Ghosts of Boyfriends Past

Letting him in could mean losing him forever. Elizabeth “Biz” Marks has the magic touch when it comes to matters of the...

Author: Andrews Vivi

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Letting him in could mean losing him forever. Elizabeth “Biz” Marks has the magic touch when it comes to matters of the heart—except her own. In a slightly tipsy fit of loneliness, she once tried to harness a little love mojo to work in her favor. Instead the spell mutated into a nightmarish curse that kills off her boyfriends on her favorite holiday: Valentine’s Day. With three permanently ex-boyfriends on her conscience and another heartsand-flowers holiday approaching, the last thing she needs is a too-gorgeous-tobe-true reporter snooping around. Biz just has extraordinarily bad luck, or she’s a bona-fide Black Widow who bumps off her boyfriends for a chunk of the inheritance money. Either way, Mark Ellison is sure there’s a story here. Especially when his attempts to charm her send her into a panic. The harder Biz tries to keep Mark and his beguiling dimples as far away as possible, the harder he digs to get at the truth. Now she’s beginning to wonder if his is the love that will finally break the curse...or if she’ll be burying her heart along with him. Warning: This book contains curses, meddling ghosts, nosy neighbors and enough peppermint Schnapps to drown the inhibitions of even the most cautious witch.

eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B Cincinnati OH 45249 Ghosts of Boyfriends Past Copyright © 2012 by Vivi Andrews ISBN: 978-1-60928-564-7 Edited by Sasha Knight Cover by Valerie Tibbs All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: January 2012 www.samhainpublishing.com

Ghosts of Boyfriends Past Vivi Andrews

Dedication

For anyone who’s ever been unlucky in love on Valentine’s Day. Be careful what you wish for…

Chapter One—A Date with Death

It’s an odd feeling, knowing the date of your own personal apocalypse. Biz gazed at the big red X on her calendar with a curdled sense of dread. Tminus three weeks, two days and just under fifteen hours. It loomed in her mind, a dark, bloody blemish on the cool face of winter. Valentine’s Day. A rebel curl broke free of the scalp-stretching bun restraining her hair, and Biz jammed it back into place. This time she was in control. It would be different this year. No fatalities. She’d taken precautions. Changed everything about her appearance, the shop and her life. Sucked the joy out of the entire freaking season to avoid sucking the life out of another innocent guy. Being a magical-type person (okay, a witch) and having a particular affinity for spells of the romantic persuasion, she’d always been quite fond of Valentine’s Day. Every February, she would deck out the shop with cheesy crepe-paper decorations and bounce around town with the smug good cheer of a successful matchmaker during the season of love. Until four years ago. The Year of the Curse. The day when she got drunk, stupid and greedy, and everything hearts and flowers went to Hell in a handbasket. Biz smoothed her hands over the grey sweater that hung shapelessly from her shoulders. She’d always been a bright colors and free spirits type girl, but if

Ghosts of Boyfriends Past

the last three years had taught her anything, it was that following your bliss could get people killed. So no matter how it went against the grain, she restrained the wild abundance of her curls into a brutal knot, wore tailored pants and dull grey cable-knit sweaters, and micromanaged every tiny detail of her life so no curseinducing live-and-let-love tendencies could sneak through. Sometimes the universe forced you to become the one thing you’d never wanted to be—which in Biz’s case was an uptight Anne Taylor clone. Behind her, the bells above the shop door jangled cheerfully. At the sound, Biz yanked her eyes away from the calendar of doom and glanced at the clock. Nine fifteen. Gillian was early. “Why do people take handbaskets to Hell?” she asked without turning, idly doodling red devil horns over February 14th, the Day that Shall Live in Infamy. “Is luggage really a consideration in the fires of damnation?” She waited for Gilly to come back with some quip about boycotting Hell if she couldn’t bring her Gucci handbag. “I blame the pharaohs.” That isn’t Gillian. The yummy masculine rumble of sound tickled the base of her spine. That’s trouble. Biz whipped around on her stool so fast her butt slipped off the edge. Somehow she managed not to faceplant into the incense display and righted herself, adding a casual flip of her hair as if to say, Yeah, I totally meant to stagger drunkenly off my stool and careen into the merchandise. Or it would have said that, if her hair had been down and flipped properly. As it was, her bun just sort of wobbled and she probably looked like she had a tick. Which was doubly mortifying when she saw the body attached to that voice.

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Tall, Dark and Steamy stood in the middle of her shop, his shoulders taking up nearly all the available room. His clothing was tourist casual, like every other day-tripper who took the ferry out to the island, but the dark blue button-up shirt and faded jeans clung to every muscle they were supposed to cling to. The man was pure, sugar-filled eye candy. Dear God, have mercy. The universe hated her. There was no other explanation as to why it would send her the masculine personification of temptation right when she couldn’t indulge. It was like handing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food and a spoon to a woman who’d just decided she was on a diet—cruel and unusual. A five o’clock shadow darkened his jaw, though it wasn’t even ten. Dark brown hair curled carelessly over his brow, honey-brown tones appearing when he stepped into the light from the shop’s single window. His lips quirked up at one side, a wry little tilt that only added to his sex appeal—though it probably meant he was laughing at her klutziness. There was simply no justice in the world when a man could look droolworthy while silently mocking you for being a spaz. “Elizabeth Marks?” Did his voice have to be so delicious? Did his blue eyes have to have that devilish twinkle flashing in their depths? It was almost overkill. “Pharaohs?” she said a little too breathlessly to maintain any dignity. Did pharaohs have harems? Could she volunteer to be part of his? “They were all about taking their worldly possessions with them into the afterlife, weren’t they? If anyone needed a handbasket to get stuff to Hell, I bet it was the Egyptians.” “Oh.” Oh, well done, Biz. You sound like a regular Rhodes scholar. He won’t be able to resist you now.

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Whoa. Resist her? What was wrong with her? She wasn’t trying to attract him. Especially not now, less than a month from D-Day. The last thing she needed was another ghost on her conscience. And in her house. The three she had were three too many, thank you very much. Biz cleared her throat and tried to project an aura of professionalism—which had never really been her forte. Magic, yes. Professionalism, not so much. “May I help you find something?” “Are you Elizabeth Marks?” “Biz is fine. I mean, yes, I am Elizabeth, but people call me Biz. Just Biz. That’s my name. Biz.” Shutupshutupshutup. “Well, if you’re Elizabeth ‘Biz’ Marks, then I’ve just found what I’m looking for.” Oh, hubba-hubba. Her heart did a slow roll against her rib cage as his sexy-assin lips quirked in another little smile. “You have?” The radiator was about a hundred years old, so the temperature in the shop was borderline frigid this time of year, but Biz had to resist the urge to fan herself. And through it all, a small voice in the back of her mind kept up a whispered chorus of Bad idea, don’t flirt, you idiot, Valentine’s curse, bad idea, Valentine’s curse… “My name is Mark Ellison. I’m a reporter for the Raleigh Gazette. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.” Then he smiled, flashing straight pearly whites, and there, in the depths of his five o’clock shadow, Biz saw them. Dimples. She was done for. It would take a stronger woman than she not to melt in the face of those dimples.


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Then his words penetrated and wariness dampened her infatuation. “Questions about what?” He leaned one forearm on the counter between them and shot her a deceptively harmless tell-me-all-your-dirty-secrets smile. With dimples. “I’m doing a human-interest piece about the stresses associated with Valentine’s Day—” He knows. Biz’s wariness congealed into horror. How could he know? No one knew. Even the people on the island who’d put the pieces together to realize she’d been involved with Paul, Gabriel and Tony didn’t think she could possibly have had anything to do with their deaths. Let alone caused them. That damned curse. Biz realized the Reporter of Doom was still talking. “…and I was hoping you might be able to provide some insights. I understand you’ve had a run of unusually bad luck with the holiday.” Bad luck. That was putting it mildly. “No comment.” Her teeth clicked together when she snapped her mouth shut on the last consonant. Please let him take the hint and just leave. Preferably before the boys realized she wasn’t alone in the shop and came down to investigate. Please, please, please. Unfortunately, her craptastic luck hadn’t reversed course in the last five minutes. Mark Ellison stayed right where he was. And kept talking. Mr. Smooth. “I realize this must be a trying time for you. Losing three men you love in three years, all on exactly the same day, and to have it be Valentine’s Day…” He trailed off, inviting her to fill in the details of her story. It would sound awful if she admitted the truth. That she hadn’t loved them. She’d barely let herself know them at all—before their deaths anyway.

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But before she could confess the ugly truth, a chill wind shot through the shop, setting the pendants clattering against one another, and a phantom figure appeared, wavering in the air behind the reporter’s shoulder. Trust Paul to be the first to arrive—always the attention whore. Biz glared at his ethereal image. “Paul Lundgren,” the reporter said, and Biz’s spine snapped straight. Could he see Paul? Then she realized he was just listing the deceased, and her heart sank. He would’ve been the first to see the ghost. When she’d told people in the weeks and months after Paul’s death that she kept seeing him around the house, their eyes would glaze over with pity and they would pat her hand and murmur poor baby. Everyone seemed so convinced it was normal, she’d told herself it was grief rather than haunting. She’d been good at denial, that first year. “Out-of-work actor slash bungee-jump technician, moved to Parish Island three years ago January…” Three years. It felt like a lifetime. She’d been a different person then. Open. Free. Hopeful. When she met Paul, in the twitterpated stupidity of the first blush, she’d thought the love spell she’d drunkenly cast the previous Valentine’s Day had really worked. Paul was funny and charming—sure, he was unemployed and tended to be reckless and irresponsible, but no one was perfect. They’d met on February fifth and by the seventh were knee-deep in fizzy infatuation. The next seven days had been pure, foolish bliss. The Reporter of Doom made a sympathetic face. Behind him, Paul made a much less mature face. “Such a sudden, unexpected sky-diving accident,” Mark Ellison intoned.


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Is there any other kind of sky-diving accident? Biz bit her lip on the urge to snark. Women whose lives were defined by beige and grey did not snark about tragic passings of might-have-been loved ones. And she was going to be beige if it killed her. That other Biz, the colorful, playful, impulsive one, was the one Paul had felt compelled to jump out of a plane on Valentine’s Day to demonstrate his love for. When a stray wind had carried his chute into some power lines, she’d been crushed, but more by the tragic loss of one so young and vibrant than the soul mate she’d fleetingly fancied him to be. She’d attributed the fact that she kept seeing him to misplaced guilt rather than the loss of her one true love—until she’d realized her guilt wasn’t altogether misplaced. “Gabriel Fox.” Right on cue, Bachelor Number Two wailed eerily down the stairwell. Gabriel had always had a distinct flair for the dramatic. “Professor of American Literature, moved to Parish Island in November of that same year…” Serious and intense, Gabriel had been Paul’s polar opposite in every way. At the time, Biz hadn’t suspected the curse was responsible for Paul’s death, but she’d still been cautious about handing out her heart. She’d let Gabriel’s dark, poetic soul romance her over two slow, guarded months. By Valentine’s she was almost ready to give him a slice of her affections— “Car accident.” —when he drove out into a dark and stormy night, and straight off a cliff. The moaning and wailing had started in the house the very next week. Mournful songs played on the piano at all hours, doors creaked no matter how she oiled them—Gabriel had taken his haunting in a rather gothic direction.

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By then Biz knew better than to tell people she was hearing Gabriel and seeing Paul. And she’d known something about her love spell had gone horribly wrong. Yes, it was against the rules to cast love magic on your own behalf—one of the few ironclad don’ts her grandmother had given her—but she hadn’t for one second suspected how badly it would backfire. Or how it would lash out at those around her, twisting into a terrible curse. “And then there’s Anthony Gable.” Biz sighed. Poor Tony. She sank back onto her stool—which she’d stepped away from. She would have landed flat on her butt in front of the hot reporter, but a firm phantom hand caught her arm and steadied her, sliding the stool beneath her so she sat with barely a hitch. Wonderful, considerate Tony. “Successful Raleigh restaurateur, moved to Parish Island the following July…” She’d resisted him from day one. An up-and-coming chef who moved to the island to take a break from the stresses of being disgustingly successful, she hadn’t been able to figure out why a charming, together guy like him wasn’t off the market already—and why the heck he’d be interested in a mess like her. And she had been a mess by that point. Barely holding it together as she searched her grandmother’s library for something, anything to undo the curse. When she’d flatly refused to date him, Tony had said they could be friends. He told her he just needed someone to try out new recipes on. Bit by bit, he snuck into her life. He spent so much time in her kitchen he’d practically moved into her house—and her heart—by the time Valentine’s rolled around. She hadn’t really thought they were dating, hadn’t ever thought of him as her


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boyfriend and had been very, very careful not to even think the L word, but the curse hadn’t cared. “Food poisoning. February fourteenth.” It had to be some kind of record. Biz was officially the world’s unluckiest girl in love. With three oh-so-eligible ghosts haunting her house. See no evil, hear no evil and…touch no evil? Except she knew better than to blame it on luck. She’d done this. Her stomach roiled with guilt. And now someone knew. Somehow this supernaturally hot reporter had put together the pieces and seen that no coincidence was that coincidental. What was she supposed to say? Lock me away for irresponsible magic use? That would go over well. Though maybe the curse wouldn’t be able to reach her inside an asylum. Biz ducked her head, smoothing her scalp-tingling bun. “I’d rather not talk about it.” I can neither confirm nor deny the allegations against me at this time… Ellison’s smile ratcheted up a notch in sympathy and trustworthiness— which only made her trust him less. “Lots of people struggle with depression and self-doubt around this particular holiday. It makes them feel less alone when they know there are other people out there struggling too. A story like yours—” “Is nobody’s business but mine. Sorry.” “After all you’ve been through, to tell people you still believe in love—” “I don’t. Sorry.” The moaning and creaking in the house around them grew louder. Paul made a rude gesture at Ellison’s back and even Tony got into the action, slamming the door behind Biz in an attempt to scare off the pest. And the reporter was oblivious to it all, his eyes twinkling away, as tenacious as he was attractive. Dangerous combination.

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“It must be hard for you, coping with Valentine’s Day on your own in this funny old house. Sharing your story could lighten your burden—” “Wanna buy a charm?” Biz snatched a crystal necklace off the rack to her left and held it up between them, letting it dangle between her fingers. “No? Are you sure? It’s a great charm. You’ll love it. Everyone around you will love that you have it. You need it, for the good of humanity. But don’t buy it for them. Buy it for yourself.” She glared at him, no longer at all enchanted by his gorgeous dimples. “See how annoying that is? Stop trying to sell me. I’m not buying.” His bullshit trust-me grin cracked as a real one split through it. His dimples flashed at her. “Was I that obvious?” “You were trying for subtle? Oh, honey, that’s just sad.” He gave a rusty laugh that was oddly appealing. It was the first thing about him that wasn’t so practiced it seemed oiled to a slick shine. “Too much too fast?” His lazy grin invited her to laugh with him at his own expense, and her irritation folded. Damn. He was good. He hadn’t missed a beat before shifting over to a new tactic. She leaned against the shelf at her back, absently swinging the crystal charm. “We run on island time around here. Diving right into it was a dead giveaway that you’re a day-tripper from the city.” “And that’s a bad thing?” “Absolutely. All city folk are here to exploit us, steal our women and rape our cattle.” His rough laugh grated out again, and Biz had to bite back the urge to smile at the jagged sound. “I promise I have only virtuous intentions toward your cattle.” “I notice you didn’t say anything about your intentions toward our women.”


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Wicked promise filled his eyes. “Haven’t made up my mind about my intentions toward you yet.” Her knees wobbled. Oh, baby. That’s trouble. He was flirting with her. Tall, Dark and Steamy was so far out of her league it was laughable, but he actually appeared to be flirting with her. A rack of runes crashed to the floor and reality crashed in on Biz. Thank you, Tony, for the wake-up call. Biz straightened and dropped the charm onto the counter. “I think you should go.” Tony had been out of her league too, but the curse hadn’t cared. The damned love spell had sucked him in and tricked him into thinking she was a goddess. The spell was the only explanation for why Mark Ellison would be twinkling and dimpling and flirting with her. She had to get him out of here pronto. The reporter with a death wish leaned forward. He should be running for the door, but he was swaying toward her, his eyes twinkling. The idiot. “Can we start over? I’m Mark. You’re Biz. I just want to talk to you.” “No. You have to leave.” As she spoke, the bell over the door jangled and Mrs. Kent, the busybody who owned the B&B across the street, poked her head inside, the rest of her compact figure quickly following. “Leave? Biz Marks, don’t you tell me you’re shooing off our first winter visitor in weeks. Shame on you, dearie!” “Mrs. Kent, he isn’t a tourist—” “Don’t you listen to a word she says. Everyone who visits Parish becomes a tourist. They can’t help it. You just stay as long as you please, Mister…” She trailed off, extending her hand and beaming at the Reporter of Doom. Her eyes gleamed with the fervent light of a hostess scenting a tourist in the off-season.

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Mark Ellison flicked a brief, triumphant look at Biz then turned to smile down at the petite picture of Parish hospitality. “Mark Ellison, ma’am. A pleasure.” Mrs. Kent twittered girlishly, instantly smitten—damn those dimples—and latched onto his hand with a death grip worthy of a boa constrictor. “Promise me you won’t go rushing off now.” Ellison twinkled. “Oh, I promise.” Biz wondered if this was how people on the Titanic felt when they saw iceberg chunks floating past their stateroom windows.


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Chapter Two—The Black Widow of Sunnybrook Farm

Elizabeth “Biz” Marks wasn’t at all what Mark expected of the Black Widow of Parish Island. He’d mentally cast her as dark, sleek and smolderingly sexy. Catherine ZetaJones, or maybe Penelope Cruz. In reality…she looked all wrong. The lethal Lolita who’d killed three men in the last three years shouldn’t look like a cross between a gypsy and a librarian. He’d pictured her in a killer black dress and red stiletto heels, as sexually appealing as she was coldly calculating. Instead her clothing was shapeless and drab, but she sparkled with an inner energy that couldn’t be contained. She was obviously doing everything in her power not to attract men—no makeup, hair yanked back in a brutal bun, the clothes, the get-the-hell-away-from-me vibe— but he was attracted. More than he cared to admit. Her face was a perfect heart shape, and while she was certainly pretty, there was nothing about her that screamed sexual siren so much as Sunday school teacher. But just because her eyes sparkled with innocence didn’t mean she wasn’t responsible for the deaths of at least three men. Three “accidental” deaths in the last three years. All on Valentine’s Day. And all of them leaving a tidy inheritance to one Elizabeth Marks in their wills. It was beyond suspicious. From the second his editor handed him the assignment, he’d known there was more to the story than a human-interest piece. Bad luck didn’t strike at


exactly the same time on exactly the same day every single year. Somehow she was killing them while maintaining the appearance of complete innocence, and he was going to discover how. Snow White, that’s who she reminded him of. Provided Snow White had wild curls, bad fashion sense and started killing off her dwarves for their riches. “So how long will you be staying on Parish, Mr. Ellison?” asked the diminutive, elderly woman clinging to his hand with a surprisingly strong grip. “There’s so much to do and see.” “It’s the off-season,” Biz interrupted. “Everything’s closed. Nothing to see.” Her eagerness to get rid of him screamed guilt, but there was more to it than that. She seemed edgy, but almost…protective. Mark studied her, letting a slow smile spread across his face. “Oh, I think there’s plenty here to interest me.” A charm offensive never failed him, but Biz shot him a disgusted glare and turned away, crossing to the rack the wind had knocked over a few minutes ago. She righted the black metal carousel and untangled the charms on display, her hands steady. Mark had learned to watch the hands. Fear of discovery sent a jolt of adrenaline through any system. Adrenaline came through in shaking or fidgeting hands, quickened breathing, but Biz seemed calm. Annoyed, undeniably. Hiding something, most definitely. But the guilt signs were contradictory. Interesting. “Mr. Ellison?” Mrs. Kent prompted. “How long?” Mark met Biz’s eyes as she glanced up to catch his response. “As long as it takes.” Biz’s hands jerked and the rack careened away from her. Mark’s hand snaked out to catch it—more reflex than anything, he was too far away to prevent the crash. But there was no crash. The rack froze at forty-five degrees


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and swung back upright, stopping exactly vertical, the charms tinkling against one another. Mark frowned. Odd counterbalance on that thing. Biz rushed back to her post behind the counter, jumpy as hell, drawing his eye away from the anti-gravitational rack. Well, shit. He’d never get her story if he couldn’t put her at ease. He’d almost screwed up his chance already, pushing too hard. He’d been off his game lately, but it wasn’t like him to lose control of a conversation this completely. Normally he was the best around when it came to getting people to open up. His sources adored him and he never failed to get them to spill all. Biz obviously didn’t adore him. “Mr. Ellison…” she began, but Mrs. Kent must have sensed Biz was about to try to throw him out again because the tiny grandmother started chattering at warp speed. “I do hope you’ll stay at least as long as the Parish Island Winter Festival. It isn’t much by city standards, I suppose. Just an excuse for the locals to use up all the leftover peppermint schnapps and cocoa after Christmas is over, but we like it. Our Biz here has one of the most popular booths every year.” “Do you?” “Mrs. Kent runs the B&B across the street,” Biz explained dryly, without looking at him. “She has a vested interest in convincing you to stay.” Mark wrenched his attention away from Biz and focused a beam of charm straight at the rail-thin matron. “A B&B?” “The Shoreview Guesthouse,” she said with obvious pride. “Top rated. A Raleigh magazine even called my scones the best in the Carolinas.” Her hands fluttered like hummingbirds, never settling, but Mark could tell it was fussy energy rather than nerves or guilty adrenaline causing the flittering. “We have a

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weekend rate, you know. Off-season. Very reasonable. Are you in town for business? No time like the present to add a couple days for pleasure, I always say. It’s so lovely this time of year. Quiet. Without all the tourists jostling for space on the beaches. Though I don’t imagine you came for the beaches, what with it being so cold lately. But then it is winter.” She giggled as if she’d made a joke. Biz looked like she was trying not to leap across the counter and throttle the little old lady. “What brings you to Parish Island, Mister Ellison?” “The Spanish Inquisition,” Biz grumbled under her breath. “Work, I’m afraid. I’m a journalist.” “Are you now! Is there a story on our little island?” Mark smiled his most trustworthy smile. “Everyone has a story.” Mrs. Kent fluttered, Biz glowered, and a display behind Mark smacked into the back of his legs, knocking him to his knees. “Ow! Damn it—beg pardon, ladies.” “Tony,” Biz snapped. “Heavens, are you all right, Mr. Ellison?” Mrs. Kent and Biz rushed to help him up, the latter glowering disapprovingly at the empty air behind his shoulder. “Excuse me,” she said curtly, once they had him back on his feet. Biz marched to the corner of the shop and began to give a stern whispered lecture…to a floor lamp. Mark frowned. “I’m fine. Is she all right?” “Hmm? Oh, Biz? Right as rain.” Mrs. Kent beamed at him. “You will stay until the festival, won’t you, Mr. Ellison?” He hadn’t been planning to stay. He’d meant this to be a day trip. Come over on the morning ferry, interview Ms. Marks, poke around to find additional sources, get a feel for the situation and be headed back to Raleigh on the five


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o’clock ferry. But this looked like it was going to take more than a day to get to the bottom of this story. He had a contact looking into the medical records of the three victims, but this island was where the story breathed. And he had the time if he wanted to spend it. His numbers had been slipping lately and, after a handful of reader emails complaining about how jaded his features had become, his editor had more or less commanded him not to return until he’d gotten his mojo back. A few canned columns would fill his inches for the next two weeks whether he was here or in Raleigh. Seeing idyllic, sleepy Parish Island, he had a feeling his editor had thought of his story as about as close to a spa vacation as she could assign him. “You know, Mrs. Kent, I think I would like to book a room for the night.” “No!” Biz spun away from the naughty lamp she’d progressed to wagging her finger at. “You have to leave. Are you insane?” Coming from the woman talking to the lighting fixture. “Biz, really,” Mrs. Kent exclaimed, but before she could say more, the bells jangled, the door opened, and a slim, dark-haired man stepped inside. “Mrs. Kent?” “Grand-central-fucking-station,” Biz muttered, retreating back behind her counter as the B&B owner turned to the newcomer. “Mr. Bloom! What can I do for you?” Bloom avidly tracked Biz’s progress back to her perch, but when she looked in his direction he flinched and flicked his gaze to Mrs. Kent, blinking rapidly. “Internet,” he blurted, his pale face reddening. “The internet is down. My window faces… I saw you over here.” “Of course! Drat that router-thingamawhatsit,” Mrs. Kent prattled. “I’ll be over in a jiff to get it set to rights, Mr. Bloom.”

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Bloom hesitated, momentarily stymied by the dismissal, then sort of bowed in Biz’s direction and disappeared out the door as abruptly as he’d arrived. Mrs. Kent patted Mark’s arm, protecting her sale. “The internet works quite well, I assure you. Mr. Bloom is my other guest at the Shoreview. Perhaps you could have breakfast with him. Of course, I keep the dining room open from seven until nine, so if you chose to avoid him, that would be possible as well. Though he does seem a nice sort. Quiet.” “It’s always the quiet ones,” Biz mumbled, and Mark had to bite back a smile. He gently untangled Mrs. Kent from his arm. “I’m sure he’s a lovely breakfast companion.” “I’d best go fix the router-thingamawhatsit. Just you pop across the street whenever you’re done here, Mr. Ellison. I’ll have your room all ready for you.” Biz bounded off her stool. “Mrs. Kent, he won’t be staying.” Mark spoke to Mrs. Kent, but he didn’t take his eyes off Biz. “I’ll check in this afternoon.” The B&B proprietress giggled as if he and Biz were a fabulous comedy routine, fluttered her hummingbird hands and jangled out the door, leaving him once again with the Black Widow who was becoming more fascinating the more she protested. She met his gaze, her own openly pleading. “Please just go, Mr. Ellison. This is a bad time for me.” She’d obviously tried to be rigid and firm, but it didn’t fit her any better than the frumpy sweater she was hiding inside. “I can come back later. Let me take you to lunch. Or better yet, dinner.” “No! God, no. I meant this time of year. We can’t eat together. Are you suicidal or something?” “You’re that bad a cook?”


