It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis (Good To The Last Death #1) - Robyn Peterman Page 0,74

laughed. My dogs were a perfect addition to my life. Me and my fur-girls. We would be just fine.

Sighing loudly, I thought about Gideon’s kiss and his cryptic parting words. In another life—someone else’s life—maybe he and I would work, but not in this one. I was too old to change. And I was too broken to fix.

“Come on, girls,” I called out. “We’re hitting the hay.”

A lone male ghost sat on the couch in the darkened family room. The moonlight coming through the window bathed him in an eerie glow. The lines of his body were so familiar. Even in his decomposing state, I felt like I knew him.

Had someone I knew died? Or was it that I was just getting to know what my squatters looked like?

Squinting my eyes against the darkness, I wondered if I had it in me to sit down and chat for a few minutes. The Ouija board was on the kitchen table. I could grab it and bring it into the family room.

I also needed to find a safe place to hide it. I didn’t need my friends seeing it. Heather would probably understand, but the rest would get worried.

“Hi,” I said to the ghost on the couch. “Give me a second and I’ll grab the Ouija board.”

“Daisy?” the man questioned hesitantly.

Chill bumps broke out all over my body. My breath grew short and my vision blurred. I grabbed the wall so I didn’t fall to the floor. Tears of confusion filled my eyes and I choked back the scream that was lodged in my throat.

“Steve?” I whispered on a sob.

“It’s me, Daisy.”

The wall couldn’t hold me—a steel rod in my back couldn’t have kept me upright. I instinctively flipped the light switch as my knees buckled and I slid down the wall to the floor.

The man I’d mourned for a year now sat on our couch—the couch he’d picked out. My best friend for the past twenty years and my husband for the last fifteen had come home.

Swiping the tears from my eyes with my hoodie, I pinched my thigh hard to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I wasn’t. I would now have a bruise on my leg that would match my knuckles.

Steve didn’t look good. His left arm was wrapped across his chest, gripping his right shoulder. My guess was that his right arm had detached. It took everything I had not to gasp. A photograph of us sat on the end table. Looking at what he’d been and seeing him now broke my heart.

In life he’d been so handsome, with dark curly hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. He was only a little taller than me and his body was lithe like a runner’s. Running was something we’d loved to do together. I was tempted to tell him about my twelve-mile run, but it felt wrong. He couldn’t run anymore.

His once beautiful blue eyes sat back in hollowed-out sockets. His eyes were a sad representation of what they used to be. He was wearing the suit he was buried in, but it didn’t fit him right anymore. The fabric hung on his gaunt frame.

“Where have you been?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

“I’m dead,” he replied, confused by the question.

I nodded. “I know that, baby. I meant, where were you before you came here?”

Steve pressed his lips together and made a sound in his throat that I would recognize even blindfolded. He’d made the noise a million times when he was thinking. I’d always teased him about it. He’d said it was his pensive sound—made him appear smarter.

“I don’t know, Daisy,” he said. “I’m not sure.”

“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “It’s not important.”

Looking down at my shaking hands, I felt awful for not going right to him. But I was so saddened by the state he was in, I couldn’t. I was afraid I’d lose it.

Wait. How was I able to talk to him and how was he able to talk to me? This wasn’t how it worked.

My head jerked up, and I gaped at him. “We’re talking,” I said, shocked. “How are we doing that?”

Steve smiled. It was macabre but somehow beautiful. “Why is that strange? We always talked, Daisy.”

“I know,” I said with a small laugh. “But I can’t talk to other… umm… the others like this. I have to use a Ouija board or slip into their minds.”

Steve shrugged—or he tried to. His arm slipped and he grabbed it in embarrassment. I turned