Bridal Jitters by Jayne Castle Page A

head violently. “I absolutely refuse to believe that. The only ghosts are unstable dissonance energy manifestations. UDEMs. Composed of ambient psi energy. There is no such thing as real ghosts.”
    “Whatever you say.” He threaded his fingers through her hair. “Who am I to argue with an expert such as yourself?”
    “Definitely not real ghosts,” she reiterated very forcefully. Then she frowned. “But about that antechamber off the fountain room.”
    “What about it?”
    “If it was a funeral room or some sort of viewing chamber, then that big chest where we … where we—”
    “Where we made love for the first time?”
    “It must have been a—”
    Sam grinned. “Yeah, I think it might have been a casket or a sarcophagus.”
    She swallowed. “We did it on top of a casket? Our first time together took place in an alien funeral parlor? On top of a
coffin
?”
    “I’m pretty sure it was empty,” Sam said. “There was no trap, remember?”
    “That’s not the point. What am I supposed to tell our grandchildren when they ask us about our first real romantic date? That you took me to an alien cemetery and made wild, passionate love to me on top of a
sarcophagus
?”
    Sam roared with laughter and eased her onto her back. He lowered himself until he covered her body with his own. Then he braced his arms on either side of her head and looked down at her with eyes that gleamed with sensual amusement.
    “Maybe we ought to make it our own, private Halloween tradition,” he suggested. “We could hunt up a new alien graveyard every year.”
    “Don’t even
think
about it.”
    He smiled slowly. “Then what do you say we get busy on creating some children so that one day we’ll have those grandchildren you mentioned a minute ago.”
    “At last, a truly brilliant idea.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and urged his mouth down to hers.
    He kissed her until she stopped thinking about Halloween and graveyards and alien sarcophagi; until she could think of nothing else except their love and the future that they would build together.

Keep reading for a special excerpt from the Rainshadow Novel
    DECEPTION COVE
    by Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Castle.
    Available September 2013 from Jove Books

The two low-rent thugs were waiting for Alice when she left the darkened theater through the stage door. She sensed their presence as soon as she started walking toward the street. They were hiding behind the large garbage bin in the middle of the alley. They were not the subtle type.
    “I do not have time for this,” she said to the dust bunny perched on her shoulder.
    Houdini chortled enthusiastically and bounced a little. At first glance he looked like a large wad of dryer lint that had been decorated with six paws and two baby blue eyes. He had a second set of eyes—they were a very feral shade of amber—but he only opened them for hunting or when he sensed danger. He was still wearing the elegant red satin bow tie that Alice had put on him for the night’s performance of the Alien Illusions Magic Show.
    A born ham, Houdini adored the limelight. He was always up for a performance. Somehow he sensed that they were about to give one here in the alley. True, it would be for an audience of two, and neither of the lowlifes had purchased a ticket, but he wasn’t particular about the size of the crowd and the concept of money was lost on him. He took a more pragmatic approach to finances. Pizza worked for him.
    “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Alice said. “We’ve got an empty refrigerator waiting back at the apartment and a mean landlord who will be expecting the rent tomorrow, remember?”
    She did not have the money for the rent. The Alien Illusions Magic Show had folded without notice tonight. That kind of thing happened in show business, but in this case she was pretty sure she knew why the owner of the theater had cancelled all future productions. He had been bribed to dump the act.
    She was now