“That’s all you got?” Charlie looked at her manicure—or, rather, lack of—and raised a brow.
“You should be scared.”
“Not of you. Not ever.” It seemed like a good time to lie. No matter how much her insides wanted to scream. She would be damned if she would let him see her fear. She bit the inside of her mouth.
He closed the already small gap between them and stood so close she could feel his incorporeal presence inside and outside her body.
“Bring it on, bad boy. Bring it on.”
“I deserve my sweet revenge, and messing with you will be my way to get it.”
“Go ahead. Say boo, rattle chains, and do that fun fiery thing with your eyes again. Show me what you got. I’m not scared of you.”
Charlie held his stare and felt a flutter in her heart. Their eyes locked and the chemistry between them transformed from anger, to intrigue, to something else. If he were human, she would call it desire—raw, hot desire—but . . .
She broke the moment. “You’re a ghost.”
Rufus laughed. “You just noticed?”
“Look, I don’t know what this is.” She pointed at him and then herself.
“Babe, it’s heat. Why deny it?” He blew air towards her face, ruffling her shiny black hair in a playful way.
“Well, Babe, I ain’t into dead men.”
“Maybe you should try one. You might change your mind.” A bad-boy grin lit his face with mischief.
Now she felt flustered. Totally flustered. Down to her toes flustered. The kind of flustered a woman expects to feel when she meets the one. But, for heaven’s sakes, the guy was stone-cold dead. She swallowed. “I’m going to talk to your sister. Maybe she can talk some sense into you. You’ve got to stop haunting my brother.” She stomped out of the room and slammed the office door.
Standing alone in the living room she gave herself a mental kick in the head. Now what, Einstein.? You’ve walked out of your own bedroom.
As she pondered her next move, Rufus flew by her. He stopped at the front door and blew her a kiss. Then he went through the door. Seriously, through the door.
Hell’s bells. She was no longer in Kansas.
5
The Hanged Man
“Karma’s a bitch.” Azalea
The next morning Charlie returned to the teahouse determined to get help from Azalea. She gritted her teeth as she climbed the old stairs. No way on earth would she let ghosts scare her away from her mission to save her brother. She had checked her tarot cards that morning and they assured her she had the power of the universe behind her. She just wished her heart was as confident as the bloody cards. Standing in front of the entrance she lifted her fist.
The door opened before she knocked. A small voice inside her whispered, “You could go home now.”
As she stepped across the threshold, the icy chill of the dead crawled up her spine. Did the temperature just drop like in a hundred horror movies? This was not a feeling she wanted to get used to.
Swallowing her fear, she assessed the room, trying to gather an objective sense of the place, as if she were a video recorder and not a frightened human. Put the ghosts aside, she told herself. It’s just a house made of wood.Yeah right. Everything about the house whispered magic, from its mysteriously opening doors, to its flickering light system . . . to its resident black cat that slithered into the room to greet her with its tail held high.
Cinnamon and fresh baking smells floated from the back, but their sweetness could not mask the old-and-haunted stink wrapping tightly around her senses like linen strips around a mummy, making her nose twitch. She swallowed a second time, but the fear would not go down. It’s just a house. It’s just a house.
A young woman appeared in front of her with black-penciled eyebrows arched so high they threatened to disappear into her hairline. “Oh, great, it’s the poster lady.”
Charlie fought back a smile. The woman looked to be twenty-five. Slender, but solid. Her ebony hair had been pulled into a classic, braided bun and she wore black. Boy, did she wear black. Black everything. Charlie couldn’t help but stare for at least ten seconds too long to be nice. A Goth wearing a French maid’s outfit? In a haunted house. Okay.What next?
The young woman gave her a bored look, chilly enough to raise a vampire. Did she practice it, or did it come naturally? Her black lips were a piece of art. Rising from the right edge of her mouth, delicate, black seagulls looked as if they took flight on her cheek. It made Charlie stare. The hostess’s stone-cold stare was truly chilling. She had gray eyes harder than granite, surrounded by black make-up that made them look deader than the ghosts Charlie had met the night before. As silence fell awkwardly between them the Goth gal squinted.
