Ghosts of Boyfriends Past (12 page)

Mark stood atop the ladder, stretching for a book on the top shelf, his muscles flexing and bunching beneath the worn grey T-shirt he wore. Faded blue jeans hugged an ass that could have won awards it was so beautiful. If they gave out a Pulitzer for the best butt, Mark would win, hands down.

“Have we checked this one yet?” He pulled down a slim volume and twisted to show her the cover.

Biz surreptitiously wiped away her drool and squinted up at the insignia scratched into the leather cover. “I think so. Honestly, I can barely remember which ones we looked at already this morning, let alone all the ones I’ve checked in the last year.” She sighed. “I should have kept a list.”

“Yep.” He turned back to the shelf.

At his matter-of-fact agreement, she didn’t know whether to laugh or chuck something at his head. He didn’t sugarcoat things, but he also didn’t dwell on past mistakes. It was refreshing—as if the only truth was the truth of the moment. The past didn’t matter, but he never lied to spare her feelings. She’d been stupid not to keep a list. She’d made a massive error when she cast the spell in the first place, but he just acknowledged her mistakes like the facts they were and moved on.

Tony would have pretended she hadn’t done anything wrong. Gabriel would have moped and grumbled. Paul…she wasn’t even sure what Paul would have done. Had she really known him? She’d built up an idea of him in her head—the attention-hog ghost, the playful rebel—but all three of them had become caricatures rather than memories.

Mark was so real in comparison. His presence filled the room—not with a breeze or a chill, but with his personality. His charm.

She was relieved to have someone living helping her, relieved that she wasn’t tangled up in that alone-but-never-alone feeling anymore, but also filled with a fizzy delight that it was
him
there with her.

Ever since the kiss, she kept finding a dopey grin sneaking onto her face at random intervals. She tried not to think about it, tried to keep her distance, but now that she’d let it happen once, the dam had already broken and her resistance was eroding by the second. It had been reckless to dance with him, irresponsible to kiss him, but regret couldn’t make her stop reliving each second. A little voice in her head kept whispering
What’s the harm? He’s already in too deep
. But the responsible side she’d been trying to listen to more lately told her to keep as much distance between them as possible. To protect him, but also, selfishly, to protect herself.
Don’t get attached, Biz
.

She couldn’t forget that the clock was ticking. They were down to less than three weeks to Valentine’s.

And while she may feel dizzy and special and magical in his presence, he was only being sucked in by the curse. As soon as it was broken, he would be out the door, wondering what he ever saw in her.

If he survived.

“Gilly’s probably opened the clinic by now. Tests for rare fatal diseases wait for no man, Mark.”

“If I get tested this instant or tested tomorrow it won’t matter if I’m diagnosed with some rare, incurable disease. I might as well enjoy blissful ignorance for a few more hours.” He stretched up to replace the book on the shelf.

Biz bent over her book with renewed determination. She
would
find the counterspell. And then she would find a cure for whatever Mark had, if it came to that. Biz closed her eyes, concentrating on the whispers of the books.
Please help me find the answer.

“What about this one?”

She looked up to check the book Mark held up for her inspection—just in time to see a monster of a book rocket off the top shelf, straight for his head. “Mark!”

The book connected with his skull with a sickening
thwack
. His hands went slack around the book he held and for a breath everything—the two books, the ladder, and Mark—seemed to hover, suspended in the air. Then they all crashed down together, falling so fast his body hit the floor before she could do more than throw out her hands in a pointless reflex attempt to cushion his fall.

His body lay terrifyingly still, sprawled on the hardwood. Oh Jesus, was he even conscious?

“
Mark
.” Biz scrambled over the arm of the couch and fell to her knees beside him, shoving away the books that had tumbled around him. “Oh God, Mark. Don’t be dead. It isn’t Valentine’s yet! You can’t be hurt. You just can’t.”

She felt for a pulse, her own drumming so loud in her ears it took her a moment to realize his was just as strong—though not nearly as fast. Her heart was racing like a jackrabbit while his plodded along steadily. That was good, right? He was fine. No bones were sticking out at odd angles. He had to be fine. So why didn’t he wake up?

