Книга - Shiver / Private Sessions: Shiver / Private Sessions

Shiver / Private Sessions: Shiver / Private Sessions
Tori Carrington

Jo Leigh


Shiver Comic strip artist Carrie Sawyer doesn’t actually believe in ghosts – she only agreed to accompany her best friend on a trip to a haunted inn in Colorado.What she does believe is that hotel owner Sam Crider is mind-bendingly delicious! And since this holiday is all about dark hotel rooms and late nights, it’s perfect for some naughty, after-hours encounters of the X-rated kind… The kind that can make a girl shiver with temptation!Private Sessions Caleb Payne is a calculating entrepreneur. An avowed bachelor. He takes what he wants – in the boardroom and the bedroom – and gets thanked for it! While Bryna Metaxas is his opposite: emotionally invested in her family’s business and about to enter into a business deal with Caleb that will shock her on every level…Yet she’ll love every minute of it. It’s a dangerously hot situation, filled with steamy sexual tension and cold business machinations. Can Caleb earn Bryna’s trust – and love?










Shiver

Jo Leigh

Private Sessions

Tori Carrington












www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Shiver

Jo Leigh


It’s said that you have to lose yourself in order to find who you really are …

What you find might change your life!


Dear Reader,

Carrie Sawyer is a lot like me. She’s cynical, stubborn and determined. The last thing in the world she wants to do is go to a ghost hunting convention with her best friend. Carrie doesn’t believe in ghosts, and never will. She does believe in having a holiday fling with the sexy and single owner of the hotel.

At first, Carrie gets her shivers from Sam Crider. His touch, his kiss. Even the way he looks at her. But then … mysterious things start to happen, and there are shivers of a whole different kind.

I had a ball writing about Carrie, because I was one of those people who scoffed at ghost sightings and psychic predictions. Now? I rather like the idea that the world is filled with magic and wonder. And love. Definitely love.

Hope you enjoy your time with Carrie and Sam. I sure did. Visit with me at www.joleigh.com or on Twitter @jo_leigh. I’d love to hear about your personal encounters with the supernatural!

Sincerely,




About the Author


JO LEIGH has written over forty novels. She’s thrilled that she can write mysteries, suspense and comedies all under the blaze


banner, especially because the heart of each and every book is the love story.

A triple RITA


finalist, Jo shares her home in Utah with her cute dog, Jessie. You can come chat with Jo at her website: http://www.joleigh.com, follow her on Twitter @jo_leigh and don’t forget to check out her daily blog!


To Charlotte.

For writing so beautifully and inspiring me so much. Also for the LOLS.




Prologue


To: SororitySisters4ever@egroups.com

From: AdventureGirl@FantasyEscapes.com

Okay, ladies, I did it. Fantasy Escapes is opening its doors to the public tomorrow morning and I’m officially trolling for business among my best friends—call me tacky, but I think you all deserve a fabulous getaway!

For those of you who’ve been under a rock this last year, I’ve been working on a new start-up business ever since Premiere Properties downsized me out of a job. I’m putting my extensive travel experience to good use to help clients take one-of-a-kind vacations.

Need a massage on the beach in Miami? I can book you with the best hands on South Beach and I know which places have the most luxurious cabanas.

Need a ski trip complete with a sleigh ride?

A bicycle trip to the top of a Hawaiian mountain? I can make sure you pick the best time to see the perfect sunset while you’re there.

You’ll recall I’m a bit Type A? Picture the power of Marnie perfectionism at your fingertips! I’ll create that once-in-a-lifetime experience you dream about.

So here I sit, brimming with knowledge and ready to send one of my fave foxy friends on an adventure. E-mail me when you’re ready to get away! You all know you deserve it … I’m talking to you, Carrie Sawyer!

CARRIE CLOSED THE e-mail from Marnie and pulled up her own Web site. Her comic, Cruel, Cruel World, needed some new panels since she was only ahead by eight days, but she also needed to check the CCW forum, which was a lot easier at the moment since she had no idea what she was going to draw.

Her thoughts drifted back to Marnie’s message before she even clicked on the first new comment. She should call Marnie. They hadn’t spoken in forever. It was good to see that her old friend was jumping into the deep end of the risk pool. Marnie was too smart to be anyone’s flunky.

Man, they’d had some great times way back when. Especially she, Marnie and Erin. They’d met during pledge week freshman year, and the friendship had grown and blossomed as they’d shared their undergraduate years. There were other friends, but none as close. Carrie wasn’t sure why she and Marnie hadn’t stayed in touch, except for the distance thing. Unlike Erin, Marnie had settled in Miami, and neither of them was particularly great with the phone calls.

On the other hand, Carrie and Erin spoke three or four times a week. On the phone mostly but in person when they could. It helped that they both lived in downtown Los Angeles. Carrie had found this giant old loft two weeks after she’d graduated, god, five years ago. The neighborhood was a little dicey, but the light that came through the windows in the converted factory was spectacular, and Carrie loved the space.

She’d only been able to afford it because of Cruel, Cruel World. The comic had started as an experiment. She hadn’t wanted anyone to know about it back then, and she’d written under the name of Carrie Price, but it turned into a marginal hit the first three years of college. Incredibly, the comic had struck syndication gold when she’d become a senior. She’d been picked up by a number of newspapers, and had also built a considerable Web presence with not just the Monday, Wednesday and Friday strips, but the forum, merchandise, her graphic novels and appearances at pretty much every geek and nerd convention across the country. Which meant she was rarely off the clock.

As for Erin, she’d fallen in love with the buildings. She’d come to L.A. to pursue her graduate degree in architecture at USC. Erin had found a place a couple of blocks away from Carrie, which was about the best thing that could have happened.

Left to her own devices, Carrie wouldn’t leave the loft for days at a time. She didn’t need a lot of live interaction, not when most of her social life was online with all the other comic writers, readers, gamers and bloggers. Not that she had anything against going out in general, but if it wasn’t with Erin, she didn’t exactly have a smorgasbord of available companions. Especially since her relationship with Armand had crashed and burned. He’d seemed so perfect. A misfit, a musician, a mystery. He’d been great in bed, fun to go out with and a complete cheating bastard.

Despite knowing he was all wrong for her and that he hadn’t ever really made her happy, she missed him. It was crazy and stupid and it felt horrible. She shouldn’t miss him. He was bad for her, and she deserved better. But her brain and her emotions didn’t seem to be speaking to each other.

Sadly, the disconnect between what she knew and what she wanted had been going on for a while. In particular, when it came to men. So she was taking a break, a sabbatical from relationships, until her heart and mind joined forces.

The phone rang and Carrie answered without a glance at the caller ID. “Hey, Erin. I assume you got the e-mail from Marnie, too?”

“Lunch at the deli. Ten minutes, max.”

Carrie sighed. “Yes, ma’am.” As she disconnected, she wondered what Erin was going to get her into this time.




1


THE DUDE’S ELBOW POKED the side of her boob. Again. Carrie couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose or if he was just clueless. If she had to make a guess, it would be clueless.

It was bad enough the Crider Inn was over an hour from the Denver airport, but the shuttle bus was so packed Carrie hadn’t even been able to sit next to Erin. Although Carrie shouldn’t complain too hard. At least she was wedged against the luggage rack on one side, whereas her friend was in the middle of a creepy-guy sandwich. The one on her right looked to be in his thirties, sported a world-class mullet and kept pushing up his tortoiseshell glasses with his middle finger, making it look as if he were flipping everyone the bird. Repeatedly. On Erin’s left was a nice-enough-looking guy, somewhere in his twenties, who wouldn’t be bad at all if he hadn’t snorted every two seconds. The postnasaldrip kind of snort that even if you gave him a tissue, it probably wouldn’t do any good.

Carrie caught her friend’s gaze and scowled at her with evil intent. For her part, Erin smiled brightly as if this were the best shuttle ride ever. Who knew? Maybe for Erin, it was. After all, everyone with the exception of the driver and herself talked of nothing but ghosts.

Ghosts.

Carrie sighed, reminding herself Erin hadn’t pointed a gun or threatened her in any way. Carrie had willingly dropped over a thousand bucks of her very hard-earned savings to come to this almost weeklong ghost-hunting extravaganza. She never would have agreed if it hadn’t been their last vacation together. Erin was moving to New York three weeks to the day from when they returned, leaving behind her downtown Los Angeles loft to begin her new career as a bona fide architect in New York City.

The two of them had vacationed together every single year since they’d been juniors at the University of Louisville. Last year’s trip to Bryce Canyon in Utah had been Carrie’s pick, and although Erin hated camping out, she’d gone along with the plan. In return, Carrie had promised she’d go along with whatever, although if she’d known it would have involved ghost hunting, she might have amended the agreement.

Her complaints had fallen on deaf ears, and Erin had booked the trip through Marnie’s Fantasy Escapes travel agency. Marnie had been thrilled and grateful, which had helped seal the deal, but the real capper had been when Erin had pointed out, quite cleverly, that Carrie could consider this a weeklong research trip. After all, she was a cartoonist who made her living mocking trends and popular culture. If ghost hunting didn’t give her enough ideas for her next graphic novel then she should just quit right now and go find herself a job serving fries with that.

“So, I was sound asleep. I mean, I was out like a light. Nothin’ could have gotten me up, not after the workday I’d put in. But then I hear this shriek. It was loud. Like, I don’t know—”

Carrie winced and covered her ears as the guy with the elbow issue screamed at the top of his lungs. It was a girly scream, too, high-pitched and weird as hell and far scarier than any apparition.

“Yeah, like that,” he said, as if he hadn’t almost shattered the windows.

Carrie noted that the shuttle driver hadn’t flinched. The bus hadn’t swerved or anything. She guessed working for the “Most Haunted Hotel in the U.S.” got one used to the odd scream.

“The weird thing was, the people in the living room, like, I don’t know, ten feet away or something? They didn’t even hear it. But I had my EMF under my pillow, and it was going crazy. Seriously. All in the red. No shit.”

Erin had given her a cheat sheet on the ghost-hunting nomenclature. It was far too lengthy to memorize, but she knew that EMF stood for electromagnetic field, and that Elbow Guy was referring to his meter. Carrie’d had no idea there was so much equipment involved in ghost hunting. EMF meters, ultrasensitive thermometers, night-vision goggles and cameras, and a bunch of other stuff she’d zoned out about. Erin had packed her fair share, but Carrie couldn’t complain too much. She’d brought not only her laptop, but also her scanner, a bunch of files and her drawing supplies. Thankfully, the Crider Inn had, as Erin put it, “Wi-Fi up the yin yang.”

“I’ve had three important encounters.”

The soft voice came from two rows back, and Carrie turned to see it was the pretty woman who was speaking. She was somewhere in her thirties, which seemed to be the median age, and she defied Carrie’s stereotypes by being elegant, fashionable and from her reading material—a heavy-duty philosophy tome—educated. Not that Erin wasn’t all those things, but Carrie had never lumped her in with the vague group she considered ghost-hunting nut-jobs. Anyway, the pretty woman’s voice held a hint of somewhere exotic, perhaps Jamaica, that captivated with its quiet strength.

“When I was a child, my old grandfather came to me after his death. He sat on my bed and he talked to me as clearly as I’m speaking to you. He told me not to worry, that he was in a fine, fine place, and that he would watch over me for all the rest of my days. He also told me that I would travel the world, and see many great things, but it was my family I should treasure most.”

Elbow Dude started to comment, but Carrie clipped him one in his side because the woman wasn’t finished.

“The second experience was many years later, at a small hotel in Florence, Italy. I woke from an afternoon nap to find an old white woman standing near the balcony. She never turned to look at me, so I didn’t see her face, but I watched her shoulders rise as she appeared to take a deep breath, and when she let it out, her head bowed. She was gone the next instant.”

The woman smiled at Carrie, maybe because she was staring so blatantly. “I keep my third experience private.”

Carrie faced front once more, wishing she could be one of them. One of these true believers. They seemed to get much more than spooky scares or thrills from these supposedly haunted places. Take Erin, for instance. Something about her belief in ghosts calmed her. It made her world easier to understand, and despite the utter lack of scientific proof, she had no doubts whatsoever.

Carrie wasn’t so lucky. She understood the psychology of belief in the supernatural. Human brains were designed to assign patterns and reason whether or not they exist. Ghosts, aliens, conspiracies or even finding evil messages in rock music were all based on assigning meaning to random things. At least ghost hunting was harmless and had been around since the beginning of large-brained hominids, but it wasn’t something she subscribed to, and being around people who were so ferocious in their certainty became wearing after a while.

What she found most bewildering was that in all the years and years of ghost hunting, no one seemed concerned that no matter how hard people looked, and damn, there were industries based on people believing in ghosts, there was no repeatable, verifiable proof. She tried hard to keep her opinions to herself when she was around Erin’s friends, but it wasn’t always easy.

When she heard intelligent, eloquent people expound on their supernatural experiences she tried not to roll her eyes. Whether she could remain a stoic observer after an intense week of pretending to believe in ghosts and goblins, well, that remained to be seen.

Her gaze went to the window as she let herself fall into the lovely Colorado scenery. She’d make the most of her week, especially spending time with Erin. She was going to miss her friend something terrible.

ANOTHER SHUTTLE LOAD of ghost hunters was due to arrive in the next ten minutes, and Sam Crider, current proprietor of the Crider Inn, was ready for them.

Since it was Halloween week and this was the largest and longest convention of ghost aficionados he’d booked since taking over the hotel, he’d gone all out decorating the place. It wasn’t hard to give the hotel a spooky ambience. His family had been doing it for generations, ever since the Old Hotel, now condemned but not torn down, had been destroyed by a fire of mysterious origin that had killed a number of his ancestors, who, according to legend, had never checked out.

