Driftwood - MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,5

be mates and live happily ever after even though she's dead and you don't even know her name?"

"Good-bye, Jeannie."

"Burke!" she yowled, but he ignored her and loped off into the dark, a true rogue, now.

Chapter Six

Somehow, Boy Scout had flanked her, because he was waiting for her in the parking lot, the fluorescent lights bouncing off his black hair, making it seem very like the color of blood.

"I have a shower," he said by way of greeting.

"One side, Boy Scout. I've seen all of you I'm gonna."

"And a house. You could stay there and… and rest during the day and do your business at night."

Hmm. Tempting. Credit cards could be traced, a decent hotel wouldn't take cash, and she didn't want anyone to see her coming and going. Shacking up with a stranger for a night or two was—Wait. Had she lost her mind? Because she was actually mulling it over. Crazy guy's offer. As if he hadn't left her in the biggest fix of her life just last night.

Well. Second biggest.

Although, her gentler self argued, he had tried to help her. Badly, but the effort counted for something, right?

"Please," he said, and that did it. She was undone; it wasn't the "please," it was how he looked when he said it: miserable and hopeful all at once.

"Oh, all right," she grumbled. "Maybe for the night. I hope one of these cars is yours."

"It's not. But my house is just over the dunes, past the Beachside Motel." He pointed at a row of lights in the distance and she sighed internally. It had been a rough couple of nights, and she wasn't up to a hike, undead strength or not.

She opened her mouth to bitch, only to feel herself be swept off the warm pavement and into his arms. "It's not far," he promised her, and went loping through the lot and into the dunes.

"Boy Scout, you're gonna break your fargin' back!" she hollered, secretly delighted. When was the last time she had been picked up and carried like a bride over the threshold? Her mama had died when she was a toddler; her dad was too busy working two jobs to pick her up; cancer had taken him her first year at the U of M. After that… "I weigh a ton!"

"Hardly," he said, and the sly mother wasn't even out of breath. He raced with her across the sand, past the motel, up a small hill covered with stumpy, stubbly bushes, and then he was setting her down on a sandy porch. She turned and looked, and could barely make out the lights of the parking lot. Boy Scout could move. But then, she'd seen evidence of that just the night before.

He opened the door and made an odd gesture—half wave, half bow.

She walked into the house. "No locks, huh? Doncha just love the Cape."

"No one would dare," he said simply. "Will the lights hurt your eyes? We can leave them off if you prefer."

"No, the lights are fine."

Click.

They blinked at each other in his living room, both getting their first good look at the other, and both entirely pleased by what they saw.

For her part, she saw a tall, thin, black-haired man with gray eyes—the only gray eyes she'd ever seen, true gray, the color of the sky when it was about to storm. He was dressed in dirty shorts, shirtless and barefoot, and as tanned as an old shoe. Laugh lines—except he never laughed, or smiled—around those amazing, storm-colored eyes. His legs were ropy with muscle and his arms looked like a swimmer's: lean and strong. His hands were large and capable-looking. His mouth was a permanent downturned bow; even when he tried to smile, he looked like he was frowning. She liked it, being in a generally bad mood herself; sometimes it was nice to be away from perpetual smilers, and Minnesota had more than its fair share.

Burke saw a tall woman (she came up to his chin in her bare feet) with a classically beautiful face, strong nose, wide forehead, pointed chin. Black eyes, skin the color of espresso. Long, slim limbs. Wide shoulders that made her breasts almost disappear.

Unpainted toes and fingernails; filthy linen pants and a T-shirt so dirty he had no idea what the original color was. And if he closed his eyes he couldn't see her: she gave off no scent of her own, only sand and sea. She was like a chameleon for the nose; she took on the