It's In His Kiss. Julie Kistler

down, Rosebud took her own route, sliding smoothly through the floors and showing up ahead of them at the sales office. As she dawdled by the door to Beth’s office, she mused, “What to do? What to do?”

      There were so many dirty tricks it would be fun to pull on Vanessa when she came back for her wedding in August. “Floods and blizzards and all that good stuff were really more Sunshine’s thing, but I might be able to screw up a little plumbing and generate a nice-size flood.”

      “Don’t even think it,” Miss Arlotta’s voice admonished her sternly. “Remember the Bedpost Book, with all those black marks and no gold stars and only that one little notch? If you do anything to monkey with this bride’s happy honeymoon, you are going to be one sorry sister. Count on it.”

      “Yes, but she’s extremely unpleasant,” Rosebud argued. “It shouldn’t be my job to sentence some poor man to a life sentence with that. She’ll eat him alive before their first anniversary.”

      Miss Arlotta’s head popped up in front of her, fully visible. Just her head. This was not only highly unusual, but it was downright frightening!

      “We don’t get to pick ’em. We just have to make ’em happy. Shape up, Rosebud,” she barked. “You’re skating on thin ice.”

      At that, the head popped out of sight, just before Beth and the bride turned the corner and headed that way. Trying to forget the disturbing image of Miss A’s disembodied head hanging in the air, Rosebud focused on the task at hand. She was going to have to swallow her dislike and make this work, because the boss had made it crystal clear she didn’t have any other choice. And even Rosebud was afraid of Miss Arlotta’s powers, murky as they were.

      “How hard can it be?” she asked. “I’ll make sure stupid Vanessa enjoys a torrid honeymoon, and then…”

      But wait a second. Vanessa and Beth weren’t alone. There was a man with them. A handsome man. Rosebud stared. Dark hair, dark suit. The man from the window. And yet…

      If she’d had a jaw at that moment, it would’ve dropped to the floor. She knew him.

      “Ned, I’m so glad you decided to join us.” Vanessa swiped her thumb across his cheek to remove a smear of red lipstick. “Now that you’re here, darling, you can tell me all the reasons you like this place, and maybe I can be persuaded to like it, too.”

      Rosebud was absolutely thunderstruck. Miss Arlotta’s warning echoed in her mind. You’re skating on thin ice…

      She didn’t care if she was skating on icebergs. She knew him! The clothes and the cut of his hair might be different, but his eyes and his smile and the way he carried himself, exuding confidence and charm, were exactly the same, the same as Edmund Mulgrew, the man who had turned her from an innocent girl into a fallen maiden so long ago.

      Edmund?

      For the first time in 109 years, Rosebud felt her heart go pitter-patter.