Personally, he was delighted by this resurgence of ghost hunting and all the television shows that glorified the sport. All the paranormal legends about the Crider property were not only filling his coffers, but they were also a large part of why the hotel and the hundred acres of Crider land were now involved in a bidding war.

Two companies were interested in buying the place. One wanted to exploit the haunted reputation, and the other simply wanted to exploit the land. Sam had no preference as to who won, just so long as the check cleared.

Almost no one who worked for him knew that, of course. All negotiations had been done on the quiet, because a Crider had always owned and run the property and, it was assumed, always would.

He wanted nothing more than to shake the dust of this place off his shoes and get back to his real life. He’d been in the middle of his fifth documentary film when his father had died. Shit, it was ten months ago. The time had gone by in a blur.

He missed the old man. They’d been close. The bond had taken root when Sam was thirteen and his mother had died of breast cancer. It hadn’t been strong enough, however, to give Sam a love of the hotel, or a desire to carry on the family tradition. The sale would make it possible for him to continue making films, and no longer on a shoestring budget.

He’d finally have enough money to hire some help, like sound professionals and a full-time assistant. Not to mention the massive upgrade in equipment he’d be able to afford. He could stop thinking local and travel anywhere the stories dictated, film for as long as necessary to get what he needed. He’d have the cash to submit his films to all the important festivals. He’d actually be able to move out of the glorified Brooklyn broom closet he currently called home base.

So ghosts it was, and would be for the next week. Not only to curry favor with the convention people, but also to wow the potential buyers, both of whom were coming to check out the grounds.

That had been a neat trick. As he’d been told by his attorney, his accountant and his real estate broker, no one conducted sales by having the competing parties survey the place at the same time. But Sam had no interest in playing games. Representatives from both companies had already checked out the property, the numbers had been crunched and recrunched, now all that was left was for the CEOs to do a walk-through before actually making bids.

Sam had told the two men that he was having one showing, and that was that. They could take it or leave it. Luckily, they’d both taken it. Turns out they knew each other, had figured they’d both be interested in the place, and were looking forward to seeing each other. But now that it was happening, Sam worried that they’d both say no, and he’d be back to square one.

He surveyed the lobby slowly, trying to see the place with fresh eyes. It wasn’t possible. He’d grown up here, had slept in almost every one of the thirty-six guest rooms. He’d eaten in the restaurant—good cooks and bad—learned to shoot pool in the small pub. He’d lost his virginity in the Old Hotel, and had his heart broken sitting in front of the big stone fireplace that dominated the lobby.

He’d miss it all, but not tragically. It was just a building, just land, just a view. He’d already made sure that both the buyers were amenable to keeping the permanent staff, so no guilt there. And he’d found a great retirement place in Denver for his Aunt Grace. If there was one fly in the ointment, it was Grace. She’d lived here all her life, residing in the attached apartment that had once been his parents’ home.

But she was getting on in years, and she shouldn’t live this far away from medical care anyway. He was doing the right thing, for himself, for the employees, and for Grace. He’d sent her off to her friend’s home in Miami for a couple of weeks. She’d been happy to go, to be somewhere warm. He just hoped she’d be half as excited to move when it was time.

He heard the door behind him, and turned to find his old friend Jody Reading bringing him a hot beverage and what looked to be a dessert. Jody was an executive chef, a damn fine one, who’d agreed to come in for the week. She would wow the guests with her superb meals and drive them insane with her prize-winning pastries.

“I thought you’d like to try this before the deluge.”

He peeked in the mug to find coffee—a latte, from the looks of it—and a large piece of a layered napoleon, his favorite. “You’re ruining me. I’ll be a French-pastry junkie and end up living in some alley behind a patisserie.”

“As long as it’s not my patisserie.”

He really shouldn’t indulge now, not when the shuttle was due to arrive any minute, but the dessert looked so delicious, he took his plate and the fork and dug in. His moan wasn’t particularly manly, but it seemed to please Jody.

“My work here is done,” she said. She gave him a friendly swat on the ass, then went back to the kitchen.

Luckily, he was alone, at least for the moment, because he downed the pastry way too fast, which was a crime. But he didn’t want to be caught by a guest, and there was a strict rule about eating at the front desk.

Just as he lifted the last forkful to his mouth, the lobby door opened, bringing a gust of cold wind along with eighteen paying guests.

He dropped his fork on the plate, then shoved the plate under a newspaper. He smiled and rang the bell that would bring Patrick from the office. Patrick was the manager of the hotel, and he would handle the registration, while Sam schmoozed.

“You’re Sam Crider? The guy who owns the place?”

He nodded at the first person at the desk, Liam O’Connell, one of the conference coordinators.

Liam took the pen and began to fill out his registration card. “Bet you’ve seen a thing or two.”

“Oh, yeah. Things that would curl your hair.”

Liam laughed, considering he was mostly bald. “What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever encountered?”

“Oh, I’m not going to give you guys any spoilers. You’ll find what you’re looking for, but the experience should be untainted.” Sam frowned. “You don’t have heart trouble, do you?”

Liam shook his head.

“That’s good,” he said, wondering if he’d gone too far. Seeing the big man’s reaction, and the wide eyes of the people behind him, evidently not. “Although we keep smelling salts at the ready. Things can get a little … tense around here.”

“Excellent.” Liam finished with his card, and then Sam moved on to Gina Fiorello, a friendly-looking young woman who had reserved a single.

“You’ve probably seen a lot of ghosts,” she said.

“Hey, I lived here for seventeen years. What do you think?”

“Wow.” Gina filled in her card.

Sam looked down the line, not surprised at the luggage-to-guest ratio. Ghost hunters were big on equipment. The number of gadgets indicated the level of commitment to the cause, and these folks were committed.

The hotel only had four luggage carts and two sturdy part-time students to do the toting. Maybe it would be better for him to put off the talking and help these people get to their rooms.

He slowed down when he caught sight of a tall, striking blonde. She was a beauty and he wondered if she understood what havoc she would cause in a hotel full of conventioneers. Maybe she was with someone; that might help.

She was. Only it wasn’t a guy. It was a woman, and Sam stood stock-still the second he saw her. She wasn’t very tall, maybe five-four, slender beneath her wool coat and her eyes were as dark as her long hair. Sam had seen her before.

He couldn’t remember where, but he remembered his reaction. He’d held his breath. His heart had pounded as if seeing a long-lost lover. He couldn’t remember why they hadn’t met, and he supposed it didn’t matter now.

He didn’t believe in reincarnation. Certainly didn’t believe in destiny. But he’d be damned if he was going to let another opportunity to meet this woman pass him by.




2


“ARE YOU SEEING THIS?”

Carrie looked up at Erin, bugged that because of Erin’s ridiculously huge suitcase, they were at the back of the line. Okay, not quite the back of the line, because there were four people behind them, but she was tired and hungry and she wanted to test her Internet connection. “Yes. The inn is lovely. Great fireplace, very charming.”

“God, you are the worst traveler ever. I swear. Why do I keep on taking vacations with you?”

“Honestly? I have no idea.”

Erin took hold of Carrie’s shoulders and turned her to face the front desk. “I meant are you seeing that?” she said, whispering this time.

All Carrie saw was two guys taking reservations. One had impressive silver hair, really thick, and she wanted him to look up so she could see if the face went with the hair. The other guy didn’t need to look up. He already was. Staring at her. Unblinking, lips parted. There was no doubt even in this long line that his focus was entirely on her. Maybe. She felt her face heat up, then realized he had to be staring at Erin. Everyone stared at Erin. She turned back to her friend. “You should be flattered.”

“Me? He’s staring at you, you idiot.”

Carrie looked again, and holy crap, he was staring at her. She whipped around once more. “What the hell?”

“I know, right?” Erin still whispered and her speech was wonky because she wasn’t moving her lips. “Okay. He looked away.”

“That was weird.” Carrie stole a glance at the desk, grateful whatever that was had stopped. “He must have thought I was someone else. Someone he knew.”

“Or maybe he was struck dumb by your beauty and fell instantly, hopelessly in love the moment he saw you.”

“Yeah. That’s about as likely as actually seeing a ghost.”

The three people in front and the four behind turned to her, each one looking appalled. Carrie winced. “Kidding.”

Erin shook her head and sighed. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

Carrie moved closer to her friend and kept her head down, cursing her own big giant mouth. She’d lasted all of two hours before she’d made fun of these people, and they hadn’t even checked in yet. Jeez.

So she kept her trap shut long enough to listen in on Mr. Stare’s conversations. They weren’t actually whole conversations. More like bits and drabs, but each and every one contained a mention of—what else?—ghosts. She suspected that the person he’d mistaken her for wasn’t among the living. The man seemed very enthusiastic and utterly convinced that the hauntings in this hotel were one-hundred-percent legit. Verifiable, if only one had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time.

The single thing provable in this place was that the belief in ridiculous nonsense was utterly egalitarian. Age, race, looks, wealth—none of that mattered. Instead of disturbing her, the realization made her feel happy for Erin. There was a world of folks out there with whom she could share her passion, and some of them were very nice-looking men. Because even if he had stared rather rudely, he was downright hot.

A comment from behind her, something about why some people bothered to come to certain conferences if they were stupid enough not to see what was all around them, made her curse her impulsivity again. Carrie had no doubt that the news of her traitorous talk would spread through the hotel like wildfire.

By the time she reached the front desk she was more concerned about being tarred and feathered than she was about the handsomeness of the guy behind the desk.

That lasted about two seconds.

Sam Crider was tall, maybe six-one, and he wore his slim-hipped jeans and tucked-in, mountain-man flannel shirt well. He looked nothing like the guys she usually hung with, who were mostly cartoonists and always tech nerds, who rarely dressed in anything that wasn’t a T-shirt complete with geek-identifying logo and baggy pants. Crider’s brown hair was on the longish side, slightly shaggy. His eyes were an interesting hazel and, well, nice. He no longer seemed creepy, despite his propensity for staring and his certainty about ghosts.

Oddly, before she’d finished filling out her registration information, Crider handed the reins to his compatriot and came around the desk.

“Are these your bags?”

She looked down at her equipment and opened her mouth to explain that none of it was in any way related to ghost hunting, but she stopped herself. “Yep.”

“Hang tight. I’m just going to get the luggage cart. Be back in a sec.”

As he headed for the cart near the elevator, Erin handed her card to the silver-haired guy and turned to Carrie. “The plot thickens. He’s perfect, you know.”

Carrie didn’t have to ask what Erin meant. The other reason she’d agreed to come on this expedition was the Vacation Rule. Established on their first trip together, Erin and Carrie had decided that when they were traveling, men were always on the menu. As long as they weren’t in a relationship, they could each indulge in one-night stands if they wanted. Or even more-night stands if the opportunity presented itself. No risk. No fuss. It was all about pleasure and fun, and dammit, if there was one thing Carrie needed it was some uncomplicated fun.

Two months after they’d made their reservation and Carrie was still hurting over Armand. Ridiculous. Unhealthy. Just plain stupid. So when Erin had suggested that she needed someone to cleanse her palate, so to speak, Carrie had agreed.

“You think?” she asked, watching him walk across the lobby. He certainly had the body of a palate-cleanser.

“Yes,” Erin said. “Just don’t blow it. The guy owns the hotel. He’s a believer.”

There was the rub. But it was too soon to worry about that. The staring business could mean nothing. He might have a wife and seven kids or something. A thought occurred. “If he helps with the luggage, am I supposed to tip him?”

“Don’t ask me. I tip everyone twice as much as I should. You’re the one who’s sensible.”

“Well, that’s not helpful.”

“If you hadn’t alienated yourself from every single person in Crider, Colorado, you could have asked someone.”

“Right. I guess I’ll be spending more time in my room than I’d planned.”

“Oh, no. You’re not getting away with that. Tonight is dinner and then the meet and greet. You’re going to both.”

Carrie scowled, but Erin didn’t seem to care. She just stepped away as the man and cart got closer.

He lifted Carrie’s suitcase first, but she stopped him. “You might want to put the Titanic on there first, Mr. Crider.” She nodded toward Erin’s enormous wheeled suitcase. A body could fit in it easily. Carrie knew that there were at least twenty-eight different outfits in there, complete with shoes, scarves, earrings, makeup and anything else her friend thought she might need in the next six days.

Carrie had long ago given up speaking to Erin about her need to take everything she owned on their trips, but Erin never listened. Even last summer when she’d had to lug the heaviest backpack ever, she remained undaunted.

“It’s Sam,” he said, as he traded luggage. He lifted Erin’s bag with surprising ease. Carrie wondered what he looked like under all that flannel. Vacation Rules were sounding better and better. On the other hand, his handling their luggage seemed to indicate that he was pretty involved in running the hotel, and according to Erin, the ghost hunters had taken over the whole place. So while she was on vacation, he wasn’t. Maybe it wouldn’t be a problem. If it was even a possibility.

Sam stacked everything in sensible order, and when he was done, he put his hand on the small of her back and smiled at her.

Heat filled her, moving from her lower body to her chest, then her face. He wasn’t staring at her now. In fact, he was acting the perfect host. But the hand on her back lingered, as did his smile. She had a really strong, terrifically inappropriate urge to kiss him. Holy crap. This could lead to things. Maybe.

“Shall we?” he asked.

