by Bryn Donovan
Sole Possession
By Bryn Donovan
After David Girard inherits his family’s creepy old estate—a place that holds only tragic memories for him—he wants nothing to do with it. The sooner it’s out of his possession, the better, so he hires Andi Petrowski to fix it up for a quick sale. He’s immediately drawn to the feisty contractor, but he fears his father’s cruel legacy will ruin everything.
The moment Andi enters the Girard mansion, she’s haunted by disturbing visions. She tries to brush them off, but her attraction to David isn’t as easy to ignore. Their relationship soon crosses the line from professional to personal, despite his guarded nature and warnings about his dark past.
When the dreams and visions intensify into very real violence, David and Andi are desperate to uncover the evil threatening to possess him. Could Andi’s gifts be the key to uncovering the darkness within David? And will he be strong enough to break the family curse and protect the woman he loves?
86,000 words
Dear Reader,
I love October because it’s the perfect month for my favorite season: fall. I adore the sights, sounds, smells and feel of the fall season. Pumpkins and straw bales, colorful mums and burning woodsmoke. And the crisp, cool weather that’s perfect for sitting on the porch and reading a book while sipping hot apple cider.
This month, we have an excellent variety of books perfectly suited to this very thing, starting with All He Ever Desired, Shannon Stacey’s latest Kowalski family contemporary romance. As always, Shannon delivers a captivating romance with just the right touch of light humor. Joining her in the contemporary romance category is HelenKay Dimon with Lean on Me, the second book in her trilogy. Make sure to check out her first Carina Press title, It’s Not Christmas Without You, and look for We’ll Be Home for Christmas, coming in December 2012.
If you’re gearing up for Halloween and are in the paranormal mood, check out Regan Summers’s newest novel, Running in the Dark. Debut author Bryn Donovan offers a wonderful paranormal romance in Sole Possession, while Diana Copland’s male/male paranormal romance A Reason to Believe will haunt you long after you’ve read the last page. And joining Diana with a male/male release is L.B. Gregg and her rerelease Men of Smithfield: Seth and David.
Fans of steampunk romance will be thrilled to see new releases from two of our favorite steampunk authors: Cindy Spencer Pape and Jenny Schwartz. Look for Moonlight & Mechanicals and Courting Trouble to release in mid-October. And as an aside, can I tell you how much I love Jenny’s series name of The Bustlepunk Chronicles? It’s a perfect fit for this series about a spunky young woman in steampunk Australia.
I’m thrilled to welcome Val Roberts to Carina Press with her newest science-fiction romance novel, The Valmont Contingency. Val and I worked together in the past and I love her voice! And returning to us with another release in the fantasy romance genre is Karalynn Lee. If you’ve never had the pleasure of immersing yourself in one of Karalynn’s worlds, now’s the time to check out Heart of the Dragon’s Realm.
My team is especially excited about this next book from Julie Rowe. As fans of Downton Abbey, they fell in love with the first book in her new historical romance series set during World War I, Saving the Rifleman.
If you’re wondering where the romantic suspense is, not to worry, Kate Sherwood offers up a spine-tingling suspense, Shadow Valley. And mystery author Janis Patterson returns with her newest novel, Beaded to Death.
To round out the month of October, we have two spicy erotic romances to tempt you. With No Reservations, Lilly Cain kicks off her new erotic series, Bad Girls Know. Last, but definitely not least, the book from Christine d’Abo’s Long Shots series I’ve been waiting for. Mouthwatering sex club owner Josh is finally going to get his own happily ever after and you don’t want to miss the mind-blowing chemistry Christine has written to get him there in Calling the Shots.
We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.
Happy reading!
~Angela James
Executive Editor, Carina Press
www.carinapress.com
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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
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter One
Andi parked her truck, got out and looked up at one of the most amazing houses she had ever seen.
The enormous three-story Victorian stood well back from the road on at least an acre of weeds. Elaborate white trim graced its gray façade, and lacy ironwork topped the steep mansard roof. A porch ran across the whole front of the house, supported by stately columns. Even in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, with all of its lovely historic homes, the mansion stood out like a movie star at a backyard barbecue.
But Andi felt a sudden sense of dread, as though remembering a bad dream. An anxious chill went through her, despite the mild October sunshine.
She knew that feeling. She’d felt it before, though not for a long time.
Oh, for God’s sake, she told herself. She was twenty-eight, old enough to control her overactive imagination, or at least ignore it.
As she made her way up the front walk and got a closer look at the place, she observed that the man she’d traded emails with was right. It was in bad shape. Broken glass. Rotting trim around the windows. Missing shingles. The roof above the right dormer window on the third floor had a definite dip.
Andi had only been doing contract work on her own for a year or so, and she had never worked on a place like this.
