A Viking Ghost for Valentine's Day (Gambling Ghosts Series Book 2) Read online

  When she got to the kitchen, the kettle was at full boil. “Oh sweet baby Jesus!” If she’d had something in her hands, she would have dropped it. Her head swiveled from side to side. But no one was there. At least no one she could see.

  Hail Mary, Jesus, Buddha and Hari Krishna. Help me, for I am a dimwitted sinner . . .

  More laughter from the room shattered her thoughts. She swallowed down her fear, because she had to. Pouring the hot water into the small pot that already had a full tea ball sitting in it, she drew in a slow breath and counted to ten. She would do this. One … two … three …

  The scent of a man and wood smoke hit her senses.

  Oh for all that is holy, this can’t be happening. She needed to be rational, logical like Spock. Cool heads prevail, or so they say. If there were ghosts in the third room, so be it. They weren’t hurting her. If they were human, ditto. All she needed to do was keep her head down and get her work done. Spit and polish, that was what she needed to do. Spit and polish. That was her ticket to survival.

  But who the hell put the kettle on?

  The first sip of tea steadied her nerves. The blend had a punch that lifted her spirits, or maybe it was the caffeine. She could mainline caffeine right now.

  Thinking about the baby and her kids calmed her. It had been a good night. Being able to feed them made her feel as though she had turned their lives around, as though she could be the mother she wanted to be, or at least a shadow of her. She wished she could thank the person who had so generously left them food. Someday she would pay that favor forward.

  ***

  ERIC WATCHED THE SMILE grow on Abby’s lips as she swallowed her tea. He wondered how they would taste. Sweet like honey, he imagined. The laughter in the poker room called to him and he decided to play a few hands, but before he left he swung closely by Abby to take in her earthy scent. What a woman.

  ***

  COLD AIR RUFFLED Abby’s hair, as if she stood in the wind, but the air in the room was still. Abby swallowed. This had to be the most unusual job she had ever had, or ever heard of for that matter. After rubbing the goosebumps on her arms, she set about finding food.

  Half a sandwich lay near the top of the garbage and it smelled okay. She bit into it. Mmm. Cucumber and cream cheese had never tasted so good. All she had left to do were the washrooms, and then she would call it a night and get home to her family.

  If she could just get the noise from the third room out of her mind, everything would be perfect. She turned up the music on her cell phone.

  As she scrubbed the first toilet, she heard a blood-curdling cry of pain.

  It sounded as if a woman had been stabbed. It came from that room.

  Azalea told me not to go in there, no matter what I hear. But someone’s hurt. She couldn’t expect me to let that happen. I can’t stand by …

  “Ahh! Stop that,” screamed a woman.

  With a string mop in her hand, Abby ran to the third door. The screaming stopped. Pressing her ear to the old-wood surface she could hear voices, the sound of cards being shuffled and poker chips being thrown in a pile. More laughter. Sinister laughter. Jovial laughter. And chatter.

  Then Bang! A gun shot.

  Her hand trembled next to the door handle. How could she ignore a gun shot? But she had to.

  Abby stood listening for fifteen minutes, the longest fifteen minutes in her life. No more screams. No more threats. No more gun shots. Just the sound of people playing cards, people who weren’t supposed to be there. She strained to hear more. If someone was hurt, they wouldn’t continue their game, would they?

  Unless they were already dead.

  Spock would deduce at this point that the presence of ghosts was indeed a logical conclusion, but she just couldn’t go there. Ghosts belonged to Halloween, not to her world.

  “The cleaning lady’s listening,” said one of the gamblers. Abby took a step back and looked at the door. They knew she was there. They knew she was listening.

  Who the hell were they?

  6

  Third Room to the Right

  ON THE THIRD NIGHT, ABBY sang as she walked up the long front stairs to the teahouse. Life was good. The kids had eaten three meals and snacks for two days, she had a job and her butler mystery had finally taken shape. The teahouse ghosts or whatever they were had not bothered her, or at least not yet.

