Dylan had also left the front door open like I’d asked, giving the house an inviting aura and allowing in some fresh air. As I climbed the front steps, the smell of coffee and something warm and sugary greeted me.
Inside, all the sheets that had been draped over the furniture were gone. The rolltop desk shined with a fresh coat of polish, and a plate of cookies had been left on a coffee table in front of a vintage chaise lounge.
Perfect. This was an ideal setup. As long as there were no hiccups, I’d have this place under contract by before lunch.
“Good morning.”
I turned to find Dylan standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen. He held a coffee mug in one hand and a dishtowel in the other. A white apron was tied around his waist. He blushed when I hitched an eyebrow at the ruffles along the bottom hem.
“This was all I could find. It belonged to Mama Lois,” he explained as he retreated into the kitchen.
“For a minute there, I feared I was barking up the wrong belfry,” I said under my breath.
If Dylan heard, he ignored the comment. “I washed up a dozen mugs, and there’s a fresh pot ready to go.”
“The cookies were a nice touch, too.”
“Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “They’re, uh, Mama Gretta’s recipe. She called them pawpaw-doodles. I have another batch in the oven.”
“And he bakes. Careful, you’ll have the ladies asking if you come with the house.” I gave him a flirty grin. The promising condition of the home had amped up my confidence, and we did have a lunch date. Now seemed like a good time to test the waters.
Dylan’s smile faltered, and his gaze dropped away from mine. “Margo, I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me—for my family. I want you to know that—”
“Hello?” a timid voice called from the front room. My breath sucked in sharply.
“Our first prospect,” I whispered excitedly and gave Dylan’s arm a squeeze. Then I hurried from the kitchen. It was as much to greet the newcomer as to flee the gentle letdown.
I was no stranger to the it’s not you, it’s me speech. When it came to the few warlocks I’d casually dated in my youth, the sentiment was clearly due to my magical deficiency. With Dylan, I could actually believe he was trying to protect me from the pain of his looming death. But that didn’t make the rejection sting any less.
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat and pasted on a friendly smile as I crossed the sitting room and met the nice couple waiting on the front porch. I recognized them as racoon Shifters that Zelda had introduced me to at the diner a few months back. They were expecting their first litter.
“Come in, come in!” I called in a bubbly sing-song. “Would you like some coffee or a cookie? They’re fresh out of the oven, made with fruit from the orchard in the backyard.”
“There’s an orchard?” The wife’s nose twitched as she sniffed the air and zeroed in on the cookies. Her swollen belly gurgled, but her husband beat her to the coffee table, snatching up the plate first. His own nose twitched nervously over the sweets.
“Are these organic?” he asked, picking one up for closer inspection. “Made with cage-free eggs? Raw cane sugar?”
“Gimme, gimme,” his wife whined, reached over his shoulder for the plate he held out of her reach.
“Ummm...” My smile widened. “How about you take a peek at the kitchen and ask Mr. Hernández for the recipe?”
They both froze at the suggestion, their faces paling with horror.
“I knew it!” the husband shrieked. He discarded the plate of cookies on the coffee table as if they were covered in spiders. “I told you there were ghosts in this house.”
“And in the kitchen?” his wife pouted. “How am I supposed to cook in a haunted kitchen?”
“Oh, no no no,” I said, waving my hands. “Dylan Hernández is very much alive. He’s the one selling the house.”
“So...no ghosts in the kitchen?” the husband asked.
“No ghosts in the kitchen,” I answered evenly, hoping they wouldn’t ask about the rest of the house. I couldn’t bring myself to outright lie, but carefully dancing around the negatives and highlighting the positives was part of the job.
I handed the wife a brochure before sending them off into the kitchen and going to greet the next potential buyer waiting at the door—a deer Shifter named Deedee.
“Welcome,” I said, waving my arm to invite her inside.
“Thank you. So hospitable,” Deedee said, wiping a finger to the side of her mouth where a yellow flower petal clung.
