Must Love Ghosts (Banshee Creek Book 1) (5 page)

She pointed to a dark corner behind the floor lamps. The wood looked new, like someone had patched the roof and a small patch of wall.

He leaned back in his chair, estimated the amount of wood involved, applied the flammability quotient of the gasoline, and did some quick mental calculations. His head was very fuzzy so he checked his numbers twice but the result didn't change.
 

"How did the house not catch fire?" he asked. He'd done quite a bit of demo work in the Army and he knew his numbers were airtight. "It should have gone up like kindling."

She shrugged, the motion causing more enticing jiggling, and took another sip of cider. "The house is protected against fire. Well, not just fire, also lighting, flooding, and psychic attacks."
 

"Psychic...You're kidding, right?"

"I wish," she replied with a heartfelt sigh. "No, I'm serious. The house used to belong to the local Theosophical Society, way back in the 1880s. They were into occultism and Kabbalism."

He considered asking her what Kabbalism meant, but he didn't think he'd like the answer. It didn't sound like something with fireproofing capabilities.

She pointed at a roof beam. "The house has seven corners, if you count the two turrets, and each corner has a protection symbol engraved. Look at the top of the window."

He squinted, barely able to make out a round mark carved into the wood. Was the engraved drawing
dancing
? No, he concluded, it must be the cider.

"That one is a Gnostic cross, There's an ankh or
crux ansata
over there." She pointed to the other side of the attic and he stared at the symbol, thoroughly confused.
 

"And there's a whole bunch more," she concluded, trying to hide a smile.

He raised a brow. "
That
gets you a Fire Marshall permit?"

 
"Well, no," She replied, chuckling. "But it gets you some flexibility regarding the maximum crowd limit."

He shook his head. "So, depressed real estate values, arson, and mystical protections. I'm surprised they managed to sell this house."

"You and everybody else in town," she retorted. "We all want to know who bought it, but Caine isn't telling. The new owner lent him the house so he could have the party and Caine doesn't want to alienate him."

"It had to be here?"

"Yes, Cole loved this house." Her smile was wistful. "His dream was to turn it into the headquarters of the paranormal investigations group."

That made perfect sense. He could picture a geeky teenaged Cole, enamored with the local haunted house and its metaphysical past. "Does that make you sad?" He held his breath as he waited for her answer.
 

"A little. There's so much he didn't get to do, you know?" She was still looking out the window. "Look, a bunch of people came in a giant Horta costume." She paused as if wondering if he knew what a Horta was.
 

 
"You know, the Star Trek pizza monster?" she continued. "I wonder how they got the acid to smoke like that? Dry ice, maybe?" She sighed. "Cole would have loved this party."

He didn't know what to make of her melancholy tone. "Do you miss him?"

"Sure." She turned to look at him. "I missed him for a long time." The nostalgic smile was back. "But I've moved on. No, not moved on. Healed, that's the right word." She peered out the window. "Look, they got it to lay eggs. That's fantastic."

He nodded. He didn't much care about the egg-laying creature outside the house, but he did care about Abby's wellbeing. Healed. He liked that term. Not moved on as if something had been discarded. Not forgotten as if something hadn't happened. Those terms sounded wrong when applied to a person, a human being who had lived, breathed and laughed.

Healed was good. Healed implied pain and suffering and loss, but also recovery, wholeness.

"I didn't realize it until tonight," she continued, sipping her cider. "Even though it's been two years since Cole's death, I wasn't sure I'd be in the mood for a party."

He nodded. That was only to be expected.

"But Caine and the gang said they needed all the help they could get. So, for the first time in years, I had to sit down and make a costume." She swept her hand over her leather-clad curves. "I picked this one. Emma Peel wasn't the moping type, you know."

Mike didn't and he was kind of curious about this Emma Peel person, but he didn't want to interrupt. It was good to see Abby looking happy and relaxed. This, sitting in a dusty attic, on a vintage office chair that squeaked loudly every time he shifted in the seat, while talking to Abby, was shaping up to be one of his favorite evenings.

