Messy Mandy Presents the Lunchtime Chronicles
A Yummy sub
The Lunchtime Chronicles
OLIVIA GAINES
Davonshire House Publishing
PO Box 9716
Augusta, GA 30916
THIS BOOK IS A WORK of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely a coincidence.
© 2019 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin
Copy Editor: Teri Thompson Blackwell
Cover: Wicked Smart Designs
Olivia Gaines Make Up and Photograph by Latasla Gardner Photography
ASIN:
ISBN:
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 9 8
First Davonshire House Publishing November 2019
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to all the readers who need to sit down and escape from the day to day hustle of living. I invite to turn the page and sit down in the possibility of hope. It springs eternal. This book is for you.
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“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To all the fans, friends and supporters of the dream as well as the Facebook community of writers who keep me focused, inspired and moving forward.
Write On!
Also by Olivia Gaines
The Men of Endurance Series
A Walk Through Endurance: Olivia Gaines & Siera London
A Return to Endurance By Olivia Gaines & Siera London
The Art of Persistence
Intervals of Love
Enduring Emily
An Enduring Christmas – Winter 2019
The Technicians Series
Blind Date
Blind Hope
Blind Luck
Love Thy Neighbor Series
Walking the Dawg: A Novella
Through the Woods: A Novella
Life of the Party: A Novella
Modern Mail-Order Brides
North to Alaska
Montana
Oregon Trails
Wyoming Nights
On a Rainy Night in Georgia
Bleu, Grass, Bourbon
Buckeye and the Babe
The Tennessee Mountain Man
Stranded in Arizona
The Zelda Diaries
It Happened Last Wednesday
A Frickin' Fantastic Friday
A Tantalizing Tuesday
A Marvelous Monday
A Saucy Sunday
A Sensual Saturday
My Thursday Throwback
Slivers of Love Series
The Deal Breaker
Naima's Melody
Santa's Big Helper
The Christmas Quilts
Friends with Benefits
The Cost to Play
A Menu for Loving
Thursdays in Savannah
Table of Contents
Chapter One – Rest in Peace
Chapter Two – An Amuse Bouche
Chapter Three – I’ve Got the Bread
Chapter Four – Cheese – Cheesing, & Cheesy
Chapter Five – Lettuce Pray
Chapter Six – Tomato...Ta-ma-toe
Chapter Seven – Condiments
Chapter Eight – Loads of Meat
Red Light Special
Chapter 1
Chapter One – Rest in Peace
Gina Bradshaw Maslow, wife and mother, passed peacefully at her home in Dunwoody, Georgia, survived by her two estranged children, a second husband, and a cat named Mr. Whiskers. By all accounts, her passing should have been a celebration of her home going had it not been for the bitter obituary written by her eldest child, Margret, who submitted a harsh epitaphic homage filled with family secrets and the snarky recriminations of a spiteful child still angry at her mother for abandoning Margret and her brother. Margret Maslow’s ugly words weren’t an anomaly flittering across the desktop of the gatekeeper of epitaphs; she was just another angry child, lashing out at a dead person.
Wyatt Miland, Obituary Editor for the Atlanta Herald, eyeballed in horror the submission on the computer screen. In the 13 years he’d headed up the department, never had a tribute to a mother irritated him as much as this one. His day wasn’t going well as he looked down in frustration at the next piece of bad news from an employee, who had been an obituary writer in his department for many years. Today, Ben Richardson decided to tender his resignation on a piece of scrap paper. The shitty note, hand scribbled and taped to his door, announcing the fact that his right-hand writer had called in and tendered his resignation, leaving him one staff member short and the work pile building incrementally, the day was souring as the minutes ticked by.
“This will never do,” Wyatt grumbled as he picked up the phone to call the Human Resources Department.
Catherine Eldin, the HR Manager, was a witch, a certified, broom-riding, cauldron boiling, potion brewing pain in his rectum type of sorceress who would go out of her way to make him even more miserable; if such a thing were possible. She was also his ex-wife’s best friend and the woman who had introduced them, believing herself to be the ideal match maker. Stacey Dunn Miland, his former spouse, was indeed a lovely woman with a penchant for stray cats who had once, intellectually stirred his soul. Mentally, she was undeniably a crazy cat lady. The 4,000 square foot home she and Wyatt shared for seven years slowly became overrun with cats that his wife refused to spay or neuter. The mewling collection of stinky little fur balls took pleasure in shredding the pair of 18th Century Italian painted Fauteuils Florence armchairs which had been the pride of his collection of furniture pieces.
“Stacey,” he pleaded, “there are entirely too many cats in this house. Either the cats will have to be rehomed, or one of us will have to find somewhere else to live.”
“Wyatt, are you implying that it will need to be you or my babies?”
“In a word, Stacey, yes,” he replied. “I can understand keeping one or two, but there are over 20 cats in this house, which is 18 too many.”
