A Little Bit Haunted Read online

  “I don’t want to be one of your conquests.”

  That made him laugh out loud. “I think that this time it’s the other way around. Here,” he said, handing me a scrap of paper. “That’s my cell number. Text me when you get home so I know you made it all right. And that way I’ll have your number so I can get hold of you when I start going through Delaney withdrawals.”

  I nodded and put the paper in my pocket. I wasn’t sure what to say. Walker didn’t give his number out to girls he made out with at parties. Everyone knew that. Only girls like London ever got his number. Except now I had it, too, and I floated all the way home.

  As soon as I closed the door to my room, I got on my phone.

  Me: Home safe

  Walker: Good. TTY tomorrow.

  Me: Nite.

  I flopped down on my bed and closed my eyes with a sigh. I’d held hands with Walker Dean while we watched movies. He’d kissed me. I had his cell number, and he’d texted me. Okay, so it was just one line, but still.

  Dannika and Allison were going to kill me—slowly and painfully. How was I ever going to explain all of this to them? I had to start thinking up some way to tell them what had happened, even though I kind of wasn’t exactly sure myself.

  I mean, I know what Walker had said—he was tired of London and wanted to try something different. But Walker was the biggest player in school, and boys like that are experts at telling girls exactly what they want to hear. Was he playing me now? Just because he was bored with London didn’t mean that he had changed his wicked ways. Maybe it only meant that he had changed targets.

  But since Dannika and Allison were going to murder me when they got back, there wasn’t much point in worrying about Walker eventually breaking my heart. I breathed his name as I lay in bed, savoring the taste of it on my lips, and fell asleep reliving the tingling wonder of his kiss.

  After being up so late, the next morning I slept in. It was pushing noon by the time I pushed Kiki off of me and crawled out from under the covers. I sat there for a moment, staring blearily down at my toes, and then as everything from the night before came flooding back I grabbed my phone. Was it all a dream, or had I actually gotten a text from Walker?

  Not only was it not a dream, there was a new text waiting for me.

  Walker: Good morning, beautiful

  He’d sent it a couple of hours ago. It was real. I stared at the message in disbelief. It was all real. The movies. The kiss. All of it. All real.

  I sent him a belated good morning in response then stumbled blearily downstairs. I wasn’t processing yet, and needed food to jump start my brain. Since Shelly was watching something lame on the television in the living room, I snuck breakfast up to my room. Mom had made cinnamon rolls and bacon, and I stuffed myself on that while I texted Allison.

  She and Dannika had stayed out late last night at a dance and had plans to go swimming with some guys they had met there. Normally I would have been jealous, but I had kissed Walker Dean. I was pretty sure that topped anything they’d done or were planning to do. For about a half a second I considered telling her, but I wasn’t sure she’d believe me without some kind of proof. Would they believe a screenshot of the text messages, or would they just think it was a Photoshop? I had just made up my mind to let Allison in on the secret when Dannika dragged her off because boys, leaving me all alone again. It was probably for the best. I wasn’t really ready to tell them yet.

  While I was stuffing the last of the bacon in my mouth, a loud banging noise from the direction of Walker’s house drew me to the window. I pulled aside the curtain and then had to squint as the bright, summer sunshine slapped me in the face. I was going to have to start keeping a pair of sunglasses on the windowsill.

  Walker was standing by his back fence, hammering away at the boards there with a big rubber mallet. The old lady who lived in the house behind his had been a friend of my great aunt’s, and she had been the first person to come by and welcome us to the neighborhood as we were moving in. She was a widow and seemed lonely, so Mom had sat and talked to her for quite a while, even though we were on a deadline with the moving truck. Why was Walker destroying her fence?

  After some more pounding a three foot section of the fence came free, leaving a wide gap connecting the two yards. Walker quickly shoved the fence aside and dashed back towards his house. When he returned he was pushing a lawnmower, which he managed to maneuver through the gap and into the old woman’s back yard at a run. It was actually kind of impressive. I probably would have slammed the mower into the fence on either side and knocked myself silly if I’d tried it.

