Dead Living (Spirit Caller Book 5) (2 page)

Startled surprise crossed Jeremy’s face. Then, a dawning realization of what I’d just said. Exuberant joy finished up the comical expression dance on his face. “Do you mean it?”

“Will you keep cooking for me in your underwear after we get married?”

“Absolutely,” Jeremy said, grinning from ear to ear.

“Then how can I refuse?”

Jeremy put down his grease-covered fork and picked me clean off the floor. We laughed and hugged, and snogged, and laughed some more. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Hey! You’re overcooking the bacon!”

And that’s the story of how I got engaged. Supernatural relationship advice. Sexy man in boxer briefs. Bacon. Really, can a girl ask for anything more fairy tale?

Unfortunately, things went downhill after the bacon.

Chapter 2

Change Sucks

Jeremy and I, um,
celebrated
our newly formed engagement, so he was rather late leaving the house. He gave me a swift kiss on the cheek before rushing out to the car. He was in his Mountie uniform: hat, dark trousers, grey shirt, and the bulletproof vest that always scared me far too much.

Now, he wasn’t
that
late. Nothing worth being upset or worried over. The amount of late that a big-city police department wouldn’t even bat an eyelash at. The Northern Peninsula wasn’t a big city. And, so, those few minutes were enough that Corporal Amanda LeBlanc, his boss, gave the house a ring to make sure Jeremy was coming to work.

Over the course of his recovery, Jeremy had been late a few times because of panic attacks about going into the detachment. An expected side effect of the shooting. Amanda was very passionate about promoting positive mental health within support services—her fiancé was a paramedic—and so she’d been very accommodating to Jeremy’s own issues. So it wasn’t exactly a surprise when Amanda called when Jeremy didn’t show up for work, um, within, um, twenty minutes of when he was supposed to.

Look, it’s not every day a girl gets engaged, okay?

Not wanting to say I was rolling around on the sofa with one of her Mounties, I mumbled my way through a “he’s just running behind” excuse. Amanda took it the wrong way.

“Rachel, I’ve said this before, but I will say it again. I absolutely understand that Jeremy is still recovering. If he is having another panic attack, you need to let me know, and we’ll shift things around. He can come in when he’s feeling better later today. Or we can talk about giving him a few days off. Some of the work he can even do from home. I want him back to work, yes, but I want him well first and foremost.”

I couldn’t tell her what happened. Amanda is my friend and all, but she’s also Jeremy’s boss. And there are some things you just don’t tell your boss. Like that you were making hay while the sun was coming up.

Don’t look at me like that. I lived in Alberta for a while.

Since the mumble-mumble wasn’t working, I tried the ol’ “lost track of time” excuse. That brought on a whole other level of concern.

“Is he abusing his pain meds?” Amanda sighed. “Is he still seeing the chronic pain specialist in Corner Brook? Is he still seeing his therapist? Oh, don’t tell me he’s mixing his anxiety drugs with pain killers? Rachel, you can’t let him do that! Hide them if you have to. He can’t be mixing that stuff. Dammit, I thought he was improving.”

“No, it’s not like that at all,” I said quickly. I wasn’t approaching this from the right angle. I decided to put the focus on me. “I wasn’t feeling well early this morning, so Jeremy was up with me.”

“Are you all right?”

“I must have eaten something bad. Once my stomach settled down, we went back to bed. Then we overslept.”

“Oh my god, are you pregnant?”

“Oh, for the love of God! Seriously?”

The problem with everyone knowing each other is that, well, everyone knows each other. She laughed heartily and said, “Were you being naughty?”

“I’m so not going to answer that.”

Amanda laughed again and I was so grateful she couldn’t see my blushing cheeks through the phone. “So, honestly, he’s okay?”

“He’s very okay,” I said.

Amanda laughed more. “Now that Jeremy’s a bit more settled, we need to do another Murder Mystery night.”

I agreed. Our last Murder Mystery was a lot of fun. Jeremy did so well, and it improved his morale greatly. We entered into a little chit-chat before Amanda said Jeremy had just pulled up, so she’d let me go. No doubt she’d also interrogate him the same way she just did with me.

I hung up the phone, I did the dishes. By doing the dishes, I mean I shoved them all into my dishwasher without rinsing or scraping them. Then, I dumped a bunch of dishwasher powder into the machine, and put it on the “max wash” setting. Which, incidentally, was the only setting that still worked on the old thing.

