Paranormal Romance/Fiction
Date Published: October 20, 2022
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Is there love after death? Laurel Palmer is about to find out. Thanks to a little shove by her husband, Laurel wakes up dead. And there’s no sign of that white light people are supposed to go into. Now a ghost stuck on earth, Laurel is determined to find out how she can get into heaven. On her search for the light, Laurel meets Teddy Rule, a hunk of a ghost who coincidentally was also murdered by her husband. Turns out, he didn’t get that light either. As they work together to figure out what's keeping them on this earthly plane, feelings develop. Not knowing if heaven will separate them, they must decide whether or not to cross over.
When I woke up, I was dead. It took a minute to sink in.
When it did, I sat up, immediately shooting toward the
ceiling twenty feet above the first-floor landing. Confused, I looked down and
saw myself, or what used to be myself, sprawled at the foot of the stairs. I
waved my arms, wondering if that’s how I would need to propel myself in my
current insubstantial form.
Actually, it only took thinking
to be able to float down, where I hovered a few feet above the empty shell that
used to be me, Laurel Palmer. I examined the still figure critically. I had
been beautiful, hadn’t I?
My body was lying there picturesquely, almost gracefully,
face up, large brown eyes wide in shock, long sable hair spread around my head
like a dark halo. Or I could have pulled that off if my arms and legs weren’t
bent at strange angles, and a crimson liquid wasn’t pooling on the hardwood
floor, with strands of that sable hair soaking in it, and my normal olive
complexion wasn’t unusually pasty, with maybe a little gray creeping in.
Floating, both physically and
emotionally, I smothered a sob
as I scrutinized the body on the floor, fighting to control my skyrocketing
anxiety. I had no lingering connection to said body after all, so I should’ve been
able to watch it dispassionately. As if. Hand over my mouth, I waited to see if
it did anything. Like breathe. I gave a soft, choking laugh. Not likely, since I was here, and I would have been there if any life remained in the
corpse.
I settled onto a step a few up from the body previously known
as Laurel Palmer, rested my elbows on my knees, and pondered the meaning of
life. Being dead and still here, I mean.
A flash of color caught my eye. Glancing down, I noticed a
broken fingernail resting on the step beside me, the ragged edge a shredded
mess. Torn off, perhaps, as I grabbed for the railing while plummeting down the
stairs? I spent a lot of money on those mani-pedis, recently changing the color
used on my nails to a light sky blue, a color that perfectly complemented the
blue hues in my filmy organza dress. Fearfully, I held up my hand to inspect
the damage, and felt a brief joy at seeing that all my manicured fingernails were attached.
I was still wearing the clothes I’d died in. No wispy,
billowing shift like you might see on an angel in a movie, thank God. I’d
chosen my outfit well, not knowing I would be wearing it for eternity. My
designer dress and shoes brought a fleeting smile to my face.
Something nagged at my brain, but for the life of me, or make
that the death of me, I couldn’t remember what it might be. I was suddenly so
witty. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone around to appreciate it.
A worried thought hit me. Where was my husband? Why wasn’t he
here sobbing over my body and calling 911?
I tapped a finger on my lips. It wasn’t like me to be clumsy.
I’d never missed a step or stumbled on the stairs, despite hundreds of trips up
and down. Never once. Before I could contemplate that further, I heard rustling
and thumping sounds coming from the second floor. Curious, I floated up the steps
and followed the sound to my open bedroom door, where I spotted my husband,
Ethan, searching through my underwear drawer, flinging Natori and La Perla
over his shoulder and muttering to himself, “Where the hell did she put it?”
What had he done to our beautiful bedroom? The dresser drawers
and armoire doors stood open, contents strewn all over the floor or tossed onto
my carefully made king-size bed. A passing thought crossed my mind that he
never knew how to find anything in the house, unless it was the TV remote or
the expensive bottles of Scotch reverently stored in the liquor cabinet in the
butler’s pantry.
Narrowing my eyes, I had two thoughts. What was he looking
for and, more importantly, why didn’t he care that his wife was sprawled dead
at the bottom of the stairs?
Unless…
Yes, it was possible Ethan had pushed me.
* * * * * *
Standing just outside the doorway, reluctant
to go in as my heart clenched and tears threatened to fall, I could hear the
sounds of them in the kitchen, newspaper rustling, dishes clinking. I pictured
the scene in my head and closed my eyes. Overcome with emotion, I could feel
the tears running down my cheeks. I didn’t know if I was brave enough to go
into that room. All I wanted to do was give up. Let go. Fade into oblivion. But
no matter how hard I tried to move on, I was still there.
My mom was bustling, cleaning up the breakfast dishes, and my
dad was reading the paper at the table, cup of coffee never far away.
I held my breath and moved into the middle of the kitchen, hopeful
that someone would notice me, but no one paid any attention to the apparition
in their midst. My mom picked up the coffeepot and passed right through me as
she refilled my dad’s cup.
An involuntary Oh
slipped out of my mouth, but she neither heard me nor was aware she was
standing in the middle of her daughter.
Mom, I sobbed. It was strange. I thought
I had distanced myself from the physical world. Emotionally, I mean. But the
emotions really hit me when I thought about the phone call they’d be receiving
in the not too distant future informing them of the death of their only child.
I wished I could protect them from the heartache that was about to shatter
their lives.
I moved from one to the other and gave each a soft kiss on
the cheek. My father twitched his shoulder, and my mom glanced wistfully out
the window, each vaguely aware of something.
Mom, I called, and, once again, Mom. Neither she nor my dad looked in my
direction.
I heard the tick tick tick of dog claws on the wood floor
announcing Beau’s arrival in the kitchen. I smiled and bent down to touch him.
He skidded to a halt in the doorway, a low growl rumbling in his throat. My
hand flew to my mouth and tears started again in my eyes. Beau, it’s me, I said, my heart breaking that he could see me but
viewed me as a threat.
“Stop that, Beau,” my mother said. “What’s gotten into you?”
She scooped him up in her arms, but his eyes never left me, and his growl grew
louder.
Oh, Beau, I moaned, and fled the kitchen.
About the Author
Pam got a late start in writing but has made up for it with several published novels and a few more on the way. A serendipitous conversation with a writer friend launched her literary career, and the fact that she might never have had that particular conversation is enough to make her believe that fate played a hand in sending her down the path to becoming an author. All four of her published books have won the Mom’s Choice Award Gold Seal, and the first book in her Pekin Dewlap Mystery series was the winner of the American Book Fest Children’s Fiction Award. She’s lived in Southern California most of her life and is thankful to have a loving family and supportive friends. Spending time at home during the COVID pandemic advanced both Pam's writing and her relationship with her My Cat From Hell TV star, Allie, who manages to exude just enough affection to make her scary feral ways tolerable.
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Twitter: @Pam805
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