The propulsive second novel in a new contemporary trilogy about unforgettable love, scorching desire, and dangerous secrets.
When Abigail Rhodes bought that old house she fell in love with in Blink, Texas, she got more than she bargained for. After being told by the local psychic that it is filled with a passionate energy from the previous owners, who died years ago, Abby decides to fix up her beloved house and reluctantly moves in. But ever since then, strange things have been happening in her newly renovated home, and Abby has been plagued with dreams that wake her up and leave her breathless.
After a tumultuous life these last few years, Jordan Gatewood is following what amounts to a trail of breadcrumbs in an effort to find a renewed sense of purpose. Searching for the truth about the man his adoptive-father really was, Jordan makes his way to the old house where his father was murdered, in Blink—and right to the petite, understated beauty that answers the door. It’s not long before Jordan realizes, quite unexpectedly, that Abby is the perfect woman for him. Jordan doesn’t believe in ghosts or fate, but he does know that the powerful connection he feels for this woman started the day he met her in that house and he is determined to make her his.
Robin is a successful Corporate Attorney, and was proud to be the lover of the most sought after bachelor in the state of Texas--until he abruptly breaks off their relationship, leaving her confused, heartbroken and bitter. When she discovers that he’s left her for another woman, a woman she considers beneath her, Robin is determined to teach him a brutal lesson.
A man like Jordan has too many secrets, secrets that, if found out, could not only destroy his relationship with this other woman, but that could also cost him the biggest business deal of his life, and possibly, his freedom. Robin is the last person he wants to go up against, and she will stop at nothing to get him back or to make him pay for his betrayal, even if that means unleashing those secrets. The question is, will Jordan let her? Or will his all-consuming obsession with Abby win out, in Seducing Abby Rhodes by J.D. Mason.
Release date:
July 18, 2017
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
336
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“FIRST OF ALL, I’m not a medium, Abby,” Marlowe Brown said, walking up the steps to the house before she’d even said hello.
“You’re not, but you’ve got a good sense about things like this.”
Marlowe showed up today wearing at least a thousand golden braids that hung down to her waist, looking every bit the regal goddess that she was.
“Second of all,” she said, stopping in front of Abby on the porch. “You already know it’s haunted. You don’t need me to tell you that.”
“I need you to tell me how haunted,” Abby countered. In the few days since she’d closed on the place, she’d felt weird in this house and had heard what sounded like whispers and floors creaking. Shadows moved in her peripheral vision, but she’d never seen any definitive evidence that there were ghosts here. Like everyone else, she’d heard the rumors, so her imagination could very well have been working overtime, making her think that the house was more haunted than it actually was.
“I need to know if it’s a little haunted or majorly haunted and if the spirits here are dangerous. You know. Evil. Did I make a mistake buying this house?”
Abby wasn’t a huge fan of sharing her home with ghosts, but this house was an investment, a flip that she hoped to renovate and turn around in a few months. She’d paid a good amount of money for it, so ghosts or no ghosts, Abby had to see this through to the end.
“I tried burning sage like you told me,” Abby said, following Marlowe inside. “I don’t think it worked, though. How would I know if it did?”
Marlowe stopped after taking three steps inside, turned in a slow circle, and had a strange look on her face that set off a silent alarm in Abby.
“What?” Abby probed cautiously. “What is it?”
Marlowe might claim that she wasn’t psychic, but she was definitely sensitive to things that scared the shit out of everybody else.
“There are definitely spirits in this house,” she said, intensely studying the room.
Goose bumps erupted on Abby’s arms. “I knew it,” she murmured fearfully.
Yeah, she was scared, but she was also out a hell of a lot of money on this place. So, Abby willed her fear aside and grabbed hold of her practicality. “But are they good or bad, Marlowe?”
Marlowe held up a hand. “Give me a minute,” she snapped. “Discerning spirits ain’t easy, Abby.”
She took another couple of steps inside the living room, stopped again, and stared down at a particular spot on the floor.
Abby came over, stood beside her, and stared at the floor, too. “Do you see something?” she asked.
Marlowe shook her head. “I feel something,” she said introspectively. “Pain. Sadness. Anger.” Marlowe finally looked at Abby. “Love? Yes,” she quickly added. “Regret?”
Abby shrugged as if Marlowe had asked her a question. “I don’t know.”
Marlowe nodded. “Yes. It’s all of that. Passionate and desperate. Dangerous.”
That revelation sent a shiver up Abby’s spine, and her imagination started to run off into all kinds of directions. Rumor had it that some man had been murdered in this house by the daughter of his lover. But then other people said that his wife had shot him and blamed the other woman or her daughter or something like that.
“There’s a pattern, Abby,” Marlowe stated, concerned, making her way down the narrow hallway leading to the main bedroom at the end of it. She stopped along the way and looked into the only bathroom in the house and then into the other bedroom. “Something keeps repeating,” she continued. “Happening over and over again.”
“Like what?” Abby probed.
Marlowe shook her head in frustration. “I can’t … I don’t know. But something ain’t finished here.”
