Until Death Do Us Part: Haunted Romance Series Book 1

by Leigh, Cassie

  Contents

  Blurb

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Playlist

  Sneak Peek

  Follow You Anywhere

  Sneak Peek

  Home For The Howliday

  Sneak Peek

  Skin Deep

  Sneak Peek

  Business Casual

  About the Author

  Also by Cassie Leigh

  Copyright © 2018 Cassie Leigh Moore

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design © Cover Couture

  http://www.bookcovercouture.com

  Photos © Depositphotos

  Formatting by AB Formatting

  All characters, events, and locations are fictitious. Any

  resemblance to persons, past, present, or future is

  coincidental and highly unlikely.

  Sassy Typewriter Press

  5001 1st Ave SE

  Ste. 105 #243

  Cedar Rapids, IA 52402

  https://sassy.typewriter.press/

  ISBN 978-1-940509-28-0

  Version 2.0.0

  When the veil between life and death parts, can two souls on opposite sides find their way to each other?

  Hello—a simple word that changed everything Millie understood about her limits as a ghost. After decades haunting her home, she never imagined she would find a connection with another living soul, let alone fall in love. Noah makes her want to turn away from the light she coveted. Only two problems stand between Millie and the love of her afterlife; death and his fiancé.

  This story is for my mother, Lee Mitchell and my aunt, the incomparable “Nanny” Becky Kennedy. Your love and devotion to our family’s history shaped me into the woman and the writer that I am today. I don’t know where I would be without your support. This edition is also for my readers. Book people are the best people, and I wish I had space to thank you individually, but I trust you know who you are. Thank you.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s hard to believe that the original version of this novella has been in print for two years. If you are reading this, and you purchased the first edition, thank you. I can promise you, I did not do a massive rewrite of the story you loved. What I did do was fix one scene that has always bothered me a little and add the epilogue you all have been asking for. Yes, that’s right; I wrote that epilogue for all of you. I heard you loud and clear in all of those reviews and the truth was I wanted one too. Thank you for sticking with me on this journey.

  I also need to thank some extraordinary people in my life, starting with my family. I dedicated this to my mom and my aunt, but they are just one part of it. My children are the best five cheerleaders I could ask for, and my husband may not always understand but he tries.

  This book would be nothing without my editor Barbara Malmberg. She is more than an editor. She is my best friend and frankly is more like a book coach, coaxing me through all the hard moments where I want to walk away. She is joined by Charlotte Penn Clark, Jolene Buchheit, Dylan Moonfire, and the Noble Pen critique group which saw the early gory stages of this book.

  I also owe a special thanks to Anna Crosswell of Cover Couture for the three new beautiful covers for this series. As much as I loved my original, the cover she designed for each book is stunning, and I am honored for them to grace my books.

  Finally, I want to thank Mickey, Lori, and Rachel of BF Bookies and North Iowa Book Bash. In life sometimes, you meet people and they just kind of adopt you. These are those people for me. They were among the first of many book people who pulled me through the first bumbling year of my publishing career. I should thank many more. I hope that you know who you are because—thank you.

  Millie spied the real-estate agent through the rosette window of the attic. She loathed the balding relic that now lumbered up the sidewalk since the day he brought developers to tear down her home. Reason told her she should welcome that fool. He could be bringing potential company into her life. She turned away from the window where she sat perched day in and day out. It made her ache with sadness to see the proud farmhouse that she spent her youth in sit empty, no furniture or voices filling it up. But her feelings were not enough to make her welcome the agent.

  Twin metallic clunks from outside broke through the stillness of the morning and sent a fluttering sensation running through Millie’s midsection. She paced the dusty pine planks; the prospect of new life carried her nearer the door on each pass. She didn’t need to look. It would be better if she kept her distance up here in the attic. Unexplained cold spots and footsteps that had no apparent source tended to scare people away.

  When the jingle of keys and muffled voices echoed up the stairs, her curiosity won out. Surely she could get a glimpse of them from the stairs. There was no need to go down.

  The front door closed with a thud that reverberated through Millie.

  The droning voice of the real-estate agent assaulted her ears. “It’s a fixer upper but the neighborhood is quiet, and it’s in one of the better school systems.”

  Millie rushed to the landing and leaned over the carved wooden banister. “Don’t you mess this up,” she shouted down at the agent, whose heavy footsteps she heard lurking in the front room. “Tell these people what a lovely home this was. I’m sick to the teeth of being alone.”

  Millie blew out a long breath, a habit that was no longer necessary. Why did she bother, the real-estate agent couldn’t hear her. She rubbed her hands along the polished rail. It couldn’t hurt to go down and take a peek at who the inept fool brought this time. Millie shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet, unable to hold still. No, they’ll come to her. She just needed patience—a commodity she had precious little of, unlike time.

