Michael frowned, the beauty of his smile fading, replaced with concern.
Her head cocked to the left. Her brain was addled by the wonk of a lifetime and her patience was all but shot. Yet, Michael without a smile on his face troubled her. He was her good-time Charlie ghost. Nary a trouble. “I don’t get it? Is there something else you’re trying to tell me that I’m failing miserably at understanding?”
Now he graced her with a warm, gleaming smile of acknowledgment. The laughter he’d been known for in his life whispered all around her in a swirl of delighted echoes. “Bonanza!”
She slapped a hand to her forehead, letting it slide over her weary eyes. “Oh, good. I hit the jackpot. Thank God I got something right, because Christ knows I’ve done nothing right so far. Wanna tell me what I hit?” Her hand fell from her face only to find him gone.
“Hey,” she shouted at the ceiling. “Come back here. Was this one of your jokes? ’Cause I’m eggshell fragile right now, friend. This is me telling you, not flippin’ funny.”
The knock on the door startled her. “Delaney?”
She flung it open with a grunt. “Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“Dope.”
“Am not.”
“Not you, Clyde. Dope means I’m fine. I’m so fine, I couldn’t be finer.”
“Then why were you yelling?”
“Because Michael Landon makes me crazy sometimes.”
He looked at her like she’d just gotten her crazy on. “Like Bo nanza from 1959 to 1973 Michael Landon? Like Little House on the Prairie 1974 to 1983 Michael Landon? Little Joe? Charles Ingalls?”
Oy. “The one and only. I take it you were a fan?”
“My mother was. Loved him. So you don’t just talk to dead people, you talk to dead famous people, too?”
“I talk to anybody who wants to talk to me, including dead celebrities. They pop in from time to time. I’m a captive audience, what can I say?” Her eyes cast downward, refusing to get lost in the depths of his. Lord only knew what her now awakened libido would do if she lingered.
“Someone’s here to see you.”
She poked her head around the door to scan her alarm clock. “It’s five in the morning. Is it Kellen? Is he okay?” Her heart began to thrash against her ribs.
“No. It’s not Kellen. It’s Marcella.”
Oh, that meant hard-core.
Let the Spanish Inquisition begin.
thirteen
Clyde dragged a finger over her cheek, holding out his hand to her. She let him tug her to the kitchen, where Marcella sat at her small Formica table, drumming her pink nails on the surface.
“You girls talk. I’ll take the puppies to bed.” He planted a kiss on Delaney’s forehead, corralled the dogs, and left her in awkward silence with her friend.
Marcella swung around in the seat, straddling the back of it with her long, bare legs. The olive of her skin gleamed under the kitchen light; her eyes, dark like the blackest coffee, were hard. She pinned Delaney with her gaze and held it like she was holding on to a sale item at Ann Taylor.
“You’re in for a world of hurt, Delaney Markham. When this is over, you’ll need someone to listen to you whine and snivel while I pass tissues to you and talk you out of eating the whole bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken that’ll only end up on your ass. You’re short—all that extra weight’s going to be very unattractive on someone of your stature, and I refuse to pacify you with bullshit like you’re just big-boned. That someone should be me. You don’t have any other friends. So the responsibility of keeping you from going emo with a blunt object and leaving this cruel world when that Clyde goes falls on me. I’m all about burdens.” Her gaze dared Delaney to defy her assessment.
Her throat tightened. She so wanted to share everything with Marcella. Yet she knew she couldn’t—shouldn’t. “It’s none of your business,” she said with an offhanded tone.
Marcella shrugged her shoulders with feigned indifference. “Of course not, darling. It isn’t my business until he runs over your heart like a Sherman tank. Then what will happen? You’ll be calling me on the phone crying, apologizing, telling me how right I was and how wrong you were. Why not just let me save you the trouble by crucifying him now so we don’t have to shop for wrinkle reducers? They’re so overpriced.”
“You’re not right.” Shit.
Marcella’s eyebrow rose, condescending and sure. “How do you figure? Is he or is he not a demon?”
Vague. Be vague and noncommittal, Delaney. “Sort of . . .”
Marcella leaned forward with a hand on her full hip, pressing for an answer. “Is he or is he not here on some kind of day pass that has no choice but to be revoked?”
Her gut shuddered hard. Her throat clogged. “Maybe.”