Free Hot and Irresistible by Dianne Castell

truly think we need the bar.” She turned to Rutledge. “And I believe there are guests at the front desk who could use your expert touch.”
    Rutledge took another look at the picture on the wall, then cut his eyes back to Brie. “Listen to Ms. Charlotte. You have had a troublesome day and it is likely you imagined this woman. Yes, that certainly must be it, and you can put the whole episode out of your mind.”
    He hurried off, and Charlotte said to Brie in a hushed voice, “I’m not saying you didn’t see this woman, but I don’t want to be freaking out the other employees and customers around here.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Even by Savannah standards, this hotel is beyond strange. I bet Mr. Rutledge believes you, too; he’s just trying to smooth things over. He’s very good at that with the guests. You can’t imagine how many complaints Griff and I get about furniture moving around on the fourth floor…and there aren’t any rooms up there and hardly a day goes by that the elevator doesn’t get stuck and the lights flicker and alarms go off and that picture of Robert E. Lee on the stairway is always crooked as a dog’s hind leg, and cell phones ring in the middle of the night and—”
    Brie put her hand over Charlotte’s mouth. “I get it, but you’ve got to stop talking about this right now or I’m going to have an aneurysm. But why would…whoever…or whatever…visit me? Why warn me?”
    “It’s an apparition,” Char mumbled under the hand before Brie took it away. “Who knows what the rules are for them, but what you need right now is a little bourbon.”
    “How about a lot of bourbon? I’ll call Prissy and Bebe and you get the hooch. It’s no fun to get hammered all by ourselves.” She glanced back at the photo and shivered. “Definitely hammered.”
    With it being Saturday night, the bar was crowded to the rafters and Brie gave a couple at a table by the window fifty dollars to drink somewhere else. She’d never done anything like that before, but life had never been quite like this before…a lost boyfriend replaced by a fixed-up boyfriend and a visit from the friendly neighborhood apparition.
    Elbowing her way through the throng, Charlotte plopped a bottle of whiskey and four glasses in the middle of the little table. Without saying a word, she splashed out the liquor and the two of them held up their glasses. “To sanity.”
    Bebe walked up and took the glass right out of BrieAnn’s hand and downed the bourbon in one swallow.
    “Hey,” BrieAnn groused. “That was mine. I’ve had a really rotten day. And you’re in jeans, least I think they’re jeans. They’re so baggy it’s hard to tell.”
    “I’m packing heat and now I’m a little smashed.”
    “Right,” Brie nodded. “Great jeans. Fit you like a glove. I want some.”
    “No need to overdo.” Prissy sank into the fourth chair as Bebe smoothed her baggy sweater that no amount of smoothing would ever improve, though Brie thought it best to keep that to herself.
    “I’ll tell you about rotten,” Bebe said. “Yesterday I put on those high heels like you all said I should and ended up doing the horizontal hula with McCabe in the mortuary kitchen on the table.”
    “Holy Hannah,” Prissy said. Charlotte and Brie stared, their mouths gaping. “That’s some reaction to shoes and the table. How was the hula?”
    “I haven’t done all that much hula-ing, you understand, but with McCabe…” Bebe grabbed two handfuls of her hair, her eyes wild.
    Charlotte grinned. “That good, huh.”
    “And now I can’t concentrate on anything but…dancing, and I couldn’t sleep, so I took the day off. McCabe’s been calling me every half hour and Ray Cleveland’s going to wind up in jail if I don’t get my act together quick and get rid of McCabe. The only good part about me and McCabe is that I’m not starved all the time and I’ve lost ten pounds.” She took a swallow of bourbon straight from the bottle