A Girl, a Guy, and a Ghost

by Patricia Mason

  A Girl, A Guy and A Ghost

  By Patricia Mason

  (Copyright 2009, 2012)

  Table of Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  More from Patricia Mason

  Amazon Edition, Licensing Notes

  Chapter One

  It wasn’t easy hunting ghosts. Especially difficult with no psychic abilities. But coming to Savannah, Georgia should make the goal easy, right? Piece of cake? After all, hadn’t Savannah been voted America’s most haunted city by some parapsychology group? Spirits would probably be hanging from every tree like Spanish moss.

  Perfect, since Giselle Hunter had less than seventy-two hours to find a ghost. Less than three days to save her job.

  However, nothing was as she’d planned. The man sitting opposite her at an outdoor table in the café—her only lead on a haunting—continued to drone on without taking a breath. She could have sworn the grass had grown at least an inch in the nearby square since Giselle arrived, and the guy had said nothing of use.

  She had no time for this. Leaning forward, Giselle opened her mouth to speak. “Umm.”

  “I say to myself, I say, Victor—my name it is Victor then—you must create the unique way of painting, the new artistic.” The nasal voice, with a French accent, went on. “And I say to myself, the new artistic is so you. You are so new and so artistic.”

  Amazing that this guy could puff on a cigarette while sipping an espresso and still not pause long enough for Giselle to get a word in. He was short in stature. Shorter even than Giselle’s five foot five inches. Black hair, with a streak of white in the center, trailed down his back from a rubber band at the nape of his neck like a tail.

  This guy reminded her of someone, but who? Movie character? Cartoon character? Never mind, it would come to her.

  “My artistic, it is revolution. It is not impressionistic, it is not cubism, it is cross—”

  A hint of jasmine wafted on the warm evening breeze that drifted past Giselle as she perched on the edge of the wrought iron chair. The setting was perfectly serene amidst the picturesque historic antebellum row houses. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to take even a sip of the latté in front of her. No doubt it wouldn’t stay down. Her stomach churned.

  During her job interview, Giselle had assured Willie Sanders of Ghosthunter Magazine she was psychically talented. Her résumé touted extensive amateur ghost hunting experience. No need to explain this consisted of a childhood of watching Scooby Doo. Hey, a twenty-five-year-old English Lit major had to get a job any way she could. They were tough to come by, even with a college degree.

  Willie’s own psychic abilities must have been lacking at the time. Impressed with her embellished résumé, and curvy figure, he’d hired Giselle on the spot. Now Willie was threatening to fire her.

  It was so unfair. She’d only had two failed assignments since she was hired six months ago. They’d been small, really. Now these incidents were known around the magazine’s offices as the “Debacle in Denver” and the “Nuking of New Orleans”. How people loved to exaggerate. Just because that building in the French Quarter burned down. She hadn’t nuked it, for heaven’s sake.

  Unfair or not, either Giselle produced an article on an objectively verifiable haunting, with the obligatory travel information, by Monday at 6:00 p.m. or she was out of a job.

  “Bah, I say to the critic,” her ghost lead said. “They know nothing of the artistic talent.” His black eyes flashed. Nodding for emphasis set his skunk-like ponytail flapping.

  A mosquito landed on her knee. She smacked it, smashing the body into tiny bug parts intermingled with a smudge of blood. Scrubbing it away, she found a reddened bump emerging underneath. Fab.

  “The colors that I use in my artistic, I mix myself. I use the ingredient of nature.”

  “About your…”

  He spoke over her. “The other artiste, they are jaylouse. They wish they had the talent of this little finger.” He held up the allegedly talent-filled finger and thrust it into her face for inspection.

  “Yes, I see.” Catching a whiff of stale tobacco, she jerked her head back. “Very nice finger. But about your studio. I really want to know—”

  “This finger it paint the more bootiful than the other artiste here,” he said, waving the appendage. “This finger, it—”

  She closed her mouth again. Dammit. She’d be fired for sure. Giselle drummed her fingers on the side of the coffee cup then noticed a pattern in the drumming. Morse code. SOS.

