I thought of those two little girls, and how they were, no doubt, terrified. And I thought of Barbra and her anxiety and the fact that she hadn’t been sleeping for who knew how long. And I thought of Layla, whose husband had been taken from her too early.

  “No,” I said, surprising myself with my own vehemence. “No, I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you,” Marty breathed out his relief.

  Now that I’d made my decision, it was time to get the important facts about the case. “Has anyone been singled out or hurt by the spirit?”

  Marty nodded grimly. “That’s why I decided to approach you about it. Things are getting decidedly more violent. Objects are being thrown on a semi-regular basis, but two days ago, one of Barbra’s kids got hurt.”

  “How badly?”

  “She’s okay,” Marty said quickly. “But for how long?”

  I nodded. He was right. And, God, how awful for Barbra. No wonder she looked so haggard. I still had nightmares of what happened to Finn at the old house. To see one of her kids targeted by a vengeful spirit after everything she’d already endured had to have been the purest form of hell.

  I could abide a ghost or two in the house. For the most part, ghosts were like the people they’d once been. Irritating, eccentric, and unhappy. As long as they didn’t hurt anyone, though, I could live and let... well, I could leave them be. But poltergeists were a different story. They couldn’t be tolerated.

  I had to help Barbra. I had to help her kids. And I had to help Marty, who’d probably get himself killed, standing between them and a rampaging and powerful ghost.

  “When can we take a look at the house?” I asked.

  Marty beamed. “I’ll give Layla a call and ask when I can bring you over.”

  ***

  It turned out that Layla wouldn’t be ready for Marty to bring me over for another week. She was out of town, on a field trip with her seventh-grade class. Of course, Marty had asked if Barbra could grant us access to the house, but Layla told him Barbra was in too brittle a state to even discuss the activity. As Layla told Marty, Barbra continuously denied there was a ghost, let alone a poltergeist. She was firmly in the camp of non-believers, even though she couldn’t explain what was going on or why.

  So, we would just have to wait until Layla returned, and that was fine by me. With my store newly opened and Finn, I had my hands full.

  “Hey, Mom,” Finn said as he walked into the kitchen where I was standing and staring out the window, wondering what I would face at Layla’s. “What’s for dinner?”

  I turned to face him. “Take out.” I looked around myself at the kitchen and sighed. I really needed to get a move on with the remodel.

  “Can we get Chinese this time?”

  “Sure,” I answered, rubbing the back of my neck as another subject continued to assault me. “Hey, Finn, do you know two twins named Allison and Hannah—I think they probably go to your school.”

  He nodded. “Hannah is in my class and Allison is in Mrs. Deveroux’s.”

  “Oh, cool,” I said, trying to sound casual. I didn’t want Finn asking me too many questions. Not yet, anyway. Not until I could come up with a good response for why I was getting myself involved in another poltergeist case. “Are they friends of yours?”

  “Well, not friends, but they’re both nice. Pretty quiet,” he answered with a shrug. “Hannah came in the other day with a black eye and this big bandage across her cheek.”

  I felt my heart drop down to my toes. “What happened?”

  Finn shrugged again. “I dunno. When we asked her about it, she said she didn’t want to talk about it.”

  I nodded, my mind made up now more than ever that I needed to get involved in this case. No poltergeist was going to harm a child, if I could help it.

  And I could help it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I glanced down at the stack of brochures Marty had whipped up and grinned. Over the last week, we’d agreed on a logo, a slogan (“Poppy’s Potions: cures for all ailments”) and he’d created a three-fold brochure, a sheet of instructions for each potion and business cards. We’d spent a good two nights folding the brochures, and now they were ready to go.

  I closed my shop early because I’d decided to visit all the stores in town in order to ask them if I could leave a few brochures where their customers could see them. My first stop was Stanley Stomper’s Creamery.

  Stanley was leaning half out of his window, as usual, offering a middle-aged woman a chocolate twist cone. I’d never seen him come out from behind the counter, and neither had Marty. Something that made you say: hmm…

  Stanley’s one customer made herself scarce pretty quickly, leaving me alone with just the ambient sounds of the street filtering in through the door. After exchanging greetings, Stanley said he was only too happy to accept my brochures, and I dropped them off, heading for the next store on my route, Sweeter Haunts.

