Medium Rare: 'Til Death Don't Us Part

By Michelle Witvliet

Her daddy always said her impulsive nature would get her into serious trouble one day. Until now it was mostly minor, insignificant, easily fixed ways, but even Jennifer can’t deny she might have pushed her luck a mite too far this time. When Valentine’s Night delivers much more than roses and romance, Jennifer Flagg finds herself in a predicament where she can only watch the events she set into motion as they effect her life and everyone else’s around her. Much to her everlasting astonishment, she finds comfort and camaraderie with the most unlikely candidates and quickly discovers the rules she’d previously learned for talking to the already dead don’t apply when dealing with the almost dead, especially when she’s now one of them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Jan 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781509205295

Book preview

next.

Chapter One

In retrospect, the moon, the stars, and all the planets had to be in perfect cosmic alignment on that magical, tragic night in order to set in motion the series of events that touched my life and everyone else’s around me. That’s not to say I would have, or could have, done anything differently. It was kismet, after all. I was simply the driving force behind it.

I’d tried for weeks to convince Danny, my currently very on-again boyfriend, a long weekend in the Bahamas was the place for us to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, but he was having none of it. We’d lived in Northwest Indiana our whole lives and that’s where he wanted us to observe our first official V-Day together. I decided to make the best of the situation, and went shopping. One way or another I planned on heating things up.

Whoever decided the most romantic day of the year should fall in the middle of the coldest month should be impaled on one of Cupid’s arrows and pelted with a couple pounds of Fannie May’s chocolate-covered cherries. Oh wait, on second thought, skip the torture by fine chocolates. There were plenty of cheap, barely edible candies available at this time of year for that. The good stuff stays with me. Then again, stuffing my face with chocolates might not be the wisest move considering the purchase I was about to make.

All right, I give up. Where’s the rest of it, I said as I eyed the flimsy scrap of red and barely there matching panties, all the while thinking I must have missed something as I twirled the satin-padded hanger in search of more parts. Whatever was there just didn’t cover it.

That’s all there is, said Judy Ramos, my dear friend and leading slut-wear consultant.

It’s twelve degrees outside, I pointed out. How can I look sexy when I’ll be covered with more goose bumps than fabric? That wasn’t sexy, it was lunacy.

You don’t plan on wearing it outside, do you?

Her bluntness annoyed me. Not hardly. Wearing it inside was a stretch.

I’d bought plenty of sets of lacy underwear from Judy in the past. I figured I’d bought just about every color and style featured in the catalog at one time or another, but this was the first time I’d ventured into choosing something from the other catalog, the one she kept in a plain brown wrapper and under lock and key when her young sons were around.

Are you sure you don’t have anything in fleece? Or maybe a nice quilted flannel? At least I had to ask. Fleece was my all-time favorite choice for sleepwear, flannel ran a close second. Neither of which had ever slowed Danny down in the past. He enjoyed a challenge. The more difficult the challenge, the more determined he was to overcome it. I wasn’t sure he’d know what to do with me so blatantly…well, unchallenging.

Judy cocked her perfectly arched brows, pursed her pretty pink lips, and stared at me with that look. I don’t know how she does it, but she managed to convey her disapproval without uttering a single word, and the message was received loud and clear. Flannel and fleece were considered the unmentionables in her Coming Attractions collection of naughty lingerie. Sheesh…you’d think I asked for a chastity belt with a side order of rusty mildew.

I felt compelled to defend myself under Judy’s disapproving eye. Danny doesn’t care what I wear to bed as long as he gets to take it off.

With a stunning smile leftover from her Miss Magnolia Queen days, she slipped her hand into the sheer panties. That’s the beauty of these, she said, waggling her fingers through the cleverly disguised split crotch. They don’t have to come off.

At first blush, there were no words. After giving it further thought, I realized there were two significant words that leaped to mind—bikini wax. That kind of deforestation took time—time I didn’t have at the moment. Danny was just going to have to take me au natural.

Okay, I’ll take it, I said, figuring it was the least I could do considering it was the least I could wear.

