I also knew, however, what Paul would do if he found out I'd narced on him.

"But that's not what I'm worried about," I added hastily. "It's something Paul said when I . . . when I tried to get him to give the money back." I thought it better to leave out the part about when I'd gone for Paul's solar plexus. Also the thing Paul had said earlier in the day, about how his plans for Jesse were more humane than my own plans for himself. Because I had a feeling now that I knew what he'd meant by that. Though he couldn't have been more wrong. "It was something about you and what he was going to do you. Not kill you - "

"That," Jesse interrupted dryly, "would be difficult, querida, given that I'm already dead."

I glared at him. "You know what I mean. He said he wasn't going to kill you. He was going to . . . I think he said he was going to keep you from having died in the first place."

Even in the darkness of the car's interior, I saw Jesse's eyebrow go up.

"He has a very high opinion of his own abilities, that one" was all he said, however.

"Jesse," I said. I couldn't believe he wasn't taking Paul's threat seriously. "He really meant it. He's said it to me a couple of times, now. I seriously think he might be up to something."

"Slater is always going to be up to something where you're concerned, Susannah," Jesse said, in a voice that suggested he was more than a little tired of the subject. "He's in love with you. Ignore him, and eventually he'll go away."

"Jesse," I said. I couldn't, of course, tell him that I'd have liked nothing better than to turn my back on Paul and his manipulative ways, but that I couldn't because I'd promised him I wouldn't . . . in return for Jesse's life. Or at least his continued presence in this dimension. "I really think - "

"Ignore him, Susannah." Jesse was smiling a little now as he shook his head. "He's only saying these things because he knows they upset you, and then you pay attention to him. 'Oh, Paul! No, don't, Paul!'"

I looked at him in horror. "Was that supposed to be an imitation of me?"

"Don't gratify him by paying attention," Jesse continued as if he hadn't heard me, "and he'll grow tired of it and move on."

"I don't sound anything like that." I chewed my lower lip uncertainly. "Do I really sound like that?"

"And now, if that's all," Jesse went on, ignoring me exactly the way he'd told me to ignore Paul, "I think you should be getting home, querida. If your mother should wake and find you gone, you know she'll worry. Besides, don't you have school in a few hours?"

"But - "

"Querida." Jesse leaned over the gearshift and slipped a hand behind my neck. "You worry too much."

"Jesse, I - "

But I didn't get to finish what I'd started to say - nor, a second later, could I even recall what I'd meant to tell him. That's because he'd pulled me - gently, but inexorably - toward him, and covered my mouth with his.

Of course, it's impossible when Jesse's lips are on mine to think about anything other than the way those lips make me feel . . . which is unbelievably cherished and desired. I don't have a whole lot of experience in the kissing department, but even I know that what happens every time Jesse kisses me is . . . well, extraordinary.

And not just because he's a ghost, either. All the guy has to do is lower his lips to mine and it's like a Fourth of July sparkler going off deep inside me, flaming brighter and brighter until I can hardly bear the white-hot heat anymore. The only thing that seems as if it might put the fire out is pressing myself closer to him. . . .

But, of course, that only makes it worse, because then Jesse - who usually seems to have a fire of his own burning somewhere - ends up touching me someplace, beneath my shirt, for instance, where, of course, I want to be touched, but where he doesn't think his fingers have any business roaming. Then the kissing ends as Jesse apologizes for insulting me, even though insulted is the last thing I feel, something I've made as clear to him as I can, to no apparent avail.

But that's what I get for falling in love with a guy who was born back when men still treated women as if they were dainty breakable figurines instead of flesh and blood. I've tried to explain to him that things are different now, but he remains stubbornly convinced that everything below the neck is off-limits until the honeymoon. . . .

Except, of course, when we're kissing, like now, and he happens, in the heat of the moment, to forget he's a nineteenth-century gentleman.

I felt his hand move along the waistband of my jeans as we kissed. Our tongues entwined, and I knew it was only a matter of time until that hand slipped beneath my sweater and up toward my bra. I uttered a giddy prayer of thanks that I'd worn the front-closing one. Then, my eyes closed, I did a little exploration of my own, running my palms along the hard wall of muscles I could feel through the cotton of his shirt . . .

