Page 80 of Stirring Up Love
He laughed. “I thought you were the businesswoman. Don’t you have a better pitch than that for your brainchild?”
“Okay, really?” She picked up one of the musty throw pillows and tossed it at him. He ducked and the pillow flew over his head, to land harmlessly against the wall.
“Violence is never the answer, Ms.Blake.”
She tossed another pillow. “Except when it is.”
“Last chance to get out of this,” he said. “I won’t hold back just because you’re a girl.”
She grabbed another pillow. “And I won’t hold back because you’re a boy.”
“Oh, it’s on.” He snatched up a pillow and threw it, but she swung sideways around the bedpost.
“That all you’ve got, Rimes?” She clambered onto the bed, pillow poised overhead. Finn’s eyes darted to the last pillow, and she bent her knees in anticipation, loving this. “Do it. I dare you.”
The sound of a door creaking open broke the heated silence. Ghosts, for sure. She leaped off the bed, into Finn’s arms. Or tried to. She wound up knocking him back and tackling him to the dusty carpet. A disembodied voice spoke from across the room.
“Forgot to leave the key.”
She rolled off Finn and tipped her head sideways to see a frowning Eunice by the door. “Try not to break the furniture. It’s antique.” She shut the door with a parting glare.
Finn scrambled to his feet. “Hungry?”
The sudden shift in his mood threw her. With the deal hanging over their heads, she couldn’t judge what was real and what was a play to get inside her head. But the rumble of her stomach cut into her thoughts.
“There’s your answer.”
She stayed close by him as they walked down the dimly lit hall and made sure not to make eye contact with any of the people in the photographs. Creeptastic. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Finn flipped the light switch. Nothing. “That’s weird.”
“Weird” was one word for it.
He turned on his cell phone flashlight and led her into the kitchen, toggling all the switches. “Nothing in here either.”
“This is not okay.” Simone adhered herself to his arm with zero shame. Desperate beat dead any day.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m sure they have candles around here.”
“For séances, probably.” She shivered.
“Hang on.” He tugged out the creaky wooden drawers, one at a time. “Aha, see?” He held up a plastic box of tapers.
“Okay, but what’re you going to put them in?” Teasing him staved off the uneasiness.
“Any chance you’d hold them like Lumière inBeauty and the Beast?”
She gave him a look designed to shrivel extremities. Toned it down, just a bit. There was a perfectly good bed waiting upstairs, after all, even if it was an antique.
“No?” He nibbled his lip. “Wait, remember the candelabra in the hallway?”
“The one that looked like it was alive? How could I forget? But yes, let’s use that.”
Together—because no way would she stay in there alone—they found the candlestick and brought it back. Finn put the tapers in and lit them. He set the candelabra by the range, where it cast an eerie glow. “May as well cook as much as we can. No telling when the powerwill come back.” He opened the fridge and examined its contents. Unscrewing the cap of a gallon of milk, he sniffed it.
“I’m good with a bowl of cold cereal.”
Finn froze and looked over his shoulder, his affronted expression visible even by candlelight. “I know you did not just say that to a chef. Cold cereal.” He shook his head, and Simone chuckled.
“Don’t you ever want a break from cooking?” She hoisted herself up onto the small butcher block island, trying not to look over her shoulder into the empty dining room beyond. “Sometimes when I come home from a day at the restaurant, I never want to see another skillet again. I keep an emergency stock of Lean Cuisine and Hot Pockets.”
