The Curse of a Single Red Rose (Haunted Hearts Series Book 7) Read Online Free PDF Page B

appear out of nothing. “The old woman said some crazy things. She scared Sophia, and Sophia doesn’t scare easy. Then the ghost appeared, all shiny and bright in this long flowing white dress. But it was her eyes that were so strange.”
    “What did they look like?”
    “They glowed bright white. Whiter than the white of her face if that’s possible. Just two balls of light. Hypnotizing. Like they could see into my soul. Made me want to crawl into a hole in the ground.”
    “So then what happened?”
    “The ghost disappeared. I never saw her again, but they did.” He paused when he recalled the memory of Dylan’s anguished face as he told his story. “There were other things that happened out there. Things they don’t like to talk about. Now that the rightful owner has been found, they don’t want to work for him just because his name is Wakefield.” Collin laughed. “Some of what they told me is a little bit hard to believe. Still, I don’t blame them for leaving and never going back.”
    “But you’re Irish, and you believe in ghosts.”
    “Aye, that I do. I’ve seen one with my own eyes, I have.”
    She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “Seems to me you’re telling a tall Irish tale.”
    He smiled and studied every line and contour of her face while he explained a piece of his heritage. “The Irish are tellers of tall tales. That is true. My grandfather was one of the finest storytellers in all of Ireland. Most Irishmen love a good ghost story. I do believe the Irish invented ghosts, but this ghost story is no tall tale. I’m telling the God’s honest truth.” He raised his right hand palm side toward her.
    “Can you feel the presence of ghosts?”
    What an odd question? Why would she ask that?
    “I’ve never had the gift.” No, that wasn’t exactly true. He’d never wanted the gift, but his grandmother had assured him that he had it as well. For most of his life, he’d ignored the signs of it in himself.
    He wasn’t going to tell Elsa that though. That explanation would open up another line of questions he didn’t want to answer. His grandmother’s gift was why his parents had left Ireland when he was just a lad. They had never returned, not even when his grandfather passed away. God rest his soul. He mentally crossed himself.
    “Then, you don’t feel the presence at the hotel?”
    Until that moment, he’d had control of the conversation, and he hadn’t thought there was anything she could throw at him that he couldn’t handle. “Presence? Are you saying there’s a spirit there?”
    “I haven’t seen it.” A strong, declarative statement. A little too insistent, perhaps?
    “Then how do you know it’s there?”
    What did Elsa know about ghosts and hauntings? She was making it up as she went along, just messing with him because she had some preconceived notion about the Irish and their superstitions.
    “You haven’t heard about the curse, then?” Her whispered question fell softly from her lips.
    A chill snaked up his spine. “What curse?” He pretended ignorance, but he’d heard of it.
    “When rescue workers searched the hotel after Hurricane Betsy in 1965, they found a woman dead at the bottom of the stairs. She had a rose stem in her mouth.”
    That wasn’t exactly how the story went. When he’d heard the legend, the rose was most definitely not in her mouth. The dead woman had it clutched in her hand, just as they all did.
    “The legend says that whenever someone in the hotel receives a single red rose on a stormy day, they die before the night is over.”
    Ah, Elsa was a teller of tales as well. He appreciated the intensity with which she told her story, the dishing out of bits of information one piece at a time. She was good.
    “That’s why you wanted the job, isn’t it?”
    She blinked. “I thought I’d go for it. I didn’t really expect to get it. Such large projects usually go to men with more experience on the job than I have. I was a