll be hearing from me." He would, too. I'd know how to find him. All I'd have to do is look for Neil, and ten to one, I'd find Craig trailing along behind.

Craig looked eager. "You mean you're going to try to bring me back to life?"

"No," I said. "I mean, like, I'll determine why you are still here, and not where you're supposed to be."

"Right," Craig said. "Alive."

"I think she means in heaven," Jesse said. Jesse doesn't go much for the whole reincarnation thing the way I do. "Or hell."

Craig, who had taken to eyeing Jesse quite nervously since the whole incident by the door, looked alarmed.

"Oh," he said, his dark eyebrows raised. " Oh ."

"Or your next life," I said with a meaningful look at Jesse. "We don't really know. Do we, Jesse?"

Jesse, who'd stood up because I'd stood up - and Jesse was nothing if not gentlemanly in front of ladies - said with obvious reluctance, "No. We don't."

Craig went to the door, then looked back at both of us.

"Well," he said. "See you around, I guess." Then he glanced over at Jesse and said, "And, um, I'm sorry about that pirate remark. Really."

Jesse said gruffly, "That's all right."

Then Craig was gone.

And Jesse let loose.

"Susannah, that boy is trouble. You must turn him over to Father Dominic."

I sighed and sank down onto the place on the window seat that Jesse had just vacated. Spike, as was his custom when I approached and Jesse was anywhere in the near vicinity, hissed at me, to make it clear to whom he belonged . . . namely, not me, even though I am the one who pays for his food and litter.

"He'll be fine, Jesse," I said. "We'll keep an eye on him. He needs a little time is all. He just died, for crying out loud."

Jesse shook his head, his dark eyes flashing.

"He's going to try to kill his brother," he warned me.

"Well, yeah," I said. "Now that you put the idea in his head."

"You must call Father Dominic." Jesse strode over to the phone and picked it up. "Tell him he must meet with this boy, the brother, and warn him."

"Whoa," I said. "Slow down, Jesse. I can handle this without having to drag Father Dom into it."

Jesse looked skeptical. The thing is, even when looking skeptical, Jesse is the hottest guy I have ever seen. I mean, he's not perfect-looking or anything - there's a scar through his right eyebrow, clean and white as a chalk mark, and he is, as I think I've observed before, somewhat fashion impaired.

But in every other way, the guy is Stud City, from the top of his close-cropped black hair to his swashbuckling - I mean, riding - boots, and the six feet or so of extremely uncadaverous-looking muscle in between.

Too bad his interest in me is apparently completely platonic. Maybe if I'd been a better kisser . . . But come on, it's not like I've had a lot of opportunity to practice. Guys - normal guys - don't exactly come flocking to my door. Not that I am a dog or anything. In fact, I think I look quite passable, when fully made up with my hair nicely blown out. It is just that it is a bit hard to have a social life when you are constantly being solicited by the dead.

"I think you should call him," Jesse said, thrusting the phone at me again. "I am telling you, querida . There is more to this Craig than meets the eye."

I blinked, but not because of what Jesse had said about Craig. No, it was because of what he'd called me. Querida . He hadn't called me that, not once, since that day we'd kissed. I had, in fact, missed hearing the word from his lips so much that I had actually gotten curious about what it meant and looked it up in Brad's Spanish dictionary.

"Dearest one." That is what querida meant. "Dearest one," or "sweetheart."

Which isn't exactly what you call someone for whom you feel mere friendship.

I hoped.

I didn't let on, however, that I knew what the word meant, any more than I let on that I'd noticed he'd allowed it to slip out.

"You're overreacting, Jesse," I said. "Craig's not going to do anything to his brother. He loves the guy. He just doesn't seem to have remembered that yet. And, besides, even if he didn't - even if he did have homicidal intentions toward Neil - what makes you think all of a sudden that I can't handle it? I mean, come on, Jesse. It's not like I'm unaccustomed to bloodthirsty ghosts."

Jesse put the phone down so hard that I thought he'd cracked the plastic cradle.

"That was before," he said shortly.

I stared at him. It had grown dark outside, and the only light on in my room was the little one on my dressing table. In its golden glow, Jesse looked even more otherwordly than usual.

"Before what?" I demanded.

Except that I knew. I knew.

"Before he came," Jesse said, with a certain amount of bitter emphasis on the pronoun. "And don't try to deny it, Susannah. You have not slept a full night since. I have seen you tossing and turning. You cry but in your sleep sometimes."

I didn't have to ask who he was. I knew. We both knew.

"That's nothing," I said, even though of course it wasn't. It was something. It was definitely something. Just not what Jesse apparently thought it was. "I mean, I'm not saying I wasn't scared when you and I thought we were trapped in that . . . place. And, yeah, I have nightmares about it, sometimes. But I'll get over it, Jesse. I'm getting over it."

"You aren't invulnerable, Susannah," Jesse said with a frown. "However much you might think differently."

I was more than a little surprised that he'd noticed. In fact, I'd begun to wonder if perhaps it was because I didn't act vulnerable - or, okay, feminine - enough that he'd only grabbed and kissed me that once, and never tried to do it again.

Except of course as soon as he accused me of being vulnerable, I had to go and deny it was true.

"I'm fine," I insisted. No point in mentioning to him that, in fact, I was far from fine . . . that the mere sight of Paul Slater had nearly caused me to have a heart attack. "I told you. I'm over it, Jesse. And even if I wasn't, it's not like it's going to keep me from helping Craig. Or Neil, really."

But it was like he wasn't even listening.

"Let Father Dominic take this one," Jesse said. He nodded toward the door through which Craig had just walked - literally. "You aren't ready yet. It's too soon."

Now I wished I had told him about Paul... told him nonchalantly, as if it were nothing, to prove to him that that's what it was to me . . . nothing.

Except of course it wasn't. And it never would be.

"Your solicitude," I said sarcastically in order to hide my discomfort over the whole thing - the fact that I was lying to him, not just about Paul but about myself as well - "is appreciated but misplaced. I can handle Craig Jankow, Jesse."

He frowned again. But this time, I could see, he really was annoyed. Were we ever to actually date, I knew it would take a lot of Oprah viewing before Jesse learned to get over his nineteenth-century machismo.

"I will go," he said threateningly, his dark eyes looking black as onyx in the light from my dressing table, "and tell Father Dominic myself."