  ‘Monster Mash’ trickled from the open door, accompanied by the smell of baking chocolate. It must have been fudge day. Ergh…

  After leaving a handful of brochures at the front counter, and with my willpower still intact (I’d successfully talked myself down from sampling any of the delicious smelling treats), I found myself standing in front of the Half-Moon Bar and Grill.

  And this stop made me nervous. Recalling the way the owner, Roy, had looked at me when Marty, Finn and I had had dinner here the other night, my heart was already pounding. I could remember the raw animal magnetism that wafted off him, even from across the room.

  I rubbed at my arms self-consciously even as I began a brisk walk through the open doors, and I noticed a different hostess standing behind the podium. She was probably just over nineteen.

  After telling her I was here to ask Roy if I could leave some brochures for my store, she escorted me to the bar, winding through a maze of mostly empty tables. There was a smattering of chatting couples, but that was about it. The large room seemed as cavernous as a cathedral when not at capacity. There was only one patron at the bar, hunched over his drink, which appeared to be made of way too much grenadine syrup. He might have just been drinking the syrup itself, because the liquid was a dark, viscous red.

  He was busy talking to the bartender, Roy, who immediately glanced at me as I approached. That same sweltering expression appeared in his eyes, and it was all I could do to force myself to hold his gaze. Up close and personal, he was even taller and broader than I remembered and, ahem, hotter.

  “Blast,” the man beside me muttered. I detected just the faintest hint of an Irish accent as he spoke.

  I vaguely recognized the man from his profile picture on Match.com—he was the dentist Marty had told me about. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember his name. He looked like he was suffering from a bad head cold. His eyes were red-rimmed, bloodshot, and bruise-like circles bagged just beneath them. He rubbed vigorously at his temples.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He looked at me and shook his head. “I can’t get this damned headache to go away.” Then he looked at the drink before him. “I thought this hair of the dog rot was supposed to work.” Then he looked over at Roy, who was already giving him a smirk. “I thought you were the authority on that sort of thing.”

  “If you’d listened to me last night, you wouldn’t have had a hangover today. I told you that stuff was strong enough to wake you from a death sleep.” He chuckled and the sound was… sexy. “Suck it up and find a way to take an aspirin.”

  “Useless advice,” the man said and pulled a face as he mimed retching onto the counter.

  I didn’t comment, just slipped onto the barstool next to the exhausted man. Yes, I’d only planned to ask quickly if I could leave my brochures and then skedaddle, but now I thought I might have an iced tea before I was on my way.

  And maybe I’d get to know Roy Osbourne a bit… better?

  Roy buffed the counter top very near the man’s elbow, knocking into him deliberately on the second pass through.

  “You’re new here,” Roy said, even though he didn’t bother looking up from his cleaning. It took me a second to realize he was talking to me.

  The other man swiveled to face me at the same time that Roy looked up and into my eyes. Up close, Roy’s gray eyes were even more captivating. They were like a pair of dark nimbuses, poised in that taut moment just before lightning strikes. Even though I couldn’t explain why, there was a sense of danger to him. Not necessarily menace but... the promise of it if you pissed him off. Even leaning over the counter, he was over a head taller than me, and I was acutely aware of how broad he was, how much potential was contained in the muscle that strained his shirt. He could crush me without trying.

  The other man’s stare was equally disquieting. Despite their bloodshot appearance, the green of his eyes was still drowning deep, the face that accompanied it still very handsome. He seemed more urbane and polished than Roy, but no less dangerous. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why I thought so. And it wasn’t like I was going to trust my gut. As far as instincts go, mine didn’t have a fantastic track record when it came to men.

  Regardless, there was something… otherworldly emanating off both men. Something decidedly… supernatural. It was there in the way the air around them seemed to be teeming with energy. Yes, just like I’d detected with Fifi and Ophelia, there was power coming from these two. I just wasn’t sure what sort of power, but it was there, all the same.

