Dates from Hell(100)

“Too old for what? To come back for a visit?”

A dramatic sigh. He shook his head, and walked out of the bathroom. From the hall I heard a murmured “I’m going to make a fool of myself.”

“It’ll look good on you,” I called after him.

His chuckle returned. I smiled and listened to his footsteps recede down the stairs, across the floor, and finally disappear out the back door. Then I took a deep breath. One life gone. Another on the way. Was I up for it?

God, I hoped so.





KELLEY ARMSTRONG




KELLEY ARMSTRONG is the author of the popular Women of the Otherworld series. The newest book, Broken, will be out in summer 2006. She lives in rural Ontario with her husband and three children.



Want more info? Go to www.kelleyarmstrong.com.





DEAD MAN DATING


Lori Handeland





1


O n the day he died, Eric Leaventhall had a date that couldn’t be broken, so he went. Dead and all.

Too bad I was his date.

Turned out dead dating was the only way he could get what he needed.

Sustenance.

Are you confused yet? I know I was.

Maybe I should start at the beginning. But I’m not quite sure when that was. Probably when I decided to become a client of www.truelove.com.

Pretentious? Maybe. But I’d hoped that any man who chose a service by that name might be a little more grown up than most—had at least moved beyond a desire to bang supermodels and begun to think about finding a life. Being a literary agent, I should have known that semantics were as dead as most people’s belief in a soul mate.

The date itself started out well enough. We met at a martini bar near my office. A new place, kind of Sex and the City, which should have tipped me off right away. If not to the whole demon issue, then at least to his hopes for the evening. He wasn’t after true love.

I hadn’t been completely honest, either. In my bio I’d said I was “in publishing.” I’d learned that the quickest way to a stack of manuscripts from the wannabe famous was to tell anyone but immediate family what I really did for a living.

Of course some people figured it out as soon as they heard my name. My mother had been one of the top agents in the business before she’d gone and died on me. Was I following in her footsteps trying to regain some of the happiness I’d enjoyed while she was alive?

You betcha.

However, that wasn’t working out. I liked to read, but I didn’t like to sell. Sadly, my degree in ancient civilizations made me fit to do little but teach, and I doubted I’d be very good at that, either. Kids kind of scared me.

At loose ends—in my job and my personal life—I’d decided to start searching for that soul mate I’d been dreaming of. Just my luck, the first candidate didn’t even have a soul.

I should have caught a clue to Eric’s intentions the instant I’d seen his photo on the web. He was drop-dead gorgeous—dead being the operative word, although in truth, he hadn’t been dead at the time. Still, what on earth would a man like him want with a woman like me?

One thing and one thing only. What’s that horrible saying about all women being the same in the dark?

I’m not a hag, but I am short and just a little dumpy, with long, black hair that curls too much and the dark eyes and olive complexion of either my father’s Sicilian ancestors or my mother’s Hebrew ones. Take your pick. With a name like Mara Naomi Elizabeth Morelli, I’d never be mistaken for a Nordic bimbo, even if I’d had a prayer of looking like one.

Anyway, call me Kit. Everyone does. I was never able to carry off the Mara Naomi Elizabeth thing.

Now back to the date—if not from hell, at least from a place very near by.

Manhattan.

Rich, blond, and handsome, Eric was every plain girl’s dream. He was not very tall, which I liked, since big men always made me nervous; his teeth were white and straight; his eyes deep blue. He was also a surgeon. Of course he was too good to be true.

“I’m so glad you came,” he said, and his smile warmed the chill of the early spring night.

Eric led me to a secluded table, held my chair, let his fingertips drift over my hair. Sure he got a little too close, rubbed his knee against mine a little too soon, laid on the interest in my job, my future, and me a little too thick. But I was lonely, confused, unhappy, and here was this great guy hanging all over me.

“What do you say we take this to your place?” Eric murmured, stroking the back of my hand.

I hesitated, uncertain how to say no. I’d never been one for sex on a first date; I wasn’t one for sex at all. I might be smart-mouthed, just a little sarcastic—blame my mother—but I was also shy with men. The thought of baring my body to a stranger—well, it wasn’t a thought I entertained very often.