Chapter One

Cary Redmond looked up through the SUV’s windshield at the ancient, four-story Victorian mansion, complete with gabled roof and wrap-around porch. The wood siding was painted a…well it had probably been a nice blue color at one stage but now it looked pretty gray. Where the details and pretty accents surrounding the base of the roof and the windows—what the hell were those called?—had once been white, they were now also a faded gray, though lighter than the walls. And the slate roof was such a dark gray it looked black. There were three chimneys around the place, none of which were issuing smoke.

The house’s red brick foundation had sketchy looking grout. A set of crumbling stone stairs led up to the porch and the front door. And the multi-level roof with its peaks and domes had definitely seen better days. Though the tower slapped onto the side of the building did have a sort of gothic romance to it. If you liked gothic things. Which Cary did not.

Because ghosts.

The house sat on a large piece of property, at the top of a hill, surrounded by an old pine and spruce forest. The land around the house was barren, ill-kept lawn with spots of dried brown grass. The driveway was rough gravel that had no doubt done a number on Deacon’s SUV’s undercarriage, despite the fact that he drove up here very slowly. At the base of the hill, at the edge of the driveway was a dilapidated wrought iron gate, which had once probably been quite pretty with lots of swirls at the top of the arch, but which now hung off its hinges and didn’t actually connect to any kind of fence circling the property. So outside of needing to shove it a little more to the side to access the road, it seemed a pretty pointless piece of security.

A sharp wind blew strong enough to ruffle the trees circling the clearing where the house loomed. And based on the where they were in general on a map, she thought the Pacific was probably not too far on the other side of the house. Though whether the hill eased down to a beach, or ended at a rough cliff plunging down into the rolling gray water, she couldn’t have said.

Other than the wind, the place was eerily silent. No other cars. No movement from within the house. It was a bright, cloudless, sunny day, so she wouldn’t necessarily expect there to be lights on in the windows, but so many had the curtains pulled across, blocking the inside from any of the sunshine. And there were even two windows that had been boarded over.

The house looked abandoned and empty. And spooky as hell. And that was to a woman who had gone into the Portland Master vampire’s hive! More than once.

“You sure this is the place?” Cary frowned up at the mansion, glanced at her deliciously handsome, leopard shifter mate, and then stared up at the house again. “I mean, it’s practically wearing a sign that says ‘Hi I’m a Haunted House. Enter at your own peril.’”

“Uh,” Deacon said.

Good answer.

He pulled out his cellphone to check the GPS directions that had gotten them here. He spent a great deal of time muttering over addresses and buggy cell signals and emails while Cary stared up at the house, her nerves pinging and her instincts shouting Drive away now!

They weren’t going to drive away just yet. She knew that. This house was, supposedly, the home of one of the biggest donors to the Jones family business. And since that business was rescuing animals, particularly exotic animals, from horrible situations, Cary was prepared to give the owner of this house the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they put all their money into charity to the neglect of their home. It was possible. And if so much of that money went to foundations that rescued animals, Cary was even more in favor of the owner’s philanthropic efforts. She would even walk into that crumbling house if they were in the right place.

Right up to the point that a ghost appeared.

And then she was out of here.

The Jones family was stupidly rich, but they still required donors to make their business work, so a lot of the non-rescuing part of the job involved schmoozing with other rich people and trying to get them to give the Jones Foundation money. Cary had been involved in some of that schmoozing, but not often. Mostly because Deacon didn’t like the schmoozing part of the work. He was okay at it, but not the best of his many siblings. That fell to his equally gorgeous sister Caitlin. She was excellent with the various donors and organizations that gave the Foundation money. Deacon was better at being a figurehead and getting his hands dirty with the rescues.

But in this case, the donor, a Mr. H.P. Addlestone-Wright, had requested Deacon specifically for this meeting. And Maria Jones, Deacon’s mother, had encouraged Cary to come along for the ride. Cary should have been suspicious the minute Maria suggested she accompany Deacon.

Maria knew Cary was a Protector—the only member of the Jones family beside Deacon who knew exactly what Cary was, outside of maybe Maria’s mate, Deacon’s father—and if Maria had wanted Cary here, that meant Maria was worried about what might happen to Deacon here.

Cary was a little worried about what would happen to them in this place, too.

“There better not be any ghosts here,” she said.