Worry flickered and kindled into a bright, burning rage. “He’s trying to help us!” she screamed at the ceiling. Those damn ghosts. “He isn’t poaching, you idiots! He can’t steal me from you. He wants to
free
you, dammit.”

No curtains fluttered, no piano strings twanged. The ghosts held their silence—just when she needed a direction to aim her anger.

Mark groaned, and Biz’s attention lasered back down on him. “Mark?”

He winced and reached a hand for his head. “Who wants to free me?” His baby blues opened and relief surged through Biz.

“Are you hurt? Of course you’re hurt. You fell almost ten feet. Where does it hurt the most? Don’t try to get up. Spinal injuries aren’t supposed to move. Does your spine feel severed? Can you wiggle your fingers?”

He obligingly wiggled the fingers he’d already raised to his head. “I’m fine. If you don’t count the elephant tap dancing inside my skull.” He levered his shoulders off the floor, and Biz slapped her hands on them, slamming him back to the hardwood with a little more force than she’d intended. He grunted and she blushed.

“Sorry. You aren’t supposed to move. Just stay right there until I get Gillian, okay?”

He lifted his hands in surrender and dropped his head back to the floor, then groaned at the movement.

“Stay,” Biz reminded him, racing for the kitchen phone and wishing for the first time that she’d gotten a cell phone when service first came to Parish. She’d always thought it was stupid before, but right now she’d give anything to have a phone on her person so she didn’t have to leave Mark’s side for a second.

Seeing him fall, that flash of panic, had shifted something inside her. Nothing was going to happen to him. Not this time.

She wouldn’t let it.

Chapter Fifteen—Let’s Get Physical

Mark managed not to flinch as the flashlight burned into first one retina, then the other.

Gillian sat back, frowning. “Damn.”

Mark matched her frown. He actually felt pretty damn good, considering he’d just taken a header toward the floor from ten feet up. Was it some kind of shock thing, delaying the pain? Was he bleeding internally? “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Hmm? Oh, nothing. You’re fine.” Gillian sighed, visibly disappointed by his good health. “Nothing for me to do to you. When Bizby called and said you’d fallen from the top of the ladder in the library, I thought for sure I was going to get to set at least a few bones. Maybe call in the med-evac team to fly you to the city for an emergency cranial reconstruction or something. But you barely have a bump. I’ve seen three-year-olds falling off their tricycles who took more damage.”

Mark frowned, remembering the moment when he’d felt like he was floating right before he fell, the odd sensation of the hardwood cushioning his body. “Gillian, do you believe in magic?”

That book had flown off the shelf and
up
to hit him in the head. Books just didn’t fall that way. Could Biz be right? Could there be ghosts in the house? There had been an awful lot of coincidences. Suddenly getting a full-body scan didn’t feel quite so foolish.

“Magic?” Gillian grabbed a needle and a trio of vials. Biz had demanded Gillian test him for everything from Ebola to bird flu. She slapped his inner arm and muttered, “Nice veins,” before jabbing him.

“Ouch. Dammit, that stings.”

“Wuss.” She was just overflowing with bedside manner.

“Is Biz really a witch?”

She snorted. “You must have hit your head harder than I thought.” Suddenly Gillian brightened. “Hey, you want a CAT scan? We just got a new machine. It’s awesome. I’ve been dying to take her out for a test drive, and there might be cranial bleeding. We have to check. You’re talking crazy. That could be a symptom.”

“I’m serious.”

“You’ve been listening to too much gossip,” Gillian grumbled, exchanging a filled vial for an empty one and continuing to drain his blood. “Biz is special. She’s got a—I don’t know, a sense or something, about love and stuff. But that’s no reason to tie her to a stake and whip out the kindling.”

“I’m not gonna burn anyone.”

“No? So you aren’t writing a story that would expose her? You don’t think using the word
witch
in connection with her name in print would impact her maybe just a little?”

The room started to get fuzzy around the edges. “How much blood do you need?”

“Last one.” She shoved his shoulder, none too gently, and he flopped onto his back on the exam table. Gillian grabbed his ankles and propped them up on a pair of stirrups that she yanked from beneath the table.

“What the hell?”

