The Other Side - J. D. Robb [141]
Jimmy narrowed his eyes and studied her assiduously as his father urged him into the booth and to move farther down the bench so he could follow.
“Mind if we join you?”
She gave him a do-I-really-have-a-choice look and he grinned at her—no.
“Okay, so the burning question on our minds is”—he wagged his hand between him and his son—“what happened to the cool backhoe?”
“The . . . oh, Mr. Brown’s machine . . . Well, he decided not to use it after all. Or at least not right now. We’re going to try to recycle what we can from the house first. Go Green.” She chanted the slogan lamely. The kid was still watching her. What went on in a head that small? “He tells me there’s a use for everything—even asphalt roofing is reused for hot-mix paving, and people will pay big money for some of the fine carpentry inside the house.”
“So you’re not even tempted to keep the old place.”
“No.” Her answer was too quick and too sharp. “I mean, I have no emotional attachment to the place. A few memories from my childhood, maybe, but it was more my mother’s touch-stone than mine. A place she loved and came back to when she needed to feel safe. I don’t have those sorts of feelings for the place.” She lowered her eyes from Ryan’s intense gaze to Jimmy’s—time for first contact? “And next summer you’ll have a Smoothie Hut in your own backyard. How about that?”
He tipped his head to one side and considered his answer. Suddenly his enormous brown eyes began to fill with tears, and his chin quivered. M.J. was so appalled he might as well have been growing extra appendages.
“What will happen to them?” he whimpered. “If you tear down their house and put up a Smoothie Hut, where will they go? Can they stay at the Smoothie Hut?”
In general, M.J. made a rule of not playing stupid, but in this case it felt . . . well, smart.
“Hey, champ.” Ryan put his arm around his son and tried to soothe him. “What’s all this? Don’t you want a Smoothie Hut next door?”
“No,” he wailed and turned his face into his father’s chest.
“Ah. You’re not worried that we won’t be having hot fudge sundaes anymore, are you? Cuz you know I can’t live for more than a week without one, right?”
“No.” He sniffed and lifted his tear-stained face toward Ryan. “I’m worried about my friends, Dad. Where will they go?”
“My guess is they’ll be coming to our house, hoping to get free smoothies out of me.” He chucked good-naturedly and glanced at M.J. as he smoothed dark hair from his son’s face. “I’ll have to get a second job—”
“Not those friends!” The boy was distraught now. “The ladies, Dad, the ladies who live in the house. Where will they go?” Once again he launched himself at his father’s chest. And the sisters thought Adeline was dramatic. “Where will they go if she smashes down their house? Tell her to don’t do it, Dad.”
Casually, as if this had nothing to do with her, M.J. picked up another triangle of her club sandwich and resumed her lunch.
It didn’t matter how he’d come to know there was more than one ghost in the house—whether Odelia had told him or if all three of them had been outside the house and talked to him—she thought it was cruel of them to make themselves known to him and couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been frightened at first. Terrified, maybe. And yet now he was concerned with their welfare?
Children were a total mystery to her.
To Ryan as well, if the look on his face was any indication.
“Jimbo.” Gently, he took the boy by the shoulders and held him away to look at his face. “Is this about those ghosts again?” Jimmy nodded, and M.J. chewed a little faster. Ryan sighed and sent an apologetic look her way. “You see what I mean? I’ve done everything I can to convince him there are no ghosts in that house. Would