Curse of the Seven 70s

By Sharon E. Anderson

Cassandra Blake is having a very bad day. Her fiancé dumps her for a silicone debutant and convinces her to store his boxes of precious research. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’s just moved into a cottage stocked only with sardines, peach, and 50-year-old Scotch.

Heartbroken, hungry, and a little bit drunk, Cassandra soon realizes that just when she thinks things can’t get any worse, sometimes they can get very strange...like finding a skeleton in the basement of her newly inherited cottage.

But when that skeleton suddenly becomes a hot, romantic, and business savvy vampire named Varo...well, things can get a little better. That is until his infamous older brother shows up, and their centuries-old sibling rivalry threatens her chance at true love.

Can their love survive her conniving ex-fiancé, Varo’s vengeful brother, and the Curse of the Seven 70s?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon E. Anderson
• Release date: Oct 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9780997710045

Sharon E. Anderson

Sharon grew up in a haunted house in the sleepy wilds of Ballard in Washington, where front lawns seemed grander, roads wider, dad’s hands larger, and everyone was a friend or at least a potential audience member. Sharon spent her time daydreaming, making up stories to share with the neighborhood kids. As for the ghost—a less creative person might chalk it up to older house issues and an off-the-charts imagination...

Book preview

Chapter 1

AS FAR AS Cassandra was concerned, if she never saw Howard again it would be too soon. How could she love him and hate him, want him back and wish they had never met, all at the same time? Multi-tasking had always been her strong suit at the university library—she handled antiquities, flustered students, and angry professors with ease—but this...this was emotional contortionism at its finest. She deserved a medal. The one-hour commute from the university to her new home on the edge of the known universe had turned into a three hour bumper-to-bumper detour through pounding rain¬—plenty of time to rehash their parting conversation.

Her lower lip trembled as the last words they had exchanged played again in her mind.

The University doesn’t get the significance of my research, Cass, but they will. I only need you to store my stuff until I get a little further along. Howard’s caramel-colored eyes bore into hers.

Cassandra was a sucker for those eyes; they had gotten her into trouble more times than she cared to admit. What was worse, they seemed to have the power to turn her legs to jelly. Attempting to shake it off, she looked at her feet.

C’mon, Cass. Do it for me. For old times’ sake, he whispered.

Why don’t you store them? Why do I have to? She kicked the stack of boxes on the curb. This can’t all be research.

Taffy doesn’t like clutter. I gotta make a clean start. Howard stood, hands on hips and chest puffed out, in a perfect super-hero pose. But he had fallen for the wrong leading lady.

That pretty much summed Howard up: Great eyes. Great body. And absolutely no clue when to shut the hell up.

I see. Cassandra smoldered. What Taffy wants, Taffy gets!

Now Cass—

Cassandra spat out the list of things Taffy had wanted and gotten, My boyfriend, my apartment, my dog—

Your dog died, Cass.

"While she was supposed to be watching it!" She huffed.

You’re making a scene. Howard glanced at a group of commuters passing the time at the book stop across the street, their noses buried in books and periodicals.

She gets you...and I get your shit. How had things gotten this far out of control in less than three weeks? Taffy was a debutant who needed a map to find her way to the magazine rack in the library. Howard was the gorgeous man who had convinced Cassandra that he would love her until the day he died. But here he was, exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide. The sweet promise of love had long evaporated. It just took her too long to see it. Her heart sank. Every childhood jab from her classmates about her size, lack of breasts, limp, mousey hair, flew back into her face with renewed vigor. It was all true. She had lost him to a package with more silicone than brains. If he wanted a voluptuous bombshell, how could she ever compete? Cassandra crossed her arms over her miniscule bust-line and for the first time in her adult life understood that maybe brains were simply not enough to keep a man.

Earth to Cass, Howard grinned down at her, his voice soft and persuasive. It made her think back to all the long Sunday mornings spent in bed, whispering intimacies and sharing jelly doughnuts. Please?

Fine, she said. But you’ll have to help me unload. A chill ran through Cassandra equal only to a glacier calving in the arctic sea. Even the small hairs on the back of her neck shivered. There was only one explanation: Taffy Flips.

Haven’t you kicked that loser to the curb yet? Armed with a sixteen-ounce mocha and a cherry-red bag from the sex shop around the corner, Taffy sidled up to Howard and slipped a possessive arm around his waist. She gave Cassandra a look that would freeze mercury.

