A Ghostly Reunion

Excerpt

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Chapter 1
“Sexy isn’t a firm fanny in a thong, ladies.” Hettie Bell didn’t seem so sexy in her hot pink leggings and matching top as she gasped for breath in her downward dog position in the middle of Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky. Her butt stuck straight up in the air, right there on display for everyone to see. Her black, chin-length bob was falling out of the small ponytail on both sides and her bangs hung down in her eyes. “Sexy is confidence and self-acceptance. It’s exactly what yoga provides.”

Hettie Bell curled up on her tiptoes with her palms planted on one of the mats she provided for us. The rickety old floor of the gazebo, in the middle of the town square, groaned as we all tried to mimic her pose.

“Yes!” Beulah Paige Bellefry hollered out like we were in the first pew of the Sleepy Hollow Baptist Church getting a good Bible beating from Pastor Brown himself. “Amen to a good pose!”

Beulah continued to adjust her feet and hands each time she started to slip. If she wasn’t a bit overweight, I’d say it was her eighties silk sweat suit that was slicker than cat’s guts giving her problems. Or it could’ve been those pearls around her wrist, neck and ears weighing her down. Beulah never took off those pearls. She said pearls were a staple for a Southern gal.

“You said it, sister,” Mary Anna Hardy gasped. She teetered side to side, nearly knocking into Granny. Her sweat left streaks down her makeup. Who on earth got up this early and put makeup on to do yoga? Mary Anna Hardy, that’s who. “God help us!”

“That’s it.” I pushed back off my heels and crossed my legs, staring at all the Auxiliary women’s derrieres at my eye level. “I’m here to do some relaxing, not Sunday school.”

Sleepy Hollow was smack-dab in the middle of the Bible Belt and if God wasn’t thrown in our conversations, then we weren’t breathing. But the last thing I wanted to think about was my butt stuck up to the high heavens and everyone up in the Great Beyond looking down upon me.

Trust me, not a sight the living want to see at eight o’clock in the morning, either. Especially when I hadn’t had my first cup of coffee for the day.

“Emma Lee Raines,” Zula Fae Raines Payne, also known as my granny, gasped in horror. “Where are your Southern manners?” Granny’s disgust of my behavior was written all over her contorted face.

My redheaded Granny only stood five-foot-four, but she was a mighty force to be reckoned with. At the ripe young age of seventy-seven, she’d give you the business while blessing your heart and pouring you a glass of her sweet iced tea no matter how mad you made her.

“My manners are right over there at Higher Grounds Café in liquid form in a large foam cup.” I pushed back a strand of my brown hair that had fallen out of the topknot I stuck it in after I’d rolled out of bed when I decided to join the Auxiliary women and Hettie Bell for their morning yoga class. I needed my caffeine fix to wake my manners up.

“This reunion has helped you misplace them.” Granny’s disapproval of how I was handling the stress of planning my ten-year high school reunion showed in the creases around her tight lips, cocked brows and furled nose. “Doc said you need to take the necessary precautions to keep the ‘Trauma’ away, especially in times of extreme stress.”

What did Doc Clyde know? Nothing.

“I’m sure you are stressed with no one to bury around here.” Granny did a sign of the cross and we weren’t even Catholic. She snapped her finger at me. “Now, downward dog, young lady,” she ordered.

Doc Clyde, Sleepy Hollow’s resident doctor, felt it necessary I do some type of stress relief since he had diagnosed me with what he called “Funeral Trauma” after I had gotten knocked out flat cold from a falling plastic Santa and woke up in the hospital seeing the clients I had stuck six feet in the ground. Being an undertaker can be stressful, but I didn’t have “Funeral Trauma.” I was a Betweener.

I saw dead people. Let me clarify, dead people that had been murdered. It was a gift that plastic Santa gave me. Unlike the annual ugly Christmas sweater Granny gave me, it was a gift that I can’t return. Honestly, I wouldn’t even be able to take the sweater back.

