Read Online Haunted by Meg Cabot - Free Book Online Page A

he must meet with this boy, the brother, and warn him.”
    “Whoa,” I said. “Slow down, Jesse. I can handle this without having to drag Father Dom into it.”
    Jesse looked skeptical. The thing is, even when looking skeptical, Jesse is the hottest guy I have ever seen. I mean, he’s not perfect-looking or anything—there’s a scar through his right eyebrow, clean and white as a chalk mark, and he is, as I think I’ve observed before, somewhat fashion impaired.
    But in every other way, the guy is Stud City, from the top of his close-cropped black hair to his swashbuckling—I mean, riding—boots, and the six feet or so of extremely uncadaverous-looking muscle in between.
    Too bad his interest in me is apparently completely platonic. Maybe if I’d been a better kisser…But come on, it’s not like I’ve had a lot of opportunity to practice. Guys—normal guys—don’t exactly come flocking to my door. Not that I am a dog or anything. In fact, I think I look quite passable, when fully made up with my hair nicely blown out. It is just that it is a bit hard to have a social life when you are constantly being solicited by the dead.
    “I think you should call him,” Jesse said, thrusting the phone at me again. “I am telling you, querida . There is more to this Craig than meets the eye.”
    I blinked, but not because of what Jesse had said about Craig. No, it was because of what he’d called me. Querida . He hadn’t called me that, not once, since that day we’d kissed. I had, in fact, missed hearing the word from his lips so much that I had actually gotten curious about what it meant and looked it up in Brad’s Spanish dictionary.
    “Dearest one.” That is what querida meant. “Dearest one,” or “sweetheart.”
    Which isn’t exactly what you call someone for whom you feel mere friendship.
    I hoped.
    I didn’t let on, however, that I knew what the word meant, any more than I let on that I’d noticed he’d allowed it to slip out.
    “You’re overreacting, Jesse,” I said. “Craig’s not going to do anything to his brother. He loves the guy. He just doesn’t seem to have remembered that yet. And, besides, even if he didn’t—even if he did have homicidal intentions toward Neil—what makes you think all of a sudden that I can’t handle it? I mean, come on, Jesse. It’s not like I’m unaccustomed to bloodthirsty ghosts.”
    Jesse put the phone down so hard that I thought he’d cracked the plastic cradle.
    “That was before,” he said shortly.
    I stared at him. It had grown dark outside, and the only light on in my room was the little one on my dressing table. In its golden glow, Jesse looked even more otherwordly than usual.
    “Before what?” I demanded.
    Except that I knew. I knew.
    “Before he came,” Jesse said, with a certain amount of bitter emphasis on the pronoun. “And don’t try to deny it, Susannah. You have not slept a full night since. I have seen you tossing and turning. You cry out in your sleep sometimes.”
    I didn’t have to ask who he was. I knew. We both knew.
    “That’s nothing,” I said, even though of course it wasn’t. It was something. It was definitely something. Just not what Jesse apparently thought it was. “I mean, I’m not saying I wasn’t scared when you and I thought we were trapped in that…place. And, yeah, I have nightmares about it, sometimes. But I’ll get over it, Jesse. I’m getting over it.”
    “You aren’t invulnerable, Susannah,” Jesse said with a frown. “However much you might think differently.”
    I was more than a little surprised that he’d noticed. In fact, I’d begun to wonder if perhaps it was because I didn’t act vulnerable—or, okay,
    feminine—enough that he’d only grabbed and kissed me that once, and never tried to do it again.
    Except of course as soon as he accused me of being vulnerable, I had to go and deny it was true.
    “I’m fine,” I insisted. No point in mentioning to him that, in fact, I was far