Just the other day Danny had been grousing about this winter’s skyrocketing utility bills. Well, he was just going to have to suck it up and boost the thermostat tonight because making him happy didn’t include my catching pneumonia in the process.

I give you my personal guarantee Dan will go crazy when he sees you in this, Judy drawled in her sweet southern way as she flashed dimples so adorable I’m always tempted to pinch her cheeks when they appeared. I have the same one in pink, she mentioned as she carefully wrapped my selection in glitter-infused red tissue, bagged it up, and took my check. Andy couldn’t keep his hands off me.

It was all I could do not to stick my fingers in my ears and chant, La, la, la, la, la… There were some things my brain was never meant to process. The image of this dimpled, darling woman in the arms of—shudder—Andy Ramos, one of my least favorite people, was way too visual. It was positively revolting.

The thought of anyone doing it was not an image I wanted in my head. I didn’t even want the image of me doing it in my head. Don’t get me wrong. I loved doing it. I didn’t crochet or quilt or scrapbook, so sex was a great pastime for me. Visualizing the act is something else altogether.

It never ceased to amaze me how an activity that brings so much amazing pleasure doesn’t translate well into pictures. I mean really…think about it. The facial expressions, the noises, the positions…Well, trust me, naked, sweaty, writhing bodies getting it on is not a pretty sight. There are parts of the human anatomy that jiggle, flop, and bounce in an awkward, not-so-attractive way no matter how beautifully taut and toned the aforementioned bodies are. It’s always made me wonder how porn in all its forms became so popular. I’ll stick to being an active participant, thank you very much. And hold the imagery. Please.

Anyway, back to Judy and Andy. I don’t like Judy’s husband, and she knows it. My long-term feelings about him have never stopped us from being friends, something for which I am grateful. It has, however, prevented us from getting together for Sunday brunch.

Seeing him at family get-togethers is quite enough. Oh, did I fail to mention Andy is my father’s stepson? Notice how I avoided any mention of Andy’s relationship to me. That’s because I’m in complete denial. His mother may be my fabulous stepmom, but I refuse to extend relativity beyond that point. He’s just an unavoidable unpleasantness I’m forced to deal with a few times a year, just like having my annual pap exam or my plaque scraped.

Speaking of Andy, I really didn’t want to be there when he got home, which was any minute now if the antique anniversary clock on their mantel was anywhere in the neighborhood of accurate. Judy ran several successful businesses out of their home, and she’d always tried to conduct her transactions while the kids were in school and Andy was at work. I knew that and always adhered to her set business hours in the past. She’d made a special exception for me today because I’d called and told her it was an emergency.

When Danny let it slip he had a big night planned, I decided I needed a little something, more than the gift I’d gotten him, and headed straight for Judy’s after work. This miniscule scrap of nothing certainly filled the bill as a little something.

Aside from the underwear and naughty lingerie, Judy sold Tupperware and Avon. I was a good customer with the lingerie and Avon. The Tupperware not so much. In order to keep leftovers fresh, there was the little detail that first involved food preparation. I didn’t cook enough to invest in quality food storage containers. My money was better spent on smelling and looking good and the occasional attempt to be overtly sexy. I didn’t think two out of three was so bad.

I flicked a glance at my cell before stuffing it in my back jean’s pocket. I’ve got to go. I’ve still got to pick up Dan’s gift at the jewelers.

I thought this was his gift. Judy grinned as she handed me the sparkly red gift bag on my way out the door.

It will be if I don’t get there before Mack closes, I told her on the fly.

Chapter Two

Deciding on what to get Danny for Valentine’s Day was way harder than where to get it. Once I decided on silver monogrammed cufflinks, the rest was as easy as heading straight for Hale’s Jewelers. Given the number of jewelry stores at the mall, I would have undoubtedly found a bigger selection there, but never the personal attention I received from Mackelroy Hale and his lovely wife Gladys Mae. He was a master horologist, and she repaired and designed jewelry. Their store anchored the shopping district on the corner of Main Street and Ivy Lane since before I was born.