“It’s okay, Zula Fae.” Hettie Bell dipped back down into the stretch that started all this downward dog stuff. “Yoga isn’t for everyone.”

“You got that right,” I grumbled under my breath and watched with a dutiful eye as the white convertible Mercedes whipped into a parking spot right in front of Higher Grounds.

Sleepy Hollow was a tourist town in Kentucky. We were known for our caves and caverns. Tourists to our town were mainly the outdoorsy type that loved to spelunk and stuff that I wasn’t interested in doing. Now yoga was added to that list as well.

“Uh-un!” A woman jumped out of the convertible and wagged her hand at the car trying to park in the space behind her.

The woman had on a pair of big black sunglasses that took up nearly all of her thin face and a black scarf over her hair and tied under her chin. She wore a black strapless jumpsuit and her legs looked a mile long.

“Move!” she screamed at a car that was less desirable than hers. “You aren’t parking that beater behind mine!”

She jumped into her car and backed it up, taking up the only two available spaces in front of the café.

“Is that?” Beulah Paige jumped up, tugged on the hem of her silky zip top and squinted.

“You know your fancy wrinkle cream might work if you got you some glasses or contact lenses.” Mable Claire cackled and jingled all the way down to her mat.

“Oh, hush, Mable Claire,” Beulah warned, keeping her eyes on the little scuffle going on in front of the café. “I do think that is . . .”

Beulah ran her hand over her bright red hair, pushing her fingertips in and fluffing it up. She put her hands on the strand of pearls around her neck and straightened them.

“Oh my God.” Shock and awe came over me. Then anger when I saw who it was.

Jade Lee Peel.

I stood up to steady my shaking body. It took everything in my power not to throw one big hissy fit right there in front of all of Sleepy Hollow or at least the Auxiliary women.

“It is!” Beulah jumped up and clapped her hands together like a little schoolgirl, not the forty-something-year-old gossip queen I was used to seeing.

Beulah did a little two-step and giddyup down the steps of the gazebo and scurried across the town square.

“And it looks like Jack Henry is happy to see whoever she is too.” Granny sure didn’t know when or how to keep her mouth shut. Especially in an emergency such as this.

“Jade Lee Peel,” I grumbled and gave my high school archnemesis the evil eye.

It was a time like this I wished I had some sort of cool gift like casting spells on people, not seeing them after the spell took effect and stopped their beating heart.

Jade Lee had left Sleepy Hollow right out of high school to pursue a modeling career. When she made it on a music channel’s reality TV show where they all lived in a house, she was discovered. She wasn’t the biggest star on the planet, but she was the biggest from Sleepy Hollow.

Reluctantly I had sent her people an invitation to the class reunion hoping they’d think it was fan mail and when I hadn’t gotten back an RSVP, I’d assumed she wasn’t coming. It would be just like her not to RSVP and then make a grand entrance.

“I take it you aren’t so happy to see her?” Hettie stood next to me with her hands on her hips and her leg cocked to the side.

Hettie Bell was lucky and didn’t know just how evil Jade Lee Peel was as a teenager. Hettie had recently moved to Sleepy Hollow and opened up Pose and Relax yoga studio next to Eternal Slumber. She would’ve definitely been one of Jade’s targets with her Goth girl look. Mary Anna Hardy down at Girl’s Best Friend Spa tee-totally gave Hettie a complete makeover and turned her into a beauty right before our eyes with her new chin-length bob, super white teeth and minimal makeup. Not to mention that she already had a killer body from doing all that stretching and twisting she was trying to get me and the rest of the residents of Sleepy Hollow to do.

“Not in the least bit happy to see her.” I couldn’t take my eyes off Jade Lee. Her talons had hooked Jack Henry Ross, sheriff of Sleepy Hollow and my boyfriend, when we were in high school. And it seemed she was trying to hook him now, right there on the sidewalk in front of Higher Grounds Café. “She’s the one who came up with my nickname, Creepy Funeral Home Girl, when I was in high school.”

