A Free Halloween Story!

Happy Halloween! In honor of this Halloween weekend, I’ve got a free short Halloween romance for you all. As some of you know, I’ve been writing short fiction for Woman’s World magazine, and I love writing these little romantic scenes. I hope you all enjoy this story. If you need more to read, check out my Halloween romances or my recent list of great witchy reads on Scribd.

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The Halloween Hour

Having a bad breakup wasn’t high on my October to-do list. But when my latest Prince Charming turned out to be Prince Alarming, it was time to cut and run. So I’d be spending this Halloween on the couch, alone, stuffing my face with candy.

“No, you won’t,” my best friend, Molly, told me over pumpkin spice lattes that morning. “You’re coming to this Halloween party my co-worker is throwing. It’s in an old Victorian mansion, and everyone in town will be there. Just come for two hours.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’ll come for a half hour, that’s it.”

“One hour,” Molly said. “Final offer.”

So that’s how I ended up stumbling up a mansion’s creaky steps that night to attend a very crowded, very loud Halloween party in an old witch’s costume I’d found buried in my closet. After ducking so I didn’t get fake cobwebs in my hair, I passed a couple in matching zombie costumes before entering the old Victorian home to the sound of ghoulish screams, laughter, and pounding rock music. I was already counting down the minutes until my hour was up as I shoved through the crowds to find Molly.

Finally I located her in a red she-devil costume talking to a vampire and a guy wearing a white sheet with two holes for eyes. He looked like he’d spent even less time on his costume than I had.

“Breanna!” Molly shrieked. “You made it!”

“You made me,” I reminded her.

She introduced me to the vampire, and then the ghost, whose name was Jake. The vampire was pretty friendly, but Jake just nodded in my direction, not saying much.

After twenty minutes of chatting, the vampire wandered off and Molly saw another friend across the room and excused herself. Knowing Molly, she’d be talking for a while—past the time I had to stay at the party.

I turned to Jake. “Hey, can you do me a favor? I’m going to split, but when Molly comes back, can you tell her we talked for”—I checked the time—“28 minutes?”

After a minute, Jake shook his head. “That’s going to be a problem. You see that guy over there?” He pointed to a werewolf across the room. “I was going to ask if you could stay here while I left, and then tell him we’d been talking for the past 35 minutes.”

I started laughing. “We seem to be in the same predicament.”

Jake joined me in laughter, whipping his ghost sheet off. I was surprised to see that under that white linen, he was very alive—and very cute. Sure, he had tousled sheet hair, but with his reddish-brown curls, it only made him more attractive.

“Let me guess,” Jake said. “You were forced to come to this, too?”

“You got it.” I sighed dramatically. “I just had a bad breakup—it’s totally my right to mope and eat candy. But tell that to Molly.”

“Me too.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “With the breakup, I mean.”

“Bummer,” I said. “Should we play rock-paper-scissors to see who has to stay here?”

Jake grinned. “Deal.”

We put out our hands, and Jake’s strong fingers brushed mine. I got tingles, and it had nothing to do with the creepy music in the background.

Jake won the first round of the rock-paper-scissors game, so I suggested we do a best-three-out-of-five tournament, hoping I’d start winning—and accidentally touch his hand again.

We both moved to a nearby couch and got our game faces on. As he scooted closer to me, I inhaled a whiff of his woodsy aftershave and something in my belly fluttered. Maybe the candy could wait.

After I won the next three rounds, Jake suggested we do best out of nine. But by the time we finished, we’d lost track of who was winning and were laughing too hard to keep playing.

“I think we’re both going to have to stay here and suffer,” I said.

“Yeah, I think that’s only fair,” Jake said. “To be honest, it doesn’t really feel like suffering anymore.”

“Because you took off that sheet?” I guessed. “I have no idea how you could breathe under that thing.”

He shook his head, then held my eyes a beat. “That helps. But mostly it’s because I met this really incredible, really beautiful witch.”

My heart soared. “You’re not so bad, yourself,” I said. “For a dead guy, at least.”

I glanced over to where Molly was talking with her friend. She met my eyes and gave me a big thumbs-up.

Jack followed my gaze. “So how many more minutes do you need to stay?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I turned back towards him. “I stopped counting.”

Then I put my hand in his.

The End 🦇