Love Your Entity(2)

Sierra would deal with Ruby the Ghost later. First she needed to get rid of Naked Ronan. “Look, I don’t know why you think you have a right to be here,” Sierra said. “But I’m telling you that the previous occupants did not fulfill the requirements of the will.”

Ruby raised her hand and had a sheepish look on her translucent face. “That may have been my fault.”

“I had a feeling,” Sierra muttered.

Ronan frowned. “You had a feeling about what? No, don’t answer because I don’t care.”

What kind of man stood there so arrogantly while so naked? An extremely ripped one. Not in a bodybuilder-weird kind of way but in a six-pack, shoulda-been-in-the-movie-Magic Mike kinda way.

Sierra was finding it increasingly difficult to keep her gaze above his neck. Okay, she’d sneaked a peek down to his navel once or twice. And maybe she had mistakenly looked even lower.

Right, who was she kidding? She’d seen him in all his glory. His nudity rattled her.

Keeping her own self-preservation in mind, she had her phone in one hand while her other hand was in her purse, her fingers curled around a can of pepper spray. Because the bottom line here was that she was facing an angry naked guy and that was not a positive in the security department.

A knock at the front door startled her. She yanked it open to find a man standing there, flashing a badge of some kind at her.

“That was fast,” she said. She must have pushed the 911 button without realizing it and they’d used the GPS on her phone to locate her. “Come in.”

“I’m Damon Thornheart. Is there a problem?” he said.

“He’s the problem.” She turned back to Ronan to find that he’d donned a pair of jeans. That was also fast, but it didn’t change the fact that he didn’t belong in her house. “Get rid of him, please,” Sierra said. “He’s trespassing in my house and I want him gone.”

* * *

Ronan McCoy couldn’t believe this was happening to him. He’d spent the past century waiting to come home and now that he had, this woman with the bad attitude and great breasts was getting in his way.

Which was why Ronan welcomed the arrival of fellow vampire Damon Thornheart. Ronan wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been able to compel the woman to leave. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he’d been an indentured vampire for nearly the past hundred years.

Ronan had been turned on the battlefield during World War I, in May of 1918. The trench warfare in northern France had been brutally bloody. Hundreds of thousands had been injured, Ronan among them. But his torture hadn’t ended with his death. It had only begun.

He ruthlessly shut those thoughts down. He refused to let his past dictate his future. His immortal future.

Yes, Baron Voz had sired him but, unlike most vampires, Voz had kept Ronan indentured to him for almost a century, forcing Ronan to do his bidding and his killing.

But Ronan was done with that now. When he’d left Chicago to head off to war in Europe, he’d promised his sister Adele that he’d come back. He was keeping that promise. Their mother had died in a freak boating accident on Lake Michigan in the summer of 1915. Their father, a physician, had died of a heart attack after Ronan was deployed to Europe. Ronan had received the news when he’d arrived in France. He only had his sister left, and her letters had kept him going before his death.

So here he was, home again. The returning warrior. Yeah, right.

“She won’t leave,” Ronan told Damon.

“Damn right, I won’t,” she said. “The house is mine. I have the paperwork to prove it.” She dug in her purse. “No, wait, it’s here. I could have sworn … Yes, here it is.” She handed over the forms. “Those prove I am the owner of this property.”

“Of the house, yes, but not the property,” Damon said after looking over the paperwork.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“That you have apparent ownership of the house, but not the land it sits on or is surrounded by.”

“You mean the small front yard and backyard?” she said.

Damon nodded. “That’s right.”

“How is that possible?” she demanded.

Damon shrugged. “You’ll have to take it up with your attorney.”

“He’s just left on a two-week cruise to Antarctica. I can’t contact him while he’s away.”

“Then you’ll have to wait until he comes back.”

“No way,” she said.

“Why not?” Damon said.

“Because the clock starts ticking today.”

“What clock?” Ronan demanded.

“Never mind. You still haven’t said why you’re here. Where is your proof that you have any right to be here?” she asked Ronan.