It was true. Kids could be so cruel. I was the butt of all their jokes. Granted, growing up in a family business was hard, but mine had to be the funeral home. My granny and parents were also undertakers and we lived in Eternal Slumber Funeral Home. Needless to say, I wasn’t the most popular kid in school. Who in the world wanted to have a sleepover in a funeral home? No one. Least of all, Jade Lee Peel, the most popular cheerleader, prom queen and now small town celebrity. Even in high school she had celebrity status thanks to the community. After her mamma died of a stroke, Artie Peel, Jade’s father and owner of Artie’s Meat and Deli, did everything he could for his daughter, doing her no favors.

All the women in town felt sorry for Jade and took her under their wing. I blamed the town for blowing up Jade’s head as big as the town square.

“That’s right.” Hettie patted me on the back. “Your class reunion is this weekend.”

“Yep.” It was the only word I could muster up. My heart was breaking watching Jade and Jack exchange smiles, giggles, and whatever other else line of bull malarkey she was feeding him. No doubt trying to reel my handsome boyfriend into her lair.

Jade and Jack, their names were synonymous in high school. They even had their own nickname like Brangelina. JJ. Thinking about them with their own combined name made my stomach hurt and the feelings of the past flooded right back as if ten years had never passed. Only now I couldn’t run over to my bedroom in the funeral home, slam my door and bury my head in the pillow.

“And you were in charge of the reunion, right?” Hettie reminded me.

I admit I almost didn’t send Jade an invitation, but my good ole Southern manners, like Granny called it, won out. I can’t say I didn’t have a daydream about Jade coming back to town and seeing me in Jack’s arms, but I certainly didn’t daydream the other way around. I wasn’t even on the high school reunion committee in high school, but the school called me since I lived here and asked me to put it together. Like Granny said, people were living longer, making funerals a little sparse. I had nothing better to do.

A white van with sketchy windows came plowing down the street and abruptly stopped right next to Jade and Jack. A bunch of men jumped out holding a big boom microphone and camera equipment.

Jade grabbed Jack by the arm and smiled as big as the day was long.

“Smile, Jack.” I read her lips and heard her Southern twang in my head.

Jack fluffed up like a bandy rooster, sticking his chest out for all the world to see his sheriff’s badge. The cameraman walked around them with the camera on his shoulder, taking shots from all angles.

“Yoo-hoo! Jade! Remember me?” Beulah waved and patted her chest. “Beulah Paige Bellefry! You used to play with these pearls in my Sunday school class.” Beulah’s grin took up her entire face. The balls of her cheeks squished up into her eyes.

Jade planted that sweet, fake smile across her face, giving Beulah a hug. Both of Jade’s hands planted on the tops of Beulah’s shoulders, giving her a pat on the left and then a pat on the right.

Jade’s eyes grazed the grass along the town square, which drew them up to the gazebo. Our eyes caught. An easy smile was planted at the corners of her mouth. I glared at her, finding it almost impossible not to return her disarming smile.

She threw her keys to a young girl standing behind her. The girl ran in front of Jade and pulled open the door to the café, cowering down behind it. Her long brown hair was flat to her head. She had brown doe eyes and an olive complexion. She wore large black-rimmed glasses that were entirely too big for her face. But who was I to judge. I was by far no fashion expert. But it wasn’t a surprise Jade surrounded herself with people who weren’t as pleasing to the eye as she was. She always liked being the pretty one, center of attention.

I watched in horror as Jade grabbed Beulah’s hand and tucked her other in the crook of Jack Henry’s arm, dragging them both inside Higher Grounds. My heart sunk. My knees buckled. And any sort of Southern manners I had were thrown out the window.

“How do I look?” I ran my hand over my hair.

“Greasy.” Hettie Bell’s nose ruffled. She was never one to sugarcoat nothing.

I turned to Granny.