Charlie answered her expression with as tough a smirk as she could conjure up the morning after dealing with ghosts.
After a few seconds of challenging stares, the younger woman spoke. “Did you run out of duct tape?”
Charlie couldn’t help but smile. “No. I . . .”
“My name’s Joy. Welcome to the house of the rising dead.”
Charlie laughed. “Good one.”
The Goth raised a dark brow. “So, what are you looking for? A long lost relative? A winning lottery ticket? A hot guy? What’s your thing, Poster Woman?”
Charlie moved closer. “I’m here to talk to Azalea.”
Joy’s mouth quirked into a lopsided grin, and she yelled over her shoulder, “Auntie, you got a visitor. A live one.”
Charlie looked around at the faded pink wallpaper that enveloped the reception area and the small gathering of gray-haired women chatting in the corner with hushed voices. Sunlight poured into the room through spotless bay windows, adding surrealistic warmth to the chilling decor.
“The house doesn’t bite,” said Joy, and added in a quieter voice, “but the inmates do.” She winked
Charlie gave her a confident smile. “Good one.” But Joy’s warning had hit a nerve—or more like two hundred—and a shiver stole up her spine. It’s just a house, she reminded herself. Just a house.
Joy saluted her, and walked over to the first tea room.
I could leave. No one would even notice. No harm. No foul. It would be for the best if she simply forgot she had ever tried to take on a ghost biker. She could leave town right now and never look back, never remember she had found herself inside a haunted teahouse. She could.
“Things didn’t work out with Rufus last night?” Azalea’s voice broke through her reverie. The woman appeared out of nowhere.
“Not exactly.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Men, dead or alive, can be so much trouble.”
Charlie couldn’t argue with that. “Are they worse when they’re dead?”
Azalea exhaled noisily. It sounded like a snort. “We need to talk in private. Come with me to Lilith’s room”
Charlie followed her into the second tea room and sat in the chair opposite her at a table in the middle.
“Would you care for a cup of tea?”
“Lady, I didn’t come here for tea, though it’s nice of you to offer. I came here for answers.”
“I’m not sure what you think I can do for you.”
“It’s simple. I want you to get Rufus to stop haunting my brother.”
“Oh, I can’t do that. You see, the argument has nothing to do with me. It’s between them and they need to sort it out. Like I said yesterday, they need to talk.”
“Mad Dog’s not good at talking things out. Hell, Mad Dog’s not good at talking.” And sometimes she wondered if he could think in a straight line.
“Which probably explains why he shot Rufus to start with.” Azalea tilted her chin up.
“Exactly.”
“Men.”
“Men.”
Azalea’s thin lips firmed. “I do believe in forgiveness, dear, but it’s hard to forgive someone for killing your only brother.”
Charlie nodded and felt the tight muscles in her neck relax
. The older woman made good sense. “Look, I like you, Azalea, but I’m not lifting my boycott until you do something about Rufus. Mad Dog is my brother and he’s still alive.”
“That’s all right, dear. You carry on your boycott. It’s actually good for business. People who have never visited are coming to see what the fuss is about, and the regulars are loyal.” She lifted her hands as if they talked. “When people ask why my place is being boycotted, I simply refer to having ghost issues and they make reservations.” Her smile grew wider. “So you see, your boycott failed.”
Charlie leaned back and rocked her chair onto its back two legs. “There’s got to be something I can do to get Rufus to see the light. Isn’t that what people do to get ghosts to move forward?”
Azalea laughed. “The light? Nah. Rufus is a dodger, the kind of ghost who avoids the light. He’s having way too much fun on earth to go anywhere else, and part of that fun involves harassing Mad Dog.”
“Then what can I do?” Charlie hated herself the moment she asked. What was she doing asking advice of a fortune teller? This whole situation became more bizarre by the minute.
