Contents
Back Cover
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
How to Tame the Ghost Tycoon
Copyright and Disclaimer
Must Love Ghosts (A Banshee Creek Prequel)
Seducing the Rational Skeptic
Abby Reed believes in folk songs, faery tales, and ghosts, but she doesn't believe in love. She lost her soulmate when her fiancé died while deployed in Afghanistan, but she still has her music, her crazy ghost-filled town, and her pen-pal-slash-best-friend, Mike Stone. It's a good life and she's happy, but when Mike arrives in Banshee Creek after his last tour of duty in Afghanistan, Abby starts to have doubts, about music, ghosts and, most importantly...love.
Like a good soldier, Mike Stone follows the rules, and Rule #1 is: Don't Fall For Your Dead Buddy's Fiancée. His relationship with Abby has been strictly platonic, and will remain that way, if he has anything to say about it. But when he arrives in Banshee Creek, a town where the impossible is an everyday occurrence, he'll find out that sometimes rules are meant to be broken.
CHAPTER ONE
"WELL, I want you in my zombie apocalypse survival team."
Mike Stone turned. The owner of the throaty female voice, a tall girl with long magenta hair and strange clothes, glanced at his military fatigues appreciatively. Her eyes were yellow, with slit pupils, like a cat's.
He was standing on a cobblestone street surrounded by colonial buildings with brick façades and old-fashioned moldings. Baskets with chrysanthemum blooms hung from wrought iron lampposts and vintage signs adorned the quaint, if slightly run-down, shops. Banshee Creek, Virginia was the kind of town where the shop signs announced "Ye Olde Bake-Shoppe," and "Merrie Colonial Pubbe."
The magenta-haired girl in the black catsuit and sky-high heels looked decidedly incongruous. She blinked as the afternoon sun hit her on the face, and realization dawned. Contacts. She must be wearing contacts.
"That's a very realistic costume," she purred, her smile displaying plastic fangs. "Warm, too. I didn't realize it got so cold here in October. Next year, I'll put on a nice thick fur and come as a Siberian were-cat."
"Um, thanks," he replied. He didn't know how to tell her that it wasn't a costume. That he wasn't an aspiring zombie survivalist, just an ordinary soldier on leave.
"Here." She handed him an orange flyer with an elaborate flourish. "You're officially invited to the Banshee Creek Costume Party."
He grabbed the flimsy bit of paper. It screeched "Party Tonight!" in an exaggerated Gothic font.
"The Guinness Book of World Records people will be there," the cat girl explained, her feline eyes sparkling with excitement. "We're trying to make it the biggest Halloween costume party in history so make sure you register."
She winked at him, and turned to a spindly young man on stilts. He was wearing large grey wings and red-tinged goggles.
"Hey, Mothman," she shouted. "Great costume. We're really excited about the latest sighting." She waved an orange flyer. "Do you know where to register for the party?"
They walked off, leaving Mike behind. He looked at the throngs of people lining Main Street. He counted three Elves, eleven princesses, and a platoon of naughty nurses.
He'd forgotten it was Halloween.
More to the point, he'd forgotten it was Halloween in Banshee Creek, Virginia. The Fall Equinox was no laughing matter in the Most Haunted Town in the U.S.A.
Well, that accolade wasn't official yet, but his Army buddy, Cole Hunt, had been certain that his hometown would win the coveted title. Cole and his friends had been diligently documenting the local hauntings so as to convince the powers-that-be that their town could be the premier paranormal destination in the United States.
And Mike had heard all about their plans, ad nauseum infinitum, in fact. Cole stayed in touch with his Banshee Creek buddies all through his two-year deployment to Afghanistan. He'd supervised the investigations from afar and edited the documentaries in his free time. As a result, Mike had sat through endless hours of night-vision footage and had spent many days listening to static trying to discern what Cole described as "electronic voice phenomena."
Oh, yes. His friend had a plan. Cole intended to come back to Banshee Creek, marry his fiancée and turn the town into the ghost capital of the United States.
But Cole didn't get to come back.
He died in Afghanistan, and Mike, who had no plans, no family, and no home, survived.
The irony was inescapable. The guy with no future made it out alive, but the one with the plan, the one with the loving family, the one with the devoted girlfriend.
That guy didn't make it back home.
Mike hoisted his duffle bag, avoided a laughing foursome dressed in Star Trek uniforms, and walked up the cobblestone street. He didn't have a life plan like Cole, but right now he was a man on a mission, a mission to find 12 Hooded Owl Road, Banshee Creek, Virginia.
He looked down Main Street, assessing the town he'd heard so much about. Banshee Creek was laid out like a typical small Virginia village, with one main road lined with shops and Colonial row houses. An auto repair shop with a neon 1950's sign that read "Virginia Vintage Motors" sat on a corner. The shop's small parking lot was full of restored cars and a couple of kids in ghost costumes were taking pictures around a black 1967 Impala. The car was nice, but Mike's eyes kept drifting towards a late-model Jeep Wrangler with an elegant black paint job. Sure, it didn't qualify as "antique" or even "vintage," but it looked cool and the price was very affordable.
