Ghosts of Boyfriends Past

by Vivi Andrews

  “Nah. That’s kid stuff,” the geriatric ten-year-old declared.

  “I don’t know,” Mark said, “if you don’t look for the magic, you might miss out on all the good stuff. See that lady over there?” He pointed to Biz and she blushed—apparently not as well hidden as she’d thought. “She put a spell on me.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  Biz slipped away, leaving Mark to deal with that challenging philosophical denial on his own. Seeing the rabbit’s foot charm display had been picked over, she ducked into the storeroom to grab a few more.

  Stretching for the box on the top shelf, she waited for Tony to push it toward her or float it over her head to the ground, but nothing happened. The same nothing that had been happening ever since Valentine’s Day. Paul, Tony and Gabriel were really gone. But then, that was how it was with death. She’d just managed to delay losing them a while.

  If she was honest with herself, she missed the ghosts almost as much as the men they’d been. Almost. But her heart was considerably lighter now that they’d found peace.

  Sadly, Curtis had followed them—but on his own schedule, April 5th. He was missed around town, where he’d become part of the Parish family during his final days.

  Biz went up on her tiptoes, reaching again for that top shelf. She either needed to grow three inches or get a step stool in here. No more relying on ghostly intervention.

  A pair of real, strong arms came around her from behind, grabbing the box and guiding it down to her hands. Atlas arms. Biz set the box down and turned, wrapping her arms around Mark’s waist. She just couldn’t seem to get enough of touching him.

  “I’ve put a spell on you, have I?” she asked with a cheeky grin.

  “Yeah.” He brushed a kiss across her lips. “And now you’re mine.”

  Biz closed her eyes and melted into the next kiss.

  It was him who’d shown her what love was and given her the courage to take that risk, him who’d broken the spell she was trapped under, but she didn’t tell him he was the one with the real magic.

  The cocky punk had enough of an ego already.

  About the Author

  Vivi Andrews lives in Alaska when she isn’t indulging her travel addiction. She’s currently hard at work on her next paranormal romance. For more about her books or the exploits of a nomadic author, please visit her website at www.viviandrews.com or stop by her blog at viviandrews.blogspot.com. Vivi also loves to hear from readers and invites you to email her at vivi@viviandrews.com.

  Look for these titles by Vivi Andrews

  Now Available:

  Karmic Consultants

  The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant

  The Ghost Exterminator: A Love Story

  The Sexorcist

  The Naked Detective

  A Cop and a Feel

  Serengeti Shifters

  Serengeti Heat

  Serengeti Storm

  Serengeti Lightning

  Serengeti Sunrise

  Reawakening Eden

  He’s going to be the love of her life…if they survive the night.

  A Cop and a Feel

  © 2011 Vivi Andrews

  Karmic Consultants, Book 5

  With a single touch, Ronna Mitchell can catch stolen glimpses of the future and separate truth from lies. But life as a human polygraph machine can be lonely. Craving human contact, she moonlights as a palm reader whenever a carnival comes to town.

  Officer Matt Holloway is intent on trailing a hit man when he ducks into a palm reader’s booth to avoid being spotted by his quarry. The beguiling Jamaican fortune teller is definitely intriguing, but she’ll have to wait. He’s close on the assassin’s tail.

  When Ronna takes his hand, a startling vision of the future flashes in her mind’s eye. Matt isn’t a typical client, he’s The One. Before she has the chance to introduce herself as the mother of his unborn children, he’s gone, leaving her with a terrifying vision of her soul mate covered in blood. And dead certain she’s the only one who can save her happily ever after.

  Warning: This book contains carnies, cops, chases, chance encounters and love at first touch.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for A Cop and a Feel:

  Ronna’s panic level reached a new high when Matt’s sandy head disappeared around the back of the Ferris wheel. The image of the gears of the Ferris wheel splattered with blood replayed vividly in her mind’s eye. The crowds swarmed around her, and her heart thudded loudly in her ears. He was going to be killed, and she couldn’t get to him.

