Must Love Ghosts

by Jennifer Savalli

  “That’s not—” She made a sound of frustration. “I’m here because I thought you were playing a prank on me. I believe you’re not. That doesn’t mean I believe in ghosts. I might as well go.” She rose. “Goodbye, Dec.”

  He bolted up, grabbed her wrist. She sucked in a breath and he loosened his grip but didn’t let go. No way was he letting her stroll out of his life a second time. “Something’s going on. You’re not hallucinating, that’s for sure.”

  She pressed her trembling lips together. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Why don’t I come take a look tonight?” He was supposed to work, but he’d tell his cousin to cover for him. He’d probably have to spend his next free Saturday babysitting his cousin’s kids as payment, but the time with Tia would be worth a few hours of playing with the rug rats.

  “That’s not necessary.” She slipped her hand from his grasp.

  “I’m not playing a prank on you, and neither of us thinks you’re being haunted. Tia, someone’s doing this, and I don’t like the idea of you being alone with some asshole targeting you.”

  Her eyes widened. “You make it sound like I’m being stalked. This is just some stupid prank.”

  The hell it was. He was going to find the creep behind this. But first he had to convince Tia to let him into her home, when she clearly wanted nothing to do with him. With another woman, he’d have tried charm. Tia never fell for that crap.

  She never walked away from a challenge, though.

  “I’ll bet you I can figure out who’s bothering you and stop him.”

  She snorted, a surprising sound from someone so prim. He grinned. Tia might pretend to be the original Ice Queen, but under all that prissiness was a firecracker.

  “I’m so not falling for one of your dumb sex bets. Again.”

  He let his gaze roam over her body, knowing they were both remembering their first date. “I didn’t hear any complaints last time.”

  The pulse jumped at the base of her pale throat. “I’m seeing someone. More than seeing. He’s, um…” She stepped back with a jerky movement, putting more distance between them. Her stiff smile was faintly apologetic. “We’ll probably be getting married,” she said, a squeak breaking into her voice.

  Her words flash-froze every muscle in his body. Of course she’d moved on. He just hadn’t expected her to move on quite so fast.

  “Congratulations.” He did his best to keep his expression bland and hoped she didn’t notice he was clenching his jaw hard enough to turn his teeth to sand. He forced away the vision of her marrying another man and kept his tone light. “If hot monkey sex is out, then if I win, I want a groveling, down-on-your-knees apology for calling me a con artist.”

  “Well, there’s an image. And what do I get if you lose?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  She bit her lip and he had the sudden, damning thought that he no longer had anything she wanted.

  He flashed a grin full of a cockiness he didn’t feel. “Or we can forget this whole wager and you can pay me.”

  “Pay you? Are you insane?”

  “I didn’t think shrinks were allowed to ask that question. Pay me, as a paranormal investigator. Most of what I do is debunking possible hauntings. Not that you were ever interested in what I do.”

  He should have felt bad about that crack, but the superior look Tia tossed him crumbled his remorse. “Whereas you were a little too interested in what I do. Or at least a little too interested in my patients.”

  There wasn’t much he could say to that, so he let the jibe pass. “I’ll meet you at your house at eight.”

  “Fine.”

  She left his apartment in a cloud of jasmine perfume and righteous indignation. Dec blew out a breath. He’d successfully wedged himself back in Tia’s life. Unfortunately, the only role she had for him was that of paranormal investigator—the very thing that had broken them up.

  Lights blazed in every room in Tia’s house. She’d been following Dec around for an hour as he used hinky-looking instruments to take “readings” in different parts of her home. At the moment, he was prodding the sofa cushions in her living room with a handheld object he’d told her was an electromagnetic meter.

  What had she done? She’d gone to his place earlier to give him a final shove out of her life. Sayonara, forever. Instead she’d invited him to her house. How did he always get to her like that? On their first date, he’d more or less dared her to sleep with him and she had.

  Her one and only spontaneous hookup. And look where that had gotten her.

  On the other hand, she truly believed he hadn’t been staging a fake haunting of her house, which meant someone else was. Maybe Dec was the best person to figure out who was behind all this, since the police were no help. Maybe it would take a con artist to catch a con artist.

  Only now that time had dulled the shock and betrayal from last fall, she had a hard time believing Dec was a con artist. Maybe he shared the same harmless delusion as the thousands of people who fueled hotlines, reality TV shows and websites devoted to the paranormal.

  This was too risky. He was already making her doubt herself. She had to make sure her home was prank-free before her dinner party the next night, and then say goodbye to Dec forever.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” she asked as Dec moved to the fireplace and swept the electromagnetic meter in front of her white-painted mantel. A pair of untouched logs graced the grate. They’d been there for the two years she’d owned the house. A fire always sounded like a good idea, but she never made the effort to build one.

  “Fluctuating electromagnetic readings, cold spots. That sort of thing.” Dec paused his wand over each of the small, silver-framed photos decorating the mantel. He looked utterly absorbed and professional, if you ignored how absurd the whole exercise was.

  “Is there any science to this at all?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “Yes. If you got off your academic high horse, you’d know that.” He picked up the small ceramic object at the end of the mantel. “Is this a funeral urn?”