Which was probably due to the stagnant local economy. Most of the stores had "for sale" or "for rent" signs. Sheets of plywood covered the windows of the local bookstore. A small movie theater held pride of place in the center of town, but its marquee was broken and the last movie featured seemed to be Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Yet there were a few signs of life. A real estate sign in front of a dilapidated mansion with the sloping roof of a stereotypical haunted house had a sold sticker. The row houses had small gardens in front, many of them covered with weeds, but an enterprising soul had put out planters with purple and orange flowers in an attempt to spruce up the sidewalk.
And the town still attracted visitors, in spite of its ramshackle state. The streets were full of costumed partygoers and a couple of businesses, including a pizzeria and a bakery, were busy with customers. The hardware store had a table in front filled with Halloween paraphernalia and the glowing red goggles worn by the—what was the name, again?—Mothman, that's it. The Mothman goggles seemed to be quite popular. A bunch of kids in black capes were trying them on and taking pictures. The crisp fall air carried the scent of apples and cinnamon and he experienced a sudden craving for cider and...candy corn?
Back in Afghanistan, Cole's plan to paranormalize his hometown sounded silly and far-fetched. But here in Banshee Creek it was starting to make sense.
"Looking for a haunted house?"
A
teenage boy in jeans and a yellow t-shirt with a large letter X handed him a piece of paper. Curiosity piqued, Mike took it, carefully avoiding the kid's makeshift metal claws.
It was a homemade map, made by someone with a talent for drawing and an excessive fondness for horror movie fonts. The title was "Banshee Creek's Haunted Houses" and there was something very familiar about the style of the illustrations.
He identified Main Street and the Scooby-Doo house, but what was that strange dark line that crisscrossed the town? A river? Railroad tracks? He squinted at the complicated script, making out the words "geomagnetic fault." Upon closer inspection he realized that several of the buildings were marked with cartoon ghost symbols. He turned the paper to read the map legend, which described the various ghosts and other critters that supposedly infested the town. One of them identified as a brownie, but wasn't that a dessert? Or a uniformed child that sold cookies? At the bottom of the page there was a hand drawn copyright symbol and the author's name.
Cole Hunt.
He quickly looked away from the name, and focused on the map, tracing the streets with a finger. There it was, right off Main Street, Hooded Owl Road. According to the map, number 12 was two blocks down, turn left, and keep going.
He hiked up his duffle and walked down the street. The sooner he got this done, the sooner he could get back to his life.
Except he didn't have much of a life right now. He had no family, his closest contacts were now scattered across the country, and his best friend was dead. But he had a fancy new title and, thanks to his commanding officers, a new assignment at the Pentagon. He was going to find an apartment in Arlington, get settled, and...
Things got hazy after that. Maybe he'd get a motorcycle...and a girlfriend, definitely a girlfriend, a smart girl, with a nice smile, maybe a blonde or a redhead.
An image popped into his head and he shoved it away. Not a brunette. And absolutely not a brunette with warm brown eyes, freckles on her nose, and the voice of an angel.
So, the plan was simple—job, apartment, motorcycle, girlfriend. It wasn't as interesting as Cole's plan, that's for sure, but it gave Mike direction, a sense of purpose. He liked that.
Job, apartment, motorcycle, girlfriend, but first, there was 12 Hooded Owl Road.
He crossed Main Street, walking towards a battered white bungalow with a large Argentinean flag and a dilapidated neon sign that read, strangely, "F anco Pizza." He squinted at the sign. No, the letter r was defective, and, when it flickered on, the sign actually said "Franco Pizza." The pizza smelled pretty good though. Maybe he'd have a slice after completing his mission.
The house at 12 Hooded Owl Road was an attractive Victorian house, with a small porch, white gingerbread trim and green fish scale shingles. It was old, but well kept, looking a bit like a dignified elderly mermaid. A small pot of yellow flowers sat on the steps.
Mike smiled. The house was bright and colorful.
Just like its owner.
He shook the thought out of his head. He didn't want to think about the owner of the house. He was going to knock on the door, make his delivery and leave Banshee Creek.
He walked toward the house, but, as he reached the porch, he noticed a group of people walking down the street. The leader of the group was a tall, redheaded man dressed in jeans and a biker's vest. His companions were all similarly attired in stereotypical biker gear.
Mike tensed. Two guys from his last unit belonged to motorcycles clubs, and he was very familiar with the subculture. These guys weren't wearing costumes, although the biker wear featured a couple of unusual decorative touches, like tentacles, UFOs, and several "trust no one" tattoos in typewriter font.
The bikers were teasing a young man with an arm in a cast who was dressed in plain jeans and a t-shirt and did not seem to be part of the gang. At least, Mike had yet to meet a biker who'd wear a Berklee School of Music t-shirt.
One of the bikers slapped the musician in the back, and the young man stumbled.
Mike's eyes narrowed, his body tensed and he felt a sudden adrenaline rush. He automatically noted the number of bikers, assessed their strategic positions and evaluated the situation's potential for violence.
But the young man just laughed and made a rude hand gesture. The bikers returned the gesture with a couple of catcalls, and then kept walking towards Main Street chatting and laughing.