  Why were there so many people at the damn carnival? And why were they all moving at an excruciating shuffle pace? Didn’t they realize while they plodded along forming the impenetrable mass of a human herd, the man she was meant to spend the rest of her life with, who was going to give her adorable green-eyed babies and make her laugh until she was ninety-two and too senile to get his jokes anymore, was in peril at this very moment behind the Ferris wheel? So why they the hell weren’t they moving faster?

  Ronna pushed her way through the wall of bodies, too afraid of what might be happening to Matt to toss off apologies as people around her protested her shoving and stomping on feet.

  She had to get to him.

  Not that she’d be much help if she did. Touch-reading was hardly a super-power capable of stopping a speeding bullet, but she was sure she could save him if she was just there with him. He was the love of her life, or at least he would be, and she wasn’t about to let some carnie thug off him behind the Ferris wheel.

  A pocket opened up in the crowd between her and the Ferris wheel, and Ronna sprinted forward, running full tilt around the side of the ride and into the heavy shadows behind it, half expecting to stumble over Matt’s lifeless form. In the moment it took for her eyes to adjust to the relative darkness after the spinning strobes of the carnival, she tried to remember how to breathe, gulping in oxygen. She squinted into the dark, one hand pressed over her drumming heart as a figure materialized out of the shadows in front of her.

  “Matt!”

  Thank God. Ronna took two running steps forward.

  The man in front of her turned toward her. Something was wrong. Ronna slammed on the brakes, her sandals skidding on the sticky asphalt. The form in front of her was too heavyset to be the tall, lean Officer Holloway.

  “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I thought I saw someone come back here.”

  As soon as the words left her lips, Ronna could have kicked herself. He was probably a Ferris wheel operator. If he found Matt skulking back here, the future love of her life would get in trouble with the carnival operators. Which was better than his blood splashing all over the gears, but still…

  “You know, I didn’t see anyone,” Ronna said quickly. A second figure shifted in the shadows to her left. She knew him as soon as he moved. Matt. He was okay. Hiding, which, yeah, was kinda weird, but totally okay. She’d been panicking over nothing. “Nobody here!” she sing-songed to the shadow man, bypassing subtle and going straight to obnoxiously Cinderella-cheerful. “Nobody at all.”

  She tossed the shadowy Ferris wheel operator a loopy smile. He didn’t say much for a carnie. She still couldn’t make him out, but he didn’t seem familiar. She spent most of her time at the carnival in her booth, but she knew most of the regular operators at least on sight.

  He reached toward her, waving something metallic, and Ronna’s vision from Matt’s touch replayed in her mind.

  Oh crap, is that a gun?

  “Get down!”

  The shout came from her left. Matt surged into the open, a gun of his own braced between his hands. Ronna didn’t think. And she didn’t obey. In that split second in the shadow of the Ferris wheel with two armed-and-dangerous men, she couldn’t see anything past the nightmare vision in her mind of Matt’s gorgeous eyes, wide with horror and shock, in a face sprayed with blood. She dove toward him, slamming him to the ground in a tackle worthy of an NFL All Star. The spit of a silencer a
nd the answering deafening report of an unsilenced gun split the shadows.

  Matt grunted as he hit the ground and her weight hit him. Footsteps pounded the dirt nearby, and he rolled, pinning her protectively beneath his body as he twisted to scan the darkness around them, his gun trained on the spot where the gunman had stood.

  The shadows were empty of crazy gun-wielding Ferris wheel operators now, but Matt’s body didn’t relax. He stayed tense above her.

  Tense and whole. He’s alive.

  There wasn’t any moisture where her front was pressed against his, no gushing fluids to indicate excessive bleeding from a mortal wound, but she ran her hands over his torso just to be safe, checking for bullet holes. When her hands hampered his range of movement with the gun he was still pointing into the darker shadows, he knocked them out of his way.

