Death and Relaxation (Ordinary Magic #1)(41)

Chapter 12


MYRA DROPPED her finger a split second before the rest of us and squared off toward our visitor. Not Ryder. It was Cooper, my ex-boyfriend.

“Can I help you?” If Myra’s words could invoke weather, Cooper would be buried under a snow pack.

Cooper wore a dark blue T-shirt that was tight enough to show his muscles, and jeans that belted low on his hips. His light hair was pulled back into a band at the base of his neck. Daylight did good things to the angles of his face and lit up his deep brown eyes. He gave Myra an embarrassed smile. “Hi, Myra. How have you been?”

“Busy. As a matter of fact, we’re all busy.” Not snow pack. Glacier.

“Right, sure,” he said. “I just…” He glanced over at Jean, who shook her head like she couldn’t believe he was dumb enough to be here.

Cut your losses, turn around, don’t look at me, I thought.

When his eyes turned to me, he had that gonna-hurl look of a man begging for a second chance. His gaze strayed to my lips.

“What’s up, Cooper?” Yes, I took pity on him. Yes, I heard both my sisters’ disgruntled sighs. No, this wasn’t a second chance. This was me being polite and doing my job. He’d come to the station. Maybe there was a problem.

“I thought maybe you’d have time for lunch?” He finally looked back up and met my gaze. His eyes were amazingly deep, and warm as an endless summer.

An electric zing rattled through me so hard and fast, I felt like someone had punched me in the sternum. I held my breath as the buzz grew and grew into something bigger, louder, intense.

Holy crap.

One look at him and I couldn’t think. Everything in me either went dead still, or was vibrating so fast it felt like stillness.

And there was Cooper. Right in front of me, brown eyes burning. He was everything I wanted. Everything I desired.

What? That couldn’t be right. I didn’t want Cooper.

I couldn’t get those words out. I couldn’t move, talk, or do anything more than stare at him in hyper-stillness. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

“Hey.” His voice dropped low and husky. He was standing in front of me.

Had he moved? Had I blinked? When had he moved?

“Hey, gorgeous.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and dragged the other hand down my back, pulling at my shirt.

I was on fire, buzzing, but I couldn’t feel my heartbeat, didn’t know if I was breathing. Was this a dream? A hallucination?

“Delaney,” he breathed.

I watched my hand lift and brush across the back of his neck even though I couldn’t feel it. Creepy. I watched my hand draw his face down to mine.

Weird, weird, weird, weird.

His breath hitched. He kissed me. Full, hot.

That, I felt.

Everything in me sang—a chorus of emotions avalanched through me. I was lost to it, buried under it, fighting to surface through a tumble of sensations so sharp and clear they blended into pain.

I think I groaned. Not in pleasure.

A hand clamped my shoulder and another gripped my arm, squeezed, and jerked.

The world stuttered. Time snapped and skittered into its normal flow. Things I didn’t realize I’d been missing: color, sound, smells, notched into overdrive, and I stumbled backward, reeling. My knees felt like overstretched rubber bands, and I think I would have crumpled to the floor if Jean hadn’t wrapped her arm around my ribs and held me tight.

Someone was in front of me. Shorter than me. Dark hair cut in a swing. Police uniform.

My brain tried to put two and two together. Finally got it on the fourth or fifth try.

Myra stood in front of me. Between me and Cooper.

And suddenly, I could think again.

Holy shit. Cooper had kissed me. In the middle of the police station. In front of my sisters and Roy.

“Problem?” a male voice asked.

The prickly hot sweat of fear and embarrassment washed over me. I turned my gaze woodenly to the door.

Ryder Bailey stood there holding a takeout bag in one hand and a drink carrier with five drinks in the other.

Cooper had kissed me. In the middle of the police station. In front of my sisters and Roy and Ryder.

There had been times in my life when I’d wished I was a more religious person. But since gods spend their sand-and-sunburn days in my backyard complaining about things like cell reception and plugged storm drains, I decided at a young age that they were too busy to answer my prayers.

Still, if I thought there was a chance someone up there could hear me, I’d pray that the ring-of-fire volcanoes might choose this moment to blow so the resulting earthquake would swallow me whole.

“Uh…” I said, but it came out a little high and panicky.

Myra waded into the verbal fray. “Cooper, I’d like you to step outside. Ryder, you can put the food next to the coffee there.” She pointed with one hand while she started toward Cooper, ready to corral him toward the door.

“Delaney?” Cooper didn’t move.

“She said to move to the door, Clark.” Ryder’s tone of voice rang with the low, quiet authority of a man who was used to holding a gun at someone while insisting they calm down.

It was that, the change in Ryder’s voice, that brought me back to the situation at hand.

Fact: Cooper had just kissed me.