It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis : A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel: Good To The Last Death Book One Read online

  It’s A Wonderful Midlife Crisis

  Good To The Last Death Book One

  Robyn Peterman

  Robyn Peterman

  Copyright © 2020 by Robyn Peterman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.

  This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.

  Cover design by JJ's Design & Creations

  Edited by Kelli Collins

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Book Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  More In The Good To The Last Death Series

  Robyn’s Book List

  PWF Pal Pimping

  Note From The Author

  More Paranormal Women’s Fiction

  About Robyn Peterman

  Praise for Robyn Peterman

  “Daisy’s life has been turned upside down, and we get to watch the aftermath. Prepare to root for a new heroine. You’ll fall in love with this hilarious hoyden and all of the hot water she dives into. Head first! Masterful and heartwarming, don’t let this one get away!”

  —NY Times Bestselling Author Darynda Jones

  “Brilliant and so relatable! I laughed, I cried, I swooned, and I sighed. Heavily. Robyn Peterman has her finger on the pulse of midlife madness, and I can’t get enough.”

  — USA Today Bestselling Author, Renee George

  “I’d read the phone book if Robyn Peterman wrote it! It’s A Wonderful Midlife Crisis is a home run of hilarious, heartwarming paranormal fun. Midlife’s a journey. Enjoy the ride. Crisis included… Read it!”

  — Mandy M. Roth, NY Times & USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  “Hilarious, heartbreaking, magical and addictive! No one can turn a midlife crisis upside down quite like Robyn Peterman. A stay-up-all-night novel that will have you begging for more.”

  — Michelle M. Pillow, New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author

  Acknowledgments

  This book has been in my head for two years. It took a call and a nudge from Shannon Mayer to make me pull the file out and finish it. Each word was a joy to write and I owe Shannon for yanking me into the Paranormal Women’s Fiction group. Playing in a sandbox with strong talented women who have each other’s backs is a rare and special experience.

  As always, while writing is a solitary experience getting a book into the world is a group project.

  The PWF 13 Gals — Thank you for a wild ride. You rock.

  Renee — Thank you for all your support, your friendship, your formatting expertise and for being the best Cookie ever.

  Wanda — Thank you for knowing what I mean even when I don’t. LOL You are the best and this writing business wouldn’t be any fun without you.

  Kelli — Thank you for saving me from scary grammar mistakes. You rock.

  Melissa, Nancy, Susan and Candace — Thank you for being kickass betas. You are all wonderful.

  Donna and Jennifer — Thank you. I couldn’t have better critique partners. I adore you.

  Jay — Thank you. Your cover captured what was in my mind perfectly.

  Mom — Thank you for listening to me hash out the plot and for giving me a brilliant idea.

  Mandy — You rock hard! So happy I can call you my friend.

  Steve, Henry and Audrey — Thank you. The three of you are my world. Without you, none of this would make sense. I love you.

  Dedication

  This one is for all my gals over forty.

  Book Description

  Whoever said life begins at forty must have been heavily medicated, drunk, or delusional.

  Thirty-nine was a fantastic year. I was married to the man I loved. I had a body that worked without creaking. My grandma, who raised me, was still healthy, and life was pretty damned good.

  But as they say, all good things come to an end. I’d honestly love to know who ‘they’ are and rip them a new one.

  One year later, I’m a widow. My joints are starting to ache. Gram is in the nursing home, and dead people think my home is some kind of supernatural bed and breakfast. Gluing body parts onto semi-transparent people has become a side job—deceased people I’m not even sure are actually there. I think they need my help, but since I don’t speak dead, we’re having a few issues.

  To add to the heap of trouble, there’s a new dangerously smokin’ hot lawyer at the firm who won't stop giving me the eye. My BFF is thrilled with her new frozen face, thanks to her plastic surgeon, her alimony check, and the miracle of Botox. And then there’s the little conundrum that I’m becoming way too attached to my ghostly squatters… Like Cher, I'd like to turn back time. Now.

  No can do.

  Whatever. I have wine, good friends, and an industrial sized box of superglue. What could possibly go wrong?

  Everything, apparently.

  All in all, it’s shaping up to be a wonderful midlife crisis…

  Chapter One

  “No. Way. Are you freaking serious?” I screamed as I flattened myself against the wall of my laundry room with a thud, trying not to hyperventilate. “There’s a hand in the laundry basket. There’s a hand in the laundry basket. There’s a hand in the damn laundry basket.”

