A distant spell from Celtic myth unites two lost lovers as they reclaim their future...

Dead Men Feel the Heat

© 2015 Jacqui Jacoby, Body Count Productions, Inc.

Travis Ricci never broke his rule of dating: never date the mom when she had the kid. Too complicated with his circumstances and the fallout of hurt took too long to heal. But with the population of his household growing, and the new waitress smiles at him on the nightshirt, he might just enjoy looking at those photos of her daughter, Sumi, too much.

Musical prodigy, Seiko Osako, was forced to leave Julliard when she became pregnant by her Russian mobster lover. But not even marriage to Sasha Mankov will work and even trying it almost cost her the life of her daughter and herself. Fleeing to The Pacific Northwest, watching as Travis comes to her counter night after night for a piece of pie, she sees him with a wary eye, wishing she could take a chance.

When Sasha tracks her down with destruction on his mind, bringing with him something not before challenged in the house, The Dead Men will not only have to face their own disbelief in the supernatural, but find a way to defeat things that go bump in the night.

Enjoy the following excerpt from Dead Men Feel the Heat:

Chapter 1

Meet the Cleavers, Travis heard in his head and he smiled. He sat at the table with every member of his household present.

Your everyday normal American family of almost all working vampires, living under the same roof. It was a new roof as it changed every seven years. It was even a semi new family as long standing bachelor members had taken wives and changed the scent in the house from macho to feminine. Adding a child had brought crayons and blocks and stories before bed.

“Nope,” Travis Ricci muttered, reaching into the black pot on the table. Hollywood would never produce this story as a Thursday night sit-com, but it was one hell of a way to live.

Travis sat at the red checked covered table, noting the colored triangle banners all around the room and smelled the food engulfing most of the six thousand feet they called home. A former Bed and Breakfast, it had about the right amount of space for what they needed. Five men, three wives and the baby with one room converted to an indoor playground and one room left over, all by itself.

It was hard not to look at that room and wonder who would make it their own.

This was his family, his brood and that’s all he needed to keep the smile plastered on his face.

Tonight was not overwhelming. Tonight was just kick-ass fun. The girls had outdone themselves this time, as they had done every other time before. And with his birthday less than a month away, Travis smiled, cracked the tail on the lobster and pulled the meat out with his fingers to dip in the melted garlic butter.

An indoor clambake for Quinn’s hundred and fifth birthday complete with lobsters and clams and shrimps. The food melted in his mouth with the scent of the oceanfront when they were a good five miles away. The decorations on the walls in reds and yellows and greens, the food that would last a week and two of the prettiest sisters- in-law Travis could want.

Ashley Stuart held the hands of her three-year-old daughter Charlotte as the Beach Boy playlist bounced off the walls and Ash and Charlotte spun in a circle singing along. Ash’s husband, Ian Stuart, Stuart to the whole world but her, took a drink off the brown bottle in his hand and smiled with pride.

Stuart and Travis: they went back far enough to know each other’s own start. From enemy to friends, they stood side by side to control their blessed chaos.

Taylor Sullivan, married to Jason, poked at the stove, an apron on over her dress—because Southern ladies did not dirty their dresses in the kitchen—while the rest of the family moved around, ate and laughed like this was the way it was supposed to be.

Jason made raspberry noises at Charlotte; Charlotte returned them, and Ash hit Jason.

It was a pattern they were working on perfecting.

Evan Harris in the corner, the baby at sixty-three, didn’t look a day over seventeen.
And last there was the guest of honor, the birthday boy who tried not to look at the stack of presents—because really, at a hundred and five, who would be drooling over a pile of presents wrapped in matching red and white paper?

Travis smiled. They used to have simple lives, and they had fun and they celebrated the occasions. But until the women arrived towing the three years old, there was a sense of dullness to the events the five of them had never realized they missed.

Jason raspberried.

Charlotte matched him.

Ash hit Jason.

And Travis smiled again, thanked Evan for the new beer and figured life pretty much was as good as it could possibly get.