Ghosts of Boyfriends Past (13 page)

“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
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.”

“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.

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.

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 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, 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 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.

“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?

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.