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"The moon is full, meaning danger and romance abound in this hot new anthology from established and rising stars.  This cross section of the paranormal genre sparkles with thrills and passion." -- Four Stars!! Romantic Times BookClub

Chapter One

Nine p.m., pouring rain outside, corn flakes for dinner, and the phone hadn’t rung all day.  Brian tended to be a last-minute sort of guy, but normally, if he hadn’t called by nine, he wasn’t going to.  For a while she would get ready, just in case.  She would blow off friends, invitations, everything, just in case he called.  She still liked to stay home in hopes he would come by, but she’d stopped getting dressed and fixing her hair at night, because it was usually a waste of time.  He would let weeks go by without a word, then call her and give her twenty minutes warning before showing up at her door.  Sometimes he stayed a whole hour after the sex.  Usually, he asked to borrow money before he left.

She was beginning to wonder if she was paying him for his services. 

She wasn’t a stupid woman.  She knew he was using her, but being in a man’s arms every once in a while felt good, and the sex wasn’t bad.  Wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad.

Caroline scuffed through the kitchen in her worn out slippers and flannel robe, admiring the gleaming floor tiles that looked like mother of pearl, and wondering how the hell she was going to keep from losing the home she’d just bought.  Her job as a financial planner at a local bank didn’t pay enough to keep her afloat.  She’d made a lot more as a partner in a two-person tax and accounting business, but her ex got that in the divorce.  He was supposed to buy her out, but he had yet to fork over the money.

It had been two months since the closing on her new home, a year since her divorce, and six months since she’d started dating Brian, if you could call it dating.  Mostly, it was a series of booty calls.  She’d managed to ruin her life in what had to be a record-breaking period of time. 

The telephone shrilled just as she sat down with her bowl of corn flakes at the island with the tiles that matched those on the floor.  God, she loved this house.  She slid off the stool and padded to the phone, saw the name on the caller ID and felt like crap.  But she picked it up anyway.

“Hello, Shawn.”

“Hi, hon.”  That he still called her “hon” even after ditching her for a younger woman, divorcing her, booting her out the door, and stealing her business, made her stomach turn over.  “I’m just calling to tell you—”

“That the check isn’t coming on time?” she asked.  And she already knew the answer.

“I’m sorry, babe.  The business is suffering right now.”

He said “babe” the way most people would say “bitch.” 

“Shawn, this is the third month in a row.  You got the house, and my half of the business, but you’re supposed to be paying me for my share of both.”

“I know, and I will, I’ll catch up.”

“Before or after I lose my home?”  He swore, and she felt him getting angry.  Closing her eyes, lowering her head, she sighed.  She hated confrontation, and knew arguing with him would be like arguing with a stalk of corn.  A really cheap and stone deaf stalk of corn.  “Look, I need the money.  Try your best, will you, Shawn?”

“I will.  Promise.  Thanks for understanding.”

“Oh, I understand all right.”

He hung up then, not a goodbye, not a question about her life or anything else.  Probably because he didn’t care.   Then again, he never had.   She hung up the phone and stared at it for a long moment.  Then she picked it up again and dialed Brian’s number.  He didn’t answer.  The machine picked up, though, and while she waited for the beep she tried to rehearse the words in her mind.  She didn’t want to make him mad, or insult him, because her experience with men told her they didn’t hang around long if you pissed them off.  And while Brian was no prince, he was better than no one.  But damn, she needed some cash.

“Hi, Brian, it’s me.  Listen, I’m in some trouble here, and um—well, I really hate to ask, but if you could pay me back some of the money I’ve loaned you, it would really help me out.  I mean, no problem if you can’t, but you know, if you can.  Even a little . . . well, like I said, it would help.  Give me a call, okay?”

She put the phone down, gnawed her lower lip for a second, then sighed and headed back to her stool.  But her corn flakes were soggy and she’d lost her appetite. 

Thunder rolled in, marbles over metal, in waves that got louder as they came nearer, until she felt it in her gut.  She glanced toward the sliding glass doors that led onto the patio, and watched rivulets of rainwater streaming over the glass.  To Caroline Connely, it felt like the universe taking a giant steaming leak on her pathetic excuse for a life. 

