by Ani Gonzalez
What else did the house want?
Liam opened the front door and stepped outside. He motioned for her to follow.
Oh, crap. "You've got to be kidding."
"Nope," he said, laughing. "I have to carry you over the threshold. Yolanda said we had to fulfill all the wedding rituals."
"I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not exactly skinny." she was, well, healthy. Okay, she was curvy.
He frowned. "What are you talking about? You're perfect. Now come out, so we can get this done."
She gave in, following him outside. "Fine, but if you get a hernia, don't blame the curse. It's your own darn fault."
He laughed and closed the door behind her. "I think that's highly unlikely. Ready?"
She took a deep breath. The afternoon sun washed over the house, making the white paint gleam. A rogue sunbeam hit the brass doorknob, giving her the strange feeling that the house, amused by the spectacle, was winking at her.
Great, just what she needed, a cursed house with a sense of humor.
"I'm ready," she said. After all, she couldn't let a building intimidate her, could she?
But Liam didn't move, his eyes were fixed on her. She glanced down surreptitiously, checking to make sure she didn't have duck sauce on her cream shirt. Nope, for once she hadn't smeared food on her clothes.
Then what the heck was he staring at?
The answer dawned on her slowly. He was staring at her. This was the kind of look a man gave to a woman he found attractive.
Scratch that. This was more than attraction. The heat in his gaze was unmistakable, and she felt herself blush in response. She hadn't expected this kind of attention.
"Liam?" she asked, her voice a bit shaky.
He blinked, coming out of his stupor. "Oh, sorry." He opened the front door then stepped toward her. "Ready?"
She tensed as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, then bent down. In a split second he'd hauled her up, making it look easy. She held her breath as he walked toward the house, holding her in his arms. She didn't dare breathe until he reached the foyer.
He set her down gently. "There we go."
A sudden feeling of joy swept through her. She took a shaky breath, feeling woozy. He steadied her, arms wrapped around her body. She could feel the rough fabric of his sports coat under her hands. He smelled like aftershave and soap, a clean, masculine smell. Was she trembling? Yep, she was. Her left hand, the one that now wore the filigree diamond ring, was shaking. A beam of sunlight hit the chandelier, blinding her.
"All done now," he said. Was it her imagination or was his voice a bit shaky too?
He straightened, his grip loosening around her, but she held on, compelled by a force she could not name. She felt curiously giddy, almost bubbly.
"No." The word seemed to come from far away, and it was a long moment before she realized she'd been the one who said it. "We still have one thing to do," the alien voice inside her continued, this time in a whisper.
She leaned forward, her hands still on his shoulders as if her body—with a will of its own—could not bear to break the contact. He bent down, looking confused.
The chandelier rained tiny beams of light, a magical mist of electric snowflakes that swirled around them as she kissed him, finally tasting the forbidden fruit she'd longed for all day long. The magical embrace seemed to go on forever.
Finally, Liam broke the kiss. He stared at her in confusion, then turned toward the still-open door.
"Did you hear that?" he asked. "It sounded like a car."
"What?" The kiss had left a warm afterglow that made it difficult to focus.
An oddly familiar noise reached her ears, an odd choking sound like a car motor dying a slow painful death. The metallic groan woke her up. The glutinously warm, happy feeling faded away, and she pulled away from Liam and ran toward the door.
A small yellowish-gray car was speeding down the road at an impressive speed. It was old, it was fast, and it was her car.
The house had carjacked her baby? How?
"I'm calling the police," Liam said, grabbing his phone.
Kat ran out of the house, racing after her vehicle and cursing under her breath. Not her car. Why did it have to be her car?
She watched in disbelief as the yellow hatchback braked and made a left turn onto Main Street, ignoring the frantic honking of the vehicles around it.
What the...?
She slowed down, unable to keep up her jog in the heels she was wearing. She turned and saw Liam's truck backing out of the driveway of the Hagen House. He was driving to pick her up.
