The Unmistakable Scent of Gardenias (Haunted Hearts Series Book 6)
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To readers who are new to Haunted Hearts, I’d like to welcome you to the series. For those readers who read the first five books in the series, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed reading The Unmistakable Scent of Gardenias as much as I enjoyed writing it.
As with the first five books in this series, each book in this second set of five has its own storyline with a plot arc and conflict resolution, and just like the first set, this second set has an overarching storyline with a plot arc that begins with the first book and doesn’t resolve until the last book in the set. It’s like a five-episode television mini-series. Each episode has its own plot arc, but the five episodes viewed in order tell the whole story.
I’m excited about this second set, books six through ten, because they are set in south Louisiana, a locale rich with history and unique in cultural heritage. I hope you look forward to the next four books in the series. My plan is to keep a new book in the series coming every two to four months. The tentative titles for the next four books are:
The Curse of a Single Red Rose
The Trail of Crushed Azaleas
The Rush of Wind Through Magnolias
The Sweet Madness of Honeysuckle Vines
If you enjoyed Gardenias, I think you will enjoy the rest of the series as well. Keep flicking pages and you will find the first chapter of The Curse of a Single Red Rose at the end of this eBook.
Thank you so much for reading The Unmistakable Scent of Gardenias. If you have an opinion about this book that you would like to share with the world, please leave a review on the site where you bought the book when you finish reading. Feedback is so important to a writer.
Denise
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Denise is a Southern girl. She has lived in Louisiana all her life, and yes, she has a drawl. She has a wonderful husband and two incredible children, who not only endure her moods, but also encourage her to indulge her writing passion. Accounting is a skill she learned to earn a little money to support her writing habit. Besides writing paranormal suspense, she holds a part time job in public accounting and enjoys traveling, reading, and scrapbooking.
She wrote her first story when she was a teen, seventeen handwritten pages on school-ruled paper and an obvious rip-off of the last romance novel she had read. She’s been writing off and on ever since, and with twenty-three stories already published and fifteen still available for purchase, she plans to continue releasing new books for years to come. In 2015, her Haunted Hearts series sold over 19,000 copies, placing the series on Amazon’s best-seller list of ghost thrillers for over a year.
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OTHER TITLES BY DENISE MONCRIEF
Deceptions Of The Heart
The End
Cross Examination
The Memory Catcher
Arkansas Hauntings
Boxed Set (Books 1 – 5)
Laurel Heights (Haunted Hearts #1)
Victoria House (Haunted Hearts #2)
Ashley Ridge (Haunted Hearts #3)
Shaw’s Landing (Haunted Hearts #4)
Chelsea Lane (Haunted Hearts #5)
An Impostor in Town (Colorado #1)
Purgatory (Colorado #2)
Twin Rivers (Colorado #3)
Crisis of Identity (Crisis #1)
Crisis of Serenity (Crisis #2)
COMING SOON
Crisis of Security (Crisis #3)
Second Sight (Prescience Series #1)
The Curse of a Single Red Rose (Haunted Hearts #7)
BONUS MATERIAL
THE CURSE OF A SINGLE RED ROSE
Chapter One
French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana
September 1965
Nowhere was safe. If Delia remained in the hotel, she would surely die. If she rushed out into the high winds, she would find no shelter from the approaching storm. She should have evacuated with the rest of the staff, but she had remained at the hotel making sure the last of the guests had found a way out of town.
She stood in the middle of her room, trembling from head to foot, and flinched when another burst of high winds and heavy rain buffeted the hotel. When the building shook from the onslaught, she grabbed the tall spindle on the footboard of her bed and held on tight. Her heart raced, though it wasn’t the approach of Hurricane Betsy that threatened her ability to remain calm.
A single red rose lay on her pillow. Anyone who had ever stayed at the Royale Chateau Hotel and had been gifted with the rose on a rainy night had met a tragic end. Some said the unknown gifter was not a living being, but rather a disturbed soul who empowered the flower with a mortal curse.
The bloom’s heavy smell assaulted Delia’s nose. Should a single fresh rose have such a strong fragrance? The perfume was cloying rather than aromatic. Not a beautiful scent at all. She couldn’t look away from the vivid red against the bright white of her pillowcase.
Odd, the flower seemed real to her, not a figment of her imagination or a hallucination. Would a spirit leave a real rose?
She suddenly hated roses.
Her rational mind emerged for a moment. Of course, there was no curse. That was just a legend. “It’s obvious that someone is playing a trick on me.” She laughed at the absurdity of voicing her thoughts aloud. Since no one was with her, whom was she trying to convince?
She reached for the flower, intending to toss it in the trash, but then stopped before touching it. Maybe if its petals never touched her skin, the flower would have no affect on her. Despite the logical discussion with the voice in her head, she couldn’t quite shake the idea that the curse was not a myth.
Delia had heard of the curse’s powers since she was a little girl. When she applied for the job, her mother had reminded her of the legend, warning her about working and living at the old hotel, repeating stories of violence and death suffered by unfortunate guests who hadn’t checked out soon enough. Just like all of the curse’s victims, Delia hadn’t left soon enough.
She yelled at the empty room. “Why me? What have I done to deserve this?”
Maybe it had been a mistake to live on the premises, but she had wanted to leave home and live on her own. Just for a little while. Just until her boyfriend asked her to marry him. Her intention had been to quit as soon as they were married, but she found she liked the freedom of living the way she chose. Making her own money had given her a newfound sense of independence that her mother never had.
If she knew anything about her boyfriend, she knew he’d want to control every aspect of their lives together. Would she be content with that kind of existence? No. She had a mind of her own. The thought of staying single awhile longer gained more appeal the longer she stayed away from home.