Carrie looked away, because jeez, what the hell? She forced herself to focus. The touch meant nothing. If something were to start, it would have to be started by him, and that wasn’t about to happen in the lobby. Also, the only thing she knew for sure about Sam was that he was pretty damn sexy. Vacation Rules didn’t mean jumping on anyone at all. She had to actually like the guy, and for that she had to spend more than five minutes with him.

Erin led the way to the elevator. The three of them waited, darting glances at each other. Finally, they climbed on board for their short ride.

There were four stories to the hotel. The underground parking, the banquet level, the lobby, which was where the restaurant and pub were located, and finally two floors of guest rooms. Carrie’s room was on the top level, 204. Erin was in 206.

Carrie managed not to look at Crider even after they stepped into the hall. It was way less motel-like than Carrie would have imagined. It didn’t seem particularly ghost-friendly, either. Instead, it was calming, with a dark mauve carpet that had a gold diamond pattern, and framed black-and-white photographs of what she imagined were local attractions. Gorgeous pictures, actually. She stopped at a shot of an eagle against a clear sky with a very large, very snowy mountain filling the horizon. Her heart had managed to stop its manic pounding and she was almost herself once more.

“That view’s about eighteen miles from here. If you’d like, I can show you.”

She looked at Sam and it happened again. Tummy flutters, thoughts of kissing, heat. It was a bit more manageable this time, but still. She wasn’t the fluttery, blushing type. Admittedly, it had been a while since she’d had sex, but that fact alone couldn’t change her personality. “That’s a nice offer, thank you.”

“Sure. There’s no skiing yet, not enough snow, but the ride out is spectacular. I take people out on the trail from time to time. There’s no real schedule to it. Just say when, and I’ll make sure it happens.”

“That’s very nice of you, but I’m not much of a cowgirl. I’ve lived in big cities my whole life.”

“That’s a shame. Not that I have anything against major cities. I live in one myself, when I’m not here. But seeing this country on the back of a horse? It’s a remarkable experience.”

“Excuse me.”

Carrie turned at Erin’s voice. She was down the hall by her open door.

“I’ve got a phone call I have to make, so maybe you could drop off my bag? “

No way Erin had to “make a phone call.” She just wanted to get unpacked so she could get to the good stuff—the hunting. Or she wanted to leave Sam and Carrie alone. Yeah, it was probably that second thing.

Sam hopped to it, and had the Excessively Large Suitcase on the bed in two shakes. Then it was on to Carrie’s room, which was identical to Erin’s in all but color. There was a great queen-size bed with wooden head and footboards, a comforter that made her want to jump between the sheets immediately, preferably with the man standing next to her, and a good-size desk that would make working there easy. There was even a small fridge and microwave. All in all, especially for the price, this was an excellent room. “Nice.”

“We try.” Sam put her suitcase on the bed. When he turned back to the rest of the bags, he said, “I see you’re all set to do some serious ghost hunting.”

She reminded herself of her role here and smiled. “You bet. I’m all about the ghosts. The more, the better. Bring it on.”

He chuckled, a sexy rumbly sound accompanied by a sly sideways glance. His nose, she realized, was on the large side, but it suited him. He also had a dimple in his chin, and how had she not noticed that before? Altogether gorgeous. Which didn’t really explain her reaction to him. She lived in L.A. for god’s sake. She saw gorgeous men all the time.

“So, L.A.?”

“Yeah,” she said as she frowned. “How did you—”

“When you registered.”

“Ah.”

“What part?”

“Downtown.”

He put her laptop on the desk. “Really? You’re the first person I’ve ever met who lived in downtown L.A.”

“Lots of us do. Just not as many as say, Chicago, because L.A.’s so spread out.”

“That’s true. I’ve worked there before. Not for a while, though.”

“Doing what?”

“Documentary films. So, you live in one of those big high-rise buildings?”

“Converted bread factory. It’s a loft with a great view of the flower market.”

“Sounds great.”

“You live here, I suppose.”

His lips came together and a shadow crossed his eyes. “Not really. I inherited the place after my father died.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

He put her scanner, which he wouldn’t be able to tell was a scanner, on the desk, as well. “It’s fine. I grew up here. This is home.”

“It’s cozy. Pretty.”

“Yeah, it is.” There was more to unload from the cart, but that was done quickly, and then he put his hands in his pockets and rolled up on the balls of his feet for a second. His gaze wandered the room as if he weren’t intimately familiar with the décor.

Her frown came back as she wondered why. The situation was new to her. Always before, she’d met her vacation flings at bars or in the pool, and they had all been fellow travelers. Not that there had been all that many. And she’d never had this kind of immediate full-body flush minutes after meeting. Maybe his lingering had nothing to do with sex at all. He probably wanted to give her some tips about the—

Tips. Dammit. She grabbed her purse and pulled out her wallet. Without a second thought, she whipped out a ten even though it was overkill. “Thank you,” she said, holding the bill out to him.

He looked at the money, his eyes widened, then he looked at her. “Um. No, you don’t have to—”

“I want to. Really.”

He didn’t actually blush, but his expression let her know that trying to tip him was a stupid, stupid move. Par for the course, today. Now she didn’t know whether to put the money away, or what. She decided to drop it on the bedside table. Casually. As if she’d meant to do that all along.

Of course, it didn’t work. Yet, he still didn’t leave. Okay, she’d made a mess of everything so far, why not go for the whole enchilada and find out if he, in fact, had any interest in her at all? “Do I remind you of someone you know? “

His head jerked up from looking at the ten-dollar bill. “Excuse me?”

“Downstairs. When I was in line. You looked as though you thought I was someone else.”

“No, I didn’t,” he said, quickly.

Carrie blinked. She responded with a drawn-out, “Okay.”

He opened his mouth, showing his very nice white teeth, then closed it again. After a sigh, he said, “I think we may have met before but I can’t remember where. It’s kind of driving me crazy.” He took a step closer. “I don’t suppose you recognize me.”

“Nope. Not even a little bit.”

“Ah. Well. Okay, then.” He backed up toward the door. “Maybe I do think you look like someone else.” He stopped, took a step toward her. “Do you ever go to San Diego?”

“I’ve been there.”

“Huh.”

It didn’t seem as if he was going to say any more about that. Instead, he focused on the ten dollars again.

“You used to live in San Diego?”

He shook his head. “No. New York. Still do.”

She wasn’t sure what was going on here. It probably should have been a lot more uncomfortable than it was, but then, she was used to weird conversations with highly intelligent but socially awkward geeks. “Documentary filmmaker?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything I’ve seen?”

“Doubt it. Unless you go to small film festivals. I’ve done four major pieces, and a bunch of shorts. Mostly to do with human-rights activism.”

“Wow, good cause.”

“Yeah.”

“No ghosts?”

He studied her face. “No.”

“Ah.”

He took his hands out of his pockets, then rested one on her suitcase. It was a nice hand, strong, with long fingers and short, neat nails. A moment went by and then he straightened abruptly as if goosed. “You probably want to unpack, and I should let you do that.”

“Uh,” she said elegantly, watching him back out of the room. He really did know the space well.

“You should try the restaurant. And the pastries. Seriously.” He found the doorknob behind him. “Anyway, have a great stay.”

“Thank you.”

He paused. Again.

As weird as this had become, and she was thinking eleven on a scale of one to ten, she didn’t mind. She rather liked it. Him. It. She smiled.

He smiled back. That same great smile. Then he opened the door and slipped into the hallway. She heard the lock click and she sat down on the bed, still certain of nothing, but hopeful. Very hopeful.




3


SAM CLOSED HIS EYES as he shut the door behind him. He supposed he could have behaved more like an idiot with Carrie, but not without rehearsals. He’d recognized people in the past and not recalled the context, but never before had the situation turned him into a complete moron.

With a blink to clear his vision, he made the executive decision to forget everything that had happened in room 204. There was a hotel to run, a hotel to sell, and he had no idea what 204 had even been about, so he wouldn’t think about it.

None of the guests were in the hallway at the moment, so he took the time to check that the carpet had been properly vacuumed and the pictures dusted. The wall sconces weren’t lit, so he couldn’t check for bulbs that needed changing, but then he should know by now that even if there were things about the hotel that needed fixing or refining, the housekeeping staff knew how to do their jobs.

There were few complaints with any of the staff. The lifers had been with the hotel for years, had considered themselves family when his dad had been in charge. The part-timers were paid relatively well and loved the benefits, such as the free ski passes, which meant that they were mostly reliable, and any troublemakers were weeded out quickly.

He skipped the elevator in favor of the stairs, and by the second step down, he was thinking once again about Carrie. He liked her looks, her size, the way she talked. Although he felt sure she wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic about ghost hunting as she’d like him to believe. That seemed odd considering she’d signed on for a steady diet of nothing but ghosts. Yet another thing to be curious about.

Where the hell had he seen her before? It wasn’t amusing anymore. He tried to picture her with shorter hair, maybe a different color, but that didn’t help. Nope, she’d looked like this the last time. He felt sure of it. But then, her looks weren’t what had captured his attention. Not completely, at least. It was something more. She seemed to occupy a bigger space than she should. Not her body; her personality. He’d seen it when she was standing in line. Among all the guests, Carrie Sawyer was a singularity.

That’s what rang familiar. The way she stood out from the crowd. Maybe it was the contrast between her stature and her energy. Wherever he’d seen her before, he’d been struck by that very thing.

It wasn’t unusual for him to pick up on strong personalities. He shot raw footage of people who weren’t celebrities. He’d trained himself to see past the superficial, to hone in on unique individuals. His camera would love her.

Once in the lobby, he checked his watch, knowing his buyers would be arriving on-site in a few hours. He supposed he could go check up on the kitchen, or make sure the banquet room was set up properly for tonight’s meet and greet.

He’d sent Beverly, the groundskeeper, to make sure that the ghost hunters setting up the camera equipment in the Old Hotel weren’t doing anything idiotic, like trying to climb the rickety stairs.

The place was mostly a wreck, and wore its condemned sign like a beacon, but of course his father had made sure that the bottom floor was completely up to code. The insurance company came out yearly to do a check, and Sam had gone along on the last visit.

His dad had done an admirable job of hiding all the safety measures, including the two new load-bearing walls. It would take a very good building inspector to see that what looked like a ruin was very sturdy, and would probably survive an earthquake better than any other building on the property. Not that Sam worried much about earthquakes.

His father and all his family had wanted the ghost hunters to have a good time. That the building seemed condemned was a little extra bonus, but in the daylight it was no more frightening than Disneyland’s haunted house. Still, every group that set up equipment in the old place left satisfied that they had, indeed, detected spirits from the other side.

There weren’t any tricks put in, either. The wind, the floorboards and the ambience did all the work on minds determined to find it haunted. Everyone’s expectations were met, all because they wanted to believe. Of course, that wasn’t the exclusive territory of ghost hunters. It was the human condition.

And he supposed it was that very malady that set his thoughts back to Carrie. He wanted to see her again, which was tricky. It wasn’t a simple thing for him to view himself as an innkeeper. He knew that the staff were absolutely not allowed to sleep with the guests. He also knew a good half of them ignored that rule at times. But he had the feeling that during the next few days especially, he would be wise to keep his wants focused on one thing alone—the sale.

On the other hand, maybe a distraction was exactly what he needed. There was only so much he could do about the sale. He knew the CEOs didn’t want him hovering, and his staff was perfectly capable of handling all the details about the convention.

It had been a long time since he’d been so struck by a woman. That she was only here for a week was a bonus, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she was interested. There had been glances, a blush. That shiver when he’d put his hand on the small of her back.

Sam grinned as he headed for the ballroom. This could end up being a far more interesting week than he’d ever anticipated.

CARRIE FINISHED HER roasted squab dinner and had to force herself not to lick the plate. How was it possible that in this little smidge of an inn, she’d had one of the best meals of her life?

The restaurant didn’t look like much. Lots of wood, of course. This rustic business wasn’t Carrie’s cup of tea, but she could see that people would expect it, considering the location and the landscape. There were maybe twenty tables, each with a simple floral centerpiece. The silver matched, the glasses were sparkling, the lighting subdued, even though the chandelier was made of horns. Deer, elk, she had no idea. All she knew was they were white and pointy and that she’d personally rather have fluorescent lights, which she despised, than chandeliers made from animal parts.

The best thing about the hotel by far wasn’t the décor but the Internet connection. It was fast. Not quite as zippy as her cable at home, but for a hotel in the middle of nowhere, she couldn’t complain. Almost as good as her Internet speed was that, in addition to a good-sized shower, there was also a claw-foot bathtub. It was deep and there were candles in little nooks in the tile, and the hotel provided some amazing bath salts. She couldn’t wait.

“Oh, my god,” Erin said, looking longingly at her empty plate. “That was unbelievably good.”

“I know, right?”

“I’m really full.” Erin had ordered venison, and had finished every bite. “But I’m having dessert anyway. Can you imagine? “

“I’m thinking about ordering the roast squab all over again.”

Erin grinned, then did a sweep of the restaurant. “You can tell how great the food is. Check out how no one’s talking. With these geeks, that’s a supernatural event.”

Carrie leaned back in her chair. “You made a joke. About the supernatural.”

“I do have a sense of humor about it,” her friend said with a scowl. “I’m not mean like some people.”

“Who’s been mean? Let me at ‘em.”

“You’re a scream.”

Carrie’s eyebrows rose. “Is that another joke?”

Ignoring her, Erin got the waitresses’s attention with a nod. “I’m going to have coffee. Real coffee.”

“What time are you planning to go to bed?”

“The minute after I see my first ghost.”

“You’re gonna need a lot of coffee.”