“Emma Lee, you are smarter than her. If dumb was dirt, she’d only cover about half an acre.” Granny had her own way of trying to make me feel better.

I wasn’t sure if she had just insulted me or had given me a compliment. My head tilted, my eyes lowered and I stared at her.

“You are beautiful inside and out.” Mable Claire jingled her way over. Mable Claire kept a lot of change in her pockets. She gave out dimes here and there to people who she passed on the street. “It’s early, honey.”

“Stop it.” Hettie stepped up. “You are in workout clothes. She’s gonna know you’ve been working out.” Hettie jabbed my shoulder with her finger. “You are not the creepy funeral girl anymore. You are an important member of this town.”

She was right. I wasn’t that girl anymore and I had Jack Henry Ross now.

Granny scooted closer. She bent her lips to my ear. She smelled of cinnamon and sugar, easing my belly pain somewhat. She whispered, “Emma Lee, you go on in there and get your man.”

I pulled back and we held each other’s eyes for a second. I straightened my shoulders and stomped my way across the square and stood right in front of Higher Grounds.

I looked in the front window. Everyone inside was making a fuss over Jade Lee Peel being back in town, Ms. Sleepy Hollow herself, and everyone acted as if it were Christmas day. They were all crowded around her. Even little children who didn’t know her, but knew of her and her legacy.

Chapter 2
“There you are.” Cheryl Lynne stood at the door of The Watering Hole. “You hadn’t come in Higher Grounds to get your coffee, so I thought I’d bring you a cup.”

“You are the best.” I put the high school reunion file down on the counter of the bar and walked over to get the cup. “I did try to come to get a coffee. In fact”—I paused to take a sip of the warm, welcoming brew—“I had my hand on the door handle, but it was so crowded, I left and decided to come here so I could make sure everything was ready for tonight’s reunion kickoff.”

Sleepy Hollow was a dry county, which meant there was no selling alcohol, at least in the legal way. There were a lot of people coming into town and I thought it would be fun to host a little prereunion get-together where everyone could mix and mingle. The Watering Hole was just on the other side of the county line and the only drinking joint around Sleepy Hollow. It was a perfect spot for everyone to come, relax and get reacquainted before the reunion tomorrow night.

“Crowded? Or the fact that Jade had dragged Jack in there?” she asked as if she didn’t know the real truth.

“Both.” I duck-billed my lips and sighed out my nose. I curled both hands around the cup. “Not that I don’t trust Jack Henry, but when I saw her with him after all these years, it was like these past years had melted away. All the memories of her making fun of me and making out with him just flooded back, making me feel bad and I just couldn’t make myself go in no matter how much Granny cheered me on.”

“If it’s any consolation, Jack wanted nothing to do with her.” Cheryl’s words did tickle my fancy a little. Enough for me to stand there and listen to more. “She has this camera crew with her and she was talking into the big camera all about her and Jack in high school and how they were royalty. Jack commented it was a long time ago and they were silly teenagers.”

“He did?” My heart felt like it was growing in my chest.

“He did and he also got his coffee and left.” Cheryl nodded. “But you aren’t going to like this.”

“What?” My voice fell flat, so did my heart.

“Mayor Burns came in.” Her shoulders heaved up and down when she sucked in a deep breath. “And he told her he didn’t know that she was coming into town and how he’d asked Jack to be the Grand Marshal of the parade in the morning, but he’d love it if she joined Jack because they were prom king and queen ten years ago.”

It was like Lucifer had sucked himself up inside me. I could feel my blood starting to bubble up like a pot full of water on a lit gas stove, getting ready for the full rolling boil inside my body. I could feel the vein that ran along the side of my neck start to pulse its own heartbeat. My right eye twitched. Then my left eye twitched. My whole body started to twitch.

“Maybe you need to sit down.” She grabbed my elbow and guided me over to one of the saddle seats that was a barstool. Gently she took the foam cup from my grip just before the lid was about to pop off. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything.” Her voice cracked.

