I swallowed. “What did you do before you—uh.” Nice of me to remind her she was dead.
“Uh?” She rolled her eyes. “It’s okay to saybefore I died. I was a professional dancer on Broadway. When I didn’t have a show, I danced at a gentlemen’s club in Manhattan, but my family doesn’t know that, so don’t mention it, please. My parents and my brother would have had a fit, but you gotta pay the rent, ya know? Before my accident, I had just auditioned for a part inMy Fair Ladyat the Vivian Beaumont Theater. I auditioned for maid Number Two, and before I was headed home for Christmas, I found out I got the part. I never got to tell my family.”
I shrugged. “How long do you plan to stick around? How old were you when you... uh...?”
Happy giggled. “I was your age. I was a little younger than you, twenty-three. I was headed home to surprise my family for the holidays andpfft.”
“Pfft?” What the hell?
“You know. The minister at my funeral said I was ‘a life snuffed out too soon.’ As I think about it, that’s a little morbid, isn’t it?”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Do you mind telling me how you died?” I was immediately worried about asking her the question
“Does it matter? I’m still dead.”
“Of course it matters,” I responded. “You were part of a family, and I’m sure they miss you. Why don’t you go be with them?” And please leave me the fuck alone.
Happy giggled again. “My family doesn’t need me like you do, doll. Now, what are you going to do about Brooke’s car?”
“Did you know Brooke before you...uh?”
She turned to me and shook her head. “No. I only got to know Brooke and Kyle from being with you. They’re so sweet, and I’m glad they got engaged. You did a good thing there, Avery.”
Heat rose on my cheeks. “I love them both, and I want them to be happy. Like you said, they’re sweet, and they’ll take care of each other.” I let out a long breath. “Is there any way I could get you to leave? I need to work on a project that I should have turned in yesterday. Can you let me do that?”
“Why do I need to leave? I can be quiet while you work. Do I really gotta leave? We still need to deal with Brooke’s car, you know.” She hopped down from the table and seemed to float closer to me. “Please? Call Holden to take you out there.”
If anyone would have told me a woman would be my weakness, I’d have laughed in their face. “Fine. Just be quiet, okay?”
Happy ran her thumb and index finger over her lips like closing a zipper, which made me laugh. She was a colorful spirit for sure.
That, or I’d finally fallen off the sanity cliff.
Chapter Seven
Holden
I returned home from walking Oscar, fed him breakfast, and then went for a run. He was too small to run with me, so I let him sleep in.
I hurried out of the house as the sun rose high in the sky. The snow that brought Virginia’s highways to a standstill had barely dusted the streets of Baltimore. It was cold as fuck, but there was no ice to deal with, which was a blessing.
It was the Saturday after Christmas, and my mind wandered back to Avery Langhorn without my permission. To be honest, he hadn’t left my mind since he’d gotten out of my truck the previous night, but I had no way to contact him. If he reached out to me, I’d do whatever he asked, which was a stupid thing to commit to since I’d only talked to him for about an hour the previous night.
Why the hell did some guy I didn’t know have me turned inside out? I had no idea if I’d ever hear from him again, and that thought dragged me down as I ran toward the trail near my house.
The kid looked young—maybe I shouldn’t call him a kid. He couldn’t be more than twenty-five, and I was closer to forty than I wanted to admit.
What was appropriate when it came to an age gap? Hell, Shelby had admitted to dating women fifteen years younger than she was. Would I be robbing the cradle if I dated a guy in their mid-twenties?
“What the hell are you worried about? He’s never going to call you.” I actually said it out loud as I ran the trail, but there was nobody around to hear it because it was too fucking early.
When I circled back to my house in the Cedars neighborhood just outside of Baltimore, I cleared my mind of everything. I was on call until New Year’s Day for emergencies, and I didn’t have anyone covering for me.
I had no plans for New Year’s Eve or Day, so it was only right that I should field emergency calls so everyone else could have the holiday, not that I expected many calls. With the big jobs shut down until January, things should be quiet.
After I took off my shoes on the back porch, I went inside to find Ossie sitting on the rug in the kitchen waiting for me.