“Did you...eat the mums out front?” I gaped at the damning evidence, and her lips curled downward in a shameful pout.
“The ad mentioned refreshments,” she said, doe eyes watering. I pointed at the plate of cookies, unable to summon a cordial response.
“Oh, yes,” Deedee said, nibbling on one of the pawpaw-doodles. “Mmm. These are almost as delightful as the mums.”
“Would you like to see the master suite?” I asked, handing her a brochure. I refrained from cattily offering her a drink from the en-suite toilet. Working with Shifter clients was definitely an ongoing test of my patience.
Deedee dusted the crumbs from her lips and smiled. “That would be lovely.” She craned her neck, taking in the whole of the front room as we crossed it. “So light and airy,” she commented, nodding to the white curtains and luminous chandeliers.
The master suite was in the far left corner, just beyond the parlor nook. A small opening led to a powder room under the top landing of the staircase, but right beside it stood a taller door that led into the bedroom that Papa Nando and Mama Ellie had shared during their star-crossed marriage.
I’d hung new curtains over the window in this room, too, but I tied them off so the colorful view of the backyard wouldn’t go unnoticed. The bright leaves of the pawpaw trees had finished their transition to full yellow, pairing nicely with the fresh, green paint in the room.
Deedee sighed and clasped her hands together under her chin. “This is wonderful! And those trees look delicious,” she added, nodding her head enthusiastically.
Just then, the bulbs in the chandelier over the bed flickered. The window panes rattled, and the curtains fluttered in an invisible breeze, coming untied.
“Staaay awaaay from myyy trees,” a deep voice with a Cuban accent demanded.
Deedee clung to my arm, and her fingers dug into my skin as they began to fuse into hooves. I tried to think of something reassuring to tell her, but I was once again at a loss for words.
Dylan hadn’t mentioned anything about the master suite. If he’d conveniently left out another detail, I was going to hex his ass myself—even if the worst I could do was curse him with dust bunnies.
“Would you like to see the bathroom?” I asked with forced cheer, wondering if I could somehow convince Deedee that I hadn’t heard the eerie warning.
“I think I already went in my pants,” she squeaked. Then she turned and sprinted from the room, taking great, bounding leaps. I half expected to see a white tail sprout from her rear end.
“Splendid,” I grumbled, grabbing my hips with both hands.
The disembodied voice chuckled at my ill luck, and my temper flared to life. I spun around and pointed a finger in the air.
“You better hope this place sells, bucko!” I shouted. “If it doesn’t, the bank is going to flatten it—including your precious trees!”
“Margo?”
“What?” I snapped as I spun around, only to find Dylan and the racoon Shifter couple waiting in the doorway. The startled looks on their faces told me they’d heard all they needed to.
“We’ll just be on our way then,” the husband said, dragging his wife away by the hand. Dylan watched them go with a scowl. He folded his arms before turning to face me.
“What was that all about?” he asked accusingly.
I stabbed my finger in the air again. “Did you know about this room?”
“What about it?”
“No, they’d never—”
“She commented on the trees, and he told her to staaay awaaay from them.” I wiggled my fingers in a mocking gesture and rolled my eyes. “Then he messed up my damn curtains,” I added as I stormed across the room to draw them back again.
The picturesque view was gone, as the window panes were now covered with pulpy, mashed fruit. I huffed out an exasperated sigh and glared at Dylan.
“Well, this was Papa Nando’s room,” he said sheepishly. “I suppose if he was going to do any regular haunting, it would be here.”
“Let’s not forget the basement,” I reminded him. “What other rooms does he like to frequent?”
“Well...” Dylan scratched the back of his head. “As a kid, I encountered him all over the house.”
I groaned and dragged my hands down my face. “We just needed him to chillax for two hours. Does he not understand what’s at stake?”