  “And so then I change my name to Vector because it more unique and I am the unique artiste. And then I think I must use only one name. All the great artiste they use only one name. Da Vinci, Renoir, Picasso.”

  “Actually I think they each had two names.”

  “So I am Vector. Only Vector. I have no last name. Is that not unique?” He looked at her expectantly.

  Startled, she jumped in. “Oh, you’re unique. That’s for sure.”

  Vector beamed with pleasure at her response, not having detected the note of sarcasm in her voice. She had to do something to get this meeting on track.

  “This is all fascinating, but I’d like to talk about your ghost.”

  His eyes were more blank than mirrored sunglasses. Perhaps he didn’t understand the word. Giselle raked one hand through her auburn curls, struggling to recall the French word for ghost. Damn. Where was an English-French dictionary when she really needed it?

  Giselle plowed on. “The ghost, you know? The spirit in your studio?”

  His brows converged into one bushy brow. Confusion or constipation?

  “A haunted studio. A ghost?” Vector asked.

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait a minute. Now I’m getting confused. Are you saying that your studio is not haunted?” Giselle asked.

  Vector nodded. “I never see, I never hear. There is no ghost in studio.”

  “You didn’t come here to tell me about your ghost and take me to see it?”

  “No. I am here on date,” Vector said.

  The last word echoed in her mind. Mary Ellen had set her up on a blind date. Giselle had relied on her former college roommate to help her. Mary Ellen, a native Savannahian, had assured Giselle the Frenchman had a ghost. But no.

  Mary Ellen’s obsession with finding Giselle a perfect man had hit a new high…or low this time. Worse, how could Mary Ellen have imagined Giselle would make a love connection with this Vector guy?

  She would definitely kill her now-former best friend. Giselle made a mental list of the methods by which she could do the deed. Then she stopped herself. Killing her former friend would be too kind. Torture. Yes, that was it. Torture would stretch out Mary Ellen’s suffering.

  Tying Mary Ellen to her sofa and forcing her watch twenty-four hours of reality television might do it. The ones they have on that obscure cable channel. The show featuring the rap guy with the clock fetish. That would teach her. Or she could force-feed Mary Ellen spinach. No. Mary Ellen, the health nut, loved vegetables.

&nb
sp; “I am unique artiste. I paint only the self-portraits. I am painting what I know and I see myself every day. I paint what is interest, no?”

  No, definitely not. She pressed a finger to the sudden twitch at the corner of her right eye. Should she be rude and just announce the date was over, or should she be polite and make an excuse? Giselle opted for politeness.

  “Listen, Vector.” She rose to her feet, gathered up her purse, and prepared to leave the café. “I really need to get back to my hotel. I have to start work very early tomorrow. It was nice meeting you.”

  Was it really a lie if she was trying to be polite? She didn’t need to incur any bad karma right now.

  Vector stood up and the top of his head came level with her shoulder. Giselle turned away from him and started down the sidewalk. The skunk followed.

  “I walk you to hotel,” Vector said. “I am gentleman. But you understand if we are attacked, I do not protect you. I am artiste, not soldier.”

  Great.

  “Also, I am not attracted to you.” He shouted from behind her.

  The heads of café patrons at a nearby table swiveled. They probably wanted to see who was so unattractive. Super great.

  “Bien sûre, you are cute,” he continued on, following close on her heels. “You have curly red hair all around your face, and your eyes are blue like sky, but I see you are plump.”

  Plump? Size ten was so not plump. It was healthy. The little pipsqueak had gone too far now.

  “I expect the ballerina, you know, like the true Giselle.”

  Oh, this just got better and better. Insults from a guy who looked like a skunk. Politeness and karma implications be damned.

  “That’s it. I’m out of here.” Giselle moved faster along the sidewalk. The runt trotted just to keep up with her.

  “Hey,” the skunk yelled. “I go with you to your hotel. We can have sex. Sex would be okay.”