  “Yes. Why? Are you getting strange readings from it?” She moved closer so she could peer at the electromagnetic meter.

  “No, just curious. You didn’t have the urn or these photos while we were dating.”

  “You could hardly call what we did dating.” She closed her eyes briefly, wishing she could suck those words right back to the self-destructive place that gave birth to them.

  He glanced down at her, annoyance plain on his face. “Fine. You didn’t have these while we were f—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence.”

  He gently placed the urn back on the mantel. “Your grandmother’s ashes?”

  “No, she’s buried next to my grandfather. These are the ashes of my great-uncle Billy. Nana’s older brother. He died during World War II when his plane went down over the Pacific. Nana used to tell me stories about him all the time.”

  “That explains the dog tags.” The tags hung on a silver chain Tia had draped over the urn. Dec pulled the tags off and examined the engraving. “I thought they might be your grandfather’s.”

  “He was an accountant. Didn’t have to serve in the war thanks to his flat feet.”

  “Lucky him.” Dec moved to get a better look at the pictures. He was close enough for her to feel the warmth of his body. “Tell me about the photos.”

  She pointed out her somber-faced great-grandparents, great-uncle Billy in his aviator jacket, grinning broadly. Her grandparents on their wedding day, then their honeymoon picture in Niagara Falls, arms around each other and a cigarette dangling from her grandfather’s hand. A family photo of her grandparents and her mother as a child.

  “I inherited all my grandmother’s stuff. She used to keep those photos on her mantel, so I moved them here. I like to think of her.”

 
“She more or less raised you, didn’t she?”

  Tia was surprised he remembered. “Yes. She was the one spot of stability in a very chaotic childhood.” She ran a finger along the last photo, tracing her grandmother’s face. “After my mother’s fourth marriage, I refused to live with her and yet another stepdad. Nana took me in.”

  “Where’s your mother now?”

  “California, with husband number five. I’ve got to give her credit. This is the first guy who’s made it past her three-year itch.”

  Dec chuckled and picked up the next frame. “And this picture?”

  “Nana and me when I was about five.”

  “Cute pigtails.” He looked at her in a way that woke up nerves all along her body. “You should try that hairstyle now. Blond pigtails, a cheerleader uniform, knee-high socks.”

  She retreated to the sofa, needing to put more space between him and her ping-ponging hormones. Sitting cross-legged, she cradled a throw pillow in front of her stomach like a fluffy shield. “You’re disgusting.”

  “It’s a common male fantasy.”

  “Only for a man so insecure in his own sexuality he needs to project a needy childishness onto his partner, for fear a woman his own age would overwhelm him.”

  Dec flashed his lazy grin. “Good thing I don’t actually have a cheerleader fantasy. Lately my fantasies are about a beautiful, twenty-nine-year-old psychologist. I love it when you stick your nose in the air like that. Somehow, you make it look insanely sexy.”

  Her nose was in the air. Of all the… She lowered her nose and hoped her expression was bland and bored. “Forget it, Dec. I’m not falling for your dumb lines anymore.”

  “I thought it was pretty good.”

  She snapped a couple of loose threads from the seam of the pillow. “What’s the plan here?”

  “First, we rule out the possibility of ghosts. If you’re not haunted—and so far, I’m finding no evidence you are—then some human is behind this. Either a punk who thinks he’s funny or a stalker.”

  “I can’t go to the police and tell them a ghost hunter confirmed my house isn’t haunted, so they’d better get back on the case and find the real live human doing this.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “They’d never believe me!”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Which changes nothing.”

  He picked up the dog tags and sat next to her on the sofa. She resisted the urge to jump up and sit in a different chair. That would be too pitiful, letting him know how much he rattled her. Instead, she scooted over a fraction as he placed the dog tags on the glass-topped cocktail table, pulled his duffel into his lap, and unzipped it.

  “As a scientist,” he said in an offhand, conversational tone she didn’t believe for a second, “aren’t you committed to the truth?”

  “You’re not drawing me into that argument. I need something better to take to the police.”

  “No problem. Once I finish with the paranormal investigation, I’m going to do things the old-fashioned way.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “I’m going to spend the night here, catch the asshole doing this, and beat the crap out of him.”

  “No need to be so primitive. How about we use the video camera you’ve got right there in your bag to get footage of whoever’s harassing me, and show that to the police?”

  “Let’s call that Plan B.” He extracted a fat purple candle from a pocket in the duffel and set it on the table in front of them.

  “I see we’ve gotten to the woo-woo stuff.”

  “If you were going to scoff, why’d you let me talk you into a paranormal investigation?”

  She sank back into the cushions, suddenly depressed. She’d been more frightened than she wanted to admit when she’d spotted that man in her living room. This was her home, dammit. No one had the right to violate her sense of safety like that. Then she’d been furious when she’d thought it was Dec playing a trick on her. Now she’d swung back to frightened. “Because I’m glad someone is here with me tonight. Even if it is you.”

  “Stop before you make me cry.” He turned the candle. Some sort of rune was engraved on one side. “Where’s this fiancé of yours? Why isn’t he here protecting you?”

