WG2E All-For-Indies Anthologies: Viva La Valentine Edition (24 page)

For twenty-seven years Buck Buchanan
conducted major investigations for the state of Florida. His cases
ranged from homicide and narcotics smuggling to white-collar crime
and official corruption. When he started spending more time
fighting the system than the criminals, he hung up his badge. Today
he maintains a small law enforcement consulting practice but
devotes most of his time to civic works and writing. He conducts
popular writers’ workshops in South Florida, edits books for
several published authors, and writes crime fiction based on those
cases he worked. He also writes zany prize-winning short stories
such as the one in this anthology.

By Sheila Seabrook

One

Twenty-nine year old Amanda Goodwin felt like
a Valentine Grinch. As she pointed her car north to make the drive
from Spokane to her parents’ house, the commercialism of the
holiday blared from the radio.

Spend one hundred dollars and enter your
name to win our Valentine’s Day thousand dollar shopping spree!

This Valentine’s Day, give the one you love
the most expensive piece of jewelry on the market!

Blah, blah, blah.

Outside the car, fog swirled through the
darkness and dimmed the glow from the headlights. By the time she
turned off the highway into the tiny west coast village of
Cranberry Cove, enormous snowflakes had drifted down from the sky
and covered the ground with a white blanket of snow.

Cranberry Cove rarely got snow in
mid-February, but a cold front had settled in the region to give
the residents one last blast of winter.

Amanda inched the car over the slippery
streets and turned left at the Community Hall, where three days
from now, on Valentine’s Day, Grandma Elvira was getting married.
The hall’s front yard had already been decorated with heart shaped
ornaments and cupids holding bows. Her grinchness reacted to the
decorations with a mean and grumpy, “
Bah humbug.
”

At the end of the street, she pulled the car
up to the curb in front of her parents’ house and sat there, arms
braced against the steering wheel, her frown so tight she was sure
a smile would crack her face. With a grumbly grunt, she shouldered
the car door open and stepped out onto the street.

The next thing she knew, she was flat on her
back with fat snowflakes landing on her face. Her ears were ringing
with — was that laughter? — and something glided out of the fog and
floated right above her face.

“Grandpa?” She blinked against the throbbing
pain in her head and stared up at the swirls of fog and snow.

“
Get up, bumpkin.
”

Amanda pushed up on her elbows and scrambled
to her feet. “Who’s there?”

But the street was empty, she was alone, and
there was only one explanation for what she’d seen. Wishful
thinking. She’d inherited the family grinchness from her Grandpa
George, so it seemed appropriate she’d want to see him at this time
of year. He’d hated Valentine’s Day as much as she did.

Carefully stepping along the slick ice
beneath her feet, she pulled her suitcase out of the trunk of the
car, slammed the lid down, and headed toward the front door of her
parents’ house. A gust of wind hit her in the face and sucked the
breath from her lungs. She bent her head and shivered against the
cold.

Along with the decidedly anti-cupid-like
mood, now she had a headache. She stepped carefully up the cement
steps so she wouldn’t fall again, set her suitcase down beside her,
and rapped her knuckles against the front door. Through the etched
glass window on the door, she heard sixties music blaring, and saw
the distorted figures of her parents dancing.

Another shiver went through her and she
reached into her coat pocket for her keys.

“Pssst.”

Amanda jumped back from the door and peered
through the fog toward the front flowerbed. “Who’s there?”

The top of a camouflage colored toque popped
out. A snort came from deep within the greenery, and then the rest
of the toque appeared, followed by a familiar grizzled and worn
face. “It’s been so long since you visited me, bumpkin, it’s no
wonder you don’t recognize your own grandfather.”

“Gramps? What the hell?”

“Don’t swear, bumpkin. You know how your
grandma hates blasphemy.”

Amanda stumbled backward on the porch
landing, nearly slipping on the ice coated surface, stopping only
when her back end hit the wrought iron rails.

This wasn’t possible.

She closed her eyes, shook her head, felt it
throb from the knock on the ice. But when she reopened her eyes,
the apparition had floated out of the shrubs and, hovering in the
air like part of the fog, peered through the living room
window.

