Page 10 of Having the Time of My Midlife

“Will do,” my sister said, taking Missy’s hand in hers. She turned to me and reached her other hand out. I took it. “You’ve got this, Daisy.”

“I do,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

With a quick squeeze and a kiss to my cheek, Heather and Missy transported away in an icy blue mist.

Candy moved to June next and examined her toothpick. “June, you’re goin’ to the farmhouse with the others.”

“Well, shoot,” June said with a sigh. “I was hoping to be able to help.”

Candy Vargo leaned in and hugged June. She liked June. Hell, everybody liked June. She was one of the kindest people I knew. “You will be helpin’. All them ghosts need a steady presence like you. The rest of them going over there except Amelia are batshit.”

“We can hear you,” Gabe pointed out.

Candy cackled. “Yep, I know.”

“And on that lovely note,” Abby said with a raised brow and a naughty smirk. “I say we leave before this chat degenerates into name calling, which would lead to violence and might even end with… a little cannibalism.”

“FOR FUCKS SAKE,” Candy Vargo bellowed. “I eat people one fuckin’ time, and no one can let it go.”

I winced and closed my eyes. The relationship between Candy and my Angel siblings was iffy at best. Gabe, Prue, Abby and Rafe had been eaten by Candy centuries ago. Granted, they’d tried to destroy her on Zadkiel’s dastardly orders, and she’d apparently done what she had to do being legless and armless. To this day, I couldn’t comprehend how my two sisters and two brothers were actually alive. The logistics were mind-boggling and stomach-churning. Part of me wantedthe particulars, but my sense of self-preservation and my aversion to puking stopped me. Some things were better left unexplained.

“Shall we?” Rafe said, glancing up at the ghosts.

The garbled replies were affirmative. In less time than it took to blink, Gabe, Rafe, Abby, Prue, Tory, Amelia, Zander, Catriona and June, along with the gaggle of ghosts, disappeared.

The great room was far less crowded. However, not all the ghosts had left. The three of them remaining made sense. Dimple, Jolly Sue and Lura Belle had come back to give me the message. Having them here was smart. However, there were two that I wanted gone. I knew we needed to hear the verdict on Jennifer’s toothpick, but I had some business to deal with first.

“Gram, you and Mr. Jackson need to leave.”

“Daisy girl, I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Gram informed me in the voice she used when I was a teenager and wanted to move my curfew out much later than the one she’d given me.

I hadn’t won then, but I would win now.

“You’re going,” I corrected her.

She raised a ghostly brow and crossed her skinny arms over her chest. “I was the Death Counselor before you, and I know a thing or two about it.”

I shook my head. “Gram, I want you safe. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“But you’re willin’ to put yourself at risk to figure it out?” she challenged.

I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. “That’s kind of my job.”

“And you’re my job, little missy,” she shot back.

Gram was a force to be reckoned with, but I was up for the reckoning. “I can’t lose you. That terrifies me.”

She smiled and cupped my cheek with her cool, papery hand. “Oh darlin’, shared joy means twice the joy. Shared fear meanshalf the fear. Ain’t no man or woman is an island. As my foul-mouthed chosen daughter says, don’t fuck with fate. If you’re given a gift, take it and say thank you. I’m your gift, baby girl.”

I almost swallowed my tongue. Gram did not use the F-bomb. Ever. The old gal wasn’t playing.

“I think I said don’t fuckin’ fuck with fate,” Candy Vargo volunteered.

Gram groaned. “You did. I was tryin’ to make it a little less offensive.”

“My bad,” Candy muttered with a grin.

“I should say so,” Gram retorted. “And wipe that there grin off your face, or I’m gonna tie your knickers in a knot, Candy Vargo. That’s the only dang time you’re gonna hear the F-bomb from my mouth.”

---