The sun was setting and the oak trees cast a shadow over the building's facade. The house, which had seemed so welcoming a few minutes ago, now seemed dark and uninviting. Liam had left the lights on and the house seemed to glare balefully at her.
Kat glared back.
The stupid house had messed with her car. This wasn't a business arrangement anymore.
This was personal.
CHAPTER TEN
"THE CAR turned on by itself, Yolanda," Liam barked into the phone. "Then it drove down the street and turned onto Main Street. That doesn't exactly say 'curse-free house' now does it?"
He was in the guest bedroom, trying to get a straight answer from the santera. It was, like most of his interactions with Yolanda, a fruitless endeavor.
"Don't get your calzoncillos in a bunch, sweetie. The car is fine, isn't it? It drove straight to Virginia Vintage Motors, from what I understand. That means my protection spell worked. The secret is to use the salvia extrakt cultivar. You have to wear gloves, but it's worth it. It has a higher oil content, you know."
Liam's hand tightened around the phone. "No, I don't know. Nothing should have happened to the car. The curse is supposed to be broken."
"And it will be. It's just going to take a little time. A couple of pieces have to—"
"Will?" Liam interrupted. "That's the wrong verb tense. It's supposed to be gone already."
Yolanda gave an exasperated sigh. "It's a hundred years old, it's based on blood affinity, and it's been reinforced with more than a dozen deaths. Do you think this is a TV show? I can't just wave my hands and dismiss a malignant hex like that. It takes time."
"I don't have time. If something happens to Kat—"
"So your concern is for your bride?" Yolanda chuckled. "I see. Well, that is very reassuring."
"Reassuring? What does that even mean?"
"Don't worry. Everything is in place. The curse will be broken. Just don't freak out when—"
"When what?"
"Nothing." Yolanda's voice fairly dripped innocence. "Relax. Everything's under control. The house has fire alarms, right?"
"What? Of course it does. Fire and Rescue wouldn't give me an occupancy certificate without— Wait, why do you ask?"
"No reason. Gotta go. I'm babysitting Caine's owl and it needs to be fed. I'm trying quinoa nuggets today. It's going to love them. Have a good night."
She hung up, leaving his question unanswered. Useless. This was totally useless. He pulled up the security system app, and verified that the fire and smoke alarms were in working order. Everything looked fine.
He put the phone on the nightstand and connected it to the charger. There. He should go to sleep. He had a busy day tomorrow.
But he didn't feel like sleeping. Instead, he paced around the room. The guest bedroom bed looked inviting with its white down duvet and tasteful beige pillows, but he didn't think he could go to sleep. He was too wound up.
Was it the car thing? Yolanda was right, nothing had happened to Kat's hatchback. It had finished its wild ride at Virginia Vintage Motors, where Rafe had agreed to give it a thorough check-up.
The Banshee Creek natives had taken the self-driving car with their usual aplomb, but Kat had been bloody furious. She was very protective of her crappy little hatchback. She'd inherited it from her favorite uncle and she loved it to pieces.
That had taken more than an hour,
as Kat inspected the facilities, surveyed Rafe's inventory, and picked out new parts for her car, which was apparently a rare vintage Toyota. Who knew?
The Toyota would be none the worse for wear for its paranormal adventure. Rafe was fixing it up to look like new. He'd recommended she install his patented, ghost-proof, Polt-a-Free ignition safety, but that had not mollified Kat.
She was incensed.
The car thing was worrisome. No one had been harmed and Kat's precious vehicle hadn't even been scratched, but still, it shouldn't have happened. Hadn't their wedding broken the curse? Cars that drove by themselves were not a good omen.
But that wasn't what was worrying him right now. Inanimate objects that suddenly acquired ambulatory properties were not a rare sight in his hometown. No, his insomnia had a different cause.
Why had Kat kissed him?
The question had been swirling in his brain all evening. He hadn't been able to ask her, as they'd spent most of the evening chasing down her runaway car.
