PROLOGUE

 

That impossible girl, Finnigan Jones, paid absolutely no attention to him. He sparkled. He glimmered. He shimmered. He even swayed in front of her, waving his arms above his head like a traffic cop. Nothing. She didn’t blink an eye.

Finn, uber-focused while concocting an original barbecue sauce in her culinary class couldn’t see a perfectly good apparition right in front of her. Even in the high-ceilinged room with dazzling sunshine bouncing off the gleaming fixtures through the tall windows.

Mon Dieu. What was a ghost supposed to do?

John Michael Winters, once-upon-a-time New Orleans chef extraordinaire, groaned. Out of all the people in this class, he selected Finn to mentor because she was going to be a special chef. He knew these things. She was the best student, of course, but if she couldn’t see him...?

From a stainless steel food shelf, he plucked a tamarind pod, drifted back in front of her and nudged it against her selected pile of ingredients.

Her eyes fluttered and she frowned. She pried open the brown pod and sniffed. Wrinkling her cute little nose, she retrieved a bit of the pulp from inside and took a tiny taste. “Hmm...Distinctive flavor,” she murmured. “Sweet and sour, but, um, I really, really don’t remember picking it up for my sauce.”

She stole a quick peek around the class, as if anyone else besides him would have put the unusual spice in front of her. Taking one more shot at grabbing her notice, John Michael did his best dance step, one he’d been well known for in his alive days—two shuffles left, two shuffles right, then a complete swirl and a deep bow. After his magnificent performance, he launched away and disappeared from her view.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, her eyes wide. She placed a shaking hand over her heart. “I’m seeing ghosts. I knew I shouldn’t have had that second Peach Bellini daiquiri last night.”

He had her attention now.

When the class finished, Finn, both figuratively and literally, exchanged her perfectly wonderful chef hat for a perfectly awful neon pink cap sporting the logo Explore NOLA Tours. She dashed from the classroom. She could at least have thanked him for the tamarind. It would earn her barbecue sauce an A plus in Soups, Starches and Sauces. Oh, well. Kids these days. He’d have to catch her on the flipside.