As president of the town’s chamber of commerce for the last eight years, my dad was a huge proponent in supporting local merchants. That he was a small business owner himself might have something to do with his staunch backing of fellow businessmen, but I know the reasons behind his loyalties ran much deeper than self-serving. His first career as a beat cop, detective, and eventual chief exposed him to those business owners on a regular basis. He cared about them, their businesses, and their families. Many of them turned into lifelong friends. Throughout the years, he’d helped celebrate the joys of their successes as well as feeling the pain of their failures, in their professional lives and their personal ones. My dad can be a pretty awesome guy in a lot of important ways, and because I sometimes tend to forget that, I try to do things like shopping locally, to let him know I really had paid attention to his dinner table ramblings.

I made the Lake Ridge business district with five whole minutes to spare according to my always off-by-a-couple-of-minutes car clock. That knowledge didn’t do me much good since I could never remember whether those couple minutes ran fast or slow, so I was never sure if I was actually late or early until I verified the time on my phone, which at the moment was unreachably wedged between the car seat and my butt, hindered further from digging it out by a heavy winter jacket and a seatbelt.

To make matters worse, the coupon-clipping early-bird diners for the new French bistro across the street from Hale’s had taken over all the surrounding street parking, forcing me to circle the block twice. I’m all for getting the most bang for my buck as the next guy, but am I the only one who thinks it’s tacky to use a twofer on Valentine’s Day?

Desperate and out of time, I left my car in a no parking zone in the alley behind Mei Ling’s Chinese Restaurant and took off running.

Mack! I screamed, tearing up the last twenty yards just as he was turning the key to lower the security gate on his storefront.

Mack, wait!

Ah, Jenny, darlin’… said Mack Hale as he stopped what he was doing and reversed his closing procedure. I figured you changed your mind about giving Dan the cufflinks tonight when I heard you were picking up something from Judy Ramos, he said as he unlocked the door.

I stumbled over my jaw at hearing that. How in the hell would Mack have heard about my spur-of-the-moment trip to Judy’s? On second thought, I’m sure I didn’t want to know. In fact, I know I didn’t. Gossip made my head hurt, and I’m certain the last thing Danny wanted to deal with tonight was a girlfriend with a headache. So I chose to take the high road on this one and calmly handed Mack my claim check without comment.

Ten minutes later, I headed back to the alley entrance and hit the keyless remote as I neared my illegally parked vehicle. My official position was I hadn’t been gone long enough to worry about getting ticketed or towed, but in reality there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I’d be fined. Every cop on the force knew my car, and those same cops knew enough not to give a ticket to the chief’s sister. Okay, I’ll admit, it smacked of nepotism at its finest, but we’re talking a minor parking violation here. Not even a close, personal connection to the governor would help if I committed a major crime with said car or anything else. I knew the difference, and I knew which side of the line to stay on.

I climbed behind the wheel, tossed the gift box into the bag with the nightie, and was just about to jam the key into the ignition as I pulled the door closed when something prevented it from shutting.

It took me a second to realize that something was actually someone keeping my door from closing. A gloved hand gripped the door and yanked it open. The hinges of my aging Malibu groaned in protest against his extraordinarily rough handling.

Hey! I yelled. Easy on the door. Nobody touched my baby like that and got away with it.

I wasn’t so much afraid at the moment as I was indignant. After all, the guy probably just needed directions.

Outta the car, bitch!

Then again, maybe not…

I twisted in my seat toward him as I fiddled with my key ring, more specifically the pepper spray canister dangling from it. He wore a fleshy colored ski mask, making his face look like a featureless, barely human blob. All I saw were the bloodshot whites of his eyes and—oh joy—he was a mouth-breather. A disgusting, gag-inducing vaporous cloud billowed from his open mouth, reeking of onions, stale cigarettes, and all around bad oral hygiene, calling for a rousing second round of mental oh joys.

