The Magical Christmas Cat

Ohio's Most Haunted Town

First Published 2008-10-01 in Trade Paperback

Publisher: Berkley Sensation

New York Times bestselling author Lora Leigh and top-selling authors Nalini Singh, Erin McCarthy, and Linda Winstead Jones have a special gift for readers this year: never-before published holiday stories featuring passionate romance, paranormal adventure, and a distinctly alluring feline touch. With four new stories-including one featuring Lora Leigh’s genetically altered Feline Breeds-this is a collection packed with more surprises than Christmas morning, and more chills than the snowiest winter night . . .

“The love of my life is not going to wear a pink shirt.” Bree Murphy looked at her little sister Abigail in disbelief, who was waving what remained of the tarot deck in her hand with total confidence.

“It’s right here in the cards, Bree.” Abby tapped the Empress card lying on the kitchen table.

Bree fought the urge to roll her eyes. Teaching Abby tarot had been her own idea, apparently a stupid one. Abby couldn’t divine her way out of a paper bag, if suggesting Bree would date a man in pastels was any indication. It wasn’t going to happen. Ever. Besides, the Empress was an indicator of her own destiny, her own strength, not about a man.

“No men in pink. I like men in black who read poetry. You know my type.”

“Your type usually looks like they need a flea dip,” Bree’s older sister Charlotte commented.

That was a total exaggeration. “Hey, no one I have ever dated is unclean. Give me some credit. But being empathic makes me sympathetic. I sense when men need my support and emotional counseling, and I can’t help but respond.”

“That’s actually kind of creepy,” Abby said, her lip curling back. “Who wants a guy who’s that needy?”

Hey, Bree knew it was a bad pattern. She could admit that. That was why she had stayed away from men for the last two years, which suddenly seemed like an incredibly long time. A long, celibate, lonely time. But she did not need her eighteen-year old sister passing judgment. “And you’re the expert on men, how?”

“I have a boyfriend,” Abby said, tossing back her dark hair.

Now Bree did let loose with an eye roll. “Whatever.” Bree didn’t think Abby’s boyfriend was any sort of model of male attentiveness but there was no point in arguing. “But seriously, no men in pink shirts.”

“He does something corporate,” Abby added, as if she hadn’t heard a word of protest. “I see him in an office.”

That got Bree’s attention. Not because she would ever date someone corporate, because she so wouldn’t, but because Bree was speaking with such total confidence, and there was nothing in the tarot spread in front of her that should be giving her a clear visual of any man, let alone a candidate for the corner office. “Abby, where are you seeing this?”

Despite Charlotte’s lifelong protests, Bree knew that all three of them were witches. It was a trait of Murphy women, going back as far as Bree could trace. And she knew that she was empathic, meaning she could see and feel people’s emotions almost as clearly as if they were her own. She also knew that Charlotte could move objects when she really focused, and that Abby could insert herself into her sisters’ dreams. She’d been doing it since she was a toddler. But until now, Bree had never thought Abby could be psychic.

“I don’t know.” Abby shrugged. “It’s just like there. In my brain. I thought that’s what happens with tarot.”

“No, not really. Tarot is an interpretation based on the spread of the cards.” Bree lifted her cat Akasha off the floor as she walked by and settled her warm bulk in her lap. “What else do you see?” She was curious to know if Abby was in truth seeing anything or if she was just projecting her own thoughts and imagination out onto the cards.

If Abby were psychic after all, she clearly had Bree mixed up with someone else, because she was not, repeat not, going to be falling for a man who thought money was the ultimate goddess and treated his overpriced car like a high class hooker to stroke.

“Um. I see him walking up to the house and ringing the doorbell.”

Because the love her of her life was actually just going to stroll up to her very own house and ring the bell. Like that ever happened to anyone, let alone Bree. No one came to her front door but the mailman, and he was fifty and happily married.

Then Abby cocked her head to the side, staring off into space. “He wants to have sex with you.”