  Giselle turned her head. “Get away from me, you little jerk,” she shouted back at him as she ran forward.

  The skunk reached his right arm toward her. Giselle made a left turn to avoid his grasping fingers and slammed into a brick wall. At least that’s what it felt like. But then the brick wall fell backward. Giselle and the wall both tumbled, ending up prone on the sidewalk.

  Giselle looked down to see herself sprawled over a man, not a brick wall. And what a very hunky man. He had to be at least six feet in height. When standing, that is. Her yellow linen shift dress had hiked up and her knees now straddled his waist, the fabric of his jeans rough against the bare skin of her legs. Giselle felt the lean but hard muscle of his body. All very luscious, very male muscle.

  Giselle examined him with fascination. He couldn’t be more than thirty-five years old. Perfect age. Everyone knew men lagged ten years behind a woman in maturity. That made Giselle and the wall the same age.

  Could that wave in the shoulder-length blond hair splayed around his face be natural? The stranger could be an angel with that blond halo. A hokey thought, but she had probably hit her head in the fall. Hokey could be excused by concussion.

  The stranger’s lips were full and fully bitable. Around those lips and over his strong chin, she saw the barest hint of end-of-day stubble. And his nose. Oh baby, it was perfect. Pleasantly Roman but not too large. The nose was the most important body part on a man. Well, maybe not the most important.

  Next she noticed his eyes illuminated by the overhead streetlight. She couldn’t look away. They had to be the clearest, deepest green she’d ever seen. They were framed by lashes as long as any woman’s. But as his eyes stared upward, Giselle saw something odd. Glazed and lifeless.

  Omigod, had she killed the most scrumptious man she’d ever seen before she even knew his name?

  He moaned. Good, not dead, just injured.

  “What’s your name?” Giselle asked, sitting up.

  “What?” the blond angel croaked.

  Oh no. He had amnesia. He didn’t know his own name.

  Scanning his body, she saw that the stranger wore a white shirt over jeans. Maybe she should look through the pockets of his jeans for identification. Whoa, that might be fun. He filled them out well. She had to be honest. He filled them really well. It would be fun to search those pockets. But was it wrong to enjoy fishing around in the pockets of his jeans if the guy was injured? Oh, the ethical dilemma.

  As she considered the moral pros and cons, Mr. Scrumptious lifted a hand to feel the back of his head. His hand, with its long, tapered fingers, looked as perfect as the rest of him.

  Plus, he smelled wonderful. A mixture of sandalwood and musk. Giselle gasped in a ragged breath. She suddenly felt lightheaded. The vapors. Wasn’t that what they called a fit of sexual hysteria here in the South? The hard feel of him under her legs and his voice…

  Please God, don’t let him be gay.

  “How do you feel?”

  The stranger’s eyes cleared. “I’m okay.”

  Giselle just stared. Oh, that voice. Speak again, Mr. Scrumptious. A need for that voice filled her.

  “As much as I’m enjoying having you lay on top of me, I think we should get up,” he said, and the sound thrummed inside Giselle.

  His eyes darted down and then up to meet her eyes again.

  Did he just sneak a glance down her cleavage? Yes. Thank you, God. He’s not gay. Normally, Giselle wouldn’t be happy about a strange man ogling her breasts, but under the circumstances, who could blame a man for taking a look. In fact, Giselle decided his ogling was a very good sign. Perhaps she hadn’t injured him too badly. She wanted everything in working order on Mr. Scrumptious.

  The stranger’s bitable lips quirked into a half smile. His arms came up to grasp her on either side of her waist. Tingles zinged through her. “I think for us to get up, we have to move,” he said.

  “Oh yes. You’re right. I’m soooo sorry.” Giselle enjoyed one last feel of the muscular chest under her hands and the hardness of his legs under her bottom before she started to scramble up. His hands lingered on her waist then moved over her back. His fingers slipped down a bit over her hips and upper thighs before falling away.

  More zinging tingles. Biting her lip, Giselle suppressed a whimper.