She hated ghosts. She was absolutely terrified of them. She avoided ghosts whenever possible—which was much less often than she would have liked. This wasn’t even her first haunted house. But she would rather face down an entire contingent of vampires, demons, and rampaging Fae than confront a single ghost.

Since she had done all of the above, including having to face a ghost more than one single solitary time, she knew exactly what she was talking about.

“If there are ghosts in there, I’m going to do a lot of complaining,” she added, just for good measure.

“I know,” Deacon said with a sigh. When she looked at him, he winced. “But it looks like this is definitely the place.”

“Your mother wanting me here makes a lot more sense now.”

“Yup.” Deacon let out a long breath that sounded suspiciously like another sigh. “I’m not sure why this guy wanted to me with me specifically, but I’m starting to think my mother had a premonition or something.”

“Your mother’s not psychic.”

What Maria Jones was was the queen of the Pacific Northwest leopard shifters and a badass. Also kind of scary and intimidating. But that had as much to do with the fact that she was Deacon’s mother as anything else.

Cary chose mostly not to think about the fact that Deacon, being the oldest—of his two twin siblings by a minute—was slated to take over that role after his mother’s passing because the thought of Deacon being a king was wild and a bit scary. Even more wild and extremely scary was that everyone assumed, being Deacon’s mate, that her non-shifter butt would be the king-consort or queen or something.

That was the part she really didn’t want to think about.

She narrowed her eyes at the crumbling front steps. “So, do we go to the door? Is someone supposed to come out to us? The place looks abandoned.”

Deacon was silent for a moment, as if listening. Since he had super shifter hearing, she remained quiet, too. Maybe he could hear inside the house over the sound of the wind and the engine cooling.

They’d driven for hours to get here, leaving Portland super early, the trek over the mountains a long and winding path that had involved more traffic than she’d expected. It was still early spring, with the occasional warm sunny day interspersed with wind and rain and cold temperatures, so she supposed people might still be going to the coast on vacation. Maybe even early spring break—she had no idea when spring break was since she hadn’t been in college for a while now. But she’d expected traffic to be lighter on a random Wednesday heading toward the coast.

“I can’t hear anything,” Deacon said, confirming he’d been trying. “Nothing inside. Nothing nearby.”

“Well I’m not going inside that house if there’s no one here.” That house definitely had at least one ghost in it. If there wasn’t a ghost there, she’d be surprised. She could practically feel the ghost looking out of a window in the tower even though that’s where some of the busted and boarded up windows were. “Definitely a ghost here.”

“Not sure about the ghost, but doesn’t seem to be anyone else.” He looked around at the empty gravel driveway and ill-kept lawn. “Not even sure where to park.”

“If we’re just leaving again, why would we park?”

“Not leaving yet.” He was frowning and not looking at her when he said, “Gonna just take a look around.”

“Oh good. Because that’s never a great way to walk into a problem.”

“Said the woman who constantly jumps into problems.”

“Yeah, but that’s my job.” She got paid for it and everything.

They opened the car doors at the same time, both stepping outside cautiously, as if the ground might not be stable. The salty tang of sea air mixing with pine tree hit Cary immediately on the breeze, and she took a deep breath. She did love that smell, the freshness and dampness of the coast. She could hear the roaring waves from somewhere behind the house. The echoes made it sound like the low thrum of traffic instead of ocean waves, though, which was a weird effect.

The gravel crunched under her feet as she and Deacon moved around the SUV to meet at the front of it. She looked up at the house again and shivered. It wasn’t really cold out. The breeze wasn’t warm, so it wasn’t hot either. But it wasn’t like full winter cold anymore. Still, chillier than it had been in the city, though, so she was glad she had her leather jacket on. The jacket was made by one of her best friends, who was a weaver, so the jacket had magic pockets and Cary loved that part as much as the buttery soft texture of the warn material.

The scent of the sea and the surrounding pines overrode any decaying house smells, though she did get a hint of it from the dry grass and crumbling brickwork. She’d bet Deacon was picking up a lot more with his super shifter sense of smell.

“Anything around here dead?” she asked. She wouldn’t be surprised at all if he said yes. The area was so quiet, except for the breeze shushing through the surrounding trees and the muted roar of the ocean. She’d have been more surprised to discover there was something living nearby. She couldn’t even hear any birds or seagulls.

