Hauntingly Happy


 
 
 
 HAUNTINGLY HAPPY
 
 Midlife Spirits Series #10
 
 by
 
 H.P. Mallory
 
 ALSO BY HP MALLORY:
 
 PARANOMAL WOMEN’S FICTION:
 Haven Hollow
 Midlife Mermaid
 Midlife Spirits
 
 PARANORMAL ROMANCE:
 Witch & Warlock
 Vampire Esquire
 Ever Dark Academy
 
 FANTASY ROMANCE:
 Dark Destinies
 Gates of the Underworld
 Lily Harper
 Dulcie O’Neil
 
 PARANORMAL REVERSE HAREM:
 My Five Kings
 Happily Never After
 
 SCI-FI ROMANCE:
 The Alaskan Detective
 
 TRILOGIES:
 Crown Of Lies
 Dark Circus
 Chasing Demons
 Dungeon Raider
 Here to There
 Arctic Wolves
 Wolves of Valhalla
 Lucy Westenra
 
 Hauntingly Happy
 Copyright © 2020 by HP MALLORY
 All rights reserved.
 
 Published by HP Mallory at Smashwords
 
 Smashwords Edition License
 Notes
 This ebook is licensed for your personal
 enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
 other people. If you would like to share this book with another
 person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
 you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
 purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to
 Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own
 copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
 
 
 
 Table of Contents
 
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter
 Twenty-one
 
 Reading Sample: Fire Burn and Cauldron
 Bubble
 About
 Author
 Hauntingly Happy
 
 Chapter One
 
 Alive.
 The word kept echoing through my head, like
 a drum beat.
 Alive, alive, alive.
 My heart gave a painful thump against the
 inside of my ribs as I stared down into familiar brown eyes. My
 tongue felt thick, clumsy in my mouth, and I had to drag in a shaky
 breath before I could speak.
 “Drake?”
 Luke, no, Drake, weakly smiled up at
 me from where he lay on the floor of my living room. The bones in
 his face and body had stopped shifting around and popping back into
 place, so the only sign of the accident was the puddle of tacky
 blood smeared around him and soaking into my hardwood floors.
 “Are you… are you okay?”
 I wasn’t sure what else to say—what more I
 could say. Because what had just happened—it was impossible,
 defied explanation. And yet…
 And yet it was true… I’d seen it with my own
 eyes.
 Seconds before, Luke had been hit by a truck
 and, for all intents and purposes, he’d died. But, then he’d come
 to, yet when he had, he hadn’t been Luke.
 Of all the mystical, magical things I’d seen
 since moving to New Orleans, this had to be the most unbelievable.
 Even now, I was having trouble wrapping my head around it.
 But that was Drake’s smile turning up the
 corners of his descendant’s mouth, crinkling the corner of his
 eyes. Luke Montague had never looked at me with anything other than
 anger, arrogance, or the pinched expression of a man who’d bitten
 into a particularly sour lemon. But, his expression now…
 I recognized the look in those deep,
 melting, dark eyes. I’d seen that expression, those eyes, in
 dreams, in the dark space behind my eyelids, in memories. And those
 eyes were all Drake. No one else had ever watched me with that type
 of soft wonderment, as if I were the miracle, and not the
 man who’d been dead for more than a century suddenly being alive
 again.
 “Ma minette,” he breathed, scanning
 my face. One hand reached up to brush gentle fingers over my
 hair.
 I couldn’t get enough air.
 A roaring sound built in my ears and
 pressure burned at the corner of my eyes as tears threatened to
 break through. But, I absolutely refused to cry. If I started, I
 might never stop.
 I looked at Drake and inhaled a deep breath.
 I just… I had to make sure… had to convince myself that this really
 was… him.
 “How is this possible?” I asked in a hollow
 tone.
 When he’d died, Drake had left behind an
 older brother as well as a host of distant relatives. There had
 been something erroneous about his will, because my great aunt,
 Myra, had purchased the rambling mansion and then passed it down to
 me.
 But, a couple of weeks ago, Drake’s living
 doppelganger showed up on my doorstep, informing me he was Drake’s
 great nephew, Luke Montague, and that he’d be suing me for
 ownership of my house. And such was the start of a terrible
 relationship.
 Luke had shown up earlier that day with his
 lawyer to harass me when my newly made witch… acquaintance,
 Angharad, had enchanted him with a twirling umbrella and convinced
 him to walk out in front of a truck. Then she’d brought the dying
 Luke inside the house, dressed his wounds… with magic, and
 convinced the truck driver and the lawyer they hadn’t seen anything
 out of the ordinary. I’d never get the sound of screeching brakes
 and that final awful crunch of broken bones hitting hard
 pavement out of my head.
 But when those chocolate brown eyes had
 opened, it had been Drake behind them, and not Luke.
 Drake’s gentle touch moved from my hair to
 the side of my face. Warm, strong fingers cupped my cheek, cradling
 it.
 “I do not know, mon chaton,” Drake
 admitted, still looking a little unfocused and confused. “All I
 remember was a great rush of energy sweeping me up, and then I
 blinked and found myself inside this body.”
 The feel of Drake’s hand against my skin
 felt amazing—in a way I’d never experienced before. In the past,
 when we’d touched, it occurred in dreams or time-traveling visions.
 It was never concrete, never real. It was nothing compared to
 feeling the warmth of his skin, the solid weight of him. But there
 was something besides the awe and