Buck Me... For Halloween: Paranormal BBW Holiday Second Chance Romance (Frost Brothers' Brides) Read online

  Buck Me… For Halloween

  Frost Brothers’ Brides

  Anya Nowlan

  Contents

  A Little Taste…

  Copyright

  1. Samarra

  2. Vix

  3. Samarra

  4. Vix

  5. Samarra

  6. Vix

  7. Samarra

  8. Samarra

  9. Vix

  Epilogue

  Big Bear Daddy Excerpt

  Want More?

  About the Author

  Thank you for reading!

  A Little Taste…

  “Got you!” he roared, tumbling into the fireplace behind the desk.

  “The fuck!” a female voice yelped, followed a moment later by the telltale thunk of a head hitting a desk. “Ow!”

  Vix wrestled the knife out of the hand of the attacker, but instead of being met with resistance, the bastard did… nothing. In fact, it seemed to have broken into at least three large pieces of solid plastic, all covered by a black drape that clung to Vix.

  “Who the fuck are you!?” that female voice asked again as Vix tried to toss the cover off of him.

  Even the damn knife wasn’t real. It was made of soft plastic.

  “I’m your knight in shining armor,” Vix snorted, tossing the cloth off of him and getting up off the floor.

  “Yeah? Because you look like a knight who owes me a new mannequin!” she snorted in response.

  He winced a little, feeling a flash of pain jolt through his shoulder.

  That’s what you get for flying into freaking chimneys and fireplaces. Leave that side of the job to Nick.

  The thought would have made him roll his eyes at any other time, but right now, he was far too busy with staring at the stunning woman in front of him.

  Copyright © 2016 Anya Nowlan

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Buck Me… For Halloween

  Frost Brothers’ Brides

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Anya Nowlan. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Cover © Jack of Covers

  You can find all of my books here:

  Amazon Author Page

  www.anyanowlan.com

  Created with Vellum

  Samarra

  The walls literally shook all around her, ominous clattering coming from somewhere behind them. Or maybe above? Or was it below? Samarra couldn’t quite tell.

  She grinned, strolling casually through the creaky, epileptic hallways, barely lit with candles contained in glass jars on the walls. Everything was cobwebbed and grey and kind of musty, just the way it was supposed to be.

  Whistling a little tune, she skipped over the part where the carpet covered a perfectly solid looking bit of floor, which she knew would disappear from underneath her feet the moment she put some weight on it. It would turn into a sand pit that had to be slogged through to get back on the somewhat solid ground of the first floor corridor.

  When she reached the door at the end of the hallway, family portraits tastefully planted on the walls, showing kids who looked creepily perfect, she didn’t grab for the handle. Instead, she took a quick step to the left, a split-second before the door flung open on its own. A gust of wind blew through the corridor, dimming the candles for a moment, and bringing with it a curious odor of something rotten and entirely dead.

  Pinching her nose, Samarra pushed through the wind then, stepping into a completely black room. She squeezed her eyes shut, counting to three in her head, when the door rattled shut behind her. Then the lights came on, bright and flickering, revealing an old dining room straight out of some questionable fairy tale.

  The table was set and there were a couple of chairs around it as well, but only half of the table was lit well enough to be seen. Her dark brown eyes considered the scene, walking up to the table. It was set with a lavish feast that could feed at least eight. Carefully, she centered the pot roast that was supposed to be the focal point, breathing in the somewhat artificial smell of cooked meat.

  The lights above her panned then to reveal the crooked, haunted eyes of two little kids and an older woman, sitting across from where she was standing. They were staring at her blankly, and when Samarra moved, their heads clicked after her to follow her movement.

  It was so seamless that their grey, sunken skin seemed to catch the light the way it would if they were human, sitting there for their creepy dinner.

  “Well, that’s not right,” Samarra muttered to herself, pursing her lips.

  She sauntered around the wide table, making another little skip when roaches piled out from under one particular floorboard, before disappearing back in there.

  “CeeCee, your hair should be plaited!” she admonished one of the robotic children, stepping behind her and starting to throw the long, black hair into a rough braid.

  Samarra pulled the hair tie out of her own long brown tresses, unleashing her ponytail and letting her hair fall on her shoulders. She tied up the braid as the two other ‘dinner guests’ watched her with cold, unblinking eyes.

  “At least you two know how to dress,” Samarra noted to them, giving the older woman in the middle a wink.

  They didn’t say anything back. Which was probably for the better, because if they had, things would have really gotten weird.

  Samarra fished around on her belt, pulling the big walkie-talkie off and bringing it to her mouth.

  “Samarra reporting in. Sections A1 through A3 are okay. Adjust the light control on sensor 13 to come in a second sooner, and the closer on CB1 to go off a second later. Please shut off the controls for now, I’m coming out.”

