Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,32

agree, but she cut him off. “In fact, no, that’s probably not enough.” The finger landed on his chest again, and with it came another zap of electricity. “You make sure someone else gets elected mermaid queen, and you got yourself a deal.”

Carefully and deliberately, he took her finger between his thumb and forefinger and moved if off his chest. He was trying for as little skin-to-skin contact as possible, because touching Maya felt like sticking his finger in an electrical socket, and he’d had about as much electrocution as he could handle for one night. “All right. Deal.” But then, if they were striking a deal, they should probably shake on it. So much for no skin-to-skin contact. He extended his hand.

She looked at her index finger, which was still suspended in the air, for a long moment before unfurling the rest of her fingers to join it. Slowly she lowered her hand and inserted it into his. She looked like a robot trying out this thing called a hand for the first time.

Her hand wasn’t cold like a robot’s would have been. It was warm. But it made him shiver. Which didn’t make any sense. She was that Disney ice princess, shooting a bolt of frigid lightning up through his arm and down his spine. She had a good handshake, though. It was firm and confident. Like her. He was not surprised she had lured a celebrity to town.

He was also pretty sure he could trust her, which was another thing that didn’t make sense, given that she lived to antagonize him. But the way she looked directly into his eyes, like she was trying to suck his soul out through them, made him feel that on this topic at least, he didn’t have to worry about her betraying his confidence.

They were still shaking hands. Well, really, they had stopped shaking, so it was more like they were holding hands. Just standing there holding hands and staring at each other while little electrical charges zinged up his arm. But it wasn’t their usual glaring-contest type of staring. And she seemed to realize it all of a sudden, because she looked away. Looked down, like she was hit with a bout of shyness, which was wildly, wildly out of character. So that couldn’t be it.

Before he could puzzle it out, she said, curtly, “I have to go”—as if he were keeping her here—and turned away.

He stood at the door listening to her clomping down the stairs that led to the back door of the building. When the clomping stopped, he crossed to the living room window. There was a passageway between the bar and Pie with Pearl next door that functioned as a shortcut between the backs of the buildings on this side of Main, which were otherwise attached to each other, and the street itself. It wasn’t as late as it usually was when Maya left his place, but sometimes people got up to no good in that passageway, so he drummed his fingers on the windowsill waiting for her to appear.

She emerged and crossed the street, digging in her pocket for her keys. She hopped onto the sidewalk on the far side and did another little skip for good measure. She was back to being happy. He somehow knew she was thinking about Holden Hampshire.

The door to her place was an unmarked one next to the entrance to Jenna’s General, which Maya lived above. She spent a long time futzing with the lock, which always gave her trouble. That lock was probably as old as the 1880s building.

Finally she opened the door and disappeared behind it.

He waited until her light went on upstairs before turning away.

Chapter Seven

Unable to get Jason’s house out of his mind, Law went to the bank the next morning, where he had it confirmed that the only way to raise the cash he’d need to buy it was to mortgage the bar building. He hadn’t expected a different outcome, but still, it put him in a bad mood—a mood that was only exacerbated by Eiko’s showing up and insisting that he appear at a “mandatory town meeting” later that evening.

Which could only mean one thing. The old folks had plotted a scheme they couldn’t implement by themselves. No thanks.

“I don’t think there is such a thing as a ‘mandatory’ town meeting,” he said as he dried glasses. “That’s the nice thing about democracy. The government can’t make you do things you don’t want