Lightning flashed.  For just that instant, it showed her a strobe-length image--a woman stood on the other side of the rain-streaked glass.  Caroline clapped a hand to her chest and jumped off the stool so fast it fell over.  But she couldn’t see anything now.  No dripping wet form, no dark straggly hair, no eyes staring intently at her.

Her heart was pounding, mouth dry, and she’d inhaled so sharply she thought she might have torn a lung.  Shaking—just a little bit--she moved toward the glass doors, even though her feet were itching to run in the opposite direction.  With a quick lunge, she reached out, locked the doors, then darted to one side and flipped on the outdoor light.

Illumination spilled over the flagstone patio, the empty, brown wicker chairs and matching glass-topped table.  It spilled across the sloping lawn and touched the edges of the kidney shaped swimming pool.  But it didn’t reveal a long-haired woman in a soaked white dress that hung down to her bare feet.  There was no one there.

It must have been an illusion, a trick played by that flash of lightning and the shadows around it, or some kind of odd reflection.  It must have been  . . .

She lowered her head and her heart stood still.  There on the flagstone, just outside the glass doors, were two wet footprints.  No sudden gasp or knee-jerk response this time.  This time, she just stared at the hard evidence her eyes were showing her, not doubting it, clear on what she saw.  Not clear on what it meant, but perfectly clear on what she saw.  Her feet carried her backward until she pressed up against a wall.  It was the wall by the phone, and she took it from the base almost in slow motion.  Her hands shook.  She almost dropped the phone, but her eyes never left the patio as she hit the buttons. 

When her brother picked up, he sounded as if he’d been laughing about something.  “Yeah?”

Calmly—which surprised her---she said “Peter, there’s someone here.”  And yeah, maybe her voice sounded strained and oddly quiet.  But calm. 

The laughter in his voice died.  “Caroline?  What do you mean?  Who’s there?”

“Hell, Pete, I didn’t ask her name, but from the looks of her she’s either a half drowned crack addict or that chick from The Ring.  And I’m wishing to hell I’d never let you talk me into seeing that movie, by the way.  She was standing outside the doors, staring in at me.” 

As she spoke she felt a chill, and turned slowly.  The woman stood in her living room, just beyond the archway, dripping all over the deep pile carpet.  “Oh shit.”  God, she looked like something that had just dragged itself out of a swamp.  “Jesus, she’s in the house!”

“Get out of there, Caro.  Get out now, I’ll call the police and be there in two minutes.  Get out.”

Caroline was obeying before he had finished telling her the first time, turning to hang up the phone and running for the glass doors.  She did not need to be told to get out of the house.  Hell, if she were a cartoon, there would be a Caroline shaped hole in the nearest wall right now.  She started to yank the doors open, but they were locked.  As she twisted the lock she sent a frantic look over her shoulder.  The woman was coming closer, entering the dining room now.  She lifted a hand, reaching out toward her, moving slowly, her eyes intense, almost angry.

Caroline got the lock to release, slid the doors open, and ran out into the pouring rain.  Her slippers slowed her, so she kicked them off and raced around to the front of the house, down the drive and into the street.  She didn’t stop running until her brother’s car skidded to stop in front of her, its headlights burning her eyes.  And even then she had to shield them with one arm to make out the shapes emerging from the vehicle.  Peter, from the driver’s door, and from the passenger side . . . someone else.  Someone tall, and very male.

The two men came around the car, which put them between her and the headlights, and a second later the stranger was peeling his hooded sweatshirt off, bending slightly forward to do so.  As he tugged it over his head, the shirt he wore underneath went up with it, giving her a glimpse of abs so spectacular that she noticed them, despite the situation. 

He straightened, and pulled his shirt down, then without warning, he put the sweatshirt over her head.

“The intruder still inside, Caro?” Peter asked as he paced closer to the house, either not knowing or not caring that she was wet and chilled, though probably not from the cold.

“How would I know?  I’m out here.”   She didn’t look at him as she answered though.  Her eyes were fixed on the stranger, as she let him work the sweatshirt’s sleeves over her arms, as if she were helpless and in need of dressing.  He held her gaze with so much force she couldn’t seem to look away.  And she felt something primal stirring deep in her gut, which was ridiculous.  He was clearly too young.  Way too young.

He tugged the bottom of the sweatshirt down over her hips, his knuckles brushing her thighs on the way, and hell yes, there was a flannel bathrobe in between but she felt it anyway.  Hot.

