The flare of her scent in his nostrils told him she was so on board with that plan.
So at least one thing, aside from his cock, was looking up.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Up on the second floor of Eliahu Rathboone's plantation house, Gregg Winn had to open the door to his and Holly's room with two fingers and a prayer that he didn't dump hot coffee down his leg. He'd filled the pair of mugs in his hands with brew he'd made himself at the "guest" pot on the sideboard in the dining room.
So God only knew what it tasted like.
"You need help?" Holly said as she looked up from the laptop.
"Nope." He kicked the door shut and headed for the bed. "I got it."
"You are so thoughtful."
"Wait till you try it . . . I had to jerry-rig yours," he said, giving the pale one to her. "They didn't have whole milk, which was what you had yesterday at breakfast. So I went to the kitchen and took half-and-half and some skim, mixed them together, and tried to get the color right." He nodded to the computer's screen. "What do you think of those scans?"
Holly stared down into the mug as she held it over the Dell's keyboard. She was stretched out on the bed, propped up against the headboard, analyzing the data he'd become obsessed with . . . looking sexy and smart.
And as if she didn't trust what he'd given her.
"Listen," he said, "just try the coffee--if it sucks, I'll wake up that proper butler."
"Oh, it's not that." She ducked her blond head and he heard her sip. The "ahhh" that followed was more than he could have hoped for. "Perfect."
Going around the edge of the bed, he settled in beside her on top of the duvet. As he took a drink from his own mug, he decided if his career in TV went tits-up, he might have a future at a Starbucks counter. "So . . . come on, tell me what you think of the footage."
He nodded at the screen and what it was showing: The night before, there had been a shot of something walking through the living room and going out the front door. Now, it could have been a guest up for a midnight snack, like Gregg had just been--except for the fact that it dematerialized right through the wooden panels. The thing just disappeared.
Kind of like the shadow outside her bedroom from the first night. Not that he liked thinking of it. Or that dream of hers.
"You haven't retouched this?" Holly said.
"Nope."
"God . . ."
"I know, right? And the network just e-mailed me while I was downstairs. They're so on fire, apparently the Internet's gone nuts over the promos already--all we have to do is pray that thing shows up a week from now when we go live. You sure your coffee's okay?"
"Oh, yes, it's . . . amazing." Holly glanced up over the rim of her mug. "You know, I've never seen you like this before."
Gregg leaned back against the pillows and couldn't help but agree. Hard to know what had changed; there had been a shift inside of him, however.
Holly took another sip. "You seem really different."
Unsure what he should say, he kept it about the work. "Well, I never actually thought ghosts existed."
"You didn't?"
"Nah. You know as well as I do all the fixes I've pulled. But here in this house . . . I'm telling you, something is here and I'm dying to get onto the third floor. I had this crazy dream about going up there. . . ." As a sudden headache cut off his thoughts, he rubbed his temple and decided he had eyestrain from having been on a computer for the past seventy-two hours straight. "There's something up in that attic, I'm telling you."
"The butler said it was off-limits."
"Yeah." And he didn't want to buck the guy too much. They had so much good TV to roll out, it wasn't like they needed more--and no sense pushing it. Last thing he wanted was to run into trouble with the management this close to airdate.
And it was very clear Mr. Spit and Polish didn't like them.
"Here, let me show you again . . . this is what really amazes me." Gregg reached forward and restarted the file so he could watch that figure disappear through the solid door again. "That's pretty damn incredible, right? I mean . . . did you ever think you'd see something like that?"
"No. I didn't."
Something about the sound of her voice brought his head toward her. Holly was staring at him, not the screen, while cradling her mug right to her heart.
"What?" he said, checking to see if he'd spilled on his shirt.
"Actually . . . it's about the coffee."
"Bad aftertaste?"
"No, not at all . . ." She laughed a little and drank some more. "I just never would have guessed you'd remember what kind of coffee I like, much less go to the trouble of making it for me. And you've never asked me what I thought about work before."