“Oh, do go on.” I held my finger in the air when Hoss, the bartender and owner of The Watering Hole, walked by. “Shot. Maker’s.”

“Emma.” Cheryl’s voice held shame. “It’s a little too early for a shot.”

“It’s either a shot of whiskey or a shot to Jade’s pretty little head.” My voice fell flat.

“Make it two.” Cheryl lifted her hand and threw her leg over the saddle next to mine.

The bottle clinked when Hoss jerked the Maker’s Mark from the bourbon shelf. He held the bottle on its side, giving a nice, long four-finger pour in one of the bigger shot glasses. He pushed the glasses toward us.

“Go hog wild.” Cheryl held her glass up. I held mine up and we cheered.

“Lift ’em high and drain ’em dry,” I said, bringing the glass to my lips as I threw back my head letting the smooth whiskey slide down my throat.

“Emma, is there anything else you need right now?” Hoss asked from behind the bar. “If not, I need to go out back and meet my vendors. They are here to drop off your wine cases and the other stuff you ordered.”

“No.” I looked back at him and shook my head. “I’m good for right now.” I patted the glass.

“What are your plans?” Cheryl Lynne brushed back her long blond hair and pushed the glass aside.

“I thought I’d have the wine set up over there.” I pointed over to the dartboard area near the front of the bar where the band would be set up. “Then over by the pool tables I figured would be the food table.”

“Not here, I meant with Jade Lee.” Cheryl Lynne had also been a classmate of mine. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and her daddy jumped at the chance of buying the old building in town square when Cheryl Lynne batted her eyes and told him she wanted a fancy coffee shop.

He even sent her to New York City to some sort of barista training. That was how we got Higher Grounds Café. I didn’t mind Cheryl Lynne. She was sweet and harmless, and she wasn’t mean to me in high school.

“Oh.” I rolled my eyes and took another sip of coffee. “Her,” I groaned.

“I just makes me sick how people fall all over her.” Cheryl Lynne leaned up against the counter. “And to think she’s now roped herself into riding with Jack Henry in Beulah Paige’s convertible Cadillac for the parade.”

Instantly I got mad at myself. Here I was letting Jade make me question my relationship with Jack, when I knew he loved me.

I ran my hand down my back pocket to make sure my phone was still back there and not in the car because I sure hadn’t heard from him like I normally did in the morning.

“Jade Lee is a nobody to me or Jack Henry.” I drummed my fingers on the counter.

“Sounds like jealousy,” someone said from the door, their shadow dancing across the old wooden bar floor. The sun streamed in from behind them, blinding me to who it was.

I knew the voice, but didn’t recognize the face.

“Ma’am, we are closed,” Hoss said, hoisting a case of whiskey up on the bar top. He ripped the cardboard open and proceeded to fill his stock.

“Tina Tittle?” My eyes squinted to get a better look as if she weren’t standing a foot in front of me. Or maybe I was digging back deep in my memory to recall the voice, but Tina’s name popped into my head. She and Jade Lee were inseparable.

“The one and only.” Tina twirled around with her hands out to her side. If I hadn’t stepped back, her fingernails would’ve sliced me like a knife. “I knew it was you in here, Emma Lee, when I almost drove right past until I saw that damn hearse of your family’s.”

I let her comment roll off my shoulders. The hearse was a company car. I was in no shape or form going to spend money on a car when I could walk everywhere, mostly everywhere, I needed to go. Most of the time I only drove to pick up dead bodies, part of the job. Not a glamorous part of the job, but part of the job.

“What happened to your face?” It was like Granny said, this reunion had made me lose my manners. “I mean, you look different.”

“That’s what ten years out of a dumpy town like Sleepy Hollow will do for you.” She patted her checks and trotted past me into the guts of the bar. “Not one teeny-tiny sip before I have to drive into that godforsaken town?” She pursed her lips at Hoss and flipped her red hair to the side.