  “Yes, I am new in town,” I answered, finally. Once I managed to find my voice, the man sitting next to me smiled, revealing a sharp, glittering grin that was both alarming and somehow boyish. He reached out a long-fingered hand and brushed his knuckles ever-so-gently across my left cheekbone. I immediately pulled back, unaccustomed to such an obvious break in personal space.

  “Ah, you’re quite fetching when you blush,” he said.

  A bass rumble sounded from Roy. But, it wasn’t a laugh. No, his eyes roiled, the gray going darker as anger clouded his expression.

  He was growling. How was that even possible?

  “Hands to yourself, Lorcan. You know my rules and what happens if you break them.”

  Ah, that’s right. This was the dentist, Lorcan Rowe.

  Lorcan withdrew his hand carefully, shooting Roy a mildly quizzical look. “Testy, testy. Feeling a bit territorial, are we?”

  Roy’s flat, unfriendly stare would have made a Marine flinch. Lorcan was either too cocky or too stupid to take the warning. Instead, he faced me with a well-practiced smile.

  “My name is Lorcan Rowe,” he almost purred. “What’s yours, my lovely?”

  My cheeks, impossibly, grew even hotter. “Holly… Morton, though most people call me Poppy.”

  “Nice to meet you, Poppy Morton,” Lorcan said, grinning at me again.

  I smiled at him and then turned to face Roy when he cleared his throat. “I’m glad to know your name, Poppy,” he said, and his voice was low… intimate somehow. I swallowed hard. “I’m Roy.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” I managed.

  “And what do you do, Poppy?” Lorcan asked, pulling my attention again.

  “Oh, I run the new shop on Main Street, ‘Poppy’s Potions’.”

  “Ah,” he answered, and made the one word sound like praise. “You must be the herbalist my assistant has been raving about.”

  “Um, I mean… I guess?” I asked, not meaning to sound so confused, but there it was.

  Lorcan nodded. “Your remedies for toothaches have gone over well at the office. And the stuff for nerves... what’s it called again?”

  “Well, I have quite a few potions for nerves and anxiety.”

  He nodded, but still seemed like he was reaching for the title. “It starts with a T, I do believe.”

  “Tranquility Oil?” I asked.

  “Yes, that’s it. It helped tremendously for the children afraid of Novocain shots.”

  “Oh, good, I’m glad to hear that,” I said with a quick nod.

  “Lorcan…” Roy began warningly, though I wasn’t sure why.

  Lorcan held his hands out in a pacifying gesture, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the small, haughty smirk on his face.

  “Calm down, you beastly man. I’m just being friendly.”

  “Well, be friendly somewhere else,” Roy muttered darkly, so low I almost couldn’t pick out the individual words. When he turned his gaze back to me, his eyes were a little softer.

  “What in the hell did I do to get your panties in such a bunch?” Lorcan asked, and the question caused me to giggle a little.

  Roy’s expression wasn’t as congenial. “You’re being a flirt, as usual.” Then he faced me. “And you, my pretty new neighbor, would do well to stay as far away from Lorcan as possible.”

  I swallowed hard at the mention of me as his ‘pretty neighbor’. So, I figured it was safe to say Roy was definitely interested. Not that it would have taken a genius to figure that much out—owing to the intensity of the looks he’d been giving me the whole time I was here with Marty and Finn.

  Marty… what about McFly? I asked myself.

  Marty and I aren’t anything, other than friends, I responded. It’s not like he’s let it be known he’s interested. And, furthermore, it’s important to have a male friend who’s just that—a friend. In your experience, friends stick around longer than boyfriends do.

  Right.

  And there’s also the fact that Finn loves him…

  Yes, there was that.

  McFly and I are definitely better as friends, I resolved. And that means…

  I looked up at Roy again and swallowed hard. He was definitely attractive…

  “Beast,” Lorcan grumbled.

  “Parasite,” Roy muttered.

  “Ahem,” I started, interrupting them both with a quick, apologetic smile. Then I looked at Roy. “The reason I came in today was to ask you a favor.”

