Must Love Ghosts

Haunted? Call 1-800-GHOST-HUNK.

Must Love Ghosts, Book 1

Tia McGarry believes love is nothing more than a biochemical cocktail, and she'll have the research to prove it—as soon as she and her calm, stable, almost-fiancé land a research grant.

Her biggest mistake, bad boy ex-boyfriend Dec Mancini, is firmly in her past. But when the ghost of her long-dead great-uncle moves into her living room, Dec is the only paranormal investigator with the skills to get rid of him.

Dec is used to scorn and ridicule, but he never quite got over Tia's refusal to believe. With irrefutable proof that ghosts exist manifesting in her house, he can finally earn respect for his profession—and maybe find common ground for himself and Tia to rebuild on.

Tia can't deny their crazy, chaotic chemistry is strong as ever, but as the ghost's pranks threaten to put her grant out of reach, she must decide which is the greater risk: letting a ghost jeopardize her career, or falling in love with the man who could destroy her safe, stable life.

Warning: Contains lovesick ghosts wreaking havoc, an absent-minded professor with a repressed wild side, and a hunky paranormal investigator who's decided the best place to start rebuilding is in the friend zone.

Must Love Ghosts

Jennifer Savalli

Acknowledgments

A huge thank-you to:

My Readerlicious girls: Brinda Berry, Kelly Crawley, Christina Delay, Kathleen Groger, Susan McCauley, Carol Michell Storey, Natalya Whitaker, Jennifer Windrow and Sandy Wright. Without your support, motivation and critiques, I'd still be churning out bits and pieces of stories for my shredder. And for your friendship, which is a rare and unexpected gift.

My mentors Kerri-Leigh Grady and Margie Lawson, the world's best writing teachers.

The Novella Ninjas, especially DeAnna Cameron, black-belt critiquer and awesome writer.

To Christina Brashear for introducing me to both Johnny Cash's “Hurt” and my wonderful editor Holly Atkinson. To Holly for loving my story and making it better.

My kids for their wide-eyed enthusiasm telling everyone, “My mom is a
writer.
”

And to my husband for his unfailing support and encouragement. Because of you, I believe in soul mates.

Chapter One

The first ghost Tia McGarry confronted that day was the kind she knew how to deal with—a man from her past.

She stood on her ex-boyfriend's front porch and jabbed the doorbell for the second time. The shabby Victorian where Declan lived was near the center of town, an area popular with local college students. Paint flaked and peeled from the wood siding. The windows—original by the look of the weathered wood frames—were shielded by vinyl blinds so she couldn't see in.

A small white sign hung next to the door. Black lettering announced, “Declan Mancini, Paranormal Investigator.”

More like con man.

She jabbed the doorbell again, nerves swimming in her stomach like a cloud of tadpoles on speed. She'd snuck over here on her lunch hour and had exactly forty-five minutes to tell Dec she wasn't amused by his stupid pranks, get him to stop, and race back to campus to teach her one o'clock psychology class. What if he wasn't here?

What if he was here and had a woman with him? Another gullible idiot warming his bed.

Tia pounded her fist on the door.

“Dammit, Ryan,” came a shout from inside. “I told you I'm not working today!”

Tia stumbled back a step, the low heel of one black pump catching in a crack between the wood planks. She yanked her foot up, managing not to lose her heel, and hurriedly smoothed her black blazer, her black pants, and what she was sure was her black expression.

The cheap pine door swung open and Declan Mancini stood there, six feet of bleary-eyed, bare-chested, surprised man. The wet dream of every woman with a pulse.

Blessed by superior genes, he never worked to attract women. Tousled dark hair fell over his eyes and curled under his ears because he was too lazy to get a haircut. She didn't like facial hair on men, and his face hadn't been near a razor in some time. But when she looked at him, she remembered the gentle abrasion of that dark scruff against her neck and…and everywhere else.

His favorite silver chain nestled in a dusting of chest hair. His faded jeans must be ten years old at least but were still tight in all the right places.

All of it added up to one walking dopamine bomb for the female sex.

She knew this for a fact because she'd once slipped his photo in during a study of how women choose mates. They'd measured the brain wave reaction as coeds stared at photos of different men. Declan Mancini sent women's brains into overdrive.

Predictably, Tia's system responded to the chemical rush. Despite years of research and her understanding of the biochemical nature of lust, she wasn't immune.

“Tia. You're a much more welcome sight in the morning than Ryan.” His lips quirked up, dark eyes crinkling at the corners, and something twisted inside her. If she believed in love, she'd say his familiar smile lashed the bruise on her heart.

Good thing she knew better.