I didn’t see a gun or knife, so I hoped the only advantage he had was his considerable bulk, which in itself was intimidating enough. He was a big boy, half as wide as he was tall, and stuffed into a quilted flannel shirt, heavy brown duck overalls, and matching jacket. No wonder he chose my Malibu. Carjacking anything smaller would have been out of the question. Even squeezing behind the wheel of my mid-size sedan would be a mighty tight fit. I was tempted to suggest Mei Ling’s full-sized Econo van sitting up ahead. The delivery guy had left the engine running and everything.

Are you fuckin’ deaf? Big Boy screamed in my ear.

If I wasn’t before, I was now, but his question sparked an idea. What, I shouted, cupping my left ear. You’ll have to speak up.

Get outta the goddamn car! His crazed demand rolled like thunder down the dark alley in the cold, starless night as he fisted my coat sleeve.

I reached for the gift bag next to me. As much as it killed me to make the sacrifice, I’d let him have the car but not Danny’s presents. That’s where I drew the line. I snagged the ribbon handles at the same moment he yanked to pull me out. Arms and legs tangled and twisted as I kicked and screamed. The harder he pulled, the more I struggled. Just because I was willing to let him have the car didn’t mean I wasn’t going to make him work for it.

Fuck this shit, he hissed, wrenching the gift bag out of my fingers and the purse strap off my shoulder. Then he did something I never expected. I would have fought way harder if I had. With extraordinary nimbleness, he hooked his thick finger between the chain and my neck and pulled. As the delicate chain snapped, so did I.

You fuck this shit, I said as I sprayed him in the face with dead-on accuracy and surprisingly minimal blowback. The ski mask absorbed most of it and I barely caught a scant whiff of the stuff, not enough to cause more than a moment’s irritation.

Big Boy, however, screamed bloody murder and took off down the alley, giving me the opportunity to pull the door shut, drop the locks, and take a much-needed moment to breathe.

I watched with fascination as he caromed off Mei Ling’s van and a nearby Dumpster like a pinball gone full tilt. He scratched and tore at the pepper-spray-soaked ski mask without much success as my fine feathered friend Wendell and a couple of his crow-nies dive-bombed the creep with Blue Angel precision.

I normally cringed whenever Wendell showed up, but I was actually glad to see him this time, cheering him on, in fact, as he and his cohorts swooped in. For once, he was lending a helping hand instead of delivering his usual impending message of doom and gloom. You go, Wendell! Thanks for having my back for once. I just wished the trio of crows had worked a little harder to knock one if my belongings out of the guy’s fist in the process.

Okay, okay, I know I should be grateful, thrilled even, with Wendell’s unexpected intervention regardless of the outcome, and I am, but really? With all that poking and pecking and wing-whapping, was it too much to expect to see the big jerk drop as least one of the bags?

Once I was certain the guy was gone for good, I lifted my butt, hiked up my coat, and dug into my back pocket for my phone with cold and shaky fingers. The excess adrenaline pumping through my veins plus the dropping temperature had me trembling so hard I could barely dial 9-1-1. The worst part was I didn’t know what exactly it was that had me shaking. I managed to identify cold, scared, and pissed so I decided to mix it up and go with a combination of all three and anything else I could think of just to be on the safe side. That way I was covered and didn’t have to rely on just one emotion to get me through this ordeal.

Chapter Three

Still shaking when the cruiser pulled behind me a few minutes later, I climbed out of the Malibu and hugged my coat around me as I walked to the back of my car to give my statement.

Sliding out from behind the wheel of his cruiser the officer showed little surprise when he saw me. Hey, Jennifer, he calmly greeted.

As long as there weren’t personal injuries or serious property damage, all the cops I knew always arrived at a scene with a casual swagger and calm demeanor I envied, so I elected to follow his lead. I’d been mugged. My stuff was gone. There wasn’t much either one of us could do to change that, so why get excited. At least I had my health.

As the kid sister of the police chief, I knew most of the cops on the force, some better than others, of course, because I grew up with and went to school with several of them, as well as a few of their wives and girlfriends. I even casually dated a few back in the day.

