‘I’ll never live that one down, will I?’
‘Well, at least I’ll go to my final resting place with a big smile on my face.’ My stomach plummeted, I hated it when he joked about this whole thing.
‘Oh come on,’ he said, putting an arm around my shoulder. ‘Don’t look like that.’
My eyes closed and my entire body fired with the closeness of his touch, before he abruptly pulled away. His gaze lingered on my face and I wondered if I’d imagined the flash of desire stirring in his eyes. ‘I should get the dinner started,’ he said, quietly.
As he turned away leaving me with my arms aching with emptiness, my gaze flickered over at the table. The séance had been a rotten idea. A romantic dinner for two sounded much much better.
Chapter Nine
Banging on my front door early on a Sunday morning could only mean one thing.
‘Lexie, can you not sleep?’ I said, grumpily, tying my towelling robe around me, ushering her inside.
‘Clean living, that’s me. Early to bed, early to rise.’ She breezed past me, her eyes doing a quick scan of every nook and cranny of my small flat, before turning to give my dishevelled figure a cursory up-and-down. ‘Obviously, the same can’t be said for you,’ she said, looking at me suspiciously.
‘Can’t I even have a lie-in now? It is the weekend!’ I wandered out into the kitchen, filled the kettle with water and flicked it on. Jimmy wafted in and helped himself to a grape from the fruit bowl.
‘God, your sister can be a real pain in the butt at times, can’t she?’
That was all I needed. Jimmy putting his two pennorth in.
‘No you can’t,’ she said, forcefully. ‘Not until you tell me what you’re up to. You’ve been acting odd for weeks now. And what’s all this nonsense about you going off to some aunt’s funeral? Which aunt of ours would that be?’ she asked, arching an eyebrow.
I dropped my gaze from her accusatory stare, my mind darting in all directions for an answer.
‘I spoke to your office on Friday,’ she went on. ‘So unless you didn’t want to burden me with the tragic news of the death of our beloved relative, I suspect you either had a job interview or you were up to something illicit with someone highly unsuitable. I do hope it’s the latter,’ she said, with undisguised glee.
I gave her a withering glance and Jimmy one too, for good measure, because he was looking at me expectantly waiting for my response. I could so do without all this this morning.
‘Well, sorry to disappoint you.’ I shuffled around the kitchen, pulling mugs from cupboards. ‘But it was neither of those things. I did go to a funeral, if you must know. Not an aunt’s obviously, but a friend’s. I didn’t want to make a big thing of it at work, that’s all.’
Lexie didn’t look disappointed, just amazed. Her eyes had grown wide and her mouth gaped open.
‘A friend? Oh my God! Really? That’s terrible. Which friend? Why didn’t you tell me?’
I sighed and handed her a steaming mug, trying to avoid Jimmy’s gaze. Clearly, Lexie wasn’t going to drop the subject and Jimmy’s ghostly presence was doing nothing to help my squirming discomfort.
‘Oh, it was no one you knew, just someone I…’
‘Alice, come on, stop messing me around. Just tell me who it was.’
I was going to get so much ribbing over this, I just knew it.
‘Jimmy,’ I said quietly into the collar of my dressing gown as I picked off an imaginary thread from the arm.
‘Jimmy? Who the hell was Jimmy?’
I sat down at the kitchen table sighing and folded my arms defensively.
‘Jimmy Mack,’ I said, my gaze drifting over to the man himself.
‘What!?’ Her mouth curled up in disbelief. ‘Jimmy Mack? You went to his funeral? What on earth for?’
Now there was a question. How could I possibly explain to Lexie? And even if I did would she ever believe such a far-fetched story? It was all such a mess and really I had no idea how to get myself out of it.
‘I just