  “Lie still,” he snapped, clearly not appreciating her life-saving tackle or her continued concern for his well-being. He dug into his pocket, shifting his weight so he wasn’t pressing her down into the filthy ground, but still shielding her as he lifted his cell phone, punched a number in with his thumb and pressed it to his ear, never taking his eyes off the shadows or lowering his gun.

  She was close enough to hear the bleeping tone of a dropped call.

  Matt swore and dialed again, snarling another obscenity when the call failed a second time. “Is it too much to ask for a fucking signal?”

  Ronna couldn’t make herself care about crappy cell providers. “You’re alive.”

  “Of course I’m alive. You could have gotten yourself killed. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I saved your life,” Ronna explained patiently. “I ruined his shot.”

  “You ruined my shot.” Matt shoved his phone back into his pocket. “Not to mention my chances of getting a permanent spot on the task force. Damn it.” He rose to a crouch, still alertly surveying the area.

  Ronna sat up as well, taking stock of her now-filthy Madame Ramona getup. There was no fabric on earth capable of withstanding being ground into popcorn, cotton-candy residue and Ferris wheel grease and coming out unscathed. Her entire outfit would have to be burned when she got home to avoid contaminating the rest of her closet.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing back here?” Matt straightened and helped her—none too gently—to her feet.

  He would probably react badly if she told him she had envisioned his death and followed him out of her booth to protect him from a horrific Ferris wheel-related death. He didn’t seem to be in a very receptive mood.

  Magick made him human. Only love can keep him that way.

  Uncross My Heart

  © 2011 Jennifer Colgan

  After a century of living la vida muerta, Julian Devlin’s closest ally casts a de-vamping spell that leaves him defanged and demoted from his hard-won place in Baltimore’s vampire hierarchy. Disoriented by his transformation, he can’t even find his way home.

  The indignities don’t end there. Before he can explain to the quirky consignment shop owner why he’s hiding in her basement, she’s punched the newly re-acquired breath out of him and smacked him upside the head with her knock-off purse.

  Zoe Boyd’s scream could have peeled paint from the walls—if she could get her heart out of her throat. Common thugs aren’t supposed to have a smile so panty-melting that she finds herself apologizing for scaring him.

  She’s also too busy managing her friends’ love lives to take on an ex-vampire with revamping and revenge on his mind. Until she guides him home and ends up neck deep in his world of trouble.

  As Zoe risks her life to give him back his death, she warms the soul Julian never thought he’d own again. And when he tracks down a devilish witch who can reverse the spell, immortality without Zoe suddenly seems like cold comfort…

  Warning: This novel contains sensual love scenes between a fashion-forward hero and a fashion-unconscious heroine, abuse of Italian loafers, and a few love bites. Don’t worry, freshly sharpened fangs don’t hurt. Much…

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Uncross My Heart:

  “Don’t scream. I won’t hurt you.” Julian dropped his hand from Zoe’s lips and backed away from her bed, hands up, his movements deliberately slow and non-threatening.

  In the blue neon glow of her bedside alarm clock, her pale skin looked like alabaster, and her eyes were huge and terrified. Clutching a thin blanket to her chest, she scrambled to a sitting position amid the tumble of pillows that populated her bed. “How did you get in here? Are you insane? What if I kept a knife under my pillow or something?”

  “You don’t. I checked.”

  She squeaked in indignation. “You broke into my house.”

  “No. I let myself in with your spare key, which you obviously put back right where you got it from after we came in before. You know, you’re asking to be murdered in your sleep, or worse. It amazes me that a girl as trusting as you is still alive.”

  “You weren’t supposed to look.”

  “I looked. Sue me.” He shrugged. This had all been too easy. He’d probably be doing her a favor by draining her dry as soon as he transformed back. This blonde gypsy belonged in another era, a simpler time when people left their doors unlocked and everyone knew their neighbors. Either that or she needed a body guard twenty-four/seven.

  “What are you doing back here? Didn’t you find someone to help you?”