  “You don’t want to check A4 through A7 while you’re at it?” Keeley’s voice came over the slightly stuttery walkie-talkie.

  “Naw, I checked them earlier today and I hate running that gauntlet without the blood. Where is the blood guy anyway?”

  Samarra walked around the table again, this time pointedly stepping on the board that would unleash the holograms of roaches flooding the floor as it sprang open. Millions of roaches seemed to fill the room, crawling over the floor and then up the walls like a plague. It looked good. Joey was really kicking up his work quality as far as 3D projections went.

  I’ll have to tell him that this is really nice. Didn’t look anywhere near as fancy when I saw the preview.

  “He’s supposed to get here in a minute,” Keeley said, a note of apology in her tone.

  “You told me that this morning,” Samarra sighed, rubbing her temple with her free hand as she moved through the room.

  Behind the next door, another hallway waited, this one blood red and seeming to seep a little from the top down. Problem was, it was really supposed to be bleeding, not only playing off of sound effects and lighting, which admittedly were fabulous. The staircase at the end of it, leading up to the second floor, looked so eerie that even Samarra got a tiny bit of a chill going up her spine.

  Even if she was the one who’d designed the w
hole thing, she had to admit that it was a good sign when she got a feeling like that.

  With a smile on her face, despite the obvious work that still needed to be done and the time that was running out, Samarra tapped a panel to her left and it whooshed open. All the fancy lighting and sounds and all that shut off right away, bathing the house in natural light as Samarra stepped outside.

  It was a lovely October afternoon in Salem, Massachusetts. The yard outside the sprawling two-story (as long as one didn’t count the small spiral tower at the end there) Victorian house was riddled with pallets and equipment and piles of netting that would become artificial cobwebs with a little bit of help. There were stacks of cans of spray paint, lighting rigs, speakers, tarps to cover everything up in case it started raining, and about four people rushing back and forth continuously.

  Everything was working exactly on schedule.

  Except for the damn delivery guy.

  “So how was it?” Keeley asked, drawing Samarra’s attention to her right.

  She clipped her trusty, if weathered walkie-talkie back on her belt, zipped up her leather jacket and smiled at Keeley. Keeley Jacobson was Samarra’s best friend, confidant and the best lighting rigger on the East coast. Not only was she sharp as a tack, but she could put up with Samarra’s nonsensical plans and that, above all, made her invaluable.

  The fact that she worked off of profit share also really helped.

  “I think it’s pretty okay. I liked it. Can’t wait to go through the cellar and the second floor.”

  “Yeah, they’re finishing up with the second floor now, and I’m close to being done with the lights in the cellar. I know you set up the projection stuff and the mannequins this morning, but there are still a bunch missing.”

  Samarra hopped up on one of the large shipping crates that Keeley was seated on, fiddling with a tangle of wires that Samarra was sure would only manage to electrocute her if she dared touch them. The crate was right next to their main control board, which needed to be moved inside to the control room later. It was easier to keep it outside while they were still getting everything in order, though.

  Dressed in jeans – sort of dirty from three days of heavy labor – her trusty jacket and hiking boots, she looked nothing short of a roadie for some obscure rock band. Considering that Keeley was wearing a Grateful Dead tour tee under her zip-up hoodie and was clad in combat boots and camo pants, they made quite a pair together.

  But looks hardly mattered in the line of work they were currently in.

  “It’ll only get worse when the actors get here,” Samarra said, still wearing that pleased smile on her lips.

  She leaned back, looking at the weathered, grim house they’d occupied. It looked ominous and foreboding even in the sunlight, which was exactly why Samarra had picked it. Finding a good haunted house location was damn near impossible, but she’d had her eye on this one for years now.

  Just that this year was the first time she could even imagine being able to afford the exorbitant fees that came with renting a building for an event in Salem, of all places, during Halloween season.

  The sleepy little town of Salem, Massachusetts, with its forty thousand inhabitants, turned into a sprawling metropolis during Halloween. People from all over the world flew in during that time to get a real feel of the history and the inherited creepiness factor of the notorious town, even though it was covered up now by festivals and consumerism and all of that stuff that seemed to take away from any holiday.

  Still, Samarra wouldn’t let it get her down. She loved Halloween, she’d daydreamed about being able to throw an event in Salem for years now, and now she was going to give it her all to give anyone who wandered into the Haunted House of Salem, as they’d decided to call it, the experience of a lifetime.

  Also, she definitely needed the breakup. Going from having a partner in life and a partner in business, to being alone on both fronts was not something she’d been expecting. Especially not with how it had all happened…

  Stop it. You’re not going to start thinking about Thomas right now.

  “You sound awfully pleased despite that,” Keeley said with a chuckle, giving Samarra a look and subsequently shaking Samarra out of her thoughts.