  Before using her keys, she stopped to listen to the house. The more she thought about it, the more she figured the place had a personality of its own. It liked being clean and organized. She swore it had its own way of sighing when she finished her work, as if its pride hung in the lightness of the air, and the house shifted on its foundations to soak in more moonlight. She shook her head. People would think her crazy if they knew she thought the house had feelings, but this one did.

  And then there were the gamblers . . .

  So she stood in the front foyer taking in the mood of the teahouse. In the pressing darkness, it felt like a sanctuary from the cold of the winter weather outside. As strange as it could be around midnight, it felt welcoming now.

  Flicking on the lights, she assessed the work ahead of her. The place was as a quiet and still as a catacomb. Dust in the air shifted under the lighting, glimmering as if it were magic. A heavy sense of foreboding hung heavy on her shoulders. She hugged herself and exhaled. In three hours, she would be free again and one day closer to a paycheck.

  ***

  THE SOUND OF THE KETTLE boiling brought her to the kitchen two hours later. A full tea ball had been set in the small pot that sat beside a pretty tea cup. The charm of the old china pattern warmed her to the thought of a good cup of tea. The room smelled of a wood fire, but she knew there was none. She shrugged.

  The old, stainless-steel kettle whistled. If it were plugged into the wall like a drip coffee maker with a timer, she could understand how it knew when she needed a break, but it wasn’t. It definitely wasn’t. A breeze tousled her hair and she swiped at her forehead. “Thanks for the tea,” she said out loud. Someone must be in the house. Maybe one of the gamblers. That had to be it.

  The pot rose into the air and moved towards her tea pot. She swallowed. As the hot water flowed into the pot the bouquet of high-mountain oolong tea filled the air. What a treat. Whoever her companion was, he knew his tea. She tried to smile at her own joke, but goosebumps pebbled along her arms and the fine hair on the nape of her neck stood up.

  How could a kettle of boiling water fly through the air?

  The stories about this place varied, but the common theme was that ever since Azalea’s brother Rufus died here, ghosts had made their favorite hangout. And those ghosts could get rowdy. For the most part the rumors weren’t all that terrifying. She poured milk into her tea. That is, if you could say a story about dead people moving around wasn’t scary. She stirred. There had been many drive by sightings of glowing eyes. People had heard the laughter and the screams. And some had even heard a gunshot. But no one had been hurt.

  “I said, thank you,” she said.

  A bag of sugar lifted into the air and tilted releasing a cup of sugar onto the counter.

  Abby took a step back. What the heck!

  The sugar shifted, as if an invisible hand was drawing in it. She looked closer and made out the words, “You’re welcome.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” she said aloud.

  The sugar moved some more. “Boo.”

  Her heart jack-hammered against her chest. Whether she wanted to believe it or not, someone, or something, made the sugar move.

  “Aaah,” that blood-curdling scream came again from the third room.

  With her mop in her hand, she ran to its door and touched the doorknob. It felt colder than ice, but she turned it anyway. Enough of this nonsense. She needed to get to the bottom of whatever was going on in this house. And darn it to hell, she still refused to believe it was ghosts. As the gut-wrenching screams continued, she turned the knob all the way.

  7


  Behind Door Number Three

  AS ABBY OPENED THE DOOR a blast of ice-cold air slapped her face. Her breath caught in her throat. Her thoughts flew in all directions. But the room was empty.

  Except for the laughter.

  It sounded as though a table full of people sat in front of her, and they were all laughing. Then came the sound of small objects hitting the table, as if ghostly poker chips were falling.

  “Enough,” she said as she increased the grip on her mop. “I don’t want anyone hurt on my shift.”

  More laughter.

  Clearly, that didn’t work. Oh my gosh. They were even more deaf than children. “Are you listening to me?”

  Silence.

  She put her free hand on her hip. “Is anyone hurt?” She had to ask, even though she hated the way her voice sounded small. No doubt her face had gone beet-red too. She gasped for air.

  “Enough. Enough already, you ghostly beasts. I heard a woman scream and it sounded like she was in pain.”

  Silence.

  “Excruciating pain.”

  Silence.