  “The more we see, the better I like this house.” A man’s clear baritone echoed off the bare walls of the kitchen in tandem with the banging of cabinet doors. Millie supposed the man behind it was going through opening and closing them as he considered his purchase.

  The potential buyer walked into the entryway, leading a woman by the hand towards the stairs where Millie sat. To the diminutive Millie, he seemed tall and dark. When he glanced up the stairs, sharp blue eyes met her own. Even from this distance, Millie felt captive to the vitality that filled them. Though she knew better, she felt as if there was something in that look just for her, some message she wasn’t grasping.

  He looked away, back at the woman he came with. The absence of his gaze broke whatever unlikely cord of communion had been strung between him and Millie. He couldn’t have seen her, no one ever did. Millie’s cheeks tingled, remarkably like blushing, if that had been possible. She raised a hand to her cold cheek. He certainly was the best-looking man that the portly agent had ever brought through her home and closer to Millie’s age than most of them.

  “Noah, I really don’t want something that needs this much work,” said the man’s companion. “I just wanted to walk in after the wedding to our picture perfect starter home.” The woman’s blonde ponytail swayed as she shook her head.

  The woman wore a modern, soft pink sweater that came down to mid-thigh of her form-fitting denim. Millie looked down at her own shap
eless ivory dress. It hung past her white stocking-clad knees. Perhaps Millie could have had a better husband if she had been as attractive.

  Noah started up the stairs, hand in hand with his future wife. They must have money, Millie assumed because he appeared as richly dressed as the pretty blonde, with her collared shirt and a pullover sweater. Her working-class husband and father would have called him a well-to-do lawyer’s son, or maybe a banker. Definitely not the kind of man Millie was used to being around.

  Mindful not to touch the couple as they passed her, Millie scooted out of the way. She made no effort to conceal herself further. The woman looked past Millie into the bathroom, appearing completely unaware of her presence. Noah looked right at Millie. She gasped and then ducked behind an open bedroom door, kneeling down. Her heart racing, she peered through the gap below the hinge. When Noah continued into the first bedroom without comment, Millie sighed in relief and moved back into the hall.

  He must have been looking through her. It was silly on her part to continue deluding herself that he could actually see her. Just an over-active imagination brought on by decades of loneliness, she chided herself. Only children ever noticed her and usually only the very young. She took extra care not to frighten the little darlings.

  “What do you think of this one for the master, Claire?” Noah asked.

  “The closet is so small, and the carpet has to go. It’ll kill my allergies, and my asthma will flare up,” she whined in reply. Her cheeks sucked in and her mouth pursed in a pretty pout.

  “I can fix that,” Noah promised. He began to count off the benefits on strong hands that appeared rough and used to work, much to Millie’s surprise. “Just think of the possibilities. This house is under budget, and we were only looking for three bedrooms; this house has four. The room adjoining this one could be turned into a master bath and walk-in closet.”

  His plan sounded lovely to Millie. Someone to care for her home and remake it into a special place again, like it had been before her life had fallen apart.

  “I don’t want to live in a construction zone.” Claire crossed her arms in front of her chest and took a step back. “I want move-in ready.”

  Millie’s jaw dropped, and she drifted up beside Claire. “Be reasonable, not every man offers to do something so monumental, you silly woman. Don’t you see how lucky you are?” Millie asked, waving her hands in agitation.

  “You’ll have that.” Noah reached out, resting his hand on Claire’s arm. “We have three months until the wedding. All I need is eight weeks.”

  “I’m listening.” Claire looked away as if only humoring him.

  He moved in close, his voice lowered to a whisper. “I’ll move in and start working. You stay in your place and focus on the wedding. You’ll move in when we get back from Hawaii.”

  Mille held her breath, her hands tented together and covering her mouth as she drifted back into the hall. Was it too much to hope that this seemingly ungrateful woman would accept such a generous offer from her betrothed?

  Claire sighed, and her arms dropped to her sides. “Well, I’ll get to pick my own finishes. I couldn’t do that in a house that’s already done, there’s that at least.”

  Millie clapped in excitement and spun happily. Finally, some company.

  Noah grinned and grabbed Claire’s hand. “I knew you’d see. Let’s talk to Bob and put in our offer.”

  Millie beamed with hope from her spot in the hallway. Noah pulled Claire behind him, striding with purpose to the stairs. Millie stepped back out of the way until her waist pressed against the handrail. Noah returned Millie’s smile with genuine warmth and a slight nod, silently offering a hello. He didn’t pause as he continued down the stairs, leaving Millie disoriented. Her own smile slipped away. Did he see her after all?

  millie’s sense of time had slipped away in the decades since her death. Weeks may have passed in the void that was her present circumstance, but it seemed only a matter of days. The real-estate agent hadn’t come back with anyone else. Hope and anticipation pressed for control, filling the emptiness of her existence.