She rose to her toes, trying to peer around him to see if anyone else was in his apartment, but his big body blocked her view. “It's not morning. It's after twelve.” She cringed at the waspish note in her voice, but there was no stopping her inner spinster. “Did I wake you?”

The warmth in his eyes chilled. “I had a late night busting ghosts. Swindling the innocent. You remember how it is.”

“There's no need to take that passive-aggressive tone.”

“You don't like my tone, get off my porch.”

“I need to talk to you.”

He propped a shoulder against the doorjamb, folded his arms and waited.

She looked away from the coldness in his eyes, her gaze landing on the peeling siding. One particularly long, rubbery strip dangled near the doorbell. The color might once have been blue or green, but now was a muddy gray. She reached out and ripped it from the wood.

Time to be the calm, rational, professional she was. “Could we talk inside? I'm sure you don't realize it, but you're a rather large male and the way you're standing is a cue for threat. You're triggering my flight-or-fight instincts and that's not helpful to this conversation.”

He yawned. “Will this be a long lecture? Or is this the short version where you call me a con artist, threaten to sue, and leave?”

She would not be drawn into that old argument. Gritting her teeth, she pulled his business card from her blazer pocket and held it out to him. She didn't want to have this conversation where his neighbors and anyone out for a springtime walk could hear, but he gave her no choice. “I came because of this.”

He plucked the card from her fingers, examined it. “You don't like my new business card?”

“Very funny. I found your card on my dining room table last night. After I called the police to report an intruder. Did you stick around to watch? Laugh while they implied I was hallucinating from stress?”

Dec straightened from his slouch against the door frame, his eyes intent on hers. “Someone broke into your house?”

The fake concern on his face was more than she could stand. She swiped the card from his hand and crumpled it in her fist. “Stop it! I know what you're doing. My grandmother died, and all of a sudden I'm hearing Big Band music late at night but can't find the source. Green lights glowing under closed doors in my house. Then a man sitting in my armchair, who disappears when I call the police. God, Dec, I figured out your con months ago. Why pull this?”

He studied her face long enough for a kernel of doubt to blossom in her brain. She squashed it. She should have talked to him on the phone. Declan Mancini in the flesh was dangerous.

“Guess one of us is a slow learner.” Before she could figure out what he meant by that, he leaned back and pushed the door farther open with his arm. “Come on in, Tia.”

He didn't move out of the doorway so she had to sidle past him, her body brushing his. A familiar electric tingle zapped along her skin, and she swallowed the acid comment she wanted to make about his attempts to sexually intimidate her. She wasn't going to fall for his predictable tactics, no matter how good he smelled—like soap and irresistible pheromones.

You're pathetic
, she told herself.

“Make yourself at home.” Dec closed the door behind her. “Coffee?”

“No thanks. I won't be staying long enough to drink it.”

She took a seat at the small wooden table. Dec's apartment wasn't large, though it took up the entire top floor of the house. The dining area merged with a sparsely furnished living room dominated by a giant flat screen TV. Dec yawned and meandered into the galley kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. Past the kitchen was his bedroom and the bathroom. They'd had sex in every room, on every piece of furniture, and possibly against every wall.

She crossed her legs and pushed away the unwelcome memories.

Dec returned, having pulled on an old T-shirt to go with his jeans, and slid a mug across the table to her. She stared at the coffee for a moment. Black, no doubt with a little sugar, just the way she liked it.

She ignored the coffee.

He sat across from her and took a big swallow from his own mug. “You said you found my business card in your house?”

“Yeah, right where you left it. Did you honestly think I'd believe my house is haunted and hire you? Or was this some lame attempt to get us back together?”

He put his mug down and glared at her, his eyes black pools under a scowling forehead. She'd almost forgotten that what made Dec so dangerous was not his good looks. It was his intelligence—that quick mind she could almost see sorting, categorizing, evaluating, strategizing. “Let me get this straight. You think I've been breaking into your house, making it look like you're being haunted, in order to either con you out of a pile of money or get back in your bed?”

“Y-yes.” But doubt flared again. His ability to make her ignore her better judgment was stunning. No wonder he was such a good con man.

She looked away from the accusation in his eyes. The wood table where they sat was old and pockmarked from use. His couch was an old plaid monstrosity, and the rest of the furnishings weren't much better. The only expensive thing in the apartment was the television. She knew his car was a twenty-year-old clunker.

For such a good con man, he wasn't making a ton of money.

She forced herself to meet his angry gaze. “There's no other logical explanation.” It had to be Dec behind all the strange occurrences this past week. Otherwise, she was losing her mind, and that was too awful to contemplate.