The French Quarter had enticed her with its unique vibe and multi-cultural flavor. She hadn’t been able to resist the opportunity when she’d been offered residency in the old servants’ wing on the third floor. The former manager, Clarice Dupuy, had left the hotel only a few months after Delia had started her job as front desk clerk. When Clarice quit without giving notice, the new owner had stepped into the managerial role.
Delia wished Clarice hadn’t gone. A strange heaviness had hovered over the hotel ever since Les Wakefield took over the management. Not that he had done anything wrong. He just hadn’t done anything right either. Everything he said and did seemed to unsettle Delia. She had stayed on at the hotel, refusing to be intimidated by Les’s odd behavior, but maybe that had been another mistake.
Delia’s bedroom door flew open, and her new boss stood in the threshold, his hair wet and his eyes glassy. “Celia, get your things together. It’s time to leave.” His tone commanded her obedience as if he owned her.
The man’s behavior had seemed peculiar from t
he first time she’d met him, but at the moment, he appeared downright menacing. She pressed her back against the wall behind her, as far away from Les Wakefield as she could get. Fear rose within her, surging up from her insides with as much fury as the storm that was certainly pummeling the Gulf coast. They were alone. Would anyone hear her scream for help?
She stiffened her backbone and dared to correct his error. “My name isn’t Celia. It’s Delia with a D.” How many times had she told him her name wasn’t Celia? He never seemed to hear her.
Anger flared in his dark eyes for a brief moment before his expression turned manic. “There aren’t many woman named Celia any longer. You will be my Celia.”
She shook her head so hard a pain stabbed her in the neck. Was this the way the curse would get her? “But I’m not Celia.”
His countenance changed again. He pointed toward the rose and smiled. “It looks like it’s your turn.”
A horrifying thought emerged out of her fear. Had her boss left the flower on her bed? Was he the gifter? Was she cursed to end her days pretending to be Celia for a crazy man?
“I don’t believe in the curse, Mr. Wakefield. Why would you try to scare me like that?” She wanted to add that he was a horrible man, but what if this was all a misunderstanding and she still needed the job after the hurricane had passed?
“You shouldn’t have left me.” His raspy voice grated on her already jerky nerves.
She hadn’t left him. Not yet. She would if she got the chance. His last comment had made up her mind for her. Once this ordeal was over, she was not working at the hotel any longer. She’d go back home to Point Coupee.
“I’m going to leave. Right now.” She sounded braver than she felt.
He closed the gap between them and grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her toward the open bedroom door. She gasped as the sudden movement jerked her arm in her shoulder joint.
Leaning against his weight, she struggled to get free of him. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You will do as I say.” His voice shot around the room, rising above the howl of the wind outside her bedroom window. “Phillip can’t help you now.”
Who was Phillip? She rummaged through her memory. No, she didn’t know anyone by that name.
A branch of a tree bumped against the glass. Her eyes strayed to the world outside her window for a moment. The rooflines of adjacent buildings were no longer visible through the deluge. The rain slashed sideways across the cityscape, obliterating the view of New Orleans that she had loved so much.
Les Wakefield was giving her no choice. Curse or no curse, she couldn’t remain in the hotel with a crazy man. She’d have to take her chances out in the wind and the rain.
“I don’t have to do anything you say. I…I quit.” With more strength than she realized she had, she threw his hand off, making a noise of disgust as she did so.
She rushed past him, out the door, and down the hallway until she reached the double French doors that opened onto the exterior walkway that ran in front of the guest rooms on the rear wing. Unsure of where she could go to shelter from the storm and get away from him, she ran headlong down the walkway. The rain-heavy wind flung pieces of debris at her, whipping her hair about her head and stinging her cheeks. She dodged a chunk of wood that flew past her.
A flash of light caught her attention, and she stalled. She rubbed her eyes, wary of the image. No, it couldn’t be. It was just her imagination. No one was dancing in the wind just on the other side of the walkway railing. No one beckoned her with the crook of a bent finger. The vision of a woman in white calling to her was just an illusion. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she concluded her over-stimulated mind had been playing tricks on her. The woman had disappeared.
She glanced over her shoulder. Mr. Wakefield barreled down the walkway toward her. The stomp of his heavy boot heels rattled the floorboards. He closed the gap between them, only a few steps behind her.
“You will not leave me. You will stay with me forever.” His words rang in her ears over the roar of the rising wind.
Without slowing her pace, she slid around the corner and ran down the walkway on the side wing until she came to another set of French doors. She jerked them open and raced toward the landing at the top of the winding staircase. Before she descended the stairs, she looked back through the French doors toward the walkway. The man wasn’t running, but his long strides meant he was gaining on her.
She rushed down the steep, curving wrought iron steps. How many times had she warned guests to take the stairs slowly and carefully? Too many people had tripped when they hadn’t paid attention to where they placed each step. High heels often got stuck in the ornamental cutouts.
“Celia, you can’t leave. You belong to me.” His voice sliced through her, slivers of dread settling into her soul. For the first time in her life, she felt the presence of death.
When strong fingers curved over the top of her shoulder and dug into her flesh, a scream dislodged from the bottom of her gut and erupted from her mouth. She swung around, intending to plant her fist square on the end of his nose. But when she spun on her heel, there was no one behind her. Les Wakefield had disappeared, or maybe he hadn’t followed her down the steep staircase. Maybe she had imagined it all.
Panic compelled her to get out of the hotel as quickly as possible. In her haste to make an escape, her high heel snagged in a cutout in the wrought iron, and she lost her balance, leaving her shoe behind and toppling down the remaining stairs, rolling end over end until her head hit the banister railing at the bottom step. The impact snapped her neck, and the lights went out for Delia.