 
"Then I got dressed up," she continued with growing enthusiasm. "And you arrived and I drank a couple of Poisoned Apples and I saw that people were having a good time." She looked out the window, smiling at the revelers outside. "And, you know what? I realized that I was also having a good time."

He smiled. "That's good."
 

 
"I was chatting with Caine and he was telling me about his upcoming trip to West Virginia and it actually sounded like fun. He's taking the gang on a Mothman hunt. Isn't that wonderful?"

"Uh, sure," he said, trying to join in her enthusiasm. "I think I saw a Mothman costume when I arrived. Is it some kind of bug?"

"It's a West Virginia monster," Abby answered, as if it were obvious. "It's seven feet tall with huge wings and glowing red eyes. There's been a couple of sightings nearby so people think it may be migrating to Banshee Creek. Everyone's very excited."

Ah, that explained the guy in stilts and kids in scary bug costumes.
 

"So, people are happy about a seven foot bug moving to town?" he asked, trying to wrap his head around the concept.
 

"Yep," she nodded, eyes sparkling with merriment. "It's their first paranormal investigation since Cole passed away."

"I see." He considered telling her that her friends were crazy, but he didn't want to ruin her good mood. "And you're going with them?"

She nodded. "Yes, I'm definitely going. No one's gone on a monster hunt since, you know, Cole's passing. This is a real step forward."

Sure, a step forward into crazy land. But she sounded excited, and that was good, right?

"And your friends are going to hunt the bug monster with, what?" he asked, modulating his tone with care. He didn't want to break Abby's bubble, but he needed to know if the expedition was safe.

"Night-vision cameras," she replied with an airy wave of the hand. "Infrared sensors, recorders, stuff like that. Oh, and a whole lot of luck."

She drank some more cider and Mike tried to conceal his concern. A bunch of drunk bikers camping out in the woods looking for a seven-foot-tall winged creature sounded like a horror movie set up. But at least they weren't carrying guns. How much trouble could they get into without weapons?
 

He paused to think about that, and his mind quickly conjured up several nightmare scenarios. They could get into a lot of trouble.
 

Maybe he still had time to stop them.

"Caine's guys are already packing," she chirped, sipping her cider. "And I need to find my gear and go find some supplies. I don't even know where my camera is."

Her face was lit up with expectation and he quickly reconsidered his plans to stop the expedition. Sure, the whole thing sounded crazy, but he couldn't deny Abby's enthusiasm about the monster hunt. Still, how could a silly story about a seven-foot bug create such a sense of wonder?
 

"It's strange," she continued, echoing his thoughts. "I expected to cry through most of this party. That's why I picked this costume." She put the bottle of cider down and looked down at her leather cat suit. "Emma Peel didn't cry when she lost her husband. I mean really lost him. He like crashed in the Amazon or something. But Emma didn't let that bring her down. She went on to fight crime and blow up robots and destroy evil syndicates and, you know, be fabulous."

She spread her arms wide and twirled and twirled, until she landed, a bit unsteadily, right in front of him. She leaned down to support herself on the arms of the chair.
 

He froze in his seat. She was so close he could look right into her warm brown eyes. They were bright with...courage?
 

Or maybe something else? He cast a suspicious glance at the cider bottle.

"Abby?" he asked, studiously ignoring her alluring, and oh-so-close décolletage. "Did you spike these drinks?"

She didn't answer. Her narrowed eyes bored into his.

"Abby?" he repeated, but she wasn't listening.
 

"So, I thought to myself," she said, and he couldn't help but notice that she was slurring her words a bit. "What would Emma Peel do?"
 

Oh yeah, she'd definitely spiked these drinks. He set his own bottle on the desk with a thud, angry at himself. How had he not noticed that she was intoxicated?
 

"C'mon." He grabbed her arm and stood, dragging her up. "I think it's time for Mrs. Peel to go home and get a good night's sleep."
 