  Sliding carefully along the wall so the unattached appendage didn’t jump out and grab me, I eased my way out of the tiny room and sprinted to the kitchen. It had a door that led outside, just in case the hand was up to no good.

  Wait. What kind of good could a lone hand in a basket of dirty laundry be up to?

  No good. That’s what kind of good a companionless hand could be up to.

  “I’m nuts,” I muttered, closing my eyes and pressing my fingers to my temples. Forty was supposed to be the new thirty, according to all the magazines. If this was forty, I was going to take a pass. I’d only been forty for three hours and it was already seriously bad. The solitary hand was the rancid icing on top of a really crappy birthday cake.

  Pacing my kitchen and keeping my eyes peeled for more random body parts, I spotted the empty coffee container and almost cried. Handling the ridiculously absurd while un-caffeinated was not going to end well.

  “I don’t have the energy for this right now,” I told no one in particular, since I was alone. “Who did I screw over in a former life tha
t I’m dealing with this shit?”

  Unfortunately, I’d been seeing semi-corporeal versions of dead people for a few weeks. I’d become the kid from the Sixth Sense except that was a movie and this was real life… and my dead people did not look like Bruce Willis.

  Up until now, all my deceased buddies had done was stare and laugh—or so I’d thought. There was nothing quite like being the butt of a cadaver’s joke… that was, if the hand was a joke and not a warning that I was going to be six feet under soon.

  “Isn’t it enough that you freaks follow me around? Now you’re leaving body parts in my dirty clothes? For God’s sake, today’s my birthday and this behavior is totally unacceptable. I almost puked. And let me tell you something,” I bellowed to the empty kitchen. “If I’d thrown up because one of you idiots thought it would be hilarious to put a hand in with my dirty panties, you’d be cleaning that mess up. Are we clear here?”

  Of course, there was no answer. There was never an answer. They didn’t speak—just silently accompanied me to the grocery store and around my house. They were very partial to reality shows. I’d started leaving the television on all night so they didn’t wander into my bedroom while I slept. Thankfully they hadn’t discovered where I worked yet. However, I had no doubt that was coming soon.

  “Come on, you guys. It wasn’t funny.” Maybe reasoning with them would work. Hell, I didn’t know if they were real or if I was imagining them. There was a fifty-fifty chance I’d lost my mind. “I think I’ve been pretty nice about letting you stay here rent-free. I don’t deserve to be given a heart attack at seven in the morning.”

  Again, no answer.

  Again, maybe I was nuts.

  Was there even a hand in my laundry basket? Maybe it was a fleshy, skin-colored winter glove. Since it was October and I lived in Georgia it was doubtful. Not to mention, I didn’t own any fleshy, skin-colored winter gloves. I had a little more fashion sense than that. Until I had my iced coffee with an extra-large squirt of chocolate syrup, I wasn’t going to test the theory.

  Pleasant. I’d be pleasant. A nice conversational tone might prevent another gag-inducing prank… or not. “Okay, I’m going to eat and leave the house. Whoever left their hand in the laundry room needs to remove it before I get home or I’m going to…”

  What the heck was I going to do with a disembodied hand? Should I put it in the freezer? Should I bury it? Damn it, if I buried it, did I have to do it at the cemetery on hallowed ground instead of my yard? It would suck up, down and sideways if it popped out of the ground during a backyard barbecue. What if I got busted at the graveyard for burying a hand and had to do time in the big house? God, the heinous consequences were endless.

  Terrified to open my cabinets, I debated how hungry I was. Breakfast was the most important meal of the day, but if there were eyeballs next to my oatmeal, I’d have to check myself into the loony bin.

  From out of nowhere, a partially translucent woman tore around my kitchen, wailing in like a banshee—and ironically, she was missing a hand. Had the weirdos been trying to kill each other? Wait. That made no sense whatsoever. They were already dead. The varying states of decay were a dead giveaway—pun intended.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I shrieked as I scrambled up onto the kitchen table in fear for my life.

  Could I make it out the door and into my yard? Crap, I was still in my nightie and it was chilly today. Furthermore, what in the hell was I going to do outside? Call for help to get the handless dead woman out of my kitchen? Not too many choices here.

  “Stop,” I shouted in the voice I’d learned to use during my self-defense class at the Y.

  She did.

  Now what?

  The woman was trembling from head to toe. Where her hand should have been was just shredded skin—if you could call grayish papery-looking stuff skin. No blood at all. If she was alive in the normal sense of the word, I’d guess her age to be somewhere in her late sixties. She was attractive in a ghostly way.

