She and Mike had very little in common, actually. But it surprised her how easy it was to talk with him.
He plowed through a plate of assorted desserts while she ate a few small pastries. Afterward, they stood at a cash register where he insisted on paying for both of them. They walked through an entryway filled with vending machines holding gum, candy and small toys, and then through the busy parking lot to his truck.
“What do you want to do now?” Mike asked as he started the engine. “It’s too early to call it a night.”
“Oh, I…um…” She didn’t have a clue. “What would you like to do?”
He flashed her a grin. “This could go on a while. Let’s just cruise and see what grabs us, okay?”
Cruise and see what grabbed them? How odd. “Okay. Sure.”
He tuned into a rock station on his radio, then talked above the pounding music as he drove in a seemingly aimless pattern around the city streets. He
talked about the weather, giving even that prosaic subject a personal twist.
“Feels good tonight. Just a little cool. It’s been pretty warm for late October, hasn’t it? I used to hate it when it was too warm at Halloween. There’s nothing worse than sweating inside a heavy costume when you’re out trick-or-treating. Of course, it wasn’t much better when it was unseasonably cold, and my mom made me wear a coat over my costume—which I ditched as soon as I was out of her sight, of course.”
“I never went trick-or-treating, but growing up mostly in Florida, I was accustomed to choosing lightweight costumes on the few occasions when I dressed up for parties.”
Mike went suddenly silent, and when she glanced at him, she noticed that he wore what could only be described as a horrified expression. “You never went trick-or-treating?”
“No. I didn’t have siblings to go with me. And my parents considered the practice frivolous and rather dangerous. Mother said it was ‘distasteful’ to go door-to-door, demanding treats from people, only to then overindulge in unhealthy sweets.”
Mike seemed too dismayed to respond.
Laughing a little, she touched his arm in a gesture that was almost reassuring. “Don’t start thinking I had a deprived or unhappy childhood. It isn’t true. I was completely indulged. We traveled a lot and spent a great deal of happy time together. My parents weren’t into Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and some other traditional childhood fantasies, but they made sure I had wonderful birthdays and Christmases and summer vacations.”
“I’m glad you had a happy childhood. But still—no trick-or-treating.” He shook his head.
She laughed again. “You make it sound as though I was regularly beaten. Trust me, Mike, I don’t feel in the least deprived.”
He glanced her way with a smile. “I like hearing you laugh. Have you ever been to a haunted house?”
“I, um—” The unexpectedly rattling compliment, followed by the totally unrelated question, made her blink. “A haunted house? You mean, a real haunted house? Because as a scientist, I don’t believe they really—”
“Not a real haunted house,” he broke in quickly. “Though my sister Laurie could tell you a few hair-raising stories about a weekend she spent in a cottage in the Ozarks. But I was talking about one of the haunted houses that are put on every year by various charities.”
“Oh. That. No, I’ve never been to one, though I’ve heard them advertised quite a bit on the car radio lately.”
He promptly turned left at the next intersection. “This is something that can be remedied immediately.”
“Oh, I—”
“Trust me,” he said with another bright grin that didn’t do a thing to reassure her. “This will be fun.”
Chapter Seven
Mike drove to an old building on the outskirts of downtown that had been taken over by a local community theater group for the holiday. Overflow parking was provided in the lot of a vacant former business across the street, and Mike found an empty space fairly quickly, though the lot was almost full.
A long line of customers stood in line at the ticket window. The crowd was noisy, mostly young, ethnically diverse. Catherine caught the distinct odor of alcohol from some of the rowdier groups. Some of the visitors had come in costume, but they didn’t unnerve her as much as the ones who seemed to dress disturbingly as a fashion statement.
She was definitely out of her comfort zone here, she reflected as she moved just a bit closer to Mike.
Smiling, he draped an arm casually around her shoulders. “It will be fun,” he repeated.
With every nerve ending in her body tingling in response to his arm around her, she could only try to smile.
They waited quite some time, and Catherine tried not to eavesdrop too blatantly on the conversations going on around them. It wasn’t easy, since most of them were carried on in fairly loud voices.