Erin sighed. “Oh, ye of little faith. I’m telling you, there’ve been sightings here since the beginning of the last century. Especially in the Old Hotel.”

Carrie had read about the extra-added-bonus ghost-filled building in the brochure, and in several articles she found on Google. It had been built in the early 1900s by the newly transplanted Crider family. The ghost stories had begun after the small hotel had burned to the ground. Four families, most of them Criders, had been killed and were said to wander the lower floors searching for a way out. “Don’t tell me you’re going out there tonight. It’s really cold, and I’m positive it’s not heated and if I remember correctly, the building is unsafe and off-limits.”

Erin grinned. “Of course we get to go inside. That’s what we’re here for.”

“Who’s we?”

“You know, Mike, Dean, Liam. The people who put the con together.”

“And you’re on a first-name basis with them because …?”

“Because I’m not an antisocial loner. We’ve e-mailed. And chatted. And IM’d.”

“Erin, did you send them your picture?”

“No.”

“Did you send them to your Web site?”

She hesitated. “Yeah.”

Carrie sighed. “I thought so. Did you see pictures of them?”

“No.”

“Dear, sweet, oblivious Erin. The reason none of the men are talking in this restaurant isn’t because the food is fantastic. It’s because they’re all too busy trying to come up with witty, obscure opening lines with which to dazzle you.”

Erin looked around the room with disbelief.

Carrie noted with smug satisfaction that a good half of the men quickly diverted their attention to either their plates, the unremarkable ceiling or simply closed their eyes, presumably under the impression that if they couldn’t see, they became invisible.

“No one’s even looking in our direction.”

“God, you’re naive. New York is gonna eat you alive. Trust me. I bet there are at least ten ghost-related pickup lines thrown your way tonight.”

“You’re nuts. If anyone’s looking it’s probably at you.”

“Want to bet?”

Her friend’s cheeks became pink. “No. But even if you’re right, it won’t last. The ghosts hold far more interest than I ever could.”

“I repeat. Oblivious.”

“Look who’s talking.”

Carrie didn’t understand, even when she followed Erin’s gaze to the east side of the restaurant. “What?”

“Sam Crider? Staring at you like you’re his long-lost soul mate?”

She saw him, but he wasn’t looking at her at all. He was checking out an empty table before he straightened the place setting. A perfectly reasonable, if disappointing, thing for the proprietor to do. “You’re lying because I’m right. But it won’t work. Every single guy in this room wants you. Probably the married guys, too. And who knows, maybe someone will, you know, spark.”

“That would be nice.” Erin picked up the dessert menu. “I wouldn’t mind, you know, getting some hot ghost-hunter booooty. Get it? Booooty?”

Carrie shook her head. “So, so sad.”

“Come on. That was funny. Talk about someone needing to get laid. But then, you’ve already got Sam there locked and loaded.”

“I don’t know. It was, um, kind of weird in my room.”

“Oh?”

“Not sexy weird. Just, I don’t know if I’m reading him right. And he’s the owner. Owners don’t shack up with guests.”

Erin laughed. “Now who’s being naive? Why bother to own a hotel if you can’t sleep with guests? I’m serious, my poor celibate friend, your dry spell is about to be broken.”

“Fine. I believe you.”

“You don’t, but you should. I’m having the hazelnut torte.”

Carrie didn’t blink at the non sequitur. “I’m having the pumpkin soufflé. It’s only proper.”

“Speaking of, tomorrow night is the pumpkin-carving thingee. You’re going to win.”

“I’m not going to enter.”

“But you should,” a male voice from just behind her interjected, making Carrie jump.

It was Sam. For reasons she couldn’t explain, he had gotten even hotter in the three hours since they’d last spoken. It had to be his clothes. Instead of mountain-man flannel, he now wore a silky gray retro-looking long-sleeved shirt that made his hazel eyes seem blue. No tie. He’d stuck with his worn jeans, a decision she could only applaud.

“Sorry,” he said, “I was just coming over to make sure you had everything you need, then I overheard pumpkins and, well …”

“That’s okay,” Erin said. “I hope you can convince her. She’s really creative and talented, and I’ve seen her carve some great pumpkins.”

“It’s a good prize, you know. A massage in your room.”

Carrie wasn’t at all sure how to respond. Once again she knew she was blushing, even though she still wasn’t sure if he was flirting or not. As a good host, it made sense for him to wander from table to table. Hearing a conversation about a hotel activity made things easy for him, and she could appreciate that, as well. He’d have to be clever and quick to constantly chat it up with complete strangers. It wasn’t about her at all. Wait. “An in-room massage for free? Where do I sign up?”

“All you have do to is show up,” Erin said, before smiling up at Sam. “I must tell you this was one of the best meals I’ve ever had. In my whole life. How is your restaurant not on the cover of every food magazine in the world?”

“We have a special guest chef this week. Not that our regular chef isn’t great, but Jody’s amazing. We’re lucky to have her.”

“Trying to impress the ghost hunters?” Carrie asked.

Sam looked down before he met her gaze. “Just lucky. She’s an old friend. I’ll give you a word of advice. Don’t get too full. We’re serving dessert in the conference room, and take it from me, these are not ordinary desserts.”

“Good to know.”

Sam smiled at her and after a few seconds he got that look again. The one that seemed just a bit too focused. It made Carrie turn away as she fought her very physical reaction. He cleared his throat, then said, “Well, have a good night, ladies. If there’s anything you need, just give me a call.”

“Thank you.” Erin closed her menu and put it aside. “It’s safe,” she whispered a minute later. “He’s gone.”

Carrie looked up. “So, no pumpkin soufflé. At least not tonight.”

“The man is totally into you.”

“Stop it.”

“Come on, you want him so badly. You’re all blushing and touching your hair. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever seen you like this. I was there when you met Armand, and honey, you were not flirty and girlie. Not even a little.”

“He’s not Armand.”

“Thank god. But you’re not exactly you, either. But that’s okay. Because—”

“What?”

Erin signaled the waitress again.

“Erin? What are you planning?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

Erin coughed behind her hand. “Could you have said that a little louder? I’m not planning anything. I don’t need to. You’re going to be with him, my stubborn friend. Without me lifting a finger.”

Carrie ignored the prediction, ignored everything but the fact that Sam, the dutiful host, went straight to the kitchen without talking to any other guests. Before the door swung closed, he looked at her again. A long, piercing stare.

SAFELY IN THE CONFINES of the bustling kitchen, Sam cursed to himself as he headed for the back door. He needed a moment of privacy.

This Carrie business was more serious than he’d thought. He’d known it the moment he’d walked into the dining room and seen her back. Yeah. Her back. He’d have known her even if she hadn’t been sitting across from her friend Erin.

He stepped out onto the lit patio. It was an employee lounge, mostly used in the warmer months, but even in the dead of winter people came out here to get away. Some to smoke, although there were few of those left. It was also the path to the trash bins and the storage shed. Well lit, it was difficult to make out much beyond the low fence. Sam went straight for the path that led to the edge of the forest. He had no desire to visit the woods this late, he just wanted to get away from the hotel, from the glare of the spotlights.

The farther he walked, the more detail he could see in front of him. A tree, vague in shape and still more two-dimensional than three. He stopped and smiled when he could discern the forest from the tree.

No wonder there were legends of this place. He’d grown up here and still it seemed otherworldly out here. Shadows upon shadows, the eye suspecting movement, attaching stories to the tricks of the night to ease the fear, as if the explanation alone would take away the danger.

It would be easy to believe that a spirit would come back here. The woods, the mountains, all the secret places. Especially if they’d been loved. Been mourned.

He turned his gaze to the hotel, the illumination from the windows as inviting as a warm bed, a hot meal. Carrie.

He wanted her.

He’d been on his own too long. But he had to be discreet. And make damn sure she was amenable. The last thing he needed was a sex scandal when the potential buyers were in residence.

No, he had a strong feeling Carrie was interested. There was something about the way she looked at him.

He shivered, hard. “Well, shit.” He felt like an idiot as he started back double time. He hadn’t even bothered to put on a jacket. This was what happened when a man who hadn’t been with a woman in ten months met someone like Carrie. He got poetic. He got cold. And if he had a brain in his head, he got laid.




4


THE BALLROOM WAS BIGGER than Carrie had imagined. And much more crowded. There had to be at least sixty people milling around, most of them in line for food or drinks. She recognized some of the people from the shuttle, including Elbow Guy, who looked as though he’d showered, and the lovely lady who’d spoken so musically. Most of the crowd would fit right in at Comic-Con, the biggest and most extravagant of the comic conventions she attended. Tonight T-shirts were the hot ticket, ninety percent of them with some kind of paranormal picture, quote, or both. Of course, the TV Ghost Hunters show was the most popular, although Halloween itself ran a close second.

Despite Erin filling her in about the hobby, Carrie had no idea there was so much ghost paraphernalia. Not that she was one to talk. She wrote online comics. Graphic novels. She had her own online merchandise store, which did a brisk business. Kudos to the spirit world, although she doubted the ghosts were making any royalties.

Two bars had been set up on either side of the long room, and she’d bought three tickets for herself at the registration table in the hall. Erin had purchased a couple, but she’d also brought a thermos to fill with coffee, her favorite tea bags, a recorder, a notebook, two different sweaters, a pair of sweatpants, a scarf, a blow-up pillow and three paranormal books to be autographed, all carried in a tote bag that was nearly as large as her suitcase.

“Oh, man, the treats look utterly yummy.”

Carrie turned at the rapture in Erin’s voice. The food tables lined the front wall by the entrance, and it looked more like a brunch spread from the Four Seasons than a Podunk Inn an hour from Denver. Not only was the fruit artfully arranged, but there was also an ice sculpture in the middle of the biggest table.

As for the pastries, Sam hadn’t exaggerated. It was an astonishing array. Éclairs, petits fours, napoleons, petits pots au chocolat, tarts, cheesecakes, sponges. It was a veritable cornucopia of deliciousness, and Carrie could already feel the pounds expanding her hips. The closer she got to the table, the harder it was to care.

Not that she could get too close. Those who weren’t standing in line for drinks were attacking the desserts like starving wolverines. No one was talking, and if someone didn’t back down, there would be bloodshed near the petits fours.

“Think maybe I’ll get a drink,” Erin said.

“Shouldn’t we mark our territory first?”

They both turned to the rows of seats facing the stage. Carrie was impressed by the high-tech equipment on display. A movie-theater-sized screen, several big monitors and a sound board, which was weird. She nodded at the stage. “What’s with all the TVs?”

“Only a few people at a time can go to the Old Hotel. Everyone else watches remotely from here.”

“Watches what?”

Erin got that look in her eye. “Apparitions, sometimes. Flashes of light. They’ll see whoever’s in the hotel, of course, and then there are all the monitors for sound, temperature fluctuations, electromagnetic shifts. It can be pretty compelling stuff, if you open your mind. I know there’s activity here. I’ve already felt … things.”

“Hands on your ass, perhaps?”

“Carrie. Stop it.”

“Sorry. I promise. I’ll be good. So when do you get to go to the scary hotel?”

“First shift. Midnight,” she said, right before she frowned. “Tomorrow.”

“Well, I hope there are apparitions and specters and flashes and everything you’ve ever wanted, but not until you’re there to see it in person. Seriously.”

“Don’t tell anyone, but me, too,” Erin said.

Carrie wondered yet again how she’d gotten so lucky to find such a good friend. The thought was interrupted when she got a load of the chairs set out for those who didn’t get to freeze all night in a rickety death trap. They looked intensely uncomfortable, but then Carrie wasn’t planning to be in one for too long.

Erin headed out, readjusting her tote as she walked. “I need to put this thing down.”

Carrie hurried to catch up, but Erin was tall and she was fast. “As long as we’re not …”

Erin put her tote bag down in the front row.

“… in the front row.”

“We’re at the end. You can still get out when you need to escape.”

Carrie waved at her to shush. She’d already gotten dirty looks from people. “Fine. I wasn’t going to get alcohol, but you’ve changed my mind.”

“What booze goes with chocolate?”

“Enough of either one, and it doesn’t matter.” Carrie led her friend to the bar on the right. “But I’m going for a Kahlúa and coffee.”

“Oooh, that sounds good. Did you look at your program?”

“Yes. I did.”

“So you know about Marcia Williams.”

Carrie had no clue. “Absolutely.”

Erin folded her arms over her chest. “As often as you lie, you really should be better at it.”

“All right. Who’s Marcia Williams?”

“Only one of the most famous mediums in the world.”

“Oooh,” Carrie said, trying to sound as excited as Erin had about the Kahlúa.

“I bought you a reading.”

“Erin. You don’t have money to throw away like that, especially since you’re moving.”

Her friend looked wounded. “Really? You’ve decided to go there on the first night?”

People were looking. But that wasn’t why Carrie moved closer to Erin. “I’m sorry. I meant thank you.”

The anger disappeared in a blink of Erin’s blue eyes. “No fair. I have every reason to be mad.”

“There’ll be plenty of time for that. And ample opportunities, I’m sure. So let’s get drunk and fat and then meet and greet the hell out of this crew.”

THE BUYERS WERE ON their way from Denver, and instead of pacing the lobby until he drove himself crazy, Sam headed for the banquet room, which was packed.

He walked through the crowd, checking that the floor was clean, that the glasses and dishes were being bussed, that everyone seemed happy. He didn’t worry about the bartenders. Both of them normally worked in the pub, and they knew what they were doing. Gene had worked here over ten years, and he’d met his wife, Felicity, when she’d come on board. They’d been married in the garden right here on the property. Sam had been filming in Atlanta that summer. His father had signed their gift from the both of them.