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“What?” “It was a joke. There’s got to be a decent restaurant somewhere on this island. Or was it your big jealous linebacker boyfriend you were warning me about?” “I’m not seeing anyone.” She winced. He smiled. “So what’s the harm? It’s only dinner.” “That’s how it always starts.” “Do you think you’re jinxed? Like if you start seeing someone he’ll…” He trailed off, trying to think of a delicate way to say keel over. “Yep. Jinxed. Especially on Valentine’s Day. So you should leave. Now.” “What if I promised to leave town only if you have dinner with me tonight?” Biz’s mouth dropped open. “I— Are you trying to blackmail me into going out with you?” He grinned. “Is it working?” “Why?” she yelped. “You intrigue me.” He smiled another trust-me-on-this smile. Biz’s eyes narrowed. “This is all just a ploy to get a story, isn’t it? You’re good. I’ll give you that. And I’ll give you an interview. An interview, not a date. No dinner. No eating together at all. Someplace professional. And public.” “How about here? Now?” “No, I… Later. I have to man the shop.” She waved at the deserted aisles. Bustling downtown Parish. “I close at two tomorrow. You can come by then.” Mark slathered charm onto his next smile. “I’ll be here. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.” Biz groaned. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

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Chapter Three—With Friends Like These Who Needs Enemas

When the door closed behind the reporter with a death wish, Biz somehow resisted the urge to curl into the fetal position and sob, though she did sink onto her stool and drop her forehead to the counter with a thunk. Not another ghost. Anything but that. Biz gave the counter a couple more thumps for good measure. It was oddly cathartic, the physical act of banging her head against something. Especially after the conversation she’d just had. So she had an interview with a reporter who wanted to put all her secrets on display. It could be worse. At least it wasn’t dinner. Dinner meant dating and dating meant death. An innocent little dinner, a few hours of cozy conversation, and next thing she knew she was at another funeral with another mountain of guilt heaped on top of her. No, thank you. No men. Until Biz knew for sure she’d broken the curse, she had her vow of eternal chastity and her battery-operated boyfriend to keep her warm at night. And the ghosts. Charms tinkled against one another in an upward cascade like a question asked. A soft hand patted her gently on the back. If she looked up, she knew she’d see Paul, peering at her with his own version of concern, but she didn’t want to look up. She didn’t want to deal with the ghosts at all. For five minutes she just wanted to be completely, utterly alone.

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“I’m fine, guys,” she said without lifting her forehead from the countertop. “Go on upstairs. I’ll be up in a minute.” She felt them move away. With her eyes closed, the air shifting around her could have been displaced by actual bodies. She could have been surrounded by real men. It was so tempting, sometimes, to live her life with her eyes closed. But the ostrich approach wasn’t going to make the reporter go away. What was she supposed to tell him? Admit the truth? Or some sterilized version of it? Jinxed was probably better than I’m a witch and I cursed myself and now my ex-boyfriends are haunting me on the how-crazy-are-you scale. But the odds were good her brain was going to short-circuit the second Mark walked into the room tomorrow. She certainly hadn’t been able to think straight today. Panic and the yummy pheromone cloud he exuded had combined to turn her into a blithering idiot. She’d needed cool-headed strategy and all she could think was Evict the dimples! Which was really not as helpful as one might hope. God, why hadn’t he just left? Why had he flirted like a freaking lemming sprinting toward the nearest cliff? But she knew why. The spell. She wasn’t a sex goddess. She was disorganized and had ten stubborn pounds she could never get rid of adding an extra layer of padding. Not that the two were related. But she wasn’t exactly a catch. So why was this hunk of burning investigative reporting willing to blackmail her into a date? Though maybe it was the scent of a story he was chasing. Please let it be the story. If he was only a reporter, he might survive the month. She just had to make up some lies to tell him tomorrow at the interview. Provided the curse hasn’t already struck him dead.

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Biz groaned. This was a bad idea. She shouldn’t be spending any more time with him. He might as well have had Biz’s Next Victim tattooed on his forehead. She should call him back. Tell him no. Be firm. Kick him off the island. Maybe see if the boys could scare the bejeezus out of him. But before she could do anything, the bells over the door jangled again. Biz lifted her head off the counter and watched as her best friend shouldered open the door with both arms full of what looked like a large plastic purple pumpkin. “Morning, Bizby,” Gillian called cheerfully, trying—and failing—to flip her blonde Charlie’s Angels bangs out of her eyes with a toss of her head. Biz waved half-heartedly, still preoccupied with the Reporter of Doom. “I can’t handle another ghost on my conscience. I honestly can’t.” Gillian hefted the pumpkin thing up onto the only open counter space in the shop and huffed her bangs out of her eyes. “Sometimes I forget how odd you are. And then you speak.” “Says the woman with the giant purple pumpkin.” Though, seeing as it was Gillian and this was Parish Island, the sight of a woman carting around a swollen purple gourd in the middle of January didn’t even tweak Biz’s finely honed weirdness radar. “It isn’t a pumpkin. It’s a heart. I need to store it in here until Valentine’s so Dave doesn’t see it.” Gillian looked at her for the first time since swanning through the door. “Jeez, Biz, what are you wearing? Just looking at you is depressing.” “Thank you. That isn’t a heart and it is not staying here.” Gilly’s eyelashes began to bat at Mach two. Dr. Gillian Hale, M.D., Ph.D. pain in the ass, was a freaking genius, but she’d learned early that she could get away with more by being the prettiest girl on the island than she could by being the smartest one. Flirtation was still her first line of attack, even on people


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experience had shown weren’t susceptible to her charms. “Please, Bizby?” she purred, as her eyelashes worked up a gale-force wind. “Stop that. Or I won’t tell you about the new hunk in town.” Gillian’s eyelashes screeched to a halt. “New hunk?” A flash of interest crossed her face before her expression fell. “God’s testicles, Bizby, did you go all spastic on him? I’ve seen you around good-looking men. It ain’t pretty.” “I didn’t spaz out.” Much. “He wanted to interview me.” “You? Why?” “See, this is why we’re friends. Your faith in me warms the cockles of my heart.” “We’ll discuss warming up your cockles later. Tell me about the stud. Is interview some new slang I haven’t heard about?” Biz grinned. God bless Gilly’s one-track mind. Her feeling of impending doom was gradually fading in Gillian’s presence. She felt almost cheerful. “Dave would be appalled by your prurient interest in another man.” “Dave would be stymied by the use of the word prurient. And don’t change the subject. I love my hubby and I would never look at another man, blah blah blah. Now back to the stud. I want details.” “He’s a reporter from Raleigh who wants me to share my feelings about having the worst Valentine’s luck in the history of mankind.” Gillian drew herself up to her full five eleven, her expression darkening. “I hope you told him where to shove it. What kind of scumsucker makes a living exploiting other people’s grief? Just point me in his direction and I’ll kick the living shit out of him.” “Doesn’t beating a reporter bloody violate your Hippocratic oath or something?” “There’s a loophole for the press and people who harass my friends.”

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“Handy loophole. And while I appreciate the sentiment, I think instead I’ll just try avoiding him. That seems less likely to result in assault charges.” Gillian shrugged. “The offer stands. So you aren’t going to talk to him?” Biz thought that one over. She was tempted to hide in her house like a hermit for the next three weeks, but Mark Ellison didn’t seem like the kind of man who gave up easily. But how could she shoo him off without telling him anything? The truth was absolutely out of the question, but he flustered her so much she wasn’t able to come up with good lies when he was standing there in front of her looking like an all-you-can-eat manflesh buffet. She needed a plan. A script to follow. He was too easy to talk to. There were moments when she’d found words just spilling right out of her mouth with no direction from her. Almost as if she was compelled to confide in him. That was dangerous enough with people who’d known her all her life and accepted her idiosyncrasies. With a reporter from the city, it reached a whole new level of stupid. “Biz? Earth to Bizby. Come in, Bizby.” Biz blinked and Gillian grinned. “There you are. So are you talking to this reporter or what?” “I told him I’d meet him here tomorrow at two.” Biz groaned, slumping on her stool. “I just wish I knew what he expects me to say.” Not knowing made it harder to lie effectively. The best lies, she’d discovered in her lifetime of covering up her magic touch, were the ones that played on the expectations of the listener. But she had no idea what Mark Ellison wanted from her. “You need to know what he knows,” Gillian agreed, her baby blues narrowing shrewdly. “What you need are spies. I think it’s time to call in the cavalry, Bizby.”


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“I don’t have a cavalry.” “Babe, this whole island is your cavalry. We’ll sic the town gossips on him. Mrs. Kent, Mrs. Whittaker… The poor bastard won’t know what hit him. Give me twenty-four hours and you’ll know exactly what he wants, and we’ll spin him around so much he won’t know which way is up. It’s almost cruel and unusual.” Gilly’s eyes filled with unholy glee. “I like it.” Biz’s conscience squirmed at the idea of unleashing the gossip hounds on Mark Ellison and his dimples. “I don’t know, Gilly…” “He deserves it. He’s the one who came out here to interrogate a perfectly innocent woman and stir up all your old feelings and stuff.” Biz smiled in spite of herself at Gillian’s description of her feelings and stuff. Her best friend was a walking encyclopedia of medical knowledge, but her bedside manner left something to be desired. She never seemed to understand the concepts of self-doubt or regret. Biz was the expert on those. “You won’t have to do a thing,” Gillian assured her when she couldn’t come up with another protest fast enough. “Leave it all to me.” She spun on her heel, charging off to storm the fourth estate. “Gilly! You forgot your pumpkin thing.” She paused at the door. “I didn’t forget it. You’re keeping it for me, because you’re my friend and you love me and you have plenty of space in this big old house. And it’s a heart. With ventricles and everything. Dave’s gonna love it. The chambers all have little compartments so we can dissect it together on Valentine’s.” Biz studied the purple mass. Now she could see that it was, disturbingly, an enormous swollen replica of a human heart. In purple plastic. “Ew.” Gilly shrugged. “One woman’s romance is another woman’s…”

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“Creepy plastic nightmare?” Though she had to admit, Dave would probably love it. The Drs. Hale shared a macabre sense of romance. “Whatever keeps the passion alive, Bizby. That’s my motto. Gotta run if I’m going to psychologically disembowel this reporter before my day shift starts. Thanks so much for holding on to my heart for me.” She waved cheerfully and disappeared in another jangle of bells. Biz felt a bit like she’d just been flattened by a steamroller—which wasn’t unusual after a visit from Gillian. She eyed the Purple Gourd of Lovin’ dubiously. She couldn’t very well leave it sitting there on the counter. It would terrify her customers. Not that she had much in the way of customers this time of year. Even with the drastically reduced winter hours, it almost wasn’t worth opening the shop between November and March. She used to get through the slow months by building up holiday enthusiasm—decking the halls for Christmas in November and December, then replacing the wreaths and candy canes with hearts and flowers to amp up for Valentine’s Day all through January and February. Charmed, I’m Sure had been love central. She helped most of her magical clients by overhearing their romantic hopes and adding a bit of her mojo to whichever doodad they purchased. Sometimes love just needed to be pointed in the right direction. This used to be her favorite time of year, her shop more festive than a florist. Charmed, I’m Sure was the heart of Parish Island then. The locals would pop by to munch on heart-shaped cookies and gossip about matters of the heart, keeping the bells above the door ringing all day long. Now the cluttered little shop looked drab and lifeless in the pale grey light filtering in through the single frosted window. Just another tourist trap waiting silently for the summer season.


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Biz flipped over the Be Back Soon sign on the door and snicked the lock. She wasn’t particularly worried about missing an eager customer with deep pockets. With the crowd this morning in addition to Gillian’s daily chat, she’d already had more traffic today than she usually got in a week in January. She wrapped her arms around the Purple Gourd of Lovin’ and heaved, staggering a bit under the unexpected weight. The darn thing was heavier than it looked. Dang, what had Gillian put in those hidden compartments? Biz pushed through the beaded curtain to the storeroom and navigated the piled boxes to the stairs. The shop and storeroom took up the first floor, with the living room, library and partially remodeled kitchen on the second. Five bedrooms filled the third floor, and then there was the attic. To the public, the attic was designated as her hobby room, but the Marks women had been using it for recreational magic for so long, the walls practically shimmered with residual spells. Biz shifted the pumpkin/heart to get a better grip and started up stairs narrow and steep enough to be featured in a slasher movie. The door at the top of the steps was closed tight as always—otherwise the winter drafts from customers coming through the shop door would suck all the heat out of the upper level. It was going to be tricky opening it with both arms full of the weirdest Valentine’s gift ever. Biz sighed. This just wasn’t her day for thinking on her feet. Then she got within three steps of the door and the latch clicked open. It swung wide without so much as a squeak, halting at precisely ninety degrees. Relieved she wouldn’t have to juggle the Gourd of Lovin’ at the top of a flight of stairs, Biz smiled at the empty air beside the door. “Thank you, Tony. Always the gentleman.”

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She clomped up the last few steps as the muscles in her arms quaked, reminding her it had been far too long since she’d been anywhere near the gym. She dumped the Purple Gourd of Lovin’ on the floor beside the door before she dropped the darn thing. It rocked back and forth against the hardwood floor, the muted ka-thump, kathump sounding eerily like a heartbeat. A matching throb started up in her head and she rubbed at the ache. The rocking stopped, but the sound continued. Biz fixed her glare at a point just behind the pumpkin. “Knock it off, Gabriel. That telltale heart B.S. isn’t funny.” The tick-tocking faded into a groaning creak of the floorboards that sounded eerily like a whine. She nodded her approval, though her headache continued to pound. “Thank you.” Biz had no control over the ghosts—as evidenced by the fiasco in the shop when they’d practically assaulted the oblivious reporter—but she made an effort to demonstrate her appreciation whenever they took her wishes into consideration. It was that or scream hysterically over the travesty her life had become, and that was just so unproductive. A brush of cold air whispered across the back of her neck as Tony closed the door behind her. She really should get back down to the shop, but her stomach growled and she decided the stresses of the morning entitled her to an early lunch. As she wound back toward the kitchen, she heard muted strains of Chopin bleeding through the closed library door. Gabriel’s favorite musical pout. In the kitchen, she set a can of soup to heat—the pinnacle of her culinary efforts—then sat down to watch as Tony adjusted the heat on the stove, added a sprinkle of some spices off her spice rack and stirred a wooden spoon through the soup in a steady, constant circle.


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She knew she should have been uncomfortable, living with a bunch of dead guys, but the truth was they made her feel safe. Looked after. And they kept her from feeling lonely. In an odd way, her wish to find love and companionship had come true. If only she weren’t accidentally killing innocent men in the process. The crushing guilt did put something of a damper on the situation. “I’ve got to find a way to end this curse,” she said aloud. The beautiful thing about living in a haunted house was that she could talk to herself and it barely counted as crazy. She always knew someone was listening, even if their responses sometimes required a bit of creative interpretation. “It’s starting again,” she told Tony. “There’s a new guy in town. He came in to the shop today and I practically drooled on him. It has to be the curse. That kind of attraction isn’t natural.” Paul appeared, glowering in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest. “Don’t be jealous, Paul,” Biz said absently, too emotionally drained to invest much energy in feeding his narcissism at the moment. “I was extremely attracted to you.” Though not as attracted as she was to Hot Dimples, the Reporter from Hell. “That’s my point. It’s the lure of the spell. It has a force of its own, sucking you in, drawing you to me no matter how I try to avoid getting involved with anyone new. That’s why we have to find the counterspell.” Though finding the counterspell wasn’t as easy as it sounded. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been looking. She’d started her quest for the cure two years ago, the night she’d heard about Gabriel’s car crash and began to suspect the truth. If only Gran hadn’t been quite such a collector of grimoires. If only Biz hadn’t been so drunk she couldn’t remember which one she used to cast the original spell. If only the damn books

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didn’t have such capricious personalities, hiding and revealing their secrets to her according to their own twisted whim. There were days when it flat-out sucked to be a witch. Mark Ellison’s dimples flashed in her mind, taunting her. She’d close the shop and spend the rest of the day in the library, digging through more of Gran’s old grimoires for clues. If she could find a counterspell, she could save those dimples. And prevent any more unwanted attention from coming down on her. She already had one reporter breathing down her neck looking for answers. She didn’t need any more nasty coincidences adding fuel to the fire. Witches weren’t burned at the stake these days, but she’d just as soon not spend the rest of her days in a mental institution mainlining lithium. She needed that counterspell and an airtight story to give to Mark Ellison to get him off her back. Biz groaned. What she needed was a miracle. She served herself a bowl of soup, grabbed a spoon and headed toward the sound of classical music. “Come on, boys,” she called to Tony and Paul. “We’ve got some reading to do.” The library was massive, lovingly expanded by generations of Marks women. Towering bookcases lined the walls. As a child, Biz had been captivated by the scents of wood shelves and leather bindings in the library—not to mention the sounds. Her grandmother had always spoken of the books singing to her. She couldn’t get lost in the library because the books would guide her. But Biz had never heard their voices that clearly. To her ears they were just low, sibilant whispers, the words themselves indistinct and foreign. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the sounds, running her fingers along the spines, struggling to


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hear their instructions, wanting so badly to be guided by the shadow voices, but all she heard were the jumble of whispers lost in time, riddles of spells long forgotten. She pulled down the next book on her methodical, one-by-one examination of the collection and settled in for a long day of eyestrain.

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Chapter Four—Conspiracy to Commit Confusion

Mark Ellison did not consider himself a paranoid man. He didn’t think anyone was out to get him, and he’d never before been tempted to accuse perfect strangers of collusion. So he was reasonably certain his current conviction was not born of a delusion. The entirety of Parish Island was conspiring against him. It started as soon as he walked out of Biz’s shop that morning. He’d crossed the street to the Shoreview Guesthouse, stopping to grab his emergency overnight bag out of his trunk. The entry was small but crammed with homey touches, with a narrow counter holding a register and a bell. The rapid patter of footsteps heralded the arrival of Mrs. Kent who ushered him into her ruffled beachfront utopia, fluttering around him eagerly, and asked him again what story he was chasing in Parish, her eyes gleaming with the promise of fresh gossip. It had seemed like the perfect opening. He’d been intentionally vague, referencing Valentine’s Day and dropping Biz’s name, then trailing off to let her jump in. And jump in she had. Though in no direction he could have anticipated. Matchmaker. Amorous consultant. Love witch. Before he knew it, Mark was listening to Mrs. Kent wax eloquent on how Biz’s grandmother had introduced her to her Harry forty-seven years earlier. He’d tried to bring the conversation back to some sense of relevance by mentioning Biz’s victims. That was when Mrs. Kent started with the ghosts. Ghosts Biz herself was apparently seeing—though Mrs. Kent was quick to point

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out it was perfectly normal for Biz to be seeing specters, given her supernatural sensitivity. Had she profited from their deaths? The very idea was absurd. And so the conversation had gone with virtually every Parishioner he’d managed to corner throughout the day. The only exceptions were the blue-haired biddies who had interrogated him relentlessly about his own love life. He’d thought he was a master inquisitor, but they’d grilled him about everything from his upbringing, to his economic stability and his willingness to father offspring in the near future, amid heavy-handed hints that he’d be perfect for their Biz. The woman was universally adored. When he’d implied she might have had something to do with a series of mysteriously croaking beaus, the Parishioners had looked at him like he’d just confessed to drowning kittens in his spare time. With all the Biz-introduced-us stories on Parish, he had enough material for a dozen sappy Valentine’s pieces, but was no closer to figuring out the truth behind the woman herself. Jinxes, witches and ghosts. Did they really believe that stuff? Or were they all protecting Biz, hoping to steer him off course with hints of the paranormal? Was she just a beloved kook or a mastermind running an enormous con? Was it a conspiracy? Were they all in it together? Bumping off new arrivals to the island with Biz as their ringleader? When he’d started thinking conspiracy theories, Mark decided it was time to call it a day. Mark strolled down Main Street, past an empty ice-cream shop and darkened windows filled with island souvenirs. At the end of the street he kept walking, along the wide, abandoned boardwalk that curved beside the beach. He needed space to think, the rhythmic pounding of his footsteps to steady his thoughts.

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The questions of the day plagued him. His own and those he’d been asked. Why is a handsome young man like you still single? Is something missing in your life, Mr. Ellison? He wasn’t the kind of guy who spent a lot of time navel-gazing. He’d never really analyzed himself the same way he did his interview subjects, and he didn’t particularly want to start now. His life was fine, damn it. Yes, he was single, but last he’d checked that wasn’t a crime. Even for a guy on the far side of thirty. He’d seen all his friends pair off and start breeding in the last few years, but that didn’t mean he was overdue for a house in the suburbs himself. Not that he didn’t ever want that life, but he had plenty of time and other priorities. Things he wanted to do first. He had intentionally avoided messy, overly emotional relationships to focus his energy on his career. And now, jobs for print reporters weren’t exactly reliable with more and more papers closing their doors or going wholly digital. Even with a steady column and an editor who thought he walked on water, his professional life was too unstable right now to start a serious relationship. The sun hung lower in the sky, but he wasn’t ready to head back yet. He saw a narrow dirt path zigging inland and hopped down off the boardwalk to follow it, moving faster now, driven by frustration. Not a single useable interview today—at least not for the story he was actually chasing. He’d officially lost his mojo. He was usually good at interviewing people. That was his thing. Connecting to people, earning their stories, their trust and the truth as they knew it. But recently he hadn’t been able to engage with his interview subjects the way he used to. He felt disconnected from everyone, like he’d heard so many stories he’d lost sight of his own.


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When his work had begun to suffer and he’d stopped trusting his gut, his editor had sent him out here hoping something about the bizarre story or the unique location would wake him up. Mark had expected to sleepwalk through another assignment—no challenge, no intrigue and no life behind the words he slapped onto the page. If nothing else, Parish Island and Biz Marks had defied his expectations. Mark followed the sound of the surf up over a small hill, the coarse grass that grew through the sand here snagging his jeans. He stopped at the crest of the hill, the wide grey expanse of the ocean spread out in front of him. Behind him the winter sunset colored the sky, but the eastern horizon was already navy, tipping toward black. It was cold, windy—more the setting for an adaptation of Wuthering Heights than a beach vacation. Even knowing this beach would be packed with holiday crowds in the summer months, his chest still tightened with an intense feeling of isolation. It looked like the kind of place no human had ever walked before—and never would. Desolate and inhospitable. Like he needed a setting like this to remind him how alone he was. Feeling perversely drawn to the unforgiving scenery, Mark trudged down the hill to where the ragged grass gave way to sand and continued toward the shoreline. After two steps tiny grains snuck into his shoes, but it was too cold to take them off. Hardly skinny-dipping weather. There were no lights on this part of the island—a novelty for a city guy like him—and the sky was darkening by the second, which explained why he almost didn’t see her. Just a pale flash of leg first. A slim, graceful arm. The figure standing kneedeep in the shore break bent and swayed, twisted and spun. At first he didn’t recognize her. She was too wild, too unrestrained to be the repressive woman in the ugly grey sweater he’d met earlier in Charmed, I’m

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Sure. The Biz Marks he’d met this morning would never dance barefoot in freezing water at sunset. That woman had seemed to want nothing more than to fade into the scenery. This one was a force of nature. Her black curls corkscrewed madly in every direction, held into some semblance of order by the bright purple scarf she’d tied around them. A multicolored shawl caught the wind, arching and twisting around her like a playful sail. Who was this woman and what had she done with Biz Marks? Intrigued didn’t begin to cover it. He felt like something had shifted inside him, a misaligned gear dropping neatly back into place at the sight of her. Mark started down the beach. He had a thousand questions for her about her lost loves, but all of them leaked right out of his brain as he grew closer to her. “I hear you’re the one to see about falling in love.” He had to shout over the wind and waves, but he knew Biz heard him. She whipped around, eyes wide, cheeks flushed. For a long moment they simply stared at one another, a water nymph and a mortal man. Then a wave smacked into the backs of her knees and Biz stumbled forward, rushing out of the water, her expression darkening with every step away from the surf.


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Chapter Five—Beach Blanket Bingo

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Mark slowly arched an eyebrow, his gobsmacked expression fading into the cocky one she was coming to recognize as his game face. “I didn’t realize this was a private beach.” It wasn’t, damn it, but that didn’t give him the right to just come on down here whenever he felt like it. Okay, yes, it technically gave him that right, but that was beside the point. The point was that she didn’t want him here. This was her place. The one place she could forget about the curse and let her hair down— both literally and figuratively. She’d spent all day paging through spells to save his damn life. She’d needed a break—from the curse and, yes, from the ever-present ghosts. How dare he intrude on the place where she could be completely herself? She’d agreed to talk to him tomorrow, hadn’t she? Did he really have to invade her turf? Even if it wasn’t technically her turf. “It isn’t private,” she admitted grudgingly, slogging through the cold sand back toward the shoes she’d left to one side of the path. “What do you want?” “Maybe I just want a matchmaker. How do I sign up for some lovin’ around here?” Intellectually, she knew he was asking to be hooked up—he’d probably heard she was the Parish Island version of eHarmony—but her hormones reacted like he’d just propositioned her. Suddenly the cold beach didn’t feel so


chilly. Biz wrapped her shawl tightly around herself, wishing she had one of her bulky sweaters to keep him at bay. “I don’t do that anymore.” She turned to face the last traces of the sunset, grimacing that she’d missed it. The horizon was greying, stars already beginning to poke out in the east. Biz turned and started toward the path away from the beach, more because she felt like she should than due to any real desire to get away from Mark Ellison. He seemed to be in an oddly contemplative mode—retorting just as cleverly as ever, but with long pauses between his comments, like he couldn’t help being sucked in by the lazy rhythm of the waves and the soft seduction of the wind. She’d only moved a few feet when he called after her. “You don’t have to go. I didn’t mean to run you off.” She could just make out his silhouette as he looked out to sea and then back to face her. “If we can’t share this big beach, I should be the one to leave.” His words made her feel foolish. Even knowing the curse was real, it still seemed cowardly to cut and run just because they were on the same beach. And it was getting darker by the second. He couldn’t fall in love with her if he couldn’t see her, right? Biz frowned. Why was she rationalizing this? Did she really want to stay here with him? Why? Because her neatly ordered all-control-all-the-time life was beginning to make her insane? Because staying with him, taking that risk, no matter how small, felt like the first real thing she’d done all year? She didn’t know him—except that he was insanely hot, clever and persistent as all hell—so why would she want to spend time with him? Especially knowing it would put him at risk.


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He was interesting, she admitted to herself. Like the Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times definition of interesting. Did she want to live in interesting times? A tide of guilt swam up—that would make the curse even more her fault. “I’ll go,” Mark said. She’d waited too long to speak. He started toward the path. “No. We can both stay.” Had those words come out of her mouth? Mark didn’t speak, but she thought she saw him nod. He settled himself down on the sand, staring out toward the black water. Biz dropped to sit beside him—keeping a healthy two yards between them. They sat in silence, the minutes stretching out filled by nothing but the sounds of wind and sea. It was soothing, companionable. Biz hadn’t simply relaxed with anyone in years. She hadn’t relaxed period. Every second was tense with the awareness of the curse, but tonight, here, she felt like she’d been given a timeout. A few minutes of respite from the harrowing game. “I’m not really looking for a matchmaker,” Mark said finally, almost as if he was speaking to himself. “No?” “Bad timing. My life is too complicated for a girlfriend right now.” Biz snorted. Mark’s clothing rustled as he turned toward her. “That’s funny?” “Just sounds like an excuse to me.” “Newspapers are dropping like flies. If the Gazette goes under, I could have to move God knows where. I can’t ask a woman to get involved with me, knowing that.”

