Old Salt

~this short story originally appeared in the Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance~

Cassie Nolan is trapped working yet another summer in the family business: a seaside tourist trap in North Carolina called the haunted pier. Yes, there really is a ghost there, a young sea captain who died in 1870. And yes, he clanks his chains every evening at eight. The tourists are always amazed. Cassie, not so much.

And okay, maybe she insults the ghost, "Old Salt", when the tourists aren't around, but really, chains? Can he have a more pathetic haunting technique?

When events conspire to bring Cassie and Old Salt into contact, she's surprised to learn just how unhappy he about her insults all these years…and how very hot and hunky he is.