Going All Out by Jeanie London Read Free Book Online

worked her way up through the ranks.
    She’d remind Bree about how long they’d dreamed of moving into a real home that wasn’t some tiny apartment in a dumpy complex or a prefab rental in a bad section of town.
    To Bree and Tally a real home had meant Court du Chaud. Their connection to the swashbuckling Captain Dampier had been the only thing to make them feel special in an existence that often felt weighted with problems and responsibilities. And when they’d finally gotten their shot at owning their own home, it had all felt magical, special.
    Tally would tell Bree not to let anything take that feeling away, not to let anyone smack her down again.
    She knew Tally was right, but as Bree sat up in bed and stared at the wall that had been skillfully designed to match the old, she wished she could actually hear Tally say it.
     
    W ITH HIS EYES TIGHTLY shut, Captain Gabriel Dampier moved through the wall of the bedroom that had once been his in life. After spending nearly two hundred years haunting his former quarters in Court du Chaud, he had witnessed many who’d inhabited these rooms and had no wish to intrude on anyone’s privacy.
    Especially this chit’s. She was directly descended from him, and the very idea of chancing across her in a state of dishabille or, heaven forbid, engaged in some intimate activity smacked far too close to perversion for comfort. As much as he wanted Breanne to fall wildly and hopelessly in love, he had already established guidelines for proper behavior with her twin. He would adhere to those rules now.
    Neither death nor the passing of generations apparently tempered the familial bond running through his bloodline. He was Breanne’s many-times-removed grand-père. While he might not have behaved appropriately paternally in life—or even been aware he’d sired offspring—he was correcting the oversight in death.
    After listening closely for any sounds of movement, Gabriel peered narrowly through half-closed lids to find his beautiful descendent lying restlessly across the bed.
    He sighed, relieved, and opened his eyes.
    “You are a fool.” A familiar voice startled him.
    “Eternal damnation,” he snapped much louder than he had intended, a rebellion against the invisible barrier between the living world and his own. “Must you plague me at every turn?”
    “Yes.”
    An unnecessary reply to a question he well knew the answer to. This crone had been tormenting him ever since the fateful night he’d been gunned down on his ship. He’dawakened to find himself dead and her his only companion in the afterlife.
    Talk about cursed!
    Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw her ghostly form emerge through the wall, a shawl pulled tightly around her stooped shoulders, a pleased expression on her withered face.
    The sum of his life obviously equaled a dismal failure to have earned this woman as an eternal reward.
    “Go away. I have no wish to deal with you tonight.”
    She laughed, a grim sound that would have raised the hairs on his neck had life still pulsed through his veins. “You should have thought of that before you involved yourself with my granddaughter and spawned a bloodline that we share. I’m surprised you have not yet figured out that death is not about what you wish.”
    That much he knew. “You shall not ruin my mood, belle grand-mère. Not when the end is finally within my grasp. Breanne has met a man who sparks her interest. She is all that is standing between me and my eternal peace. I can break your damn curse once and for all.”
    “Still so proud, pirate.”
    “I am no pirate.” The words fell from his lips mindlessly, a habit from long ago.
    But even as his denial faded to silence, he could see a smile split her shriveled cheeks until she reminded him of an apple left too long in the sun.
    “Then go about your business. I will not disturb you. I would only savor the joy of watching you fail.”
    “Fail? This chit’s twin lies in the arms of her new