  “Did you, umm… lose your hand? I asked, not quite believing I was conversing with someone I was fairly certain wasn’t there.

  She simply stared and cocked her head to the side.

  “Maybe you don’t speak English. Or maybe you were brain dead when you died so it isn’t functioning now that you’re not exactly alive. Or maybe you were mute in life… or maybe I’m insane,” I added for good measure as I cautiously got down off the table.

  She came a little closer, and I jerked back. The rules were wildly unclear.

  “Stay where you are,” I warned, holding up my hand and hoping she understood sign language. “If you promise not to body snatch me or eat me, I think I can help you out.

  Still she said nothing as I carefully made my way to the laundry room to retrieve what I assumed was her hand.

  “I’m using a bath towel that’s seen better days in case you’re a disease-carrying zombie.” Never in my life did I think I would utter those words in a sentence. “So, I’ll toss it to you in a sec.”

  Surprisingly, my gag reflex didn’t kick in. Dead stuff usually set it off. However, she seemed so upset about her hand, I was okay. Strange. I approached her with extreme caution. I held out her hand, and she held out her stump.

  Oh. Hell. No.

  Did she want me to reattach it? How did you reattach something to what was little more than a ghost? Her hand felt real, and she looked real enough, even though I could see through parts of her.

  “Here you go,” I said as I tried again to give her the towel-wrapped body part.

  She wasn’t having it. She simply stood there with her arm extended and waited.

  “I’m not a doctor. Not real sure what you want me to do.”

  Her eyes were huge in the hollowed-out sockets—watery blue and filled with what I guessed were tears. I was tempted to take her in my arms and hug her, but I still wasn’t positive she wouldn’t take a chunk out of me.

  “I suppose I could glue it back on,” I suggested hesitantly. I knew there was some superglue in the junk drawer. I had no clue if there was enough to glue a hand back on. “Superglue can hold a big fat guy attached by his hat to a steel girder, according to the commercial,” I told the woman as I put her hand on the table and searched the drawer. “It might work on your hand.”

  Damn, I was a slob. The drawer was full of stuff I didn’t need. However, I did find my eyelash curler, a few tampons, last month’s electric bill and the superglue.

  “Mmmkay,” I said, assessing the situation.

  I was going to have to touch her to make this work. I was hoping to live longer than forty years, but if my time was up—it was up. Maybe all the dead people were hanging out to let me know I was soon to be a goner. It would be nice if I went out doing something kind for someone. Reattaching a dead woman’s hand wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it was the only one I had at the moment.

  “Here goes nothing,” I mumbled as I bit down on my lip and covered the stump with the goopy glue.

  She watched in fascination as I then picked up her hand and connected it to her stump.

  “I think I have to put pressure on it for at least one minute for it to hold. I’m pretty sure that’s what the guy in the commercial did. But to be safe, we’ll do it for two.

  She looked at me. I looked at her. The silence was awkward and loud. If I was imagining the bizarre exchange, I needed some help immediately. Twice I thought I should start a conversation to be polite. I was Southern. It was in my DNA.

  “Today’s my birthday,” I told her with a weak smile that I was fairly sure resembled a grimace. I was still hoping she wasn’t going to bite me. I needed to stop watching zombie movies.

  The woman kind of moan-grunted in response. Since my life might still be on the line, I nodded and thanked her. Feeling the need to smack myself in the head, I refrained. If I dropped her hand, all hell could break loose.

  After what felt like two hours, the two minutes were up. I stepped back and waited for he
r hand to crash to the floor. It didn’t. She held it up and moved her fingers. I was shocked that the superglue worked on her tendons too. Wait. Attributing normal to the impossible was nuts—like me.

  “Wow,” I said with a surprised laugh. “Can’t believe that worked. Does it hurt?

  As expected, she said nothing that made any sense, but she did give me a smile before she faded away.

  I sat down heavily on the kitchen chair and mentally went over what had just happened. It was outlandish and unreal, and I couldn’t even talk to anyone about it. I was on my own in Crazytown.

  I supposed if there was anything to be thankful for, it was that she wasn’t a flesh-eating zombie. She was just a dead person with a problem and I’d solved it for her. Note to self… stop watching horror movies.

  The knock at my door pulled me back from my screwy introspective thought. Who was here at seven in the morning? The ghosts never knocked. They just appeared when they felt like it. I peeked through the peephole and audibly sighed in agony.

  It was Stan—my latest mistake. Actually, my only mistake in a seriously long stretch of celibacy, but definitely a mistake.