Deacon’s nostrils flared. “Yeah,” he said, “but not recently dead. There’s a dead deer in the woods somewhere. I’d probably have to shift to pinpoint it.”

His leopard form had even better heightened senses. But she didn’t think finding the deer body was something necessary to their current situation so she said, “Not a human body inside the house, I think we’re okay.”

He didn’t immediately agree with her. Maybe he smelled something as well as the dead deer.

“Is the deer triggering your leopard instincts?” she asked. Because when he faced her, there was a faint yellow glow in his otherwise golden eyes. That meant his leopard was near the surface. And that happened mostly when there was danger around. Or he was really pissed off.

“No.” He shrugged. “I mean, not much. The hunting instinct is always there, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But it’s not the deer. This place is…”

“Eerie? Creepy? Absolutely a haunted house? Triggering the run-away-as-fast-as-possible instinct?”

“All of the above. My hackles are up.”

“Well, we could always run away. No shame in that. We came. No one was here. Sorry we missed you. All that.”

“We might have to. I’m not keeping you here overnight if there’s no one else around.”

“No we are most definitely not staying in an empty haunted house overnight.” Even the idea made her shiver. That was the deranged stuff of horror movies.

They had a hotel room booked a few miles away in the nearest seaside town, where they’d intended on extending the business meeting out to a few days of vacation. A nice modern hotel with WiFi and no ghosts was definitely her preference to the Absolutely Haunted House in front of her.

Deacon checked his phone again. “Let me call him. See if something came up.”

“You getting a signal?” The cellphone signal had been coming in and out all along the coast drive and definitely wasn’t the strongest where they were at the moment.

He put the phone to his ear, listening as it rang. In the quiet, with only the breeze and ocean making noise, even she could hear the ringing. It went on for quite some time and she knew Deacon was about to hang up when a surprisingly cheerful voice answered.

Deacon stood close and held the phone away from his head enough so that she could hear. “Mr. Addlestone-Wright? This is Deacon Jones.”

“Ah! Mr. Jones. So good to hear from you. Are you lost?”

“Maybe.” Deacon frowned up at the house. “We’re looking at a very old Victorian house that according to the GPS is the right location. But as you are not here, I’m assuming we’ve gotten off the path somewhat.”

Mr. Addlestone-Wright laughed, a pleasant sounding laugh that didn’t at all signal the sort of person who might live in a haunted house. Cary wasn’t sure what she thought someone living in a haunted house might sound like. But cheerful and happy were definitely not it.

“You’re in the right place,” the cheerful man in question said. “Sorry I’m not there yet. Had to go out for a few supplies. That’s an old family home, and as you can tell, it’s falling apart. Takes a lot of maintenance.”

“Of course.” Deacon scowled down at her as he asked, “Is there a reason you haven’t…hired someone to fix the place up?”

“Can’t seem to keep anyone. The contractors start then abandon the place mid-way through.”

Because it’s haunted, Cary mouthed at Deacon.

He gave a little shrug that she interpreted to mean, Probably.

“But I don’t mind,” Addlestone-Wright said. “I like puttering away at the place. Good for the disposition, manual labor, right?”

“Sure.” Deacon was not opposed to manual labor but he looked uncertain about the man on the phone doing that labor.

Since Cary had never met the guy, she’d have to trust Deacon’s impression of him.

“I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Hope you don’t mind waiting. I am bringing food to make lunch so you won’t be left hungry, I promise. And I’m a better cook than I am house repairman.” With another jolly laugh, Addlestone-Wright hung up.

Deacon raised his brows. “I guess we wait.”

They both looked up at the house.

“In the car,” they said at the same time.

She grinned. There was a reason she was crazy about this man.

***

I hope you enjoyed this excerpt from CARY AND THE HAUNTED HOUSE! Poor Cary and Deacon are in for...an interesting time. Great scary fun. For readers. Cary hates it. LOL.

Of all my Haunts and Howls collections, the new one out now, HAUNTS AND HOWLS THROUGH GHOSTLY VEILS, and HAUNTS AND HOWLS WHERE DEMONS DWELL are probably my spookiest and best suited for Spooky Season reading. Which is what makes having a ghost themed Haunts and Howls out for this spooky season especially fun for me. And I hope for readers too!

Thanks for reading and for participating in the Spooky Season Calendar!

Happy Spooky Season!