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“Ah, I see, so it’s impossible to consider that she might love you enough to go with you or that you might love her enough to look for a job that wasn’t in such an unstable field?” “It just isn’t the right time for me.” “What makes you think you get to be the one to decide the time? I bet you’re one of those guys who thinks you can go after true love the same way you would go after a story. Sometimes it takes more than dogged determination. Don’t mock Fate. She might not give you a second chance.” Or a third chance…or a fourth. Biz knew from personal experience what a bitch Fate could be. “Fate’s just going to have to accept that I run my own life,” Mark insisted. “I’m not going to fall in love just to break up again.” Biz heard something in his voice that she knew all too well. Control. The same rigid control she tried to impose over her own love life lately. But as someone who’d made a study of falling in love, she knew nothing could kill romance faster than trying to micromanage when and how it happened. Love was a leap, a risk. It took courage and trust and faith. Without that risk, the wild, uncontrolled feeling, you couldn’t get the reward of falling into the arms of love. “You’re cutting yourself off from a lot of possibilities by trying to control everything,” Biz said, since that was exactly what she was desperately trying to do. Cut off the flow of romantic opportunities. “You’re saying I should seize the day, huh?” Suddenly his voice was much closer, seductive and warm. He stretched across the sand separating them. “No.” Biz scrambled to her feet. God, what had she been thinking? What had she been saying? Had she just tried to talk him into being open to love? Right


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when the curse was most likely to put him in the ground if he gave in to it? “I didn’t mean— I— That is, you— Crap. I have to go.” She bolted up the beach toward the path she could’ve found blindfolded— which was helpful considering the night was so dark she might as well have been. She didn’t look back. Mark Ellison was on his own. He hadn’t been about to kiss her, had he? Surely that wasn’t why he’d leaned like that. God, it had been forever since she’d been kissed. She missed kissing. The sweet soft ones. The tentative new ones. The steamy, hot, passionate ones. Images of kisses teased her brain—and in each fantasy it was the same pair of lips pressing and brushing and nibbling against hers. The same dimpled smile she saw in her mind’s eye. Her stomach swooped giddily. Far too giddily. This fizzy, dippy feeling had to be the curse. It wasn’t normal. Sure, she hadn’t felt this way about the others, but that didn’t mean the curse wasn’t evolving to include this sizzling chemistry. Biz shuddered. She’d be even more helpless against it now. The counterspell. She had to focus on the counterspell. She heard someone calling after her from the direction of the beach. Biz ran like hell.

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Chapter Six—Gingerbread Emasculation

Mark opened his eyes the next morning and was nearly blinded by the cuteness. His room at the Shoreview Guesthouse was a Victorian virgin’s fantasy. Lace doilies, pastel paisley and gingerbread trim filled every corner of his vision, so frilly and twee he felt his testosterone count dropping by the second. Admittedly, the first room he’d been assigned had been decorated with a more masculine flair, but switching to this eyesore and sleeping with his feet poking through the brass footboard was worth it for the view. Mark rolled out of bed and faced the window. His first room had looked out over the Atlantic, prime beachfront scenery even when the ocean was grey and sullen in a winter pout. This one aimed straight across the street. Straight at the tall, narrow, slightly rundown Victorian that housed Charmed, I’m Sure, Biz’s odd little curio shop. The house had seen better days. The paint was so peeled it had reached a point of artful shabbiness. Siding tilted at precarious angles, and from his window view he could see a distinct sagging to the archway over the front door. The entire place made his hands itch for a hammer. Biz obviously needed a man in her life, if only for maintenance purposes. Not that he was volunteering. It wasn’t his fault she was single. Maybe if she stopped going all praying mantis on all the men she met, her house wouldn’t make him twitch with suppressed do-it-yourself renovation impulses.

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Not to mention other impulses. Impulses that had filled his dreams with alltoo-erotic images. Impulses she clearly didn’t welcome given the speed she’d fled the beach, though he could have sworn there was something inviting, almost challenging in her voice before she bolted. The curtains on the upstairs windows were all shut tight. Mark tried looking through the frosted glass of the shop’s single window, but couldn’t see so much as a silhouette. But that hadn’t stopped him looking. He was investigating her. He certainly wasn’t stalking and he definitely wasn’t pining. Gazing at her window like a puppy. Wondering if she was inside, perhaps even looking out as he was looking in, reliving every word she’d said… Their conversation last night haunted him. Was that how she drew in her victims? She couldn’t possibly have planned their meeting on the beach, but she’d known exactly what to say to get under his skin. He told himself that he had only moved in for a kiss because he wanted her to think he was an ideal victim so he could get close to her. It certainly wasn’t because he actually wanted to get close to her. He wasn’t obsessed. His inability to look away from any of the windows that might be hers was just a function of the fact that he’d spent the last twenty hours talking of nothing else. And the conversations certainly hadn’t answered all his questions about her. If anything he was more confused than ever. It all circled around Biz. He just couldn’t get a good read on her. One second she was brash and smart-mouthed, only to turn into a flustered, stammering middle-schooler at her first dance five seconds later. Her eyes shifted away from his every time she smiled, as if she didn’t want to admit he’d been able to make her grin, but when she spoke to him she met his eyes squarely, without a trace of deception. She was by turns open and warm, then closed off with a distant, hands-off reserve.

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Mark hadn’t been able to play her because he hadn’t known from one second to the next which version of Biz Marks he was going to be talking to. And the most disconcerting thing was how much he had liked it. She made him feel off balance in a way that challenged a part of him that had gone to sleep. As if conjured by his thoughts, the “witch” of Parish Island stepped onto the sidewalk and turned to lock the door to Charmed, I’m Sure behind her. Her hair was looser this morning, a scraggly knot at the base of her skull, and her clothing was looser too—if possible even more hideously unappealing than her outfit from yesterday morning. He found himself longing for the flowing dress she’d worn last night, the way it moved with her as if it couldn’t stop touching her. He’d envied that dress. Mark watched avidly, tracking her as she wandered up the quiet street, waving to someone he couldn’t see before slipping inside the small restaurant down the road. He had two alternatives—stick around for Mrs. Kent’s legendary scones and wait until two for his meeting with Biz like a good boy. Or throw on some clothes, run down the street and catch her with her guard down. Last night his own guard had been down. She’d slipped under his skin, and he’d lost any headway he might have had. He could use the advantage. He’d need the upper hand if he wanted to trick a confession out of the cagey Black Widow who had all of Parish Island fooled. She’d almost fooled him. Last night…he hadn’t been about to kiss her. He hadn’t. But the fact that the idea had even crossed his mind… Mark dug into his overnight bag, pulling out his one clean shirt and fresh boxers. He was a professional, and there was definitely a story here. He just needed to keep his head on straight until he had it.


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Chapter Seven—Dine and Dish

Biz staggered into Blanchard’s feeling three-quarters dead. She’d spent the better part of the night squinting at cramped, faded text, and all she had to show for it was a whopping headache and a nasty case of eyestrain. The boys had been nothing but helpful in her quest for a counterspell— pulling down books from the top shelf, bringing her herbal tea and providing soothing background music—but still she’d found bupkis. A great big nada. She’d fallen into bed around three, drained but too demoralized to sleep. And tormented by memories of wind and sand and dimpled charm every time she closed her eyes. When Gillian called at dawn and suggested they meet for breakfast so she could give her report on the reporter, Biz rolled her sleep-deprived self out of bed and dragged herself the three blocks to the island’s only year-round eatery. She needed a dose of good news…and a massive helping of Blanche’s famous artery-clogging Double-Stuft French Toast. Blanchard’s was a Parish Island institution. Decades before Brangelina and TomKat began disgusting everyone with their cutesy codependence, Blanche and Richard Kinneson moved to the island from Topeka and opened up Blanchard’s, a hole-in-the-wall diner with five-star cuisine and a glorious patio overlooking the beach. Blanche ruled the kitchen during breakfast and lunch, Rich during the dinner rush, and their five kids grew up glowering sullenly at customers over order pads and running the front of the house.


Thirty-seven years of great food, crappy service and mismatched atmosphere. In the summer, when the chipped Formica tables were covered with expensive linens and the blinding fluorescent lighting was ditched in favor of candlelight, the prices doubled and all the locals migrated down the road to the Parish Diner. But in the winter, Blanche’s kitchen still produced ambrosia and all the locals flocked to pay homage to her greatness. Biz wove through the empty tables to her usual spot where Gillian waited with both hands wrapped tight around a to-go coffee from the stand down the street. Biz slid in across from her and tossed a friendly wave to Molly—pinkhaired teenage existentialist and the latest of Blanche’s granddaughters to take a turn providing indifferent service to the winter customers. Molly didn’t budge from her seat at a booth in the back, didn’t even lift her eyes from the Kierkegaard text she was buried in, but she flicked her fingers in a return wave. “She likes you better than me,” Gillian complained. “I never get a wave.” Biz grinned, irrationally gratified to be the teen philosopher’s favorite. “I understand her existential ennui.” “Can you understand her into taking our order? I’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes. I’m dying for one of Blanche’s Magic Mochas.” “Aren’t you on call today?” The magic in Blanche’s Magic Mochas was a double shot of Scotch. “No one gets sick on Fridays. It’s like a rule.” “Since when?” “Since Dave lost the Friday shift to me. It’s so slow. Last week I nearly gave myself an adrenaline shot just to make sure my heart hadn’t stopped from boredom.”


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Dave and Gillian were the only two doctors at the Parish Island Health Clinic ever since Dr. Lindy retired. Whoever was officially on call at any given time had more to do with the dynamics of their marriage than any set schedule. It might have been disconcerting to know that the clinic schedule was typically determined by which of the Drs. Hale had most recently lost a bet to the other, if not for the fact that they both wanted to be the one on call, twenty-four/seven. And whenever a patient came in, they would fight over who got to treat them. It was odd, but oddly comforting. “You want something?” Molly appeared suddenly at their table, her eyes fixed on a point on the wall three feet above their heads. She wore a blank Hello, My Name is… sticker and held a pen poised over an order pad, even though Biz had never once seen her write a single order down. Biz and Gillian quickly ordered, before Molly’s whim for playing waitress evaporated. She slunk off toward the kitchen door with her still-blank order pad, and Gillian leaned across the scarred Formica. “I’ve got the scoop on Mark Ellison.” A stab of trepidation pierced Biz’s gut. Did she want to know anything more about him? Would it be better to just lock herself in her house for three weeks and cut off all contact with eligible men? If she knew too much about him, would that somehow trigger the curse? But maybe he didn’t want anything from her but her story… Maybe he’d be easy to send away if she just knew what lies to feed him… Biz swallowed her doubts. She could argue in circles until doomsday. That certainly wasn’t going to break the curse. She needed to know more about Mark. Because of the curse. Only the curse. It had nothing to do with the little shivery awareness she’d felt in his presence. Absolutely nothing to do with dimples or moonlit almost-kisses.

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“Tell me.” “He’s a reporter for the Raleigh Gazette—” “I knew that already.” Gillian rolled her eyes. “You knew he told you he was a reporter. He could have been a lying scumbag serial killer. Though, in this case, he wasn’t. We checked up on him and he’s legit. He does mainly human-interest stories. Puff pieces about reuniting long-lost siblings and good Samaritans doing stuff for others. That kind of touchy-feely crap.” “So he really is just here for a piece about Valentine’s and depression? He doesn’t—” Biz stopped herself before she finished her sentence with suspect anything. “What else would he want? And even if he is just here for the depression thing, he’s a slime bag. How dare he use you—” “Gillian. What else did you find?” Gillian made a face at being derailed from her rant but obediently went back to her report. “He used to do hard-hitting news stuff before he moved over to the lighter side. Politics, mostly, and some investigative stuff. He may be doing softball news, but don’t mistake him for a creampuff.” Biz visualized Mark Ellison. Tall, chiseled and immoveable. No, she wasn’t likely to mistake him for a pushover. “We tried to get more details out of him, but he’s good, Biz. Slippery. He charmed Mrs. Whittaker in under five minutes. She keeps calling him that sweet boy. She’d probably adopt him if he weren’t over thirty.” “He’s over thirty?” Biz perked up, then kicked herself for paying more attention to his vital stats than the danger he represented. “Thirty-two. Never married. Has a sister in Fayetteville with two kids, but he doesn’t get down there as often as he’d like. His parents retired to Arizona a few


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years back, and he flies out to spend every Christmas and Thanksgiving with them.” Gillian rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Whittaker didn’t seem to understand we weren’t trying to vet him as a possible husband for you.” Biz seemed to be having a hard time remembering that fact herself. Much too hard a time. The curse was really doing a number on her this time. “Has he been asking any weird questions?” Before Gillian could answer, Molly appeared with both arms full of Heart Attack on a Plate. Gillian and Biz fell silent for several minutes to give Blanche’s cooking the proper respect. With her mouth full of powdered-sugary, creamcheesy goodness, suddenly the curse looked a lot less terrifying. Until the door to Blanchard’s opened and Mark Ellison walked through, dimples flashing. Blanche’s Double-Stuft French Toast turned to sawdust in her mouth.

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Chapter Eight—Modesty and Other Mythology

Had he gotten more gorgeous since the last time she saw him? Or was it just the shock of seeing him for the first time in good lighting? The face was still mouthwatering, but it was the arms her memory had failed to honor. In spite of the winter chill, he wasn’t wearing a jacket, and his sleeves were shoved up to the elbow, revealing tanned, corded forearms. Those arms made him seem capable, somehow. As if like Atlas he could lift the world. “Ms. Marks. Fancy seeing you here.” He smiled. Biz’s heart rate doubled. She forced herself to swallow the sawdust and gave him a pathetic smile. “Yeah. Fancy.” “That’s him?” Gillian asked in the world’s loudest whisper. “You said he was a hunk, but I thought we were grading on the Parish Island curve. God’s balls, he’d be a stud at a Hollywood premiere. Move over, McDreamy.” Biz shot her a please-for-the-love-of-God-shut-up look. Where was a muzzle when you needed one? Mark wove his way over to their table, a sly little smile saying he’d heard every word. Conceited jerk. His eyes rolled over her from the top of her head to the table’s edge and back up again. Biz squashed the urge to check her hair. She hadn’t brushed it after falling out of bed, but she refused to feel self-conscious about her sloppy knot. Even if he looked like he stepped right out of a catalogue, starched, groomed and gorgeous. Biz probably looked like she’d survived a cyclone flying away

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with her trailer. His expression was appreciative, but she needed him to stop staring. Only a deeply cursed man could appreciate her when she resembled a half-groomed yeti. “Are you stalking me?” “Good morning to you too, Biz. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” Before she could reply, Molly materialized at his side as if by teleportation. “Can I get you anything?” she asked breathlessly, her eyes locked hypnotically on his face, Kierkegaard forgotten on the back table. “Anything at all.” Mark ducked his head, and Biz thought she saw a touch of rose on his cheekbones. Was he blushing? Had Molly’s slavish adoration actually embarrassed him? “Just an orange juice. Thanks.” Molly nodded five times in rapid succession, channeling an existential bobblehead, and then darted off to collect the nectar for her new deity. “Cute kid.” He coughed, the red on his cheeks brighter. Biz fell all over herself—literally—in his presence, and he just got cockier. Gilly compared him to a movie star and he took it as his due. But little Molly Kinneson decided to worship him and suddenly he was modest? Where had that come from? Biz began to wonder if she would ever see the real Mark Ellison beneath his chameleon surface. Not that she wanted to know the real Mark Ellison. Not at all. She just wanted him to leave. “What are you doing here?” she asked, not caring how rude she sounded. He’d avoided the stalking question, she noticed. Couldn’t a girl enjoy the best breakfast on the Eastern seaboard without being reminded of the day of death steadily approaching?

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“I was walking by and I saw you through the window. What can I say, I felt compelled to come talk to you.” He slid into the booth beside her, his large body crowding against her. “Mind if I join you?” Compelled. Oh, God. Last night she’d been so stupid to stay in his presence for even a nanosecond. She needed to keep her distance. She scooted her hip away from his. “Would you leave if I said yes?” “Not if I can change your mind.” His smile said he was sure he could. The man certainly didn’t lack for confidence. “You know, at some point that arrogance is just sickening.” He leaned closer, revealing little crinkles around his eyes when he smiled. “Do I sicken you, Biz?” No, sir. That definitely wasn’t the problem. She put her hand on his chest and shoved him back. He let her move him but gave just enough pressure that she felt the imprint of his muscles against her fingers. Yum. “Does no one ever say no to you?” “No is just a point to begin negotiations.” “No means no, honey.” “Does it? Do you mean it, Biz? If you really mean it, just say the word and I’ll leave.” “Before or after you get your interview?” He shrugged. “There are other stories. This may come as a shock to you, but lots of people want to be interviewed by me.” She’d buy that lots of people probably fell all over themselves to give him their stories—over and over and over again—but she didn’t believe he would give up and walk away so easily. He was lying, or at least not giving the whole truth, and not just because he was trapped by the curse. There was something else.


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Molly appeared suddenly at the table, carrying the largest glass of orange juice Biz had ever seen and all but trembling with eagerness to serve. “You can interview me,” she vowed breathily. Biz stole a look at Mark’s face. Definitely blushing. “Thank you,” he said gruffly, inclining his head to indicate the gratitude was for the juice, not her adoration. When Molly continued to hover, Gillian rolled her eyes. “Molly, can we get our check?” The girl made a small protesting sound in her throat but backed away from the table, her eyes still fixed on Mark. When she disappeared into the kitchen, he draped his arm across the back of the booth behind Biz and leaned toward her with an inviting gleam in his eyes. “See? Some people like me.” “I don’t dislike you,” Biz admitted grudgingly. “Is that why you sicced the town on me?” Biz glanced guiltily across the table at Gillian who shrugged, her eyes flicking back and forth between Mark and Biz. “Don’t look at me. I’m just a spectator.” Mark leaned closer. “I’ve been interrogated more in the last twenty-four hours than most terror suspects.” “Not so much fun when you’re the one answering the questions, is it?” “As a matter of fact, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Fascinating town you’ve got here. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I was asked…let alone some of the things I was told.” Nervousness filled her stomach with lead-winged butterflies. “Ghosts, witches. It’s amazing what people believe, isn’t it?”

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Oh, crud. He knew. Somehow he knew everything. “You don’t believe in ghosts?” she asked, her voice sounding choked and unnatural, even to her own ears. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio…” He grinned. “I believe in possibilities, but the spirit of loved ones living on after their death seems more like a coping mechanism than truth to me. Like all those suckers who pay out the nose so some medium can reconnect them with their dead father one last time. It’s wishful thinking.” Relief flooded her. He couldn’t know. You couldn’t know something if you didn’t believe it existed. She should have just shut up and let it go at that, but his words were a challenge to her world view, and in her relief she couldn’t keep quiet. “You don’t believe their father’s spirit is still out there, watching over them?” “It’s not the father’s spirit I don’t believe in. It’s the medium. If Daddy was really watching over you, he’d keep you away from conmen like that.” “So what if there were unexplained events that showed Daddy was looking after his kids? A stray breeze that opens a door when your arms are full or a door you’re sure you locked being open when you’ve forgotten your keys? Maybe a radio stuck on his favorite station?” Or a chef preparing all your meals for you for a year after his death… “How would you explain that?” “Maybe it’s coincidence. Hell, maybe it is Daddy. I just think we’re too eager to read into those events what we want to see in them.” “Such a cynic.” “Such a realist.” He grinned, suddenly intimately close again. “What do you believe, Biz?” A warning voice told her not to talk to him, to walk away and leave him with his rationalizations, but she’d never been very good at listening to warning


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voices. “If you were chasing down a story and you kept hearing a certain rumor over and over and over again, would you start to believe there might be some truth in it?” He shrugged. “I would believe that was what people believed, but popular opinion and fact diverge all the time.” “Not if it’s history. History is popular opinion.” She shook her head. “I’m explaining it wrong. Take the flood. Noah.” “The Bible guy?” “Yeah, but he wasn’t just the Bible guy. Pretty much every culture that existed at that time had some version of the flood story. Not necessarily with the whole two-by-two bit, but the story was universal.” “Yeah, antediluvian cultures are fascinating. What does this have to do with anything?” “People from all different geographic regions came up with the same myth independent of one another. And because of that historians now believe there really was a flood. God commanding Noah to build an ark is a faith thing, but the existence of a flood is a fact.” “Because of popular historic opinion.” “Exactly.” His mouth twitched, but his eyes gleamed with interest. “I still have no idea why we’re talking about this.” “Witches.” “Witches,” he repeated. “The concept of magic, especially women as conduits for magic, has sprung up in countless cultures around the world since the beginning of recorded history.” “Okay.”

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“So there must be some truth in it.” “That’s an interesting theory. Of course, it ignores the fact that superstition has always been used to cover the gaps in our scientific understanding, and women, as the non-ruling gender in most early cultures, would have been blamed for anything the men needed someone to take the fall for.” “So if I told you I came from a long line of witches, you would tell me I only thought that because I was a victim of a superstitious patriarchal society?” He grinned, leaning forward and getting into the challenge of the debate, when a cough from the other side of the table startled them both. Gillian smiled blandly as Biz scooted as far as she could get from Mark on the narrow bench seat. Where had her brain gone just then? Why was she sitting here arguing with him and trying to convince him witches existed when she should be running as fast as she could in the opposite direction? Dear God, she’d practically confessed to being a witch herself. Gillian gathered up her coat. “As much fun as it is to sit here and be ignored by you two, I really need to be getting to the clinic.” “No!” Biz blurted then blushed when both Mark and Gillian looked askance at her. Gillian couldn’t leave her alone with Mark. Even with a chaperone, she’d practically told him her deepest darkest secrets. Who knew what she would do if they were alone together? “You said yourself the clinic is never busy on Fridays.” “And yet I still go to work. My dedication to life-saving is an inspiration, even to myself.” She stood, gathering up her windbreaker. “And if I skip a shift, Dave’ll try to steal it back from me. You two have fun now.” “Gillian, wait, I’ll walk with you.” Biz started to shove Mark out of the booth, but Gillian was already out the door—and probably halfway down the block. Mark stayed immobile on her side of the booth. “Alone at last.”


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Panic spiked, hard and deep. When Gillian had been there—even when she’d forgotten Gillian was there—her presence had been a buffer. Biz had been able to forget about the curse for a moment—was it really so terrible to spend time with him in a group? The curse wouldn’t react to that, would it? But now, with the two of them alone save one adoring teenager currently hiding in the kitchen, the danger was suddenly clear and present in the front of her mind. “I have to go. The shop. It opens.” “In two hours. I checked out your hours. We have all the time in the world.” He smiled again—the same smile that had melted Mrs. Whittaker’s natural resistance to charmers. The man had no survival instincts. “But if I don’t get the shop ready, I won’t be able to open on time and then I won’t close on time and we couldn’t do our interview.” It took her about five seconds to open the shop and she wasn’t exactly a stickler for time during the winter season, but what he didn’t know might keep him alive until February fifteenth. “Why don’t we just do the interview now? You’re here. I’m here.” “I’m leaving. Let me out.” He sighed, dramatically disappointed, and stood. “You’re a hard woman to figure out, Biz.” Then he flashed out another delicious smile. “I like that about you. You’re a mystery.” “I’m not mysterious,” she insisted, collecting her things and sidling past him, careful not to touch him. “I’m boring. Ask anyone.” “Oh, I will. You can count on that.” Biz’s heart sank. What would he find out? She wasn’t openly out as a witch, but it was one of those secrets that was universally known around town—

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whether people really bought into it or not. She was charmed—or she had been—and now there were ghosts in her house. “You don’t believe in ghosts,” she reminded him, clinging to her purse like a security blanket. “Nah,” he agreed readily. “Now aliens on the other hand, that’s just a statistical surety.” He winked at her. Winked. God, she hoped that was a joke. If he really believed in aliens, there was no telling what some of the townspeople might convince him of. They’d always been so supportive of her, but if he started asking questions, stirring things up, they might realize that her charms could easily be curses in the wrong hands. And someone might suspect that hers were the wrong hands. Biz didn’t know what to do. Disaster was looming, but she couldn’t see any way to avert it other than breaking the curse. Avoiding Mark Ellison wasn’t working. And telling herself she wasn’t attracted to him wasn’t a very effective method of denial. He flashed his dimples, tipping an imaginary hat. Biz ran.


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Chapter Nine—The Dimples of Doom

Mark arrived at Charmed, I’m Sure fifteen minutes early. And found the door locked and windows darkened. “Dammit.” He should’ve known she’d stand him up. After the way she’d run from him this morning, she was probably halfway to Venezuela by now. A cold breeze whipped up the street, carrying the salty scent of the ocean. Mark pounded his fist on the door, but he might as well have saved himself the bruised knuckles. He grumbled a few choice words and stepped back until he could see the upper windows. They were dark as well, but was that curtain fluttering? Was someone watching him? Gotcha. She wasn’t in Venezuela. She was up there, hiding behind that curtain, emanating guilt from every pore. He couldn’t see a thing, but he knew she was there just like he knew there was a story in this bizarre little town. Mark folded his arms and directed a slow, inviting smile up at that window. Come on down and play, little girl. He settled in to wait, staring at the window like he could force her downstairs by dint of his will alone. Biz may look like a soft touch, but she’d proven she wasn’t an easy target. He was going to enjoy chasing down this story a lot more than he’d expected. Damn, but he loved a challenge. Having a staring contest with a drape wasn’t the highlight of his career, but Mark didn’t let his gaze waver. He was determined to get this interview no


matter what it took, but he’d have a lot more fun if he could catch her with honey. He amped up the charm on his smile. “Are you looking for Miss Marks too?” Mark turned at the sound of the slightly nasal voice. Mrs. Kent’s other guest stood a few feet up the sidewalk, a box of candies clutched in one hand. What was his name? Flowers? Rose? “We had an appointment,” Mark replied, still ransacking his memory for the name. “Oh…” The pale man seemed to shrink in on himself. “You’re seeing her then.” Bloom. That was what Mrs. Kent had called him. Mr. Bloom. “I was supposed to see her at two, but she seems to have vanished on me. Don’t suppose you’ve seen her?” Bloom fidgeted with the ribbon on the candy box. “Not today, no.” He bobbed his head and started across the street toward the guesthouse. Mark turned his attention back to Biz’s upstairs window and fired up his best smile. Come out, come out, wherever you are. He wasn’t leaving. Biz twisted her hands together, careful not to brush against the curtain and set it swaying again. Why wasn’t he leaving? He had to have realized by now that she’d changed her mind about the interview. It was rude of her not to call him. Or at the very least leave him a note. But the less interaction she had with Mark Ellison the better. It was for his own good. She’d already seen far too much of him and proven, beyond doubt, that she couldn’t behave herself in his presence. Talking him into going after love, telling him witches existed…there was no telling what she’d say to him next.