Amanda pressed against the railing. “No, no,
no. You’re dead. I was at your funeral.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know.” He
cupped his hands around his eyes, pressed his nose to the window,
and peered inside.

“Seriously dead. Dead as a doornail dead.
Dead. Dead. Dead.”

“I agree, I’m dead. Now can we get past this,
bumpkin?” With a sigh, he dropped his hands to his sides and turned
toward her, the ghostly vision slowly settling into something more
solid. Tall. Broad shoulders slightly stooped. Definitely her
grandfather. “I need your help.”

Amanda shifted against the railing. “It’s the
stress. The holiday stress.All of the cupids and cherubs. And
Grandma’s wedding —”

“That’s why I’m here.” Grandpa stretched to
his full six-foot-one height, and shuffled out of the bushes and on
to the sidewalk without leaving a mark in the snow. “To stop the
wedding.”

“You’re just in my imagination.”

“Here, I’ll pinch you.” He was suddenly on
the landing before her, reaching one bony hand toward her, thumb
and index fingers in the pinch position. Amanda skittered to the
side and out of his reach. He let his arm drop. His bushy eyebrows
lowered into a frown. “Are you afraid of me?”

“Uh, yeah.” Amanda let out a nervous laugh
and kept her gaze fixed on the vision before her, while her mind
raced, backtracking through the last few hours of her road trip,
almost positive that nothing had gone wrong. Until she’d slipped on
the ice. She stopped cold. “Am I dead, too?”

“No, bumpkin. Now about your grandma —”

“Am I in the hospital? Unconscious?” She took
a step forward and reached out one hand. “Maybe I’m fast asleep and
when I wake up, you’ll be —”

He reached out and pinched her cheek.

Freaked out, Amanda jumped back and rubbed
the side of her face. “Ouch. That hurt.”

“Real enough for you?” A smirk obliterated
the scowl. “But you know you’re awake, right?”

She hedged, still uncertain. “Maybe.”

“Bumpkin, I don’t have time for this
nonsense. We have to stop the wedding. We can’t let that weasel
Morty marry your grandma.”

“What?” Amanda blinked, yanked out of her
stunned state and back to — she glanced around her, then back at
him — reality? She leaned forward and spoke slowly. “Gramps, I’m
not sure if you’re aware of this, but you’re dead.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m dead. I’m not an idiot.” He
started floating back and forth across the tiny area in front of
her, forcing her to press against the front door so he wouldn’t
accidentally touch her again. “Elvira is still my wife and I need
to protect her.”

“From what?”

“Morty Weatherby is a con-artist. He wants
her money.”

Amanda instantly thought of the state of her
overdue credit cards. “Grandma’s got money?”

Grandpa got this calculating look in his
eyes. “If you help me out, I’ll make sure she leaves you a little
money in her will.”

“Hard to do when you’re dead.” She leaned
forward and squinted through the fog at him. He looked exactly like
her grandfather. If it wasn’t for the fog swirling through his
body, she could almost believe he was really there. Still, he was
up to something, she just knew it. Valentine’s Day brought out the
worst in her grandfather. “I know for a fact that Mr. Weatherby was
born in Cranberry Cove, eighty-five years ago, just like you.”

Grandpa stopped pacing, bent at the waist to
lean toward her, and seemed to grow six inches. “I’ve known that
weasel since we were in the crib and I tell you, he can’t be
trusted.”

“The wedding is in three days, Gramps. Even
if I was inclined to help you out, heck, even if I believed you
were really here, there’s not enough time. Besides, I don’t want to
break Grandma’s heart.”

He shrank down to his regular size, his
shoulders slumped. “What if I could prove to you that Morty’s not
really in love with her? That the fricking bastard is just trifling
with her heart? And after he has his way with her, he’ll discard
her, like he’s discarded his past three wives?”

A noise at the front door caught Amanda’s
attention and Grandpa disappeared, jumping off the steps like he
was forty years younger, slipping through the azalea bush, hiding
behind the cedar tree, reminding Amanda of those spy penguins in
the Madagascar movie. Except they were only animated and her
grandpa was … most definitely dead.