They'd come back to the house and fielded concerned phone calls from friends and neighbors. Holly asked Kat to come stay with her, but Kat turned her down. Zach and Patricia also offered her lodging, but she refused. After many solicitous phone calls, Kat fled to her room, claiming to be tired after all the excitement. He'd headed back downstairs in a dazed state, taken her bags out of his truck, and left them in front of the master bedroom door, relieved that he didn't have to face her after that kiss.
But the damage was done. And now he was royally screwed. He couldn't forget the feel of her soft body in his arms or how her lips had dragged across his, leaving him aching and needy. The sight of the plush bed—or the knowledge that Kat slept a few feet away—did not help.
What he needed was a change of scenery. He had a huge kitchen and family room. There were stools around the kitchen island and a game table with comfortable chairs. He could work there.
Far away from the temptress on the other side of the hall.
He grabbed his laptop computer and headed out the door.
At least the house looked good. He wondered if Kat liked the master suite. They'd joined two old bedrooms to create it, and the bathroom plumbing had taken them weeks, but it now had a luxurious spa-like shower, as well as all the closet space Kat's greedy little heart could desire. Apparently her Bronx studio could fit inside the walk-in closet. She'd been especially excited about the shower.
An image popped into his mind: a naked Kat rubbing suds over her skin while warm water coursed through her body. He propped the laptop on top of the kitchen island and forced himself to focus on his construction budget.
He crunched some numbers, crossed-out some figures—the draining figures were too low because, well, draining figures were always too low—and wrote down some notes for his assistant. There. The budget was finito.
Only one thing left to do.
He opened an old email, one with a detailed list of instructions and a signature line that read, Banshee Creek Botánica, Exorcisms Are Extra, and read through the list. Yolanda's instructions had been very specific. Had he missed anything?
Santelli heir? Check. Wedding? Check. Living under the same roof? Check. The house had been cleansed and purified and sanctified and who knew what else. It should be perfectly safe.
But was it? He remembered the kiss in the foyer. That had felt unnatural. Exciting, yes, but with a troubling hint of the paranormal to it.
But that must have been his imagination. They'd thought of everything. The curse should be broken. The house should be safe. Whatever haunted the house—be it the ghost of Violetta Santelli or just as Caine and his posse claimed, a legacy of blood and betrayal that left psychometric scars on the building—should be gone.
Resting, finally, in peace.
But he still had the feeling he was missing something important.
Maybe he was being silly. Yolanda often complained about people's desire for what she called "hocus pocus." According to the santera, dealing with the supernatural was as simple and ordinary as making a good stew or giving your kitchen floor a good cleaning. You got your ingredients, you followed the recipe, and you concentrated and did the best job you could.
No fireworks. No hand waving. No disappearing bunnies. Just good research and common sense.
Yolanda's no-nonsense approach to the paranormal had worked in the other properties he'd fixed. He'd buy a dilapidated structure with faulty wiring and a reputation for strange phenomena and fix up. Then he'd bring Yolanda to "clean" it up for resale. None of his buyers had ever complained.
Well, except for the tattoo artist who claimed to have a Japanese tanuki in his shop. Caine and Elizabeth, their local realtor, had tried in vain to convince him that even the fabled Banshee Creek mystical fault line wouldn't attract a badger spirit from the Far East. It was simply too far away. Mr. Tattoo Artist, however, strongly disagreed with this analysis and argued that the thing had traveled in an Irezumi tattoo machine he'd brought from Tokyo. Thankfully, Yolanda came up with a special rice and sake combo that, placed on the porch at regular intervals, seemed to satisfy the tanuki.
How did she do it? Research and common sense, she claimed.
If it worked with the tanuki, it should work with the Hagen House. They'd done a ton of research, Yolanda on the magic side and he on the historical side, to come up with a way to finally break the curse. The plan was solid, if a little convoluted. Finding the Santelli heir, for example, had taken months.
