The Single Undead Moms Club (Half Moon Hollow series Book 4)
Page 30
Given that I was from a very different planet—home of the ladies built like lanky twelve-year-old boys—I doubted very much that our definitions of “fun” matched up. He looked like the sort of guy for whom bottle service was invented. My idea of a good time was a movie marathon with my friend and assistant, Rachel, featuring at least five different actors playing Sherlock Holmes, and then a debate over who did the best job.
That’s right. Anna Whitfield, one-woman party.
“Do you consider Dante’s Inferno a little light travel reading?”
“It’s an old favorite,” I said.
“Well, you’ve successfully intimidated me, so congratulations.”
I laughed, but before I could answer, the door slammed behind us and the plane started to taxi. A small overhead speaker began to play pre-recorded safety instructions and I relaxed back into the seat. I pulled the safety instruction card from the seat pocket in front of me and began reading along.
“Really?” the stranger asked. I nodded without looking at him, checking the emergency exit door for opening instructions. It looked like a case of “Turn the big red handle upward and left while trying to contain your terror.” Excellent.
I followed along, checking the location of the air masks (there weren’t any) and running lights toward the emergency exit (also no). They really needed to make safety cards specific to tiny planes.
“You have flown before, yes?” the stranger asked.
Although he was distressingly attractive, I ignored him. I would not die in a fiery plane crash because I had neglected the safety card for a pair of beautiful blue eyes. I tucked it away in the seat pouch in front of me, tightened my seatbelt, and clenched my eyes shut while the plane struggled to lift off from the runway. I pressed my head back against the seat rest, as if holding a rigid posture would somehow get the plane in the air safely.
I prayed the only way I knew how, visualizing the exact opposite of all the horrible potential outcomes running through my head. I pictured the plane lifting off, maintaining a nice straight path through the air, and landing in Half-Moon Hollow with my suitcase intact. Oh, and I pictured the antianxiety meds releasing into my system exactly as I’d timed them, so I wouldn’t climb the walls of the plane from the moment it took off.
And when I opened my eyes, my purse was open on my lap and my hands were swimming through the contents, searching for the package I was bringing to Jane. Across the aisle, the stranger’s head was bent over a magazine. I felt faint, as if I were falling inside of myself, separated from my own body as my arm started to lift. I could see myself yanking the package out of my purse, as if I were watching it happen on a movie screen.
This was wrong. What was I doing? I hadn’t pulled the package from my bag since getting through security; why would I show it to this person I barely knew?
As suddenly as it began, the spell was over and I practically sagged against my seat. My long, sweater-clad arm was still raised and my hand still stretched as I shook off the strange dizzy sensation. I’d never felt anything like that before. Was I coming down with something? Had I had some sort of stroke? I didn’t feel tingling or numbness in my extremities. I wasn’t confused, beyond wondering what the hell had just happened to me. Maybe it was an inner ear problem? Or the veggie wrap I’d eaten at the airport sandwich shop? I should have known better than to trust airport cuisine. I probably had some sort of dirt-borne E. coli from unwashed lettuce.
I glanced across the aisle to the stranger, still poring through his magazine, completely unaware of my inner turmoil. I sighed. I was a very special sort of weird. I turned my attention back to my book. While the takeoff was fairly smooth, the rocking of the plane and the dark, quiet space actually made me a little dizzy again, and I wondered if I really was coming down with some strain of E. coli that affected the inner ear. Stupid airport lettuce.
With the stranger distracted by magazine articles about abdominal workouts that would change his life, I traveled through Dante’s rings of hell with the aid of the weak overhead light. After twenty minutes or so, I got tired of the weird, dizzy sensation intermittently flashing through my head and set my book aside.
“Not quite the beach-read romp you were promised?” the stranger asked.
I looked up to find him staring at me again, intently, on the border of attempted smoldering. Frankly, I found this to be unnerving. Either the stranger was the world’s chattiest traveler, or he was one of those skeevy men you saw on Dateline who targeted women who travel alone and tried to lure them into a human trafficking scheme. Forgetting every lesson my mother had ever drilled into my head about good manners, I gave him my full-on “disapproving professor” face I’d learned as a teaching assistant.
He was not fazed.
He did, however, get distracted by a child’s truck, a toy left over from a previous flight, rolling down the aisle toward the cockpit. The plane’s nose seemed to be tipping downward. I checked my watch. We were only twenty-five minutes into the flight, which was way too early to be starting our descent into the Hollow. I exchanged a glance with my handsome seatmate, who was frowning. Hard.
A metallic crunching noise sounded from the front of the plane, catching our attention. After flipping a few switches and hitting some buttons, Ernie the Pilot yanked what looked like an important lever from the control panel and stuck it in his shirt pocket. And then he took a large hard plastic mallet from his laptop bag and began swinging it wildly at the panel. He got up from his seat, snagging what looked like a backpack from the copilot’s chair. The stranger and I sat completely still as the pilot eyed him warily.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded as the pilot slipped the backpack on and clipped the straps over his thick middle. Some instinct had me reaching for the strap of my tote bag, winding it around my wrist. The plane continued to descend at a smooth, steady pace. “Get back to the controls!”
“I don’t want to hurt you. I just want the package you’re carrying. I know it’s not in your suitcase; I checked at the baggage screening,” Ernie told me, raising his hands and reaching toward my lap. The invasion of space had me grabbing at my bag to feel for the little canister of pepper spray I usually kept clipped to the strap. Of course, that little canister was not currently clipped in place because that’s the sort of chemical agent the FAA frowns on bringing through security. If I got through this, I was going to write them a long letter.