Mike relaxed, relieved to find he'd misjudged the situation, and gave himself a good scolding. This was ridiculous. He had to leave his war-zone reflexes behind, this was small town Virginia not Afghanistan. But he turned back to the house and immediately tensed.
A willowy girl was locking the door. She was tall and slender with medium-length brown hair, styled to curl at the ends in an old-fashioned way.
Mike wasn't looking at her hair though. He was looking at her costume, a skin-tight black leather cat suit that outlined every single curve. His fists clenched and he swallowed hard. He tried to walk towards the house, but his feet wouldn't move.
He couldn't bring himself to approach her.
He'd faced enemy fire, ambushes, and IEDs. He'd trained himself to overcome his fears. He'd walked through nightmares and survived.
But he couldn't bring himself to face this girl.
Time to retreat and regroup. He'd continue on his way to Arlington and figure out a different way to make his delivery. Maybe he could hire a courier, or a parcel delivery service.
A group of costumed partygoers blocked his way as he turned to walk away. He tried to push his way through what appeared to be a werewolf punk rock band, but had to swerve to avoid the fur-bedecked subwoofers.
"Mike?" The throaty, sexy voice was unmistakable. "Is that you?"
There was no fighting the siren appeal of that voice. He sighed in resignation and turned.
The girl ran down the steps of her house and her smile was as enthralling as her voice. Mike forced himself to smile back as he greeted the girl he'd loved for the past five years.
Abby Reed. Singer, songwriter, enchantress.
And his dead friend's fiancée.
CHAPTER TWO
ABBY COULDN'T believe it. Mike Stone? In Banshee Creek?
But there he was, in the flesh. He looked quite solid and real, dressed in military fatigues with an olive-colored duffle bag and buzz cut. He also looked hesitant, but that was to be expected. Mike was a decorated military officer with many hours of combat under his belt, but he often had a confused look on his face when he was around her, like he'd just suffered a mortar attack.
She blamed it on the culture shock. Mike was a straight arrow kind of guy, the Captain America type who drank whole milk and folded his underwear. How he'd managed to befriend Cole, who'd never met a crazy idea he didn't love, was a mystery.
But who cared? He was in Banshee Creek. Alive.
She smiled, threw her arms around her friend's neck, and kissed him on the cheek. She was so happy to see him again, she felt her heart would burst.
Sometimes people didn't come back. She knew that very well.
She felt him flinch and pull back, and she let go hastily. She shouldn't be so effusive, she told herself. She knew how he was.
But she couldn't help but smile as she stepped back and looked at him. Same old Mike, six feet of pure muscle with blond hair cut ridiculously short, a strong jaw, and clear blue eyes. He was the prototypical American good guy, down to the trail of freckles over his nose.
Something inside her ached as she looked at him, and she realized with a pang that she hadn't expected to see him again.
She pushed the thought away and focused on his face. There were shadows under his eyes, and he looked tired. No, he looked drained, as if he'd used every last reserve getting here.
But, hey, he got back didn't he?
"Are you crying?" Mike asked, alarmed.
"Am not," she sniffled. Okay, maybe there was a teeny bit of moisture, but, really, it was nothing. "It's the fake eyelashes. They make my eyes water."
"It's part of the costume," she explained, striking a pose with legs spread, holding an invisible gun in her hand. "What do you think?"
"Uh." His eyes seemed glued to the plunging neckline of the leather cat suit, which was surprising. As far as she knew, Mike didn't even know she was female.
She waved her invisible gun, grinning. "Eyes up here, Sergeant."
He looked up instantly and she fought down a giggle. Was he blushing? He was. He also seemed confused. He looked at her hands, her boots, her hair, desperately trying to find a safe place to focus on. The costume, she had to admit, didn't offer many. He finally decided to stare at her hair.
"Who are you supposed to be?" he asked in a cautious tone.
"Are you kidding me?" She shook her head in faux despair. "Sometimes I forget that you're culturally illiterate." She struck another pose and winked. "The name is Peel. Mrs. Emma Peel."
He stared at her, uncomprehendingly.
"You know?" She flipped her hair, trying to jog his memory. "From the Avengers?"
Comprehension dawned.
"Oh, I see," he said, brightening. "The Black Widow girl, er, woman."
She widened her eyes in mock horror.
"Not those Avengers," she clarified. "The real ones."
He looked confused. Poor guy, he desperately needed to expand his horizons. Well, he'd come to the right place. She grabbed his arm and led him to her house. This called for an intervention.
"Don't worry," she said. "I have all the DVDs with bonus commentary. Give me a couple of days and you'll be drinking tea and talking with a British accent."
He laughed, the shadows lifting from his eyes. It was his old laugh, a deep chuckle that made his eyes crinkle, and it made her smile. Sure, they text messaged and Skyped and she'd sent him a bunch of care packages full of paperback mystery novels and those weird health bars he liked, but that clearly wasn't enough. He needed some R&R, and a couple of days in Banshee Creek would help take away the exhausted look on his face.
Must Love Ghosts (Banshee Creek Book 1) Page 1