And then she cursed the fates for letting her be wearing this instead of some sheer, Damsel-in-distress pegnoir number.    

He tugged the hood up over her wet hair, still holding her eyes with his.  “Are you okay?”

She nodded, feeling foolish now in the cold reality of the icy rain.  “I don’t even know why I panicked like that.  She looked more like a half-drowned cat than an intruder.”

“Hell, the way you sounded on the phone. . . ” 

“How do you know how I sounded on the phone?”

“The cordless was out of reach so Pete just hit the speaker button to answer.”

“Don’t tell me.  You were watching a game, and he didn’t want to move too far from the TV screen.  So who was playing?”

“You sounded scared,” he said, ignoring her attempt to change the subject.

“I was.  But I’m not anymore.”  She couldn’t look away.  She’d tried, and failed, had no idea where her brother was right now, though she assumed he was checking the house.  But there was something about this man.  Something compelling . . . and vaguely . . . familiar.  And something so intense about the way his eyes held hers.  “Who are you?”

He finally broke eye contact, looking toward the house, then shifted his gaze away from the place again, his manner odd.  As if he didn’t like looking at it.  “Friend of your brother’s.”

“You’re too young to be a friend of Pete’s.”

He frowned.  “Not true.  Cause that’s what I am.”

“Bull.  How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.  You?”

“Older than that.”

He smiled a little, one side of his mouth pulling up, as if he didn’t want to let it grow into a full blown one, or as if he were trying to hide it and failing.  “By how much?”

“Excuse me?” Pete said.  “You two gonna stand in the middle of the road all night?  Not smart in the rain, in the dark.”

The stranger was holding her eyes captive again.  “You find anything, Pete?”

“No.”

Caroline studied the stranger standing there in the middle of the street, in the pouring rain, in the wet glow of headlights, and she thought the entire discussion they’d been having was kind of stupid and pointless.  And then she wondered why she’d been enjoying it so much; batting words back and forth with him like tennis balls.   She dragged her eyes from his long enough to let them slide down his body.  He wore jeans, slightly worn and slightly baggy, a pair of Nike Air-something-or-others, a baseball shirt, and matching cap—Yankees, no less—and both currently getting wet. 

Then she heard sirens.  “Do you have a name,” she asked, “or should I call you Fop?”

He frowned at her.

“For friend of Peter,” she clarified.

“Jo—Jonathon,” he said.  “Jonathon Lipton.”

She blinked because the name was familiar.  “Lipton, Lipton.”  She knew him.  She was sure she did.  There was something about his eyes, the crinkles at the corners when he smiled.  Not laugh lines; he was way too young for laugh lines.  But still—and they had a hint of mischief to them, those eyes.  You could almost think he was interested—which was, of course, ridiculous.  Or should be.  But damn, he sure was acting that way.  And the wetter that baseball shirt got, the more it clung, and the more she liked looking at him.

“You think you can get the hell outta the road before the cops get here?” Peter asked.    “Come on, already.  I’m gonna move the car.  Get her off the road, Johnny, and make sure her wet weirdo doesn’t get anywhere near her.”

Johnny, she thought, turning it over in her mind, because that—not Jonathon—really rang a bell.  He was putting his hands on her shoulders now, as if to turn her slightly, guide her out of the road, while Peter headed to the driver’s door, got in, and backed up the car.  Johnny’s hands on her shoulders were—well, slightly more than they needed to be just to politely steer a frightened female out of harm’s way.  They squeezed a little tighter than they had to, stayed a little longer, and he stood a little closer too.  And he wasn’t moving, or pushing her to move, or walking her off the road.  He was just standing there, in the pouring rain, staring down into her eyes—no, at her lips now—as his hands sort of kneaded her shoulders and gave her chills.  She felt herself closing the distance between her body and his, her body sort of swaying toward his in response to some unseen force, like gravity.  You know, if it were the kind found on Jupiter, where the pull was so forceful that Paris Hilton would weigh in at about a metric ton.

