Whose Midlife Crisis Is It Anyway?
GOOD TO THE LAST DEATH BOOK TWO
Robyn Peterman
Robyn Peterman
Copyright © 2020 by Robyn Peterman
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.
This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.
Cover design by JJ's Design & Creations
Edited by Kelli Collins
Contents
Acknowledgments
More In The Good To The Last Death Series
Book Description
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
More In The Good To The Last Death Series
Robyn’s Book List
Note From The Author
About Robyn Peterman
Praise for Robyn Peterman
“Daisy’s life has been turned upside down, and we get to watch the aftermath. Prepare to root for a new heroine. You’ll fall in love with this hilarious hoyden and all of the hot water she dives into. Head first! Masterful and heartwarming, don’t let this one get away!”
—NY Times Bestselling Author Darynda Jones
“Brilliant and so relatable! I laughed, I cried, I swooned, and I sighed. Heavily. Robyn Peterman has her finger on the pulse of midlife madness, and I can’t get enough.”
— USA Today Bestselling Author, Renee George
“I’d read the phone book if Robyn Peterman wrote it! It’s A Wonderful Midlife Crisis is a home run of hilarious, heartwarming paranormal fun. Midlife’s a journey. Enjoy the ride. Crisis included… Read it!”
— Mandy M. Roth, NY Times & USA TODAY Bestselling Author
“Hilarious, heartbreaking, magical and addictive! No one can turn a midlife crisis upside down quite like Robyn Peterman. A stay-up-all-night novel that will have you begging for more.”
— Michelle M. Pillow, New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author
Acknowledgments
This series has been in my head for two years. It took a call and a nudge from Shannon Mayer to make me pull the file out and finish book one. Now you’re getting book two! Each word was a joy to write and I owe Shannon for yanking me into the Paranormal Women’s Fiction group. Playing in a sandbox with strong talented women who have each other’s backs is a rare and special experience.
As always, while writing is a solitary experience getting a book into the world is a group project.
The PWF 13 Gals — Thank you for a wild ride. You rock.
Renee — Thank you for all your support, your friendship, your formatting expertise and for being the best Cookie ever. You saved my butt on this one. Forever in your debt.
Wanda — Thank you for knowing what I mean even when I don’t. LOL You are the best and this writing business wouldn’t be any fun without you. You make the journey more fun.
Kelli — Thank you for saving me from scary grammar mistakes. You rock. And thank you for letting me be late. LOL
Nancy, Susan and Candace — Thank you for being kickass betas. You are all wonderful.
Jay — Thank you. Your cover captured what was in my mind perfectly.
Mom — Thank you for listening to me hash out the plot and for giving me brilliant ideas. You really need to write a book!
Mandy — You rock hard! So happy I can call you my friend.
Steve, Henry and Audrey — Thank you. The three of you are my world. Without you, none of this would make sense. I love you.
Dedication
This one is for the over-forty gals because we ROCK!
More In The Good To The Last Death Series
ORDER BOOK THREE NOW!
Midlife's a bumpy journey. The ride is a freaking rollercoaster. The crisis is real.
With my life back to normal--normal being a very relative word--one would think I'd catch a break.
One would be very wrong.
With an Angel gunning for me and a Demon in my bed, life couldn't be more complicated. Not to mention, I'm going to have to make a rather large life choice.
Do I want to live forever?
Does anyone? Forever is a very long time.
Whatever. I'll think about it tomorrow... or next week... or next month. As long as I have my girlfriends, my dogs, a super-sized case of merlot and my deceased squatters, I'm good to go.
My midlife crisis. My rules. If it doesn't kill me dead first, I plan to have a most excellent midlife crisis.
Book Description
Whose Midlife Crisis Is It Anyway?
Midlife’s a journey. Enjoy the ride. Crisis included.
Never knew that life after death was far more dangerous than real life.
Never in my forty years did I think my new normal would be gluing body parts back onto ghosts and hosting a houseful of dead squatters. Thank God for superglue and a strong stomach.
Never thought I’d date the Grim Reaper and that I would be the one to blow it. I mean, how idiotic does one have to be to get dumped by a dude who lives in Hell?
Going about business as usual is not usual in any way. No one is who they seem to be… and to be honest, neither am I. What I’d known to be true has turned out to be myth. The Angels are frightening and the Demons are hot. Wait. I mean not. Who am I kidding? The Grim Reaper is very hot—like a freaking pre-menopausal hot flash hot.
