Free Kiss Me Hello by L. K. Rigel Page A

surrounded her from behind and guided her sideways. She grabbed the banister and regained her footing and looked up into a man’s concerned brown eyes. He had dark hair and wore a white shirt with an open collar.
    “You’re safe now.” His voice was deep and gentle like warm honey, and Sara believed him. But…
    “You?”
    “You!” They spoke simultaneously.
    He tilted his head in puzzlement.
    “Yes, me,” Bram said at the foot of the stairs. “You were expecting someone else?”
    The man dissipated into nothing. Sara gasped, still gripping the rail. “Did you see that?”
    “What, babe? Are you seeing ghosts?” Bram grinned.
    She raced down the remaining stairs.
    “Oh, honey.” He put his hands on her sides, steadying her. His soft chuckle eased her nerves. She must have looked pretty silly freaking out like that. Going all day since breakfast with nothing but coffee had made her loopy.
    “I’m sorry about your aunt,” he said, “but everything is going to be all right now.” He gave her a hug, then lifted her chin and smiled, his blue eyes twinkling.
    “Bram, I’m so glad you’re here. It feels like I haven’t seen you in weeks. Months.”
    “Me too, babe.” He kissed her gently. She held him close and pressed against his chest. She was hungry for more than food. Starving.
    “I’m famished,” Bram said.
    “Actually, we’ve been invited to dinner,” she said. Her body wanted his, and her heart wanted comfort. But it was too soon to let him back in, no matter how much she needed him.
    “Good. I could use a drink.” He held her at arm’s length. “And you look like you could stand to get out of here for a while. Away from the ghosts.”
    “Let me just get my purse.”
    Bram drove. As he pulled Sara’s car onto Turtledove Hill Road, she looked back at the house. Crud . She forgot to turn off the observatory light. She shouldn’t be surprised. She was tired and sad and not thinking straight. She’d watched her aunt die today and hadn’t eaten since this morning.
    But that didn’t explain why her hallucination, the man on the stairs, was Aunt Amelia’s lover.

- 10 -
Dinner, Dolls, & Dollars
    T HEY STOPPED IN THE VILLAGE to pick up Peekie and drove over to the Blue Pelican, the restaurant at the Chase Me Inn. The Victorian mansion built in the 1880s was so far out at the end of the peninsula it looked ready to fall into the sea if a big enough storm came along. Fog rolled in over the deck and gazebo, creeping through the hydrangeas and camellias that hugged the main building.
    It was like being in a Hitchcock movie. Or a T.S. Eliot poem.
    Embers flickered in the bar’s stone fireplace. As they waited to be seated in the restaurant, again Sara felt how much she preferred the cool northern California coast to the heat of the state’s interior.
    Bram asked if they served crantinis. “A martini made with cranberry juice,” he said. “You know what they call a crantini, right? An orgasm in a martini glass.”
    The waitress played along, laughing suggestively. “Here satisfaction is assured with anything you order.”
    Peekie looked away. She had the good sense to be immune to Bram’s charms. As Sara expected, it only made him turn on the schmooze all the harder.
    “I could get used to this,” he said, “being out on Saturday night with two lovely ladies.” He gave Peekie his best smile, his dimple working overtime. She didn’t respond, and he softened his voice. “But I wish it was under happier circumstances.”
    It was odd watching Peekie’s reaction to Bram and even stranger hearing the self-doubt in his voice. Maybe she didn’t like the flirting, or maybe she thought Bram was being disrespectful of the dead. After all, Aunt Amelia hadn’t been gone twenty-four hours.
    The waitress brought their drinks, and Peekie relented, pronouncing the martini lovely. She nodded toward the door. “Look who’s here.”
    Bonnie Norquist walked into the bar with Gracien Poole. She scanned