Mistletoe and Spirits (Southern Ghost Wranglers #5) - Amy Boyles Page 0,1

are restless.”

Roan quirked a perfectly delicious brow. My fiancé was tall with wide shoulders, brown hair and eyes and a set of full lips that looked good enough to nibble on.

I should know because I had.

He spoke. “Are you saying that spirits get depressed around the holidays the same as the living?”

“I am saying that.”

So in case you don’t know, my name is Blissful Breneaux and I’m a ghost hunter. Along with Alice and Ruth, we run a company called Southern Ghost Wranglers out of downtown Haunted Hollow, Alabama. We take cases that involve helping spirits head on over to the other side where they can finally find peace, or at least we hope so.

Roan was a demonologist, a gift that he had come into only in the past few months. He helped demons return to the dark hole that they had crept out of in the same way that I helped ghosts.

With our combined gifts, we made a pretty good pair, if I did say so myself.

Ruth dragged Alice over, leading her by a handful of bulbs. “I think this situation calls for reinforcements.”

Roan laughed as he started to unwind Alice from the lights. “How did just falling in a box do this to you?”

“I don’t know,” Alice whimpered. “Because I’ve got talent?”

“I reckon we should skip trying to untangle her and just plug her in and put a star on top of her head,” Ruth announced.

Alice’s eyes filled with tears. “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”

I patted Alice’s shoulder. “Of course not. Ruth’s only teasing, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Ruth,” I warned.

She threw up her gangly arms. “Fine. We won’t put a star on your head, but we might have to cut you out.”

Alice’s lower lip trembled. “You wouldn’t cut me in the process, would you?”

“Of course not,” Ruth said. “Now just hold still and stop squirming. I’ll have you out of this in no time. Roan, get me the big knife.”

“No,” Alice screamed.

“Y’all, stop it,” I said, arms flaring. “Alice, Ruth is not going to cut you. Ruth, you are not to cut Alice. Have I made myself clear?”

Ruth’s lips smashed together, giving her a sour look. “Completely. Not that I was going to hurt Alice. I would never hurt my best friend.”

“Maybe I should just stay like this,” Alice cried.

“Ladies,” Roan said in that smooth-as-whisky-falling-over-ice voice, “no one is going to be stuck in lights. I will get you out, Alice. Now stand still and I’ll start untangling.”

Roan began unwinding Alice again as Ruth looked on skeptically. “We should keep her in there for a while,” she said to me. “Teach her that she needs to go to the doctor.”

“I’m not sure that’s the lesson that should be learned.”

“I am.”

Deciding that I could use a little cheer, I headed toward the kitchen to get a glassful of apple cider that Roan had heated up.

Christmas music played on his Bluetooth speaker, and the voice of Michael Bublé filled the inn. It was the middle of the week, and Roan didn’t have any guests. They would be arriving within the next day to stay for the weekend and shop at all of Haunted Hollow’s stores. For a town that touted Halloween, it sure did do Christmas pretty well.

It would be my second Christmas in this town, the first one where I’d be engaged and my second Christmas without my dad, Vince Breneaux.

As I ladled up apple cider, all I could think of were the traditions that my dad and I had kept. Christmas Eve we would spend ghost hunting, searching for spirits that just had to be difficult during the holidays. Surprisingly, a lot of ghosts liked to play Christmas Past or even Christmas Future. Dead husbands murdered by their wives tended to appear and tell their wives that they would die within the hour, that if they didn’t confess their guilt to the police, they would befall a horrible fate.

Just thinking about it made me laugh. Did that make me a bit of a sadist?

I remember one lady ran out of her house, her hair wild, house robe open, the belt trailing behind her. She ran up to every person she saw and confessed to killing her husband. Sure enough, when Dad and I approached her house, there sat the spirit laughing his fool head off.

I helped the spirit of the dead husband to the other side. After all, once the wife confessed, his business on earth was done.

Others performed a basic Christmas Past haunting. Those were the