Dec dropped his face into his hand and rubbed his forehead. He made a sound and it took her a moment to recognize it was soft laughter. But when he looked up, something flashed across his face that wasn't amusement. He seemed hurt.

Impossible.

“Tia, I know my word means less than nothing to you, but I swear, I haven't been to your house since we broke up.” His gaze didn't waver from hers.

He'd used her. He'd broken the law. He'd violated the privacy of one of her patients. But other than claiming to believe in ghosts, he'd never lied to her.

Her clinical side warned her it was dangerous to make decisions while under the influence of attraction hormones.

But the hell of it was, she believed him.

Dec sipped his coffee, enjoying the heat sliding down his throat and the jolt of caffeine chasing away the last of his sleepiness. Tia paced from his table to the couch and back again. That desperate look on her face still had the power to make him want to pull her into his arms and solve all her problems. He was such a dumbass. He'd spent the last couple of months trying to figure out a way to get back in touch with her, and she thought he was a bottom-feeding sleazebag.

Can you blame her?
his conscience piped up. When he'd realized she had a patient haunted by a real ghost, he'd crossed ethical boundaries—not to mention legal ones—to investigate. No wonder she thought he was a con artist. His cousin had warned him that he was effectively choosing a ghost over Tia, but Dec wouldn't listen. He'd never had a relationship end so badly.

He took another sip of coffee and forced himself to consider all the implications of today's visit. She'd been incensed when there was no actual proof he'd scammed anyone. Maybe she'd decided on a fishing expedition.

He put his mug down. “Is this some new revenge scheme you've cooked up?”

She halted in her third trip across the floor. “What does that mean?”

“How do I know you're not making up some wild story as part of a new plan to get me charged with fraud?”

Her green eyes hardened to crystal. “I'm not the criminal here.”

“My record's squeaky clean.” He kept the snarl out of his voice. Fucking hell. He'd been hung up on the woman for months, and she wanted him thrown in jail.

“You'll get caught sooner or later.” She resumed pacing, but at least she didn't look desperate anymore. She looked like she wanted to take a swing at him. Not that Tia ever did that kind of crazy thing.

He sipped more coffee, but instead of a pleasant caffeine buzz, the hot liquid burned an acid trail to his stomach. He didn't like the sound of her story at all. “You've got a real intruder, sweetheart.”

She swallowed, sat at the table with her shoulders slumping. Silence fell between them.

“No one but you hates me enough to play nasty pranks.”

“I don't hate you.”

But she wasn't listening. Her fingers tapped a worried rhythm on the table. “I'm hosting an important dinner party tomorrow night. Cassandra Jameson of the Jameson Foundation will be there. She's considering funding the next phase of my research and she will
not
be amused by the kind of low-budget horror movie stuff going on at my house every night.”

Behind her glasses, dark circles shadowed Tia's eyes. She had a coffee stain on her sweater and stray hair curling out of her loose blond ponytail. That was a hairstyle she should wear more often—it made her look soft and sexy. Usually, she had her hair pulled into a smooth, tight knot worthy of the crankiest librarian. Today, she looked more rumpled than he'd ever seen her outside of bed. These past few weeks must have been hell.

“I'm sorry about your grandmother,” he said.

“Thank you.” Her voice was distant, her thoughts clearly elsewhere.

“How'd she die?”

Tia pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, focused those wide green eyes on him again. “She broke her hip a few months ago, and her health went downhill after that. She'd have turned ninety-one next month.”

“She was a nice lady.”

“Yes. She liked you.”

Dec toyed with the idea that Tia's grandmother really was haunting her. Seemed unlikely, especially with his business card appearing in her house. Transporting an object from one place to another was the kind of thing an older ghost could do, not one who'd been around only a couple of weeks. Besides, Tia had seen a guy in her house. “Tell me about the man in your living room.”

A delicate shiver ran through Tia. He'd never seen her afraid before and a wave of protectiveness surged through him. He clenched his teeth, feeling a muscle jump in his jaw. She didn't want his comfort.

“Two nights ago, sometime after midnight, I thought I heard music. I've been hearing music off and on since Nana died, but I can never figure out the source. I got out of bed, went down the stairs to the first floor hallway. I looked in the living room, and there he was, sitting near the fireplace.”

“What'd he look like?”

She wrapped her fingers around the mug of coffee, her gaze drifting away as she thought back. “I only glanced at him for a moment before I ran out the front door and over to my neighbor's to call the police. He had blond hair and some kind of jacket on, and that's all I saw. By the time the police got there, he was gone.”

Her voice was steady, but when she lifted the mug of coffee to her lips, her hands trembled. A little coffee sloshed onto her finger and she sucked it off.