  She lay on the wide planks of the attic floor glaring at the beam overhead as though it had done something more than hold the rope. She spent most of her time here, pacing the floor or staring out the lone rosette window that overlooked the front lawn. She could go downstairs if she chose, but without another person here to stir her curiosity or fill her isolation with the illusion of one-sided companionship, she preferred to avoid the minefield of memories.

  Change had been the only means to mark the passage of time. She spent the first few decades with steamer trunks and wooden crates as furniture in her self-imposed domain. Those gave way in time, replaced by brown cardboard boxes. After the last owner of her home passed away in her sleep, there had only been emptiness. Mrs. Roosa had gotten a doorway to the other side, but Millie never had.

  Slamming doors and male laughter broke through her thoughts, filling up the house below her. “He came back!” Millie shouted in triumph as she raced to the rosette window. She welcomed the horde of friends, boxes, and furniture that poured from the armada of vehicles outside and the end of her solitude they represented.

  Eager to see the new owner, she rushed down the stairs and through the attic door to the banister where she first laid hungry eyes on him. Noah crossed the threshold into the entryway, arms straining with the burden he carried. Men, who must have come with him, parted to make way before heading back out the door behind him. Noah stacked the box against the wall and stood surveying the progress all around him. His blue eyes were warm with laughter as he raked his hand through sweaty hair.

  This was real; this was happening and not just her hopeful flight of fancy. Millie danced in place, happy for the chaos around her and what it meant. When her spinning came to a stop, she spotted men coming up the stairs with a bed frame. She jumped to the side, managing to avoid their accidental touch. She took another step back to move out of the way for the men who followed with the mattress, but stepped into the path of the first pair of men, unaware of her presence as they came back out the bedroom door.

  Millie looked down at her stomach, helpless as the elbow passed through her. She felt the pressure of it like someone pocking her, only magnified. She noticed the hair on his arm stood on end and his skin raised into bumpy-looking gooseflesh. He pulled back, rubbing his arm as if to warm himself.

  “Did you feel that?” the man asked his friend.

  They flattened themselves against the wall as the mattress went by. “Feel what?”

  The first man shook his head. “Never mind.”

  Millie smoothed her hands down over her stomach, now whole after the unexpected breach. Lifeless objects had substance for her, and with concentration, she might even make them move, but the living were another matter.

  Unsettled by the encounter, she retreated to the safety of the attic to wait for this to pass. It was exhilarating to see her home so full once more. She wanted to be in the thick of it, but this experience was a timely reminder not to scare her guests away with the cold spots and unexplained occurrences that she left in her wake. She had frightened off her share of homeowners in the early years after her parents left the house. She had only just gotten her new companions here, and she wanted them to stay.

  Millie returned to her window to pass the time, straining to see the couple who would be sharing her home. She found Noah easily enough. He stood out to her as he passed in and out with each new load. Millie expected to see Claire pull up with a cadre of women to feed the men who worked so diligently to fill her home. In Millie’s day, that’s how it would have been. But no women ever came. Instead, Noah left, returning with pizza and beer to repay his friends while they continued to unload the moving truck.

  Millie couldn’t fathom what the woman was thinking. Claire’s man toiled to give her a nice home, yet she was nowhere to be found. Mille wished that her husband had been so thoughtful. Millie’s father, not her husband, pr
ovided them a place to live after she had eloped. Her husband had changed into another man after the vows were spoken, tearing down her girlhood dreams of married life.

  She banished the melancholy thoughts, sweeping them away like dust under the rug. The sky had grown dark and the house quiet. Millie crept down the stairs, past a maze of boxes in various stages of unpacking to find Noah in the kitchen.

  A tower of cardboard stood in one corner, waiting to be unloaded into the original oak cabinets that Millie’s father had built for her mother. For the time, it was a large kitchen. She had seven brothers and sisters; her mother needed the workspace. While the essentials remained, other things had changed with the times. The appliances were a putrid shade of avocado, and the chipped white with gold-flecked Formica had been added in the fifties.

  “Does it bother you having me move into your home,” Noah asked. He put a stack of plates into the open cabinet. “I noticed you hid when we came in with boxes.”

  Millie looked around. Had Claire come after all? She must be standing behind her. But when Millie spun all the way around, they were alone.

  Noah closed the cabinet door and looked directly at her. “What’s your name?”

  millie fled to the attic in desperate need of the meager comfort she could find, pacing her familiar path. Shaking her hands in front of her, her nerves were unraveling. She couldn’t overlook this, not the way she had dismissed the smile and that look. Whatever passed between them had not been a flight of fancy in a moment of her own weakness.