“Then I hope you find you a nice place to live,” Stacey said, as she held an overfed orange tabby.
He stood shocked at her lack of realization about their current living arrangement. Wyatt swallowed hard twice, hoping the actuality of the circumstance would materialize over her head like a bright ball of humility. He waited and finally had to state the obvious.
“You do realize this is my house, which means you are the one who has to leave?” Wyatt said with all sincerity.
“You would put me out of our home?” Stacey asked in feigned shock.
“Shit, you were going to put me out and keep my home as a refuge for your cat hostel and now you want to be concerned?” he asked softly.
It had never been his intention to hurt her in any way, but over the years, the changes in her behavior progressed from mildly quirky to a need for psychiatric care. It wasn’t just the 20 cats, but also a progressive shift in her view of the world that left them on opposite ends of the conversation spectrum. Conversations which were once bright and spirited, now, were just, numbing.
“So, this is how we end?” Stacey asked with a wry smile.
Her hair raised on ends like a mad woman as she stood in front of him wearing a dirty skirt stained with cat fur and heaven knew wha
t else. A woman he once loved with everything in him had slowly grown into a stranger who slept across the hall from him cuddled up with at least 10 cats. Over the years, the more cats that joined them in the bed, the less he wanted to share the space with them, opting to sleep in a downstairs bedroom, labeled off limits to any resident with more than two legs. The intimacy between them died long before the death of the marriage, and in the end, he was more relieved to be free than willing to find a solution.
“I wish we could be better,” Wyatt said, taking a step towards her only to be halted by a hissing pussy. It was sad that the only pussy he’d had in his bed had been one of the wayward cats that had snuck its way into his bedroom one evening when he left the door ajar. “I wish you wanted to get better.”
“I’m just fine, you asshole,” she said, hissing along with the cat. “There is nothing wrong with me. Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe the issue is you? A man who writes obituaries for a living isn’t really on the normal spectrum either!”
“Stacey, if you are willing to seek counseling again, I’m willing to go with you,” he said and offered a hand that she slapped away.
“I don’t need counseling. What I need is to get the hell away from you!” she screamed at the top of her lungs and then called her best friend Catherine, the same woman he was now dreading calling, a woman who hated his guts not for the dissolution of the relationship she had labored to put together, but a reason he understood all too well. She wasn’t angry at the breakdown of a marriage she worked tirelessly to help plan or the heartbreak of her friend when the divorce papers arrived, terminating the marriage. Catherine Eldin hated his guts because Stacey had moved in with her and brought along her 20 cats. Last he heard, she’d added a few more to the Eldin’s sprawling home, which now reeked of cat urine and a hearty display of ripped drapery.
Wyatt swallowed hard as he punched in the number for Human Resources, and Catherine’s tart voice answered the line.
“Wyatt, how may I help you?” Catherine said through tight lips.
“Ben Richardson, my Senior Writer, called in and tendered his resignation this morning, and I could use some help in my department,” he said.
“The budget is pretty tight, but Ben’s departure gives us a bit of wiggle room,” Catherine replied, looking over his department’s stats. He’d always been cognizant of his budget and bottom line, which she appreciated, but the change in her friend from being a quirky, fun-loving person to a crazy cat woman who broke down crying at the drop of a hat she attributed to Wyatt Miland. “The best I can do right now, Wyatt, is a temp.”
“Then a temp it shall be,” he mumbled, “but can you please ensure they have sufficient writing experience? I don’t need an idealistic millennial who wants to cry from editing death notices.”
“You seem to have an uncanny knack for making people either cry or leave you,” she cast at him, feeling better for thrusting the jab into his unseen ribs.
“Better to be in tears from emotions than be in tears from cat dander,” he said, disconnecting the line. “Shit, that’s gonna cost me.”
Catherine, although a professional, was a spiteful woman. Her anger could be felt radiating through the line, but it wasn’t his fault she had intervened, preventing Stacey from getting the help she desperately needed. Moving her into the Eldin home was not an answer to a long-term problem, but a short-term fix for a long-standing issue.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been impacted by the decision. Sitting behind his desk, the temples of his black hair grayed more and more each day as he stared at the calendar on the wall. The countdown had begun to the end of his shift, and the day when a new butt would fill his seat, reviewing the words written about his life and closing out the last of his journey. Wyatt didn’t want this to be the end of his story or the last entry in the journal of his life. At the age of 52, he had no children, at least none that he knew of. Marrying later in life at 45, slowed the prospects of his chances for a family, but he had married a younger woman, hoping to start a life that he had saved all his extra pennies to enjoy.
Seven years later, he had progressed no further in the pursuit of leaving more to this world other than his words. He desired an intellectual woman with whom to converse on cool evenings, an eccentric personality to laugh at the irreverent moments, and a bit of an alley cat to scratch up his back at night. However, today the only thing he had was a sad, bitter obituary for the recently departed Gina Maslow, who was married in 1967 to Brenton Maslow and gave birth to two children, Margret and James. Five years later, she left Brenton for his brother Rudolph, and abandoned her children for a life in England.