  He sighed. A lie would be easy, even if it did little to preserve the mere shred of dignity he had left. “It’s almost dawn. I needed someplace to go before sunrise, and I was kicked out of the bus station. They don’t allow people to sleep there anymore, I discovered.” Truth was, she was the only trustworthy soul he could find at this hour.

  She blinked at him. “Sunrise? Um…humans can go out in the daylight. Or have you been revamped already?” One delicate hand slid toward her slender throat. Julian watched the subtle movement with a mixture of amusement and—dear God—arousal.

  She’d traded her peasant blouse for a thin-strapped tank top. Clingy and white, it contrasted with her honeyed skin and did little to hide the sumptuous curves of her breasts, now peaked with taut nipples. Gooseflesh stood out on her bare arms. He wondered if she might be considering the possibility that he would lower his lips to her neck and drink…

  He blinked away the traitorous thoughts. “No. I’m still human.” He laughed. “I guess I’m so conditioned to avoid sunlight that it never occurred to me. Nevertheless, I need a place to sleep for a little while. I don’t have enough cash to go to a hotel, and if I use my credit cards, I could be leading Lambert right to me.”

  “Vampires have credit cards?”

  “We’re undead, not Amish. How else would one purchase Gucci loafers?”

  Warm yellow light illuminated her skeptical gaze when she switched on the bedside lamp. “Okay, silly question. I admit it, but give me a break. It’s four fifty-nine a.m., and I just woke up with a man’s hand over my mouth. You’re lucky I didn’t bite you.”

  He let his gaze roam her half-hidden curves again. She’d be lucky if he didn’t bite her one way or another. “I apologize for sneaking in… Something I would not have been able to do if you had an ounce of common sense.” He tossed the spare key to her, and just as he’d hoped, she let go of her death grip on the blanket to catch it.

  Delicious. He’d have climbed into the bed with her if he hadn’t been so desperate to keep her trust for just a little longer. He needed this girl. And he hated needing her. “Do yourself a favor and hide that somewhere else. Better yet, give it to your boyfriend for safe keeping.”

  “I told you, he’s not my boyfriend.”

  Good. The thought crossed his mind unbidden, and he squashed it. “Can I borrow your couch? Just for a few hours?”

  Her lips quivered a bit before she responded. “Sure. I’ll get you a pillow and a blanket.”

  “No need to treat me like a guest.”

  “But you are one.” She rose, and Julian’s gaze t
raveled up and down her bare legs, pausing only briefly at the still red scrapes on her knees. She’d hurt herself running from him and, for some inexplicable reason, he regretted that. He shook off the unproductive thought and took inventory of the rest of her outfit.

  Tiny panties rode low on her hips, leaving a band of naked skin beneath the hem of her skimpy top. Ah. The twenty-first century had so many advantages over the nineteenth. Each decade, it seemed women became less inhibited about their bodies. It made being immortal so much fun.

  She moved unselfconsciously now, and Julian followed her into the living room. When she bent over to retrieve a blanket and pillow from within the square hassock, he stifled an appreciative sigh.

  She tossed the items at him while he debated sinking his very human teeth into one creamy inner thigh. “Put your eyes back in your head, Romeo. I already told you, I’m nobody’s entrée. Now, go. Sleep. I’m going back to bed in my room behind a door that locks, and there’s no spare key above the frame, so don’t get any ideas. If you’re still here in the morning—the actual morning—I’ll think about cooking you breakfast, and we’ll talk about getting you a decent place to stay until your house is fixed, okay?”

  He stared for a full second, dumbfounded by her. One bite. Just one bite was all he wanted. “Okay.”

  She disappeared into the bedroom then, shutting the door firmly on any further comment or fantasy on his part.

  Disappointed but still oddly amused, Julian made himself comfortable on her couch.

  Zoe’s heart thundered in her shamelessly exposed chest. She’d just been parading around in her underwear in front of a lunatic—a drop-dead gorgeous lunatic—who’d stolen into her bedroom in the middle of the night.

  Her face burned with shame and something else. He’d been looking, and she’d enjoyed letting him look.