Jeremy hated that I did dishes that way but I was trying to get the damn contraption to die. Jeremy didn’t think we needed a new one because we had a “perfectly” working dishwasher. I wanted one that didn’t sound like a tropical storm was landing. I live next to the bleeping Atlantic Ocean. I know what a tropical storm sounds like…and it sounds like that damn dishwasher.

I smiled to myself. Was this what normal life was like? No spirits. No paranormal or supernatural weird crap. Just couples bickering over an appliance. I could get used to this.

I gathered up some of the French toast from breakfast on a plate and wrapped it in plastic wrap. I dressed in quasi-clean clothes and shoved my feet into my rubber boats. Then I trekked across my large yard to Mrs. Saunders’s house to drop off some French toast. Jeremy loved the old lady as much as I did and often made her extras. It also gave me an additional excuse to check on her every day.

Mrs. Saunders’s house was in need of a paint job. The roof was still solid, at least, but the paint was starting to peel off the wooden boards now. She had been anxious about hiring someone to paint the house, but Jeremy offered up the services of some of the Mounties. They’d come over and scrape all of the old paint off the house; a tedious and carpal tunnel syndrome-inducing activity. Then, she could pay Amy’s brother-in-law to paint the house. He wouldn’t overcharge her and he’d do a good job.

Plus, he’d charge less because we’d have done all of the horrible work.

Depending on Mrs. Saunders’s mood, I’d bring it up again with Amy there. We could do it in the late spring, which could give her enough time to decide if she wanted to change the colour of the house.

Mrs. Saunders’s granddaughter, Amy, and I had been sharing the heavy lifting of helping Mrs. Saunders stay independent in her own home. I’d learned a lot about myself in looking after Mrs. Saunders. I never cared about learning to cook, for example, nor did I care about nutrition. Kraft Dinner and wieners were fine by me. But, the old lady was a diabetic and had high blood pressure, so needed to be on a special diet.

I even took a couple of cooking classes in Corner Brook. Jeremy used to see a specialist for his hip and a therapist for his PTSD, so I coordinated a few courses around being in the city. We’d stay overnight at one of Mrs. Saunders’s many grandchildren’s houses (who were all very happy to help out their “Nan” by looking after us).

I wasn’t related to Mrs. Saunders, and I certainly didn’t know her as long as some of my neighbours, but I cared about her. Now knowing her history and knowing Dema was protecting Mrs. Saunders made me respect her all the more. She had lived a long, good life—and, yes, I do believe killing her best friend’s rapist is a good thing, thank you very much—and she deserved to be pampered and looked after in her twilight years.

And, on a selfish note, her kitchen table was one of the few places I could go where the
other
left me the hell alone. Mrs. Saunders could’ve been the devil herself and I’d probably still visit just to get away from the crazy.

I ducked around my woodpile and crossed the grassy field between our houses. The wind was blowing hard today, and my eyes watered. I had to turn my head away from the gale to catch my breath. I loved Wisemen’s Cove, but I could sure do with less wind. I couldn’t even rely on trees since the poor trees grew horizontal here, forming the island’s famous tuckamores. Sure, they were pretty, but they didn’t help brace against the wind.

I knocked on the wooden door and walked in, not bothering to wait for an invitation. That’s how things were done in Wisemen’s Cove. It was rude, in fact, to expect the homeowner to get up from whatever they were doing to come greet you at the door. Who did you think you were? The Queen of England? Take off your boots, and come on in. That was the motto of the place.

You can see why I loved it here. Well, that, and Jeremy, Mrs. Saunders, all of my friends, and the quiet acceptance that I could be myself. But the knocking-on-the-door thing was a big part of the acceptance.

“Mrs. Saunders!” I called out, walking into the tiny porch. I pulled off my rubber boots and walked into the 70s style kitchen. “Oh, hey, Amy! I didn’t know you were here. Your car isn’t outside.”

“I walked, my love,” Amy said. “That doctor got me doing all kinds of foolishness.”

Amy was a large woman in her fifties, with a big smile and a thick Newfoundland accent. Well, she used to have a thick accent. Nowadays, it just all sounded…normal.