Hey, Sugar, give me something sweet. Howard bent Taffy backwards and plastered a sloppy kiss onto her mouth. He squeezed her breast and hitched her leg around his waist. The people across the street put down their books and magazines to actively gawk at the couple.

Geez, get a room. Cassandra slapped her forehead. What am I saying, you already have a room—and it’s mine!

Howard and Taffy broke their embrace.

Oh here, let me get that. Howard moved the remaining boxes from the hand truck to her car and closed the trunk, patting it twice. That outta do it.

So, you’re following me out?

Why would I do that? Howard kissed Taffy on the top of her head.

I’m way out in the boonies and the cellar is, I don’t know, a hundred years old! You’re going to have to help me unload.

Taffy sniffed.

No can do, Buttercup. Howard answered. I gotta kick you to the curb.

Let’s get out of here, Howie, I’m getting depressed just looking at her.

Cassandra stood open-mouthed, unable to speak.

Hey, thanks for this. He punched her shoulder. The rest of it will be delivered to your grandma’s place tomorrow morning. He and Taffy turned to walk away.

Aunt’s, Cassandra corrected. It was important to her that he got at least one thing right between them before they parted. Something that said they could communicate, that they were sentient beings who had formed on completely different dimensions along the space-time continuum.

He turned back, impatience broadcasting across his face. What’s that?

She was my aunt. My great aunt, Sophia.

He shrugged his broad shoulders. Dude, whatever.

The scene had replayed in Cassandra’s head ad nauseum, and by the time she finally turned onto the long, wooded drive, her cheeks were wet and her eyes puffy. She pulled to a stop in front of her new home. Her sorrow and humiliation turned bitter in her mouth. Howard’s need versus her broken heart. This would never get easy, that much was clear now. Hands gripping the steering wheel, she stared at Aunt Sophia’s quaint little sea-side cottage.

Her cottage. That was going to take some getting used to.

She got out of the car and unloaded Howard’s boxes from the trunk to the front porch.

Thinking back over the last few weeks, Cassandra remembered her shock at the discovery she even had an aunt. The lawyer had described Aunt Sophia as reclusive and eccentric. That would explain it. And now she was the sole heir to her aunt’s rather healthy estate. She and Howard had driven up the next day to see the place. One look at the two-story white cottage, and Howard had deemed it dumpy. He suspected a termite or boll weevil infestation in the thatch roof. Certainly mice. He was positive the plumbing was bad. Where Cassandra saw charming, Howard saw costly repair. Where she fell in love with the French doors leading from the kitchen into a little garden, Howard grumbled at the dated design and his weekends filled with weeding. He began to nag Cassandra into selling the property right away. Put the revenue toward something worthwhile, like funding his research if his grant failed again.

She thanked every god she could think of that she hadn’t listened to him. Now at least she had a place to sleep—something she wouldn’t have had if she’d caved to his demands. She considered leaving the boxes on the porch and going straight to bed. But she was far too frustrated to sleep. In truth, she felt more like a Scotch and a warm bath.

Tempting.

A bird screamed overhead, drawing her attention to the field adjacent to the cottage and the ocean beyond. The cottage sat at the end of a long, wooded, single-lane drive, beyond which an open, grassy field opened up, ending in a drop off roughly twenty meters to the rocky sea bed below. Cassandra eyed the boxes, twelve in all, and judged the distance between the front porch and the cliff’s edge.

All of the research she had helped gather now ate at her like a tick. She wanted the boxes gone. The possibility of throwing them down the cellar steps did not seem as appealing as hauling them across the rough stretch of turf and chucking them over the ledge. But she didn’t want to work harder at it than she would if she simply put the boxes in the basement. She stepped off the porch and made her way around the cultivated garden, through the arched picket gate, and onto the rough grass, mentally counting the steps across the ground. One hundred-thirty-three. It hadn’t looked that far from the front porch. The actual distance was deceptive.

Peering over the ledge, she whistled. Maybe I should push Howard over. The incoming tide beat against the barnacled rocks below. A gust of wind peppered the air with salt water. Cassandra pulled her sweater tighter around her lean body and blinked. The vision of a sad and broken Howard at the bottom of the cliff sprang into her mind.

