glanced down the hall and saw that Maxine was out of sight, giving him a moment of peace to respond to Vivien.
Sadly, Pop will be out of commission tonight. I’ll make sure of it. Dinner at my place, watch the sun set?
He was carrying the tray out to the deck when he heard the text alert ding through the kitchen window, and he hurried to lay everything out so he could see whether she’d go for it. He was more nervous than when he’d asked out the goddess Amanda Grifton all those years ago.
Damn—he’d forgotten napkins, and hurried back inside to get them, still refusing to let himself look at his phone until the guests and their refreshments were settled.
Maxine was just stepping out of the bathroom as he came back in. “Now you come on and sit with us, Elwood, so we can tell you all about that ghost and you can tell us just what’s going on with you and our Vivien Leigh. Iva and Juanita get all nosy about stuff like that, and I won’t hear the end of it until we get all the juicy details.”
She curled her gnarled, arthritic fingers around his arm and, like it or not, the next thing Jake knew, he was being maneuvered onto the deck…
…with his phone still sitting on the kitchen counter, leaving him in suspense about what Vivien’s answer was.
It was over an hour later that he finally had the chance to look.
Haven’t bought new shampoo yet…what time?
Vivien was ready when Jake picked her up at seven thirty.
“Sorry about the choppy comms this afternoon,” he said.
“You said you’d been invaded by the Tuesday Ladies. I understood the delay,” she said with a grin. “That’s how they ended up at the theater today. Maxine and Co. give new meaning to the term ‘railroaded.’” She picked up the tote bag that conspicuously held a bottle of wine, her tablet, and her wallet, as well as—far less conspicuously—some overnight things.
Juuuust in case.
“Ah…is it all right if we stop by Pop’s house? He asked me to pick up something at the store, but I think it’s just an excuse for him to see you.”
Vivien was delighted. “Yes, of course. I’d love to see him. Did you already get the thing he wanted from the store?”
“Yes, why?”
“I’d like to bring him some flowers— Wait a sec. I’ll cut some from the backyard.”
“Pop’ll be over the moon if you bring him flowers,” Jake told her with a grin.
A few minutes later, she was back with a cluster of blooms. She wasn’t sure what type of flowers they were, but the colors were bright and cheerful.
“Oh, no,” Jake muttered as they drove down a quiet residential street a few minutes later. “They’re still here. Or they came back.”
Vivien had seen Maxine’s car a moment before he spoke. “I almost died in that vehicle earlier today,” she said when they parked next to it. “No joke.”
The two of them were greeted like long-lost friends by the Tuesday Ladies, Doug Horner, Hollis Nath, and Ricky DeRiccio. From the looks of the deck, they’d been sitting there eating and drinking and talking for hours.
“There she is!” said Maxine. “Vivien, we need to tell you what we’ve figured out. Sit right here.”
“About what?” she said, taking the chair Maxine indicated while innocently ignoring the wild and silent plea in Jake’s eyes: No, no, don’t do it!
And damn, he looked good in the white linen button-down that fit his broad shoulders just right. Waaay too good. His hair was damp as if he’d just showered, and he’d pulled it back in a short tail so he looked far too much like Antonio Banderas as Zorro. Not to mention how delicious he’d smelled when she sat next to him in the car. Whew.
Vivien figured a stop-off at the parents’ house (so to speak) might settle her hormones a little, because right now they were all up in her business and very interested in submitting to a medical exam by the handsome doctor.
And she just wasn’t sure if that was a good idea.
“So if there’s a ghost haunting the theater,” Iva was saying as Vivien dragged her attention up from Jake’s muscular legs, “that means it’s upset about something. It needs to be put to rest, you know.”
“Iva thinks she knows everything about hauntings,” Maxine said. “My granny used to tell me all about what they did down south, you know, back when she was little and they had all them haints