Free GHOST GAL: The Wild Hunt by Bobby Nash Page A

last time,” the countess said playfully before returning to her latest culinary masterpiece.
    Leaving her mother to her boiling pots, Alexandra climbed the steps that led to her father’s study on the second floor. The study was one of her favorite rooms in the old house. Decorated in masculine earth tones the large room contained several Oriental carpets over the gleaming hardwood floors and the wood of the furniture was so dark as to be almost black with a seating of aged nail-headed red leather. But best of all, the room had a balcony that looked out over the front lawn and the Hudson River beyond it. She had spent many hours sitting on that balcony while watching the waters flow past on its journey down river.
    The study itself was pure Hans Holzer. Shelves lined the walls and were overflowing with books, papers, and the potpourri of assorted odds and ends he had picked up in his travels. Each item in the study had a story, one The Professor would be all too happy to tell should anyone ask. Alexandra thought she had heard them all, but from time to time she would run across some hidden gem in his collection that she had never seen before. She sometimes wondered if he moved things around to see if she would notice or if the ghosts of those who dwelt in the house before helped him out.
    “Knock knock,” she said from the doorway as opposed to actually rapping her knuckles on the wood. “You busy?”
    A harrumph came from inside the office. “Of course I am,” Hans Holzer said.
    She couldn’t see him, but knew he was at his desk, which was piledhigh with papers and artifacts awaiting his attention. No doubt, there would also be a reference book or three in front of him as well. Even though he had retired a few years earlier, a man of Hans Holzer’s renown was always in demand on the lecture circuit and more often than his family would like, out in the field. He might have slowed down a bit, but the great Hans Holzer was far from ready to hang up his ghost hunting gear.
    “How are you, Poppa?” Alexandra said as she walked over to the desk. She was all smiles as she carefully set the duffel bag on the floor beside the worn oak desk.
    “Ah, hello my darling Shura,” Hans said, smacking closed the book he had been reading. He stood and embraced his daughter. “It is good to see you.”
    “You too, Poppa,” she said as she breathed in his cologne.
    “So, not that it isn’t good to see you, Shura, but what brings you by in such good spirits today? Have you and that Demerest boy finally set a wedding date?”
    She sidestepped his playful jab at her fiancé and the fact that neither of them were in any rush to run to the altar. They had told both his and her parents repeatedly that they would take the plunge when they were ready and not a moment sooner. Despite his affinity for referring to Joshua as ‘that Demerest boy’ she knew her father adored the man. “We thought it might be easier just to go to the Justice of the Peace and elope,” she joked.
    “Over my dead body,” Hans said, laying it on thick. “I’ve been waiting a long time to walk my beautiful baby girl down the aisle. You wouldn’t deprive an old man of his fondest wish, would you?”
    “You’re hardly what I’d call an old man, Poppa.”
    “Old enough,” he said and retook his seat. He motioned to an unoccupied chair near his desk. She moved the various papers stacked there to a table that miraculously still had an empty place then pulled the chair closer to his desk. When she turned back to face the desk she noticed a blue bowl still steaming with what appeared to be a Chinese dish of some sort.
    “Poppa, I’ve caught you at lunch. You haven’t touched your food,” She said. “It smells wonderful by the way. What is it?”
    “Oh, I’ll get around to it eventually Shura. It’s called Mapu doufu, a combination of tofu and vegetables in a spicy chili sauce. Completely vegan, of course. Your mother, dear girl, seems to be able to