Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(67)
“Haven’t defined it yet,” he countered. “Dinah’s for breakfast?”
“What if evil is all the venal things inside us—the jealousies and greed and hatred? And yes, Dinah’s. I work and she feeds me for free.”
She bent over to rummage in her suitcase, giving Walker a heart-stopping view of her rounded buttocks. He was a goal-oriented man who didn’t waste a lot of time thinking about sex, but Sam could easily change that.
As long as he kept it to just sex. No more commitment and family and the painful strings that tied him in knots. He’d not been able to protect the child he’d been given. If he meant to get back into action, he wouldn’t be leading the kind of safe life a family needed.
“So where does strung-out on drugs and stupidity fall on the scale of evil?” he countered, to keep from thinking of what couldn’t be changed.
“Admittedly, nebulous.” She wiggled into a tight camisole. “So we’re back to negativity instead of Biblical evil. If we’re infused with negativity, we get depressed, take drugs, blame others for our woes. . .”
“And end up like Xavier, passed out on a stranger’s front porch. Give it up, Sam. Hillvale is not inhabited by evil or negativity. It’s a bunch of old hippies who hug trees and believe in earth spirits instead of a Great Creator or whatever. People need to believe in a larger power than their own.” He tucked in his wrinkled shirt and wondered if he’d have time to change before the sheriff and his crew arrived.
“That’s what I would have thought until I was out on that mountain during the fire. I know I have a smart mouth, but I’m usually cautious and never mean. I said things to Carmen—a complete stranger—that I never would have said under any other conditions. And you were behaving like a Neanderthal and even Harvey had a greedy gleam in his eye.”
“Tension, stress, human nature. Don’t make too much of it.” Walker waited for her to finish dressing.
“So you think my planter boxes are normal, and Xavier imagined ghosts in the cemetery, and Val found your father’s skeleton by accident?” She shimmied into a pair of jeans.
“Or she knew he was there all along and just decided it was time for the world to know. Don’t let the Lucys get to you. They know things others don’t because they’re a close-mouthed bunch and don’t tell all they know until they decide it’s time to be said. Xavier’s story is a good example.” He checked out the window to be certain no more bodies were on the doorstep and no crazies were burning crosses.
“You skipped over the planter boxes,” she reminded him. She watched him from beneath long lashes as she braided her hair.
“I don’t know anything about flowers,” he admitted. “They look pretty and much better than before.”
“Fine then,” she said with a shrug. “We’ll collect some of my ghost compost on the way down the hill. Cass said I could use her wheelbarrow.”
“Ghost compost?” he asked warily as she marched for the front door. He’d stupidly been hoping for a kiss or a hug or some token of affection after the night they’d shared. But they were doing sex, not affection, he reminded himself.
The arguing was just the same.
“The dead lady promised me compost and she provided,” Sam said airily as she grabbed a walking stick and headed down the outside stairs. “Or perhaps you need to take your car back to town. I want that compost before someone else collects it, so I’m walking.”
Abandoning his car, Walker followed her along the overgrown path to Cass’s place. He watched in puzzlement as she waved her hand at a half-rotted wooden shed and the doors fell open as if on well-oiled springs. She disappeared inside, and he peered in after her.
The immaculate interior was easily twice the size of the exterior.
Chapter 22
Sam took Walker’s silence as incredulity at the shed, not her comment about ghosts.
After his painful revelation of how he’d lost his wife and son, she understood he was entitled to cynicism. She admired his fortitude in finding a means to move forward despite the emotional and physical pain. Her loss of her parents had been traumatic, but nowhere on the level he’d suffered. She was in serious danger of opening her heart to him, but could she accept that he’d never believe in her weirdnesses?
Without speaking, they borrowed Cass’s wheelbarrow and shovel. They crunched down the lane to the ghost house, where they collected very real, very smelly compost. Sam’s scientific mind acknowledged that someone may have overheard her talking and decided to spook her, as they had poor Xavier. But the part of her head that Cass had inhabited wanted to believe she’d talked to the ghost of the woman who had created this wonderful garden.
While they shoveled, Walker studied Grace’s house and yard, probably looking for evidence of how the mound had been delivered. Sam didn’t care. She had what she needed, and he didn’t object to pushing the heavy wheelbarrow the rest of the way down the lane.
She handed him the apartment key before he loped back up the path to collect his car. “In case the sheriff needs to examine the crime scene. Just drop it off when you’re done.” She stood on her toes and kissed his bristly cheek—he hadn’t had a razor with him. “Let me know if you need more Lucy translations.”