“Okay, that’s enough. This is ridiculous.” Abby was either making fun of her for not dating in twenty- count them- twenty months or she was fishing to know about her sister’s sex life. Either way, Bree wasn’t biting.

Charlotte didn’t look thrilled with the conversation either. “You know, we should probably get started if you want your Christmas tree up by the end of the day.”

Bree wasn’t really dying for a Christmas tree at all since she usually burned a Yule log, but it made Charlotte happy to provide her with one, and Bree could always put a witch spin on it. “Sounds good.” She moved to put Akasha down and paused. “What’s in her mouth?” She tried to reach for the cat, but Akasha twisted her head in protest.

“Oh, my God,” Charlotte said, reaching out and snatching something from the cat’s mouth. “It’s the mistletoe. From last Christmas. The one we put the spell on.”

As her sister waved it in the air, staring at the greenery like it was possessed, Bree winced. “Whoops. I meant to destroy that.” It was nothing more than a sprig of mistletoe, but she and Charlotte had loaded it with symbols of lust so Charlotte could lure her friend Will to make a move on her.

It had worked, forcing the longtime friends to confront their intense feelings for each other, resulting in Charlotte with a wedding ring and a new house to live in, but Bree knew she never should have left that mistletoe just lying around. Last she remembered, she had tossed it on her dresser a solid twelve months earlier, which meant Akasha had probably dragged it off and under the bed or something. No wonder Bree had been plagued with sex dreams for months. She had a powerfully charged hexensymbol hanging out under her bed.

And no man to satisfy her.

Ugh. She hated feeling discontent. And in a constant state of arousal.

“It’s probably not a big deal,” Charlotte said, carefully laying the loaded mistletoe down on the kitchen table. “Will said it didn’t work. He already was lusting for me way before we made this thing.”

Bree had known that, that’s why she had encouraged Charlotte to go for it with Will. “Yeah, but you can’t just leave magick laying around.”

Especially anywhere around her bed.

“The doorbell’s ringing,” Charlotte said. “Want me to get it?”

“No, I can get it.” Bree stood up, noting that Akasha had already leaped up onto the fourth empty chair and had snagged the mistletoe again. Bree was going to have to grab that thing and stuff it into a drawer until she could destroy it bit by bit.

Abby was two steps behind her.

“Why are you following me?” Bree asked her sister, darting a glance at her over her shoulder. “I can answer the door by myself.”

“It’s him,” Abby said in an awed whisper. “The guy I saw.”

“Sure. Or it’s my mailman letting me know I have a package.” Bree went down the hallway of the big Victorian house she had inherited from her grandmother. It was a lot of house for her now that Charlotte had moved out, but maybe Abby would want to move in after high school. Living with their parents was sometimes nausea inducing since they were engaged in a perpetual love fest. It was sweet and warming to see from a distance, but on a daily basis all the groping got old. Abby would probably appreciate some space.

Bree pulled open the front door and almost had a heart attack.

Have mercy, it was a man, about thirty years old, and very clearly wearing a pink dress shirt under his winter coat, the collar peeking out above the zipper. He was just standing there. On her front step. With snow on his shiny black shoes.

She knew this man. It was Amanda Delmar Tucker’s lawyer from Chicago.

Bree had only met him once, for a brief minute, the previous December, and he had clearly thought she been sniffing her black nail polish given the look of disdain on his face at the time.

Now he was standing on her doorstep with nary a smile in sight.

Abby was whispering loudly in her ear, “It’s him. Told you so. Right on up the sidewalk to the front door. Ringing the bell. I’m so right.”

Caught between wanting to muzzle her sister and slam the front door shut, Bree just stared at him. He stared back, his compelling chocolate brown eyes boring into her.

And suddenly she knew that her sister was right as her empathic ability picked up on the feelings he was projecting, unaware that she could sense them. This man, this lawyer, wanted to have sex with her.

Yikes.