Ghosts of Boyfriends Past (8 page)

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.

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.

“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 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.”

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 forever-after 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.”

“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 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.

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—Creutzfeldt-Jakob 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.”

“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.

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.”