Now I’m in a race against time and all sorts of unsavory supernatural horrors to save my deceased gay husband’s afterlife. And that was a sentence I never thought would leave my lips.
Whatever. I’ll yank up my big girl panties, stock up on wine and lean on my girlfriends as needed. As they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get inebriated… or something like that.
With everything to lose, I have no choice but to grow some lady balls. That I can do. I just hope balls will be enough.
I had planned to live midlife in peace, not in pieces.
Good luck to me…
Prologue
Heather stood in the doorway of my bedroom with an expression of shock on her face. She bent down and scooped up a handful of black crystals. They slipped through her fingers and floated back to the floor.
“Can you do anything for him?” I asked hoarsely.
I’d cried so hard my voice sounded like I’d swallowed shards of glass. It had taken Heather a half hour to get to the farmhouse. When she found me on the floor in the fetal position sobbing, she’d freaked out. Trying to explain to her what had happened was impossible. Instead, I took
her to my bedroom and showed her Steve.
My best friend.
The man I’d been married to when he was alive.
The man who’d come back as a ghost to tell me he was gay, and to help me find someone to love me the way I deserved to be loved.
“Oh God,” she gasped out as she approached the bed and looked at him. She put her hand over her mouth and tried not to cry.
“I need your help.”
“You stopped the darkness from taking him,” Heather whispered, flabbergasted. “How?”
Gideon had asked the very same question. Had no one ever stopped the darkness?
“I quit my job,” I said. “I’m no longer a Death Counselor.”
“Yet you can still see Steve?” she asked.
My gut clenched in terror for a moment, and I thought I might throw up. Gram couldn’t see the dead since she was no longer the Death Counselor.
My head whipped to the bed. Steve was there—I could see him. My cry of relief was primal and guttural. It sounded strange to my own ears. But strange had become par for the course. All that mattered was that I could see him. I wasn’t sure what it meant as far as the rules went, but I didn’t care. I was grateful that I still had the ability.
“Yes,” I choked out. “I see him.”
Heather eyed me for a long moment and shook her head. “Daisy, there is no one like you. No one.”
“Not sure if that’s good or bad,” I replied, moving to Steve and sitting next to him.
He looked awful, but Heather didn’t comment or act repulsed. That was a relief. Even though Heather was one of my dearest friends, I would have kicked her ass. Steve could hear us. He was in enough agony. He didn’t need to be made aware of his revolting appearance.
“Can you help me send him into the light?” I asked.
Heather tilted her head and gave me an odd look. “Why would you think I could help you send Steve into the light?”
The cryptic games were wearing on me, but I would play along. Maybe this was how it worked.
“You’re the Angel of Mercy. You send people into the light.”
Heather paled and sat down on a chair. “I’m not the Angel of Mercy.”
“Yes, you are. You have to be,” I insisted, glaring at her. “You can see the dead like I can and talk to them. You are the Angel of Mercy. Stop playing games. I need you to help me send Steve into the light. I’ll give you anything you want. I just need your help.”
“Oh God, Daisy.” Heather’s chin fell to her chest. “You have it all wrong.”
“Have what wrong?” I asked as a feeling of dread washed over me.
“Every good story has a major plot twist,” she said slowly, growing more agitated with each word.
“Go on,” I said, not liking the direction of the conversation, but knowing I needed to hear it.
“The Grim Reaper—Gideon—sends souls in question into the light, and the Angel of Mercy sends them to the darkness—opposite of what you might assume,” she explained. “It’s been that way since the beginning of time. It’s for balance and to eliminate conflict of interest.”
“Don’t,” I said. “Do not screw with me.”
Heather stood and began to pace the room. “I’m not,” she whispered. “I would never do that to you.”
The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. Gideon had not lied to me. Steve had tried to tell me, and I didn’t understand. I had been warned by the other ghosts that everything was not as it seemed. Gideon had not sent Steve into the darkness—and I was the biggest idiot alive.
I couldn’t even comprehend what I’d done by sending Gideon away, and right now wasn’t the time to rip myself a new one.
Had Heather done this to Steve?
That didn’t seem right, but it was the only option left. My body trembled violently. I didn’t know how much more I could take.
“Why?” I asked. “Why would you do this?”
Heather stopped in confusion and looked at me. “Daisy, I didn’t do this.”
Fury consumed me. It had happened. I witnessed it. I was there. Someone had to be responsible. If it wasn’t Gideon and it wasn’t Heather, who was it?
