Dream Lake (Friday Harbor #3)(8)

He couldn’t look away, could only respond with a surly nod when she said hello. He made no move to shake hands—it would have been a mistake to touch her.

She was like something out of a vintage magazine ad, a blond pinup girl with hair bouncing in every-which-way curls. Nature had been spendthrift with her, bestowing more beauty than one person was meant to have. But she stood with the vaguely apologetic posture of a woman who’d always received the wrong kind of attention from men.

Zoë turned to Sam. “Do you happen to have a cake plate I could set these muffins on?” Her voice was soft and breathy, as if she’d woken up late after a long night of sex.

“It’s in one of those cabinets near the Sub-Zero. Alex, would you help her out while I go upstairs to get Lucy?” Sam glanced at Zoë. “I’ll find out if she wants to sit in the living room down here, or visit with you upstairs.”

“Of course,” Zoë said, and went to the cabinets.

The prospect of being alone with Zoë Hoffman for any length of time, even a minute, gave Alex the alarmed impetus to move. He reached the doorway just as Sam did. He lowered his voice just a shade. “I’ve got stuff to do. I don’t have time to spend chitchatting with Betty Boop.”

Zoë’s shoulders stiffened.

“Al,” Sam muttered, “just help her find the damn plate.”

After Sam left, Alex approached Zoë, who was straining to reach a glass-domed plate on a cabinet shelf. Standing behind her, he caught the fragrance of female skin dusted with talcum. A wave of longing came over him, raw and visceral. Wordlessly he got the plate for her and set it on the granite countertop, his movements dreamlike in their discipline. If he relinquished his control for even one second, he was afraid of what he might do or say.

Zoë began to transfer the muffins from the pan. Alex stayed beside her, his hand braced on the counter.

“You can go now,” Zoë murmured, her chin angled down. “You don’t have to stay and chitchat.”

Hearing the reproachful echo of his earlier words, Alex knew that he should apologize. The thought evaporated as he watched the way her fingers shaped around each muffin, gently lifting them from the pan.

Saliva spiked in his mouth.

“What did you put in those?” he managed to ask.

“Blueberries,” Zoë said. “Help yourself, if you’d like one.”

Alex shook his head and reached blindly for his coffee. His hand wasn’t quite steady.

Without looking at him, Zoë took a muffin and set it on Alex’s empty saucer.

Alex was still and silent, while Zoë continued to arrange the plate. Before he could stop himself, he reached for the offering, his fingers denting the soft shape in its unbleached parchment liner, and he left the kitchen.

Alone on the front porch, Alex looked down at the muffin. It wasn’t the kind of food that usually appealed to him. Baked goods usually reminded him of drywall.

The first bite was light and tender, a crisp dissolve of streusel on pillowy cake. His tongue encountered the tang of orange zest and the dark liquid zing of blueberries. Each bite brought a new shock of sweetness. He forced himself to eat with restraint, to keep from wolfing it down. How long had it been since he’d really tasted anything?

After he’d finished, he sat quietly, letting the sensation of warmth take hold. He let himself think about the woman in the kitchen. The blue eyes, the light curls, the face as feminine and rosy as an old-fashioned valentine. He resented his reaction to her, the contact high that lingered unforgivably.

She wasn’t the kind of woman he had ever wanted before. No one took a woman like that seriously.

Zoë.

You couldn’t say her name without making the shape of a kiss.

His thoughts collected into a fantasy, one in which he went back to Zoë, apologized for his rudeness, charmed her into going out with him. They would go on a picnic on his property near Dream Lake … he would spread a blanket beneath the cover of wild apple trees, and the sun would filter through the leaves and dapple her skin with brightness.

He imagined himself undressing her slowly, revealing extravagant pale curves. He would nuzzle into the arc of her neck and tease shivers from her body … taste her blushes with his tongue …

Alex cleared the thoughts with a rough shake of his head. He took a deep breath, and another.

He didn’t go back to the kitchen. He slunk upstairs to work in the attic, taking care to avoid another encounter with Zoë Hoffman. Every step was an act of will. He wouldn’t allow himself weakness of any kind.

Although he hadn’t been able to read Alex’s thoughts as he had sat on the front porch, the ghost had felt them. Finally, here was something Alex wanted, so much that his desire had thickened the air like boiling sugar. It was the most human reaction the ghost had ever seen from him.

But at the moment Alex decided to walk away from Zoë precisely because he wanted her, the ghost had had enough. He’d been patient for an eternity, and it wasn’t doing anyone any good. Not himself, not Alex. They were getting nowhere. For all that the ghost didn’t know about his predicament—about how and why he’d become the constant companion of an alcoholic engaged in slow suicide—it was pretty obvious that he’d been stuck with Alex for a reason.

If he were ever going to be free of the bastard, he would have to do something.