Carrie was in Felicity’s line. She wore slim black jeans and a snug green sweater, and when she turned his way, he felt as if he’d been hit with an electric shock. Just a buzz, diffused through his chest and lower, a reminder of what his trip to the forest had told him. This was a woman he wanted to know better. Intimately. He headed her way.

It was clear the moment she noticed him, and he let out a held breath at her smile. There was nothing forced about it, nothing faked. He’d caught her by surprise and her first instinct was to welcome him. Excellent.

“Hey, you have any pull around here?” she asked. “We’ve been in line for hours.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Hours, huh?”

“At least three. Maybe five. I’m too parched to be sure.” Carrie had lost the grin, and replaced it with complete sincerity. It was Erin, and the fact that the ballroom had only been open for about twenty minutes, that gave her away.

“She’s like this all the time, Sam. It’s awful. You’ll see.”

“I think I can handle it.”

Carrie grinned prettily. “You can get us our drinks?”

“Sure thing. As soon as we reach the bar.”

“Oh, you’re no fun.”

“It’s only the first night,” he said. “I can’t go playing favorites. Yet.”

“Oooh.” Erin bumped Carrie’s shoulder with her own. “You’d better not hog all the good ghosts, missy.”

Carrie laughed, but when her gaze caught his, she stopped as if she’d just realized whom she was joking with. A stranger. An innkeeper in a haunted hotel. One who did peculiar things to her mind and her body.

“This looks fantastic,” Erin said, filling in what had just begun to feel like an awkward pause. “I can’t wait to get my hands on some of that dessert. Who is this chef? Some star of the Food Network?”

“She’s been on Iron Chef before. And won.”

Erin stepped out of line into his personal space and shoved his chest. Kind of hard. He didn’t mind exactly, although he was surprised. “You are kidding me.” Her voice had gotten half an octave lower, and he took another step back.

“Nope. Not kidding.”

“I have to meet her. Can I meet her? I love Iron Chef. Almost as much as Ghost Hunters. More than Ghostly Encounters. About the same as Hauntings. But I love Hauntings so much.”

He wasn’t sure how to respond to these earnest declarations until he looked behind Erin to find Carrie laughing. Hard. Trying to hold it in, and failing miserably. Sam grinned. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you. Seriously,” Erin said, and she did sound incredibly serious. “Thank you.”

“No problem. I think you two are about to lose your place in line.”

“She’s an architect,” Carrie said, as she stepped backward to guard their space. “Honest. A really good one. She makes buildings in between watching TV shows.”

“I see. And you’re an architect, as well?”

“Nope. Graphic artist. I don’t watch enough television to play in the big leagues.”

Erin frowned. “Mock all you want. I’m very well-rounded.”

Sam wished he was here on vacation. Free to hang out with these two just for the laughs. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so relaxed and damn, he was attracted to Carrie. He couldn’t stop looking at her. That smile was really something. His cell rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket. “Yeah? “

“Where the hell are you? They’re almost here.”

Hit with a hard dose of “what was I thinking?” Sam flipped the phone shut. “Gotta go.” Then he almost ran out of the ballroom, and did run down the hall to the lobby, cursing under his breath the whole way.

He skidded to a halt on the hardwood floor just before it became the lobby. Putting on his best businessman smile, he walked his most confident walk to the registration desk where Ben Heartly and Kunio Mori were sharing a laugh. As he neared the two men, he thought their good humor looked genuine, that the trip in from the airport had been a good one.

None of this was emotional. It was strictly business for them, just as it was for Sam. Buying the place would work for one or both of them, and it all boiled down to the bottom line. Sam had done extensive research into their companies, and these two men. They had the resources, now all Sam had to do was let the Crider Inn show itself off.

“Gentlemen,” he said, putting out his hand. “How was your ride in?”

“Excellent,” Heartly said along with his firm shake. “Gorgeous sunset and good company. Although I’d like to take a look around tomorrow to see if there’s space for a landing field.”

“I’ll see to it.”

He turned to Mr. Mori.

“I look forward to the scenery on the way back, when it’s still daylight.”

“It’s beautiful country. Would you gentlemen prefer to go straight to your rooms to freshen up? The alternative is to make a quick stop in the ballroom, and then dinner in the restaurant.”

“I could do with a meal,” Heartly said. “But I’m happy to wait if Kunio would prefer.”

“No, I’m starving.”

“I’ll have your luggage sent to your rooms, and if you’d like, I can take your coats and then we can begin.”

Once that had been accomplished, Sam walked with them, pointing out some of the hotel features, some of its history. He itched to call the kitchen, to make sure everyone was on red alert, but he trusted his staff. The important thing now was not just to know he had no power to alter the outcome, but to believe it.

DRINKS IN HAND, Carrie and Erin stood in their second line of the night, this one a trip to the dessert table, which, as luck would have it, had been replenished. It was like going to Disneyland. Not that there were any large cartoon creatures walking around, but because of the goodies at the end of the wait.

“I’m getting one of everything,” Erin said.

Carrie nodded. “I can get behind that.”

“Do you think the food’s going to be like this every time there’s a talk in here?”

“Nope.” Carrie sipped her coffee, very, very glad someone brilliant had invented Kahlúa. “I think this is a one-time deal. Next talk, we’ll probably get raisins and cold Pop-Tarts. It’s the only way they’re going to make any money off this conference.”

“Hey.”

It was a male voice, a little bit behind them and to the left. As a unit, Carrie and Erin turned. Surprise. It was Elbow Guy from the shuttle. His name, according to his tag, was Elton.

“I remember you from the bus,” Carrie said.

“Shuttle,” Erin said.

“Whatever,” Elton added. He stuck out his hand to Carrie, although he stared at Erin the whole time. “I’m Elton.” He helpfully pointed to his name tag. “Like the singer. No relation.”

Carrie managed not to laugh. “Nice to meet you, Elton. I’m Carrie. Like the book. Also no relation.”

He nodded, causing his dark, shoulder-length hair to fall forward and back. “So you seen any ghosts?”

“Not so far.”

He seemed surprised that Carrie was talking to him. “I mean, ever.”

Carrie shook her head. “Not a one. I’m just not lucky like that. But my friend Erin has.” She helpfully pushed Erin closer to Elton.

“Yeah? What kind? Like, scary?”

Erin faced her and scowled, but smiled before she turned back. “No, not scary. Why, was yours?”

Carrie left the conversation in Erin’s capable hands as she moved closer to nirvana. She’d narrowed down her picks from six to four, eliminating the fruit category. The petits pots au chocolat was the current front-runner, with the napoleon inching up.

“Right, Carrie?”

She straightened. “I’m sorry, I zoned out on treat selection. Did you ask me something?”

“Elton was saying that it’s really cool to be here where everyone knows that ghosts are real and living among us. Because sometimes, when he tries to talk to people about his experience, they don’t get it. And I was saying that he’s absolutely right. That every single person here knows ghosts are real.”

“Right. Yes. Of course.” She looked at Elton, who must have been around twenty or so. He wasn’t a bad-looking kid, but his eyes were sad, and his shoulders slumped and his T-shirt was kind of generic. “I’d like to hear about your ghost experience,” she said kindly.

Elton smiled. “It was more of a poltergeist than a spirit.”

“They throw things around a lot, yes?”

“I’ll say. My parents still don’t believe me when I tell them, but I swear it’s true. The poltergeist knocked over a couple of vases, broke a chair and kept tilting all the pictures in the hallway. It happened for almost a whole year. I kept getting in trouble, and they sent me to the school counselor, but even Frodo, my dog, he used to bark all the time at like, nothing. It wasn’t nothing, it was the poltergeist, but even when I showed my dad, he just said the dog was as crazy as—”

A crash of breaking glass and thuds had Carrie spinning around to face the left corner of the ballroom. A big cleanup tray had fallen from a portable stand, leaving a mess of broken dishes. Only, no one was standing near that corner. Not a soul. The closest person was a tall woman with long dark hair who seemed as surprised as everyone else in the room. She couldn’t have knocked over the tray and gotten so far away in the time that had lapsed.

Someone must have put one too many plates on the far edge of the unsteady tray. Bummer for the cleanup crew.

Carrie turned back to Erin and Elton, but they were both staring wide-eyed and mystified at each other, then at the spilled tray and back again.

A crackle, a piercing screech of feedback, then a voice from the stage. A low voice, filled with intensity and just a little bit of fear. “Ladies and gentleman,” the man on stage said, his gaze sweeping over the crowd. “The party has just gotten started.”




5


TDHE EVENING HAD GONE WELL. Sam slumped into the brown chair in his room. It wasn’t the room he’d grown up in, just a room in the hotel, the one that was always rented out last because of the noise from the ice maker and the elevator. He’d been staying in it since he’d come back, having moved Aunt Grace to his dad’s apartment.

He could have stayed in what had been his childhood bedroom, but he didn’t want to change his aunt’s routine. He didn’t mind this place. So used to Brooklyn noises, the small sounds in here were like raindrops on a window. Sometimes, though, like tonight, he wished he could sit in his dad’s old recliner and lean all the way back. The fire would be going and maybe he’d listen to some Dave Grusin or Brubeck. Sip a little brandy.

Instead, he just closed his eyes in the serviceable chair, too tired to get ready for bed, despite the hour. He checked his watch. It was even later than he’d thought. Just after one. The buyers must be exhausted, although neither one of them let it show.

As he’d planned, the dinner had gone off spectacularly. Jody had outdone herself with a tasting menu for the three of them, and he’d never enjoyed food more. Heartly had tried to hire her as his personal chef, which she’d politely turned down.

The three men talked about the ghost-hunters conference, the legends, everything but the brass tacks of the property. This was only a viewing; the final piece in a six-month-long process.

Just because they’d laughed, shared wine, broken bread, it didn’t mean a thing.

He should really get into bed. There was a lot to do tomorrow, and he didn’t relish the idea of the buyers traipsing about unsupervised. He wouldn’t necessarily have to go with them personally, but he sure as hell wanted to know what they were doing and when.

He stood, rolled his shoulders, undid his top button. Stopped as it occurred to him that most of the conference attendees would still be in the ballroom, as only a few had been selected to sit in the mind-numbing cold of the Old Hotel. Those inside would also be waiting breathlessly for a spectral vision to float across the monitor screens. Or to hear a disembodied voice whisper something that could vaguely be interpreted as a word instead of the wind meeting wood.

The night staff would make sure there was coffee for the intrepid, tea for the weary, and he was quite sure there was still food to be had. No reason at all for Sam to give them another moment’s thought. Except for that one thing.

He still had no reason to go to the ballroom. Even if Carrie were there, he wasn’t exactly going to ask her to come back to his room. They’d met less than twelve hours ago, and just because his mind had gone straight to the getting-naked part, he couldn’t admit it so soon. Even if she did feel the same way. Which she might not.

But then again …

No. Going down there was ludicrous. Stupid in every way. After a heartfelt sigh at what a classic idiot he was, he turned off the light and headed for the elevator.

CARRIE STARED AT THE blank page of her spiral bound notebook. It had been blank for far too long, and she was tired, dammit, so why couldn’t she get it done already? It’s not as if she didn’t have material to pick from. She had too much. That was it. Too many goofy things, from the shuttle ride to the programs, to the ghost-hunting equipment for sale—good god, the equipment—to the introductions and qualifications of the speakers, there was simply too much to mock.

Not that it was all mocking, all the time. It wasn’t as if Carrie didn’t have a heart. She did, and Erin knew it. It was just that her job was all about mocking and snark and being insufferable. That’s why her peeps came to her Web site, why they bought the art and the T-shirts and the mouse pads and the graphic novels. She’d been bitchy since childhood, and lucky her, she’d been able to make a career of it. A win-win situation all the way around. She wore, as her friend Jeffrey often said, scorn-colored glasses. But she did try her best to be a compassionate human. It didn’t always work, but it happened. Carrie had actually sat quietly and listened for two solid hours before she’d bailed. Now, she put her pen down and went back to her laptop. She’d stopped herself from doing this when she’d first gotten back in the room, but since she wasn’t doing squat anyway … she clicked on Google and typed in Sam’s name.

There were a lot of Sams. Once she’d found the right one, there were still a lot of links, mostly to do with his documentary films. Undocumented workers, restorative justice, the American prison system. He sure didn’t fool around. She read reviews. Lots of them. All of them with the same general message: his films were intense, specific and illuminating. They were moving and startling. He got down to the heart of things and didn’t shy away.

Impressed, she went to find his biography on his Web site. No picture on page one, not of him, anyway. The focus was on his latest film and where people could get their hands on it. But there was a hyperlink to his bio, and she leaned forward to read that.

He was older than her by four years. Went to NYU. Worked with some heavy hitters in the documentary field before directing his own. No mention of Crider, Colorado. No mention of his childhood at all. Also no mention of a significant other, but that didn’t mean anything.

What she did know for sure was that she wouldn’t be averse to spending some time in his company, quite possibly in the bedroom. She wondered if he had an apartment or if he stayed in one of the hotel rooms. That could be weird. But then, maybe he slept with guests all the time.

Shit, she needed to put this away, stop thinking about the hot guy and get some work done. At the very least, she had to get the story concept down. Nothing happened without the concept being clear. She had to narrow her point of attack. Was it the conference as a whole? The “professional ghost hunters?” How hungry people were to have explanations and stories to quell their collective zeitgeist? Until she decided the arc of the series, there would be no series.