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No, cold turkey was best. Though judging by the lazy smile he was aiming up at her window, he hadn’t gotten the memo. God, why was he looking at her like that? After Paul, she’d never encouraged the men the curse caught. And yet they’d fallen for her in spite of her reservations. She couldn’t be sure how the curse picked its victims, so the only option was to avoid all contact with the masculine of the species. And Mark Ellison definitely counted as masculine. His eyes continued to bore up at her even though there was no way he could know she was watching. Why didn’t he just leave? Was there some flaw inherent in a reporter’s genetic code that made him physiologically incapable of walking away from a dead end? Biz was about as dead an end as he was going to find. A sudden wind whipped through the room, twisting the drapes as a crash thrummed the lower strings of the piano. Biz spun and dropped into a crouch beneath the sill, her heart drumming. Had he seen her? The curtains settled, the gust dying as abruptly as it had arisen. The piano’s discordant twanging faded. The windows were all closed, but she didn’t suspect for a second the wind had been natural. “Dammit, Tony. What was that for?” Of course, he didn’t answer. He never answered. She might as well have been imagining things and talking to herself. Being nuts would have been so much easier. For one thing, she wouldn’t spend all her time feeling guilty and helpless. Biz sighed and dropped her head back against the hundred-year-old paneling that ran below the chair rail. Mark was still out there. She could almost feel the Dimples of Doom boring into her back through the layers of siding, plaster and oak. For whatever reason, the curse had made her into his obsession.

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He would keep coming back. She’d have to face him eventually, but she couldn’t do it today. She had no idea what she would say to him. The truth? It was his life at stake, after all. If anyone had a right to know, it was him. But Biz had never told anyone the whole truth. She closed her eyes, too tired to think straight. She hadn’t gotten more than an hour of sleep since he’d walked into her store the day before. All night she’d dug through her grandmother’s grimoires and all this morning too. She hadn’t opened the shop for fear Mark would drop by early and catch her unawares. Exhaustion weighed down her arms and legs. Even the muscles in her neck felt rubbery, like her head would wobble like Gumby if she tried to lift it from the wall. Three weeks, one day and just under ten hours. And over two hundred books she hadn’t cracked yet. Her eyes burned just thinking of all that tiny print. Some of the older volumes were even handwritten. Their so-soft whispers tickled the back of her mind, where a massive headache was building. Why did her grandmother have to be such a collector? Why had Biz cast the spell? Why didn’t magical problems ever just magically resolve themselves? Why did Mark Ellison have to have dimples, determination and an ability to laughingly adapt to every obstacle she threw at him? It was enough to make a girl wonder if he might be able to laughingly adapt to the extreme level of weird in her life. What would things have been like if they’d met under different circumstances? No curse, no ghosts, no guilt and no horror at the very idea of flirtation. He would have been fun to flirt with… Biz drifted off to sleep, fantasizing of all the things she would do with Mark Ellison if doing them wouldn’t kill him.


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The banging downstairs was enough to wake the dead. Provided the dead were sleeping. Biz had never figured out whether the ghosts slept or not. She blinked blearily, momentarily confused by the fact that she was curled up on the floorboards below the window in the library. Tony had tucked a pillow beneath her head and draped an afghan over her, but in spite of those comforts, the ache in her hip and the lack of sunlight coming through the window told her she’d been lying for far too long in one position on the hardwood floor. The hammering sounded again, so hard it sent a slight, shimmying vibration through the floor beneath her. Mark was determined. She’d give him that. His tenacity would have been impressive if she hadn’t been so sure it was caused by the curse. She sat up, her stomach rumbling. Time for dinner. If she could ignore temperamental ghosts slamming doors and clanging on pianos, she could ignore thwarted suitors pounding on her door. He could knock all night if he wanted. She padded on bare feet into the kitchen and dropped a bagel into the toaster, frowning at the appliance when it didn’t start itself. “Tony?” Where was he? For that matter, where were all three of them? It wasn’t like them to vanish on her. A fresh round of bangs shook the floorboards, and Biz frowned. Funny. It seemed to be coming from inside the shop. The memory of Tony knocking Mark’s legs out from under him flashed in her brain, followed by visions of the ghosts unlocking the door downstairs, letting Mark in and beating him senseless.

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“Tony, no.” Without a second thought, Biz ran. She clattered down the stairs so fast her foot slipped out from under her and she nearly took a header down the last few, but an unseen hand on her shoulder jerked her back. “Thanks,” she called, continuing her sprint. She leapt over boxes in the storeroom like an Olympic hurdler—if Olympic hurdlers caught their toes on the hurdles and staggered clumsily against the wall before regaining their feet—and burst through the door into the shop. Every light was blazing and every surface was a bright, bloody red. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Mayhem. Chaos. Mark lying crippled and helpless on the floor. Her ghosts had never hurt anyone before, but they had been making their presence felt more than usual since Mark’s arrival in town. The curse going through another iteration was bound to set them off. She hadn’t been able to imagine what they would do. But Tony had caught her on the stairs; he hadn’t been in the shop. What she saw in her shop was so far from her vague expectations, it took her a moment to realize what she was looking at, like a pointillist painting coming into focus. Gillian straddled the apex of a ladder, a hammer in one hand and a fuchsia heart in the other. Around her, the shop was an explosion of pinks and reds and romantic slogans—like a giant box of Sweethearts had blasted Valentine’s gaiety onto every surface. “What in God’s name are you doing, Gillian?” Gilly squeaked and whipped around to face her. “Biz! What are you doing here?” The ladder groaned and rocked at her sudden movement, but Gillian just


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reached up and braced the hammer on the ceiling, easily rebalancing the ladder in a feat of coordination Biz never would have been able to accomplish. “This is my shop. I live here.” And I’m afraid to go out the front door because I’m being stalked by a pair of sexy dimples on a mission. “What are you doing?” “I came to find out how your interview went.” “And that required a hammer?” Gillian looked at the hammer in her hand then at the crepe paper hearts dangling from the ceiling. “It was supposed to be a surprise.” “Oh, I’m surprised. But maybe next time you’re going for stealth you ought to avoid hammering through the floorboards.” “The house was dark. I figured you were out. So how’d it go? Please tell me he was a total jerk. Mrs. Whittaker is going to start a campaign to drag him back here and adopt him as the town mascot if he doesn’t reveal his nefarious intentions soon.” “Back here?” “Ollie Janeway saw him leave on the five o’clock ferry.” He was gone? Biz’s stomach took an elevator drop toward her toes. She should be happy. That meant he was free of the curse, but something in Biz whimpered. She hadn’t expected him to give up so easily. She’d told herself that she was running from him because of the curse, but was it also because she wanted so badly for a man like that to think she was worthy of the chase? Either way, it was too late now. “I didn’t meet him. I couldn’t.” Gillian’s eyes filled with disappointment and pity. “Oh, Bizby.” “Ugh. Gillian, could you please not look at me like I’m some pathetic love charity case? I get enough of that from the rest of the town.”

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Gillian wiped her expression clean. “I’m sorry.” She was silent for a whole millisecond. Biz should have known she wouldn’t be able to leave it at that. “It’s just I saw the way you were looking at each other at the diner this morning, and yes, he might be a scumbag reporter who’s trying to use your personal pain for his professional gain and I think he’s a reptile of the lowest order, but you were so into him and he definitely seemed into you and it didn’t have to be foreverafter stuff as long as you got back in the saddle and lived again. You weren’t the one who died, Bizby, and I’m sick to death of you moping around like a corpse. Just looking at you is depressing.” “Ouch. I think you just called me a zombie.” “Well, you are when it comes to love. Romantically undead.” Gillian climbed swiftly down the ladder, hanging the hammer over the third step. “You can’t let your bad luck beat you, Biz. You have to get back in the game.” “It stops being a game after the third funeral.” “That wasn’t your fault,” Gillian exclaimed. “You had nothing to do with their deaths.” Biz studied the grain in the hardwood floor. What would Gillian say if she knew the truth about the curse? “You used to be all about love, Biz. All these decorations? Where do you think I got them? They were stored in my basement because you didn’t have room for all of them here. These are your decorations, Bizby. This is what your shop used to look like every year and now it’s…it’s just wrong in here.” Gillian bit her lower lip, and Biz thought she saw uncharacteristic tears shimmering in her no-muss, no-fuss, no-emotion best friend’s eyes. “I’m worried about you, Biz. You’ve changed.” “Sometimes change is a good thing.”


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“Not this. Not sucking all the love out of your life and replacing it with doom and despair.” Biz looked around the sickeningly over-decorated shop, and memories rose up off every beribboned surface. Memories of the girl she used to be. Eager for life. Back when everything was easy and light. Guilt, regret and fear were heavy emotions. They tangled around her like a steel-mesh net until nothing felt light anymore. “So that’s what this was? An attempt to shake me out of my slump?” “This is more than a slump, Biz,” Gillian said seriously. “You like this Mark guy. I know you do. Even if it’s just a fling, it’s the perfect time to get back in the saddle.” “Gillian, I appreciate your concern, but I’m staying far away from the saddle.” Gillian’s expression turned mulish, and Biz quickly amended, “For now. I just need a little more time. Besides, he’s gone anyway.” “You’ve had time. Guys who make you light up the way you did with Mark don’t come along every day. I know you miss Paul and Gabriel and Tony, but don’t let your past screw with your present. You’re into him. He’s into you. So take a trip to Raleigh and get into his pants.” A short laugh burst out of Biz. Only Gillian could take her tragic love life and make her laugh. “You’re a good friend.” “But you’re going to ignore my advice. I get it. But I’m not going to stop nagging you.” She waved around the bedecked shop. “This is who you are, Biz. Remember that.” Gillian squeezed her in a quick hug, before charging off into the night in a typically abrupt departure. Biz stood alone in the center of Charmed, I’m Sure and studied the Valentine bliss coating every surface. She waited to feel caught up in the same dizzy

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euphoria that used to sweep over her every year in the season of love, but all she felt was a hollow pang in her chest. This wasn’t who she was anymore. She flipped off the lights, turning her back on the shop. No use pretending. Nothing more than who she used to be.


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Chapter Ten—Terminally Romantic

Mark’s cell rang as he was zipping up his suitcase. He’d driven back to Raleigh for a change of clothes and ended up packing half his closet for the siege he was planning against Biz’s defenses. He was going to have to break a few land-speed records back to the coast if he wanted to catch the last ferry out to Parish. There were three people who were likely to be calling him—his mother, his sister or his editor. And none of those three women knew how to have a conversation that didn’t last two hours. He didn’t have time for them right now. But when he glanced at the caller ID, the name Lucas had him scrambling to connect the call before he lost it. One of his frat brothers who had become a coroner and recently settled down to pop out a few kids, Lucas was his source for all medical queries. “Yo, Doc.” “Hey, Ellison. I had a chance to look at those reports you sent me.” Typical Lucas, jumping right to the heart of the matter. No nonsense. “And?” Mark had sent him copies of the autopsy reports from Biz’s three victims to look for not-so-accidental causes. He’d been so sure at the time that things couldn’t be that pat, but now he hung on Lucas’s words, hoping he’d been wrong. “And unless the files are doctored, you’re looking at three accidental fatalities.” Relief shot through his chest, startling in its intensity. Biz wasn’t a murderess after all. “You’re sure?”


“’Bout as sure as I can be without the bodies. You could make an argument for suicide, I guess, if you think it’s insurance fraud—” “No. She wouldn’t do that.” Mark winced. He was losing it. Five minutes ago he’d seriously considered the possibility that Biz was a Black Widow, and now he was defending her in a knee-jerk reflex. “Why suicide?” They had everything to live for. They had Biz. “Euthanasia. I’d leave it alone if I were you. Man’s got a right to choose how he goes in those circumstances.” He was missing something. “What circumstances?” “They were all terminal,” Lucas explained, and Mark’s breath stopped as his brain kicked into high gear. Lucas continued, oblivious to the bomb he’d just dropped inside Mark’s preconceived notions about Biz’s love life. He heard papers rustling as Lucas flipped through the files. “Paul Lundgren—CreutzfeldtJakob disease. More common in men twice his age, but he was diagnosed four and a half weeks prior to his death. Coordination problems and temporary blindness are among the symptoms—so not a good disease to have when you’re jumping out of a plane.” Papers rustled again. “Gabriel Fox—ALS. Lou Gehrig’s. Again, the onset of the disease presented unusually early. He probably had two to three years of degeneration before his death, but they wouldn’t have been pleasant years. Paralysis, loss of speech, complete dependence. And Anthony Gable— glioblastoma multiforme. A particularly aggressive inoperable brain tumor. He was diagnosed nearly eight months before his death and probably had a maximum of six months to live.” “They went to her because they were dying.” “What?” “Nothing. Thanks, Lucas. I owe you one.”


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“You owe me eight, but favors for you sure keep life interesting. Later, Ellison.” Mark said goodbye and thumbed off the phone, staring at his bulging suitcase. So it had been a coincidence after all. Or at its most sinister, an insurance scheme of some kind. What had Biz been doing with three men on the verge of death? Was that why she was fixated on ghosts? Was she one of those people who went to mediums to commune with her dead lovers? Was she somehow attracted to their looming mortality? That didn’t seem like her. Too dark and macabre. Even when she was trying to repress her inner fire she wasn’t morbid. Was their appeal that she could keep them at a safe distance, knowing it wouldn’t last? More charity kindness than passionate love. He remembered what she’d said about leaps of faith and taking risks. She’d seemed to be scolding him about missed romantic opportunities, but had she been speaking to her own fears? There was still a story. The one he had originally been sent to write—about love and tragedy and overcoming fate. And Biz was still at the center of it all. He recalled the curve of her lips and the sparkle in her eyes as she challenged him. Then the panic and agitation as she bolted out the door. If it wasn’t guilt behind that sudden reversal, what was it? The story was quickly becoming an obsession. Biz was becoming an obsession. What had she said? About going after love the same way he went after a story? He’d ask her about that. Tomorrow. He was getting that interview.

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Chapter Eleven—Head Over Hecate

“Biz Marks. You stood me up.” Biz yelped and the ladder she was perched on swayed. She grabbed for the nearest swath of crimson fabric, but unfortunately it was one of the ones she’d already partially unhooked in preparation to dismantle Gillian’s gaudy Valentine’s display. The material moved under her hands, the ladder rocked under her feet, and Biz felt disaster approaching like a freight train with an OCD conductor—always precisely on schedule. “Tony, help!” She tumbled toward the ground, clinging to the swag of red cloth in an attempt to slow her impact—then suddenly strong arms closed around her as she and the fabric landed against a solid chest with a soft, “Umph.” Strong, solid, real arms. She looked up into the extremely close—and extremely intent—blue eyes of Mark Ellison, Reporter of Doom. How had he gotten in here? Why had the ladder fallen? Was it the ghosts? The curse? Or was she just a clumsy idiot who’d forgotten to lock the door? “We’re closed.” His gaze drifted over her face, lingering on her lips. “Are we?” Biz squirmed in his arms, but he held her easily. Damn his Atlas muscles. “I’m closed. Very closed. Go away.” His lips quirked into a sexy little smile. Damn his dimples. “But then who will catch you when you fall?”

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“My ghosts will catch me,” she snapped without thinking. “And I wouldn’t have fallen in the first place if you hadn’t startled me.” Instead of dropping her and backing away from her craziness, he quirked one eyebrow and something serious entered his eyes. “You really believe in ghosts?” Biz gave an exasperated huff. She hadn’t been able to avoid him, maybe she could scare him off with weird. Time for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. “Yes, I have ghosts living with me. Three of them. And I’m a witch, you know. Double, double, toil and the whole nine yards. I bet I can even find a broom around here somewhere.” Which was true, though she’d only ever used it to sweep. Her family line had never been in the flying business. Love was more their thing. “Now put me down or I’ll be forced to turn you into a toad.” He laughed and his arms tightened around her. For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to oblige her. Then he shifted his grip and let her feet slide toward the ground, while keeping one arm wrapped firmly around her ribs, pressing her torso against his chest. As soon as her feet touched the floor, she shoved away and hurriedly put the ladder between them. He just grinned—did nothing offend the man? “Is this the thanks I get for saving you from a broken neck?” He had a point. That was pretty bad form. “Thank you for catching me. Now go away.” “Or you’ll turn me into a toad?” “With warts. Lots of warts.” Even if they were making a joke of it, it was oddly freeing to talk about her witchitude with someone. She had a sudden understanding why killers in mysteries always confessed, spilling way more than they ought to because they just couldn’t stop themselves once the floodgates opened.

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Mark’s dimples flashed as he circled the ladder. “Go ahead. As long as you’re prepared to kiss me back into my prince-charming form.” “I’m not in the habit of making out with reptiles—no matter what form they take.” Biz backed away, playing ring around the ladder. “Amphibians.” “Excuse me?” She continued her retreat, weaving a path through the hot pink obstacle course her shop had become. “Frogs are amphibians.” Mark stopped stalking her, leaning against the papier-mâché bedecked counter. Biz folded her arms, safe with the breadth of the counter between them. “Fine. Frogs are amphibians and you’re a snake. I’m still not going to kiss you. Could you please go now?” “You owe me an interview, and I’m not leaving until we settle the score.” That sounded ominous. “We don’t have a score. We don’t have anything. There is no we.” Please God, let there be no we. The curse specialized in we’s. “I do believe you agreed to an interview then stood me up. I’m just trying to do my job and ask you some perfectly innocent questions. I think the least you owe me is an explanation.” “You shouldn’t be here.” “Because you’re closed.” “No. Yes.” She could close the shop until Valentine’s Day. Would that work? Or was he already in too deep? Whether it was lack of sleep or stress or the dizzying pheromones he projected, she couldn’t seem to think straight anymore. How was she going to beat the curse if her brain kept turning off at random intervals? And wasn’t he supposed to be long gone? Whisked away on yesterday’s five o’clock ferry? “I thought you were gone.” “And yet, here I am.”


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“I mean I thought you’d left. The ferry…” “News travels fast on Parish, I see. You’re right. I left. Now I’m back. I had to go up to the city to get a change of clothes. And my tools. If I had to stare at your broken awning for one more second, I was going to gouge out my eyes.” “There’s nothing wrong with my awning.” “It’s bowing. It’s a hazard.” “It’s fine. I don’t need or want your help.” “Don’t you?” He arched a brow. “I don’t. I’m fine on my own.” Fine wasn’t a lie. Fine wasn’t happy or even content. Fine was holding it together. She refused to fall apart. “Why is the shop closed? Are you redecorating?” He frowned at the crimson drape puddled at his feet. “Was it this red in here yesterday?” “I’m…” She waved a hand helplessly at the red floral explosion. “It’s Valentine’s.” He grinned—and there were those dimples again. “I can see that. Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll hold the ladder for you and you’ll tell me about your ghosts.” She narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “I thought you were doing a piece on Valentine’s Day.” “I was, but you’re more interesting.” Biz was not consoled by the change in direction. It was still too close to the curse for comfort. And he was still in her shop, in her presence, falling even deeper under the influence of her accidental death magic. “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.” “It isn’t about what I believe. It’s about the story. You’re the story.” “I don’t want to be the story.” “Then we’ll do it anonymously. No one has to know it’s you.”

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“Why are you so interested in this?” she asked, even though she knew the answer—the curse. She just wanted to find out why he thought he was here. “You fascinate me, Biz.” His expression was so sincere, so terrifyingly earnest. “You’ve had three years of Valentine’s tragedy and you’re still decorating your shop for the holiday. That kind of resilience is awe-inspiring.” Biz studied the grain in the floor again, fighting her disappointment that she couldn’t be the awe-inspiring woman he thought he saw. “Gillian did it. To surprise me. I was taking it down.” He just nodded, demonstrating again his inexplicable ability to adapt to whatever she threw at him. He was such an odd blend of closed and openminded. He extended his hand, palm up. “I’ll help you.” He didn’t smile. No smarmy tell-me-all-your-dirty-secrets look. But she wanted to tell him every dirty secret she had. She was so tired of keeping everything in. She had the boys for company, but the fact of the ghosts had driven a wedge into all of her relationships with the living. And here was Mark, asking for all the crazy she could give him. He wasn’t judging. Probably with a boatload of ulterior motives, but she couldn’t make herself care. This time, she couldn’t say no. Mark stood at the base of the ladder and looked up at the curve of Biz’s calf disappearing into her snug brown boots, forcing himself not to look at any higher curves. The single frosted window let a dribble of light into the shop, but it was more than enough to appreciate the charms of Miss Elizabeth Marks. “So how many ghosts do you have?” he asked, as much to distract himself as to interview her. “Three.” She jerked on a snagged strand of hot-pink heart-shaped lights, and the curves he was most definitely not looking at jiggled interestingly.


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“How do you know you have three? Couldn’t it be just one really active one?” Though three made sense if she was imagining them as her dear departed boyfriends. “They arrived at different times. And they manifest differently.” She gave another yank, another section of the strand came loose suddenly, and she swayed backwards on the ladder. Mark reached up instinctively to steady her, realizing when she stilled that he was palming the sweet round curve of her ass. They both froze as he silently commanded his hand not to squeeze, no matter how tempting the impulse was. When she was stable on the ladder again, he cleared his throat harshly and moved his hand back to brace the ladder. “How do they manifest?” he asked, his roughened voice the only sign that he’d just gone to half-mast copping a feel. “Paul appears visually—very look at me, look at me. Like a big toddler.” “Does anyone else see him?” Biz winced. “No one. I know how this sounds…” “No, I’m sorry. Go on. What do the other two do?” “I hear Gabriel. He’s the poet, the dark, dramatic one. If there’s an ominous song on the piano or a moaning in the rafters on a stormy night, I know Gabriel is around.” In a drafty old Victorian, Mark would have been more surprised if there wasn’t moaning in the rafters, but again he kept his mouth shut. “And Tony. I never see or hear him, but he’s the only one who can move objects around.” Mark held his tongue, managing not to suggest that a stray breeze could just as easily move things. “He’s the considerate one,” Biz continued. “Opening doors, handing me things I can’t reach, cooking meals. He takes care of me.”

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Mark frowned. “Cooking meals?” That went beyond coincidence to full-on delusion. “Mm-hmm. Tony was a great cook.” Was. The change in tense caught his attention. At least she drew a distinction between the living man and the ghost. Mark stared straight up at those curves, but this time didn’t let himself be distracted. “Tony as in Anthony Gable?” “That’s the one. Tony Gable, restaurateur extraordinaire.” There was a fond catch in her voice that annoyed him on some inexplicable level. “And the others are Gabriel Fox and Paul Lundgren? Your other boyfriends.” She freed the last of the heart lights and extended the strand down to him, her face as rosy as the bulbs. She fidgeted on the ladder. “They weren’t my boyfriends. I was sort of dating them, but it wasn’t serious. Not yet. I didn’t really have as much of a claim on them as everyone thinks.” That went along with his suspicion that she was using terminally ill guys as a buffer from real relationships, but it didn’t explain his possessive surge of pleasure that the ghosts didn’t have a romantic hold on her. Still, there was one detail that implied things were much more serious. “You were a major beneficiary in each of their wills and the recipient of at least two life-insurance policies,” Mark said, playing his trump card. Biz paled. “No one knows that.” “Did you think I would come all the way out here without doing any research?” “You think I…I did something to them? For the money?” Even if he hadn’t already known she wasn’t at fault, the look in her eyes would have convinced him. “I don’t think that at all. But you can’t tell me you


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didn’t matter to them. And that they didn’t matter to you. People don’t leave that much money to strangers.” “I haven’t touched the money,” Biz whispered. Mark didn’t bother telling her he’d already known that. After seeing the disrepair her house was in, he’d tried to follow the trail to find out what she’d done with her inheritances, only to learn the entire bulk of her money was just sitting in an account collecting interest and dust. “It isn’t mine. None of them had any family, but I didn’t deserve… It shouldn’t have been me.” “They cared for you.” He brushed a curl back from her face, and she shied away, stuffing the stray lock back into her ponytail. “You really believe they haven’t left you? They must still love you if they stay here as ghosts to look after you.” “If they even have a choice.” She shook her head and the curl fell forward again. “The relationships were all so new. Kernels of potential. Just love that might be.” He nodded, picking up a discarded light strand and looping it over his forearm. “Which is just as bad in its own way.” She stilled, her eyes searching his face. “It is?” “Sure. You’re all twisted up and aren’t quite sure how you’re supposed to feel, so you feel guilty because you mourn the possibility of what might have been more than you actually mourn them.” Her eyes went round. “How did you know that? No one gets that.” He shrugged, starting to see a new Biz. One that fit her much more than the Black Widow guise. When life dealt her loss after loss in a senseless, random stream, she developed a coping mechanism to keep the reality of her situation at bay. Her

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boyfriends died, but they didn’t leave her. They loved her. They weren’t gone. They were just ghosts. It was poetic in its emotional simplicity. An optimistic echo of the can’t-letgo suckers who went to mediums to reconnect with lost family members. The ghosts made the loss bearable—and they kept both real, living relationships and loneliness at bay. But the truly amazing thing was the way the town had adopted her coping mechanism, wrapping her delusion around them all in support. It was an incredible story. His editor would eat it up. “I don’t know if they care,” Biz confessed softly, turning back to the decorations. “Sometimes I wonder if they have any choice but to stay with me. I would let them go if I could.” Of course she would. Because as soon as she could let go of the ghosts, she could release her own misplaced guilt and move on with her life. “You can,” he said. She glanced down at him over her shoulder, her smile achingly sad. “Maybe. I’m trying to find a way.” There were more secrets tucked away in that smile. He didn’t know the full story yet. But he would. Mark wasn’t going anywhere. His editor could wait a few more days. He had a few more columns stored up. They could run those until he got back. He looked up at Biz, seeing all her curves and contradictions. She was worth the wait.


