Dying For You by MaryJanice Davidson

said.

Chapter 6
    He was a tall drink, at least six feet five, and thin—too thin, like he forgot to eat regularly. He had a headful of blond, shoulder-length waves—the moonlight bounced off them in a romantic, yet weird way—and the palest, bluest eyes Nikki had ever seen. Pilot eyes. Shooter’s eyes. He hadn’t had a chance to shave in a couple of days, and the beard coming in was surprisingly dark and coarse.
    “Is this a joke? It must be. I fly two thousand miles to listen to a dead cheerleader reliving her glory days.”
    “Hey!” Nikki snapped. “I was never a cheerleader. Too tall.” Then she realized what was happening. “Wait a damn minute. You can hear me?”
    “She didn’t make cheerleading,” Cathy was saying sorrowfully. “She was too tall. But we had fun practicing together.That’s amazing, that you would know that. Did your psychic vibrations tell you that?”
    “The only vibrations I get are when I lean up against the washing machine.”
    “In lieu of regular dating, I guess,” Nikki snarked.
    “Shut up, what do you know about it?”
    “So how did you—Did you study up on her background before you came here?” Cathy was asking.
    “Please,” the man said, rolling his blue, blue eyes. Then he looked at Jack. “What are
you
doing alive again? That’s not your body.”
    “It is now,” Jack said. “It’s nice to see you again, Tommy.”
    “Tom,” the man corrected. “For God’s sake. I’m too big to be a Tommy.”
    “This is my wife, Cathy, and—”
    “Do you think you can find her?” Cathy interrupted.
    “What’s to find? She’s here.”
    “Yippee! Finally, someone can hear me!”
    “Yeah, lucky me,” Tom said sourly.
    She jumped up and down in her excitement and he flinched. “Don’t. For the love of God, don’t do another cheer.”
    “I wasn’t going to.” Then she realized what he had actually said. “You can
see
me, too?”
    “Yeah. You need to comb your hair.”
    She nearly reeled from a combination of surprise, relief, and rage. “Hey, at least I’m not sporting three days of stubble, jerk!”
    “You mean she’s here?” Cathy gasped. Fortunately, the driver had taken Tommy’s beat-up bag into cabin 5, and it was just the four of them. “Right here?”
    “Yes, and she won’t shut up.”
    “
You
shut up.”
    “Tell her we’re sorry,” she begged, “and tell her—”
    “She can hear you,” Tom said, looking bored. “You just can’t hear her.”
    “Tell her she must move on,” Jack said, obviously forgetting the rules.
    “Get lost,” Tom said to Nikki. “Go away. Scram.”
    “Oh, suck my fat one,” she said crossly. “Who died and made you king?”
    Tom grinned, which was startling. It changed his whole face, took years off. Made him look, she had to admit, almost attractive. “Apparently you did.”

Chapter 7
    Tom had gone from pooped to horny to annoyed to intrigued, in twenty-five seconds.
    And normally, nothing would have gotten him out of his hometown (Pontiac, Missouri) just when it started to get perfect out: not the wet, overwhelming heat of summer, not the brown mid-temps of winter. But he couldn’t say no to that kind of money, no matter how nice he’d gotten the yard to look.
    As usual, it took him a second to figure out who was dead. What was not usual at all was how instantly attracted he was to the ghost. And what wasn’t to like? A tall blonde in khaki shorts and a white oxford shirt; pink sandals and toenails the same shade. He knew it was how she pictured herself, the mental image she carried around, as opposed to what she’dactually been wearing when she died. Another surprise: most people saw themselves as unattractive and badly dressed.
    And nobody on the other side (that he’d seen, so far) worked on cheers; they were much more concerned with finding forgiveness, or happiness, as opposed to spelling out
S
-
P
-
I
-
R
-
I
-
T
with their arms.
    Heh.
    “Thank you so much for coming,” the man who used to