“Fine,” I said harshly. “I’ll play along. If you’re not the Angel of Mercy, who in the hell is?”
“Clarissa,” Heather replied. “Clarissa is the Angel of Mercy.”
The need to scream or destroy something was overwhelming. Sitting still wasn’t going to work. I’d implode.
Hopping off the bed, I stripped off my clothes and yanked on running gear.
Clarissa had warned me. She had warned me to my face and I didn’t get it.
The bitch had destroyed me in every way possible, and I’d played right into her plans. I’d banished the man I was in love with and destroyed my best friend in the process.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I ground out between clenched teeth, wanting to put my fist through the wall. “From their titles, I would think the Grim Reaper was the bad guy and the Angel of Mercy was the good one. Even with what you told me they do, this makes no sense. Clarissa is the damned definition of evil.”
“Nothing is black or white,” Heather said, running her hands through her hair and closing her eyes. “The simplest way to explain it is that Clarissa is a Heavenly Angel—so to speak—and Gideon is a Demon… or a fallen Angel. Bad people do good things and good people do bad things. Existence is a shade of gray. Living forever takes its toll on people.”
“I’d hardly call them people. People don’t live forever,” I snapped.
Heather opened her eyes and leveled me with a stare. “What would you call me?”
Meeting her gaze, I was at a loss. I had no idea. My understanding of just about everything was completely screwed.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” I said emotionlessly. “I don’t even know.”
Turning my back on her, I walked over to Steve and gently tucked the covers around him. It made no difference. I was aware he felt no real physical pain, but it helped me. Quickly pulling a copy of my will from the safe under the bed, I thrust the papers into Heather’s hands.
“Everything goes to Gram,” I said. “Make sure it happens, please.”
“What are you going to do?” Heather asked, alarmed.
“I fucked up, Heather.”
Her expression would have made me laugh if the situation wasn’t so dire. I never dropped the F-bomb. I’d never dropped one in my life. However, the F-bomb was merited now. Tons of F-bombs were merited.
“Talk to me. Please,” she insisted.
“What are you?” I asked as I tied my tennis shoe and broke a lace in my rage.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are you?” I snapped, getting frustrated and grabbing another pair of running shoes. “You’re not the Grim Reaper and you’re not the Angel of Mercy. What are you?”
Heather only paused for a moment. “I’m the Arbitrator. I’m the Arbitrator between Heaven and Hell.”
“They exist?” I demanded. “Heaven and Hell are real? God and Satan are real?”
“Depends on your definition, but yes,” she told me.
I didn’t have time to even get into that right now. I had an Angel of Mercy to eliminate.
“Daisy,” Heather said in a worried tone. “Tell me what you’re planning to do.”
“I’m going to kill Clarissa,” I said so calmly, Heather blanched. “In the space of several hours, I’ve destroyed my entire life. And she warned me. The piece of shit warned me and I didn’t listen.”
“Daisy, that’s not allowed,” Heather said, putting her hand on my arm.
“She tried to send Steve to the darkness based on a lie and her hatred of me,” I hissed. “I should just forget about that?”
“No.” Heather pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose and sighed. “No, you shouldn’t, but…”
I stopped for a moment and tried to make sense of my thoughts so I could make Heather understand why this was the only
way. I knew Steve wouldn’t get better. In my act of saving him, I might have very well sentenced him to a life of nothingness.
“Heather, I just banished Gideon from my life because I blamed him for what happened to Steve,” I said flatly.
“Gideon didn’t try to defend himself?” she questioned, startled.
I shook my head and laughed. It was a hollow, ugly laugh. “He tried. I wouldn’t listen. Seems like that’s a pattern for me lately. Hence, I systematically just decimated any chance of happiness I’ll ever have. It’s gone. I have myself to thank for that—not Clarissa. She started the ball rolling. I grabbed it and ran it in for a touchdown. However, she played with Steve’s fate because she was jealous of Gideon and me. She’ll pay for that. And for what she did, she dies.”
“Sit down,” Heather demanded. “Now.”
“I’ll give you five minutes,” I said, still standing. “If you want to represent me in my murder trial, I’d appreciate it. You’ll probably lose and that might not be good for business. I’ll understand if you don’t want me for a client. However, I am going to kill her and it’s completely premeditated.”
Whose Midlife Crisis Is It Anyway? : A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel: Good To The Last Death Book Two Page 1