  “And who the hell is making me tea?” Her words came out as scrambled as her thoughts and she bit her lip to stop from saying anything more.

  A man shimmered into view beside her.

  “Oh … holy hell!” Abby’s mouth dropped open. He was a … No, he couldn’t be. But he was. Oh, sweet baby Jesus. He was a Viking.

  Built like a Norse god, his seven feet of muscle towered above her. His shoulder length blond hair looked real enough to touch and his roguish, blue eyes held a decidedly-naughty glint. His chest was bare and he wore a fur cloak and leather skirt. “I put the kettle on.” The sound of his voice spiked her pulse—low, male and oh so sexy.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “They call me Dodger.”

  “Dod … ger?” That didn’t sound like a Viking name.

  A woman’s voice came out of the cold nothingness around them. “That’s what we call him, cuz he’s been dodging the light for so long, dearie.” She gave a bawdy laugh fitting for a drunken, lady of the night. “And he’s good at dodging it.”

  “Dodging the light? As in The Light?”

  The Viking nodded, as his gorgeous eyes caressed her body, not in a lewd way, though she wasn’t sure a ghost could be considered lewd, but in a saucy way, the kind that feeds a woman’s heart and ignites her passion. Her blood warmed. Shut the door! Who knew a ghost could have enough raw sex appeal to weaken a woman knees? Abby exhaled slowly and lifted her chin, determined to enunciate a full sentence. “What the hell are you doing in my teahouse?”

  The ghosts she couldn’t see laughed, and the side of Dodger’s mouth quirked up.

  She raised a brow.

  “Forgive us for laughing.” He lifted his hand in a stop gesture. “You have to understand, we think it’s funny that you call this teahouse yours. We think of it as ours. Most of us have been coming here for five years, ever since our friend Rufus died in this room. That’s what all the screaming is about, by the way.”

  “The blood-curdling scream?”

  “Yeah, that one. It’s part of a reenactment of the night Rufus was shot and it happens every night at thirteen past midnight.

  She dropped her arms. “Rufus, I’m sorry.” Having to die all over again every night had to bite.

  Dodger’s eyes softened. “Well, he was cheating, so while his death came sooner than he would have liked, it was predictable.”

  “No sympathy for cheaters.”

  Dodger looked over at the empty space. “Something like that.”

  “Is he here now?”

  The Viking nodded. “He haunts this house day and night, and holds card games most evenings. We’ve had a lot of fun here …”

  Grumbling from the invisible crowd of ghosts stopped him.

  “Well, except for the one night when two poltergeists muscled in, but that’s another story.”

  “And Azalea doesn’t mind?”

  “Rufus is Azalea’s brother, and being a medium she can see us all. She lets us be. So you see, we think of the teahouse as our place. Usually we play cards late at night, so we don’t bother anyone.” He hesitated a heartbeat. “But truly, the house and the magical land beneath it belongs to no one.”

  Abby tilted her head. “I swear it has a mind of its own.”

  Dodger lifted his perfectly chiseled chin. “You are not only beautiful, but you are also wise. The house is shall we say—charmed.” The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled. Despite his enormous size, and his silvery glow, he seemed a perfect gentleman. Not scary at all. She inhaled his manly scent and reminded herself that he … was … dead. So why were butterflies dancing in her belly?

  “Uh, thank you,” she said. I think. What does one say when a hot ghost feeds you a line? “Are you flirting with me?” She loosened her hold on the mop handle.

  As Dodger moved closer he lowered his smoother than velvet voice, “Let me walk you home tonight.” His raw alpha-maleness tingled her senses. Did ghosts have the power to glamor? Or was it his rugged good looks that made her female parts sing? Alive or dead—what did it matter?—this guy had seriously sexy mojo.

  Uh-huh, she could guess how he dodged the light, and even though he intrigued her—to put her physical response to him mildly—he wasn’t the sort of man—um, ghost —she wanted around her kids. “Nah-uh. That wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  “Appropriate?” As he squinted his brows scrunched to form a V. The scruff on his face looked so real, she wanted to touch it. Feel it against her own face.

