In Love With a Haunted House (Contemporary Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page A

his distant cousin might be one of the greediest human beings on the planet.
     
    He was, though, and he was determined not to give Blake anything, not even a crumb off the floor of the old place. Thankfully he did want to sell, however, and although the price he named originally was far too high, Blake was sure that he would come down, especially when the appraisal on the house went through and came up with a depressingly low number.
     
    The place had been kept up on the outside but Shannon Lewis had not allowed anyone inside in decades so nobody had known the extent of the repairs that would be needed. They had made Blake’s heart sink a little as well but he was a good carpenter and he had worked on several restoration projects in his line of work. He was confident he could do most of the work himself and do it well.
     
    Now if he could just stop thinking about Mallory…
     

**
     
    The next day dawned clear and bright and Blake woke up feeling very optimistic. That feeling changed when his phone rang and Louise said, in her bright chirp of a voice, “I hate to tell you but Lonny Lewis just took a carload of the historical society folks over to the house. He stopped by here to pick up the keys since he only had the one set. I thought I would just give you a heads-up.”
     
    Damn!
     
    Blake was not a fool. Louise was not telling him that out of the kindness of her heart, she was hoping to twist a higher bid out of him now that he knew the house was in danger of being gobbled up by the society.
     
    He didn’t have much more money to play with, though, so his only hope was to make the house as unattractive as possible to the society
     
    He hung up and grabbed his jeans off the floor, sliding them over his narrow hips and donning a T-shirt and his boots before grabbing his keys and heading out. He drove quickly and arrived at the house just in time to see Mallory in a heated discussion with his distant cousin.
     
    As soon as Mallory had seen Mrs. Williams and her cronies climbing out of the long black car she had known what was going on. That damned Lonnie Lewis was trying to sell Gray Oaks to the historical society!
     
    She marched over there, forgetting that she was wearing her pajamas: a set of pink lace-trimmed shorts and a matching camisole top and nothing else. The women had seen her coming and stared at Mallory, scandalized—or at least pretending to be. Mallory had not noticed them, or the fact that Lonnie’s beady little eyes were glued to her erect nipples, clearly visible through the thin top.
     
    “Just what the hell are you doing, Lonnie?”
     
    Lonnie Lewis looked like he had a terminal case of intestinal worms. He was skinny with a curve in his spine that was due not to medical issues but his utter refusal to stand upright. He had hair that had gone thin in patches, giving him the look of a mangy dog, and his teeth were a decidedly yellow color from the cigarettes he always had planted between his thin lips.
     
    He gave her a long look. “Well, Mallory, I heard you were back in town. You look very good too.” His eyes raked her figure and she had the urge to strangle him. In high school he had been the guy who was always sneaking into the girls’ locker room and giving girls little squeezes on their backsides when he thought nobody was looking.
     
    At the time his parents had still been alive and what they had lacked in actual money they made up for in power so most had ignored his antics but Mallory never had. She had once cracked him right across his face for grabbing her in an entirely inappropriate manner and he had never forgotten it, or forgiven her.
     
    “I asked you a question.”
     
    “I don’t believe it’s any of your business. My great-great aunt left me this place and I can do whatever the hell I want to with it.”
     
    “You pompous little ass! She left you nothing! She left it to your folks so it went to you by proxy. I’m sure she would have hated to see those