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Chapter Twelve—Schnapps ’Til You Drop

“Miss B-B-Biz?” Biz looked up from the encyclopedia-sized spell compendium she’d brought as homework to the Winter Festival. A pale, vaguely familiar man hovered nervously to one side of her booth, holding two cups of Parish Cocoa. “Can I help you?” “I’m Curtis Bloom. I’m staying across the street from your shop.” “Oh?” “Mm-hmm.” He shifted from foot to foot. “Enjoying your stay?” Bloom blushed and ducked his chin. Whatever else he might have said was lost when Gillian plowed through the crowd and planted herself in front of Biz’s booth. “Your booth looks like death.” Bloom faded into the crowd. Biz glared at Gillian. “It does not. Hi, Dave.” Dave smiled and nodded in greeting but didn’t speak. He and Gillian couldn’t have been a more unlikely couple. Where she was loud, he was quiet. When she was unyielding, he always went with the flow. He was also three inches shorter than she was and had a naturally thin build, like a marathon runner, which made Gillian look even more like a Valkyrie in comparison. But he was the only one who’d ever been able to move Gillian when she dug in her heels. She was a rock, but he was the river. Biz was particularly proud of


their match. She’d had that tingly feeling in the tips of her fingers on the day she introduced them. The one that used to mean she’d just made another perfect match. Of course, that was B.C. Before Curse. “Don’t look now, but that hot reporter’s been watching you from the schnapps tent for the last half hour.” Ignoring Gillian’s attempt at stealth, Biz immediately swung around to meet Mark’s stare. “What’s he still doing here? I gave him his interview.” She’d confessed to being a nutter who believed in ghosts, and he was still hanging around. Damn the curse. And damn her stupid hormones for being glad he was so damned persistent. “Maybe he likes schnapps,” Dave commented. “That man isn’t here for the schnapps,” Gillian said. Biz was inclined to agree with Gillian. Especially when Mark grabbed two Styrofoam cups of fifty-proof Parish Cocoa and began walking straight toward her. “And I think that’s our cue.” Dave grabbed his wife’s arm and started hauling her away. “Have a fun festival, Biz.” “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Gillian called over her shoulder with a lecherous wink. Biz’s eyes were locked on the Reporter of Doom stalking toward her with two cups of temptation, but she heard Dave snort as he dragged Gilly away. “At least that leaves her some room to maneuver.” A chill shot down Biz’s spine that had nothing to do with the January breeze. She didn’t need room to maneuver. She needed a quick escape route. Unfortunately, her booth was smack-dab in the middle of the square, a hangover


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from when Charmed, I’m Sure was the heart of the town and her booth was the bright red love Mecca that everyone was drawn to throughout the festival. Mark saw her wary expression, and his dimples flashed out in response. “I come in peace.” He raised the Styrofoam cups. “No questions, just spiked cocoa.” Biz ignored the Styrofoam peace offering. “Why are you still in town?” His confident smile didn’t waver for a second, the arrogant punk. “Mrs. Kent told me the Winter Festival wasn’t to be missed.” Biz looked around, taking in the half dozen folding tables, the overcrowded schnapps tent and the enthusiastic, if slightly off key, local Bluegrass band stomping away in the gazebo. The Winter Festival had always been more of an excuse to take the day off work than a tourist attraction. Even the vendors who set up booths didn’t take themselves seriously, spending more time soaking up peppermint schnapps than hawking their wares. Biz herself would be mingling with the dancers on the other side of the square, drinking until the music started to sound good, if she didn’t have a curse to break. “I hear the weather is lovely this time of the year in Raleigh.” She had no idea what the weather was like on the mainland in January and she didn’t care. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Biz?” Yes, but I don’t actually want you to leave. The truth of the thought made her feel guilty in the extreme. If she’d really wanted Mark gone, she could have arranged it. She was on a first-name basis with all two of the Parish Island police officers. All she had to do was say he’d been bugging her and he’d find himself hogtied on the next ferry to the mainland. But she hadn’t. She’d been enjoying his persistence. Enjoying him. Mark Ellison made her feel light again when she didn’t think anything could. Which was the worst news she’d had in years. It

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was bad enough when the curse took someone she liked. What if she really fell for him? What if this year it took someone she started to love? “I told you everything I know.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Did you?” How could he tell she’d skimped on the truth? And why did it delight her that he’d called her out on it? Was it just because he was so damn pretty? Had she been dooming him because of her own vanity? Because she was flattered by the attention? God, how pathetic was that? “What do you want?” “World peace, a picket fence and two-point-two kids with black corkscrew curls.” He tucked a curl that had slipped free of her knot behind her ear, and it sprang upward when he released it, falling loose again. “But I’ll settle for you taking this cocoa and agreeing to a dance with me. Come on. I’m irresistible. And you know I’ll never stop badgering you.” Biz accepted the Styrofoam cup with a sense of giving in to the inevitable. Her first sip of Parish Cocoa was potent—steeped in vodka, schnapps and fatalism. “Why are you doing this?” She kept asking him that question, as if by asking it enough he would realize he had no reason to want to be with her. As if she could force him to mistrust the curse’s lethal attraction. “Because it’s been too long since you’ve let yourself dance, Biz. I looked into the accidents. There was no way any of it was your fault. You’ve got to forgive yourself. Let yourself live a little.” It was a pretty sentiment. The only problem was it was her fault. Hers and no one else’s. She started to put down the Parish Cocoa, but Mark wrapped his hand over hers on the cup, stopping her.


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“Humor me,” he said, with the same self-mocking quirk of his lips that he’d shown her briefly the first time they’d met. “I’m cursed, Mark. Guys drop dead around me.” “Guys with terminal illnesses. Last I checked I don’t fit into that category.” Biz felt something that had been screaming deep inside her for three years suddenly go quiet. “What did you—? Terminal?” “Paul Lundgren, Gabriel Fox and Anthony Gable. Didn’t they tell you they were dying?” Mark cocked his head to the side. “They all decided to move to Parish after they were diagnosed. I can think of worse places to finish out your days.” He seemed to realize he was still holding her hand on the cup and drew his back, his fingers dragging a slow caress over her skin. Biz barely felt it. His words had hollowed her out. For the last three years her life had been filled with one certainty. She had killed them. It was her fault. And while knowledge of their impending deaths didn’t make her innocent, it changed the whole flavor of the curse. She was luring doomed men to her. Not dooming them herself. She took a healthy swallow of Parish Cocoa, feeling the combined heat of chocolate and liqueur sliding down her throat to warm her from the inside out. “Whoa there. Take it easy, darlin’.” If the curse only touched doomed men, perhaps he was safe. Perhaps it was safe to care for him. And if not… What harm could it possibly do? He was already doomed. Biz raised the cup to her lips. “L’chaim.” To life seemed like a suitably ironic toast. She might as well go down laughing. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste and the feeling, and when she opened them Mark filled her vision, handsome, charismatic and so damned alive. The sight sent a ricochet of emotion echoing through her chest. He was stubborn to

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the point of irritation, charming to the point of arrogance, and handsome to a sickening degree, but alongside all those extremes he was surprisingly malleable, ever changing but never insincere. It was like he spent each moment of his life adapting to new truths, the truth of that moment. If anyone could accept her, really accept her for everything she was, it was Mark. Biz took another swallow of cocoa, with an epiphany chaser. She had to tell him. Not just that, but convince him. He deserved to know everything. The ghosts were only the tip of it. The witchcraft, the curse. It was his life at stake, after all. If anyone deserved to know her deepest secrets, Mark did. Maybe he wouldn’t even freak out much. Telling a reporter was a huge leap of faith. She was coward enough to half hope he wouldn’t believe her. But she had to tell him. Now the only question was how. “I need more schnapps.” Mark was reasonably certain Biz was drunk off her cute little ass. The slurred speech was a good clue. The way she clung to his front like wallpaper as they swayed to the vaguely musical sounds of the band was another hint. But the kicker was the look in her eyes. The gooey, dreamy, completely unguarded look that made his knees wobble in a distinctly unmanly way every time he saw it. He was a definite fan of that look. And the Parish Cocoa that had put it there. “You have to let me go,” she slurred up at him, her arms twined around his neck like clinging vines. “It’s for your own good.” “Let me worry about my own good. You just hang onto me.” He didn’t think she’d stay upright without the support, and he loved the feel of her body melting


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against his. What they were doing barely qualified as dancing, but the festival was winding down and those few who hung around were just as plastered—and plastered to one another—as they were. “Can’t.” She shook her head sadly. “Gotta let you go,” she said, though her arms stayed tangled around him. Mark had seen survivor’s guilt before. He’d met people with unusual coping mechanisms for the tragedies life handed them, but Biz was different. And not just because she believed the ghosts of her dead exes took care of her. He’d been trying to put his finger on exactly what it was that was so special about her, exactly what it was that drew him so hard, but her indefinable allure remained undefined. As if it changed as readily as she did. She was such a peculiar mix of optimism and doom and gloom—her world view was locked into place in so many ways, assigning fate the upper hand, but hope kept leaking in around the edges. Mark loved the contradictions. Biz was the most interesting story he’d ever found. And she was an adorable drunk. At first he’d gotten the feeling she was trying to work up the guts to tell him something, but from one cup of Parish Cocoa to the next she’d bypassed liquid courage and stumbled straight into the point where seriousness was a concerted effort. She frowned up at him with exaggerated concern. “I don’t want you to be the fourth ghost.” “I won’t be.” Because there was no such thing as ghosts. He smiled reassuringly. She reached up with her forefinger and tucked the tip into the divot on his cheek. “Dimples of Doom,” she muttered, as the last squeaks from the clarinet player faded.

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Half the musicians had already departed, and now the final few shuffled toward their instrument cases and began packing up for the night. Biz continued to sway against his front, oblivious to the lack of music. “Looks like the party’s over,” he said softly as the remaining couples began to disperse. Biz closed her eyes and dropped her head against his chest, humming, “Mmhmm,” and continuing to sway. A chill breeze touched the back of his neck above his collar, but the combined effects of the Parish Cocoa in his blood and Biz’s body like a flame molded to his front kept him plenty warm. He didn’t particularly want the night to end. All the walls she’d been throwing at him since he arrived had magically toppled tonight, and he didn’t want to chance that they would be resurrected when the Parish Cocoa wore off. The last straggler tossed a wave in their direction as he headed out of the town square. Mark would have waved back, but that would have meant lifting his arms from Biz. “We should go,” he murmured against her hair, breathing in the scent of rosemary shampoo. “Mm,” she hummed agreeably. Should had become his enemy. They should go, because there was no reason he should want to stand in the middle of the Parish Island square freezing his butt off at two o’clock on a Tuesday morning. But he did want to—though he had no idea why. And that was why he extracted himself from Biz’s heat, stepping back until the January chill smacked into him and woke him up with a little perspective. Biz shivered, her own eyes growing less fuzzy as the bracing wind cleared her head somewhat.


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“Come on. Let’s get you home.” He caught her hand and tugged her toward the drafty Victorian where she lived with her ghosts. She fell into step beside him. One of her hands still held his and her opposite one wrapped around his arm so her front was pressed against his biceps as they strolled toward her house. Biz stopped in front of the door to Charmed, I’m Sure and turned to face him. She rocked a little and steadied herself by pressing her back against the door. “Mark,” she said, so slowly he could hear her working her way through what she wanted to say next. “Hypothetically speaking, if I were to tell you that I was a witch—a real, live, spell-casting, charm-making, potion-brewing witch— what would you say to that?” “I just might believe you.” He smiled and leaned toward her, his gaze sliding down to rest on her lips. “You’ve certainly bewitched me.” He thought it was a pretty good line, but Biz reacted like he’d tased her. “No!” She jolted and slapped both hands against his chest, shoving him back. “No. You can’t fall for me. It’s the kiss of death. I’m the kiss of death.” The word kiss snuck into his mind and refused to leave. He pressed against the push of her hands. “I like to live dangerously.” He was going to kiss her. It was like a compulsion, an invisible net tightening around the pair of them, tugging him closer and tangling around his thoughts until all he could think of was her. Her wild curls, conflicted eyes, soft curves and inviting lips. Somehow in the last few seconds her mouth had become the focal point of his universe. His heart stuttered, as if it would stop beating entirely if he didn’t kiss her right now. He bent his head and her hands pushing against him fell away. Her chin tipped back, her eyelids fluttering shut. For a breathless moment, he held there—

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she’d been running so hard and he wanted to be sure she wanted this just as badly as he did. When she didn’t stop him, he let his own eyes fall closed and bent to cover the last inch, anticipating the rich feel of her lips. And finding nothing but air. The slam of her front door and the snick of the lock sounded unnaturally loud in his ears. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know she was gone. Slipped right through his fingers. “Biz?” He knocked on the door—as if she didn’t know he was standing there. “I’m sorry, Mark,” she called through the door. “This is for your own good.” Which was what everyone told you when they denied you something you really wanted. “Let me in, honey.” “Go get a physical.” “A physical? Biz, I swear I’m perfectly healthy. My grandparents all lived into their nineties. I’m genetically predisposed to live forever.” Silence. “Biz. C’mon, sugar, open the door. It’s the middle of the night. I’ll get a physical tomorrow. I promise.” He thunked his forehead against the door and groaned. “Shit.” As if that was the magic word, the lock clicked softly and the door swung silently inward. Mark grinned, sure he would see Biz standing behind the door, looking contrite or eager or something, but the shop was empty. He heard footsteps rushing up the stairs, but no sign of anyone who could have opened the door. He studied the lock, looking for signs of a mechanism that could open it remotely, but if there was one, it was too small for the naked eye. Maybe it just hadn’t latched properly? But it hadn’t budged when he banged on it.


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He couldn’t bring himself to care too much about the mystery right now. The door was open. How didn’t matter as much as seeing Biz again. The need to see her burned under his skin. But he was just going to go up and apologize for coming on too strong and make sure she locked the door properly behind him on his way back out. Really. That was it. No funny business. Mark shut the door firmly behind him and started toward the back of the shop.

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Chapter Thirteen—Interrogation a la Casanova

Biz paced restlessly from the kitchen to the library and back again, unable to settle. She’d almost kissed Mark. That hadn’t been part of the plan. She’d meant to explain about the curse and make sure he understood what a danger she represented to him, but instead, somewhere between her third and fourth schnapps-loaded cocoa, she’d started wanting to use the curse. Sure, she had to find the counterspell, but until she did, he wanted her and since she sure as hellfire wanted him back, she might as well enjoy a night of romance. It had to be the Parish Cocoa. Because if it wasn’t, then she was a pathetic, lonely spinster who was so desperate for affection she was willing to risk men’s lives just so she could get the cheap thrill of feeling pretty and special for one lousy night. “Two years,” she said to the library, not caring if the ghosts were there or if she was officially a nutter talking to herself in the middle of the night. Two years since Gabriel died and she realized her spell had become a curse. Two years of avoiding unmarried men like the plague, pushing away everyone who wanted to be close to her. Two years without a single match made because she couldn’t risk being around unattached men. Tonight, when Mark told her the guys were all terminal, it seemed to prove their deaths weren’t entirely her fault. And even if Mark was already caught in

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the curse, she couldn’t undo it no matter what she tried, so she finally let herself enjoy it. Enjoy him. Right up until the moment he’d almost kissed her. She didn’t know which she regretted more—that she’d let it get to that point or that she’d run away before she seized her chance to get a taste of him. She’d bet the store he was a damn fine kisser. Doubtless worth the years in purgatory she’d earn by kissing him. The floorboards groaned in the doorway. Biz didn’t turn to look. There wouldn’t be anything to see anyway. Just another ghost. “Nice place. If the charm business ever dries up, you can always open a bookstore.” Biz spun, the breath whooshing out of her lungs in a rush. Mark stood in the doorway, hands shoved into his front pockets, rocking on his heels as he studied the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves built into every wall. “How did you get in here?” she asked, loving the sight of him and hating herself for it. If he was here, it was a sign, right? He was definitely cursed. Might as well live it up ’til the bitter end. “Door was open.” His blue stare dropped from the bookcases and landed hard and hot on her, but he didn’t twitch so much as a finger in her direction. “I’m sorry about… I shouldn’t have pushed you.” He ducked his chin, the selfmocking grin tugging his lips. “I’m usually not quite that much of an ass. I don’t know why I can’t seem to leave you be.” She wasn’t going to get a better opening. Biz took a step toward him, just a token gesture since the width of the library still separated them. “I do,” she admitted. “There’s something I’ve been trying to tell you. Something important. Though, to be honest, I haven’t been trying very hard.”

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“Whatever it is, you can tell me.” His grin quirked. “You can’t shock me. I’ve heard it all.” She doubted he’d heard this. “I wanted you to kiss me.” A smile split his face and he took two quick steps forward before she held up a hand to stop him. “No. Don’t.” She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to find the clarity to make the words come out right. “You only wanted to kiss me because I wanted you to.” “Is this some pheromone thing?” She sighed. “No. It’s a magic thing.” “Magic.” He arched a skeptical brow. “Like the witch thing.” “Yes, a witch thing.” She took a deep breath to remind herself to breathe. All or nothing. “I’m a witch.” Her voice broke up a little on the last word, but considering it was the first time she’d ever said the words out loud without the shield of sarcasm, she thought she did a pretty good job of it. Mark just smiled. “Okay.” He started toward her again. Not exactly the reaction she’d expected. Biz backed away, circling around the courting couch that dominated the center of the room. “I’m not kidding.” “I didn’t think you were.” He kept advancing, a small, tolerant smile on his expressive mouth. Anger flashed through her blood. He was humoring her. “I won’t be patronized. I am a witch. A spell-casting, charm-making, real live witch.” “I’m very impressed.” “My mother was a witch too. She died when I was a little girl, and I was raised by my grandmother—also a witch.”


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He continued to stalk her in slow circles around the room, his eyes alight with wicked intent. “Fascinating.” “From the time I was a little girl I’ve had the touch. I can sense when two people are meant to be together and sometimes I give them a little nudge toward romance. None of my couples have ever gotten divorced.” “Impressive.” “Then, a little over four years ago, my grandmother passed away. She left me the house and the shop, but all I could think of was how she’d left me all alone.” She bumped against a hip-high table, realizing too late she’d gotten distracted and backed toward the reading nook. “I’m sorry.” Mark was suddenly in front of her, so close, cutting off her only avenue of escape. Biz’s breath tangled in the back of her throat, but she pressed on. She had to tell him all of it. “Everyone I knew had someone, but I was so lonely. So that Valentine’s Day, I polished off an entire bottle of Cuervo—” “Uh-oh,” he murmured, sliding his fingers along the base of her neck, beneath her hair. “I’ve seen what a lightweight you are. That can’t have been pretty.” “I’d helped so many people find love. It didn’t seem fair that I was alone.” Biz swallowed around the heavy lump of remorse in her throat. “So I cast a spell. For myself. Which was the one thing I’d been told I must absolutely never do.” He bent closer until each exhale ruffled her hair. “I love a woman with a rebellious streak…” Little tingles began racing over her body, shooting out from the delicate brushing of his fingers against the sides of her neck. “I cast a spell to call men to the island who would love me.”

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“And here I am, is that it?” He chuckled, and she felt the vibration against the sensitive shell of her ear. “No,” she whispered. Good God, what had happened to all the oxygen in the room? How was she supposed to breathe? “Paul and Gabriel and Tony came. But the spell went wrong. Every year, on the anniversary of the day I cast it, the man who had been drawn to me died suddenly.” His lips grazed her neck just beneath her ear and electric energy shot down to her core from the touch. “It’s a curse, Mark.” “Mmm.” He nibbled his way down her neck, and Biz angled her head to give him better access. How was she supposed to warn him when he was doing this? “I didn’t mean to…” He hummed against her skin. Her knees felt like Jell-O. She clutched his shoulders to keep from sagging to the floor. “It was an accident, but I called down a death curse.” “Mm-hmm.” His hands cradled her jaw, tipping her head back until his bright blue eyes swam into view. “Mark,” she whispered when his lips were less than a breath away. “You’re next.” His mouth settled over hers in a searing kiss, burning away the last fragments of her will to resist.


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Chapter Fourteen—Casper the Jealous Ex

Biz tasted like a dream. A smooth, sweet, cotton-candy dream. Maybe she was right. Maybe there was magic at work, because no earthly woman could ever taste this good without supernatural assistance. He deepened the kiss. Her tongue stroked against his and sparks of want ignited inside him, cascading down to his fingertips. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see colored sparks shooting off them both. They could have floated right up off the ground and all he would have cared about was the way Biz leaned her body into his, the press of her lips, the way her fingers curled into the muscles of his shoulders. A loud slam jolted him back down to earth when Biz jerked away. Her face was flushed, her breathing quick, and he was no better off. Her eyes met his, wide and startled—but he knew that surprise was for the stunning intensity of the kiss, not the bang of a giant book falling from the top shelf. Masculine satisfaction coiled deep in his gut at having put that dizzy look in her eyes. “I… Gabriel must’ve…” Biz waved vaguely toward the massive book that had crashed down and broken them apart, and Mark took particular pride in her inability to form a coherent sentence. “He always was the jealous type.” She slipped past Mark, careful to avoid brushing against him. “I’m never really alone.” Kneeling next to the book that was nearly as big as her torso, Biz hefted it up and slid it onto a coffee table already covered with slimmer volumes.


She waved toward the papers, her face still delightfully rosy. “They’ve been helping me look for the counterspell.” He glanced around the massive library. “These are all…” “Spell books. My grandmother collected them. If there’s a spell or counterspell in existence, it’s in one of these books.” Her shoulders slumped. “At least, I have to hope that it is. I’ve been going through them all one by one, but one person, hundreds of books, most of them with no indexes since they were written for personal use by the people who wrote them—sometimes it feels impossible.” Mark felt something suspiciously in the vicinity of his heart give a lurch at the dejected expression on her face. He liked Biz. He respected her ability to cope with the tragic senselessness that life kept throwing her way. Her coping mechanism was an elaborate delusion, but that didn’t make her belief in it any less sincere. She was trying to take control of her life. Trying to find a way to fight the helplessness that came with being powerless to save people she cared about. To Biz, that meant a counterspell for a curse. It made sense, in a weird sort of way. And he had to admire the tenacity of her beliefs. He didn’t believe in curses any more than he believed in ghosts—heavy books fell from hundred-plus-year-old shelves all the time without supernatural assistance, and some curse certainly wasn’t responsible for his attraction to her— but he knew Biz believed in them. She needed to find the counterspell. And he needed to give her whatever she needed to be happy. He couldn’t stand the hopelessness in her eyes. It made his whole chest ache.


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He walked toward the nearest shelf and pulled down a book at random. Letting it fall open, he began paging through it absently. “So, tell me what I’m looking for.” A flicker of confusion crossed her face before a slow, radiant smile burst through. “You’re going to help me?” He’d walk across hot coals if that was what it took to replace her earlier hopelessness with the bemused wonder she now exuded. He shrugged, tossing her a lecherous smile. “It’s either that or try to seduce you again, but I don’t think Casper here would appreciate that.” She smiled and a pleased blush tinted her cheekbones. That blush promised he would have other opportunities to see if she tasted as magical as he remembered. Soon. But for now, he had a few thousand books to read. “Where do we start?” Biz was trying to concentrate. Really she was. But the view was just so distracting. Mark stood atop the ladder, stretching for a book on the top shelf, his muscles flexing and bunching beneath the worn grey T-shirt he wore. Faded blue jeans hugged an ass that could have won awards it was so beautiful. If they gave out a Pulitzer for the best butt, Mark would win, hands down. “Have we checked this one yet?” He pulled down a slim volume and twisted to show her the cover. Biz surreptitiously wiped away her drool and squinted up at the insignia scratched into the leather cover. “I think so. Honestly, I can barely remember which ones we looked at already this morning, let alone all the ones I’ve checked in the last year.” She sighed. “I should have kept a list.”

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“Yep.” He turned back to the shelf. At his matter-of-fact agreement, she didn’t know whether to laugh or chuck something at his head. He didn’t sugarcoat things, but he also didn’t dwell on past mistakes. It was refreshing—as if the only truth was the truth of the moment. The past didn’t matter, but he never lied to spare her feelings. She’d been stupid not to keep a list. She’d made a massive error when she cast the spell in the first place, but he just acknowledged her mistakes like the facts they were and moved on. Tony would have pretended she hadn’t done anything wrong. Gabriel would have moped and grumbled. Paul…she wasn’t even sure what Paul would have done. Had she really known him? She’d built up an idea of him in her head—the attention-hog ghost, the playful rebel—but all three of them had become caricatures rather than memories. Mark was so real in comparison. His presence filled the room—not with a breeze or a chill, but with his personality. His charm. She was relieved to have someone living helping her, relieved that she wasn’t tangled up in that alone-but-never-alone feeling anymore, but also filled with a fizzy delight that it was him there with her. Ever since the kiss, she kept finding a dopey grin sneaking onto her face at random intervals. She tried not to think about it, tried to keep her distance, but now that she’d let it happen once, the dam had already broken and her resistance was eroding by the second. It had been reckless to dance with him, irresponsible to kiss him, but regret couldn’t make her stop reliving each second. A little voice in her head kept whispering What’s the harm? He’s already in too deep. But the responsible side she’d been trying to listen to more lately told her to keep as much distance between them as possible. To protect him, but also, selfishly, to protect herself. Don’t get attached, Biz.


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She couldn’t forget that the clock was ticking. They were down to less than three weeks to Valentine’s. And while she may feel dizzy and special and magical in his presence, he was only being sucked in by the curse. As soon as it was broken, he would be out the door, wondering what he ever saw in her. If he survived. “Gilly’s probably opened the clinic by now. Tests for rare fatal diseases wait for no man, Mark.” “If I get tested this instant or tested tomorrow it won’t matter if I’m diagnosed with some rare, incurable disease. I might as well enjoy blissful ignorance for a few more hours.” He stretched up to replace the book on the shelf. Biz bent over her book with renewed determination. She would find the counterspell. And then she would find a cure for whatever Mark had, if it came to that. Biz closed her eyes, concentrating on the whispers of the books. Please help me find the answer. “What about this one?” She looked up to check the book Mark held up for her inspection—just in time to see a monster of a book rocket off the top shelf, straight for his head. “Mark!” The book connected with his skull with a sickening thwack. His hands went slack around the book he held and for a breath everything—the two books, the ladder, and Mark—seemed to hover, suspended in the air. Then they all crashed down together, falling so fast his body hit the floor before she could do more than throw out her hands in a pointless reflex attempt to cushion his fall. His body lay terrifyingly still, sprawled on the hardwood. Oh Jesus, was he even conscious?

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“Mark.” Biz scrambled over the arm of the couch and fell to her knees beside him, shoving away the books that had tumbled around him. “Oh God, Mark. Don’t be dead. It isn’t Valentine’s yet! You can’t be hurt. You just can’t.” She felt for a pulse, her own drumming so loud in her ears it took her a moment to realize his was just as strong—though not nearly as fast. Her heart was racing like a jackrabbit while his plodded along steadily. That was good, right? He was fine. No bones were sticking out at odd angles. He had to be fine. So why didn’t he wake up? Worry flickered and kindled into a bright, burning rage. “He’s trying to help us!” she screamed at the ceiling. Those damn ghosts. “He isn’t poaching, you idiots! He can’t steal me from you. He wants to free you, dammit.” No curtains fluttered, no piano strings twanged. The ghosts held their silence—just when she needed a direction to aim her anger. Mark groaned, and Biz’s attention lasered back down on him. “Mark?” He winced and reached a hand for his head. “Who wants to free me?” His baby blues opened and relief surged through Biz. “Are you hurt? Of course you’re hurt. You fell almost ten feet. Where does it hurt the most? Don’t try to get up. Spinal injuries aren’t supposed to move. Does your spine feel severed? Can you wiggle your fingers?” He obligingly wiggled the fingers he’d already raised to his head. “I’m fine. If you don’t count the elephant tap dancing inside my skull.” He levered his shoulders off the floor, and Biz slapped her hands on them, slamming him back to the hardwood with a little more force than she’d intended. He grunted and she blushed. “Sorry. You aren’t supposed to move. Just stay right there until I get Gillian, okay?”


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He lifted his hands in surrender and dropped his head back to the floor, then groaned at the movement. “Stay,” Biz reminded him, racing for the kitchen phone and wishing for the first time that she’d gotten a cell phone when service first came to Parish. She’d always thought it was stupid before, but right now she’d give anything to have a phone on her person so she didn’t have to leave Mark’s side for a second. Seeing him fall, that flash of panic, had shifted something inside her. Nothing was going to happen to him. Not this time. She wouldn’t let it.