I clutched the bag to my chest. Why was Ernie doing this? How did he know what I had in my bag? Hell, how did he manage to get into my suitcase? Did someone send him after me? And what sort of person could bribe a pilot to commandeer a (admittedly underpopulated) commercial flight?
Another wave of dizziness hit me, full force this time, and I had to fight to keep my attention on my mind-numbing terror. This was it. This was the worst-case scenario. The pilot was abandoning the airplane while trying to mug me. I ran through all of the transportation studies I’d read on flight safety and crisis management to try to come up with some sort of solution to this problem . . . and nothing. I had nothing. None of them covered purse-snatching, plane-jacking pilots.
Shrugging off the heavy, sleepy weight that dragged at the corners of my brain, I took a deep breath. OK. I would handle this one problem at a time.
Problem one, no one was flying the plane. And Ernie—who I was absolutely correct in not trusting, yay for me—appeared to have broken off something important from the control panel, which probably rendered the plane unflyable. So, I could draw the conclusion that Ernie was a horrible person and that he had no plans to land the plane. So I seemed to be screwed on that front.
Problem two, Ernie was trying to snatch my bag. All of the personal safety guides I’d read said you should hand over your purse if you’re being mugged. Nothing in your wallet could be worth dying for. It would be easier just to hand him my bag. I might as well let him have it, a soft voice that didn’t sound entirely like mine whispered inside my head. It isn’t worth dying f
or.
I could feel my arms lifting, my hands unwinding the strap from my wrist. Suddenly, a loud, shrill warning beep sounded from the cockpit. I whipped my head toward it just as the plane dropped suddenly, throwing me against the seat in front of me. I hissed as Ernie bent and tried to yank the bag away, dragging my strap-ringed arm with him.
I was going to die. Whether I handed over the bag or not, the plane was going to crash with me on it.
A heretofore unknown spark of anger fired in my belly. I’d been entrusted to take care of Jane Jameson’s package. Jane was a high-ranking member of the local World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead. She’d trusted me with Council business. She expected me to take care of the package for her, to deliver it safely. She was paying me a handsome sum to do so. And this pilot was trying to take it from me, to kill me for it. He’d put me in a terrifying, no-win situation to intimidate me into handing it over.
This was bullshit.
That little spark burned into a full-blown stubborn flame and I wrapped the leather bag strap around my wrist even tighter.
I wasn’t going to give it up. I couldn’t do anything about the plane crashing, but I could keep Jane’s package from falling into clearly unscrupulous hands. As much as we both loved books, I was sure Jane would rather see it destroyed than dropped in the hands of people willing to kill for it.
Want more Molly Harper?
Gigi is no longer an innocent teen. All grown up and looking for love, her family and friends worry she’ll go for the sexy, alluring vampire instead of a nice, safe human. But sexy and alluring, with a penchant for biting, could be just what Gigi wants. . .
The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire
CLICK HERE TO ORDER
* * *
Assigned to work on a dilapidated haunted house could be the perfect situation to bring Nina and Deacon together—if it doesn’t kill them first!
Better Homes and Hauntings
CLICK HERE TO ORDER
* * *
Holidays with family are complicated. Christmas with Gigi Scanlon's undead family can be downright dangerous . . .
I'm Dreaming of an Undead Christmas
CLICK HERE TO ORDER
* * *
ORDER YOUR COPIES TODAY!
© J. Nash Photography
MOLLY HARPER is the author of the acclaimed Nice Girls vampire series as well as several spin-offs set in the supernatural small town of Half-Moon Hollow. She is also the author of a werewolf series set in Alaska and a supernatural novel called Better Homes and Hauntings. Her women’s fiction novel And One Last Thing…was nominated for a RITA Award. She also writes the Bluegrass series of contemporary ebook romances, most recently Snow Falling on Bluegrass. A former humor columnist and newspaper reporter, she lives in Kentucky with her husband and children. Visit Molly on the web at MollyHarper.com or at SingleUndeadFemale.blogspot.com.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Molly-Harper
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
Also visit Romance.SimonandSchuster.com
Books by Molly Harper
In the land of Half-Moon Hollow
The Single Undead Moms Club
The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire
“Undead Sublet” in The Undead in My Bed
A Witch’s Handbook of Kisses and Curses
The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires
Driving Mr. Dead
Nice Girls Don’t Bite Their Neighbors
Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever
Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men
Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs
The Naked Werewolf Series
How to Run with a Naked Werewolf
The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf
Bluegrass Series
Snow Falling on Bluegrass
Rhythm and Bluegrass
My Bluegrass Baby
Also
Better Homes and Hauntings
And One Last Thing . . .
Available from Pocket Books
We hope you enjoyed reading this Pocket Books eBook.
* * *
Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Pocket Books and Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com
Pocket Books
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Molly Harper White
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Pocket Books paperback edition November 2015
POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Leydiana Rodríguez
Cover photograph © Gene Mollica Studio, LLC
ISBN 978-1-4767-9439-6
ISBN 978-1-4767-9443-3 (ebook)
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Where the Wild Things Bite Excerpt
About Molly Harper
Table of Contents
Cover
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
‘Where the Wild Things Bite’ Excerpt
About Molly Harper
Copyright