  “Well, what can I say? I love a good horror show.”

  Samarra grinned wide, before hopping off the crate and dusting herself off a bit.

  “Right. So, I hear we have a haunted house to build,” she announced, giving Keeley a judging look.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Keeley countered with a lazy salute, scrambling off the crate as well and tossing the bundle of wires over her shoulder. “Lead the way.”

  Everything was almost perfect. Aside from the fact that the blood guy wasn’t there yet.

  If only Samarra had known that his being late would be the very least of her problems…

  Vix

  “Of course it had to be Halloween,” Vix Frost muttered to himself as he drove through the cramped, crowded streets of Salem.

  His brow was furrowed, making his usually grinning face seem older by comparison. His light-brown hair was slicked back from him constantly combing his hand through it in frustration, and his blue eyes were getting a tint of brown to them. His animal was not amused, and neither was he.

  The last week had been absolute bedlam. Elevated Logistics by Frost, or ELF for short, had been completely slammed with orders from all over the globe. This wasn’t particularly new, as it happened every holiday season, but ELF wasn’t exactly working at optimum capacity.

  With about half of the nine pilots working for the company off gallivanting with their new mates and babies both on the way and already arrived, it was sort of difficult to keep up with the demand.

  I should get married just so I wouldn’t have to work every damn day, Vix thought glumly, maneuvering the truck in a way that he could avoid taking the side-view mirrors off a couple of fancy parked cars.

  Usually, ELF only had to do the flying bit of the orders, stacking their large airplanes full of pallets and boxes and goods and delivering them wherever needed. But during any major holiday, logistics centers got slammed. While the Big Reds – the name for the airplanes Vix and his brothers used – could carry a whole lot of merchandise, the local vendors might not be able to deliver it all.

  So sometimes, like this particular instance, a highly qualified, highly annoyed airplane pilot would find himself shoved into a truck, delivering boxes.

  “Where the hell is this place?” Vix muttered to himself, picking up his cell phone for the umpteenth time to check the directions.

  Though he was usually excellent at finding his way around – it was sort of a Frost family ‘thing’ – the past week of work had been so hectic that he felt like he couldn’t tell his head from his tail half the time. Which was another problem. He hadn’t been able to run for more than a week, either.

  That wasn’t something a werebuck could deal with all that well.

  Antsy, on edge and generally grumbly, Vix took a left turn on a cramped street and puttered down it, half on instinct at this point. With that glum look plastered on his face, he read the house numbers one by one, mouthing them soundlessly. When he got to number 27, he slammed down on the brakes the exact same moment as his mouth gaped open.

  What he was looking at was no ordinary house. Or, well, it could have been, if he’d stumbled into the Adams family’s neighborhood. Which, well, maybe he had.

  “Well, buck me,” Vix murmured, leaning back in his seat for a second, admiring the house.

  It was tall, regal and somewhat Victorian, with carved awnings and carefully tasteful ornaments. But it was also sort of ragged looking, tilting slightly to one side, with splotches of mold evident on the walls.

  Lights were blinking through some of the windows, eerie red and green and almost black tones, and Vix’s exceptional hearing could pick up on weird noises coming from inside. There was no one outside, though he could spy some halfway cleaned up equipment in one corner of
the yard.

  As he was craning his neck to look at the stack of pallets closer, he practically jumped out of his seat when someone honked their horn behind him.

  “Jeez, alright already!” he snorted, kicking the vehicle into gear again and parking the truck in the driveway.

  The driver that had been stuck behind him drove past, obviously grumbling something to himself. Vix just shook his head, grabbed the tablet where he could find the order info on, and clambered out of the truck.

  It was late, the sun having set. Salem, Massachusetts wasn’t exactly the kind of place Vix would have wanted to visit on business, but he had to admit that it had a sort of a charm. Or maybe it was the wealth of decorations he had seen while driving through the city. He could definitely spy a bunch of stuff that had been moved by him or one of his many brothers over the years.

  Weird little towns like these always make for the best customers, he mused as he tracked across the lawn, narrowly avoiding stepping into what looked like a cauldron planted into the ground.

  Vix could only shake his head at it. This whole spooky get-up wasn’t the weirdest thing he’d ever seen, but it definitely registered somewhere on the scale of those.

  He walked up to the front door and raised his hand to knock on it. Before he could, though, the door fell open before him with an ominous creak. He quirked a brow, looking around himself.

  “Hello!? I’ve got a delivery here for an S. Aberley? S. Aberley?” he yelled, his voice booming through the house.

  Listening intently, Vix thought he heard a cackle of laughter from somewhere within. He hung back for a moment, looking around himself again, and then shrugged his shoulders. Considering the lights coming from some of the windows as well as the noises, someone had to be home. This was his last delivery of the day and he wanted to get it handed off.