“So what’s the problem?” Jewel asked.
Tommy laughed and looked at his partner, shaking his head at Jewel. “Sex.”
“Oh,” Jewel said, suddenly sitting back as she realized Eve’s problem.
“Yeah,” Eve said. “The problem, put bluntly, is that Cascade and I are beyond horny and damned if we can figure out the ghost-and-alive-connection problem.”
“Oh,” Jewel said again.
Eve pushed the remains of her waffle away. From Jewel’s reaction, this was not going to be an easy problem to solve.
If there was a solution at all.
TWENTY-ONE
“WE NEED SOME help with this one,” Jewel said.
Tommy nodded.
And before Eve could stop Jewel or even ask who the help might be, Jewel said into the air, “K.J., a little help.”
“Need a minute to finishing getting dressed if you don’t mind.” A voice in the air above the table seemed to echo from a deep chamber.
Eve looked around, but, of course, no one was there.
Jewel turned to Eve. “K.J. is our team’s boss. He is the one who reports to the gods and he is the one who gets us our assignments, unlike you and Cascade who just go out and save people.”
“Good thinking,” Tommy said to Jewel. “K.J. has been dead for over a hundred years and has a reputation as a party person.”
“One of the best, if not the best party person,” a man said, appearing next to the table. “Please, if you must spread my reputation, do it with some accuracy.”
The guy was short, really, really short, wearing a gray pinstriped silk suit and vest, a pink tie with flamingos on it, pink slippers, and a bright pink feathery hat that had a tail on it that went down his back.
Eve just stared, her mouth open. Her life in Oregon had been sheltered, clearly.
He bowed slightly to Eve, the feathers in his hat flowing around him. “I am K.J. I have heard you are a fast study.”
“I had good instructors,” Eve managed to say, nodding to Tommy and Jewel.
K.J. glanced at the buffet, then looked at Jewel. “Before I move to get some maple syrup on this grand tie, what is your problem?”
Jewel indicated that K.J. should sit down at the table.
“A major issue I see,” K.J. said, sitting.
“You have heard,” Jewel said, “that Eve is the first ghost agent to partner with a live superhero.”
“How is that going?” K.J. said. “A grand experiment, if I must say.”
“We are doing well,” Eve said. “Saved a bunch of lives so far.”
“And that is why we are here in this ghostly state,” K.J. said, nodding.
“But Eve and her partner, Deputy McCall Cascade, have a problem,” Jewel said.
“You are with Cascade?” K.J. said, his eyes lighting up.
Eve was surprised, because in all the times inside of Cascade’s head, she had never seen a thought about this sparklingly-dressed ghost. She was sure she would have remembered. And positive Cascade would have remembered K.J. as well.
“I am,” she said.
“Oh, girl, how do you keep your hands off of that hunk of a man?” K.J. asked. “I saw his picture when he was recruited and got so hot I had to retire for the day and take care of issues.”
Eve was fairly certain her face was bright red.
Jewel and Tommy were both laughing.
“That’s the problem we called you here about,” Jewel finally said.
“I can see no problem at all with climbing all over that hunk of a man,” K.J. said. He looked at Eve. “Is it dreamy to be riding with him in his masculine patrol car with all the leather seats and the wonderful tools of manhood?”
She blushed again and laughed. “It is dreamy, yes.”
“I knew it would be,” K.J. said, clapping his hands. “Just knew it. You are one lucky ghost, girl.”
“I think so,” Eve said.
“So,” Jewel said, between laughter. “How do they go about having sex?”
K.J. looked at Jewel, then back to Eve with a sly grin on his face.
“Oh, girl you are a fast mover, aren’t you?”
TWENTY-TWO
EVE FIGURED HER face was about as red as it was going to get, so she smiled at K.J. Then said, “Do you blame me?”
“Oh, my, not at all,” K.J. said, fanning himself.
Eve thought Tommy was going to fall out of his chair laughing.
Jewel was trying to hold it together enough to actually get an answer out of K.J.
Eve was really starting to like this crazy ghost of a boss.
“So, what is needed,” Jewel asked, “for these two to have sex? Real sex.”
“Passion,” K.J. said, “but with that hunk of a man, I doubt that is your problem, is it?”
“It is not,” Eve said, smiling at him. “And it is not his problem toward me either. We both want this, but both of us are so new to our worlds, we have no idea how to go about that part of a relationship.”
“Like two teenagers in the backseat of a car,” K.J. said. “The fumbling is half the fun I am told.”
“All I remember is the fear and the worry and the sweating,” Jewel said.
Again, Tommy just laughed and shook his head.
Eve hadn’t had any experience in back seats of cars. And her first sexual experiences hadn’t been that rewarding, actually. And her sexual experiences with her loser of a husband hadn’t changed that. So with Cascade, she was hoping for a little more.
Actually, a lot more.
K.J. looked at her. “You ever read the fine short story ‘Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex’?”
Eve shook her head. She had no idea what he was talking about.
Again Tommy laughed and Jewel just looked at K.J. with a stern look.