  Hmm. Turning him down would be stupid. A handsome, scratch that—drop-dead, drool-worthy, wickedly-hot—man wanted to take a walk with her. What could go wrong? “Okay. If you promise to behave.”

  Dodger gave her a bad-boy smile. “Only if I have to.”

  8

  Death's a Bitch

  THE INSTANT ABBY LEFT THE ROOM the house lights flickered. She needed to write this phenomenon down. The house had its own way of responding to the life and death within it. If she deciphered its responses, she would have a better understanding of what was going on around her. But what the heck did that matter? Get a grip, woman. Your job is to spit and polish.

  ***

  SUCKED OUT OF THE ROOM by the Valkyrie, Brunhilde, Dodger found himself spit onto the cold, damp, stone floor of her cave dwelling. Being a ghost he didn’t feel the fall in his muscles or on his skin, but it dented his ego none the less. Brunhilde,the bitch of death!

  Not only was Brunhilde his personal shrink, she was also his former mother in-law.

  Her burning red eyes glared at him. “What in Odin’s name do you think you’re doing?” She floated above him.

  Her other-worldly voice made him cringe and he shook his head trying to rid himself of it. In all the centuries he had roamed the earth, he had never heard anyone else screech in such a high-pitched, glass-breaking voice. It echoed through his consciousness grating on the edges of his soul.

  Her ancient hand reached out of her black cloak. With a craggy finger she pointed at him. “You need to listen.”

  “Playing poker. You know I do that. It passes the time.” He rose and stared down at her, but she lifted her arm, and with a flash of her magic placed him beneath her, as if he were a bothersome housefly she could bat around.

  Brunhilde stood ten-feet tall, but it wasn’t her size that gave her power. She had serious, supernatural moxie, a breath that smelled like a sewage pit and a wicked disposition. Her red eyes shone with an unearthly glow as if they were lighthouse beacons for wayward souls. Her scraggly, dirty-blond hair framed a long, pale face dominated by a bulbous nose. Wiry, black hairs sprouted out of her nostrils.

  Odin had commanded Brunhilde to fix Dodger centuries ago and her failure to do so, bothered her. Deeply. On more than one occasion, Eric had told her he didn’t like being a crochet project for a soul-eating witch, but sensing the chill in the air, he figured such humor would not be wise tonight.<
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  The Valkyrie shimmered blue. “You belong with your own kind.”

  The Viking rose slowly, expecting to be slammed down at any second. “I spend most of my time with other ghosts.”

  Like a flame fed pure oxygen, the red in her eyes glowed extra strong. “The woman is human.”

  So wonderfully human. “She’s a widow with three children. I want to make things easier for her. Surely there’s no crime in that.”

  “Why? Why do you want to help this one?”

  Thoughts flew through his mind: Because something about her pulls me like a magnet. Her strength. Her courage. Her sense of humor. Her determination. Her beauty. I’m not really sure, but I want to get to know her. But he said none of that. “Life is hard. If I can make it easier for one person, then I think it’s a good day.”

  The menace in her eyes diminished. “That sounds . . . ” She hesitated and looked beyond him as if she were communicating directly with Odin over an invisible hot-line. “Like you’re growing up.”

  Eric laughed. “It happens to the best of us.”

  “Well, handsome, while I admire your gallant gesture towards the widow— ”

  “Abigail,” he interrupted.

  “Abigail, yes. While I admire your desire to help Abigail and her wee ones, I have concerns.”

  “Now you’re beginning to sound like my mother-in-law again. Puritanical, obstinate and crazy. I won’t—I can’t, as you well know—touch her.”

  “Perhaps. But if there was a way, I’m sure you would find it.”

  A ghostly light bulb flashed in his mind. So there was a way? After all the years they had known each other, he could read her well, but he said nothing choosing to file that piece of information, as incredible as it was, away for later.

  “I’m not a prude, Eric. And my daughter, your wife, found peace without you centuries ago. Those are not my issues.”

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  “I’m not comfortable with ghost-human relationships. They rock the balance of the universe and blur the edges of our five dimensions. They just aren’t right.”