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Chapter Fifteen—Let’s Get Physical

Mark managed not to flinch as the flashlight burned into first one retina, then the other. Gillian sat back, frowning. “Damn.” Mark matched her frown. He actually felt pretty damn good, considering he’d just taken a header toward the floor from ten feet up. Was it some kind of shock thing, delaying the pain? Was he bleeding internally? “What is it? What’s wrong?” “Hmm? Oh, nothing. You’re fine.” Gillian sighed, visibly disappointed by his good health. “Nothing for me to do to you. When Bizby called and said you’d fallen from the top of the ladder in the library, I thought for sure I was going to get to set at least a few bones. Maybe call in the med-evac team to fly you to the city for an emergency cranial reconstruction or something. But you barely have a bump. I’ve seen three-year-olds falling off their tricycles who took more damage.” Mark frowned, remembering the moment when he’d felt like he was floating right before he fell, the odd sensation of the hardwood cushioning his body. “Gillian, do you believe in magic?” That book had flown off the shelf and up to hit him in the head. Books just didn’t fall that way. Could Biz be right? Could there be ghosts in the house? There had been an awful lot of coincidences. Suddenly getting a full-body scan didn’t feel quite so foolish.

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“Magic?” Gillian grabbed a needle and a trio of vials. Biz had demanded Gillian test him for everything from Ebola to bird flu. She slapped his inner arm and muttered, “Nice veins,” before jabbing him. “Ouch. Dammit, that stings.” “Wuss.” She was just overflowing with bedside manner. “Is Biz really a witch?” She snorted. “You must have hit your head harder than I thought.” Suddenly Gillian brightened. “Hey, you want a CAT scan? We just got a new machine. It’s awesome. I’ve been dying to take her out for a test drive, and there might be cranial bleeding. We have to check. You’re talking crazy. That could be a symptom.” “I’m serious.” “You’ve been listening to too much gossip,” Gillian grumbled, exchanging a filled vial for an empty one and continuing to drain his blood. “Biz is special. She’s got a—I don’t know, a sense or something, about love and stuff. But that’s no reason to tie her to a stake and whip out the kindling.” “I’m not gonna burn anyone.” “No? So you aren’t writing a story that would expose her? You don’t think using the word witch in connection with her name in print would impact her maybe just a little?” The room started to get fuzzy around the edges. “How much blood do you need?” “Last one.” She shoved his shoulder, none too gently, and he flopped onto his back on the exam table. Gillian grabbed his ankles and propped them up on a pair of stirrups that she yanked from beneath the table. “What the hell?”

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“Just lie back and think of England.” He started to squirm into a sitting position and she smacked him—again with a noticeable lack of bedside manner. “Elevating your feet helps the lightheadedness. Deep breaths, you big wuss. Practice your Lamaze.” His manliness objected, but his stomach rolled unpleasantly when he even thought too hard about sitting up again, so he closed his eyes and focused on not puking all over Gillian’s exam room. “Mark,” the doc said softly. “Are we done?” “Look at me.” Mark opened his eyes and nearly swallowed his tongue. “Jesus!” Gillian stood between his spread legs with a scalpel hovering inches from his crotch. “Biz is my best friend, Mark. She’s a precious flower, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for her, are we clear?” Mark nodded fervently, his eyes locked on the gleaming silver blade. “Precious flower.” “If someone were to hurt Biz, I might have to hurt…someone.” The scalpel wagged. Mark managed not to whimper. “What are your intentions toward my friend, Mark?” “I—” Intentions. Right. What were his intentions? Beyond avoiding getting his balls chopped off by Parish Island’s answer to Sweeney Todd. Biz. Something about Biz. “I like her. A lot.” “Good. She likes you too. And I need you to do something for me.” “What?” Anything, just get that knife away from my junk. “I want you to seduce her.” “You want me to what?”


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“Seduce her. Show her a good time.” Gillian pulled a face. “You know her history. This last year has been the worst. It’s like all the joy has been sucked right out of her. I want you to put some of that joy back. She likes you. She wakes up when she’s with you. I haven’t seen her as alive as she is with you in years. So I want you to give her some sexual healing. Release all those happy hormones and convince her it’s okay to live again.” “Isn’t that her choice?” “You’re her choice. I’m only giving you my blessing and making sure you realize how important your responsibility to make her happy is.” Her blessing. So that’s what she needed the scalpel for. “I want her to be happy too.” Gillian beamed, for all the world like she wasn’t holding his balls hostage. “Great! Now how about that CT scan?” An hour later, Gillian locked up the clinic after them, her shoulders slumped dejectedly. “I never get the good injuries. You’re so damn healthy.” He snorted. “Sorry to disappoint you.” “Hey, we can’t win ’em all, right? Maybe next time you’ll break something fun.” Next time. Mark winced. “Look on the bright side, Gillian. Maybe one of the tests will come back with something festering and unpleasant.” The doctor sighed. “A girl can dream.” Then she winked at him and wandered down the street in the opposite direction of Biz’s place. “G’night, Ellison,” she called over her shoulder. “Don’t forget what I said.” Not bloody likely. It was engraved in his memory with a scalpel’s edge. Luckily her demands matched his own. Now he just had to convince Biz.

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Chapter Sixteen—Love’s Labors Leapt

Biz tipped her face back to the pale winter sun and tried to let the sound of the waves soothe her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t feeling very soothable. After Gillian evicted her from the clinic, declaring her a nuisance and an unbearable pest when she was only concerned for Mark’s health, Biz stormed back home, intent on ransacking the library—and giving her idiotic prankster ghosts a piece of her mind—but the ghosts had been hiding from her and she hadn’t been able to concentrate. She kept staring at the spot on the floor where Mark had fallen, reliving the heart-stopping moment of his crash. She hadn’t actually seen any of the others get hurt. Die, she forced herself to think the word. She hadn’t seen them die. A phone call after the fact was bad enough, but the immediacy of the horror and helplessness of seeing Mark fall had trumped everything in her experience. She’d fled the library, running down the twisting paths to her slice of beach. Before, the wind and water had always made her feel human again, saner. But today she couldn’t find peace. Seeing him fall had really brought home the fact that Mark was at risk— whether he was terminal or not. For all she knew the curse could be changing its pattern. But instead of convincing her to keep him at arm’s length, his fall had sent a jolt of realization through her. Keeping her distance from Tony hadn’t saved him. Staying clear of Mark wouldn’t either. So that excuse was out the window.

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In its place was her own fear of getting hurt, battling with the question of whether she would regret pushing him away if he didn’t make it. Was it really better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Did she have that kind of courage? The ocean didn’t have an answer for her. “Biz!” She turned and her heart stuttered. He strode across the beach, looking gorgeous and healthy and not at all like a man who’d been on the floor unconscious two hours ago. “Mark. You’re okay.” “Much to Gillian’s disappointment.” Part of her wanted to rush into his arms like some cheesy slow-mo movie montage, but she held back, locking her fingers together at her waist to keep from reaching out to him as he closed the distance between them. She forced a smile. “Gillian does like her injuries. She gets bored with the cold and flu stuff that’s pretty much all they see at the clinic in the winter months.” Mark’s dimples flashed. “As thrilled as I’m sure Gillian would be if I landed on her doorstep with two broken legs, I’m gonna avoid giving her that pleasure as long as possible.” Biz answered his smile with one of her own, hoping hers didn’t look as fake as it felt. “That sounds wise.” He ducked his head to peer into her eyes. “You okay? You look kinda spooked.” Spooked. She certainly was that. She had a plethora of spooks and not much else going for her. As if in response to her doom-and-gloom thoughts, the wind kicked up, flattening her skirt against her thighs, and Biz shivered. Before she could say

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Southern gentleman, Mark’s coat dropped around her shoulders, still warm from his body and carrying the slightly peppery scent of his cologne. “Thanks.” Biz tugged it closer around her, somehow resisting the urge to bury her nose in the lining and inhale. “I’m fine, Biz,” Mark said softly. “Healthy as a horse. Even if you were cursed, maybe it’s already run its course.” “Maybe.” But she didn’t believe that. No matter how much she might wish she could. “I bet I’m your reward for keeping your chin up through three years of karmic crap.” Mark grinned cockily, wagging his eyebrows. A helpless smile tugged at Biz’s lips. It should have been annoying for a man to know he was that gorgeous, but the little self-deprecating flicker in his eyes made his arrogance work. It was unfair, but somehow he was even more appealing when he was mocking his own masculine beauty. And damn her if the man wasn’t beautiful. “Why aren’t you dating some supermodel?” The question jumped out of her mouth before her brain had time to process how dumb it was to say that aloud to a man who might actually be interested in her. God only knew why. God and the curse. Mark snorted. “Stick figures have never really been my type.” “You know what I mean. Pretty people should date other pretty people.” “And you aren’t pretty?” Jesus, his eyes. The way he was looking at her right now, as if she wasn’t just pretty, she was the pinnacle of femininity. How was she supposed to defend against that look? Her knees melted and her legs wobbled. Funny how necessary those joints were for her equilibrium. “I…” Biz tried to swallow, but her mouth had suddenly gone dry. “Stop it.”


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“Stop what?” He caught a loose curl and tangled it around the crook of his finger. His insanely blue eyes were so close. Had they been that close a second ago? Was he leaning in? Was she? She’d forgotten how to breathe, how to think, how to do anything other than look into those impossible eyes and wait. “Mark…what are you…?” “You said I had to be open to opportunities. Ready to leap. I’m leaping…” His lips brushed hers, so softly at first she could have convinced herself she imagined the touch, then firmer, sweeter, drawing each moment into sensation. Last night’s kiss was reckless, foolish, a rush of pent-up emotion, but this one was too slow, too gently persuasive to be anything other than a perfect invitation. She fell against him, lured by the kiss, forgetting all the barriers she’d placed between them. The wind wrapped around them, urging them closer. His spicy, peppery scent went to her head as his hands went to her hips, gripping her tight and pulling her close. He coaxed her mouth open, and the second his tongue teased inside, she forgot where she ended and he began. Her entire existence twisted into a cyclone of touch and taste. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been kissed like this. I’ve never been kissed like this. This wasn’t lust and heat. This was warm persuasion, a seduction of her soul as much as her senses. Was this what a love spell felt like? Biz jerked back, yanking herself out of Mark’s arms and stumbling away until she had enough distance that she wasn’t going to fall right back into them. “Biz?” She shook her head, mute. Was this what a love spell felt like? Fizzy and sweet and warm with the surge of fiery heat almost swamped by the promise of comfort and companionship.

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Was this what the boys had felt when the curse sucked them in? Was it coming for her now? “I-I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I really like you, Mark, but I just can’t.” She scrambled up the beach, running as best she could with the sand sucking her feet down and dragging at her steps. “Biz!” he called after her. She didn’t look back. Running, always running from Mark.


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Chapter Seventeen—Someone to Love is the Answer

Biz stormed into the library. The boys must have sensed her volatile mood and gone to ground. For the first time in years, the house felt completely, eerily empty. Desolately so. Hopelessly. D-Day was looming, Mark was temptation with blue eyes, and she was no closer to finding the damn counterspell. “Dammit,” she shouted at the books, focusing on her anger. It pushed aside the hopeless mix of despair and longing, clearing out her thoughts. The books hissed and grumbled back at her, their whispering more distinct as it reflected her frustration. “Oh, shut up.” Spotting the book on the floor that had launched Mark from the ladder, Biz decided she was not above taking her aggression out on defenseless inanimate objects. She may not be able to beat the curse itself senseless, but she could destroy that book. She stalked over to it, glaring down at the familiar brown leather tome. She knew this book. It was a repeat offender. This book had crashed to the floor and disrupted her first kiss with Mark. It was also her grandmother’s favorite reference. The first one she’d gone to when she first realized the curse might have backfired. She’d scoured the pages over and over in the last year and found nothing, not a single helpful spell.


She hefted it into her arms, half-intending to chuck it across the room, but her anger drained out of her into the soft leather. She couldn’t hurt this book her grandmother had touched a thousand times. Biz sank down onto the window seat, settling the book on her lap. She ran her fingertips over the engravings on the cover and listened to its voice—not her grandmother’s voice, but a resonance once removed, familiar and dear in its own way. Her grandmother had been so good at listening to the books’ voices, learning their personalities. Whenever Biz struggled to hear them, Gran would pat her hand and tell her, “You just aren’t listening right, Elizabeth. Let it come.” Always so confident that someday it would. Biz splayed her hands on the warm brown leather. Her chest ached with the memory of her grandmother’s soft voice and strong, sure hands. The universe gives us things exactly when we need them, girl, Biz could remember her saying. You just gotta know how to ask right. She recalled her grandmother sitting in this room, petting the books and whispering. Talking pretty to them she’d called it. Biz stroked her fingers over the smooth leather her grandmother had touched so many times. Maybe the ghosts hadn’t been motivated by only jealousy. Maybe they knew something she didn’t. Maybe this book wasn’t just a handy projectile. She took a deep breath, trying to think how to ask the book to help her the right way, but all the pretty words were swallowed up by desperation, and she just ended up saying, “I need to undo this love curse to save Mark. Please help me.” She gave the book an extra little pat, like a good pet, and opened the cover. The pages were so thin they ought to be transparent, but they didn’t feel fragile beneath her fingers. They flipped quickly, as if of their own accord, until


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about a third of the way through when suddenly they stopped, the rest of the pages sticking together like they’d been glued down. Biz lifted her hands away from the book, taking the hint, and studied the page. True Love Antidote. Impossible. She’d read every page in this book a dozen times and she’d never seen the spell before. Tingles shot down to her fingertips like they did when magic was flowing strongly around her. She read quickly through the curled text that filled the page, almost skimming in her eagerness to consume every word. Cure to all love spells…release all victims… It sounded perfect. Exactly what she needed to break the curse, release the ghosts and put everything back to normal. She could do this. It was elementary magic. Then she saw the last words on the page and her heart froze into a block of solid ice. Only the selflessness of one truly in love can break the spell. True love? She had to be in love with him to break the spell? Sure, she was infatuated with Mark—that went without saying—but love? The selflessness of true love? What did she know about that? Before the curse, Biz had always been easygoing, a go-with-the-flow kind of girl, but you couldn’t just go with the flow with love. You had to want it badly. You had to pin your affections to someone until they couldn’t drift away when the mood struck. And she’d never done that. Any closeness she had let herself feel for the boys had turned out to be an illusion, conjured by a spell gone wrong. Even when she was casting spells for Mr. Right, it was asking for someone to come love her. Even then she hadn’t been risking anything. What had she gambled? It had never been her life on the line,

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or even her heart. They had all wanted her more than she’d wanted them. But now, with Mark, it had to be real? No pressure on the relationship or anything. You just have two weeks to fall head over heels for a man you’ve been shoving away for the last week. No problem. What about Mark? Should she tell him about the antidote spell? She honestly didn’t know if that would make it easier or harder. Did she want him to try to make her fall in love with him? Biz shook her head at the thought. Definitely not. Especially not when he was under the influence of the curse. Oh God, the curse. She had to love him to save him. But as soon as she broke the curse, everything he felt for her, all those curse-induced feelings, would go away. She had to love him to lose him. “Biz?” As if conjured by magic, his voice echoed up the stairs from the shop below. “Upstairs!” She slammed the book shut and scrambled to her feet, shoving it under a cushion on the window seat though she couldn’t imagine why she felt the sudden need to hide the cure. “Biz, I’m sorry about earlier, on the beach. I shouldn’t have—” She dashed across the room, cutting off his words by flinging herself into his arms. Her lips crashed down on his with more enthusiasm than finesse, but judging by the way his arms tightened around her and lifted her right off her feet, Mark didn’t seem to mind. “I’m sorry,” she murmured against his mouth, then lost more words as he slanted his lips against hers for another deeper kiss. She was breathless, dizzy and pinned against a bookcase when they came up for air. His eyes were close and impossibly blue. But if he hadn’t been charming and sweet and so damn good to her, she knew his beauty would have already begun


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to fade for her. She saw the world through affection goggles, and Mark seemed to grow more handsome every time she saw him. Could she love him? Did she already? How would she even know? And how could she make sure she loved him enough in time? Nervous fear slithered through her, and Biz shivered. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, from a distance of inches. “I want to leap. I do. But this isn’t going to be easy for me. Can you be patient?” She shouldn’t be asking for patience. She should be asking for the express pass on the train to Romance Land, but it was hard to pull a one-eighty quite that fast, and her fears were still powering in the run like hell direction. Mark took a step back, easing her feet back to the floor, apparently realizing patience ruled out a bookshelf quickie. “I have time, Biz. I’m not going anywhere.” “Your work…” He shrugged, stepping back and digging his hands into his pockets. “I have a few columns on file already and I can write more from here. There are lots of sappy Valentine’s stories on Parish.” “I…” “I’ll keep your name out of it. Though I would like to mention Parish Island’s two-hundred-year matchmaking legacy.” “So the story about me and the boys…” “There are better ways to bring people the spirit of Valentine’s Day. My editor will eat up the Parish romance series. Trust me.” “Thank you.” The relief she should have felt knowing her secrets were safe couldn’t compete with her new anxiety. “You’re staying? Even without the story?” The curse at work.

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“I like it here. Parish is enchanting. Just like her matchmaker. Whom I would love to interview, by the way. If she’ll let me.” Biz smiled, feeling a little green. Suddenly everything she thought she knew about romance was called into question. Suddenly Biz Marks, matchmaker extraordinaire, was lost in her own world. What did she really know about love, having never felt it herself? How did a girl fall in love on command?


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Chapter Eighteen—Grim Reaper Renovation

Mark leaned against the window frame in his testosterone-reducing room at the Shoreview and glowered down at the listing awning above Biz’s shop door. It seemed to have grown even more crooked and unstable in the last few days. His laptop perched on the vanity that passed for a desk in here, with the spindly carved legs he nearly snapped every time he sat at the damn thing. He’d just finished the last of the Parish romance series and emailed it off, to the delight of his editor, which left him with nothing to do but obsess over Biz. Or head home. But heading home didn’t feel like an option. He wasn’t done here yet. He’d been falling in love with Parish Island since day one. The natural beauty of the island, the manicured charm of the town, and the way the community huddled together through the winter hibernation, waiting for the thriving tourist season again. And then there was Biz. What was it about her that consumed him? He’d never been the kind to moon over women in the past. Was it just the chase? The challenge of her? Biz had said she wanted patience, but what she seemed to mean by that was distance. Even when he had his arms around her, she tucked away pieces of herself. Which he could understand, given her background, but was that the only reason he was still chasing? Because she was still running? She definitely kept him on his toes. From the first she’d seemed to see through his standard charm offensive, but even without that shiny veneer she


liked him. Not because he was quick and smarmy, but for all the things he downplayed. Mark frowned. Maybe that was why she was still running. He was still downplaying his good-guy tendencies. Maybe it was time to change that. A gust of wind shook Biz’s hazardous awning, taunting him. He’d thrown his tools into the trunk before driving back down here. A hammer, a few nails…he’d seen Mr. Whittaker with a ladder the other day. Mark grabbed his coat and thumped down the stairs two at a time. It was time to show Biz she could rely on the living. For the second time in as many weeks, Biz woke fully clothed on her library floor to the sound of hammering. She groaned and shoved aside the grimoire lying open on her stomach. She’d fallen asleep looking for a loophole in the true love aspect of the spell and woken with a pounding headache. “Dammit, Gillian.” She rolled groggily to her feet and shuffled toward the stairs. “Gilly,” she shouted as she trudged down. “Knock it off, you psycho!” The pounding continued without even a courtesy pause. “Gillian!” she shouted again, gathering steam and channeling all her frustration toward this handy target as she navigated the storeroom. But when she burst into the shop itself, it was empty. The lights off, only a trickle of light coming through the front window where a dark figure swayed and loomed outside. Outside, where the banging originated. She opened the front door and the sound redoubled. Mark stood atop the ladder propped against the house. He leaned across the awning above the front door, his muscles shifting deliciously beneath the soft


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cotton of his shirt, but Biz couldn’t see past the way the ladder bounced and shifted unstably with each swing of the hammer. “What the hell are you doing?” she screeched, loud enough to stop the banging. The ladder creaked as Mark leaned to the side to see her. “Hey. Your awning was bowing. It needed to be reinforced.” “For which I can hire a contractor.” Panic sharpened her voice to a knife’s edge. “Why bother when I can do it?” “Without breaking your neck?” He snorted. “Ideally, yeah.” Mark returned his attention to the nail in front of him and whacked it a few more times. “Couldn’t this wait?” Biz shouted over the racket. “Is the noise bugging you? I’m almost done.” “It isn’t the noise!” Biz took a deep breath, trying to reclaim some semblance of rationality and calm. “Do you think you could possibly avoid life-threatening activities for the next two weeks?” Mark glanced down at her again, and his eyebrow took the slow upward quirk she was coming to know so well. “Your definition of life threatening differs from mine.” She ground her molars. “Humor me.” Mark went still atop the ladder, studying her face. “Biz,” he said softly. “Please, Mark. Just get down.” He nodded once, tucked the hammer into a loop on the side of his jeans and climbed down, each quick step bouncing the ladder against the house. When his feet touched the ground, she could finally take a deep breath again.

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Mark glanced up at the awning with a wry smile. “It could have come down at any time. A good stiff wind on Valentine’s Day and it could have crashed right on my head as I came to visit you.” Her stomach turned inside out. “God, Mark, don’t even think it.” “I should probably warn you I have my eye on refinishing the floors in your dining room and fixing that wobbly stair rail.” She was not going to tell him about the leak in the roof. He didn’t need any more ideas involving plummeting to his death. “You can’t avoid power tools? It’s only for a couple weeks.” He cupped her shoulders and bent his head until their foreheads were almost touching. “Biz. I’m gonna do this for you, I’m gonna be fine, and you’re gonna say, Thank you, Mark.” “Mark…” “Your ghosts aren’t the only ones who get to take care of you.” There was steel in his voice. Oh, wow. Was that my inhibitions that just fell to the floor? Right at that moment, Biz decided there was nothing sexier on the face of the planet than a man who was determined to mend all your awnings—both physical and metaphorical. “I’m gonna go…” she waved in the general direction of the door, “…open the shop.” He dropped a quick kiss on her mouth, his fingers briefly tangling in her hair and loosening the knot she’d tried to shove it into. She knew she was blushing fiercely as she sent a hurried look up and down the street before ducking back inside. Not that all of Parish didn’t already suspect that she and Mark were an item, especially after the schnapps festival. But if it wasn’t just gossip, if it was acknowledged fact, that made it that much harder for her to pretend nothing was


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happening. To pretend she wasn’t sliding down the slope into an emotional territory she wasn’t ready to visit. But that she had to visit. For the last few days she’d been trying, rather pathetically, to fall in love while keeping Mark at arm’s distance. It wasn’t actually a good strategy. She needed a plan. A failsafe, fall-in-love course of action. Luckily, she knew people who knew love. Biz perched on her stool and snagged her phone off the cradle, dialing the clinic number from memory. Gillian must have seen the caller ID before she picked up because she answered with a hopeful, “Did he break something this time? Is there arterial bleeding?” Biz carefully ignored that shudder-inducing thought. “Gillian. I need your help planning a dream date.” Gillian groaned. “Are you sure you called the right number? I’m so not the one to ask about the mushy-feelings crap, Bizby.” “But you’re in love. Tell me about the date that got you there.” Biz pulled a pen and paper from beneath the counter. “And don’t leave anything out.”

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Chapter Nineteen—Better Living Through Chemistry

Operation True Love was an unequivocal failure. Biz sat in the shop, staring at the Valentine’s decorations she’d put back up again in an attempt to feel gushy and romantic, and contemplated the breakdown of her plan. Outside, a winter storm pelted the streets with rain and the occasional splattering of hail, perfectly matching her mood. Mark was probably off picking up supplies for more Mortal Peril Home Improvement, looking for some new and creative way to get his ass killed, and she was left here, trying to prevent her magic juju from playing a part in his death wish. The idiot. He had been wonderful. Even the boys had been surprisingly considerate— no more pranks or attacks and fewer sightings than usual. No, the love failure was all on her. In the last week and a half, she’d tried every romantic gambit she could think of. They’d done dinner and movie, romantic walks, evenings in front of a cozy fire—which had been somewhat less than cozy since there was always a fifthwheel feeling whenever the boys were around. She’d drunk her weight in champagne and nibbled more chocolate-covered strawberries than any woman with sizeable thighs should. And after a week of nothing but candlelight and moonlight, she’d probably have a squint for the rest of her life. And all she’d found in her quest for love was the dooming certainty that she didn’t have a freaking clue what love really was.

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Some dates had been light, flirtatious and superficial. Those days were comfortable. Fun. But then other days his eyes seemed to bore into her, and their talks would peel back every layer, delving deep until she felt like she’d found a part of herself with him she’d never even known existed. He’d exposed every piece of her soul for his inspection and offered his own up as well, but no matter how close to him she got, Biz couldn’t let herself feel for him. Attraction wasn’t a problem. He could turn her to mush with a look, but that wasn’t gonna cut it. She was too aware of the deadline—emphasis on dead—only three days away. It would shatter her to lose him, but the possibility was terrifyingly real. Selflessness of true love. Was that the problem? She was still thinking of things in terms of herself. It would shatter her to lose him. But hadn’t she found the spell when she finally wasn’t acting only for herself anymore? For once it hadn’t been about her guilt or her culpability, but his life. When it was about him, the books gave her the answer. But was selflessness even love? The couples she matched up didn’t efface themselves to be with one another, they didn’t disappear into the relationship or lose themselves. Did she just need to care about him more than her own guilt? She did, but how would she know if that was enough. How could she tell? She was freaking out, trying to gauge precisely how in love she was, which sort of took the fun out of the whole experience. She’d been tempted to tell him about the spell, but she’d let a dozen opportunities to spill all slide by. He thought they were dating. Enjoying each other. That she was slowly working through her issues with her past and coming to trust him.

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She told herself she was waiting for the right time, but the truth was she was terrified of what he would say right after she told him about the condition on the spell. Do you love me? The thought of him asking her that made her sick, for reasons she didn’t want to examine too closely. Was it because she would have to say no? Or because, if she was honest, she’d find herself saying yes? And there was no taking back a yes. He hadn’t pressured her, though his balls had to be turning a nice navy color after the way she kept slamming on the brakes whenever things got too heated. She didn’t know why she was so damn scared of sleeping with him. She hadn’t slept with Tony and that hadn’t saved him. She wanted to. There was no question about that. Her hormones were singing “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me” from Rocky Horror whenever she even thought about him. And sex released all sorts of chemicals in the brain, right? Dopamine and oxytocin or something that made you feel like you’re in love. She knew love was more than sex, but it couldn’t hurt her cause. Unless it was awful. She couldn’t imagine it being awful, but what if it didn’t live up to her expectations? What if their chemistry fizzled or it was awkward and uncomfortable? She wasn’t sure if she was more scared that she would lose even the progress she’d gained if they were awful in bed together, or that it would be perfect and she would lose the little piece of herself she’d been holding apart from him, keeping safe for herself as a security measure. Biz flipped the closed sign over on the door and rushed upstairs to change. She couldn’t play it safe anymore. She’d been preaching it to Mark ever since


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they met. Be open to opportunities. Take a leap. It was past time she took a risk of her own. When a tentative knock tapped on his bedroom door at four in the afternoon on February 11th, Mark figured it was probably Mrs. Kent popping by to make sure he had everything he needed in case the power went out as everyone was predicting around town. He was completely unprepared to see Biz standing in the hallway wearing a long red raincoat still dripping from her run across the street in the storm. “What—?” She silently held one finger to her lips, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief and something even more promising. She slipped past him into the room and turned to face him as he quietly shut the door and leaned back against it. She fiddled with the lapels of her coat, the nervous gesture a contrast to the confident tilt of her chin. “I’ve been thinking,” she said, keeping her voice down so they wouldn’t be heard through the thin walls. “No more playing it safe.” Her coat hit the floor, and so did Mark’s jaw. Beneath the red slicker she wore a silky black negligee that did interesting things to his blood pressure. Her hair curled loose around her shoulders, but for once it wasn’t the first thing he wanted to get his hands on. Every inch of her skin beckoned him. He couldn’t decide what he wanted to touch first. “I’m really hoping this means we’ve decided to forego the whole patience route.” Biz smiled, and the sin in that smile went straight to his libido. “I’m leaping.” There is a God.