Maybe she should have stayed downstairs in the ballroom and watched the monitors with Erin. There was bound to be a ton of great stuff all around her. On the other hand, she was tired from traveling, her sugar rush had ended and so had the buzz from her drink. The smart thing to do would be to climb under that big old comforter and get a good night’s rest. Tackle the work again tomorrow.

On the other, other hand, Erin was going to be up all night, and therefore she wouldn’t even be around in the morning. No one would. In order for this to work, Carrie needed to be with the natives in their natural habitat. The goal was to blend in. To appear to be one of the loyal believers. They’d all catch on if she went to bed early every night.

But sitting on the floor or on one of those stackable chairs till dawn? No way. No way in hell. Unless … She looked at the comforter, at the big fluffy pillows on the bed. No reason she couldn’t observe and be comfortable at the same time, right?

She gathered her notebook and pen and put them in her purse, then she folded up the bedding enough to carry it with her, and she set out for night number one of her new and temporary schedule that began at 4:00 p.m. and would last till 4:00 a.m. Ghosts, it turned out, were night owls.

The whole way down she wondered not about the spooks or the speakers, but if Sam would still be awake. She’d caught a glimpse of him earlier, but he hadn’t come back. Funny how disappointed that had made her. Even funnier was how much she hoped he was in the ballroom now.

CARRIE WASN’T IN THE ROOM, which had changed significantly since Sam’s last visit. The chairs were gone, or at least shoved to the sidewalls and stacked, at least most of them. The center of the room was now dominated by people on their own fold-up chairs, sleeping bags, cushions, or just pillows. All of them facing the monitors on the stage, which had been moved to give the most folks the best view.

The podium had vanished, the lights were dimmed, the bars emptied of everything but bottled water and pitchers of juice. There was still food on the back tables, but not much, and the big coffee urns would be full 24/7.

It wasn’t easy staying up all night, especially when practically every spoken word that was louder than a whisper was immediately followed by a barrage of shushes. Although few of the attendees expected to see anything, except perhaps a vague mist, all of them expected to hear something. Anything.

The Old Hotel was wired, baby. Infrared cameras viewed the rooms well, but three of the high-end cameras were focused not on the hotel itself, but on the meters placed randomly around the lower floor. Digital and analog audio recorders that picked up electronic voice phenomena were stacked next to a whole hell of a lot of stuff no one needed but everyone in this room wanted. He wasn’t complaining. While the gift shop didn’t stock top-of-the-line equipment, they did a pretty decent business in various midrange meters and cameras which occupied one whole wall of the moderately large shop, across from the candy bars, magazines and sundries.

Sometimes, Sam wished ghost hunting hadn’t become so mainstream. He would have liked to have filmed this, to document the phenomena of the search for the paranormal. This night right here would have been full of opportunities. As they did in gatherings of any kind, the people had formed smaller, more informal groups. Some consisted of only two people, but there were clusters of five or six. Five would be about right, if you had to whisper.

For a documentary, he would have hit up the couples first. Asked them why they were here, what they hoped to see. What had happened in their lives to convince them this wasn’t a fool’s errand.

Then he’d seek out the family units. Husband, wife and the kids come for a week in the woods to find spooks? Halloween wasn’t a legal holiday, so maybe they home-schooled. He’d met a lot of those kinds of folks in the past, dedicated to the pursuit of their passion to the exclusion of almost everything else, including traditional educations for their offspring.

What was happening in those young minds when they stayed up all night waiting? Did the children believe wholeheartedly? When they reached their teens, did they rebel and disavow their parents, insisting that nothing was real that couldn’t be proven and tested by science?

His attention was broken not by a word, but by a sensation. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he felt the smallest of shivers. He turned and there was Carrie.

“You’re here,” she said.

A chorus of “Shhhhhs” followed.

“You’re here,” she said again, this time in a whisper. “I was pretty sure you’d be sound asleep by now.”

She was almost swallowed by the comforter and pillows in her arms, which he managed to take after a fumble. And then it was just Carrie in the same green sweater and jeans from earlier this evening, but she looked even better than she had before. “I should be sleeping,” he said, also sotto voce, “but I came down to make sure everything was moving along. Coffee, water, no loud music, that kind of thing.”

She smiled, which caused a different kind of shiver altogether. “As long as there’s no karaoke, I’m good.”

“Oh, there is. In the bar. Every weekend.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

He grinned right back at her, fully aware that he was acting less than the perfect hotelier. “Where do you want these?”

She looked past him, stopping with a nod. “There’s Erin. Follow me.”

He did so, gladly. Stepping around legs and arms and sometimes whole people as they made their way to what looked like a quiet spot on the left side of the room, not too close to the stage. Erin was sitting with three … no, four young men. The only surprise was that it was only four. Just as he’d suspected, the boys were buzzing around her like bees after honey. He doubted even one of them expected to score, but they would all have plenty of fantasy material for the next time they were alone. He remembered exactly what that was like, and it worried him that it was a little too close to what he was feeling about Carrie as he dropped her comforter on the carpet.

“What are you doing here?” Erin said.

“Shhh.” That from about six different people.

Carrie bent to spread her comforter and Sam stepped right in to help. He wasn’t feeling tired any longer, even though he knew he was being a fool.

“I’m here to find ghosts,” Carrie whispered. “What are you doing here? Hi, Elton.”

Sam found Elton via his name tag and his little wave. He was one of the throng surrounding Erin and he fit the bill. Young, thin, ghost T-shirt, long hair. Besotted, but not just with Erin. Sam saw the way Elton looked at Carrie. He stepped in between the two of them, reminding himself that it wouldn’t do to threaten a guest.

The other boys were excited about the new female, and damn, he wished he had his camera. They were like a pack of beta wolves, preening and scuffling, even as they sat on the floor with their power drinks, candy wrappers and electronic devices, which were primed for texting. They were all probably trying to figure out how to announce Carrie’s arrival in one hundred and forty characters or less.

“So, anything happen?” Carrie asked.

“A temperature anomaly, but nothing significant,” Erin said.

It was odd hearing their whispered voices, along with all the other whispers. It made him think of a room full of moths.

“Well, it’s early yet,” Carrie said, then she turned to him. “Are you going to hang out for a while?”

He nodded. “For a while.”

“Great. I’m going to get coffee. I have the feeling it will be necessary.”

“I’ll go with you.”

She led him back across the patchwork quilt of bodies. No one seemed to think it was odd that he was here, and a few even smiled in recognition. Why should they care? Most of them probably thought he was just another guy who worked here. Which was good.

Being with Carrie was better. She poured them each a hot coffee. She put stuff in her cup, then eyed the remaining food.

“Never let this chef go,” she said, her low voice causing her to step close to him. “She’s unbelievable. I’ve eaten so much I should be shot for even thinking about taking more.”

“It’s good to indulge yourself once in a while. You’re on vacation. You’re supposed to be bad.”

The way she looked at him let him know he’d been about as subtle as an eighteen-wheeler. “Even vacations have consequences,” she said. But she chose two pink petits fours, both on one plate. “How bad can these be, right?” she asked. “These little things barely count.”

He grabbed a big old éclair, more to keep himself busy than because he was hungry. “I have no self-control when it comes to Jody’s food. She knows it, too. Once, when she was visiting from Paris, she forced me to eat an entire Bûche de Noël.”

“At gunpoint, I assume?”

“No, dammit. Worse. She left it on the counter.”

Her laugh wasn’t as quiet as it should have been, and she was reprimanded immediately. She glared at the crowd, unsure who’d done the deed. “I mean, come on. If we can’t laugh, what’s the point?”

He almost laughed, too, but he didn’t dare give off even a hint of disrespect.

She handed him a fork and a small napkin. “You say she’s going to be here all week?”

“Jody? Yep. All week.”

“That is just great. Although I’ll pay for it with exercise when I get back home.”

“That’s what hiking’s for. I could show you the prime sights.”

“Wow. If I were a person who hiked, I’d jump all over that offer. But with these hours, I intend to sleep through most of the day. I still have to work, too.” She closed her mouth quickly, pressing her lips together, as if she’d said something she hadn’t meant to.

Of course he wanted to ask her about it, but again, discretion won out. “Then you can take advantage of the sunsets. You can see those from your room. Also, don’t worry about having to get up and eat dinner. We’re serving late for the rest of the conference, from noon to midnight, breakfast until six p.m.”

“Everyone in the hotel is with the con?”

He had just taken a bite of his éclair so he nodded. After he swallowed, he said, “We’ve only got thirty-six rooms.”

“Ah. Lot’s of doubles and triples. Been there, done that.”

“Really?”

“Sure. I went to college in Kentucky, and we used to go to Daytona Beach for spring break. I mean a whole flock of us. I’ve slept on couches and floors. A bathtub once. That sucked.”

“I know the feeling. I have a very small apartment in Brooklyn. Ever been to New York?”

“So you probably sleep in the bathtub every night.”

“Couch. Not a fold-out couch. A short couch. With lumps.”

“You must really love Brooklyn.”

He ate a bit, as did she, then sipped his coffee before answering. “It’s either New York or L.A. Although the options are changing as more of the film business spreads across the country. I use a lot of students for my crew, and it’s always last-minute stuff.”

“I searched you on Google,” she whispered.

“You did?” Dammit, why hadn’t he thought of doing that? “And you’re still speaking to me?”

“I must not have looked hard enough. Everything I read sang your praises.”

He rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t feeling quite so blasé. She’d looked him up. He tried to remember everything on his Web site, what pictures she’d seen, but he couldn’t think. That happened a lot when he was near her. “Hype,” he said. “But I am proud of my films. Some more than others.”

“Doesn’t it just depress the shit out of you?”

Now he laughed, loudly enough to get his own rebuke. “Not doing something would depress me more. Not that I’m some massive humanitarian. I just find the real issues to be the most vital. I thought about going into the movie side, but my heart wouldn’t be in it. I want to tell stories that matter.”

Carrie frowned up at him, although he didn’t think she disapproved. More that she was thinking about what he’d said. “How does that work out with you running this place?”

He put his empty plate down, but kept his coffee. “It doesn’t.”

“There needs to be more of that sentence.”

“Right. As much as I’m fond of the inn, it’s not my life.” He lowered his voice further. “I’m selling it.”

“Really?”

“Shhh.” He leaned closer. “Uh, that’s supposed to be a secret.”

“I’ll keep it under my hat.” She put both her plate and her cup down. “Hasn’t the hotel been in your family for generations? “

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t mind?”

“I’m not very sentimental.”

“I imagine not.”

“You’re appalled.”

“No. Not at all. You need to do what you need to do. I’m not a sentimental person, either. Not really. There are only a few things in my life I couldn’t live without. One of them, sadly, is my best friend.” She looked over at Erin, sitting among her fan boys. “I’m better with her around.”

“How so?”

“I live most of my life on the Internet. It’s pathetic. Erin helps me participate in life, as she calls it. Without her I’d go out even less frequently than I do now.” Carrie shrugged, took a step away from him. “We should get back to watching the monitors. There could be ghosts.”

“Right. Ghosts.” He wasn’t sure if it was the talk of sentiment or the talk of Erin that had changed the tenor of the conversation. Her body language had changed, even her whisper was different.

Would it be smarter to leave things be for the night and hope for a better tomorrow? Or should he wade back in and try for a recovery?

She took his plate and hers to one of the washing bins, then came back and refilled her coffee. All without meeting his gaze.

“I think it’s time for me to say good-night,” he said, as much as it pained him.

She looked up then. “Giving up the ghost so early?”

He grimaced at the pun, then smiled. “Big day tomorrow. I can’t sleep till noon.”

“It was nice running in to you again. I enjoyed it.”

“Me, too. Maybe we’ll meet again tomorrow.”

Her dark eyes were wide and beautiful, and they studied him closely. “Yeah. That would be good. I’d like that.”

He believed her. All was not lost. At least, he didn’t think so.




6


CARRIE CLOSED HER EYES. Again. For the billionth time. It was four-thirty in the morning, and a half an hour ago, she’d been so dead on her feet that she’d strongly considered paying Erin to put the comforter back on her bed.

She’d managed alone, and to brush her own teeth and get into her pj’s, but the moment she’d actually put her head down on the pillow, she’d been alert, awake and, no matter how sternly she’d spoken to her inner monologue, it would … not … stop … yammering.

“Shut up,” she said, hoping the aloud version would be more effective than the silent one.

Evidently not, because the next millisecond she was thinking about him. Again. The fact that she’d told him she had to work while she was here wasn’t so bad. It was nothing, in fact. They were going to be here for nearly a week. Of course people had to work.

No. What had been bad was that she’d said one hell of a lot more. She’d told him flat out that she was a complete loser who had exactly one real friend, and that the rest of her life was spent playing World of Warcraft and trolling Web sites. Awesome.

Reciprocity. That son of a bitch.

He’d told her his secret about selling the place, which was whoa. Major. So then she’d felt the need to reciprocate with a secret of her own.

If she hadn’t wanted to sleep with him, it wouldn’t be an issue. But, she’d realized the moment he’d taken the comforter and pillows that she did want to sleep with him. She liked him. Nothing earth-shattering, but she was ostensibly on vacation, and Vacation Rules stated that one could sleep with a very attractive hotel owner if one wanted to on the basis of like, which was quite different from Regular Life Rules. She was also allowed to eat at least one dessert a day, she didn’t have to work out and she could speak with a British accent if the mood struck.

But Sam had a life. He made important films about important issues. He lived in New York and traveled the country, not at comic book conventions, but living with the real people. He was friends with a world-class chef. She was friends with Hobbit107@inbox.com. It was the first damn night and she’d already blown it. Hence, staring at the ceiling in the wee hours of the morning.

