Free ENTANGLED by Jennifer Estep, Cynthia Eden, Allison Brennan, Dale Mayer, Lori Brighton, Liz Kreger, Michelle Miles, Misty Evans Edie Ramer, Nancy Haddock, Michelle Diener
eyes. He was only on my mind because he’d left a cryptic voice mail this afternoon. A message I’d yet to decide if I’d answer.
For the record, I am Colleen Cotton, a psychotherapist who studied my butt off to get my Ph.D. and license, then came home to St. Augustine, Florida to open a practice. Clients barely trickled into my office door until my friend Dove referred a woman who was being driven to distraction by a ghost. After one evaluation and one spirit intervention, word of mouth discretely spread, and voilà ! I became a therapist to the haunted.
Admittedly, I’m darn handy with the dead-but-not-departed, and I should be after years of up-close and personal experience. If it goes bump by day or night, I can often see it, usually hear it, and always feel it. Seeing as I grew up in a town where you can't, pardon the expression, swing a cat without hitting a ghost, dealing with hauntings keeps me busy and helps pay the student loans.
Trouble is I’m good enough at my job that, once I’ve brokered accords between the living and their spirits, the no-longer-haunted patients no longer need a psychotherapist. Or if they do, they don’t come to me.
Tonight’s intervention was a breeze compared to some. Patti called me about a ghost who kept rearranging the furniture in her enclosed sun porch. The ghost even moved a honkin’ heavy sofa bed Patti’s husband Jeff was tired of moving back into place.
On my first visit to the house, I’d sat on the same sofa while I’d explained to resident ghost Angelica that home insurance didn’t cover things broken by spirits. Angelica cried, apologized, and negotiated a deal that would do Donald Trump proud. In the end, Patti agreed to a new furniture and accessory arrangement, and Angelica promised to stop shoving the sofa, moving knickknacks, and fritzing out the flat screen TV.
Me? I promised never to move another sofa bed. Not even with the furniture sliders Patti had the foresight to buy.
Why didn’t I get Angelica to ‘go to the Light?’ She, like many other ghosts, flat wasn’t interested in leaving her haunt. Since she wasn’t sucking energy from the occupants of the house—was, in fact, looking out for them as she’d watched after other owners for more than a century—I didn’t push her.
I try not to tick off spirits if I can help it. The crankier ones will shove your head into a wall.
Those with evil intent will do worse.
Patti cleared her throat, and I jerked to face her.
“Colleen, I hate to rush you, but Jeff will be home at six. Is the sofa in the right place?”
I eyed Angelica who still stood across the room at the French doors staring through the glass panes into the shadowed tropical garden. The first time I’d met her, she’d worn what I took for a tea gown of the early 1900s. Today, in a dark blue narrow skirt and a poufy-in-the-chest white blouse with three-quarter sleeves, she looked ready to do housework, yet she hadn’t lifted an ethereal finger. In fact, she’d seemed as skittish today as Patti herself. Curious, because the emotion Angelica projected felt a lot like fear.
“Well, Angelica?” I asked.
The ghost gave an eeep and turned to me. “What? What?”
“I said are the major pieces where you want them?”
She tilted her head, then darted a lap around the space that left a contrail of energy that brushed near enough to both Patti and me to give us the shivers.
“Yes, yes. It is fine now.”
“All right, what about the lamps and accessories?”
“Put the tall white lamp by the wall. The rest she can put where she likes.”
I cocked a brow. “And you’ll abide by the agreement?”
She peered into the deepening twilight and shuddered when she faced me again.
“I will behave, Colleen, but please do not make me leave. Here I am safe.”
I gaped a little because, really, what could harm a ghost? “Safe from
For the record, I am Colleen Cotton, a psychotherapist who studied my butt off to get my Ph.D. and license, then came home to St. Augustine, Florida to open a practice. Clients barely trickled into my office door until my friend Dove referred a woman who was being driven to distraction by a ghost. After one evaluation and one spirit intervention, word of mouth discretely spread, and voilà ! I became a therapist to the haunted.
Admittedly, I’m darn handy with the dead-but-not-departed, and I should be after years of up-close and personal experience. If it goes bump by day or night, I can often see it, usually hear it, and always feel it. Seeing as I grew up in a town where you can't, pardon the expression, swing a cat without hitting a ghost, dealing with hauntings keeps me busy and helps pay the student loans.
Trouble is I’m good enough at my job that, once I’ve brokered accords between the living and their spirits, the no-longer-haunted patients no longer need a psychotherapist. Or if they do, they don’t come to me.
Tonight’s intervention was a breeze compared to some. Patti called me about a ghost who kept rearranging the furniture in her enclosed sun porch. The ghost even moved a honkin’ heavy sofa bed Patti’s husband Jeff was tired of moving back into place.
On my first visit to the house, I’d sat on the same sofa while I’d explained to resident ghost Angelica that home insurance didn’t cover things broken by spirits. Angelica cried, apologized, and negotiated a deal that would do Donald Trump proud. In the end, Patti agreed to a new furniture and accessory arrangement, and Angelica promised to stop shoving the sofa, moving knickknacks, and fritzing out the flat screen TV.
Me? I promised never to move another sofa bed. Not even with the furniture sliders Patti had the foresight to buy.
Why didn’t I get Angelica to ‘go to the Light?’ She, like many other ghosts, flat wasn’t interested in leaving her haunt. Since she wasn’t sucking energy from the occupants of the house—was, in fact, looking out for them as she’d watched after other owners for more than a century—I didn’t push her.
I try not to tick off spirits if I can help it. The crankier ones will shove your head into a wall.
Those with evil intent will do worse.
Patti cleared her throat, and I jerked to face her.
“Colleen, I hate to rush you, but Jeff will be home at six. Is the sofa in the right place?”
I eyed Angelica who still stood across the room at the French doors staring through the glass panes into the shadowed tropical garden. The first time I’d met her, she’d worn what I took for a tea gown of the early 1900s. Today, in a dark blue narrow skirt and a poufy-in-the-chest white blouse with three-quarter sleeves, she looked ready to do housework, yet she hadn’t lifted an ethereal finger. In fact, she’d seemed as skittish today as Patti herself. Curious, because the emotion Angelica projected felt a lot like fear.
“Well, Angelica?” I asked.
The ghost gave an eeep and turned to me. “What? What?”
“I said are the major pieces where you want them?”
She tilted her head, then darted a lap around the space that left a contrail of energy that brushed near enough to both Patti and me to give us the shivers.
“Yes, yes. It is fine now.”
“All right, what about the lamps and accessories?”
“Put the tall white lamp by the wall. The rest she can put where she likes.”
I cocked a brow. “And you’ll abide by the agreement?”
She peered into the deepening twilight and shuddered when she faced me again.
“I will behave, Colleen, but please do not make me leave. Here I am safe.”
I gaped a little because, really, what could harm a ghost? “Safe from
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