Azalea looked around the room and nodded at the black cat, which lay on the window sill soaking in the sunshine. The cat closed its eyes the way cats do, as if they luxuriate in a sensuous bliss that no human could ever understand. Azalea turned her attention back to Charlie. “I see that you’re upset, my dear, but it’s not my job to fix things for you. I wish you a good day.” Abruptly, she stood.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Karma’s a bitch,” Azalea added and left.
As Charlie walked to the front door, she overheard the goddess of Goth answer the phone in her flat, bored voice. “Yes, we have ghosts. They behave—” she paused dramatically “—most of the time.”
6
Beyond Life & Death
“90% of the hands aren’t shown in a poker game.” ~Doyle Brunson
After her visit with Azalea, Charlie walked slowly back to Mad Dog’s house while she considered her options. What could she do with Rufus? She wanted to strangle some sense into him, but given that he was a ghost that was not an option. Her boycott had backfired. His sister wouldn’t intervene. She needed a new plan.
The morning drizzle had turned into a steady rain, which slowly soaked through her wool-blend sweater. Lost in her worries, she didn’t care much about being wet. The salty air smelled of spring gardens. She loved this time of year, the time of new life and new beginnings. Inhaling deeply, she tried to exhale her worries and concentrate on the good things. Isn’t that what her yoga magazine told her to do? At least Mad Dog was alive.
Who was she kidding? She wrapped her arms around herself. Her haunted brother wasn`t her only problem. No matter how hard she tried not to think about it, her life in Seattle haunted her.
She had escaped just in time, but that didn’t mean her ex-boyfriend Rebel wouldn’t come looking for her. He would never let her go. Not only was he possessive of her as his woman. He also had a reputation to uphold, and it wouldn`t take him long to figure out that she had not only left, she had also told others about his business.
She and Rebel had never been a good match. They had had a fast and torrid affair, lust-filled nights that made both their dreary lives a bit brighter for a time, but she had never truly cared for the man. She had wanted to. At thirty-seven and still single, she had wanted to find a long-term relationship, but Rebel didn`t fit the bill. Something about him pushed heart away, and every time she thought she might truly begin to care, she felt herself cooling off and creating emotional distance.
When she overheard a biker conversation and learned he smuggled young girls from South America for a child prostitution ring, everything fell into place: his money, his secrecy and her desire for distance. It all made sense. All she could think about was escape.
Charlie was no saint herself, and had a pretty broad range of acceptance regarding illegal activity. But human trafficking disgusted her. She left him a note and wished him well. Hopefully that would be the end of it, but she doubted it. Her gut told her she was in danger.
She wished she could say she didn’t deserve this situation, but she did. She deserved it and much worse.
Her past haunted her. Young and stupid, she had taken part in a murder. It was a mistake. It was an accident. It would be considered self-defense in court. After all, the man came after her with a knife. But instead of going to the police she phoned Mad Dog and they covered up her crime. The thing is, when it comes to murder, you can hide it from the world, but you can never hide it from yourself, from your own eternal soul. A part of her died that day, when the homeless man died, bleeding to death at her feet. She was, and always would be, a murderer, and no matter what she did, she could not shake the guilt. So, yeah, she deserved Rebel.
Ending up in a relationship with a man like Rebel was the universe’s way of getting back at her. She had bad taste in men, choosing the wild over the mellow, the bad boys over the boy scouts. Choosing trouble.
That magic thing called love evaded her, but she didn’t need to worry about that right now. She had made it to Sunset Cove in one piece and been welcomed by her family. And now she would help her brother, one way or another. Good things were happening, and that was what she needed to hang onto.
How could she stop the haunting? Could she hire a ghostbuster? She kicked at a pebble on the road. Nah, she didn’t want to hurt Rufus, or expel him from the earthly plane. She just wanted to stop him from bugging Mad Dog.
