Pumpkin Spice & Poltergeist (Maple Hollow #1)

“It’s a long story.” I panted out the words. “Just let me save your ass, then I’ll explain.”

“Why don’t you just tell her now, Jords?” Lou’s voice echoed and rasped as if she were speaking through a fire.

“Jords is a terrible nickname,” Harlow croaked. Then she was pulled off the wall and shoved back against it by any invisible force. “Jokes later, got it.”

“Tell her!” Lou wailed, her eyes flaring to white. “Tell her why you’re with her.”

Fuck.

“I will tell her right now, okay, Lou?” I held up beseeching hands to her. “Just put her down.”

Harlow’s body slid up the wall like something straight out of a horror movie.

“Put her down before I break her, you mean?” Lou said in a sickening singsong.

“Yes. Please,” I begged.

Lou’s eyes snapped to mine. Her dark pupils ate up her irises until they were thin slivers of wispy brown. Her hands released Harlow, who screamed as she fell from the ceiling and onto the bed. Bouncing wildly, she flailed to the edge and wrapped a sheet around herself.

“And I thought my exes were fucked up!” she growled as she hastily stood and dressed.

“I’ve let her go, Jords,” Lou said. “Now tell her why I’m here. Better yet, tell her why you’re here. With her.”

My head reared back like I’d been struck. Fuck. She was going to make me tell Harlow.

“Why you’re here?” Harlow rubbed a hand across her throat. “What does that mean?”

I whirled toward her and then realized I was still butt-ass naked. I grabbed my jacket and put it on.

“I summoned Lou to say goodbye,” I said carefully, folding my arms to keep the jacket closed. Both of these women had seen me nude, but I didn’t want my tits hanging out while I explained what was happening. “But after I said goodbye, she wouldn’t leave.”

“Why not?” Harlow darted looks between Lou and me.

“She was trapped here and couldn’t move on because she had unresolved business,” I said. “We thought it was one thing, but then we realized she was murdered, and now we think she can’t move on until her killer is brought to justice.” I looked at Lou. “And with every passing day, she’s getting more and more vengeful. I worry she won’t be able to control it soon.” The room trembled as Lou’s anger flared again. “See what I mean?”

I gestured to the windowpane that trembled in its frame. Lou blinked and the shaking stopped. She folded her arms over her chest and hung her head. “I can’t control it much longer, Jords. I’m afraid of what all this anger is going to do to me.”

“Go back to the apothecary, Lou,” I said firmly. “Go find Iris. I’ll be back soon. Just let me talk to Harlow, okay?”

Lou swallowed and nodded. “Okay.” She glanced at Harlow and waved up to the ceiling. “Sorry about the exorcist stuff.” She turned and walked through the wall.

“This might be the worst ending to a hookup I’ve ever had,” Harlow muttered as she picked up my clothes and threw them at me.

“Might be?” I asked incredulously. “There might be something else that comes close?”

“Another time,” she said, sounding a little defeated. “In the pumpkin patch . . . I told Willow it looked like you’d seen a ghost. I guess you really had.”

“Yeah,” I said tightly.

“So she’s what you’ve been glaring and muttering at all this time?”

“You noticed that, huh?”

“It must suck having your ex-girlfriend hovering around you while you date someone else.”

I jumped my pants up over my thighs and grabbed my shoes. “Yep.”

“What did she mean about you being here?”