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Mark crossed the room in two strides. He shoved his hands through her hair and angled her head back for his kiss. She made a small sound in her throat and leaned into him. He tipped her back onto the crocheted coverlet on the bed. Never again would he think of this fluffy, frilly room as emasculating. With Biz soft and eager beneath him, he was a king. Rain lashed against the windows, wind rattling the panes, and the lights flickered, but Mark couldn’t have cared less. He only heard the whisper of her sigh as she arched beneath his hands, the soft gasp as they came together and the low words he murmured in her ear as the storm broke on them. “Do you always do that?” “Those are the words every man dreams of hearing immediately after sex.” Biz squirmed around until she could prop herself up on Mark’s chest. His head lolled back on the fringed pillow, his eyes closed and his expression the unique mixture of satiation and rigor mortis that overcame men after sex. Biz still felt the delicious aftershocks of her orgasm rippling through her limbs, but her mind couldn’t slow down enough to slip into lazy oblivion. He’d said it. The L word. “Do you always say the love thing during sex?” “No.” Just that. Her mind felt like a Tilt-A-Whirl, and he only had one syllable for her. “Well, okay then.” His hands snuck into her hair, burrowing into her curls and sliding along her scalp. It felt wonderful, soothing, but Biz wasn’t ready to be soothed. She cleared her throat. “So you meant to say the love thing. To me.”


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His eyes opened just enough for him to look at her between his thick lashes. “I didn’t mean to say it. I’m not trying to push you, Biz. I understand if you aren’t ready to talk about this yet, but I feel what I feel and I’m not going to lie about it.” “I see. So you feel love. For me.” “Yeah. I do.” Biz swallowed thickly. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, there were tears pressing against the back of her eyes. She tucked her face against his chest, not wanting him to see her face. “Okay then.” “Biz…” His hands abandoned her hair and began caressing down her body, reawakening her nerve endings everywhere he touched. “I can practically hear your brain scrambling madly away. Stop overthinking everything.” “I’m not,” she muttered in protest, though it came out as more of a moan as his fingers found a good spot. He rolled the two of them over, grinning down at her, his hands never stopping. “I think I need to work harder to shut down your brain.” He walked kisses up her neck to tease the rim of her ear. “No more talking. No more worrying. No more thinking things to death. Tonight, just feel.” Biz sighed, her eyelids fluttering shut. “I can do that.”

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Chapter Twenty—Flowers of Doom

After two weeks of angst, it was something as small as a flower that convinced Biz she was officially, one hundred percent, head over heels in love. The fact that the flower was a red rose surrounded by twenty-three other crisp red roses and a sprinkling of fluffy white baby’s breath in a glass vase with a giant red bow around it was almost too cliché to be borne, but she was too giddy to care. When Marjorie, Parish’s florist, shouldered her way into the shop carrying the arrangement, the composition of Biz’s heart had changed. It was suddenly several pounds lighter, fit to float right out of her chest. A man who sent you two dozen roses the morning after he told you he loved you was a keeper in her book. “From the gentleman across the street.” Marjorie winked broadly as she settled the flowers on Biz’s counter. Biz had been gazing dreamily at them ever since. A little white card sat among the blooms, but she was saving it to read later when she wanted to renew this glowy, dippy feeling. The bells over the door jangled and Biz looked up hopefully, expecting to see Mark, but instead Curtis Bloom shuffled in, his posture, as always, like he was trying to fade into the floorboards. Biz smiled warmly, pleased with the world, and stood so she could see him around the massive floral arrangement. “Good morning, Mr. Bloom. Isn’t it a lovely day?”

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He blushed and tossed an uncertain glance at the distinctly stormy weather outside before returning her smile hesitantly. “Lovely.” He shuffled a few steps deeper into the store, nodding toward the roses. “Do you like them?” “Aren’t they gorgeous?” She beamed. “I just adore roses.” Especially today. Especially red roses which meant love in every language. Curtis ducked his chin. “I’m so glad.” It took a moment for his comment to penetrate her love bubble. When it did, a disquieting suspicion slithered through her thoughts. It can’t be. Biz snatched the pristine white card from the bouquet and opened it with trembling fingers. For a woman more beautiful than roses.—C.B. C.B. Curtis Bloom. In no way did those initials apply to Mark Ellison. Biz’s stomach clenched as memories flickered to life. Mr. Bloom sidling up to her tent at the schnapps festival. Mr. Bloom popping by the store only to leave without buying anything, blushing whenever she looked at him. Curtis Bloom hovering always on the edge of her awareness, but so intently aware of her. The curse hadn’t been after Mark at all. It had been Curtis. “You sent me flowers,” she said softly. Curtis flushed and bobbed his head. “I didn’t want to wait until Valentine’s Day to send them. Figured you’d be getting a bunch of them then and I wanted to stand out.” “Thank you. They’re beautiful.” Biz tucked the card back in among the blooms. “Curtis, can I ask you a question that’s kind of invasive and is going to sound really strange?” “You can ask me anything,” he vowed, a little too fervently for comfort. “Are you…?” How did you ask someone if he was dying? “Are you ill?”

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He was so pale, so frail and thin, his eyes always a little glassy, but Biz hadn’t seen those things as symptoms until Curtis nodded. “I haven’t told anyone, but I should have known you would know. They said you were psychic.” “I’m not psychic.” Just a witch with a track record. “How long?” “A few months.” He shifted from foot to foot. “I didn’t mean anything by the flowers. I just… I always liked the idea of wooing someone, you know? Didn’t want to be alone…in the end.” Biz’s heart tightened, tears threatening, but she held them back. She wouldn’t insult Curtis’s quiet dignity by blubbering all over him. “I’m honored to be the one you picked to woo. Though…I am seeing someone.” “I know.” Biz suddenly realized what it was that had made all her boys pursue her. It wasn’t her irresistibleness. It was the fact that they had needed company and comfort. None of them had family and they were all medically past the point of hope. They hadn’t needed her so much as they had needed Parish. She may not be able to cure him, but she could make sure Curtis wasn’t alone. “C’mon, Mr. Bloom. Let me introduce you to the town.” She looped her arm through his and pulled him out the door, trying not to think about curses and consequences. It was Curtis Bloom the curse had caught. Curtis Bloom who would be its target on the fourteenth. But what about Mark? Was he at risk too? Could she save Curtis with true love for the wrong man? She was walking too fast, talking too fast, as she dragged Curtis through town, introducing him to everyone as an honorary Parishioner, but she had to keep moving, keep talking, or the panic would catch up with her.


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Thank God Gillian was coming over this afternoon to do something to her freaky plastic-heart thing. She needed advice and she needed it two weeks ago.

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Chapter Twenty-One—Purple Pumpkin Love Revisited

“Let me see if I have this straight. You’re really a witch who accidentally cursed herself and for the last two weeks you’ve been trying to fall in love with Mark because that’s the only way to break the spell that kills all your dates on Valentine’s Day, only today you just found out that you’ve been trying to fall for the wrong guy, whom you might actually have fallen for, but you aren’t sure, and the universe really wanted you to throw yourself at the emaciated pale guy who’s been watching you from across the street for the last month. Have I got that?” “Essentially, yes.” “Sorry, honey. You’re screwed.” Gillian turned back to the bizarre surgery she was performing on the Purple Gourd of Lovin’. “Gillian. Can you please say something helpful?” “Can you fly?” “Can I…? No. How is that helpful?” “It isn’t. I just thought it’d be cool.” “Could you take this seriously?” Gillian looked up from the gourd and made a face. “Sorry. It’s kind of a lot to take in. I’m trying to be the best friend ever in the history of the universe, but you know I process with snark. Just give me a sec to be a smartass and then I’ll get in the game.” “Right. Sorry. I did kind of drop this on you.”

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Gillian waved away her apology and went back to pouring something that looked way too much like blood into one of the hidden spouts in the heart thingy. “What does that stuff do?” “If we’re lucky, it’ll spurt like an arterial bleed. Pretty sweet, huh?” “That is so disturbing.” “Just so we’re clear, this isn’t like an empowerment thing, is it? I am witch, hear me roar and all that?” “No. Literally. A witch.” “Okay then.” Gillian closed the spout on the heart and carefully opened another chamber. “There were all those rumors about your gran.” “Not just rumors.” “So what do you do exactly?” “Mostly I cast spells and make charms to help people find the one they’ve been looking for. I can’t create feelings and I would never cast a spell to make someone in love.” She winced. Technically she’d sort of done that with the curse. “Not intentionally, anyway. I’m just giving people nudges in the right direction, asking the universe for favors to help people bump into the right guy at the supermarket.” Gillian’s hands stilled, but she didn’t look up. “Do you remember when Dave and I got together? I was so sick of guys who decided I was too weird for them when I didn’t act like the perfect debutante they thought I looked like. I remember one night I must have complained to you for three hours straight about how useless men were that they couldn’t handle a little originality. How badly I wanted to find someone who liked all the things about me that scared other men off. And the very next day, Dave moved to Parish. Did you have anything to do with that?”

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“I may have cast a spell for you that night.” “I knew it!” Gillian crowed, rocking back on her heels and grinning broadly. “I thought that was a weird coincidence, but it was you.” Biz felt the tension in her shoulders unknot so quickly she nearly melted right off her chair. Just like when she’d told Mark, coming clean and having Gillian accept her was a huge relief. “Wow. My best friend is a magical matchmaker. Do you have any other super powers?” “I’m not Superwoman.” But right now she felt invincible and yet light as a feather, as if a boulder of secrecy she’d been dragging around her entire life had turned into a soap bubble and popped. If not for the whole curse business, life would have been pretty damn fabulous. “I don’t know what to do, Gilly. How did things get so messed up?” “You got drunk. New PSA for witches—don’t drink and cast.” “Ha ha.” “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.” She nodded sharply, focusing on the goal at hand. Finding solutions was Gillian’s strong suit. “Tell me exactly what this counterspell thing you found says.” “Only the selflessness of one truly in love can break the spell. But I don’t love Curtis. I barely even know him.” “Did it say you had to love Curtis? Or just that you had to be truly in love?” “Well, the person I’m in love with has to be there, but I guess it never said it had to be a victim of the curse. I just thought…” “How sure are you that Curtis is the intended victim?” “He fits the pattern Mark found—moving to the island immediately after discovering he was terminal.”


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“But you said you don’t actually remember what the original spell said. Bloom could just be a red herring.” “It seems unlikely.” “Well, you aren’t going to fall for him in two days anyway, so Mark is your best bet. Do you love him?” “I don’t know. I was positive I loved him when I thought I was supposed to be in love with Curtis, but now? How can you tell?” “You’re asking me. Okay. Um. Love. Right. It’s…” Biz snorted. “It’s a sign of how desperate I am that I’m asking you to define love for me.” “Hey, we’re two smart women. We can figure this out.” Gillian put down the Gourd of Lovin’. “Okay, let’s look at this logically. Have you said you love him?” “No.” “Has he said he loves you?” “Yes. But there were extenuating circumstances.” “Meaning you were in bed. I don’t need details, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count.” “But I mentioned it and he didn’t take it back.” “Which is really more a sign that he’s not a dickhead or a moron than a symptom of love, but we’ll let that slide. Okay. How did him saying he loved you make you feel?” “Terrified, but in a good way.” “That’s sort of promising.” “But what if I do love him? As soon as I break the curse, everything he feels for me is going to vanish into smoke. Poof.” “You think he only loves you because of the curse?”

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“Can you think of another reason a guy like that would go for me? He’ll be gone before you can say abracadabra, and I’ll probably end up in an asylum when he prints his piece on what a nutcase I am. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life medicated to my eyeballs.” “I take it you told him the witch thing.” “I’ve told him everything. Things about myself I haven’t even told you. Part of it was because I kind of thought he was going to die so it didn’t matter. Part of it was because I just love telling him things. Talking to him is like a drug.” “Sounds like you really like him.” “I do. Liking him isn’t the problem. It’s the true-love thing. That is an insane amount of pressure to put on a relationship with a guy I’ve only known three weeks.” “Especially for you.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “I’m just saying you’re not really into rushing into relationships. That’s all.” “Hey, I’m all about love. I’m all about risking your heart. I’m a matchmaker, for Pete’s sake.” “You’re the fairy godmother. It takes a lot more guts to be Cinderella and haul your ass to the ball than it does to be the one in the background waving the magic wand. You’ve never had to risk anything, Biz. Especially not your heart.” “Ouch.” Though what Gillian was saying did mirror what she already suspected. She’d been a chicken in the love department. “I feel about a million and one things right now, but I can’t tell if any of them are love.” She folded her arms around her middle, as if she could hold the pieces of herself together. “I’m a mess, Gilly. I’m terrified of failing—like if I try to work the spell only to fail because there’s something broken in me and I can’t love anyone. God, I feel like I’m losing my mind.”


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“Have to have it to begin with for that to work, hon.” “Gillian. I’m serious. My head is spinning in so many circles I think it may explode.” “Not medically possible. I’ve checked. Seriously, how cool would that be to fix?” “Gillian.” “What to do. Right. You need a plan. Can you send him away?” “Magic doesn’t respect geography, and he refuses to leave anyway.” “He does seem to be welded to your side lately. Speaking of, where is your other half today?” “He had to drive back to Raleigh for the day. He said he’ll be back on the last ferry. And right now I am dreading the second when he steps off that ferry. I’m so freaking scared.” Gillian slung an arm around Biz’s shoulders. “You’re human. Even if you are a witch. You’re allowed to be confused and scared. What does Mark think of the whole gotta-be-love thing?” Biz scrunched up her face. “That’s the one thing I haven’t told him. I didn’t know what to say.” “Honey, you have to tell him.” “I know. I was just hoping I’d be certain by now. I was hoping it wouldn’t be confusing and awful anymore and I could say, ‘Look, I found the spell and I love you so we’re all set!’ But it didn’t happen like that.” “Tell him. Ask him to do the spell with you. And take a Valium or three. You need to relax, babe.” What she needed was to feel like the fate of Curtis Bloom and Mark Ellison and a trio of ghosts didn’t rest on her ability to be an emotionally balanced human being. She’d always been slow to trust, and this was just too much.

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But this time she didn’t have a choice.


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Chapter Twenty-Two—Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

“You’ve been trying to force yourself to fall in love with me?” “Um…sorta.” Biz’s declaration was a kick to the stomach. They were parked in the ferry off-loading lot, right in front of the giant Kiss ’n’ Ride sign. He’d been so excited to see her waiting for him when he drove off the ferry, so eager to tell her about his trip to Raleigh. The Parish Island romance series had been a hit. A few of the columns had been syndicated on the blog and even gone viral in the pre-Valentine’s build-up. When he’d pitched his editor on the idea of staying on Parish and doing a series of biweekly columns on island living, she’d nearly passed out from joy. He’d thought it was perfect, that everything in his life was falling together at just the right time, like the universe was working for him all of a sudden. He had a job he loved, a girl who would always keep him guessing, a great community, and a house that would keep him busy with repairs once he and Biz were ready to move in together. But apparently one of the things Biz was going to keep him guessing about was whether or not they had a real relationship. He thought they’d gotten beyond the curse made me do it, but evidently not. “Mark?” “I’m trying to figure out how I feel about this.”


In the passenger seat, Biz flinched at his harsh tone, and Mark had to stop his reflex to reach out blindly to comfort her. “Do you even like me?” “Of course! Mark, I lo—I really like you a lot. A lot. Even before I knew about the counterspell.” The counterspell. Mark frowned. He believed in magic the same way he believed in Santa Claus. Inanimate objects flinging themselves around and knocking him off ladders were a powerful incentive to believe in ghosts, but he still had a hard time buying all the way into the curse. Part of him wanted to believe in magic. It was the same part of him that felt like a kid whenever he was with Biz. That dizzy, light, anything-is-possible feeling had died for him a long time ago, but she brought it back just by believing it was still there inside him. As if, like Tinkerbell, all it needed was her faith to survive. But the grown-up, analytical, pragmatic side of him still saw her magic as the perfect coping mechanism. And if the curse was how she dealt with survivor’s guilt, the counterspell was what she needed to move on, and if breaking the curse meant loving him…was this just her way of telling him she loved him without having to put herself on the line to do it? Of course she wouldn’t say it the normal way. She’d been burned by love in the past. Maybe this felt safe to her. Saying he could only survive the curse if she loved him—and obviously he was going to survive, so she must love him. Or he was coming up with an elaborate rationalization because he wanted her to return his feelings so badly. Which was pretty damn pathetic. The things love would do to a man’s dignity. “So what happens now?” “What do you mean?”


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“With the spell thing. How do we work it?” Her eyes widened, the grim set of her mouth softening with wonder and hope. “You’ll help me?” “Of course. All you had to do was ask.” Biz studied Mark’s face, her heart turning into useless gooey mush at his words. If she hadn’t loved him before, that would have done it. But his easy acceptance just reconfirmed her conviction that he only thought he loved her because of the curse. Which meant tomorrow, if she succeeded, she would lose him. “You’ll really do it?” “This isn’t like a human sacrifice, is it? For the record, I’m not so good with blood. I got yanked from covering metro because I couldn’t even write about violent crime without getting squeamish.” “No bloodletting. You just have to sit there and hold the bowl. Painless.” For him. She wasn’t sure how painless it would be for her when he realized everything he felt for her had been fabricated by a spell gone awry. “When do we do this?” “Tomorrow night. It works best on the actual anniversary of the original cast, but I don’t want to risk anything happening to you or Curtis if we wait until after midnight.” “Sounds like a plan.” He was so relaxed. She almost wished he had been more nervous. She felt like the only one who realized how crucial this was. Not Gillian, not Mark. But she had enough self-doubt for the group of them. “What if I can’t work the spell, Mark? What if I fail?” “You won’t fail.”

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His confidence in her should have sent her over the moon, but even with lives at stake, a small traitorous, utterly selfish part of her just wanted to keep him loving her as long as possible and damn the consequences. But there would be consequences…and she couldn’t ignore them. “What happened to Tony and Gabriel and Paul could happen to you,” she said, as much to remind herself of the stakes as to convince him. Mark pulled the classic yawn-and-stretch move, draping his arm along the back of her seat and flashing her the cheesiest lecher leer she’d ever seen. “If I only have one night to live, don’t you think we’d better make the most of it? You’d be amazed how comfortable my backseat is.” Biz burst out laughing. God bless a man who knew how to lighten the mood. “You’re just trying to get into my pants.” He grinned, unrepentant. “My favorite place to be.” Giggling, she crawled into the backseat, with Mark muttering about being too damn old for this and scrambling after her a half second later. With the ghosts in her house and the thin wall at the Shoreview, this was the most privacy they’d had yet, and Biz had every intention of making the most of it. “You’re going to throw out your back.” “Be quiet. You’re ruining the mood.” “I kind of thought the mood was ruined when you started huffing and wheezing like a man on the verge of a heart attack.” “Are you impugning my manliness?” “I wouldn’t dare.” She squeezed the firm muscles of his arms appreciatively. He stopped moving, panting. “But I would like you to survive long enough to perform the counterspell.”


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He groaned and started moving again. “It’s your own fault you know. You could have told me carrying you to your bedroom would involve eleven thousand stairs.” “High ceilings mean more stairs. The Victorians probably weren’t worried about the difficulties involved in toting naked women up them when you’re already a bit overexerted.” “I’m not the one who suggested round two in the car to help exert me.” “I didn’t hear you complaining at the time.” “God, no. Brilliant idea. And if I don’t pass out before I get you up the last twelve hundred stairs, I plan to demonstrate my appreciation. Thoroughly.” “I could walk,” she suggested softly. “Bite your tongue.” “I’d rather bite yours.” “Cheeky little baggage, aren’t you?” Biz hid her grin against his shoulder as Mark once again began huffing and wheezing his way up the stairway. She let him have the last word. For now. The ghosts were giving them privacy—thank God. But she couldn’t escape thoughts of the curse. Tomorrow they would break it. Tomorrow he would look at her without the curse directing his emotions, and everything he felt for her tonight would be a ridiculous memory. Biz pushed the thought from her head. Live this night like it’s the last, because tonight, it is.

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Chapter Twenty-Three—D-Day

Biz glared at the big red X on her calendar. Valentine’s Day. Doomsday. Tomorrow. But now she was more scared of what would happen tonight than what tomorrow would bring. She knew she loved Mark. The only question was whether he would still love her after the curse was revoked. Tomorrow he would be alive and healthy and happy. But where would she be without him? How had he become so integral to her happiness in just three weeks? How was that even possible? “You ready, darlin’?” She turned around to find Mark waiting for her in the doorway. Selfconsciously, her hand went to her hair. It was silly, but she’d taken extra time with her appearance today—wearing makeup and a low-cut dress in a rich maroon color that suited her complexion to perfection. She wanted to be beautiful the first time he saw her without the curse’s influence. He stretched out his hand to her, palm up. She walked toward him, slipping her hand into his, keeping her eyes locked on his to memorize the love in them. Who knew how long it would be there? Silently they climbed the seemingly endless stairs up to the attic where she’d already laid out everything she needed for the spell. She brought Mark into the circle she’d prepared. He sat on the floor where she indicated, visibly uncomfortable with the trappings of her trade but not making a single sound of

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complaint. Biz moved to the other side of her cauldron and sat cross-legged, rocking a little to get settled. The cauldron looked more like a plain wooden salad bowl than anything exotically magical, but her grandmother had taught her that simplicity and familiarity had power of their own, especially when combined with ritual and tradition. Situated around the cauldron were the talismans she’d gathered to represent each of the men she wanted to free. A wooden stirring spoon for Tony, a string from the piano for Gabriel, the elementary-school style Valentine Paul had given her three years ago with Snoopy dancing and holding a heart, the card from Curtis’s roses and for Mark she’d gone classic and asked for a lock of his hair. She studied the objects, thinking of all the wonderful and horrifying things this spell had brought her over the last four years. She studied them to avoid looking at Mark. She couldn’t wait forever. It was already after eleven thirty and the spell needed to be complete before midnight. Before it was officially Valentine’s Day again. But she didn’t want to give him up a second sooner than absolutely necessary. “You okay?” Mark reached for her hand over the cauldron, threading their fingers together. Biz looked up and met his eyes, her heart swollen with longing and impending loss. She pushed aside the loss, holding tight to his hand. Right here, in this moment, he loved her and she loved him. That was something. Whatever else the spell had done, it had given her this feeling. No matter how fleeting. No matter what happened when the curse lifted.

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Biz came up on her knees and leaned across the cauldron. She pressed a soft, closed-mouth kiss onto his lips and then pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. “Whatever happens next, I love you.” “I love you back.” Biz sat back down, releasing his hand. I hope that’s true in ten minutes. The grandfather clock downstairs in the library began to thrum. Quarter ’til. No more time to waste. “That’s my cue.” Biz began whispering the words of the spell as she bound the talismans to one another, using the piano wire to tie them together. The heavy wire fought her, but she yanked until it cut into her palms, pulling it tight. When she was sure it wouldn’t come springing undone, Biz wrapped the talismans in the item she’d chosen to represent her—her favorite purple scarf—and set the knotted bundle in the cauldron. She poured the oil over it, repeating the spell a second time as the words started to take on a rhythmic cadence, sucking in the power in the room. Outside, the winter storm that had held on for days seemed to grow louder, but inside the room the air itself seemed to hush to listen to the rise and fall of her voice. She set aside the oil bottle and floated her palms over the cauldron, beginning the third and final repetition of the spell. No longer even thinking of the words that flowed so naturally off her lips, Biz concentrated instead on the power that drove her tonight. Not guilt over what had happened to Paul and Gabriel and Tony. Not desperation to return her own life to normal. Just the simple, powerful truth of love and her need to save Mark. Even if it meant giving up her own heart for good and watching him walk away with it.


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She spoke the last word, and as she did a single green spark fell from her hovering fingertips, landing on the oil-soaked bundle and igniting it. Blue flame shot toward the ceiling in a brilliant iridescent column. Mark shouted and fell back, but Biz kept her hands in the flame. It was cool to the touch, flowing around her fingers like water in a stream. The flame began to twist, an aqua cyclone spiraling toward the exposed roof beams. Paul appeared at the center of the funnel, and Biz gasped when two other figures joined him. Two faces she hadn’t seen in so long—Gabriel’s cynical frown and Tony’s gentle eyes greeted her. She nodded her goodbyes, knowing to speak would disturb the spell, and tears gathered in her eyes as a thunderous tide of sound rumbled up through the floorboards. It shot toward the ceiling and the point of brilliant white light that had appeared there, carrying the spirits and the blue flame funnel cloud with it. “Biz!” Mark shouted over the rushing wall of sound, trying to jerk her hands away from the flash of fire, but the flames had already gone out, the sound and the fury vanishing with a barely audible whoosh and leaving behind nothing but a small pile of ash in the shape of a heart. Her ears rang and her breathing came fast. “Whoa.” Now that’s what I call magic. She hadn’t known she had it in her. Mark crawled around to her side, eyeing the salad-bowl cauldron suspiciously. “What the hell was that?” Biz smiled, still a bit dazed. “It worked.” Oh baby, had it ever worked. The rush of the curse unlocking had streaked through her as soon as the fire lit, a power cascade unlike anything she’d ever felt. Every cell was still tingling with the aftermath, her entire body coming awake after a long sleep. She was free. Gabriel, Tony and Paul were free to move on.

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But so was Mark. Her high suddenly didn’t feel quite so high. She studied his face, looking for signs of his changed affections. Mark continued to stare at the salad bowl. “So apparently when you said you were a witch and this was a curse, that was literal. And those guys in the fire tornado were…” “Ghosts.” “Right. Okay. Just give me a minute to have an aneurism and I’ll be right with you.” Biz watched for the moment he realized what had happened. Would he be angry with her? Disgusted? Or, perhaps worst of all, indifferent? “How do you feel?” He shrugged. “Fine. A little dazed. How about you? That was some pretty…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Damn.” She wet her lips nervously. Fine didn’t sound much like deliriously in love with you forever and ever. “You don’t feel different?” Mark frowned. “Am I supposed to?” “You

aren’t

supposed

to,

necessarily.