The true tragedy was that she hadn’t even told him the worst of it. That she was there undercover, her sole intent to embarrass and malign people just like him. Oh, he’d love that. Who wouldn’t? She could just see how well that conversation would go. He’d probably kick her right out of the hotel, and who could blame him?

It was a miracle she even had Erin.

Anyway, Sam was going to find out about her. All it would take was a little Google action, and he’d discover her secret identity. She wrote under the name Carrie Price, but Price was her mom’s maiden name, and it wasn’t exactly a state secret.

She turned over and socked her pillow a few times, then tried to get comfortable. Fat chance.

Hell, maybe he’d understand. He was a New Yorker, for god’s sake. Just because he believed that ghosts were real didn’t mean he had no sense of humor. He was probably used to people making fun of him. Film people were notoriously cynical, right?

Crap. Even if he did get made fun of, he wouldn’t want to sleep with someone who openly disparaged his beliefs. That would be like her sleeping with someone who thought graphic novels weren’t real books.

Worse. Because a lot of people didn’t know squat about graphic novels. As far as the supernatural went, she was in the minority. A huge percentage of the world believed not only in life after death, but also ghosts and reincarnation and angels and demons. Most folks didn’t go a day without relying on something that couldn’t be scientifically proven. It was the norm, and she was the weirdo.

Nothing new there. She was used to being the odd woman out. She just wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

The only thing she had going for her was that he thought she was hot. It was right there all over his face. The way he looked at her? Oh, yeah. He wanted some vacation action.

Her smile fell. It was the first night in far too many nights that she hadn’t fallen asleep thinking about Armand. Was her attraction to Sam nothing but rebound lust?

After giving that a moment’s ponder, she turned over one more time. So what if it was? In fact, rebound lust was the whole damn point.

AT TEN TO FOUR IT WAS almost time for the first official event of the day. It, like all their indoor meetings, would be held in the ballroom. Sam had spent the morning with the buyers who continued to make nice noises without saying anything definitive, and left them in Beverly’s capable hands for a tour of the stables, the barn and the back fields. Sam had come to supervise the pumpkin-carving contest, which would be loud and messy, but fun. At least, that was the plan.

He wished he’d slept better. Thoughts of his conversation with Carrie had kept him up long after he’d hit the sheets. He’d dissected every word and come up with fifty different interpretations of what had gone down. He’d concluded he hadn’t completely blown his chances.

Naturally, he’d looked for her everywhere. At breakfast, although she’d be nuts to come down at eight after her night, in the ballroom, even in the kitchen. He’d been hopeful when they’d gone to the bar to grab lunch, but no go.

After that, Sam had taken Heartly and Mori into Crider City. The trip couldn’t have been timed more perfectly, as there were four buses parked at the IHOP and tons of tourists wandering through the decorated town. In Crider, Halloween was as big a deal as Christmas. The local legends about hauntings weren’t restricted to the hotel property, but had propagated all through the town. Most probably made up over a beer or two and carefully seeded across Colorado and beyond.

Instead of garlands of pine hanging over Main Street, there were flying witches and cut-out ghosts. Every window had some festive painted depiction of something mildly ghoulish, although appropriate for children. Some stores, like the Gift Emporium, went nuts.

Heartly and Mori resisted buying any ghost-related souvenirs, walked the length of Main and back, then Sam had returned them to the Inn. Mori had fallen asleep on the short ride, but neither he nor Heartly mentioned it.

“Sam?”

It was Wendy, one of the part-timers who was helping with the room setup.

“Yeah?”

“Are we only doing the one prize? “

“Why, do you think we should do more?”

“I think there are gonna be kids here, not many, but enough that we should do something about it.”

He gave it some thought as his gaze caught on the wheelbarrow of pumpkins teetering as it was brought down the center aisle. “After everyone’s here, take a head count of anyone under eighteen and make a note of the little kids, although I don’t think they’ll be many. Pick out gifts for all of them, and charge them to the party.”

The way she smiled at him was a little surprising. Although he didn’t know her that well. So far, she’d been a reliable worker, someone who didn’t complain about filling in with double shifts. She probably just liked the idea of looting the gift shop.

His attention went back to the pumpkins. They were being stacked in front of the stage, on two levels, some on the carpet, some on bales of hay. The tables had been equipped with multicolored markers, stencils, ice-cream scoops for the innards, big bowls and lots of paper towels. Of course, each table was covered in thick plastic and paper, and the rules of the contest were in block letters, posted on four walls. Even so, he would read them aloud before the competition got started.

The monitors were on stage, still recording evidence of the supernatural, but during the contest itself, there would be music of the Halloween kind piped in. The food table wasn’t festooned with prize-winning pastries, but it was certainly cheerful. Punch and fruit and too many candy treats, all holiday themed, would please guests of any age. The two bars were in the process of being stocked.

The rules were pretty simple. All cutting into pumpkins was done by a staff member. All participants, either as individuals or teams, drew their design on a pumpkin. At the end of the evening, the crowd voted on the winner. Not only did the winner receive an in-room massage, but their pumpkin would also be featured in the Crider City newspaper on the front page.

He heard Jody’s voice behind him and when he turned, she was pushing a cart that carried her pumpkin creations. They were so expertly crafted and clever they should have been displayed in a gallery.

Sam went to help her set up. Dry ice swirled in the corner just under the table and around Jody’s feet.

“I heard you were all over the place with the buyers this morning.” She kept her voice low as she placed the first pumpkin.

“Yeah. They couldn’t stop talking about last night’s meal, though.”

“That was the plan. By the time Heartly leaves, he’s never going to forget my name, or my cooking.”

“You’d better work fast. He and Mr. Mori are out of here tomorrow. Early.”

“I know. And don’t sweat it, sweetie. I’ve got it covered.” She placed another pumpkin, then shifted the first. Before she got to the third, she took a long sweeping look at the room. “She’s not here yet.”

“Who?”

Jody shook her head. “Everyone knows, Sam. Even Mikey, and he never even leaves the kitchen.”

“Knows what? “

“That you’ve got it bad.”

He almost argued. Then sighed. “I used to be more subtle than this. How is it possible I’ve gotten worse at picking up women? It’s got to be the sale messing with me. ‘Cause this is not how I roll.”

“How you roll?” Jody laughed, loudly and long. “Who are you talking to? I’ve known you since we were freshmen, buddy. I’ve seen your moves. James Bond, you’re not.”

He stared at her, openmouthed. “What the hell are you talking about? You’re just jealous you didn’t marry me when you had the chance.”

“We’d have been miserable and you know it. We both had a lot of growing up to do. But you know what? You’ve turned into someone I like quite a bit. Not as much as my husband, but still.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I heard you were down here last night after one in the morning, when you should have been getting some beauty rest.”

“How do you know this?”

“I work in the kitchen. We know everything.”

He handed her the next damn pumpkin. “Yeah, well. I’m not sure it did any good.”

“Stop. You’re gorgeous and wonderful and she’d be an idiot not to like you. Just a thought, though. Tomorrow I’d go back to flannel and hiking boots. Let those bigcity boys get a taste of the real Crider experience, and let this woman see that you’re a rugged outdoorsman.”

“Talk about false advertising.”

“What do you care? It’s only for another couple of days. And you look damn good in those old jeans of yours.”

“Does your husband know you talk like this?”

She grinned at him happily. “He thinks I’m adorable.”

“I’ll have to talk to him about that.”

“Speak of the devil,” Jody said, nodding toward the entrance.

He expected to see Jody’s husband, but it was Carrie standing by the door. Although he wanted to, he didn’t turn. “So, everybody’s talking about me and Carrie, huh?”

“You know the kitchen staff, Sam. Biggest bunch of gossips in the world. Except for maybe housekeeping. Or would that be reservations and front desk?”

“Fine. How about using those extraordinary eavesdropping skills on something useful? Like finding out who’s going to buy this joint and for how much.”

Jody put another pumpkin in place. “Go talk to her. She keeps looking at you.”

“You’re just making shit up now.”

“Am I?”

Sam studied Jody’s face. She was still a beauty. Marriage and having a kid agreed with her. He knew some of that glow was due to working again after such a long hiatus, and that pleased him. He hoped she and Heartly could make a deal. As for her being all-knowing and wise, that was a bunch of bullshit. Nevertheless, he had no qualms about leaving Jody without a second glance.

AND THERE, LIKE A GIFT, was the very man Carrie had been searching for.

He looked good. Skinny black pants, hunter-green button-down shirt all very hotel-ownerish. But his hair, that was all renegade filmmaker. It wasn’t quite as messy as just-rolled-out-of-bed. No, it was more just-finished-making-out-in-the-backseat hair.

As he approached his smile swept away all doubts that she’d screwed up her chance with him. She adjusted her sweater, smoothed her hair, although she’d just checked out the ponytail five minutes ago. She was just doing the mating dance of the Prowling Twentysomething Female, dressed in her finest plumage. Well, the finest she’d brought, which consisted of jeans, a thrift-store cardigan, navy ballerina flats and an estate-sale broach she’d found in East L.A. Sam looked her up and down, and from what Carrie could see, he approved.

“You’re early,” he said as he stepped in close. “That means you can have your pick of pumpkins.”

“How nicely alliterative. Perhaps I’ll pick the prettiest pumpkin.”

He opened his mouth, then let it close with a sigh. “I’m just going to give that one to you. I’m not up to the challenge.”

“Why not?” she asked as she walked with him to the pumpkin patch.

“I’d have to think. That’s probably not gonna happen tonight.”

“Ah. How about answering questions? Up to that?”

“Depends. What’s the question?”

“Who, exactly, will be giving the prize-winning in-room massage?”

Sam put his hand on the small of her back. They were almost at the pumpkins so this was going to be a fleeting moment. As fleeting moments went, this one was a little bit spectacular. Her body broke out in little bumps, her breath hitched and her step slowed to stretch things out to the last second.

Yeah, she definitely wanted to see how Sam looked when he rolled out of bed.

“We have a terrific masseur who comes up to the hotel. His name is Michael, and he’s studied touch therapy for years. He runs a well-known studio and school in Crider. Even if you don’t win, you should try and make time for one of his massages.”

“Oh,” she said, as she looked at the great pile of pumpkins.

“What’s wrong? You sound disappointed.”

With her heart beating fast, her courage at maximum, she turned to look him straight in the eyes. “I was hoping, if I won, that you’d give me my massage.”

His pupils dilated. She’d wager he was blushing as hard as she was, but she didn’t move her gaze an inch.

“I think that could be arranged.”

“What if I don’t win?” she asked.

He smiled. She could tell by the lines at his eyes. By his eyebrows. “It could still be arranged.”

She let out her held breath, then turned back to pumpkin picking. It wasn’t that she was playing it cool. On the contrary. If she’d kept staring at him like that, and if he’d kept looking back at her with the blatant hunger in his hazel eyes, she’d have kissed him. The last thing she wanted to do was embarrass him or herself, not so early in the evening, at least. Besides, now there was this between them. Much stronger than before, when it wasn’t a sure thing. Now, it was all tension and subtext and potential. So delicious she shivered with it.

“People,” he said, just above a whisper.

“What about them?”

“They’re coming. I should … do … things.”

She nodded, still not looking at him, smiling at his failure to be the least bit suave. It was tempting to tease him, to discombobulate him as the conference attendees came rushing into the ballroom, eager to snatch the best seat, the best pumpkin. It was quite possible that Erin was among them, and Carrie should have cared about that as she was supposed to have picked out their seats. Not that they’d discussed the contest arrangements, but between them, it was the way things were done. The first one there secured seating or tickets or places in line. But Carrie didn’t care where they sat. Or if they sat. She wanted to think about the sex, think about Sam. Think about sex with Sam.

“Have you decided?” he asked, startling her with his volume.

“What?”

“Which pumpkin you’d like.”

“Oh. Okay, sure. That one.” She pointed down and to the right, which turned out to be not the most perfect of pumpkins. In fact, it was unusually tall, but as soon as she saw, she knew exactly what she was going to draw.

He picked up her selection and when he stood, he met her gaze once more, only something had changed in the few seconds since his question. Somehow, she guessed through some decision he’d made, he’d become far more confident, relaxed. And damn, sexier than ever. “Let’s get you a seat.”

She followed him, not saying a word as he found a table near the back, on the end. He put the pumpkin on the butcher paper between the markers, then he touched her upper arm. “Do you think Erin has a particular pumpkin type? “

Carrie shook her head. “Oddly, we’ve never discussed the issue.”

“If you had to guess?”

“I’d said asymmetrical. Something interesting.”

“I’ll be back.”

She watched him walk through the burgeoning crowd, and though his hair still rebelled, he was all long legs and easy grace, and Carrie gave herself a quick hug, so proud of herself and her bravery she could just spit. She wasn’t one of those women who could snare a man with a come-hither glance. Her confidence was primarily in her pen, on paper. In sharp retorts and wicked double entendres, all the things she’d promised to keep under wraps for the duration of the conference. And yet, she’d managed to say just the right thing at the right time. What would happen from here was anyone’s guess, but things were definitely looking up.




7


BY THE TIME ERIN sat down on the opposite side of the table, Carrie was already into her first sketch.

People were still settling in, raising their voices with excited chatter as they found their pumpkins and their seats. According to the program, there would be announcements about the nighttime activities, then a talk about the contest itself, explaining the rules and demonstrating how to make a pattern and transfer it to the gourds.

“You look happy,” Erin said, gripping her coffee cup with the strength of one not fully awake. “Did you get laid?”