The owner wanted to get it ready for sale fast, and it sounded as though he was bringing in other people as well to get everything done. He was only hiring her to strip and refinish the woodwork and the floors, which was her specialty.
A wrought-iron fence surrounded the lot. Rust frosted its little bent spires like a dusting of orange snow. Andi ventured up to the closed gate and reached over to the other side to undo the latch. It felt like trespassing. Silence surrounded her—no birds, no cars rolling by. She closed the gate behind her and noticed a small metal sign next to the walk, proclaiming the house a registered historical landmark.
Andi knocked on the wooden door. She waited and then banged again, harder this time. Nothing.
He might be upstairs, on the third floor, where he wouldn’t be able to hear her. She reached out to turn the greening bronze doorknob, expecting to find it locked.
It gave way. She pushed the door, and it opened wide with a long, exhausted creak. Even in the middle of the morning, shadows stretched across the front hall. Large footprints muddied the scuffed and splintered floor.
She stepped in and looked up at the huge, curving staircase, its railing coated with tan paint. The carved panels lining the bottom half of the walls had also been painte
d over, and the beams in the entry hall were massive, almost daunting.
“Hey!”
Andi jumped at the man’s voice, her heart lurching into double-time.
As he emerged from the shadows, she realized she’d startled him, too: he had been warning off a possible intruder. He was an imposing figure, over six feet tall, a black tee shirt and jeans hugging his broad-shouldered form.
“You must be the guy I’m supposed to meet,” she blurted out.
“Can I help you?” He folded his arms across his chest, inclining his head forward. At five foot three, she was used to men looking down at her, but she found herself particularly aware of his height and muscled bulk.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m Andi Petrowski. I’m supposed to meet a David Girard?”
“I’m David,” he said, staring at her with large green eyes, intelligent and guarded.
He was, in fact, beautiful. Blunt, sculpted features, with a slightly prominent brow that emphasized his wary expression. Closely cropped brown hair. She imagined touching it. Even though he’d relaxed a little now, his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, his dominating presence affected her. First the house, and now the owner, had made her feel awed.
She didn’t know why. It wasn’t as though she’d never seen a handsome man before, and besides, she didn’t consider herself a superficial person.
He asked, “You’re Andi? The contractor?”
She nodded. “You emailed me after you saw my ad?” She’d spent what had seemed to her like quite a bit of money to place it in the alternative weekly paper.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was expecting a guy.”
Andi suppressed a snort. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that one. “Really? Why’s that?”
He gave an almost imperceptible shrug, little more than a raise of the eyebrow. “Usually if Andi’s a woman’s name it’s spelled with an ‘i,’ not a ‘y.’”
She hadn’t expected this answer. “It is spelled with an ‘i.’ It’s short for Andrea.”
He shook his head. “In the ad it’s a ‘y.’” He took out his wallet, drew out a scrap of newspaper and offered it to her. Squinting in the dim light, she glimpsed the headline to her small ad. “Handy Andy.” Her email address wouldn’t have given him any clues about her gender either, since it only used the first letter of her first name.
Andi sighed. “Well, it’s not as bad as before.”
“What do you mean?”
“At first the paper put it in the…‘Wilder Side’ section. That section featured personal ads for individuals looking for a ménage a trois, for instance, or for someone to paddle them.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. Well, none of the services I mentioned were very sexy.” Andi’s cheeks warmed. “I had stripping and refinishing listed, and I can see how someone could get the wrong idea about stripping, but refinishing? What would that even mean?”
His mouth twitched, and Andi thought he would smile. In the next moment, she wondered why she would think that. She could hardly imagine this man smiling. “I have no idea,” he said.
“I made them correct it, but I got weird calls for weeks. Like guys wanting…something personal, along with new bathroom tile.” She was talking too much. “Anyway,” she said and handed the ad back to him. “So, yeah, I’m a woman. Doesn’t really matter, right?”
He had drawn closer to her. It seemed intimate, or intimidating. She could feel his gaze almost like a touch, on her hair, her mouth, sweeping down her body. Andi stepped back a pace.
He said, “You can’t work on this house.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. You can’t. I’ll pay you for the time it took to come out here.”
This was unbelievable! She had encountered a few people who were dubious about her at first, sure, but she’d never met with anyone who was too sexist to even give her a chance. What century did this guy think it was, anyway?
“You can pay me for the first third of the job,” she said. “The rest when the job’s complete.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You were just here to give a bid.”
She knew she was being, well, ballsy, but she didn’t have much to lose. “You’re not going to find anyone good for cheaper. You want the woodwork stripped and refinished, right? Is the wood painted over in the other rooms, too?”
“Look,” he said. He didn’t raise his voice—in fact, he’d spoken quietly so far—yet his baritone was commanding. “This was a mistake. You don’t want to work in this house.”
