Worth Dying For (45 page)

She slowly walked over to the spiral staircase that ran down into the family room. She took the steps two at a time and stepped onto the landing.
 

“You’re home,” Edna shrieked, her voice full of excitement. Before Sydney could respond, the older woman rambled over and threw her arms around Sydney’s waist, wrapping her in a big bear hug. “Let me look at you,” Edna said, holding Sydney at arm’s length.

Edna, I’ve only been gone six days,” Sydney said, laughingly.

“I know, I know, but six days is an awful long time.”

Sydney leaned forward and kissed Edna on the cheek. “Well, it’s good to see you too,” she said and meant it. Edna had been her housekeeper for the past eight years but she was more than that to Sydney. She was like a second mother and had been more of a mother to Sydney than her own ever was.

Sydney smiled at the way Edna looked. She was wearing a white apron over a red velvet dress that hung just above her knees. The sleeves and hemline of the dress were trimmed with white fur. She laughed at Edna’s red booties, complete with to furry red balls where they laced up. Edna had pulled her grey hair up in a bun and pinned it to the top of her head. Sydney thought the short, rotund woman looked like Mrs. Claus and she was unable to control the giggles that escaped he throat.

Edna placed her hands on her hips, pretending to pout. “Are you making fun of me?” she asked.

“Um, no, I think you look adorable, Mrs. Claus.”

“Well, thank you, that means I’m in good company,” Edna grinned, making her blue eyes twinkle.

Sydney made a sweeping gesture toward the family room with her hands. “What’s with all the decorations?”

Edna placed her hands on her hips again. “Sydney Welsh, I swear I don’t know about you sometimes,” she said with a shake of her head.

“What?” Sydney asked, frowning.

“Do you know what today is?”

“Thursday the sixteenth.”

“And what is tomorrow?”

Sydney’s right eyebrow shot upward. “Uh, Friday.”

“And what are we doing on Friday?” Edna patiently prodded.

“I’m going to work, coming home, having dinner, same as any other Friday.”

“I’m talking about tomorrow night,” Edna said with a stamp of her foot.

Sydney thought about it for a moment and then it dawned on her. “Crap, I forgot all about it.”

“I don’t know how. It’s only the biggest and best Christmas party ever,” Edna teased.

“Ah, you’re too kind, Mrs. Claus,” Sydney teased back.

“Yes I am. I’d love to stand here and chat but I have a house to get decorated and I need to check on Fred Rick,” Edna said, turning toward the kitchen.

“Say hi to Mr. Claus for me,” Sydney yelled.

Edna stopped and looked over her shoulder. “I sure will,” she said with a wink before disappearing behind the closed door.

Sydney dodged several workers as she cut across the floor to grab the stack of mail from the coffee table. Tomorrow was the seventeenth, the day she chose for her annual Christmas party. With everything that had been going on, it had completely slipped her mind. A glance around the expansive family room, made it clear that Edna and the rest of the staff had everything under control.

Jedidiah Saunders walked into the family room. Sydney threw the mail down on the table and walked over to him. “All done, Mr. Saunders?” she asked.

He took off his hat and gloves. “Why yes, ma’am I am,” he answered.

“Please call me Sydney.”

“Well then, call me Jed and I’m pleased to meet’cha,” he said with a toothy grin and held out his hand.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Jed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before,” Sydney said, taking the man’s large hand in hers. He gave it a rigorous shake before releasing it.

“That petite little red-head hired me.” Jed scratched his head. “Ya know, I been decorating outside your house fer the last five years and I’ve never been invited in before.”

Meredith, Sydney thought. She was not in the least bit surprised that Meredith had not invited Jed in. One look at his bibbed overalls would have turned Meredith off instantly.

Jedidiah Saunders would be deemed a peasant to Meredith and a peasant was way below her standards.

She and Meredith had way too many conversations or better yet, arguments regarding the staff and the way Sydney interacted with them. Meredith thought the hired staff should be treated like lower class servants, not people with actual feelings. Sydney didn’t agree and the more Meredith protested, the more Sydney did just the opposite of what Meredith wanted. Sydney never regarded anyone on her payroll as servants. She believed that Edna was just as important and valuable as the Vice President of Marketing at Welsh who handled multimillion-dollar accounts and as such, Edna deserved to be treated with the same amount of respect and sometimes more than her company execs.

“Ya have a beautiful house, Sydney. My better half’s eyes would plum bug outta her head if she were here,” Jed said, interrupting Sydney’s thoughts.

