She’s kind of a witch. He’s definitely a nerd. And this Halloween they’re letting their geek flags fly in this playful romantic comedy from bestselling author Katherine Garbera.

Dungeons and dragons and nerds, oh my…

The spooky season is almost here, and occultist and tarot reader Liberty Wakefield is already feelin’ it. But ever since her sick nan muttered the name of Liberty’s mysterious biological father, nothing feels normal. Not her friends, her family, nor the quirky shop she runs with her besties. So maybe it’s time for Liberty to track down the father she’s never met. Of course, that means getting a little help from the sexy nerd she’s been not-so-secretly vibing since last summer…

Merle Rutland hasn’t met anyone like the vivacious, bubbly Liberty. Part of him wishes he was more like her — instead of hiding his geekery from his hyper-athletic family. The other part just wants to pull the curvy redhead close, steal a kiss and hope he doesn’t roll a critical fail.

Only, somewhere between Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, pumpkins and a few ridiculously hot sexy-times, Liberty and Merle discover their respective weirds might be a match. Yet as Halloween draws closer, it seems everyone has skeletons in the closet…and nothing spells disaster quite like being haunted by the past…

Liberty lit her favorite autumn candle that she and her mom had made over the summer. It held all the scents that she associated with and loved about the season leading up to Samhain. Slowly the living room of her apartment filled with the earthy scent of the outdoors, of trees and leaves that had wilted with the first cold chill. All of the smells that reminded her of midnight and a big, full harvest moon.

She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the wind—which was in a playful mood tonight—pushing the branches of the trees around her apartment building against the walls and windows. She was tempted to get up and open the glass door that led to her balcony.

Liberty sat in that urge for a minute and felt as if she needed the wind spirits with her tonight.

As soon as she opened the door, she felt the lingering warmth from the September day and then the breeze came in, dancing around her shoulders and stirring her long hair with a crisp chill. Autumn was beckoning. Then winter. It was fitting that she was trying to deal with something that she’d always thought was dead to her.

John Jones.

Since she’d found out his name from Nan in March, she’d been trying to figure out what to do with the knowledge. It wasn’t Nan’s fault at all. But this news had changed her world. Alzheimer’s hadn’t exactly been a fucking treat, but they’d been managing. Liberty and her mom had been coming home after visits and laugh-crying at the caught glimpses of the old Nan, before her mind started to give in to the disease that was slowly taking her from them.

But damn.

She hadn’t been prepared to hear the name of her biological father. Or to have Nan talk to her as if she were Lourdes—Liberty’s mom—like a disapproving mother who wanted the best for her daughter.

John Jones had been a f*cking c*nt. Her mom didn’t approve of the word, but it was the only one she could use when she thought of that man.

Liberty immediately shook her head. She cursed when she was mad and hurt.

Her mom had offered to tell her the name of her biological father when she’d been sixteen. They called him the sperm donor at home, but the reality was that her mom had been in a relationship with him when she’d gotten pregnant.

The asshole had offered her mom money for an abortion and then walked out of her life when she refused.

F*ck him.

After Nan dropped the name on her, Liberty immediately told her two closest friends, the sisters the universe had sent into her life. They’d been supportive. Whatever Liberty wanted to do; they had her back.

She wanted to tell her mom that she knew his name. To get her advice, because there was no one who she relied more on than her mother. But after saying she never wanted to know years ago…well, for the first time in her life, Liberty hadn’t been sure what to do.

She’d drawn a tarot card from her Rider-Waite deck for clarity, but her mind had been a hot mess and the tarot hadn’t really provided any guidance. It had instead been sensible Poppy who’d suggested she take one of those over-the-counter DNA tests and see if any relatives showed up on her paternal side.

She’d tried it and nothing came back. And f*cking John Jones wasn’t exactly a unique name so no amount of googling turned up any leads. Asshole.

Even now he was just…what? Was he dead? Or with a new family living his best life, never thinking about the daughter he hadn’t wanted?

For most of her life, Liberty had been successful in completely ignoring the man’s existence, probably because he’d always been nameless and faceless. But now he had a name, and a world of possibilities she’d never considered had opened up. She hated that and was so conflicted that she was making herself crazy.

So she decided to pull out her favorite Samhain oracle deck and pull six cards in a Witch’s Tools Spread. Oracle decks were different from her Rider-Waite tarot deck in that they offered a more detailed and specific spiritual guidance. They also tended to have bigger energy. Since her magic felt like it was in flux, she needed everything the oracle deck could give her.

With the breeze moving through her apartment stirring the dark drapes and making the flame on the candle dance, she started to find her center again.

Liberty pushed out her curse words and that man’s name and moved back to the small meditation pillow set in the middle of a circle of salt. She lit a candle before she sat down.

She closed her eyes and asked about the energy of her situation…pulling Grief from the oracle. Interesting. Was she grieving? The card probably meant that she had unresolved emotions about her father. Well duh, right?

“Come on, goddess, show me the good stuff,” she said. She pulled potions and spells…reversed.

Thank you, goddess. She needed to get clarity around the situation before trying to manifest him into her life.

She took a minute to sit in that information. There were consequences outside of herself to consider. Her mom was a big one.

When Liberty had been sixteen, a letter arrived from her sperm donor, and Lourdes asked her if she wanted to read it. And Liberty said no. She didn’t need a man in her life who didn’t want to be there. Neither did her mom. So they burned that letter under the full moon for cleansing and releasing and moving on. They danced around until his spirit had no power over them anymore.

Now Alzheimer’s had brought him back. She had to admit she’d been disappointed when she opened the DNA results and saw no paternal connections. Maybe that should be it.

Except when had she ever let something go? Never. Like never, never.

If she got a mosquito bite, she scratched and scratched it until it scabbed over even though she knew she shouldn’t.

This felt the same.

She wanted to find out more about him. She needed to.

She closed her eyes, moving on to the third card. How could she feel supported moving through this?

Intuition.

Liberty always used her gut as her compass. It hadn’t let her down. Her gut led her to the job at the coffee shop near campus where she met Poppy and Sera—her found sisters. They’d all had small businesses of their own, and the universe directed them to open their shop here in Birch Lake. WiCKed Sisters had been bumping along making a nice profit until Amber Rapp—yeah, the mega pop singer—stopped in and purchased a journal from Sera, handmade tea from Poppy and a tarot reading from Liberty herself.

Then everything changed. She’d been manifesting change into her life, but she’d only wanted it for the store and maybe where that hot, nerdy cousin of Poppy’s was concerned. But the universe answered with John Jones as well.

She opened her eyes and looked around her apartment.

The fact that Merle was on her mind too didn’t surprise her. She’d seen him earlier when they’d both been closing the shop. He’d been reading books on adventure… By the goddess, that guy was so into Dungeons & Dragons. But he always perked up when she was around. Glancing at her when he thought she wasn’t looking.

She did the same to him.

On paper they made no sense, but in her mind and body…well they would be electric together. Like heat lightning that lit up the sky all summer. Stirring up something frightening, exciting in her. Thinking about Merle took her out of her thought spiral. He was really good with computers—was some kind of programmer in his day job from what Poppy had said. Merle also helped out when Poppy was short-staffed at WiCKed Sisters.

But to be honest, whenever Merle came up, Liberty conjured images of him with his shirt off, leaning against the back of the delivery van and licking dripping ice cream from his hand. Curse the day she’d seen that, because since that moment over a year ago she couldn’t get it out of her mind. They were in a friend group and he was the cousin of her business partner, so a short-term hookup had stupid written all over it.

But…

Merle might be the key to her figuring out who John Jones was. 

Get the book here