Andi felt suddenly miserable. Now that her sister was getting married and moving out, she needed this work badly. Lissa and her fiancé had set the date for Thanksgiving weekend. Andi had to figure out how to pay the whole rent on her own by then.
She loved the cozy apartment she shared with Lissa, and she didn’t want to have to move herself to some new, smaller place, maybe in a worse neighborhood. Of course she could deal with it, but it would make her feel like a failure, and she’d felt like that enough times already.
She heard David’s cell phone ring. He pulled it out of his jeans pocket and looked down. “I’ve got to take this,” he said, then turned his back to her as he said, “Hey, Scott.” He went into another room, leaving her just standing there.
Nice manners. She felt very awkward. He didn’t want to give her the job. Should she just leave?
Who was this guy, anyway, and how had he gotten a house like this? He looked maybe six, seven years older than she was, and here he owned a freaking mansion that wasn’t even his only property. Nobody lived here, that was clear enough.
She decided to stand her ground. Maybe she couldn’t stop him from being unfair to her, but she didn’t have to make it easy for him, either.
When he came back, he seemed distracted. “Sorry. Big case.”
“Oh.” She took a moment to process this. “You’re a lawyer?”
“Yeah.”
She made her own case. “Like I was saying, I know it’s going to be a hard job. But I’m not afraid of hard jobs.”
“You’re not, huh?” he repeated, more softly now.
She had a feeling that was like the sound of a music box playing in an abandoned room…a sense of danger and fascination.
“No.” She met his green eyes. Not a good idea. Eyes like that could throw a woman right off her game. “I’d love to work on this house,” she said. “I mean, it’s a historic landmark.”
“It’s a hellhole,” he muttered.
“I knew it,” Andi breathed, not even meaning to speak.
His head snapped up to look at her. “What?”
She felt her face flame. Whatever David had meant, it had nothing to do with the feeling of alarm the house gave her…a feeling she knew meant absolutely nothing.
“It’s a mess, sure,” she said. “But maybe you’ll like it a little better once I’m done with the woodwork. What kind of wood is under here, anyway?”
“What? Um, I don’t know. Mahogany?”
“House this age, it could just be pine.” It made her feel better to talk about the specifics of the job, about things she understood, solid and real. “Sometimes the rich people liked to have artists paint faux wood grain over pine, because that actually cost even more than putting in good wood.”
“You’re kidding.”
She grinned. “You want me to see what’s under here? ’Cause if it’s pine, you don’t want it stained, but I can sand it down and repaint it for you.” She picked at a rough part of the paint that was already flaking off.
“Here, will this help?” David held something out to her—a Swiss Army knife with a red handle.
“Yeah, perfect,” she said, taking it. “I’ve never seen one like this before.” It wasn’t the classic style with several tools, but longer, with a single, substantial blade.
He shrugged. “It’s called a gardener knife.”
“Oh. Are you a gardener?”
“No.”
She flicked the
blade along the bottom post of the banister, carefully flaking away chunks of paint. It took a minute to uncover a few square inches of bare wood. She knocked it with her index finger. “Ooh. It’s black walnut.”
He frowned. “You’re sure about that?”
“Yeah, it’s super hard, and it’s gorgeous. Or it’s going to be. Look.”
He came closer. When Andi looked down at the raw wood again, her breath caught for a moment.
She saw a face in the wood grain.
An old man’s face, with hateful eyes sunk deep into their sockets. Eyebrows drawn together. An open grimace of a mouth. An image of unholy rage.
“Oh, my God,” she said, closing her eyes to shut it out.
She heard David’s voice say, “What is it?”
He can’t see it, she told herself, opening her eyes though not quite looking down. If he can’t see it, it isn’t there. “Oh, you know,” she said, locking her knees to keep them from quivering. She had more than a little practice in hiding fear. “It’s just really nice wood.”
She dared to look back at the exposed patch again.
Nothing. She stared, trying to make out the face she’d seen before. All she saw was an ordinary wood grain pattern, a series of concentric ellipses.
She was losing her mind.
Again.
“Well,” the man said, “you do seem to know your stuff.”
“I do.” Nothing’s wrong, Andi told herself. Everything’s fine. As she forced the strange image out of her head, she closed the pocket knife and gave it back to him.
When his hand touched hers for the briefest of moments as he took it from her, a thrill went through her, disproportionate to such a casual contact. She thought of that thing people talked about, the butterfly effect, where a flutter of fragile wings could set off a tsunami.
Andi couldn’t leave now.
She asked him, “So, you want to show me around the rest of the house?”
* * *
This is a mistake, David thought, even as he began to lead Andi through the rooms. She didn’t belong here. But he found it hard to say no to this determined, sawed-off blonde with the slightest hint of freckles on her upturned nose.