“Just lie back and think of England.” He started to squirm into a sitting position and she smacked him—again with a noticeable lack of bedside manner. “Elevating your feet helps the lightheadedness. Deep breaths, you big wuss. Practice your Lamaze.”

His manliness objected, but his stomach rolled unpleasantly when he even thought too hard about sitting up again, so he closed his eyes and focused on not puking all over Gillian’s exam room.

“Mark,” the doc said softly.

“Are we done?”

“Look at me.”

Mark opened his eyes and nearly swallowed his tongue. “Jesus!” Gillian stood between his spread legs with a scalpel hovering inches from his crotch.

“Biz is my best friend, Mark. She’s a precious flower, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for her, are we clear?”

Mark nodded fervently, his eyes locked on the gleaming silver blade. “Precious flower.”

“If someone were to hurt Biz, I might have to hurt…someone.” The scalpel wagged. Mark managed not to whimper. “What are your intentions toward my friend, Mark?”

“I—” Intentions. Right. What were his intentions? Beyond avoiding getting his balls chopped off by Parish Island’s answer to Sweeney Todd. Biz. Something about Biz. “I like her. A lot.”

“Good. She likes you too. And I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”
Anything, just get that knife away from my junk.

“I want you to seduce her.”

“You want me to what?”

“Seduce her. Show her a good time.” Gillian pulled a face. “You know her history. This last year has been the worst. It’s like all the joy has been sucked right out of her. I want you to put some of that joy back. She likes you. She wakes up when she’s with you. I haven’t seen her as alive as she is with you in
years
. So I want you to give her some sexual healing. Release all those happy hormones and convince her it’s okay to live again.”

“Isn’t that her choice?”

“You’re her choice. I’m only giving you my blessing and making sure you realize how important your responsibility to make her happy is.”

Her
blessing
. So that’s what she needed the scalpel for. “I want her to be happy too.”

Gillian beamed, for all the world like she wasn’t holding his balls hostage. “Great! Now how about that CT scan?”

An hour later, Gillian locked up the clinic after them, her shoulders slumped dejectedly. “I never get the good injuries. You’re so damn healthy.”

He snorted. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Hey, we can’t win ’em all, right? Maybe next time you’ll break something fun.”

Next time.
Mark winced. “Look on the bright side, Gillian. Maybe one of the tests will come back with something festering and unpleasant.”

The doctor sighed. “A girl can dream.” Then she winked at him and wandered down the street in the opposite direction of Biz’s place. “G’night, Ellison,” she called over her shoulder. “Don’t forget what I said.”

Not bloody likely. It was engraved in his memory with a scalpel’s edge. Luckily her demands matched his own. Now he just had to convince Biz.

Chapter Sixteen—Love’s Labors Leapt

Biz tipped her face back to the pale winter sun and tried to let the sound of the waves soothe her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t feeling very soothable.

After Gillian evicted her from the clinic, declaring her a nuisance and an unbearable pest when she was only concerned for Mark’s health, Biz stormed back home, intent on ransacking the library—and giving her idiotic prankster ghosts a piece of her mind—but the ghosts had been hiding from her and she hadn’t been able to concentrate.

She kept staring at the spot on the floor where Mark had fallen, reliving the heart-stopping moment of his crash. She hadn’t actually seen any of the others get hurt.
Die
, she forced herself to think the word. She hadn’t seen them
die.
A phone call after the fact was bad enough, but the immediacy of the horror and helplessness of seeing Mark fall had trumped everything in her experience.

She’d fled the library, running down the twisting paths to her slice of beach. Before, the wind and water had always made her feel human again, saner. But today she couldn’t find peace.

Seeing him fall had really brought home the fact that Mark was at risk—whether he was terminal or not. For all she knew the curse could be changing its pattern. But instead of convincing her to keep him at arm’s length, his fall had sent a jolt of realization through her. Keeping her distance from Tony hadn’t saved him. Staying clear of Mark wouldn’t either. So that excuse was out the window.

In its place was her own fear of getting hurt, battling with the question of whether she would regret pushing him away if he didn’t make it. Was it really better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Did she have that kind of courage? The ocean didn’t have an answer for her.