Fine by her.Maybe if they’d hung around long enough, the whispers would have started up again, but she didn’t think so.
“All right,” she said.“Let’s get out of here.”
Caleb drove her home.When they got there, she invited him in, guessing that their conversation wasn’t over.
“Some water?”she asked.The one beer with dinner had been enough for her, and she didn’t see the point in drinking anything else, especially when she had an early house showing the next morning.
“Sure,” he replied.
She went into the kitchen, and he followed her, then leaned up against the black granite counter as she poured water from the pitcher in the fridge and handed over a glass.
“So,” he said after he’d taken a sip, “either we both had the same hallucination, or whatever’s hanging out in that chapel got a whiff of your psychic powers and decided to lie low.”
“Or maybe it was your demon blood,” Delia suggested, and his shoulders lifted a fraction.
“It’s possible,” he said.Something flickered in his eyes, and she wondered if she should have even mentioned his demonic heritage.Although he’d always been honest with her about it, she knew he didn’t like to discuss the inhuman blood that flowed through his veins unless he absolutely couldn’t avoid doing so.“Or….”
“Or what?”
For a second or two, he didn’t answer, and instead remained leaning against the counter, fingers tapping against the glass of water he held.It was in still moments like this that Delia was struck again by how really handsome he was, how sculpted his expressive mouth, how the sweep of his dark brows contrasted with his sandy blond hair.
Maybe someday she’d get tired of looking at him, but that day definitely wasn’t now.
“The atmosphere in a place like that must be pretty charged,” he said after a pause.“All those hopes and dreams, all those people gathering to wish their loved ones well.Do you think it’s possible that all we picked up was some sort of emotional residue and not anything ghostly?”
Delia found herself frowning.It was an angle to the situation she might not have even thought of, but she supposed Caleb had a point.
Except….
“I’ve been in places like that before and never sensed anything odd,” she told him.
He didn’t look too fazed by that revelation.“Maybe not,” he replied.“But have you been in one since your powers really started to wake up?”
No, she hadn’t.The last quickie wedding she’d attended in a place like that had been her college friend Suki’s, who’d wisely decided that it would be much smarter to put all the money she and her fiancé might have spent on a much more lavish ceremony toward a down payment on a house instead.That had been more than two years ago, and in fact, Suki and Zack had bought a house about a year after their wedding, so going the budget route had obviously been a smart choice.
Anyway, back then, Delia had thought her “psychic” gifts extended to ghost whispering and nothing else.She hadn’t been able to communicate with her mind or close down interdimensional portals or do much of anything except sense whether a house was haunted and figure out the best way to let a resident ghost know it was time to move on to the next world.
“I haven’t,” she admitted.“So you could be right.In which case, there’s no reason in the world to tell Olivia that something might be iffy about the chapel she chose for her wedding.”
“Probably not,” Caleb said.“Still, I might try to slip back in there at some point and see if I notice anything.If it still feels fine, then I guess we’ll just have to chalk it up to being a psychically charged atmosphere and call it a day.”
“All right.”
She knew she sounded far less than certain, and he seemed to realize she needed a little reassurance.He set his glass down on the counter and came over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close.At once, her body responded to his proximity, the usual warmth flooding through her as she looked up so their mouths could meet.
Ah, those lips, so warm and welcome, so strong.Not for the first time, Delia wondered why she couldn’t seem to allow things to go any further than this, why she didn’t seem to have the inner will to take his hand in hers and lead him down the hall to her bedroom.
But she didn’t.No, she allowed the kiss to linger, and eventually she pulled away.
“Thanks for making me feel better about all this.”
If he was at all disappointed that she’d ended the kiss…and had given no indication that she wanted things to proceed further…she couldn’t see any evidence of it in his face.Instead, he smiled a little as he reached down to push a strand of hair away from her cheek.
“Just doing my job, ma’am.”
In response, she grinned, and knew the moment had safely passed.
“Well, you’re damn good at it.”
