Marcella’s face was sympathetic, her blue eyes warm. “You know it doesn’t have to be like that. I can lend you the cash.”
Delaney frowned, though her friend’s concern never failed to touch her. She reached for the clip she held her hair up with, wrapping a fist around the thick width of it and securing it behind her head. “Oh, no, sistah. I’m not borrowing money I might have to pay back well into the afterlife. But thank you. Now go. Both of you.” She waved her hands at them, shooing them from her room. “Go beat each other down with your snark.”
Marcella blew her a kiss. “Oh, I’ll go, but while I’m gone, I’m going to do some digging to see what I can find about this particular demon.”
Fear assaulted Delaney again, fresh and pungent. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow Marcella to become tangled up in this. Yet she kept her tone nonchalant to keep Marcella’s alarm bells from ringing. “Don’t bother, Marcella. Just stay out of it and do what you do best—buy things.” Delaney smiled, giving them each a quick hug, watching as they left, the silent tension between them as thick as it always was. But no matter how much Kellen claimed he couldn’t stand Marcella, it didn’t stop him from eyeballing her stupendous ass on his way out.
And if Delaney were a man, she would, too. ’Cause Marcella was ass-tastic.
And she’d hate her for it, but she didn’t have time for one of the seven deadly sins today. She had a business to run.
A shower and two cups of green tea later, she was ready to do the day. Penning the dogs in her living room with their assorted toys, she drifted to the front of the store, grabbing her feather duster as she went so she could wipe down the shelves lined with herbs.
A rustle of paper made her ears prick with curiosity; a tingle along her spine alerted her to a supernatural presence.
For fuck’s sake.
This was turning into some kind of supernatural Grand Central. No sooner did she ditch one, than another spirit cropped up. She glanced around the empty store, rolling up the sleeves of her oversized sweater. The warmth in her chest, the shiver along her arms meant she had someone’s full attention. “Whoever you are, I’d really, really love you into the next lifetime if you popped back onto this plane, like, later. I promise, whatever the problem is, I’ll help, just not now. I can’t afford to shoot the shit and Sherlock Holmes my way into your mystery at the moment. So cut a medium some slack, and let me have just a couple hours of peace. There’s squat on TV tonight, so come back then. We’ll conversate. Promise.” She held up her hand in the symbol of a Girl Scout’s honor.
The air hummed with the slightest of vibrations, then stilled.
Thank. You.
But the flutter of paper caught the corner of her eye.
Green paper. On the old antique desk that held her cash register.
Green, cashlike paper.
Her fingers reached out and grabbed it, flicking through it, then she flipped through it again for good measure.
Well, if she was counting right, the pieces of green paper added up to a nice number. The number eight hundred.
Word.
four
Delaney held up the thick wad of one-hundred-dollar bills, waving it around her empty store with an angry fist. “I cannot be bought, demon! Take your money, ill-gotten, I’m sure, and hit the highway to Hell.” She plunked it down with a flat hand, shaking the cash register, her breathing choppy with rage. The fuck she’d take money he’d probably stolen from some little old lady.
Clyde appeared with the blink of an eye. He sat casually—on the top of an old armoire that held books on herbal remedies located in the corner of the store.
Naked.
With a patch or ten of hair missing from his arms, legs, and chest.
The sticky residue of duct tape glue covered him from his ankles to his breathtaking chest. His hawklike gaze behind his square frames turned on her as he looked down to the spot where she stood. “I’m only trying to undo what you’ve obsessively declared over and over I’ve done. Robbed you. Blind.”
Delaney looked upward, her eyes connecting with his, desperately trying to avoid the elephant in the room.
His junk, covered—just barely—by his lean hands.
Only a male demon would conjure up a love shank like that. Even in death, the male ego won out on the list of things they were shortchanged with in life. “I don’t want money you most likely stole from someone else.”
His look said offended. “I can assure you, I would never steal.”
Her nose wrinkled. “I can assure you, you’re full of horse puckey.”
Clyde moved his head back and forth in an adamant gesture. “No. I absolutely did not steal it.”
Hookay. “Then how’d you get your hands on eight hundred bucks?”
“The explanation is easy enough. It would seem my accounts aren’t so otherworldly. At least one isn’t. I had a safe deposit box. No one knew about it but me. While I hate to admit it, I used one of these demon skills I now have to get into it.”