Well, except when they said things like “barmp.” As in, “He barmped his horn.” As opposed to the more common, “He honked his horn.” But, beyond unique words that made no goddamn sense, I didn’t really notice much about their accents anymore.

“How goes the no smoking?” I asked as I walked over to the sink to begin washing the few small plates and mugs that had built up.

“It’s why I’m walking,” Amy said. “It keeps my mind off the smokes.”

“Maid, leave those be,” Mrs. Saunders scolded me.

“Is that gin in your mug?” I asked her, a big grin on my face.

“I needs something to make this skim milk taste good,” she said in her mock-offended voice. But, she didn’t argue anymore as I filled the sink with a bit of warm water to wash her dishes.

“Have you told her yet, Nan?” Amy asked.

“Told who what?” I interjected as I rinsed a mug with a cross and the words JESUS LIVES in big, bold letters around the top rim.

Mrs. Saunders drew in a deep breath and said, “There’s something I needs to tell you, Rachel.”

I didn’t like the tone of her voice. I put the small plate into the strainer and dried off my hands. I leaned against the sink, still holding the dishcloth, and asked, “Is everything all right?”

She was ninety-four years old. At her age, even a head cold could be lethal. I needed to prepare myself.

It was Amy who answered. “Nan wants to sell the house and move in with me.”

Okay, so not cancer, but nevertheless my stomach dropped. “Are you sick?”

“My dear, I’m ninety-four years old. Of course I’m sick.”

I smiled at that. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, why now?”

Mrs. Saunders waved off my concern. “It’s hard livin’ here by myself, with you and Amy doing everything for me.”

“I don’t mind,” I said quickly.

“I knows that, maid, but I’m allowed to have a say in it, too.” Mrs. Saunders sipped at what was most likely a gin-laced instant latte. I’d gotten her hooked on lattes. “Millie is all alone in that old folks home of hers, and I’m here, and if you want the truth, my love, I’m lonely. Now, don’t look at me like that. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. You comes over here every day and takes care of me. Jeremy is here every day, now that he’s better. Everyone is good to me. I’m not saying that. But I don’t want the worry of this big house anymore, and I wants to leave it when it’s still my idea and not some fool doctor’s.”

“Oh,” I said quietly.

There wasn’t much to say to that; she was right. Mrs. Saunders had earned the right to live wherever she wanted. If she wanted to move out into her granddaughter’s house to be with her best friend, that was her right. My feelings didn’t matter at all in this.

“So you’d move in with Amy?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. Dammit, Rachel. This is about the old woman and not you.

“Well, I gots some good news on that one. The Newfoundland government has a grant for family members to renovate their houses to let elderly relatives move in, so they don’t need to live in a seniors’ home. I got one for Nan. They approved me for ten thousand! Can you imagine? Ten thousand dollars!” Amy waved her hands. “Oh! And I got the one for us to get new siding and windows! They match us half of it, up to ten thousand. We’ve been saving for three years to afford those suckers, and now we can get them!”

Mrs. Saunders nodded enthusiastically. “And me husband’s pension is going to give me two thousand to renovate Amy’s bathroom, so that I can have all of the handles and the special tub I needs. Two thousand, maid!”

I chuckled. “That is a lot of money! You can build an extension on your house for that, Amy!”

“That’s what we’re going to do. I talked to the old man about it and we’re going to build on a little apartment for Millie and Nan. I checked with the government fellow and he said it was okay. We have to pay for it all upfront, but then we give them the receipts and they pay us back.”

“Well, let us know if we can do anything. And, we’ll still come visit and help and all that,” I said.

“You’re acting like I’m moving to China, not down the blasted road,” Mrs. Saunders said severely.

“True. I could probably bike down to visit you every day, until the weather turns,” I said.

“I don’t understand either of you,” Mrs. Saunders said. “Amy here walking three hours a day. You biking everywhere. Back in my way, we didn’t have time for all that foolishness.”

“That’s because you had a dozen youngsters to look after, now,” Amy said.

“You have like forty kids, Amy!” I said severely.

Amy waved me off. “Half a dozen or so.”

“Or so? If you forget how many children you have, you have too many.”

“I don’t like some of them right now, so I’m pretending they’re not mine.”

“When you going to give me some babies, Rachel?” Mrs. Saunders asked, a twinkle in her eye.