And he and Kat had already completed most of the steps. All they had to do now was live under the same roof for an indeterminate amount of time. Yolanda had been unwilling to give an exact date, so he'd asked Kat for a year, and she'd agreed. Her jewelry business was fairly portable and she was making a ton of money renting her Bronx apartment for the duration of her stay at Banshee Creek. They'd agreed to turn the conservatory into a jewelry studio, which apparently involved lots of tiny drawers and elf-sized welding equipment.
That reminded him of Yolanda's fire alarm comment and he made a note to purchase some extra fire extinguishers. It was worth it to make sure Kat was safe as well as happy. Hopefully, they would sell the house in less than a year. Six months would be good. Three months would be even better. The house was listed with Banshee Creek Realty and Elizabeth was marketing it aggressively, but was there anything else that could be done?
He stared at the screen, thinking hard.
The sound of footsteps broke his reverie. At first, he paid no attention to the sound—disembodied footsteps were a common occurrence in the Hagen House—but that changed once he remembered there was another human being in the house.
He turned and saw Kat standing behind him. She was dressed in green pajama pants and a loose white t-shirt. The pants bore the Jets logo and the shirt, he was almost sure, was Fruit of the Loom. It was an outfit carefully calculated to look as unappealing as possible, and it completely failed its purpose. She looked sexy as hell, with loose curls around her face and fluffy slippers on her feet.
The slippers also had a Jets logo, this time surrounded by tiny print that announced that "the Bronx was Jets country." Man, this girl really liked her borough.
"Sorry," he said, not feeling at all apologetic. "I didn't mean to wake you."
She glanced around the kitchen, a slight frown on her face. "You didn't wake me. I had a bad dream."
He added nightmares to the list of things that shouldn't be happening. If the curse was broken, then why was Kat having bad dreams?
"Was it about your car?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Nope." She took a glass from a cabinet and headed for the fridge. "It was about the house."
That sounded ominous. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not really."
A disturbing thought struck him. "Did it have anything to do with fire? Or malfunctioning smoke alarms?"
She gave him a confused frown. "No. It was a standard nightmare, cheap horror movie type stuff."
He win
ced. "Sorry about that. Yolanda said it may take a while to break the curse."
She stared at him through lowered lids. "That's not what you told me when you talked me into this silly caper."
"I guess I should've read the fine print."
She laughed. "Yes, you really should have."
Her laughter broke the tension between them, which was a relief. He'd been dreading this conversation. He'd led her to believe that the house would be completely safe. She had a right to be angry.
"So, cars and dreams," she said, counting them out on her fingers. "What else should I watch out for? Stairs? Baths?"
"The baths are okay. There have never been any manifestations in them. Yolanda says that this particular type of entity can't handle water. She likes electricity. The foyer chandelier is one of her favorites, as is that staircase."
"'Her' favorite? You mean Violetta?"
"Yes, she died in the foyer. Don't worry, we can use the servants' staircase until the curse dissipates."
"Oh, joy. The bedrooms are fine?"
"They should be. The Santellis never lived in this house, they just died here."
"Santellis plural?"
"Yes, Violetta's sister, Giulia, didn't survive. They said she died of grief when her sister passed."
"That's cheerful," Kat said, sounding distinctly uncheery.
"Do you think there's something wrong with your room?" he asked, trying to figure out how to reassure her. "You could pick a different one."
The question made her smile. Or maybe it was the icy cold water from the fridge dispenser. He couldn't tell.
"You mean with the Taj Mahal master suite?" She sipped her water and grinned. "The one with more marble than the Vatican? No, it's fine. I suspect this is something else."
"White marble sells," he replied, smiling. He really liked her sense of humor. "But I was referring to the bed. I can call the furniture rental company and get a replacement if you want."
Her eyes widened in alarm. "Oh, no. The bed's dreamy. I can't believe how soft those sheets are. I could sleep naked every night—" She stopped abruptly, a blush creeping over her cheeks. An awkward silence fell and Liam couldn't help visualizing Kat naked between the master bedroom's pristine white sheets.