“No?” K.J. asked Eve. “For the better, since even though Cascade is a superhero and someone can put a hand through you like Kleenex, the situation in the story does not apply.”
Tommy had to catch himself from laughing himself off his chair. If they hadn’t been ghosts, everyone in the place would have been staring at them.
“K.J.,” Jewel said, pretending to put on a stern face. “This is a serious problem that these two young lovers are trying to solve.”
K.J. was laughing with Tommy at his own joke, but finally nodded and took a moment to catch his breath.
Eve was going to have to look up that story just to see why they were laughing.
Finally K.J. looked at both Jewel and Tommy. “I will teach you all a very nifty trick that none of your team knows yet, but that might come in handy at times.”
He glanced around, clearly to make sure none of the live customers were watching, even though none of the four of them could be seen. Then K.J. reached forward and picked up the Keno ticket holder in the center of the table.
Not just the ghost element of the ticket holder, but the entire holder.
Then he set it down on the table with an audible click, smiling.
“Damn,” Tommy said. “How did you do that?”
K.J. pointed to his head. “Just as we do all of our skills. I just imagined it.”
“So we can cross over into the real world without controlling a person to do it for us?” Jewel asked, clearly as stunned as Eve was feeling.
“Within limits,” K.J. said. “As far as I know, a normal human can’t see us no matter what we do. Something about light and things I didn’t understand.”
“Cascade can see me fine thanks to Reanna,” Eve said.
“Makes sense because he’s a superhero,” K.J. said, nodding.
K.J. then stood and indicated all three of them should follow him over to a planter filled with artificial plants that divided the buffet from a small lobby at the top of an escalator.
“Put your hand through the plants,” K.J. said to each of them.
They all did.
Eve had gotten used to walking through things and not feeling a thing. She actually kind of liked it
.
“Now,” K.J. said, “Imagine your hand is solid enough to move a plant leaf.”
Eve used what Jewel and Tommy had taught her about imagining being in different places and just being there, and floating, and so on. All of her training had been on using her imagination. It seemed that ghosts felt like they were part of this world, but were not really, so then had what seemed like powers to jump anywhere they could imagine or float places, or make others do as a ghost wanted.
Ghosts felt like they were tied to this world, but actually were not, thus their imagination had to break them free.
Eve focused that same imagination energy on making her hand solid and touching the plant leaf.
And suddenly she could feel the leaf. Not the ghost element of the leaf, that had a certain feel, but the actual artificial leaf.
It moved under her touch.
Jewel and Tommy had the same success.
“Wonderful! K.J. said, clapping his hands like a teenager happy to see someone.
He turned and went back to the table. As he did, Eve watched him study the room to make sure no one was looking, then he pulled out a chair that was tucked in too close to the table.
Not the ghost part of the chair, but the actual chair.
To any live person watching, either in the restaurant or on a camera, that chair must have looked like it had moved by itself.
Jewel, Tommy, and Eve tried to move a chair, but even though they all could feel the chair’s surface, they couldn’t get enough grip or energy to move it.
“This takes time and practice to learn,” K.J. said as they all sat back down.
Then he turned to Eve. “But I have discovered over the years, after many pleasurable nights in my oversized hot tub with wonderful and very-much-alive superheroes who could see me, the practice is very much worth the effort.”
Eve was again convinced she was blushing.
“That’s how you and Madge from the diner did it,” Tommy said, smiling.
Eve figured he was clearly talking about an event before she had died. She would ask later.
“A fella doesn’t kiss and tell,” K.J. said, laughing.
Jewel just laughed and shook her head.
“If I can make my hand solid to touch something,” Eve asked, “can I make other parts of my body solid as well for Cascade’s touch?”
K.J. smiled and fanned himself again with an imaginary fan. “With practice, Mr. Hunk Cascade can feel any part of you that you would want him to feel.”
Eve was about to jump up and down for joy.
She smiled at Jewel and Tommy. “Thank you both.”
Then she stood and moved over and kissed K.J. solidly on the cheek.
“And thank you,” Eve said to K.J. “And now I need to go do some practicing on Cascade’s wonderful and very masculine body.”
“I think I might have the vapors just thinking of that,” K.J. said, again fanning himself.
She laughed and jumped back to Cascade’s apartment.
He was stretched out on the couch, sound asleep. She knelt by the couch and then gently touched his face.
The light stubble on his cheeks felt wonderful against her hand.
He stirred as she brushed his cheek again. He smiled and opened his eyes.
“That felt wonderful,” he said, looking into her eyes.
“It did,” she said.
“How?” he asked.
“I’ll explain it all later,” she said.
Then she stood and stripped off her clothes as he watched intently. Quickly she was standing in front of him completely naked and enjoying his look.
All he could do was stare.
Finally he said, “You are so beautiful.”
She imagined her hand firm and reached out for his hand.
“Come on,” she said, actually feeling his hand solidly in hers as she pulled him to his feet. “We have some practicing to do.”
“What kind of practicing?” he asked, smiling.
“The best kind,” she said. “The very best.”
And with that, Eve was convinced after just an hour of practice that they would live happily ever after together.