“Thank you, Jed. I like it.”

“Well, I best be goin’ now. Thanks fer lettin’ me warm up my fingers and toes. That was awful nice of ya.”

Sydney walked Jed to the door. “Do you have any plans tomorrow night, Jed?”

Jed turned to look at her. “Gerty, that’s my better half, has some shoppin’ at the Kroger’s and that’s about it, I’m thinkin’. Is there somethin’ more you’d like me ta do?”

Sydney grinned. Meredith would have a field day with the way Jed pronounced his words. His diction would drive her crazy. Sydney like it. She thought the older man standing in front of her was quite charming. “No, Jed. I have nothing else that needs done. I was asking because I would like to invite you and your better half to my Christmas party tomorrow night. That is, if you don’t already have plans.”

Jed’s eyes lit up. “Yer not pullin’ my leg?”

Sydney smiled and shook her head. “Nope, I’m not pulling your leg. Party starts at seven and there will be plenty of food and drinks. All you need to bring is yourself and Gerty.”

“Well, thank ya, Sydney. Gerty’ll just be beside herself when she sees yer beautiful home. I’ll see ya tomorrow then.”

Sydney closed the door behind him and decided to go to the kitchen to see what Fred Rick had planned for tomorrow night’s menu. Knowing her flamboyant cook, she had no doubt that a few of the menu items would be hard to pronounce. As long as he had lobster, stuffed mushrooms, and the wonderful chocolate mousse concoction he made, he could fix whatever his heart desired
.

A Note From The Author

about Worth Dying For

I’m often asked where I come up with the ideas for my stories. I guess the easy answer would be to say “everywhere”. Well, that answer is the truth. I get ideas from watching the news, reading the newspaper, and sometimes I overhear a piece of a conversation and the idea is sparked. However, the answers above are not how I came up with the idea for Worth Dying For.

I’m sure that most of my readers have heard about or watched American Idol. Well, the year I wrote WDF, was the first year I ever watched AI. It was the year that Carrie Underwood beat Bo Bice. For the finale song, Carrie sang a song called “Inside Your Heaven”. It was the most beautiful song I had ever heard. The lyrics took my breath away. As she sang the song, I thought to myself, “
This is exactly how I want to feel about a woman someday
.” I turned and said to a friend of mine, “That song would be so awesome for a movie.” As I said the words, scenes immediately began to form in my mind.

The very first scene to come in my mind and the first scene I wrote was the beach scene when Caroline discovers that Rheyna isn’t dead. I could clearly hear, “Inside Your Heaven,” playing as Rheyna lifted Caroline off the ground and spun around in circles with her in her arms.

I was a screenwriter before I became a novelist and I still am. I knew I had to write WDF as a screenplay and so, I started writing my scenes down on index cards as I saw them happening if WDF were a movie. I’ve always had a fascination with the Mafia and somehow I knew I wanted to incorporate that into my screenplay. After I laid out all the scenes on index cards, I sat down and did approximately two weeks of solid research on the mob and the FBI. Once my research was complete, I sat down and three weeks later, I had a 120-page screenplay. I took this screenplay and entered it one of the top screenwriting contests in Hollywood. On my very first try, I made the quarterfinals and I thought, maybe I’m not so bad at this writing thingy after all.

A friend of mine who read the script told me that I should turn it into a novel because this was the type of book she would buy. I told her that I had no idea how to write a novel and that I was a screenwriter. Thank goodness, she didn’t give up. She harped on me for a month about turning it into a novel. I finally gave in and agreed to do it just so she would stop riding me about it. So, I spent about a week learning everything I could about writing novels. Using the screenplay that I wrote as an outline, I laid out the chapters for the novel. Five weeks later, I had a 85,000-word novel. As you can tell, I’m not like most writers. Usually a book is adapted into a movie, not the other way around. I do it just the opposite and do what is known as a reverse-adaptation. All of my novels begin their lives as a screenplay first and then become novels. I figure that if my stories aren’t good enough to be movies, then they aren’t good enough to be novels.

After several re-writes, I submitted WDF to publishers. I was very fortunate and only received three rejections before the fourth publisher loved it. Several months later, in 2009, Alpha World Press released the first edition.

Since the release of WDF, I have gone on to write award winning, produced screenplays as well as novels. Not too many people get to do what they love when it comes to their career. I am very fortunate and grateful that I am one of those lucky few. I love writing almost as much as I like breathing... LOL

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