. . . until Jesse's fingers, instead of dipping inside my 34 B, seized my hand in a grip of iron.

"Susannah." He was breathing hard and the word came out sounding a little ragged as he rested his forehead against mine.

"Jesse." I wasn't breathing too evenly myself.

"I think you'd better go now."

How had I known he was going to say that?

It occurred to me that we would be able to do this - kiss like this, I mean - a lot more often and more conveniently if Jesse would get over the absurd idea that he has to stay with Father Dominic, now that we are, for want of a better word, an item. It was my bedroom, after all, that he'd been murdered in, way back when. Shouldn't it be my bedroom he continues to haunt?

I didn't couch it in those terms, though, since I knew Jesse, who's an old-fashioned guy, doesn't exactly approve of couples living together before wedlock. I also put resolutely from my mind the warning Father Dominic had given me, just before he'd left for San Francisco, about not giving into temptation where Jesse is concerned. It's all very well for Father D to talk. He's a priest. He has no idea what it's like to be a red-blooded teenage mediator. Of the female variety.

"Jesse," I said, still a little breathlessly, from all the kissing, "I can't help thinking . . . well, this thing with Paul. I mean, who knows if maybe he really has come up with some new way to . . . to keep you and me apart? And now, with Father Dom gone for who knows how long, I . . . Well, don't you think it might be better if you came back to my house for a while?"

Jesse, even though he'd almost just had his hand up my shirt, didn't like that idea at all. "So you can protect me from the nefarious Mr. Slater?" Was it my imagination or did he sound more amused than, er, aroused? "Thank you for the invitation, querida, but I can take care of myself."

"But if Paul finds out Father D is gone, he might come after you. And if I'm not around to stop him - "

"This may come as a surprise to you, Susannah," Jesse said, lifting his head and placing my hand in my lap once more, "but I can handle Slater without your help."

Now he definitely sounded amused.

"And now you're going home," he went on. "Good night, querida."

He kissed me one last time, a brief peck good-bye. I knew that any second he was going to disappear.

But there was still something else I needed to know. Ordinarily, I'd have asked Father Dominic, but since he wasn't around . . .

"Wait," I said. "Before you go . . . one last thing."

Jesse had already started to shimmer. "What, querida?"

"The fourth dimension," I blurted out.

He had begun to dematerialize, but now he looked solid again.

"What about it?" he asked.

"Um," I said. I'm sure he thought I was just asking to keep him there for a few more precious seconds. And truthfully? I probably was. "What is it?"

"Time," Jesse said.

"Time?" I echoed. "That's it? Just . . . time?"

"Yes," Jesse said. "Time. Why do you ask? For school?"

"Sure," I said. "For school."

"The things they teach now," he said, shaking his head.

"Cat food," I said, holding out the bag. "Don't forget."

No wonder we can't seem to make it past second base.

He took the bag from me.

"Good night, querida," he said.

And then he was gone. The only sign that he'd been there at all were the badly fogged windows, steamed by our breath.

Or rather, by my breath, since Jesse doesn't have any.

Chapter five

Mr. Walden held up a stack of Scantron sheets and said, "Number-two pencils only, please."

Kelly Prescott's hand immediately shot up into the air.

"Mr. Walden, this is an outrage." Kelly takes her role as president of the junior class extremely seriously . . . especially when it has to do with scheduling dances. And, apparently, aptitude testing. "We should have been given at least twenty-four hours' notice that we'd be undergoing state testing today."

"Relax, Prescott." Mr. Walden, our homeroom teacher and class advisor, began passing out the Scantron sheets. "They're career aptitude tests, not academic. Your scores won't show up on your permanent record. They're to help you" - he picked up one of the test booklets lying on his desk and read from it aloud - "'determine which careers are best suited to your particular skills and/or areas of interest and/or achievement.' Got it? Just answer the questions." Mr. Walden slapped a pile of answer sheets onto my desk for me to pass down my row. "You've got fifty minutes. And no talking."