Deaths Excellent Vacation

my momma wasn’t like other mommas. Until today, I haven’t run across anybody that made me feel like I was home, like I was with family. Like it was okay to be different. Even extended family shunned us.”
    He knew exactly how she felt and exactly what she meant. Without even thinking about it, he gathered her hands within his, as though that were the most natural thing to do in the whole world.
    “I think your difference is beautiful, Jess,” he said quietly, hoping his grandmother would mind her beeswax for a while. “I’ll help you trap that swamp witch and her pack in her house, if you want . . . They can’t keep killing innocent people.”
    A warm, soft palm slid out of his to touch his cheek. He almost closed his eyes at the sensation that it sent through his body.
    “Why can’t I see you?” she murmured, studying his face with her liquid brown gaze.
    “Ya needs ta answer that girl!” Grand called out from the kitchen, making them both laugh. “And ya best go home to be taking care of your dog.”
    Jessica hid a giggle behind her hand. “You have a dog?”
    “Kinda,” Justin hedged. “But this is why I don’t live here,” he said, shaking his head. “No privacy.” He took her hands within his again and let out a heavy sigh. “You know how old folks can be.”
    Jessica sat back, extracting her hands from his with a smile, glancing around. “I hear you . . . I thought you lived here?”
    “With Grand . . . Oh, noooo. Got my own apartment close to Xavier.”
    They both laughed, and he was glad that his grandmother’s intrusion had broken Jessica’s spell. Two seconds more and he would have told her all that she wanted to know.
    “Then since you all find me so funny,” Grand said in a peevish tone, “y’all go wash up and come eat and stop sitting on the sofa making goo-goo eyes at each other.”
     
     
    FOR the first time in a long time, Jess felt her sexuality awaken with a roar. What had always been a dull ache or a dream- state want was now a beast.
    Justin stood in the hotel lobby, stalling, the same way she was. They’d long since sopped up grits and gravy with Grand’s buttermilk biscuits, done dishes, and talked strategy and laughed together. She felt like she’d known Justin Cambridge all her born days, and the short walk in the humid evening air from Grand’s apartment over the shop to the hotel made her feel like she was floating on air.
    Drawing on everything her momma had taught her, she finally dredged up the strength to say good night. This one was a keeper and was old school, like her. It wouldn’t do to just ask him up to her room and be brazenly bold. But dang, he was so fine, so kind . . . just sexy as hell.
    “I’d better go,” she said with a slight smile.
    “Yeah . . . you’d better,” he murmured, but he didn’t move.
    “I have to come by the shop tomorrow to get all that stuff Grand was saying I’d need.”
    “ We’d need,” Justin corrected.
    “I hadn’t realized I said that,” Jessica said, covering her mouth. “I—”
    “It was fine,” Justin said, placing both hands on her upper arms.
    Warmth soaked into Jessica’s skin and practically melted her bones. Her breath hitched when she tried to speak.
    “I’d better go,” he said with a widening smile. “I want you to think I’m a gentleman.”
    She smiled and arched an eyebrow. “Want me to think that you’re a gentleman?”
    He gave her a dashingly sexy grin. “Uh-huh.”
    She couldn’t help laughing at the mischief she saw in his eyes. “So, what changed your normal ungentlemanly behavior?”
    “You,” he said, his smile fading. “Gotta be a gentleman around a true lady.” He leaned in, kissed her forehead, and stepped back. “So, I’ma go, okay?” He made the hand gesture that said he’d call her on her cell and left her with a wink.
    “Yeah,” she murmured, and gave him a little wave as he turned slowly, looked back once, and loped away.
     
     
    SHE woke up with the sun, tangled in the sheets. All she could think about was Justin’s voice, his sexy smile, his body . . . his beautiful locks . . . And then oddly she could suddenly envision his huge black dog. For some strange reason, the big, lovable animal made her smile and made her want to hug it like a big teddy bear.
    A chime on her cell phone practically made her fall out of her bed. She quickly grabbed it off the nightstand and opened it, then smiled. The message was brief, but she read it over and over