She stumbled and leaned into him for support. His jaw clenched as he tried to ignore the feel of her leather-clad body against his. A part of him—a powerful, primal part—liked the feel of her hip against his leg, liked it a little too much.

He took a deep breath and tried to push her toward the stairs.

But she refused to move. "Wrong answer," she said, a mulish frown upon her brow. "Try again. Do you know what Emma Peel would do?"

He shook his head, trying to figure out a way to get a tall, healthy woman out of the attic, down three flights of very steep stairs, through a rowdy crowd, and back to 12 Hooded Owl Road.
 

"This," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He stiffened at the contact. The cider made his head fuzzy and the effect, as well as Abby's nearness, gave everything a hazy, dreamlike quality. The band downstairs played a wistful tune and the moonlight cast an otherworldly glow around her, giving her the look of an unearthly creature. With fiery hair and bright eyes, she looked like a faery or a spirit, and he stood, frozen in place, as she reached up and kissed him.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

A
BBY
FELT
a thrill run down her back, a frisson of pleasure that left her breathless. She felt rather like a frightened young bird, suspended over a cliff, about to take flight for the first time. The jump was scary and exhilarating.

And totally worth it, because Mike actually kissed her back.
 

Her excitement was tinged with surprise. She'd expected to be shoved back, scolded, and efficiently marched back home.

Instead, a warm lassitude spread across her body as he wrapped his arms around her. He moved tentatively at first, as if trying not to scare her. Then his hands swept over her back, his fingers sliding seductively over her skintight costume. His touch made her shiver, and she suddenly regretted the sturdy leather costume. She should have worn something flimsy, something fragile, something like an Orion Slave Girl bikini.
 

But then his lips touched hers and she stopped thinking altogether.

The kiss was slow and sweet, and she relished every single second. He felt solid and strong and his lips tasted of apples and cinnamon and sunshine and other warm, bright things.

She craved that brightness, craved it with a deep, lingering hunger that frightened her. She was like a desperate creature glimpsing a ray of sunlight after being trapped in darkness for years. She had a nagging feeling that there was something wrong, that she was forgetting something.
 

But she didn't care, she wanted to stay here, in the dusty attic, kissing Mike Stone forever.

Even though she couldn't. The thought broke through the cider-induced fog, and she broke off the kiss reluctantly. What was she doing? This was Mike, her best friend. True, best-friend-Mike was also ridiculously-hot kisser-Mike, whose touch made her body want to sit up and be, but still.

She held on to him for a long moment, her face buried in his chest.
Friend
Mike. This was
friend
Mike. He smelled of soap, shaving cream and laundry detergent.
 

She smiled. It was a very Mike smell, comfortable and reassuring. The smell of home

Just not her home.

She stepped back, trying to think of what to say. Should she apologize? It seemed kind of pointless. After all, she wasn't a bit sorry. That kiss had been a revelation and a part of her wanted to trample her scruples, grab him, and explore everything promised by that world-shattering kiss.

Mike didn't look sorry either. His blue eyes were dark and deep and he stood still, staring at her. There was something in his eyes, shadowy and compelling, that made her shiver.
 

"Um," she stammered, already regretting breaking the kiss. "You probably need to send those forms out."

He smiled. The smile made her wary. It wasn't a Mike Stone smile at all. It was dark and carnal. Not that Mike wasn't sexy, he was.
 

But this expression was different. This smile made her want to do things you should not do with your best friend.

"Is that it?" he asked, raising a brow. If this were any other man, she would characterize his expression as arrogant, but this was Mike.

 
"Is that," he continued, not missing a beat, "what this Emma Peel person would do?"

"Excuse me?" She gaped at him in confusion. There was an edge to his question that made it sound almost like a dare. But Mike wasn't edgy and he definitely wasn't into dares.

But she was, and right now, part of her really wanted to take a dare.

"No offense," he continued, a dark glint in his eye. "But I think that Black Widow chick would have taken my shirt off." His lips curved into a wicked smile. "At the very least."