“I tried to tell him,” Dylan said with a hopeless shrug. “He’s a stubborn old man.” The bedroom door slammed shut behind Dylan, smacking his ass and rattling the window panes again. “Hey!” he howled, rubbing his backside.
This would not do. There had to be an easier way to get Papa Nando on board.
“The threat of having the house and pawpaw trees leveled doesn’t seem to matter to him,” I said, tapping the toe of one shoe on the hardwood. “What do you supposed he does care about? What do we have to bargain with?”
The disembodied voice returned, but he spoke in Spanish this time, just for Dylan’s ears. The only words I recognized were mango and papaya. From the flush that filled Dylan’s cheeks, I had a feeling that Papa Nando wasn’t talking about fruit cocktail.
“Papa,” Dylan hissed.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know.” Dylan opened the bedroom door and waved his arm, urging me back into the front room. He followed, closing the door behind him. I hoped Papa Nando had stayed behind, but knowing that his spirit had free reign of the house made me doubtful.
“What are we supposed to do now?” I threw my hands in the air and glanced out at the empty porch before turning back to Dylan. This open house was going downhill fast.
Dylan gave me a pained smile. “Keep trying?”
“Obviously.” I folded my arms. “I mean about the curmudgeon ghost and the skittish Shifters.”
“He has to sleep some time,” Dylan said, glancing away from me to straighten the brochures on the dining room table. “There’s a perfect buyer out there—someone even Papa Nando will approve of. I just know it.”
“Someone who will bring him mangoes and papayas?”
Dylan’s face flushed again and he cleared his throat. “Uh... sure. Yeah. I bet he’d like that.”
I glanced down at my watch. “Well, I hope they turn up before Papa Diego’s mid-day stroll. I’d rather not hang around for that show.”
“Are we still on for lunch?” Dylan asked, running a hand through his luscious hair.
The date seemed more platonic now, but he was easy on the eyes. And if I was going to be shutdown in the romantic department, I supposed dying was as good an excuse as any.
“Sure,” I finally answered. “As long as you don’t plan on wearing that.”
“Deal.” Dylan untied the frilly apron and pulled it over his head. With as quickly as he’d complied, I considered asking him to remove his shirt next. But that would have been unprofessional.
I’d at least wait until the open house was over.
Chapter 8
FOR ALL ITS SUPERNATURAL oddness, Assjacket was a typical small town where everyone knew everyone and word traveled fast. I supposed that was why only two more potential buyers dropped by the open house.
Papa Nando behaved himself after the tantrum in the master suite, but the outdated furnace had turned off the bear Shifter, and the bat sanctuary was a definite no-go for the family of mice Shifters.
Today was a total bust.
Dylan and I waited until five till noon before calling it. Then we locked up the house and commenced our walk of shame across town to the diner, where we chose a table by the front window to eat our feelings at.
At least I had his broody brow and full, pouty lips to admire while I stuffed chicken-fried steak into my mouth and sulked over the fact that my success rate as a real estate agent would soon take its first blow. But that paled in comparison to what my failure meant for Dylan.
He already knew he was going to die next year, but now he would have to accept that the bats needed to be relocated. I had no idea what would happen to the ghosts once the bank bulldozed the house, and Randal Thorpe built another apartment complex or whatever the hell he had planned for the plot.
More questions had sprung to mind thanks to the more recent, spectral developments. Would Dylan become a ghost, too? Would he end up wandering the property with his forefathers? Was this the same as building on an ancient burial site?
My brain still struggled for solutions that were out of my reach, but I couldn’t help it. Not with Dylan’s tragically gorgeous face so close to mine. His dark eyes swept up to meet my gaze, and he gave me a small smile. It pinched at my heart and caused my own eyes to water.
“Hey, you did your best,” he said, laying his hand on top of mine. “And the house looks amazing. No one can deny that—not even Papa Nando.”
I sniffled and looked down at my plate. “Has anyone ever tried to break your family curse?”