Hey, Tom, I returned. I’d graduated from high school with him and went all the way back to grade school with his wife. In spite of its urban sprawl and exploding population, Lake Ridge, Indiana maintained a lot of its original small town idiosyncrasies—the good, the bad, and sadly the ugly, particularly in the law enforcement sub-culture.

How’re Amy and kids?

All down with the flu. Amy’s going crazy.

Bummer, I said as probably my biggest understatement of the day. They had four boys under the age of five—a set of four-year-old twins, a two-year-old toddler, and a new baby. I couldn’t begin to fathom what she was going through, nor did I have any desire to find out. My maternal instincts weren’t one of my stronger traits as any of my friends, siblings, or step-siblings with kids would confirm. I made a conscious effort to have very little interaction with children, at least until they were teenagers.

Teenagers I liked. Teenagers I loved. Hanging with teenagers, especially my brother’s twin daughters, kept me from ever becoming too much of a grownup. I was fascinated with the way their developing brains worked. Even more importantly, I totally understood them because I always tried to keep one foot in their carefree world even when the other was stuck knee deep in the day-to-day bullshit of being a responsible adult.

Strolling to where I stood, Tom spoke into his shoulder-mounted walkie-talkie. I heard the squawk of the dispatcher’s reply, but couldn’t make out a single word she said.

You want to tell me what happened?

I hugged my coat tighter and shrugged. Not much to tell, really. Some guy tried to carjack me. When I didn’t move quickly enough, he grabbed my gift bag and purse. I managed to shoot him with my pepper spray, and he took off down the alley squealing like a little girl. I decided to leave out the part about Wendell and his buddies.

He got your purse? That sucks.

Tell me about it. I mentally ticked off the list of critical contents, like credit cards and driver’s license, new lip gloss, and… Then it hit me. Shit, shit, shit. I still carried the .38 revolver Danny had given me a couple of months back when he thought I needed to protect myself. He’d never asked for it back, and I’d grown accustomed to carrying it. I suppose it was a careless oversight on both our parts, but I chose not to mention the stolen gun until I told Danny. He deserved that much consideration since it was registered in his name.

He took my Valentine’s gift for Danny, too.

A puzzled look crossed Tom’s face before he said, Then what were you doing out here? I heard you were picking out something from Judy Ramos.

What the hell? Screw taking the high road. I wanted names, and I wanted them now. Where’d you hear a thing like that?

He pulled one of those typical I-don’t-have-a-clue man faces and shrugged like it wasn’t worth any further consideration. Whatever happened to cops searching for truth and justice? Not to mention passing around unsubstantiated rumors, which, by the way, was all they were as far as I was concerned. Dan and I had been living together since November. We had to be old news around the stationhouse. Surely there had to be other people to talk about by now.

Did you get a look at him?

Who? I questioned, still wondering how rumors concerning my naughty lingerie buying habits started.

The guy who stole your stuff.

Oh, him…No, I didn’t see his face. He wore a ski mask—looked like a big blob of bubble gum with bloodshot eyes. The only description I can give you is he was big.

How big?

Baby Huey big.

He stopped writing in his notebook and stared at me. Baby…who?

My jaw dropped. Really? Four little kids and you’ve never watched the Cartoon Network? I can’t believe you don’t know Baby Huey. Gee, I’d thought the Baby Huey comparison was an excellent one, but Tom was apparently not a fan of classic cartoons.

Huey…Huey… he muttered, tapping his pen against his lips as he gave every appearance to be thinking real hard. Oh, yeah, he’s one of Donald Duck’s nephews, right?

Well, yeah, that’s a Huey, too, but he’s part of the Huey, Dewy, and Louie trio, and they’re normal sized ducks. Baby Huey was an abnormally large baby duck who kept breaking the other baby ducks’ playthings because of his ginormous proportions.

Then an even better comparison flashed to mind, one Tom couldn’t possibly misunderstand. Think taller and wider than Andy Ramos.

Comprehension lit Tom’s face. Wow…that is big.