  Need, hunger and ache…oh my!

  They each stood, brushing off. Giselle gazed up at the stranger with her best Princess Di impression and tried to appear coyly flirtatious. She opened her mouth to speak, but another voice intruded. A nasal voice with a French accent.

  “Monsieur, you are a bugger?”

  The stranger looked the skunk up and down. “I hope you mean mugger.” The stranger chuckled. He had a scrumptious laugh. Delicious, like fine liquor and just as heady.

  “Oui. A mugger. That is the word. You intend to attack us?”

  “Of course not,” Mr. Scrumptious sputtered through a chuckle.

  “Then I ask you to get away from my date.” The little skunk puffed up his chest.

  The stranger laughed again and turned to Giselle. “Are you with him?” He pointed at the skunk, his scrumptious eyebrow arched.

  “Definitely not. To the extent we’re in the vicinity of one another is strictly accidental.” Giselle waved at the skunk as if trying to shoo him away. Far, far away. Another galaxy would be too close.

  “You seem to be having a lot of accidents tonight,” Mr. Scrumptious remarked.

  “Well, some accidents are nicer than others.” She moved toward Mr. Scrumptious with a smile, placing herself between him and the skunk. Giselle couldn’t believe her boldness. In fact, she’d practically batted her eyelashes at Mr. Scrumptious. It had been a long time since she’d flirted so outrageously. Try never. Who was she kidding? She was dangerously close to jumping the man and having sex with him right here on the city sidewalk.

  The stranger smiled in return, revealing sexy, white teeth. He moved closer to her, placed a hand on her arm and opened his mouth to speak.

  The skunk came from behind Giselle. “You must unhand my date, Monsi
eur. She and I go back to the hotel to have the sex before you have interrupted.”

  Giselle saw stars. She almost lost consciousness and had to mentally slap herself before she could respond.

  “We are definitely not going to have sex. We were never going to have sex,” she assured Mr. Scrumptious with a hollow-sounding laugh. She rounded on the skunk. “Scrammez-vous. In case you don’t understand English, that means get lost.”

  “But you say you wish to see my ghost,” Vector said, eyes wide.

  Giselle’s mouth fell open. Her eye twitch began again.

  “I never said I wanted to see your ghost.” Her glance darted between the two men. “I did want to see your ghost ghost but not your ghost ghost.”

  Both men stared at her, confused. She glared at Vector.

  “I don’t know what you think the word ‘ghost’ means. But if you think it has something to do with sex, it obviously doesn’t mean what you think it means.” The timbre of her voice had gone up a few more octaves. If this little twerp didn’t shut up soon, only dogs would be able to hear her.

  The damage of the skunk had already been done. Like a light switch being flipped, the stranger just shut off. No more sexy smile. No more hand on her arm. He stepped back. Oh no.

  “It looks like we’re both uninjured. So I’ll be going.” The stranger turned on one heel and walked away. He had a magnificent behind.

  Giselle wanted to tell him to wait, to please come back. She sent her frantic thoughts flying toward him. Her psychic message, as usual, didn’t reach its target. But then how could she send psychic messages when she didn’t have ESP.

  Mr. Scrumptious and his magnificent behind just kept walking away. Giselle stared after him with longing until she could no longer see him in the distance.

  Giselle turned toward the skunk. Her hand itched to slap him. But given his size, she’d probably kill him. Well, so what if she did kill him? Surely, she’d be acquitted at any trial, particularly if there were women on the jury.

  Her gaze must have been as ferocious as her thoughts because the skunk shrunk back. He murmured something inaudible and scuttled away in the opposite direction taken by Mr. Scrumptious.

  Dammit. Could this night get any worse? She’d lost the hottest man on the planet. Giselle had never reacted to a man physically as she that stranger. Gone and without even finding out his name. Heck, she couldn’t even stalk him—not that she would, of course—without a name to go on. More important, her job was still in jeopardy. She glanced at her watch. Friday, 8:45 p.m. Soon her job would be as lost as Mr. Scrumptious.