  What on earth was he doing? I watched bemusedly as he yanked the cord and began cutting the grass, still at a run. It only took a few minutes to finish the back, and then he dragged the mower through her gate to do the front. He finished that even more quickly, shoved the lawnmower back through the gap in the fence into his yard, and rushed to put the fence back together. Once that was done he disappeared with the mower.

  I kept watching, hoping he’d come back and do something that would reveal what he’d been up to. After about five minutes the back door opened at the other house and the old woman stepped onto her porch. Dressed in a powder blue pantsuit and clutching a huge beaded purse, it was obvious that she’d just gotten home. She shook her head as she examined the yard, looking around as though she half expected someone to be hiding in her bushes. There was no one there, though, and she shrugged and went back inside.

  Slowly it dawned on me. Walker had mowed her yard while she was away. She was a widow and had seemed pretty lonely. Maybe she didn’t have anyone to mow her yard for her? So Walker had done it—and secretly so that she wouldn’t know who had and couldn’t make a fuss about it.

  My heart started getting dangerously squishy again. Why? Why would he do something like that unless he really was kind of a Boy Scout? I was beginning to think that Molly didn’t know him as well as she thought. It certainly looked like he’d done a good deed that he wanted kept secret, only now I knew about it, too. One of these days I was going to ask him about it.

  Walker skipped his workout that morning, probably because of all the fence dismantling and rebuilding and the mowing he’d done. For me, it turned into a long, slow day. Dannika and Allison were out swimming and I doubted I’d hear from them until evening, while Molly was out running errands with her mom. With nothing else to do, I spent the rest of the morning playing around on the internet and getting more bored with each passing minute. I shut down my laptop with a frustrated sigh and grabbed the novel propped open on my nightstand. If I lost myself in a book, I wouldn’t be thinking about Walker or about my friends out having a good time swimming with hot guys.

  While stepping out into the south Texas summer was a lot like venturing into a tropical jungle, it wasn’t too bad in the shade of the big oak trees in the backyard. I settled back in my hammock to relax. The soft afternoon breeze and drone of the cicadas drowned out most of the noise from around me, and before long I lost myself in the pages. It was a post-apocalyptic romance with angels, and the male lead was a badass, dark-haired angel who kept getting himself into all kinds of trouble because he couldn’t seem to stop doing things to help the girl lead—even though the angels weren’t supposed to be nice to people.

  I kept picturing him as Walker with a pair of great, snowy wings. Beautiful Walker with a pair of beautiful wings, incredibly swoon-worthy and so head-over-heels in love with me that he’d challenge all the other angels to save me. He’d lift me up in his arms and hold me tightly to him while he carried me up into the sky where we’d fly together forever…

  The sound of voices made me sit up in the hammock, blinking at the bright light filtering through the leaves overhead. With a guilty start I realized that I’d drowsed off while reading my book and had been dreaming of Walker. It was bad enough that I spied on him and obsessed about him when I was awake. Did I have to dream about him, too?

  I recognized Walker’s now familiar v
oice and strained my ears to hear who he was talking to. It was hard to make out at first, but then I got it and my stomach turned into an icy ball of acid. London. They must be sitting by his pool, and Walker didn’t sound very happy. Getting closer to the fence might let me hear what they were saying.

  I set my book down and tried to ease myself out of the hammock without rustling the branches of the trees it was tied to. Just as I slid one leg over the edge, though, the stupid thing tipped over and flipped me out. For a second I felt like I was flying, just like in my dream, until I smacked into the ground with a thump that rattled my teeth.

  I lay there with my eyes closed while I got my breath back, grateful no one had been there to see and praying that no one had heard anything. Fortunately Walker and London seemed oblivious, their voices carrying on undisturbed. With a groan I picked myself up and dusted myself off, then tiptoed over to the fence.