“But your hair is red.” Cheryl Lynne stared at Tina in amazement, noting how Tina’s hair used to be blond like hers.

If I recalled, Tina Tittle used to put lemon juice in her hair and sit under a foil blanket during the summer to bring out what she called her “natural highlights.” There was nothing natural on her now.

“Honey, you can have any hair color you want out in the real world.” Tina dragged her finger down the bar, moving closer to Hoss. She put that finger in the air. “One, teeny-tiny sip.” She winked.

“Emma, is she with the reunion?” he asked under his breath and looked at me from under his brows.

“She is,” I said regrettably, leaving out the fact she and Jade Lee were inseparable in high school. Not only was I going to have to deal with the one, I was going to have to deal with the two.

“What’ll you have?” Hoss’s tone had an edge to it. He was used to getting hit on every single night by women who came into the bar. It was old school for him and not even Tina Tittle was going to catch his eye.

“I’ll have a little Elmer T. on the rocks.” Her Southern accent dripped out of those plumped-up lips.

“So Emma Lee, you still hanging around the dead?” she asked, flinging her coffee-stained pant leg over one of the saddles. She eased up on the leather, putting her jeweled sandals in the stirrups and holding on to the horn.

“I have officially taken the reins from Granny.” I reached for the shot glass, thinking about having another one. Then I realized that there was no amount of alcohol that was going to prepare me for this reunion.

Granny had retired from the funeral home business long after my parents did. They had up and moved to Florida while Granny stayed behind. She now owned and operated The Sleepy Hollow Inn, the only place to stay while visiting Sleepy Hollow.

She was booked to the gills this weekend and I was probably going to have to step up and help her since I didn’t have any clients at either of my jobs.

In fact, summer was always a slow season for the dying. I wasn’t sure why, but that was always how it had worked out. I didn’t have any clients already six-feet deep bugging me either. It was actually kind of nice to feel a little normal, especially since my past few months had been spent trying to get ghosts to the other side.

“And you, little Miss Coffee.” She turned her horns to Cheryl Lynne. Maybe not horns, but I swear if I was to part that fluffy long red hair, I’d find some sticking out of her head. “I see your daddy came through. Again.” Sarcasm dripped from her mouth.

Hoss slid the glass down the bar, landing it perfectly into Tina Tittle’s hands. She grinned and pulled the drink up to her lips, taking the tiniest sip I’d ever seen in the sexiest of ways. The big diamond rings across her hand sparkled even in the dark bar.

“You heard.” Cheryl was much nicer than I was feeling.

Granny was right. This reunion has stripped me of all my filters and sent my manners out the window.

“Of course. Jade Lee was so excited to see there was a real coffee place in town. Unlike the Buy-N-Fly.” She cackled before throwing her head back and letting the entire glass of whiskey slide down her throat. “Speaking of, I’m meeting Jade at Girl’s Best Friend for a spa day.” She threw her leg back over to get off the saddle. She walked past me and wiggled her fingers over her shoulder. “Toodles.”

Cheryl Lynne, Hoss and I stood there with the silence hanging between us, unusual for a honky-tonk bar.

Hoss broke the silence.

“I’ll bet you a hundred dollars those girls are up to no good,” Hoss challenged me. I was too smart to take a bet from a bookie.

“I’ll bet you’re right.” I sucked in a deep breath and kept my eyes on the door, knowing deep down something bad was about to happen.

Chapter 3
“Welcome to Hardgrove’s.” The young receptionist sat at a half-moon desk in the reception area at Hardgrove’s Legacy Center. “How can I help you today?” she asked with a sweet smile on her face.

A soothing jazz number piped through the sound system made me feel a little less stress than I’d had driving here. There was a waterfall in the center of the room behind the receptionist desk, adding to the ambiance along with a sitting area with leather chairs and examples of what types of urns families could purchase for the ashes of their loved one.

