Haunt My Heart
by Lisa Medley
Blurb:
A Civil War soldier is hexed and dies to save his men. Can he find true love to live again?
Sarah Knight has a job she’s good at, a quirky BFF, and a boyfriend who’s bad for her. When Sarah unearths a Civil War artifact on a ghost hunt at Chatham Manor in Fredericksburg, VA, she brings home more than a souvenir.
Lieutenant James “Tanner” Dawson fought for the Union, working as a supernatural liaison for his Major General in a secret Masonic offset called the Brothers of Peril. When he’s hexed by a witch, he learns the only way to save his men is to die himself. But death is not the end. Awakening 150 years later, he knows if he wants to be corporeal again, he has to find true love to break the hex: a task no easier in 21st century than it was in the 19th.
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Excerpt
“Hurry up,
Sarah. We’re going to miss the ghost!”
Sarah Knight
rolled her eyes in the cold December darkness, but trotted after Ellie’s
bouncing flashlight beam. Sarah’s heels crunched through the frozen topsoil as
she crossed the lawn, and she worried about the damage being done to her only
pair of sensible work shoes. Ellie had failed to mention this would be on an
outdoor excursion.
Ellie had been
dragging her out on girls’ nights against her better judgment since they
graduated from college. Last month, they’d gone to a mixed martial arts fight,
complete with blood, screaming and more than one missing tooth. And that had
been the spectators.
It was only in
the car on the way over that Sarah had learned tonight’s adventure would be a
ghost hunt. Ellie had a strange idea of fun.
Sarah and
Ellie caught up to the tour group as the leader, a tall dark-haired man in his
mid-forties, wrapped up his ghost-hunting protocol explanation. She’d missed
the rules. Ellie wouldn’t care about missing that part. She hated following the
rules, but Sarah was a little miffed. If she was going ghost hunting, she
wanted to know exactly what the boundaries were.
“Great,” Sarah
whispered. “We missed the rules.”
“At least we
didn’t miss the ghost,” Ellie pointed out. “And they haven’t doled out the
equipment yet.” Ellie’s mouth split into a mischievous smile, and she angled up
closer to the group leader.
“Again, my
name is Allen, if you have any questions during the tour. Since we have such a
large group tonight, we’ll split into two teams. Carla will take this half.”
Allen sliced an imaginary line through the group of twenty or so ghost-hunters.
“And the rest of you will go with me.”
Relieved she
and Ellie were on the same side of the line, Sarah snuggled up closer to her
friend and surveyed the rest of their team. A middle-aged couple, a
grandmotherly woman, and a group of ten sorority girls—exactly the type of
girls she’d avoided in college—made up Team Allen. The girls sported matching
Greek-lettered sweatshirts, scarves and mittens and tittered incessantly. Sarah
was fairly sure their chance of seeing a ghost with this group was nil. Fine
with her. Ellie was the one who went for the paranormal stuff.
“We’ll walk
the path where the Lady in White has typically been spotted. Carla’s team will
cover the grounds around the house,” Allen said. He nodded to Carla, and she
gave him a little salute, then led her team around to the side of the building.
Allen’s group stayed put in the doorway.
“First, I’ll
need a couple of volunteers,” Allen announced.
Ellie’s hand
shot up before Sarah could register what was happening. “We’ll do it.”
Classic Ellie,
leaping before she looked. She didn’t even know what she was volunteering for.
It could be anything. If Allen wanted virgins to sacrifice, however, he was out
of luck.
Allen pulled
two little handheld meter devices out of his messenger bag. His brows lowered a
bit as he studied Ellie, cast his eyes around the group, then settled back to
her. Ellie’s enthusiasm won out and Allen handed one device to her and the
other to Sarah.
“This is the
Anomaly Detector,” Allen said with all the reverence of presenting the sword
Excalibur. “It measures EMP and temperature. If these lights change, it’s your
job to let us know. I’ll be taking photos and interacting with the ghost,
trying to draw her out. I can’t keep my eyes on all of the devices at once. Can
you manage this?”
“Absolutely,”
Ellie squealed.
Sarah resisted
rolling her eyes again. She accepted the detector and did her best to reduce
her scowl.
“It’s okay to
be skeptical,” Allen said. “It makes it all the more exciting when we convert
you to a believer.” His smile warmed and Sarah realized he was actually
handsome. Old, but handsome. What an otherwise normal and attractive man—who
was way old enough to know better—was doing leading a bunch of ghost hunters,
she had no idea. People were strange. She supposed she’d have to include
herself in that judgment, considering she now held a ghost detector.
About The Author
Lisa has always enjoyed reading about monsters, and now she writes about them, because monsters need love too.
She adores beasties of all sorts, fictional as well as real, and has a farm full of them in her southwest Missouri home, including: one child, one husband, two dogs, two cats, a dozen hens, thousands of Italian bees and a guinea pig.
She may or may not keep a complete zombie apocalypse bug-out bag in her trunk at all times, including a machete. Just. In. Case.
You can find Lisa at
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Thanks for hosting me! Happy Haunting!
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