Another cruiser squealed in behind the first and out jumped Danny from the passenger side before the car rolled to a complete stop. He hit the asphalt running, and it looked like he held his breath until he spotted me leaning casually against the front fender of my Malibu. I straightened and let him come to me because I couldn’t move without risking an embarrassing pratfall. Oh baby… There was something about a hot, hunky man charging to the aid of a damsel in distress that left me with wobbly knees and tingling lady parts. Never mind I wasn’t so much a distressed damsel as a pissed off redhead, and he’d slowed his charge to a brisk walk, but my reaction never wavered. Seeing him rushing toward me like that had me taking a couple of deep breaths to calm my frantically beating heart. He looked sooooo hot in every right way possible.

He wore sharp-creased dark denims and a fine-knit red sweater under his open leather jacket, telling me he’d already been home and changed when he heard about my mishap. He’d showered and shaved, too. I’d had every intention of doing all those things as well before we went out. Yeah, well, so much for best-laid intentions. Or was that best intentions to get laid? Oh well, it doesn’t matter now.

Are you okay? Dispatch called and told me you’d been mugged. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him. What were you doing here?

I snuggled into his protective warmth. I was picking up your Valentine’s present.

I thought that’s what you were picking up from Judy’s.

I know this crossed my mind more than once already tonight, but it bore repeating—what the hell! Was there a hashtag broadcasting my private business floating around I didn’t know about? It gave me pause to wonder who else knew I was buying raunchy lingerie. Nope, shouldn’t go there. It’s best not to know. How did you hear about it? It was supposed to be a surprise.

He grinned that adorable grin—the one he knew I hardly ever resisted, and it didn’t fail him now. I was no longer interested in finding out who was spreading details about my personal business as I was about getting on with taking care of business.

A little bird might have mentioned it.

More like a fat turkey named Andy.

Neither confirming nor denying my accusation, he just kept grinning.

That still doesn’t explain what you were doing here.

I was picking up cufflinks I’d ordered from Mack.

Cufflinks? You bought me cufflinks? He sounded more stunned than pleased. In fact, he sounded anything but pleased, sort of like I’d just told him I’d bought a do-it-yourself vasectomy kit and I planned on performing the procedure with his dad’s old Swiss Army knife.

Concerned by his lack of enthusiasm, I nodded as I gripped the lapels of his jacket and buried my frozen nose and cheeks into the soft folds of his sweater. Sterling silver, I murmured against his chest in case that made a difference.

I hate to tell you this after all the trouble you went through, but I don’t own any shirts with French cuffs.

I know that. He just didn’t get it. I got the cufflinks so I’d have a good reason to buy him the gorgeous Ricardo Stefan shirt I saw in a Neiman-Marcus catalog a couple of weeks ago. Danny was an extremely good-looking guy, my life-sized, anatomically correct Ken doll. Dressing him up was almost as much fun as undressing him—almost.

I planned on getting you one for your birthday. Whatever my reasons, and please don’t ask me why, I thought French cuffs were sexy. Go figure. Danny in a suit and tie was a sight to behold. Then again, Danny in jeans and a T-shirt was pretty spectacular. And of course, Danny in nothing at all was the very best.

Okay, I was ready to go home—now!

Danny cleared his throat in a way I recognized as preparation for his official interrogation mode, and I sighed because I knew we weren’t going anywhere for a while. So let me see if I’ve got this straight, he said on a practiced serious note. You bought me cufflinks I can’t use until you get me the shirt to go with them?

I had them engraved and everything, I said, feeling cross-examined instead of comforted and appreciated for my effort.

I heard a distinct gulp deep in his throat before he spoke. You had them engraved? There was that incredulous tone again. Have you ever seen the monogram for Daniel Ian Prince?

I only used your first and last initials.

Oh yeah, DP is so much better. In spite of his attempt to contain his laughter, I distinctly detected his diaphragm shaking.

DP…DIP…what difference does it make? All they are is G-O-N-E.

I’m sorry, Bunn. He snugged me tightly against his chest and kissed the top of my head with genuine affection. There was always affection when he called me that, which was short for Bunny Fur, a nickname he tagged me with when we were teenagers for reasons I won’t go into. But his