This would never do. Every life, whether he agreed with how a person chose to live their time on earth, was afforded on paper at least an unbiased send-off. Life and death were separated by a fine line, and the material in between was recapped in seven lines or less. That was his job, a professional summarizer of a life lived in seven lines or less, highlighting the better parts of human nature and closing the book on bad behaviors. Everyone wants to be remembered fondly, even if they were never good to be around in real life. Wyatt didn’t believe in over exaggerating flowery words of remembrance, but a graceful closure to the imprint of a soul in the world.
The replacement for Ben Richardson needed to understand that. The job was about grace. At this point in his day, he needed some grace. Instead, in the afternoon just as the hour struck one, Catherine sent to his office the devil in a pair of blue slacks that clung to every fine curve in the woman’s body.
Wyatt couldn’t help but notice since the moment she walked through the door, every nerve in his body went on high alert, kicking up his testosterone level and demanding his balls wake up and take an active part in the signals his eyes were sending to his brain. As much as he wanted to stand and shake the woman’s hand, he couldn’t. The current state of his body from the waist down wouldn’t allow him the honor of getting to his feet to be a gentleman.
“Mr. Miland, I am Jeffrí Jones, your temp while you search for a replacement for your Senior Writer,” she said through perfect lips that made him want to reach across his desk and suck on her chin. The face was familiar and he knew the name. She was even lovelier in person than on the screen; the jagged scar included.
“Ms. Jones, glad to have you on board,” he said with a calm voice, although his body screamed for him to jump up, hit the woman in the head, and drag her to a closet and have his way with her. “Take a seat in the empty office to the left, go through the inbox on the desk, and sort the entries, and I will come and walk you through the rest.”
“Oh, okay,” Jeffrí said, giving Wyatt Miland a once over. “You know who I am?”
“Of course, I do, Ms. Jones, and I am pleased to have you here,” he lied, swallowing hard. “Again, allow me to wrap up a few things, and I will be right there to get you started.”
He lowered his eyes to his desk as she walked away. Jeffrí Jones, the famous news anchor who covered wars in the Middle East, was now the sub in the Editorial Department of the Atlanta Herald’s Obituary Team. The scar across the right side of her face, earned from a rogue rocket propelled grenade known as an RPG and, the slight twitch of her right hand were a reminder of the nerve injuries, but the light in her eye only reminded Wyatt that she was still a very desirable woman.
“Of all the damned places for her to want to start writing again, she had to choose here,” he cursed under his breath.
The new sub was a blessing and a curse. For the first time since his divorce, he felt something for a woman, which was his blessing. The curse was everything he felt was below the belt and it was going to be a test of his soul to have a conversation with her face to face or side by side. He had to get control of himself before going anywhere near the woman.
It was easier said than done. For years, he’d admired her on the small screen. Sadly, he programmed his DVR to catch her live reports and secretly, he’d had a crush on the ebony skinned journalist
for years. And here she was. In his office. Working under him as a temp for an Obituary Writer.
“Damn it,” he mumbled, trying deep breathing exercises.
Wyatt Miland was a trained journalist with a nose for a good scoop. That woman, with her sexy lips, juicy hips, and jagged facial scar had awakened the dormant desire in his libido. Working with her side by side was going to challenge his professional ethics as her supervisor. The problem was, the man was looking forward to every minute of whatever tasty delights the lady was bringing to the table. All he needed was a napkin and a fork to enjoy a sample of what the yummy sub had to offer.
Wyatt was ready.
Chapter Two – An Amuse Bouche
“This is really happening,” Jeffrí Jones mumbled as she took a seat behind the old wooden desk. Pieces of paper with dates, notes, and scraps of former lives littered the top of the workspace. The inbox overflowed with requests from individuals desiring to post a notification of the end of the grains of sand falling in the hourglass of a loved one’s time on earth. Jeffrí never understood the notification process in public records other than offering an easier means of finding vacant apartments and land for sale. Old friends and family searched the databases for former loves, thumbing through the silt for traces of former granules in lives once shared.
The desk reminded her of the life she had formerly led. Bits and pieces of information, but not really a full snapshot of the existence which once made up her world. As a former foreign correspondent for BNN News, Jeffrí’s job required the journalist to be embedded with the boots on the ground, immersed in the movement of troops to get the real story. For many years, it had been her life, the only life, which robbed her of actually having a life. The words flowed across televisions screens spit out by the dark face with the million-dollar smile who spoke of facts and truths. A story by Jeffrí Jones would break news around the world. A journalist heralded as the consummate source of information on the real status of crisis in the Middle East. However, Jeffrí’s personal story was lost in translation.
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