Ah, crap. She turned from the unwelcome vision and retraced her steps back to the cottage.

***

At the top of the rickety staircase leading to the cellar, Cassandra flipped on the light switch. No one had ventured into the cellar for a very long time, judging from the looping, dust-covered cobwebs blocking the stairs. She knocked them down with a broom and made her descent. The air was cool and dank. She could almost taste it on the roof of her mouth. Dust covered every surface. The cellar was really no more than a hole dug out underneath the house with rock and dirt walls and a low ceiling. She sat on the last step. Howard’s twelve boxes could easily be stacked around the corner from where she sat, so that at least she would not have to look at them every time she came into the space. The idea had promise.

A single storage cabinet stood catawampus on the stone floor against the far wall.

I wonder what you have stored away, Sophie? What would an old, reclusive woman count as a staple? Prunes? Bran cereal? Cassandra didn’t know. But she hoped it was something edible, because in her haste to leave the city that afternoon, she had forgotten to stop by the store and pick up groceries. In truth, the cabinet looked large enough to hold anything from canning supplies to Aunt Sophia’s last nine lovers–or at least their skeletons. She crossed the room and wrenched the door open.

Oh!

The top three shelves held pint sized jars of commercially canned peaches. Sun-sprouted and cling-free, the labels read. The two middle shelves were packed with cans of sardines, the Spanish kind in oil. Cassandra wrinkled her nose at the sea of tiny silver fish plastered against the blood-red backdrop on the label. She would go a long way to avoid eating sardines, a very long way. The last two shelves held wooden crates. No brand or label decorated the rough slats, but the tufts of old fiber packing material that stuck out every which way hinted the contents might be something fragile. Cassandra pulled out a crate and rested it on the uneven floor. She lifted the top and set it aside.

Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. Can’t say I like your diet... Lifting a bottle from the packing, Cassandra wiped the label with her sleeve. The deep amber liquid within made her salivate. Macallan 30-year-old Scotch would ease her banishment. She nestled the bottle back inside the crate. ...but holy moley, I sure do like your style!

***

When all of Howard’s boxes were tucked under the stairwell and out of sight, Cassandra found herself staring at the Scotch crates in front of the open cabinet once again. She grabbed a bottle and went upstairs. Setting it on the coffee table in front of the old couch, she started a fire in the stone fireplace, poured three fingers of booze into a juice cup, and finally settled back into the sofa surrounded by Aunt Sophia’s accent pillows. All the while, she tried to remember why she’d agreed to store Howard’s research in the first place.

Chapter 2

THE NEXT MORNING, Cassandra woke in the warm cocoon of a down comforter. She threw it back and sat up on the edge of a luxurious bed. Aunt Sophia sure knew how to live. The walls of the bedroom were painted a cheery butter yellow, and the space was outfitted with curvy blue and white furniture and flounced linens. The smell of salted ocean air and Scotch pricked her nose. She dragged herself out of bed to the armoire and wrapped Aunt Sophia’s old terry cloth robe around her body. In the tiny bathroom across the hall, she splashed cool water onto her face. How she made it up the stairs the night before, she would never know. The last thing she remembered was thinking another log on the fire would be nice, and then it was morning.

In the mirror, her reflection beamed back at her. Her skin had a healthy glow to it that only running five miles or really good sex would render. She shook her head and marveled at how her hair bounced back into place with a style and movement only seen on Pantene shampoo commercials.

Her limp brown hair never bounced—not even when she was a kid and spent half her recesses upside-down on the playground bars. Her hair hung off her head, a pathetic afterthought, barely better than bald. That’s how she had always seen herself. But now, if her reflection could be trusted, she had Kate Middleton hair.

She leaned in and took a closer look at her eyes, shining a brilliant blue in the mirror. Not quite sure what to make of her eye color, which had always been a Northwest cloud-cover gray, she shrugged. Weird.

Then something else caught her attention: her borrowed bathrobe hinted at the round sensuous curves of a full figure. Cassandra’s mouth went dry. Cold gripped her outer extremities. Her hands shook as she slowly parted the robe to reveal lush, full breasts bouncing free in the morning light.

She blinked at her reflection, then looked down. She couldn’t see her feet. Her breasts were in the way.

God Almighty! Would you look at that! She ran her cold hands over her swollen bosom. Turning from side to side, she checked out her new silhouette in