I

just

thought

you

might

feel…differently about things.” “Like search your feelings, Luke?” He grinned, dimples flashing, suddenly boyish, a ten-year-old Star Wars nerd in a thirty-two-year-old body. He’d be a great dad. Oh jeez. Where had that thought come from? Just because he smiled like a kid? She was screwed. So totally screwed. She was supposed to be letting him go and she was fantasizing about having his babies. Bad, bad, bad. “What was all that your heart is free to go where it will stuff?” Of course he would have picked up on that line of the spell. “That’s, uh, part of the curse. Freeing you. You know. From…”


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“Biz? From what?” “Freeing you from loving me, okay?” She jumped to her feet, needing to not be sitting cross-legged on the floor when he told her he had more passion for cockroaches than he had for her. Feet planted, shoulders square. Strong. No slumped little witch to be crushed by a man’s lack of affection. Mark climbed to his feet, but he didn’t approach her. That had to be a bad sign. Why wasn’t he pulling her into his arms? Assuring her she’d worried for nothing? Soothing away all her cares with kisses? Why was he frowning? Oh God. Frowning had to be a bad sign. “Let me see if I’ve got this. You just cast a spell to get me to stop loving you?” “Not quite. I cast a spell to remove the spell that was making you love me.” Anger crowded the confusion off his face. “I guess you pretty much suck as a witch, then.” “What?” “Look, I think I’ve been pretty understanding about all this—” “You’ve been great.” “And I know you’ve got baggage. You’ve dealt with some pretty major shit in the last few years and I get that, but you can’t just wave your magic wand and get rid of the way I feel about you. I love you, Biz. Not because of a spell or a curse or ghosts or stories or whatever the hell you think is forcing me to love you. I just do. Okay? That isn’t going to change just because it’s less scary for you to magic it away than it is to acknowledge your own feelings for me. You said you love me? So own it. Stop hiding behind magic and—” His words cut off when she slammed into him and slapped her mouth over his. Her arms twined around his neck, and she kept him locked in the kiss until

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she was certain he knew exactly where she stood. Only then did she let him up for air. “Whoa.” “I love you, Mark Ellison.” She bit her lip, still twitching with fragments of nervous doubt. “You’re sure your feelings haven’t changed even a little? The spell…” “Biz. Baby, if you believe you can make love happen with a wave of your hand, I believe it too. You’ve bewitched the hell out of me, but it isn’t because of a curse. It’s because of you. Brace yourself, because I’m about to say the cheesiest line of my life, but you are all the magic I need, darlin’.” Biz’s breath caught in her throat. Damn. No wonder the man had gazillions of fans reading his articles. He’d hit her right in the heart. In the silence of an empty, ghost-free house, the grandfather clock began tolling the hour. Midnight. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” Mark mumbled against her lips. “It is,” she whispered back. For the first time in years, it was a very happy Valentine’s.


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Epilogue—The Lusty Month of May

“Will that be cash or credit?” Biz raised her voice over the tumult. Charmed, I’m Sure was packed with noisy day-trippers out from the mainland. May Day officially opened the summer season, and life had come back to Parish Island. Though life had come back to her months ago. Without thought, her eyes scanned the crowd until she saw a familiar dark head chatting with a customer by the new bay window he’d helped add to lighten the place up a bit. Mark’s “Island Living” columns in the Gazette were doubtless part of the reason the preseason events had drawn such crowds this year. It was a good year for Parish. And a very good year for Biz. She couldn’t seem to stop wandering around with a stupid grin on her face—except when Gilly insisted on calling her Mark’s Biz Marks all the time. “Do you take AmEx?” Biz snapped her attention back to the line of customers. The next time she had a moment to think, she looked up to see Mark crouched down in intent conversation with a young boy with carrot-red hair and freckles from his hairline to his collar. The line at the register had cleared out, so Biz slipped from behind the desk and wove her way toward her man and the boy. Mark’s deep voice carried to her. “Do you believe in magic?” She paused, partially hidden by a display case.


“Nah. That’s kid stuff,” the geriatric ten-year-old declared. “I don’t know,” Mark said, “if you don’t look for the magic, you might miss out on all the good stuff. See that lady over there?” He pointed to Biz and she blushed—apparently not as well hidden as she’d thought. “She put a spell on me.” “Nuh-uh.” Biz slipped away, leaving Mark to deal with that challenging philosophical denial on his own. Seeing the rabbit’s foot charm display had been picked over, she ducked into the storeroom to grab a few more. Stretching for the box on the top shelf, she waited for Tony to push it toward her or float it over her head to the ground, but nothing happened. The same nothing that had been happening ever since Valentine’s Day. Paul, Tony and Gabriel were really gone. But then, that was how it was with death. She’d just managed to delay losing them a while. If she was honest with herself, she missed the ghosts almost as much as the men they’d been. Almost. But her heart was considerably lighter now that they’d found peace. Sadly, Curtis had followed them—but on his own schedule, April 5th. He was missed around town, where he’d become part of the Parish family during his final days. Biz went up on her tiptoes, reaching again for that top shelf. She either needed to grow three inches or get a step stool in here. No more relying on ghostly intervention. A pair of real, strong arms came around her from behind, grabbing the box and guiding it down to her hands. Atlas arms. Biz set the box down and turned, wrapping her arms around Mark’s waist. She just couldn’t seem to get enough of touching him.


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“I’ve put a spell on you, have I?” she asked with a cheeky grin. “Yeah.” He brushed a kiss across her lips. “And now you’re mine.” Biz closed her eyes and melted into the next kiss. It was him who’d shown her what love was and given her the courage to take that risk, him who’d broken the spell she was trapped under, but she didn’t tell him he was the one with the real magic. The cocky punk had enough of an ego already.

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About the Author

Vivi Andrews lives in Alaska when she isn’t indulging her travel addiction. She’s currently hard at work on her next paranormal romance. For more about her books or the exploits of a nomadic author, please visit her website at www.viviandrews.com or stop by her blog at viviandrews.blogspot.com. Vivi also loves to hear from readers and invites you to email her at [email protected].

Look for these titles by Vivi Andrews

Now Available: Karmic Consultants The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant The Ghost Exterminator: A Love Story The Sexorcist The Naked Detective A Cop and a Feel Serengeti Shifters Serengeti Heat Serengeti Storm Serengeti Lightning Serengeti Sunrise Reawakening Eden

He’s going to be the love of her life…if they survive the night.

A Cop and a Feel © 2011 Vivi Andrews

Karmic Consultants, Book 5 With a single touch, Ronna Mitchell can catch stolen glimpses of the future and separate truth from lies. But life as a human polygraph machine can be lonely. Craving human contact, she moonlights as a palm reader whenever a carnival comes to town. Officer Matt Holloway is intent on trailing a hit man when he ducks into a palm reader’s booth to avoid being spotted by his quarry. The beguiling Jamaican fortune teller is definitely intriguing, but she’ll have to wait. He’s close on the assassin’s tail. When Ronna takes his hand, a startling vision of the future flashes in her mind’s eye. Matt isn’t a typical client, he’s The One. Before she has the chance to introduce herself as the mother of his unborn children, he’s gone, leaving her with a terrifying vision of her soul mate covered in blood. And dead certain she’s the only one who can save her happily ever after. Warning: This book contains carnies, cops, chases, chance encounters and love at first touch. Enjoy the following excerpt for A Cop and a Feel: Ronna’s panic level reached a new high when Matt’s sandy head disappeared around the back of the Ferris wheel. The image of the gears of the Ferris wheel splattered with blood replayed vividly in her mind’s eye. The crowds swarmed around her, and her heart thudded loudly in her ears. He was going to be killed, and she couldn’t get to him.

Why were there so many people at the damn carnival? And why were they all moving at an excruciating shuffle pace? Didn’t they realize while they plodded along forming the impenetrable mass of a human herd, the man she was meant to spend the rest of her life with, who was going to give her adorable green-eyed babies and make her laugh until she was ninety-two and too senile to get his jokes anymore, was in peril at this very moment behind the Ferris wheel? So why they the hell weren’t they moving faster? Ronna pushed her way through the wall of bodies, too afraid of what might be happening to Matt to toss off apologies as people around her protested her shoving and stomping on feet. She had to get to him. Not that she’d be much help if she did. Touch-reading was hardly a superpower capable of stopping a speeding bullet, but she was sure she could save him if she was just there with him. He was the love of her life, or at least he would be, and she wasn’t about to let some carnie thug off him behind the Ferris wheel. A pocket opened up in the crowd between her and the Ferris wheel, and Ronna sprinted forward, running full tilt around the side of the ride and into the heavy shadows behind it, half expecting to stumble over Matt’s lifeless form. In the moment it took for her eyes to adjust to the relative darkness after the spinning strobes of the carnival, she tried to remember how to breathe, gulping in oxygen. She squinted into the dark, one hand pressed over her drumming heart as a figure materialized out of the shadows in front of her. “Matt!” Thank God. Ronna took two running steps forward. The man in front of her turned toward her. Something was wrong. Ronna slammed on the brakes, her sandals skidding on the sticky asphalt. The form in front of her was too heavyset to be the tall, lean Officer Holloway.

“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I thought I saw someone come back here.” As soon as the words left her lips, Ronna could have kicked herself. He was probably a Ferris wheel operator. If he found Matt skulking back here, the future love of her life would get in trouble with the carnival operators. Which was better than his blood splashing all over the gears, but still… “You know, I didn’t see anyone,” Ronna said quickly. A second figure shifted in the shadows to her left. She knew him as soon as he moved. Matt. He was okay. Hiding, which, yeah, was kinda weird, but totally okay. She’d been panicking over nothing. “Nobody here!” she sing-songed to the shadow man, bypassing subtle and going straight to obnoxiously Cinderella-cheerful. “Nobody at all.” She tossed the shadowy Ferris wheel operator a loopy smile. He didn’t say much for a carnie. She still couldn’t make him out, but he didn’t seem familiar. She spent most of her time at the carnival in her booth, but she knew most of the regular operators at least on sight. He reached toward her, waving something metallic, and Ronna’s vision from Matt’s touch replayed in her mind. Oh crap, is that a gun? “Get down!” The shout came from her left. Matt surged into the open, a gun of his own braced between his hands. Ronna didn’t think. And she didn’t obey. In that split second in the shadow of the Ferris wheel with two armed-and-dangerous men, she couldn’t see anything past the nightmare vision in her mind of Matt’s gorgeous eyes, wide with horror and shock, in a face sprayed with blood. She dove toward him, slamming him to the ground in a tackle worthy of an NFL All Star. The spit of a silencer and the answering deafening report of an unsilenced gun split the shadows.

Matt grunted as he hit the ground and her weight hit him. Footsteps pounded the dirt nearby, and he rolled, pinning her protectively beneath his body as he twisted to scan the darkness around them, his gun trained on the spot where the gunman had stood. The shadows were empty of crazy gun-wielding Ferris wheel operators now, but Matt’s body didn’t relax. He stayed tense above her. Tense and whole. He’s alive. There wasn’t any moisture where her front was pressed against his, no gushing fluids to indicate excessive bleeding from a mortal wound, but she ran her hands over his torso just to be safe, checking for bullet holes. When her hands hampered his range of movement with the gun he was still pointing into the darker shadows, he knocked them out of his way. “Lie still,” he snapped, clearly not appreciating her life-saving tackle or her continued concern for his well-being. He dug into his pocket, shifting his weight so he wasn’t pressing her down into the filthy ground, but still shielding her as he lifted his cell phone, punched a number in with his thumb and pressed it to his ear, never taking his eyes off the shadows or lowering his gun. She was close enough to hear the bleeping tone of a dropped call. Matt swore and dialed again, snarling another obscenity when the call failed a second time. “Is it too much to ask for a fucking signal?” Ronna couldn’t make herself care about crappy cell providers. “You’re alive.” “Of course I’m alive. You could have gotten yourself killed. What the hell were you thinking?” “I saved your life,” Ronna explained patiently. “I ruined his shot.” “You ruined my shot.” Matt shoved his phone back into his pocket. “Not to mention my chances of getting a permanent spot on the task force. Damn it.” He rose to a crouch, still alertly surveying the area.

Ronna sat up as well, taking stock of her now-filthy Madame Ramona getup. There was no fabric on earth capable of withstanding being ground into popcorn, cotton-candy residue and Ferris wheel grease and coming out unscathed. Her entire outfit would have to be burned when she got home to avoid contaminating the rest of her closet. “What the hell do you think you’re doing back here?” Matt straightened and helped her—none too gently—to her feet. He would probably react badly if she told him she had envisioned his death and followed him out of her booth to protect him from a horrific Ferris wheelrelated death. He didn’t seem to be in a very receptive mood.

Magick made him human. Only love can keep him that way.

Uncross My Heart © 2011 Jennifer Colgan

After a century of living la vida muerta, Julian Devlin’s closest ally casts a devamping spell that leaves him defanged and demoted from his hard-won place in Baltimore’s vampire hierarchy. Disoriented by his transformation, he can’t even find his way home. The indignities don’t end there. Before he can explain to the quirky consignment shop owner why he’s hiding in her basement, she’s punched the newly re-acquired breath out of him and smacked him upside the head with her knock-off purse. Zoe Boyd’s scream could have peeled paint from the walls—if she could get her heart out of her throat. Common thugs aren’t supposed to have a smile so panty-melting that she finds herself apologizing for scaring him. She’s also too busy managing her friends’ love lives to take on an ex-vampire with revamping and revenge on his mind. Until she guides him home and ends up neck deep in his world of trouble. As Zoe risks her life to give him back his death, she warms the soul Julian never thought he’d own again. And when he tracks down a devilish witch who can reverse the spell, immortality without Zoe suddenly seems like cold comfort… Warning: This novel contains sensual love scenes between a fashion-forward hero and a fashion-unconscious heroine, abuse of Italian loafers, and a few love bites. Don’t worry, freshly sharpened fangs don’t hurt. Much… Enjoy the following excerpt for Uncross My Heart:

“Don’t scream. I won’t hurt you.” Julian dropped his hand from Zoe’s lips and backed away from her bed, hands up, his movements deliberately slow and non-threatening. In the blue neon glow of her bedside alarm clock, her pale skin looked like alabaster, and her eyes were huge and terrified. Clutching a thin blanket to her chest, she scrambled to a sitting position amid the tumble of pillows that populated her bed. “How did you get in here? Are you insane? What if I kept a knife under my pillow or something?” “You don’t. I checked.” She squeaked in indignation. “You broke into my house.” “No. I let myself in with your spare key, which you obviously put back right where you got it from after we came in before. You know, you’re asking to be murdered in your sleep, or worse. It amazes me that a girl as trusting as you is still alive.” “You weren’t supposed to look.” “I looked. Sue me.” He shrugged. This had all been too easy. He’d probably be doing her a favor by draining her dry as soon as he transformed back. This blonde gypsy belonged in another era, a simpler time when people left their doors unlocked and everyone knew their neighbors. Either that or she needed a body guard twenty-four/seven. “What are you doing back here? Didn’t you find someone to help you?” He sighed. A lie would be easy, even if it did little to preserve the mere shred of dignity he had left. “It’s almost dawn. I needed someplace to go before sunrise, and I was kicked out of the bus station. They don’t allow people to sleep there anymore, I discovered.” Truth was, she was the only trustworthy soul he could find at this hour.

She blinked at him. “Sunrise? Um…humans can go out in the daylight. Or have you been revamped already?” One delicate hand slid toward her slender throat. Julian watched the subtle movement with a mixture of amusement and— dear God—arousal. She’d traded her peasant blouse for a thin-strapped tank top. Clingy and white, it contrasted with her honeyed skin and did little to hide the sumptuous curves of her breasts, now peaked with taut nipples. Gooseflesh stood out on her bare arms. He wondered if she might be considering the possibility that he would lower his lips to her neck and drink… He blinked away the traitorous thoughts. “No. I’m still human.” He laughed. “I guess I’m so conditioned to avoid sunlight that it never occurred to me. Nevertheless, I need a place to sleep for a little while. I don’t have enough cash to go to a hotel, and if I use my credit cards, I could be leading Lambert right to me.” “Vampires have credit cards?” “We’re undead, not Amish. How else would one purchase Gucci loafers?” Warm yellow light illuminated her skeptical gaze when she switched on the bedside lamp. “Okay, silly question. I admit it, but give me a break. It’s four fiftynine a.m., and I just woke up with a man’s hand over my mouth. You’re lucky I didn’t bite you.” He let his gaze roam her half-hidden curves again. She’d be lucky if he didn’t bite her one way or another. “I apologize for sneaking in… Something I would not have been able to do if you had an ounce of common sense.” He tossed the spare key to her, and just as he’d hoped, she let go of her death grip on the blanket to catch it. Delicious. He’d have climbed into the bed with her if he hadn’t been so desperate to keep her trust for just a little longer. He needed this girl. And he

hated needing her. “Do yourself a favor and hide that somewhere else. Better yet, give it to your boyfriend for safe keeping.” “I told you, he’s not my boyfriend.” Good. The thought crossed his mind unbidden, and he squashed it. “Can I borrow your couch? Just for a few hours?” Her lips quivered a bit before she responded. “Sure. I’ll get you a pillow and a blanket.” “No need to treat me like a guest.” “But you are one.” She rose, and Julian’s gaze traveled up and down her bare legs, pausing only briefly at the still red scrapes on her knees. She’d hurt herself running from him and, for some inexplicable reason, he regretted that. He shook off the unproductive thought and took inventory of the rest of her outfit. Tiny panties rode low on her hips, leaving a band of naked skin beneath the hem of her skimpy top. Ah. The twenty-first century had so many advantages over the nineteenth. Each decade, it seemed women became less inhibited about their bodies. It made being immortal so much fun. She moved unselfconsciously now, and Julian followed her into the living room. When she bent over to retrieve a blanket and pillow from within the square hassock, he stifled an appreciative sigh. She tossed the items at him while he debated sinking his very human teeth into one creamy inner thigh. “Put your eyes back in your head, Romeo. I already told you, I’m nobody’s entrée. Now, go. Sleep. I’m going back to bed in my room behind a door that locks, and there’s no spare key above the frame, so don’t get any ideas. If you’re still here in the morning—the actual morning—I’ll think about cooking you breakfast, and we’ll talk about getting you a decent place to stay until your house is fixed, okay?”

He stared for a full second, dumbfounded by her. One bite. Just one bite was all he wanted. “Okay.” She disappeared into the bedroom then, shutting the door firmly on any further comment or fantasy on his part. Disappointed but still oddly amused, Julian made himself comfortable on her couch. Zoe’s heart thundered in her shamelessly exposed chest. She’d just been parading around in her underwear in front of a lunatic—a drop-dead gorgeous lunatic—who’d stolen into her bedroom in the middle of the night. Her face burned with shame and something else. He’d been looking, and she’d enjoyed letting him look. Was she insane? It was not okay to pretend that Julian Devlin was a normal guy. He thought he was a vampire, for heaven’s sake, and he certainly hadn’t tried very hard to disguise his desire to bite her. She leaned against the locked bedroom door, breathing deeply to calm herself. What would she do if he was still there in the morning—later in the morning? What if he didn’t leave? Thank God he was all right. That thought came out of nowhere and pushed all the other ones aside. Her guilt at letting him wander off into the night evaporated and was replaced by complete shock that he’d come back. He trusts me. That notion frightened her a little. That made it her responsibility to help him. But how? Certainly not by giving him an eyeful of her ladies’ Fruit of the Looms. Though he had definitely liked what he saw. Cool it. Get a grip.

The sound of his rhythmic breathing reached her through the door. She chanced opening it a crack to peer at him. He was asleep already, one arm flung across his eyes as if shielding himself from something. He’d taken off her father’s sweatshirt. It now lay folded neatly on the arm of the sofa. His naked chest rose and fell, and his muscles still looked rock solid even in sleep. Gorgeous. What am I going to do with you, Julian Devlin? Zoe shut the door to the bedroom and locked it again. The real question was, what was he going to do with her?

Their wolves are howling at the moon. Their human halves are on different planets.

Black Gold

© 2011 Vivian Arend Takhini Wolves, Book 1 Lone wolf Shaun Stevens’s automatic response to the words “happily ever after”? Kill me now. Yet with all his friends settling down he’s begun to think there may actually be something to this love-and-roses crap. One thing’s for sure: his dream mate will have to out-cuss, out-spit and outhike him. So he never expected the one to push his forever button would be a blue-blooded Southern debutante with a voice as dark and velvety as her skin. When Gemmita Jacobs steps off the plane in Whitehorse, Yukon, it’s about more than her caribou research project. It’s her declaration of independence from an overprotected upbringing. Except there’s something in the air she can’t quite define—something that unexpectedly rouses her mating instincts. Moments after their eyes lock, the deed is done—and done thoroughly. When the pheromone dust settles, though, all the reasons they don’t belong together become painfully clear. It’s enough to make a wolf learn a whole new set of cuss words… Warning: Two strong wolves getting exactly what they deserve. Includes wilderness nookie, shifters being naughty in public places, the Midnight Sun as a canopy for seduction and grizzly shifters on the loose. Oh, and don’t forget the sarcasm. Enjoy the following excerpt for Black Gold: Both hands slid onto a smooth surface, and Shaun halted. The connecting door to the next room was warm under his palms, a soft thump, thump, thump

radiating from the opposite side. It took a little maneuvering to get the deadbolt undone, and he swung his door inward. The second door, the one from the neighbouring room, remained closed, but the volume of the music and the amazing scent increased tenfold. Shaun soaked in the bouquet. Delicious and invigorating. Appetizing enough to chase away the brain-buster of a headache hovering nearby. One deep breath after another cleansed the fog from his brain and lit a direct path from his nostrils southward. Whatever the hell was on the other side, he had to have a taste. The music changed, slowing in pace. Shaun pressed his ear against the door and froze in surprise as the surface retreated from him. He glanced to the side and spotted a faint crack of light glowing back. Holy shit—the lock on the second door was open, and as the space widened, he was gob-smacked with more of the mouth-watering goodness. Leaning on the doorframe, he pushed and let the door swing on silent hinges away from him. His eyes adjusted to the increasing light, focusing in a flash as a pair of shapely cocoa-brown hips barely covered by pale pink panties swished from side to side not ten feet from him. Shaun dug his fingers into the doorframe, using arm strength to keep his body vertical. Standing was a major issue in light of the reverberating shock waves rushing up his limbs. Every breath he took forced more of the incredible scent into his head and brain. His gaze remained trapped by the woman as she undulated before him, her head tilted to one side, her hands running over her skin. The long, lean line of her neck tempted him, the shimmer of the lamps highlighting her curves. One pulsing beat after another, the music drove into his ears, his blood racing head to toe in powerful surges. And when she widened her stance and

scooped upward with her palms, catching hold of her lace-covered breasts, Shaun wasn’t sure what could possibly calm the storm raging inside him. Imagining that he was touching her would be a good start, him pinching her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. She hummed in time with the music just before the sound disappeared behind a scene of white noise, his hearing obliterated by the blood pounding out of his brain en route south to his groin. The lacy wisp of her bra floated to the floor, and he followed the frilly thing with his gaze, distracted for a second by the desire to pick it up and see if the lingerie was warm from her skin. There had to be a reason for his entire body to be shaking with need. He glanced behind him into his room, his abandoned clothes untidy heaps barely visible in the darkness. Was he still asleep? Shaun wiggled himself upright and pinched his thigh, snapping his mouth shut on the ouch he wanted to exclaim. Nope. Awake. A hallucination. That’s what this was. Damn fine one too, made even more incredible the moment she revealed those breasts. Perfectly formed, dark nipples already tightened to peaks. Shaun stared slack-jawed, frozen in admiration for the sheer angelic beauty before him. Or maybe this was heaven—that was the answer. Evan’s moonshine had given him a heart attack, and he was now entering the Pearly Gates. The cheap wooden doors weren’t expected—but then people everywhere were dealing with cutbacks, right? And who the heck cared what the gates were made of when the streets beyond were lined with visions like this one. He stepped forward and took a deep breath. Angelic perfume flooded his brain and erased all thoughts except needing to see if his other senses were going to be treated to an incredible feast tonight.

Then the angel opened her eyes, and he stared into dark glistening obsidian pools. Right before she vanished. Gem snapped her mouth shut, trapping the scream that threatened to burst free. It wasn’t turning to discover a man in her room—a naked man—that stunned her the most. The complete flip-flop her belly turned as her wolf sat up and howled in delight wasn’t enough to shock her into letting a girlish cry escape. It was staring into the man’s eyes as all his humanity drained away. Watching as he transformed into the biggest, most enormous and bushiest black wolf she’d ever seen in her life, the beast immediately crashing to the floor between the wall and the bed. She snatched up her shirt and held the fabric in front of her. Then the stupidity of attempting to cover herself when she had a much bigger issue at hand hit—there was a strange wolf at her feet and her own itching to come out and say hello. Being mostly naked was nothing compared to that. Gem took one step, then another, slow and cautious until she reached the end of the bed. She nudged one furry paw with her toe. “Hello? Are you okay?” No response. She peeked into the space behind the now open door, figuring out the rooms were pretty much identical. He’d opened his side, and she must have left hers unlocked. With that mystery solved, she turned back to deal with the more difficult one of the furry beast sprawled on her floor. Deep inside she felt it again—a nearly violent urge to change and let her wolf crawl all over his. The scent in the air had returned to intoxicating levels, even higher than she’d experienced earlier in the office with Evan.

Oh my. Oh no. Through the haze of lust coating her mind like a thick coastal fog, the only possible solution pulsed out a lighthouse-warning signal. Her mate? For real this time? A low rumble bounced off the wall, urgent growls and moans increasing as the wolf scrambled to his feet. Gem retreated instinctively before making a stand. She was not going to freak out. One hand shot forward, palm upright. “Freeze right there, mister.” The wolf ignored her, pacing closer until he stood on top of her feet. Then he rubbed against her legs, bumping hard enough to force her to sit on the bed. The mattress swayed under her hips as he jumped up and joined her, the bulk of his wolf body dipping the surface. He sniffed her cheek and sighed happily, the warmth of his breath hitting her squarely on the neck. Gem twisted to bring up one leg and face him better. “You don’t take direction very well, do you?” A wolfish grin, with a full flash of teeth greeted her just before he stuck out his tongue and licked her from jaw to hairline. She giggled and grabbed him. All thoughts of how utterly enormous his wolf was compared to the other wolves she knew disappeared as she wrestled with him on the mattress. Instantly comfortable with this stranger in her room, she targeted all the prime wolf ticklish spots, laughing as he squirmed under her. Then he rolled and shifted at the same time, and instead of the weight of a furry wolf pinning her to the bed, the full length of a very smooth-skinned, muscular and naked man held her captive. His black hair hung in unruly tangles around his head, beautiful dark brown eyes with simply enormous pupils filling their cores hovered inches over hers.

A squarish jaw. The smile she’d seen moments earlier on his wolf—the expression was still there, although his teeth were now human-shaped and even. His nose had a slight bump in the middle, broken at some point she suspected. “Hello, love.”

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