This morning at breakfast her brother had looked as if he had been spit out of a composting machine. He munched on his Lucky Charms slowly. Purple circles lay beneath his bloodshot eyes and he complained of having the mother of all headaches. Darlene’s eyes were swollen from crying.
Enough was enough. She couldn’t fix the world, or stop Rebel, but she could do something good right here in Sunset Cove. Rufus had to be stopped. Rain ran down her nose and she swiped at it.
If Rufus could not be intimidated, maybe he could be seduced. Yeah, right. Like I can seduce a ghost. He had seemed interested. And he was easy to look at, if you didn’t dwell on the hole between his eyes.
She laughed. When every other possibility seems impossible, the impossible must be possible. Right?
As she turned into Mad Dog’s yard, she made a plan.
***
At eleven o’clock Charlie walked up the long, wooden staircase to the front door of the teahouse. There was no sneaking up on the place. Every step creaked and groaned. When she reached the top, the door opened on its own, again.
As she stepped inside a cloak of darkness enveloped her and she felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life. The night cleaner was either finished, or she hadn’t arrived yet. Ditto the ghosts. The place was tombstone quiet, deathly still and bone-chilling creepy.
I’m not a scaredy-cat, she told herself, ignoring the goosebumps pebbling her arms. She reached for the wall switch and flicked on the lights. The entryway and reception area looked much like she remembered it: a room suitable for a horror movie; sweetly Victorian and horrifically supernatural. Her nose twitched.
Charlie was not a medium like Azalea, but she knew something about magic. She had been reading tarot cards since her aunt gave her a deck for her thirteenth birthday. Through the images and their interpretations, she learned ways of understanding this and other dimensions. It opened her mind to other realities, though she had only just begun to believe in ghosts. Magic had entered through that crack of light created by the mystery of the cards.
Most days she ignored any magical bleeps in her landscape, but she couldn’t do that in Sunset Cove. Magic hung like an invisible fog over the small, seaside town and its source was unquestionably the teahouse. She could feel it in every cell of her body.
Standing in the foyer she could feel it vibrating in the air, in the walls, in the ceiling. Her eyes scanned the rooms. It permeated everything in sight. The good news was it fe
lt welcoming. The bad news was that it held an expectant quality, as if it knew something was about to happen; and that something had everything to do with her.
Charlie reminded herself to breathe.
May the goodness of the universe be with me, she said to herself as she strode into the poker room. A maritime-themed wallpaper lined the walls: tall ships and waves. Navy-blue curtains were closed over the only window. The floor creaked. An unlit candelabrum stood on an oval-shaped wooden table. Two decks of well-used cards sat beside it.
Looking around the room she gathered her strength and spoke out loud. “I mean no harm to the living or the dead. I seek peace. Peace for my brother, Mad Dog, and peace for the gambler, Rufus.” Closing her eyes, she focused on that thought.
***
Rufus didn’t know why he arrived at the teahouse early, but he did. A feeling of needing to be there pulled him and he responded.
When he found Charlie meditating in his poker room, it all made sense. Her beauty sparked the wanting in him again, but he ignored that. She was up to something.
“The Poster Lady. Again,” he said and shimmered into view.
Charlie’s eyes shot open and she stared at him, but her eyes weren’t hard or challenging this time. They looked softer, warmer, almost welcoming. “Hi, Rufus,” she said in that throaty voice that turned up the heat.
“We’ve never played poker with a live human before, but I guess we could try,” he said as she pulled a deck of cards out of her back pocket.
She sat at the table. “Let’s use my deck.”
He groaned as he looked at them. “Tarot? Oh no. I don’t believe in that hoodoo shit.”
“Are you scared of the cards, or are you scared of me?”
He groaned again, and the guttural sound echoed through the house. “Not likely.”
She fanned the cards on the table. “Think about what you want most, and choose three cards.”
The Biker Ghost Meets His Match (Gambling Ghosts Series Book 4) Page 3