  “He believes the police, that my lack of sleep and grief from my grandmother’s death has me jumpy and nervous.”

  “Sounds like a real winner. Who is this guy?”

  “I no longer pretend to have good taste in men,” she said pointedly.

  Dec lightly tapped her nose and grinned.

  Dammit, she’d stuck her nose in the air again.

  She dropped her haughty look and concentrated on the candle. “I’m dating another professor in the department. Richard.”

  Dec groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You want to marry that asshat?”

  “He’s a wonderful man. And how do you even know him?” She held Dec’s dark gaze for a moment until his eyes slid away. “Oh, right. You eavesdropped on my conversation with Richard about a patient. That’s where you got the idea to break into my office and steal my patient files.”

  He dug into his duffel bag, searching for something. “Technically, I didn’t steal them.”

  “Of course not. That would have left evidence, and the police would have arrested you. Instead, you violated my patients’ privacy by reading those files and copying the address of your mark.”

  His head came up. “My mark? Have you been watching reruns of Leverage?”

  “You know what I mean. You used me.”

  He didn’t even bother to defend himself. “Richard’s all wrong for you. You must bore each other to sleep by nine o’clock every night.”

  “Are you saying I’m boring?”

  “I’m saying you need someone whose idea of fun isn’t ironing his socks.”

  She picked up the candle, sniffed. Sandalwood and licorice, a sweetly comforting combination. “Richard and I have plenty of fun.”

  “When’s the wedding?”

  “We haven’t set a date yet.” The candle bumped and wobbled as she set it down with unsteady fingers. She hated lying. She wasn’t any good at it. Thank God there was no chance Dec and Richard were going to meet again. Richard would be quite surprised to find out they were nearly engaged.

  Not that she didn’t plan to marry Richard someday. She did. But they were both taking their time with this relationship, allowing themselves to slowly—and wisely—build on a foundation of friendship. They’d only progressed to making love recently. He’d stayed at her place the last two Saturday nights, and things had been…perfectly acceptable.

  Sure that sounded more tepid than how she’d describe things with Dec, but it wasn’t fair to compare the two. Her nights with Richard were like a sweet walk with the civilized, polite superego. Her nights with Dec had been a full-sensory immersion in the pleasure-seeking id.

  She swallowed. Hard. Mature adults outgrew the id’s primal urges. “All my research shows that shared values, goals and interests are key to a successful relationship. Richard and I are very much alike.”

  Dec pulled out a lighter and kicked the duffel under the table. “Too much alike. You look like he excites you about as much as a dental appointment.”

  “Dental appointments are also good for you.” Tia shook her head at Dec’s incredulous look. “Our society places way too much emphasis on romance and sexual attraction. That stuff never lasts. In fact, they’re nearly irrelevant except insofar as we need some attraction to kick off the mating drive. It makes sense to base a relationship on something that can endure over time.”

  “People pay you to tell them this stuff?”

  “Yes.” It was stupid how his words stung. Why did she care what he thought? “I’ve helped lots of patients over the years, and now I’m working on a book. Love The O
ne You’re With is going to spread my ideas to a wider audience.”

  Dec still held the lighter, apparently forgotten in his hand. “That’s your book title? Love The One You’re With?”

  “Yes. The editor I’m talking to loves it. But I need to land funding for the next phase of my research. I’m doing a joint project with Richard, combining my psychological expertise with his work in neuroscience. That’s why I need funding from the Jameson Foundation.” She tucked the pillow behind her, angling her body toward him. Earnestness crept into her voice, but she didn’t care if he laughed at her. Her work was critically important. “We’re on the verge of a breakthrough that will unravel the mysterious biochemical nature of what people call love. Our work could make a difference in people’s lives, helping married couples navigate the ups and downs of long-term relationships. Help prevent the chaos and heartbreak of divorce.”

  His soft smile held far too much understanding. “A topic that hits close to the broken home for someone whose mom has been married five times. How come when we were together I never knew that’s what you were researching?”

  “Because we never talked. All we had was sexual attraction.”

  He didn’t answer for a long moment. “True.” He flipped open the lighter. “Ready?”

  “For what, exactly?”

  “To communicate with the dead.”

  “Please tell me the science behind this one.”

  His dark eyes gleamed. “No science here. I don’t like to do this much. Freaks people out.”

  With that, he flicked the lighter and a small flame ignited. He tipped it to the wick of the purple candle. Holding her great-uncle’s dog tags, he dipped the chain until the tags dangled a breath above the flame, candlelight flickering off the metal.

  “The candle is a focusing object. The tags are a personal object from a potential ghost. Most paranormal investigators complain this kind of thing gives our profession a bad rap. They think it’s ‘woo-woo stuff’.”

  He lowered the chain so the candle flames licked the dog tags. He spoke in Latin, his voice low and sonorous.

  Tia would have laughed, except suddenly the air thickened until it was hard to breathe. She pressed a hand to her chest. Panic clawed its way up her throat. Her vision tunneled, blurred at the edges until only the dancing flame seemed real, solid.