Free Ghosts of Boyfriends Past by Vivi Andrews Page B

was? An attempt to shake me out of my slump?”
    “This is more than a slump, Biz,” Gillian said seriously. “You like this Mark guy. I know you do. Even if it’s just a fling, it’s the perfect time to get back in the saddle.”
    “Gillian, I appreciate your concern, but I’m staying far away from the saddle.” Gillian’s expression turned mulish, and Biz quickly amended, “For now. I just need a little more time. Besides, he’s gone anyway.”
    “You’ve had time. Guys who make you light up the way you did with Mark don’t come along every day. I know you miss Paul and Gabriel and Tony, but don’t let your past screw with your present. You’re into him. He’s into you. So take a trip to Raleigh and get into his pants.”
    A short laugh burst out of Biz. Only Gillian could take her tragic love life and make her laugh. “You’re a good friend.”
    “But you’re going to ignore my advice. I get it. But I’m not going to stop nagging you.” She waved around the bedecked shop. “This is who you are, Biz. Remember that.”
    Gillian squeezed her in a quick hug, before charging off into the night in a typically abrupt departure.
    Biz stood alone in the center of Charmed, I’m Sure and studied the Valentine bliss coating every surface. She waited to feel caught up in the same dizzy euphoria that used to sweep over her every year in the season of love, but all she felt was a hollow pang in her chest.
    This wasn’t who she was anymore. She flipped off the lights, turning her back on the shop.
    No use pretending. Nothing more than who she used to be.

Chapter Ten—Terminally Romantic
    Mark’s cell rang as he was zipping up his suitcase.
    He’d driven back to Raleigh for a change of clothes and ended up packing half his closet for the siege he was planning against Biz’s defenses. He was going to have to break a few land-speed records back to the coast if he wanted to catch the last ferry out to Parish. There were three people who were likely to be calling him—his mother, his sister or his editor. And none of those three women knew how to have a conversation that didn’t last two hours. He didn’t have time for them right now.
    But when he glanced at the caller ID, the name Lucas had him scrambling to connect the call before he lost it. One of his frat brothers who had become a coroner and recently settled down to pop out a few kids, Lucas was his source for all medical queries. “Yo, Doc.”
    “Hey, Ellison. I had a chance to look at those reports you sent me.” Typical Lucas, jumping right to the heart of the matter. No nonsense.
    “And?” Mark had sent him copies of the autopsy reports from Biz’s three victims to look for not-so-accidental causes. He’d been so sure at the time that things couldn’t be that pat, but now he hung on Lucas’s words, hoping he’d been wrong.
    “And unless the files are doctored, you’re looking at three accidental fatalities.”
    Relief shot through his chest, startling in its intensity. Biz wasn’t a murderess after all. “You’re sure?”
    “’Bout as sure as I can be without the bodies. You could make an argument for suicide, I guess, if you think it’s insurance fraud—”
    “No. She wouldn’t do that.” Mark winced. He was losing it. Five minutes ago he’d seriously considered the possibility that Biz was a Black Widow, and now he was defending her in a knee-jerk reflex. “Why suicide?” They had everything to live for. They had Biz.
    “Euthanasia. I’d leave it alone if I were you. Man’s got a right to choose how he goes in those circumstances.”
    He was missing something. “What circumstances?”
    “They were all terminal,” Lucas explained, and Mark’s breath stopped as his brain kicked into high gear. Lucas continued, oblivious to the bomb he’d just dropped inside Mark’s preconceived notions about Biz’s love life. He heard papers rustling as Lucas flipped through the files. “Paul Lundgren—Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.