“I’m here to see Charlotte Raines.” My sister was the funeral director of this particular location of Hardgrove’s.

We’d known the Hardgroves all of our lives. They too grew up in the funeral home business. We spent all of our vacations together, even though none of us wanted to. During the summers my parents would drag us to funeral conventions and call it a family vacation. Some vacations.

Charlotte and I would spend most of our time in the room or in the hotel arcade room if they had one. We’d see the Hardgrove kids and felt like kindred spirits because they were in the same boat as us.

There were three Hardgrove kids, Gina Marie, Dallas and Darrin.

Their funeral homes had never been in direct competition with us since they were located in several areas of Kentucky—Sleepy Hollow not one of them.

But the day Charlotte Rae left Eternal Slumber to move to Lexington and took up employment with the Hardgrove’s was the first time I’d seen Granny almost needing to be stuck in one of them mental facilities. She about lost her good Southern mind. It was unheard of to leave a family business for someone else’s family business in the same industry. Charlotte Rae not only made our family look bad, it made our business look bad.

Charlotte Rae hem-hawed around about how Hardgrove’s was the new way of funeral home services. A legacy center. Now I could see what she was talking about.

“Do you have an appointment?” the girl asked as her finger scanned down what looked to be an appointment book of some sorts.

“I’m her sister. I wouldn’t think I’d need an appointment to see family.” I glared at the girl.

She obviously didn’t know how to act in a small town, not that Lexington was all that small, but still she was living here and should’ve known that you didn’t need an appointment to see someone.

The girl grabbed the phone and punched in some numbers.

“Do dead people ring you up and tell you they are about to die and their family will be contacting you?” I grumbled under my breath. My patience had been worn thin and I was hoping to find some sort of comfort in talking to my sister.

“Emma Lee”—Charlotte Rae emerged from someplace behind the water fountain—“I’m so glad you are here.”

I looked over at the girl. Her head was already buried into something else on her desk.

“Are you here about that old colonial inlaid sideboard?” Charlotte was dressed in an emerald green suit. It matched her long red hair and fair skin perfectly. I glanced down. My sweatpants and sweatshirt probably weren’t what I should’ve worn here, but it was on a whim that I had come.

“The sideboard in the entrance of Eternal Slumber?” I asked, a bit confused.

“Or not.” She crossed her arms and curled her perfectly manicured nails around her arms.

Of the two of us, Charlotte Rae had been dipped in the better end of our gene pool. She needed little effort to look as good as she did. I, on the other hand, had to get by with some makeup and good manners. She was the pretty one; I was the nice one. At least that was how people referred to us when we were growing up.

I’ll never forget the one time we were teenagers and helping in the funeral home and an old geezer came up to me. He said, “Your sister Charlotte Rae sure did get your Granny’s good looks. Emma Lee, you are just like your daddy. Awfully sweet.”

I wasn’t sure, but I think it was an insult.

“What about the sideboard?” I asked. No amount of softly playing music was going to take this stress away.

Charlotte Rae’s eyes shifted. “Have you taken your medication lately?” she asked.

“Don’t give me that,” I warned. She and Granny were always on me about the little pill Doc Clyde had prescribed for me to help keep the crazies away since they thought I had the “Funeral Trauma.” “You tell me what you are talking about.”

She opened a door and stepped inside. It was the biggest office I had ever seen. The sun swirled in the reception area from the large windows and I swear the bright light created a nice little halo around pretty little redheaded Charlotte Rae.

“Can I get you something to drink or eat?” she asked, using her good manners.

“No.” I had come to get some big-sister advice on how to deal with the reunion. The sideboard comment had thrown me off guard and I was about to pounce. The soft music was really pleasant and drew me out of my thoughts. “Maybe I should play music at Eternal Slumber.”

“On that old sound system.” Charlotte Rae harrumphed. She was right. The volume button on the sound system at Eternal Slumber had to stay between the numbers three and four. If the knob was under three, there was no sound. And above four it was crackly.

