guy when he’d come and grabbed her by the waist. No wonder Mollie didn’t trust men very easily. Janson tried to forget the fact that he didn’t do a very good job convincing her otherwise. Every time he opened his mouth, he made things worse, but somehow Mollie had a way of making him say absolutely everything on his mind. He hadn’t been this real with anyone in a long time.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he tugged it out seeing that his stepmother had left a message this time. He scanned it: Janson, I need you to call me now. Last warning.
Everything was. What did Katherine want now? He felt horrible that his half-brother was stuck with that woman, but even if Janson allowed himself to get caught in the middle of that family drama, there wasn’t much he could do to help Harry out. He sighed, tempted to throw his phone into the nearest trash can.
Mollie shooed them towards the closest alley. “Now for the highlight of the tour. Here in Eureka Springs we have a saying, don’t mess with the dead or they’ll mess with you.” He laughed. Mollie was a natural show woman. He enjoyed how she acted like her stories had happened to an old friend, not to people who’d lived long ago. She passed under the glowing lamp. A breeze caught a wisp of her hair and blew it to the side, giving him an unobstructed view of those freckles standing out over her amazing porcelain skin. “If you come this way, you can check out the catacombs, but beware of... the watchers.”
Rosa’s hand slipped into his, even as a strange reluctance flooded Janson. Mollie was ending the ghost tour. He tried to push away his disappointment. It was for the best. Hadn’t he already decided to squelch this completely inappropriate attraction he had for this tempestuous ghost hunter anyway? She’d chew him up and spit him out. He needed someone safe, reliable, more like this sweet woman from Rome.
“Rosa?” A man called out her name.
She twisted around, her hand dropping from Janson’s with a gasp. “Matt?”
Matt? The jerk from Omaha? The man stepped from the darkness under the glow of a streetlamp, his broad shoulders stiff in a wrinkled suit, his eyes uncertain. Had he followed Rosa clear to Eureka Springs? Who did that?
Rosa’s eyes sparked. “I do not want to speak with you.”
“I came all this way. Please, just a few words.” Matt looked over at Janson, a flicker of self-consciousness running through his expression, but he was still determined to say his piece. “I know I don’t deserve it, but remember how you told me that you thought I didn’t love you? Rosa, I do! I’m here to prove it.”
She gave a cry, her hands clasping her mouth. Immediate concern raced through Janson. “Do you want me to send him away?”
“No.” She looked slightly annoyed at Janson’s interruption, but quickly covered that up with a teary-eyed look at Matt. “How can you prove this thing to me?”
Matt raised his arms up and broke into a song. “Chiudi dentro me la luce che. Hai incontrato per strada.” His accent was so bad that Janson didn’t know that he was speaking Italian at first, or what song he was singing, but he finally figured out that it was from Andrea Bocelli when Matt sang through his sobs, “Time to say goodbye!” Then Rosa’s lovesick beau shook his head violently at his very own words, and changed the lyrics, “Time to say hello!” Janson watched in horrid fascination.
Tears ran freely down Rosa’s cheeks. “Matt! You hate opera and yet you sing this for me?”
“I will always be a fool for you.”
“This song you sing is so horrible... and so wonderful!” Rosa sprinted to him then and fell into his arms, crying and laughing. Matt held her tightly, his prize well won, swinging her around and around. The lamplight acted like a spotlight to this Hallmark romance enfolding before Janson’s very eyes, as they danced to Matt’s nonexistent music and he dipped her. “Time to say hello!” Rosa cried out in pure happiness.
This was probably why Janson and Rosa never would’ve worked out. His bodyguards shifted beside him. The fear of the ghost tour that had clouded Dwayne’s eyes finally broke as he looked on with the interest of a child at the zoo.
Rosa stepped back from Matt with a sigh and, glancing back at Janson, turned to whisper into Matt’s ear before tearing