Dylan sighed and pulled his hand away. “Mama Ellie might have been a witch, but the rest of the family were fruit bat Shifters. The magical genes weren’t passed down to us.”
“What about Zelda? Have you asked her?”
“Sure, but...” Dylan shrugged. “Without knowing the original spell, there’s not much she can do.”
“Oh, right.”
Undoing a hex was a lot like untying a nasty knot—of course, you had to find what it was tied to first. That was the trickiest part. But with Mama Ellie long gone, and no witchy offspring to pass her knowledge onto, there was no way of knowing what kind of spell she’d cooked up.
“I’ll make some phone calls around town tomorrow,” I told Dylan, changing the topic to something slightly more attainable. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and score a few private showings.”
He smiled and reached across the table to squeeze my hand again. “You’re the best.”
“Don’t say it unless you mean it,” I teased.
“I do.” His dark eyes filled with sincerity. “You’re an incredible woman, and if I didn’t have a previous engagement next summer—”
“Don’t,” I said, cutting him off. “It’s better if you just stick to the flattery. You don’t have to make promises to me that you won’t be around to keep.”
“I wish I could,” he said softly. The lusty tingle in my stomach returned with a vengeance, and I squirmed in my chair.
“You know, you’re not dying tomorrow.”
Dylan’s hand clutched mine tighter. “It just seems unfair to get involved with someone when I don’t have much time to offer.”
I snorted. “Do you ever think of yourself? I mean, really? Are you aiming for sainthood or something?”
“Not exactly.” He grinned and looked away from me. “I’ve been in a few relationships, but at some point—once things reach a certain degree of seriousness—I feel inclined to share my family history with them. Most girls think I’m using the curse to scare them off. The ones that actually believe me leave because the thought of it is too depressing to bear. Either that, or they want marriage and children. Something I can’t give them.”
I pressed my lips together and swallowed. “I don’t recall mentioning anything about forever, Dylan.”
He stared at me for a long moment, something raw and familiar passing through his eyes. Then he held his hand in the air.
“Check please.”
> WE SHOULD HAVE GONE to my apartment, but Dylan’s house was closer. Still, a ghostly audience was not a kink I saw myself getting into. The worry evaporated from my mind the second the front door closed behind us.
Dylan’s hands raked through my hair, and his mouth closed over mine. The heady smell of fruit and earth made my head swim. This close to him, the scent was intoxicating.
I traced my fingers up the contours of his arms and over his shoulders before folding my hands behind his neck and pulling him in closer to me. He was already pushing up my blouse. The callouses on his palms grazed my stomach, drawing a blissful gasp from my lips as he pulled away.
“Are you sure about this?” he whispered. “Because we don’t have to—”
I fixed my mouth to his again, smothering his hesitance for a moment while our tongues got acquainted. He tasted as sweet as he smelled. I wanted to climb him like one of the pawpaw trees out back and devour him. Flesh, juice, and all.
His work-rough hands moved up my ribcage, and my back pressed against the chaise lounge in the sitting room. My pulse raced until it ached in my neck.
It had been so long since I’d been with a man. Too long. But I expected Dylan would be worth the wait. That is, I had hoped he would be.
His lips ripped free of mine, and he pushed me away, panting. “No. This is wrong.”
“But it feels so right.” I slowly dragged my hands down his chest and leaned into him, but he was having none of it.
The moment was slipping away. My desire had been embarrassing before, but now it was downright degrading.
“What if I get you pregnant?” Dylan’s brow dipped into a hard line.
“You won’t,” I assured him.
He shook his head. “I can’t risk it. I can’t do that to you.”
“Dylan—”
Before I could say anything else, his clothes dropped to the floor. It seemed a rather sudden change of heart, until he shifted into a fruit bat. His massive, webbed wings flapped loudly, and then he zipped past me and into the kitchen. The doggie door that led out to the back patio creaked, and then I was all alone.
How to Sell a Haunted House Page 6