“It’s a thought.” I shrugged, not completely discounting the possibility of having music play. Of course I’d have to check the budget and see if it’s even financially possible. That had been Charlotte’s job before she left me high and dry. She was in charge of all the financials of Eternal Slumber while I took care of the arrangements by making sure everything went as planned.

“This sure is a fancy place.” I looked around, trying not to sound so envious.

She laughed. “It truly is the way of the future. A legacy center. I told Granny that you two should think about opening something like this on the outskirts of town.”

“Granny says there is nothing fittin’ about having baptisms, wedding showers and funerals all under one roof.” No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get Granny to come see Charlotte at Hardgrove’s. Not even a bribe worked. “Besides, Granny said that old man Hardgrove was probably rolling over in his grave at what his grandchildren have done.”

When in fact, what the grandchildren had done would likely have quite the opposite effect. Hardgrove’s Legacy Center wasn’t just a funeral home. Gina Marie Hardgrove being the driving force, not to mention the brains, behind the new and improved funeral home business.

“Or he’s laughing all the way to the bank.” Charlotte shrugged.

Hardgrove’s had opened up what Gina Marie called Legacy Centers all over Kentucky. They were nice big buildings with several different conference-type rooms. It was the darndest thing I’d ever heard. The Legacy Center wasn’t just for funerals; people could rent out the rooms for all sorts of stuff. They even had party planners, but not Charlotte Rae. She was strictly the undertaker of this location and only handled the funerals.

“Let’s get back to the sideboard.” I was curious to see what she was talking about.

“It’s nothing.” She batted her hand at me. “I’m sure Granny will discuss it with you.”

“I’m right here.” My head tilted to the side. The big diamond on her middle finger about blinded me. I used my finger and gestured between us. “Why don’t we just talk about it right now.”

“I was going to let Granny handle it, but if you insist.” She smiled and flailed that diamond in the air. Charlotte Rae had a way of flaunting without actually saying it out loud and waving her hand around like a flag on a windy day was her way of showing off the big rock. “Granny always said the sideboard was mine and I’d like to go ahead and take it.”

“Take it?” I asked, swearing she’d just aged me ten years. She nodded her pretty little head up and down. “Take it? As in away from Eternal Slumber?”

There wasn’t a time I could recall that the sideboard wasn’t sitting where it was sitting today. Even when my mamma had the carpet pulled tight. “Don’t be going and moving the sideboard,” Mamma told the carpet men. “It’s bad luck to move key pieces of furniture in a funeral home.” The sideboard had been there long before I was and was a beautiful antique.

“You honestly think that Granny is going to go along with it? And me?” I pointed to myself.

“It is mine.” Charlotte folded her arms and curled her hands around her biceps.

“When Granny is dead!” I banged my hand on Charlotte’s desk. Instead of shaking the sting out of my hand, I fisted it. “And she’s nowhere near being stuck in the ground.”

I was so mad, I had forgotten what I’d come here for. I stood up; Charlotte did too. I stalked out of her office and down the hall.

The thought that Charlotte would want her inheritance before Granny was dead infuriated me. Charlotte and I were definitely not cut from the same cloth. She was always worried about her appearance, which was probably put on her by the community—everyone always telling her how pretty she was, while my greatest compliment was how nice I was. I’m sure it was hard for Charlotte to live up to her God-given looks all the time.

I turned and faced the sliding entrance doors.

“By the way,” I jerked my head around once I reached the front of the building. “I didn’t insist, I suggested we talk about the sideboard. I merely suggested it since I was here. Now I regret it.”

“Cremated.” Charlotte’s chin dipped; she stared at me with those green eyes.

“What?” My face contorted. I glared at her.

“Granny’s wishes are to be cremated.” She smiled with cruel confidence.

My mouth opened. I snapped it shut. Turning on the balls of my feet, I marched out the door and slammed it behind me.

end of excerpt