“Okay,” she barely muttered, hardly noticing the closing of the door.
Her mouth was hanging open. She knew it because gusts of chilling air swirled around in it, but she almost couldn’t move. Her feet were icicles—unwilling to take the signal from her brain that movement to the car, where heat was wafting from a vent, was critical to warming them up.
Delaney’s hands held fast to the front of her coat.
Clyde was alive.
She couldn’t think that word enough.
Alive.
Living.
So not dead.
Yippee and skippee.
In a millisecond, the feet that had been unwilling to uproot themselves became all motion. She practically stumbled to the car, latching on to the door handle and flinging it open with a grin.
The car light over Clyde’s head beamed. With life.
Life.
Like alive life.
“I take it from the grin on your face my neighbor’s an upstanding guy?”
“I think you have to drive. Because I can’t.”
“Reason being?”
She threw the keys at him. “I can’t. I’m shaking. When I tell you what I just found out, I don’t know if you’ll be able to drive either. We may have to call the paramedics. Maybe we should just stay put while I tell you.”
“I’ll drive, and you’re not making sense, Delaney.”
“None of this makes any sense, Clyde.” Slamming the door, she went around to the passenger side of the car. “Drive. Hurry, before I have apoplexy. We need to get back to the hotel.”
Clyde slipped past her, the look of concern on his face clear under the starry night. He got in the driver-side door, turning the key in the ignition. “Speak, Delaney. You’re freaking me out now.”
She shook her head in astonished disbelief. “Well, it’s good news, if that helps.”
“What would help is if you’d stop looking like you just saw a ghost because on you, that just doesn’t look right. You see them all the time. What happened?”
“Hypotenuse is alive. He’s at your neighbor’s farmhouse with the people who own it.”
Finally, Clyde smiled in a sad sort of fond way. “I’m glad. I don’t know if I could’ve forgiven myself for offing H. He was a good cat. So that’s what’s freaking you?”
“That’s not all.”
His nod was all-knowing. “I should’ve known. So what happened? Please tell me no one else was hurt . . .”
There was just no other way to say it. “You’re alive.”
Clyde didn’t miss a beat. Not a single swerve of the wheel. Rock steady as always. The only hint he might be as shocked as she was came in the way of the roll of his tongue in his cheek. “Repeat?”
“You’re alive, Clyde. You’re alive. Omigod! You’re alive!” she shouted, her voice rising with each word she managed to sputter, not caring that her joy about this news had come out of its closet in all its festive, revealing glory. Laughter spilled from her throat, tears wet her eyes. It didn’t make any sense at all that he was here in the car with her, yet his body was in some hospital. But Clyde was still breathing. Somewhere. She was fully aware she was teetering on the brink of emotional overload, but she didn’t care. Clyde, according to the neighbor’s maid, was alive. What a fucking spectacular word.
“So a thought?” he offered in quiet tones.
Delaney slapped a hand over her mouth, searching for calm reason. “What?” she managed.
“If I’m now only sort of dead, does this mean I can really do myself in if I run us off the road and straight into a tree?”
Glancing his way, Delaney saw he fought to retain the control he was so practiced at. After a long shudder of breath, she replied, “I’m sorry. I should have driven, but you’re always so rational, I figured it was better if you did. Just stay calm and listen to what I just found out. Keep your eyes on the road, because even if you’re only semidead, I think, anyway, I’m not, and I don’t want to be. We have shit to do.” She filled him in with as much composure as she could muster about what the maid had told her, giving as many of the details as she’d garnered from their language-hindered conversation while Clyde kept the car at a steady pace, his facial expression never once even flinching.
“Say something to me, demon.”
“You no longer have the right to call me demon, ghost lady.”
True that. He’d have to be dead to be a demon. And Clyde wasn’t dead. He wasn’t deceased or dearly departed either. No sir ree, Bob. “You’re right. So say something to me, not so dead Clyde.” Excitement that was hard to tamp down rose once more.
“This would be one of the times when I’m supposed to display passion, right?”
Her fingers gripped the sleeve of his jacket when he pulled into the hotel’s driveway. “Yes, Clyde. Passion would be good. Better if it didn’t have to be on command, but still good. You’re alive, Clyde. I don’t know where. I don’t know how in the fuck you survived that, but there it is, and if you don’t at least give me a hell to the yeah, I’m going to explode.”