Carrie darted a glance at the long-haired woman sitting next to Erin, who smiled at her enquiringly. “No,” Carrie said, trying to give Erin the eye, which didn’t work. “I didn’t. But I clearly got more sleep than you. What time did you hit the room?”

“Too late. Or would that be too early? Sorry I missed you for breakfast. I had the best pancakes in the history of pancakes. I think I’m going to put on twenty pounds while I’m here, and I couldn’t care less.”

Carrie ignored the complaint as she decided she wasn’t thrilled with her drawing. She crumpled it, then took another sheet of paper. “So, still no ghosts?”

“Not yet. Some more suspicious temperature readings, though. The honchos are setting up inside the inn for later tonight. I’m going to be in the Old Hotel tonight. I’m so excited. It feels … Something’s going to happen tonight. I feel it. You know?”

“Absolutely not, but good for you. Keep that positive thought. I mean, come on, what ghost wouldn’t want to meet you? They’d have to be insane to pass up the opportunity.”

“Yeah.” Erin’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’m a bundle of delight.”

“Shut up. You are.”

“I need more caffeine.”

“I’ll say. What do you think of your pumpkin?”

Erin gave it a look, but her expression didn’t change a bit. “It’s a pumpkin.”

“You don’t want to change it for another?”

“I don’t care. I’m not gonna do anything with it. You’re going to win, and I want to bask in your reflected glory.”

“I know just what I want, but I’m not quite getting it,” Carrie admitted. “I’m a bit distracted.”

“Oh?” Only her best friend would have made the connection directly from that banal sentence to “something happened with Sam.”

“Yes, oh.”

“Do tell.”

Carrie looked at Erin’s neighbor. Unabashed, the woman, who had a nice heart-shaped face that shouldn’t have been so hidden by her lank dark hair, smiled and waited.

“Later.”

“Spoilsport.” Erin moved the pumpkin and the supplies to one side, then put her head down in the hollow of her crossed arms. “Wake me when something juicy happens.”

Carrie stared at her blank paper, but before she touched it with her pencil, she looked up. Sam was two aisles away, his back to her. Even though she knew it was a little sexist and definitely shallow, she loved the contrast between his broad shoulders and trim hips. With his hair over his collar and the way his black jeans hugged his ass, he was kind of perfect.

There wouldn’t be time to discover the inevitable annoying things, for either of them. He didn’t have to know she liked to eat her cereal with juice instead of milk, or ketchup on her cold spaghetti. Or that sometimes she would get so involved with her comic that whole days would pass without her realizing it.

He turned just then, as if he’d known she was looking at him. A smile curved his lips, and his right eyebrow arched with their secret. She blushed. Her stomach did that dip-and-swirl thing that hardly ever happened to her.

A part of her wanted to forget everything and drag him off to her room right this second, but the bigger part wanted to keep this feeling for as long as possible. Anticipation, in her experience, always exceeded reality.

One of the few children in the room tapped Sam’s shoulder, and the moment was gone except in memory. She bent to her paper, determined to get what she saw in her mind’s eye to come to life on a stencil drawing.

NOW, THIS WAS WHY HE had no business hooking up with a guest. At least not right now. Sam was in the middle of dinner with the buyers and Mori was asking him questions about the local skiing and snowboarding. Sam was having a hell of a time keeping focused. Carrie might be hot, but she wasn’t multimillion-dollars hot.

What kept tripping him up was that it was almost time for the contest to come to a close, when the group would pick a winner. He felt disloyal hoping it wouldn’t be Carrie, but he didn’t want her to get the in-room massage from anyone but himself.

He answered Mori’s questions without making a fool of himself, glad the three of them were on the tail end of dessert. Of course Jody had outdone herself again, and both Heartly and Mori seemed sated and happy, and not just from the meal.

“Are you going to stick around for any of the ghost hunting tonight?” Sam asked. “They’re setting up in the attic and in the garage. Oh, and the storage room, which should be warm. I’m not sure if they’ve picked out any of the guest rooms to monitor.”

Heartly shook his head. “I’m reasonably sure if anyone had actually found evidence of a ghost it would have been in the headlines. I think I’m safe turning in early.”

Mr. Mori took a sip of coffee then nodded. “That’s the thing with legends and folk tales. Hard to prove, but hard to disprove, too. My family has a long tradition of believing in the afterlife. Personally, I wouldn’t mind finding out they’re right. There are a few things I’d like to know about what happens next.”

“What happens next for me,” Heartly said, as he folded his napkin and put it on the table, “is a shower and bed. I’m going to call my wife, hope there’s something decent on the tube, and relax. This has been an eventful couple of days. You have a fine property here, Sam. It’s well cared for and both your staff and your guests seem happy. I know your father would be proud.”

“Thanks. He loved this place. It resonated with him.”

“You won’t miss it once you’re gone?”

“From time to time, I think it’s inevitable. But that’s the thing about moving on. I’ve got films of my folks, of the grounds. I’ve transferred them and all my pictures to digital. They’re safe and available when I’m hit by a bout of nostalgia.”

“Good,” Mr. Mori said. “I have some work to do, so I’ll also be heading upstairs. I, too, thank you for your hospitality. And please, don’t bother coming down tomorrow, if it’s just to see us off. If there’s a problem, I’m sure your people can handle it.”

Heartly nodded, then stood, and after handshakes without promises, the buyers left the restaurant.

Sam felt relief, but also let down. He’d been hyped up about this for so long that the anticlimax hit hard. The best thing to do now was distract himself. Luckily, he knew exactly how he was going to do just that.

“OH, MY GOD,” ERIN SAID, staring at Carrie’s finished pumpkin. “You did get laid.”

“Shhh!” Carrie ignored the woman next to Erin, knowing she was certainly grinning as broadly as half the jack-o’-lanterns in the room. “I did not.”

Her friend leaned over the table, pushed her disheveled hair out of her face and looked at Carrie with wide, accusing eyes. “Liar. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

Carrie turned the pumpkin so that her art couldn’t be seen. It wasn’t as if she’d drawn Sam naked or anything. No one would even know it was Sam. All she’d drawn was a back. The rear view from thighs up. Narrow hips, broad shoulders, hair scraping a collar. A hint of arms, a sense of movement. She’d paid particular attention to the butt, but that was an artistic statement. Nothing whatsoever to do with Halloween, but she liked it. She wanted to carve it, see if she could make it come alive on the pumpkin itself. “I have no idea what you’re so loudly talking about.”

“Come on. Tell me. I’ve got nothin’ here. No ghosts. No sparks, and I’m getting fatter by the second. I need you to tell me what happened.”

After a dramatic sigh, Carrie leaned forward. “We kind of made plans.”

“What kind?”

At least they were whispering, although Carrie had the feeling they weren’t quiet enough. “For later.”

“Details, woman. Details.”

She lowered her voice further, put her hand in front of her mouth. “He promised me a massage.”

“What?” Erin asked, her voice a veritable trumpet.

“Shhh. Dammit. I’m going to get coffee. You sit here, young lady, and think about what you’ve done.”

“The hell with that.” Erin got up and followed Carrie to the back of the room to the giant coffee urns. The second they were reasonably alone, she poked Carrie in the side. “Spill.”

It was a damn good thing she didn’t know anyone in the place, or plan to ever see any of them again, because she was certain that in approximately ten minutes, the word around the conference would be how the nonbeliever was also a total slut. “All we did was talk. I was interested in the in-room massage prize. He said that could be arranged.” She smiled at Erin. “Even if I didn’t win.”

“Ha. I knew it. From that first minute. Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say? Oh, I’m so jealous. He’s like the only doable guy in this whole place. Except for maybe Liam.”

“Liam, the conference coordinator? The married conference coordinator? His wife is here.”

“I’m not gonna jump him. Sheesh. I’m just making an observation.”

“That’s what you get for hanging around ghost hunters.”

“Hey, Sam is a believer. Remember?”

“He can believe in whatever he wants,” she said, cupping her coffee between her hands. “As long as he’s as great underneath those clothes as he is in them.”

Someone behind Carrie coughed. Not a real cough. The kind of cough that said she was busted. Even before she turned, Carrie knew who it was. Yep. The woman from their table.

“I like your pumpkin,” she said sweetly.

“Thanks.”

“I’m sure you’ll win the prize.” The woman, whose white T-shirt said Dude, Run in big black letters, gave her a grin, then walked away without even the pretense of getting a beverage.

“This just keeps getting better,” Erin said, taking way too much pleasure in Carrie’s embarrassment.

But Carrie’s attention was diverted when she saw that Sam had come into the room. In fact, he was standing by their table, looking at her pumpkin. And he was grinning with all the subtlety of a tree falling on a house.

“He,” Erin stated, “is hot. Very, very hot.”

“I got dibs,” Carrie said, which was probably obvious from the blush warming her cheeks.

“Come on.” Erin took her arm with her free hand and led Carrie to the table. To Sam. As soon as she was in range, Erin said, “Hey, Pumpkin. How you doin’?”

Carrie didn’t sock her friend, even though she wanted to. Instead, she smiled as innocently as she could. “Here to start the judging?”

He nodded. “I just announce, the group will judge.”

Erin set her cup down. “I’ll bet the female faction will vote for Carrie’s. Although it’s not at all scary.”

“Really?” Sam asked. “You don’t find that frightening? “

Erin touched his shoulder. “Sorry, babe. It’s the best-looking thing in these parts. Except for the inspiration.”

“Erin.” Carrie couldn’t have put more nuance on the name if she’d tried. It said Shut up, stop it, go to your room, and we may be on vacation, but I can still kick your ass.

Erin just laughed. She took her seat, crossed her arms over her Ghosts Do It in the Dark T-shirt and stared at the two of them as if they were on high-def TV. The Soap Channel.

“Go do your thing,” Carrie said, abandoning all hope of getting through tonight with any dignity.

“I’ll see you after?”

She nodded.

Sam hesitated, then took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Good.”

Carrie watched him as he meandered through the crowd, commenting to the participants, especially the younger ones. It occurred to her that this was all her own damn fault, and if she hadn’t wanted the hotel populace to know she wanted to sleep with the owner, she should have drawn a spooky little ghost and kept her mouth shut.

So she sat, resigned. “You can stop looking so delighted. I admit it. All of it.” Then Carrie turned to Erin’s neighbor. “And you can stop it, too.”

The “Dude, Run” woman burst out laughing. “You have to admit. I didn’t have to work very hard.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I’m Lulu,” she said. “I’m here with my old man, who is busy watching some sports thing in the bar. He doesn’t believe in any of this stuff, and he wasn’t supposed to come, but since the bar has more ESPN than we have at home, he insisted. I gather you two are friends?”

Carrie nodded. “Nice to meet you, Lulu. I’m Carrie, that’s Erin. I’m not sure about us being friends, though.”

Lulu shook her head. “I can see that’s not true. Sorry for sticking it to you over by the coffee, but man, that pumpkin. Did you think you’d get away with it?”

“I guess not.”

“Personally, I don’t blame you a bit. He’s a cutie.”

A shiver went through Carrie, not big enough that anyone would notice, but she felt it move straight down her back until it made her cross her legs. This was becoming very real. Very close. Thank god she’d shaved her legs.

As she sipped her now-cooled coffee she tried to do a quick run-through of the coming night, despite having no idea of the actual logistics. His place? Where was his place? Her room? No one too close there, but he’d have to make the call. She supposed she could insist that it be her room. At this point, she doubted the game would be called on account of venue.

She’d brought condoms because she always brought condoms on the off chance. But it had been a while since Armand, and she was feeling surprisingly gun-shy. Normally, she had no qualms about her sexuality, but with Sam, she wanted him to like it. Her. A lot.

“Carrie.”

She blinked at Erin. “What?”

“You’re not in the bedroom yet, so please pay attention to the person sitting across from you.”

“Sorry. Zoned.”

“I guessed. Your squeeze is asking for pumpkins to be brought onstage.”

“I told you, I’m not entering.”

“You have to.” This, from Lulu. “It’s adorable and everyone’ll get a real kick out of it. It’s not as if the whole room doesn’t know.”

“Have I thanked you guys for that yet? No?” She leaned forward. “There’s a reason.”

“Honey,” Lulu said, as if she’d known them for years. “Half the people here were talking about you the minute you checked in. Some said you didn’t believe in ghosts. Personally, that’s fine with me. You can believe in whatever the hell you want. Others said you and Sam got into a little staring contest in line. Sherry said it was like you two were having sex right there in the middle of the lobby.”

“Oh, my god.” Carrie put her head in her hands.

“It’s kind of sweet,” Erin said. “No reason for you to be embarrassed. You’re both consenting adults and you’re not breaking any rules. They’re all just jealous. I know because I am, too. Do yourself a favor. Own it. If someone doesn’t like it, too bad.”

Carrie lifted her head just enough to stare at Erin. “Own it? Who the hell are you talking to?”

“The new you. The one who’s going to be brave and daring and fierce even when I’m in New York. The one who’s not going to lock herself in the loft and only come out when there’s no more milk.”

Carrie’s stomach swooped again, this time unpleasantly with the reminder that soon her life was going to change so dramatically. “I shouldn’t be hooking up. I should be spending time with you.”

Erin gave her a lopsided grin. “I love you, but not that much.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. But please, I beg of you, do this. He seems like a really nice guy. He’s not about to do something hinky. He’s the owner, he’s got staff, guests. If it’s terrible, so what? You both get a little itchy when you see each other and then you move on. It’s the perfect time and place to take a chance, trust me.”

“And how do you know that?”

Erin tapped her temple with her index finger. “Psychic.”





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