Only one small problem.
She was dead.
But it seemed that was a problem they could now live with.
Following is a sample chapter from the first book in the Ghost of a Chance series, Heaven Painted as a Poker Chip.
ONE
TWENTY-SEVEN MINUTES before she died, Dr. Jewel Kelly stepped out of the front door of her small office in Buffalo Jump, Montana, and set her medical bag on the sidewalk beside her. She then made sure the office door was locked tight. With a control on her key chain, she triggered the alarm. She doubted anyone around this town would take anything, but better safe than sorry.
She picked up her bag, pulled her ski parka in close around her, and stepped over under the eve of Bernie’s General Store. Her little office was like an outbuilding off of Bernie’s store. Three rooms and a bathroom.
Enough for her to get the job done, but not by much.
She again set her medical bag down on a dry spot near the building and turned to face the small town and wait for her ride.
She was a tall woman at five-ten, with long brown hair she loved to keep pulled back, and green eyes people said could stare right through you. At twenty-five, she liked more than anything else to run to stay fit. And she loved reading a great romance novel. In med school in Seattle, she had had time to run, but not read.
Now she had more than enough time for both. She usually put in a five-mile run up near the high school every afternoon, staying off the main highway as much as possible.
The run every day at least made her feel alive.
A cold mist of a late April spring day covered the main street of Buffalo Jump, Montana, which was also a major two-lane north-south highway. The air had a bite to it, and she had no doubt that later tonight the mist would turn to snow and the road would freeze over.
She had planned to spend the night in her log cabin a half mile to the south of town, in front of a nice fire, sipping on a glass of white wine and reading the new Nora Roberts novel. Then maybe later, after a nice bath, she would have a date with her best friend, Mr. Buzzy. She had a hunch that in Buffalo Jump, Montana, she was going to wear out good old Buzzy before she found a real man she wanted to date.
To her right and south was Jay’s Gas and Minimart, across from that was Carol’s Restaurant, a diner that actually had some pretty good food and was pretty clean. Beyond that, the two-lane highway disappeared off into the pine forest, now growing dark as the early evening wore on.
That was the road out of these mountains to Missoula.
To her left and north sat the twenty buildings that made up the main part of Buffalo Jump, including an old hardware store and some basic offices, two bars, and two antique stores to catch the occasional tourist who thought to stop.
She had been in the antique stores, but not the bars. She wasn’t much of a drinker except for a nice glass of good wine after dinner.
On the other end of town, she could barely see through the light rain the white tower of the only church, a Presbyterian church, whose basement doubled for a meeting room for the big town events. She hadn’t been in there yet either. She had never been much of a church-goer back in Boise where she grew up.
A sprawling red-brick school sat off the main street against a pine-covered hillside and serviced all grades for most of the county, with dozens of lumbering, bright-yellow school busses pouring in and out of town every day. There was even had a high school football team.
Her favorite running route was from her office, up past the school, out a dead-end gravel road for two miles, then back.
Right now she could run up the middle of the main street and no one would even notice. There was no traffic at all and just a few cars parked in front of the bars.
A typical late Thursday afternoon in small town Montana.
Silence closed i
n around her and she shuddered. Not even a slight wind through the pines around the town broke the oppressive stillness.
She pulled her dark-blue ski parka in around her, making sure it was zipped, then pulled her ski gloves out of her pocket and put them on. She could never seem to be warm enough here, except when sitting in front of the fire in her cabin.
Under the parka, she had on a nice white blouse and today she had worn jeans for only the second time. It seemed everyone else in town wore jeans, including the mayor, who ran the small grocery store, so she might as well.
Besides, jeans were far more comfortable in the cold weather. Not as drafty as the skirts she wore the first month on the job here. Nothing like a cold Montana wind whipping up a skirt and hitting a cotton-covered crotch to give a girl a real thrill.
And not a fun thrill.
She was the town’s only doctor, actually the county’s only doctor. And at times like this, she had no idea why she had agreed to the tuition deal to practice medicine here. Sure, she got all her debts forgiven, not a small chunk at all, if she stayed five years, but she wasn’t sure if she could handle five years out in the middle of nowhere like this, even though her dream had been to be a GP.
She had only been here for six weeks and mostly been bored out of her mind. She didn’t drink and she didn’t go to church. That didn’t leave a lot left to do except exercise, read and give Mr. Buzzy a workout regularly.
She had delivered one baby in the small building the county called a hospital up beside the school. And she had fixed a few broken bones and one concussion from a bar fight.
For one night, she had even had a woman in the little four-bed hospital with a gall bladder attack. Jewel had to check in on her every hour to make sure the woman didn’t get worse and need to take a Life-Flight out to Missoula.
The woman hadn’t gotten worse and the woman’s husband the next day had driven her to Missoula, four hours away, for the operation.
Today was Jewel’s first call for an injury in Jackson Ridge, another small town about twenty miles away on the highway to the north. The call had come into her cell phone from the county sheriff, and he had told her a deputy would pick her up.
Heaven Painted as a Cop Car Page 6