So yeah, there she is, swaying forward, closer to this gorgeous, hot, young, and apparently interested—in her, if you can imagine that—probably nearsighted, but whatever—hunk.   So she’s leaning in, and he’s looking at her mouth the way a guy looks at a woman he’s thinking about kissing.  And not ordinary kissing, either, but the steamy, open-mouth-insert-tongue kind of kissing—kissing like she hadn’t had in—ever.  And that’s when it hit her.  Just when their faces were about two inches apart.   So close she could feel his breath on her lips.  So close her mouth was starting to open for him.  Just at that moment.  It hit her, and she blurted it right out while her eyes tried to bug right out of her head.  “Johnny Lipton!  Little Johnny Lipton?”  As she said it she jerked backward as if she thought he was about to bite her. 

Damn, a minute ago she’d been hoping he would.

He let his head fall forward, rubbed his nape with one hand.  “I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that.”

“I used to babysit for you!”

“Not for me, for my kid brother, because my parents didn’t trust me to watch him myself.  And to be honest, I used to pray my parents would go out more.”  He sent her a half sheepish, half adoring look, then changed it to one of sheer lechery by wriggling his eyebrows up and down.

She slammed her palms on his chest, not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to drive him a few steps backward, and make him lose balance for a sec.  “You pervert!  I was twenty-five years old, and you were—you were, what, fourteen?”

“Twelve.”

She lowered her head, pinched the bridge of her nose.  She was going to hell.  She knew it.  Damn, damn, damn. 

The cops had arrived, and somehow, during the ten seconds since that almost-kiss, Johnny Lipton had maneuvered her off the road and onto the sidewalk, so the cruiser had room to—well—cruise past them and into her driveway.  He had his arm around her waist now, and he didn’t seem any too eager to take it away.  She probably should tell him to.  She really should.

But she was enjoying it too much, and was distracted by the thoughts just now making themselves heard in her mind.  Probably because her libido had been talking over them.  Talking, hell.  More like screaming.   But it quieted down just about the time he said, “They’re not gonna find anything, you know.”

She was watching her brother talk to one cop, while the other went snooping around the house, toward the back, with a Maglight held in typical cop style: overhand grip, and not in the gun hand.  But Johnny’s words drew her eyes right back to his.

“You lived here, when you were a kid,” she said.  “Babysitting for you—”

“For my brother.”

“--was when I first fell in love with this place.  I was so surprised and overjoyed to find it for sale when Shawn and I split up.”

“It was never supposed to be for sale,” he said.  “But yeah, it’s had a few owners since then.  I always hoped to buy it back myself one of these days, but you beat me to it.”

“Yada, yada,” she said, making a “speed it up” motion with her hands.  “You wanna get to the point here?  That cryptic, all-knowing comment about the cops not finding anything?”

He shrugged.  “That girl you saw?”

She nodded, and a chill rippled right up her spine, from the small of her back, to between her shoulder blades just like an icy finger.  She shivered, nodded at him to go on.

He held her eyes, steady, serious, sincere, and he said very softly.  “I know her.  She used to come around when I lived here too.  She’d stand by my bedroom window, soaking wet, that dark hair dripping, those big black eyes all hollow and haunted, and just stare in at me.  Like she wanted something.”

“How can that be, Johnny?  I mean, the same woman, showing up soaking wet in the dead of night—after thirteen years?”

“Not after thirteen years,” he said.  “I think she’s been coming around the whole time.  Probably that’s why everyone who buys the old place decides to sell it again and move on in pretty short order.”

“But Johnny—”

“I know.  Impossible.  And I used to swear there was evidence.  Footprints, water on the floor, her wet handprint when she pressed her palm to my bedroom window glass.  But there never were.  The traces she leaves—the ones you see her leave with your own damn eyes—they vanish almost as fast as she does.”

She blinked up at him, and wondered how Little Johnny Lipton got to be six-two, whipcord lean, sexier than sin, and certifiably insane, all in the space of thirteen years.

“Are you trying to tell me she’s some kind of . . .a ghost or something, Johnny?” she whispered.

His eyes stabbed into hers, but before he could answer that question, her brother Peter and the two cops were crowding up to her on either side, talking and asking questions, and telling her there wasn’t a trace of anyone around.  Not a footprint.  Not any water on the floor in the living room, not even in that thick carpet that would have held it for hours.  No handprints on the sliding glass doors. 

Nothing.

Just like Johnny Lipton said.

Caroline shivered hard, and knew the eagle-eyed kid-turned-hunk saw it.

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