“What ain’t finished?” Abby whispered in awe. “Maybe if I know what it is, I can help to finish it.”
Now she really was starting to get scared. These dangerous and passionate spirits were living in her house. She’d seen enough horror movies to wonder if there were bodies, actual bodies, hidden in this place, maybe under the floors, or even in the walls. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
Marlowe walked into the main bedroom. An old, dirty mattress lay on the floor, left behind from the most recent residents. In all the years the house had been vacant, people had come and gone, some in the middle of the night, in such a hurry to get out of this place that they didn’t even bother taking their belongings. Graffiti dirtied the walls. There were strange stains on the carpet that could’ve been anything. Holes had been punched through the drywall. Windows had been broken.
“Why the hell did you buy this place, Abby?” Marlowe asked, incredulous.
“It’s an investment,” Abby said, almost too terrified to speak but feeling like a fool as soon as she said it.
Marlowe tilted her head to one side as if she didn’t believe Abby’s explanation. That accusatory look of hers pressed down heavily on Abby.
“I liked the house,” she reluctantly admitted as if she were ashamed to say it out loud. “I don’t know. It’s a nice lot, and the house is quaint.” It was extremely small and quaint, swallowed up by the massive yard it sat on. “I don’t know, Marlowe. I just felt drawn to it. I have for a long time.”
Hearing herself say that out loud, Abby began to wonder if somehow the ghosts in this house had tricked her into buying it.
Marlowe studied Abby for a good, long time, so long that it made Abby even more nervous.
“You’re welcome here,” Marlowe finally said with a sigh. “No one else has been welcome here before you, so consider yourself fortunate.”
Abby’s eyes darted around the room. “So, they like me?”
Marlowe nodded. “I think they do.”
“Well, at least that’s something,” Abby said, relieved.
“I sense male and female energy. But mostly male.”
“But not evil?”
Marlowe shook her head. “No, I don’t think so,” she murmured. “Frustration. Angst. Desperation. I think all these things are coming mostly from him. But it could be her, too.”
Abby thought about it. “So, they’re trapped?”
Trapped ghosts. That couldn’t be good.
“They want something, Abby. They need it. They’re desperate for it—something or someone.”
Again, their eyes locked onto each other.
“Me?” Abby raised a pensive hand to her chest.
Marlowe took a deep breath. “I can’t be sure. It might not be a person at all. All I know about you is that they don’t mind you being here. They want you here.”
Marlowe walked past Abby and went back to the living room. “They both died here, but not together. I think it must be her sadness that I’m feeling and it’s his rage. He’s the angry one,” she said, sounding more definitive in her assumption.
“Did she kill him?”
“I can’t tell if she did or not. But the love is powerful. It’s thick and almost oppressive.”
“His or hers?”
“His, I think. Like he wasn’t ready to let go. To let her go.”
Passionate, angry lovers, trapped in her house, waiting on something—maybe Abby—maybe not.
“So, do you think they’d be all right with me renovating the place?”
Again, Abby had to be practical with all this, supernatural or not. After all, that’s why she’d bought it, and the sooner she could get busy working on it, the sooner she could be done and leave these ghosts to do whatever ghosts did. Abby had considered keeping the house and eventually moving in, but the thought of sharing this place with angry, passionate, sad, and obsessive ghost lovers was just not sitting well with her right now. Not that it would be fair to sell a haunted house to somebody else, either. But if she fixed it up, made the place nice again, maybe the ghosts would decide to leave or at least not scare people. It was just a theory on her part. One that she hoped could end up being true.
“I don’t think they’d mind,” Marlowe said with uncertainty. “I mean, if they like you, then I don’t see why not. Maybe you could come in and knock down a few walls and then see what happens.” She shrugged.
Abby nodded. That sounded reasonable. She’d start with something small like widening the passageway between the living room and main hall.
“But they want something,” Marlowe continued.
“You can’t tell what that is, though.”
Marlowe thought long and hard before finally responding. “If I had to guess, I’d say that maybe they’re still here because their story didn’t end the way it was meant to, the way they wanted it to. That’s how it is sometimes for ghosts. Spirits linger because their lives were cut short before they were ready.”
Okay, so having Marlowe come here was helpful to a point. At least Abby knew that she wasn’t crazy and that the house was haunted, but the ghosts liked her. Hopefully, they liked her enough to let her open up the space, maybe add a bay window, and put in some new flooring.
Neither of them heard the car pull up in front of the house. They didn’t even realize that someone else was in the yard at first.
“Fine.” Abby sighed. “So, I guess this is good and that maybe I didn’t waste my money after all. I might even be able to turn a profit on this place if I…”
“Oh, my damn goodness,” Marlowe muttered under her breath, staring at the screen door.
“What?” Abby asked, turning to see what Marlowe was looking at, or in this case, who. He was a god! Tall, swaggering, handsome. “Who’s that?” Abby asked, mesmerized. Her heart pounded like a drum beating in her chest.
“I have no idea—but the spirits in this house just exhaled, Abby.”
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