Behind her, the front door squeaked open,
revealing her mom’s worried frown. Dora Goodwin had a reputation
for getting the job done, which was why she was in charge of
Grandma’s wedding. “Honey, what are you doing on the porch? Where’s
your key? Is the front light burned out again? Come in, come in,
before you freeze to death.”

Amanda glanced back at the flowerbed. The fog
had lifted and she could see quite clearly now. There was nothing
there but the bushes covered by the new snow. Not a single
footprint on the sidewalk, except for hers. Not a whisper of her
grandpa’s voice in her ear, only the wind.

With goose bumps spreading across her body,
she grabbed her suitcase by the handle, and stepped into the warmth
of the house.

“Tom, Amanda’s here. And the front porch
light is burned out again,” Dora called as she closed the front
door behind her. “Oh, honey, you have snow all over your back. What
happened?”

Amanda plunked her suitcase on the rug. “I
fell on the ice. Nothing to worry about, Mom.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” Dora asked as she
took Amanda’s coat and shook the snow off onto the front rug.

“A little bump on the head. Nothing serious.”
Except for the throbbing pain in her head and the vision of her
grandpa. As she heard the soft soled sound of her dad’s slippers
approach from the kitchen, she pushed away the thought.

“Babycakes,” she heard him call out. “I found
the whipping cream.”

“Oh dear,” her mom sighed as she hung up
Amanda’s coat and called out again, with more emphasis this time,
“Tom, Amanda’s here.”

He came around the corner, stopped when he
saw her, and thrust the bright yellow can of whipping cream into
his sweater pocket. Recovering quickly, he opened his arms and
approached her. “We were getting worried about you. How are the
roads?”

Amanda stepped into his arms and hugged him
back. “A little icy, but I still have my snow tires on.”

“Good girl.” As he pulled back, the can fell
out of his pocket. He picked it up and handed it to her mom, who
set it on the ledge beside the front door.

“What’s the whipping cream for?” Amanda asked
as she peered into the living room, only to see her grandpa’s face
pressed through the large glass window so it was half inside the
house and half outside. She stepped back and bumped into her
mom.

“Nothing,” her dad said. He picked up her
suitcase. “Come on. We’ve got your room ready.”

Dora gave her a quick hug and released her.
“Are you hungry?”

“No.” Amanda watched Grandpa vanish in a poof
of white light. “This may sound weird, but have you seen Gramps
lately?”

Tom chuckled and kept on walking, past the
hallway and into the kitchen. “That’s my girl. Always the
joker.”

“Seriously, you haven’t seen Gramps hanging
around?”

Her mom wrapped one arm around Amanda’s
shoulders and urged her toward the back porch. “What’s this about,
honey?”

“Has Grandma mentioned Gramps lately?”

With the suitcase bumping the wall, her dad
headed down the stairs and into the basement. “She talks about your
Grandpa so often, I’m surprised Morty still wants to marry
her.”

Amanda peered over her shoulder, but her
grandpa was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Grandma?”

“Already asleep,” Dora said as Tom flipped on
a light and Amanda got her first view of the room she’d be sleeping
in for the next three nights.

Cement walls. A single cot set up in the
corner. An old ratty armchair that her mom had wanted to toss and
her dad had wanted to keep. And Valentine decorations. Lots of
Valentine decorations. There were red cardboard cutouts of
Valentine hearts and grotesque cupids with bows. Enough for a
massive wedding or a massive headache.

Her head throbbed again, reminding her that
she already had a headache. As she turned to face her parents, she
rolled her neck a couple of times with hopes of releasing the
tension. “Why am I sleeping here instead of my room?”

Innocence replaced the guilt on their faces
and her mom finally said, “Did we forget to mention we put a hot
tub in there?”

“A hot tub?”

Her dad shuffled his feet and glanced at her
mom. “Sorry about that.”

“Why a hot tub?”

Her mom said, “We thought you might bring a
date for the wedding.”

“Uh uh, Mom. No changing the subject until
you answer my question.”

“Not even a boy that’s a friend?” Her mom
frowned. “Your father and I aren’t getting any younger, you know,
and it would be nice if we had grandchildren before we died.”

Amanda groaned. “Please, not the grandbaby
lecture. I’m so tired, I could fall asleep standing up.”