Jule Mcbride - Something In The Water…

“If I get love-struck I may never go home.” Rex rose, pulling her up with him.

“Why do I feel like a guinea pig?” she asked.

“Because I’m a born scientist. I need to explore every inch of my subjects.” He smoothed her dress down, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath the soft curve of her belly. “If Romeo’s in the water,” he promised, nuzzling his face against her neck as they began to walk toward the spring, “the outcome could be very dangerous.”

“That’s my hope,” Ariel said. “And because you’ve already gathered all your samples and the bug only stays in the bloodstream a week, things could work out perfectly….”

Rex knew he was acting uncharacteristically, but surely that was only because she was so gorgeous.

“A week of sexual bliss,” he murmured.

Sexual bliss indeed…

Dear Reader,

I hope you’re ready for a hot, wild, sexy read!

West Virginia, with its lush mountains and deep river valleys, seemed just the place to set a humorous story with a taste of mystery. At first, sexy Rex Houston, a doctor from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, isn’t that thrilled about taking a trip to the tiny town of Bliss, but everything changes when he meets Ariel!

Enjoy their love story!

Jule McBride

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Bliss, West Virginia

“TELL US ABOUT Matilda Teasdale again, Pappy,” urged sixteen-year-old Jeb Pass. He blew blond bangs from brown eyes, then glanced at his gangly dark-haired buddy, Marsh, who was seated next to him on a fallen tree limb, staring across the dying campfire at Jeb’s grandpa. Pappy tugged his beard and petted his gray mutt, Hammerhead; the dog was curled up, his tail twitching in tandem with a red bandana around his neck, as if he were chasing rabbits in his dreams.

“Seems to me,” Pappy mused, “by now you ought to know all the stories about Matilda by heart. You boys were born and bred in Bliss, and with Jeb being a history buff and all, too.”

“C’mon, Pappy,” Jeb insisted. “Was she really a witch?”

“Or just some weird lady from England?” Marsh squinted.

“I bet she was a witch,” said Jeb. “I even bet they tried to burn her at the stake, the way everybody said. That’s why she came to America in the first place. Huh, Pappy?”

Pappy considered, surveying the star-studded night sky. “I reckon no one really knows, seeing as Matilda came to Bliss in the 1700s. She’d brought enough money to the one-block mining town to build the house overlooking the spring. People claimed she’d come with only a Native American guide to help carry two worn leather trunks. It was said he was a Cherokee medicine man who’d offered Matilda safe passage across the mountains in exchange for her secret blends of curative teas. Some said she wasn’t a witch at all, but that she came to Bliss because her teas could only reach full potency when blended with the world’s finest water.” Pappy smiled. “And that means from Spice Spring.”

“But how’d she hear about the spring if she was living in England?” Marsh asked.

Pappy shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, kid.”

Suddenly shuddering, Jeb stared across the spring, settling his gaze where the surface glimmered under moonlight. When his eyes found the opposite shore, they floated up the stone steps carved into the mountainside and stopped at the top of the hill, on the old Victorian house that local kids had nicknamed Teasdale’s Terror.

The women who lived there now each went by the last name of Anderson, not Teasdale, but they were related to Matilda. Anderson was a name that one of the women—no one really knew which one—had gotten by marriage. How summer visitors managed to stay in the huge house, now a bed-and-breakfast, Jeb would never know. The place looked about as homey as Dracula’s castle. He wondered if Michelle McNulty had really bought magical teas there last summer, the way she’d claimed. Every year, Michelle came from Charleston with her family and rented a cabin on the water, but this year she seemed…well, grown up.

It wasn’t just that she’d gotten a job waitressing at Jack’s on Bliss Run Road, then had started moonlighting by helping to construct booths for the upcoming Harvest Festival, taking place at the end of the week. There were other changes, like how she’d filled out under her T-shirts more than most soon-to-be high-school freshmen. When she fixed Jeb a pie or soda, he could see her breasts sway under cotton and even make out her nipples pointing out, thanks to the air-conditioning Jack blasted in the diner.

This summer, Michelle had quit holding Jeb’s gaze, as if she’d realized her looks were affecting him and couldn’t handle it. Not that Jeb could offer any advice, but he did have fantasies of sitting beside her in the Bliss theater, the only place in town showing first-run movies. Afterward, he figured he might cup her knee with his hand, then run it ever so slowly upward on her thigh….

“Ah,” murmured Pappy, following Jeb’s gaze, “The Teasdale Terror House.”

“Now, are those witches really related to Matilda?” asked Marsh, speaking of the Andersons—the great-grandmother and two generations of daughters. A fourth Anderson, Ariel Anderson, had flown the coup years ago. “Maybe they really did kill their husbands,” he added darkly. “That’s what some people say.”

“I don’t think they’re witches,” Pappy chided. “When you see them in town, you know as well as I do that they’re always polite.”

“A cover,” assured Jeb.

Pappy chuckled. “They do dress weird.”

“All in black,” added Marsh. “Like someone died.”

“Their husbands.” Jeb nodded with assurance. “The oldest one’s got to be a hundred years old. They say she still moves like lightning, and uses a broomstick, instead of a cane. None of them ever go to the movies or take vacations.”

Marsh looked vindicated. “And they sell those teas.”

Pappy smiled. “The ladies do own a tearoom, boys.”

“They don’t have friends,” Marsh continued.

“And no one will go up there in the winter,” added Jeb, although he’d done so on a dare once. It had been a snowy night, and when he’d reached the wraparound porch and prepared to ring the doorbell, the wind had picked up, howling in his ears, and he’d wrenched around, staring toward the woods where Marsh and their buddies had sworn they’d wait. He’d seen only evergreens, which he’d figured sheltered everything from ghosts to bobcats.