  There was a crack as thick as my little finger between two of the boards, and I pressed my eye to it. Walker’s yard sprang into focus. There was the pool, and the chair I’d sat in the night before. Walker was sitting up in his chair with his legs straddling the seat, his head turned towards the far side of the pool where London stood.

  She was wearing a tiny red and black bikini that would have had every guy on the beach panting after her. As I watched her walk around the pool towards Walker, all golden skin and long legs and big boobs, my stomach lurched with a sickening flop. She might be a skank, but she was an incredibly hot skank. How could Walker possibly resist that? Every guy who saw her wanted her, and she was his perfect match. They went together like ice cream and sprinkles. Both of them were gorgeous, and she was going to be a senior, too. They’d be The World’s Most Perfect Couple.

  So what if he’d kissed me? He’d kissed tons of girls. He’d kissed her, and anybody who wasn’t blind would rather kiss London than me. Probably after he’d kissed me Walker had realized what a letdown I was compared to London and couldn’t wait to lock lips with her again.

  I turned away, unable to watch any longer, and stumbled back into the house. I didn’t even go back for my book. With my growing crush on Walker, knowing that stupid London was over there in that stupid bikini seemed to steal the sun right out of the sky. My whole day turned dark and dismal, and I flung myself down onto my bed to stare at the ceiling. If I was lucky, maybe a ghost would carry me off before my stupid crush on Walker got any worse.

  Chapter Ten

  Late that afternoon the day turned dark and dismal for real as a front blew in to fill the sky with gloomy, ominous clouds. The storm waited until after dinner to hit. I was sprawled out on my bed playing on my phone when the lights flickered and dimmed, and then a second later a blast of thunder shook the house and rattled the windows in their frames. I sat up with a squeak of surprise just as heavy raindrops began to stutter against the window panes. There would be no sneaking out to visit Walker tonight.

  The soothing murmur of the rain took a little of the sting out of it. I loved a good rain, and the soft noise of a steady shower could lull me to sleep like nothing else. At least I’d get a good night’s sleep, even if I couldn’t see Walker.

  A flash of lightning bathed my room in a white glare, and another crash of thunder jarred the house so that the floors vibrated. Heart pounding, I grabbed Kiki and pulled the covers up over us. I love the rain, but I hate thunderstorms. I hated them even more in this scary, old house where it just added to the creepy atmosphere. Wasn’t there always a thunderstorm in the old horror movies which took place in haunted houses? Just before things went bad, the frightened heroine would get a glimpse of something awful lit up by a flash of lightning, and then she’d scream and run and it all went downhill from there.

  A shiver crept down my spine with bony fingers of ice as the lights flickered again. This was so bad. Mom and Dad were both at work, so it was just me and Shelly at home. Ugh. Shelly. She didn’t like storms any more than I did, and I didn’t want her freaking out on me. Even though I didn’t want to leave my bed, I needed to go check on her.

  I crawled out from the sanctuary of my covers, leaving Kiki to hold the fort. His big green eyes tracked me as I tiptoed out of my room and into the hallway, but he made no move to follow. He didn’t like thunderstorms, either.

  When I tapped on Shelly’s door, there was no answer. A weird, itchy tingle started between my shoulder blades, and it felt as though unseen eyes were watching me as I turned the doorknob. The room was dark and empty, which meant my little sister was probably downstairs watching television. With a sigh I headed downstairs. Knowing Shelly, she was curled up in a fetal position under the coffee table.

  The lights in the hallway dimmed again, and I winced as a rolling peal of thunder struck the house like a giant hammer. It went on and on while above my head the light fixtures rattled, and I wondered if it was ever going to stop. Silence returned so quickly that I could hear my heart thumping in the sudden quiet. For an instant the lights brightened, and then everything went dark.

