0451416325 by Heather Blake Read Free Book Online Page B

beautiful dress hadn’t quite turned to rags, but the hem was ruined, and I was going to have to dig deep in my bank account to pay for the damage.
    Never mind the whole midnight thing. My world had been tipped upside down at nine thirty. Not even. It was probably more like nine eighteen-ish.
    There was nothing fairy tale–like about nine eighteen.
    As soon as I dashed inside my kitchen door, I grabbed my pitchfork, and checked to make sure all the doors and windows were locked and the shades pulled.
    Roly and Poly, who had been sleeping on the back of the sofa when I bolted inside, took one look at me and raced up the stairs hissing, their fur on end.
    It was the first clue that I hadn’t come home alone.
    The second was the searing headache.
    Taking a deep breath, I turned around and found Haywood Dodd floating behind me, sadness etching his mournful blue gaze.
    “Out, out you go!” I said, jabbing my pitchfork at the specter.
    As if it would do me any good. The man was already dead.
    Have mercy on his soul.
    Putting his hands together in a begging gesture, he moaned as he tried to speak.
    Clearly, he hadn’t learned the ins and outs of the ghostly world yet. Ghosts couldn’t speak. They could, however, be quite vocal. Moaning was the most popular manner of communication. I presumed it was because they often forgot they couldn’t talk and the moan escaped when they attempted to try.
    “I can’t help you, Haywood.” Closing my eyes, I willed him away.
    This begging, moaning, mess of a dead man.
    “I shouldn’t even be seeing you until midnight. You aren’t playing by the rules,” I chastised, keeping my eyelids squeezed shut. “I still had a couple of ghost-free hours. Go away. Get out!”
    So long. Adios. Buh-bye, ghostie.
    I cracked open an eyelid.
    Haywood remained floating in my living room, like some sort of ill-conceived practical joke balloon.
    Still begging.
    Still making my head hurt.
    Dressed in the fancy suit and expensive shoes he’d worn to tonight’s event, he looked like an image from a transparent black-and-white photograph, mostly gray, all bright color drained from him in death except for one feature.
    His eyes.
    Vivid blue irises glowed with life.
    It was an odd ghostly trait, one I’d never found an explanation for in all the research I’d done on the afterlife.
    Sighing, I set my pitchfork on the floor and sat on the arm of the couch to think through the situation.
    I knew how this worked. He wasn’t going to go away until I helped him cross over. It was the ghostly way.
    But maybe there was a chance I could pawn him off. In a rush, I said, “You should go see Delia. She loves ghosts. Ghosts are her best friends. She’ll help you. I’ll call, tell her you’re coming.”
    Standing up, my head hurt something fierce as I started for the phone in the kitchen. He cut me off, his vaporous being zipping in front of me, making me stop short so I wouldn’t walk right through him .
    Blessed. Be.
    Moaning again, he pointed insistently at me.
    Taking a step back, I dropped my head in my hands and tried to figure a way out of this mess.
    After a minute of racking my brain, I couldn’t come up with any kind of solution other than to help the man.
    The ghost.
    Whatever.
    Anxious, I paced the pine floorboards. Dylan and I had only just finished installing them the week before. They were gorgeous, reclaimed from an old Mississippi schoolhouse.
    “First things first, we need some rules. You,” I said jabbing a finger in his direction, “need to keep at least a ten-foot distance from me at all times. Fifteen feet would be even better. I can feel the way you died, and I cannot even explain to you the massive headache I have right no—” Wincing, I cut myself off. “I’m sorry. I’m guessing you can imagine.”
    Though, really, his headache had ended when he died. Mine would last as long as he was near me. The greater the space between us the less pain I would feel.
    He glanced around as if