  “A favor?” he repeated as he paced away from the bar, almost smiling now that Lorcan had lost whatever pissing contest they’d just had. When Roy returned, he’d filled a plastic tumbler with iced tea and placed a lemon garnish at the top of the glass. He pushed the drink towards me.

  “Iced tea with lemon, right? I remember you ordered that last time you were here.”

  I blinked, amazed and shocked. “How on earth did you remember that?”

  “I’ve got a good memory,” he answered with a shrug and then knocked on his noggin with a big smile. He had nice teeth and full lips… lips that begged to be…

  Poppy! I yelled at myself. Jeez!

  “And he’s got the hearing abilities of a wolf,” Lorcan answered with a laugh. Roy glared at him, and Lorcan took another swig of his drink. “Not to mention he usually smells like one.”

  “Well, thank you for the iced tea,” I said to Roy, deciding to ignore Lorcan’s comment for the time being.

  “You are more than welcome… Poppy,” he answered, and the way he said my name made it sound like it was a dirty word. I felt my heart start pounding. “Now, what can I help you with? You said you were here to ask me a favor,” he finished as I wrung the lemon twist into the iced tea.

  I took a sip. “I was wondering if I could leave a few brochures for my store with you?”

  “Of course,” Roy answered.

  “Thank you,” I said with a broad smile and handed him a handful of the brochures in question.

  “Cures for all ailments, huh?” Roy asked as he read through the first page.

  “Yes,” I answered with a little smile.

  “Good looking brochure,” Roy continued, and the smile he gave me suggested it wasn’t the only thing he found good looking. My heart started up again, making me feel a little winded.

  “Oh, thanks, one of Haven Hollow’s residents did it for me. Marty Zach.”

  “Marty Zach?” Lorcan repeated, snorting into his glass. A fleck of the viscous red liquid splattered onto his cheek. He licked it off absently, never taking his eyes off me. For whatever reason, the action made my cheeks heat all over again.

  “Yeah. Do you know him?” I asked.

  Roy laughed. “Everyone knows Marty.”

  “Though some of us wished we didn’t,” Lorcan added.

  “Why is that?” I asked, immediately feeling prickly towards him. Marty had been nothing but kind to me and I wasn’t about to let anyone put my new friend down.

  Roy resumed polishing the bar with a sigh. “Lorcan’s referring to Ophelia, the owner of the realty company in town.”

  “I know who Ophelia is,” I almost interrupted.

  “Right, neither of us dislikes Marty,” Roy finished.

  “Why does Ophelia have such a problem with him?” I asked, deciding to get to the bottom of this mystery.

  “She just hates that Haven Hollow has become ‘touristy’ and ‘kitschy’,” he started, using air quotes. “And she includes Marty’s ghost exorcisms in that description.”

  “Ophelia Ponsobby,” Lorcan spat the words out and then waved them away with an unconcerned, yet well-manicured hand. “That nasty hag can gargle with an old man’s bollocks for all I care,” he spat, draining the last of his drink.

  I inhaled my next sip of iced tea and drowned my laugh, because I could tell Roy didn’t appreciate Lorcan’s perspective. Lorcan set his now empty drink on the bar top and leaned over, touching me on the back as he whispered: “Though she’d do well with some male sport in her life, aye?”

  “Into the basement,” Roy snapped at Lorcan, shoving a thick, calloused finger into Lorcan’s face as he pushed Lorcan’s hand off me. “Sleep it off and when you’re sober enough, go home, you careless lush.”

  There was a frozen split second where I was convinced Lorcan was about to vault the bar and send one of those pale fists into Roy’s handsome face. Lorcan’s full, almost pouty lips pulled slightly off his teeth. I hadn’t quite noticed how prominent his incisors and bicuspids were until he ran his tongue across them absently.

  Then Lorcan smiled again. It was just a twitch of his lips, the expression devoid of much warmth. It didn’t stretch up into the deep green of his eyes. They were fathomless, and it wasn’t unlike staring into the gaping dark of the Mariana Trench. Something lurked beneath his stare.