  It was pitch black there on the stairs, and my hand tightened on the railing in a death grip. Why me? Distant lightning provided a flicker of light through the downstairs windows, just enough to give me a glimpse of my surroundings so I could orient myself. Slowly I felt my way downstairs, testing each step with my feet before moving forwards. In between the flashes of lightning I might as well have been blind, and there was no sound except for the rumbling of the thunder and the stairs creaking beneath me. That eerie sensation of being watched kept my pulse racing and I wanted to bolt for the front door and escape whatever had its eyes on me.

  Nobody is going to think less of you if you get a little freaked out about moving into some weird, new house.

  Yeah, right. I flinched in the blackness as the house emitted a cranky sigh. I was such an idiot. Why hadn’t I brought my phone with me? The screen would have given off enough light so that I could at least see where I was going. Of course the lights had still been on when I left my room. Good old hindsight. Always there when you needed a reminder of how you’d screwed up.

  The wind groaned through the cracks around the front door, but I gritted my teeth and made myself take another step. I really hated this house. Eventually I made it downstairs to the dining room, where there was just enough light coming through the windows so that I could make out the shadowy outlines of the furniture. A quick glance through the nearest window confirmed that the lights were out all over the neighborhood, not just at our place. That meant there was no point in calling Dad. We were on our own until the power company fixed it.

  On tiptoe, I crept through the house to the living room. A soft, droning noise came from the darkness to my right. Shelly was on the couch, snoring. She’d fallen asleep in front of the television and never even noticed the storm or the power going out. The little brat could sleep through anything, and most likely she’d be out until morning. If only it was that easy for me.

  With Shelly no longer a concern, I went back for my phone. I needed to at least text Mom to let her know what was going on. There was nothing she could do about it, but she’d gripe if I didn’t give her a heads-up. The thought of going back up that inky stairway and through the narrow hallway to my darkened room filled me with dread, though, and so I stood at the base of the stairs dithering while the house shivered from another bout of thunder.

  Finally my desire for my phone won out over my fears, and I put my foot on the stairs and crept upwards. My ears craned to hear every noise, while my eyes tried to turn the flickering shadows around me into terrifying visions. Even though I went slowly, I still managed to slip and bash my knee when I flinched from a flash of lightning. Angry at my fears, I tried to shut it all out and focus on just putting one foot in front of the other while my fingers dug into the banister.

  A strobe of light illuminated the hallway as I reached the top of the stairs, and I half expected to see some dark specter in black robes waiting for me just like in the movies. My heart was in my throat
when I shut myself back into my room. Outside, the wind howled and the branches of the oak tree screeched along the side of the house to push my overstretched nerves to their limits.

  Something brushed against my leg in the darkness and I squealed and jumped about four feet in the air. “Kiki!”

  A grumpy meow rose from the darkness. I exhaled and let my shoulders slump in relief. A moment later I had my phone and fell back onto my bed. There was already a text waiting.

  Walker: You OK?

  Warmth flowed through my body like thick syrup, and I smiled at the screen. Kiki hopped up beside me where he curled up into a buzzing ball against my side.

  Me: I’m fine

  I would have been a lot better if I’d been over at his place snuggled up next to him on his couch, but I couldn’t sneak out and leave Shelly alone. And for all I knew, he was already snuggled up with London.

  Me: Just wish the stupid lights would come back on

  Walker: Want me to come over and keep you company?

  My heart did a little flip. Apparently he wasn’t snuggled up with London after all. A knot of tension I hadn’t realized was there loosened in my chest, and even though I was sitting alone in the dark in my creepy house in a thunderstorm I felt bizarrely happy.

  Me: You’ll get drenched. And my parents aren’t home

  Walker: So it’s a date? :-)

  I thought about it for a whole half a second.

  Me: I’ll go unlock the door

  I couldn’t help grinning like a lunatic as I hopped out of bed and made my way downstairs. Sneaking out was bad enough, but sneaking a boy in while my parents were away was such an un-Delaney thing to do that I wasn’t even sure if I was me anymore. Racing down the stairs as quickly as I dared, my hand had just reached for the deadbolt when I heard the faintest of taps coming from outside.