Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

His wife of three years.

Dang.

They, who ever “they” were, were right. Time did fly when you were having fun. And it had been fun, he admitted, but only to himself. It helped that he had low expectations. When a guy takes a leap into the heart of a bunch of seriously loony Seymours—breaking their long-standing, females-don’t-marry tradition in the process—it was good to have low expectations and be grateful for anything that went well, no matter how small.

“Don’t look so pleased,” she told him. “I’m still here because I couldn’t get up by myself.”

“You’re supposed to be on maternity leave.” Mickey felt bound to point this out, even if it was a waste of breath.

“I’m just watching the fun from a cool place.”

She could have hung with Gracie, Delaney’s significant and ghostly other, if she wanted a cool down in the un-air-conditioned Seymour house. Luci was getting restless and he didn’t blame her. The baby was overdue, and making a small human didn’t appear to require much in the mental effort department. Luci liked being a cop and she had a good brain, even if she was half Seymour.

One of the tac boys passed her, pausing to pat her round stomach.

“You look about to pop, girl,” he said.

Luci smiled wanly at him, her usual high wattage smile missing in baby action. When he’d moved on she sighed as much as she could with the baby pressing against her insides.

“I feel like Exhibit A. And Miss Weena…”

She stopped for a couple more tac guys, both of whom felt compelled to pat her and comment.

“What’s she done now?” Mickey asked, besides not dying, he could have added, but didn’t.

“She wants to know the sex of the baby before she dies.”

“The doctor could tell her the results of the sonogram…”

They’d elected not to know.

“It’s technology and you know how she feels about that.”

Oh yeah, he knew. The old ladies kept burying his cell phone under the phlox every time he forgot and left it lying out. At least now he could identify a phlox.

Gracie and Delaney were the easy roomies. They cut down on the air conditioning bill in the summer, courtesy of the death chill that habitually surrounded them, and if they turned romantic, they’d drift up through the ceiling where he didn’t have to watch. It was nice having Delaney ride along with him now and again, even if it had to be undercover and a temp job at that. Thankfully the captain was in the know, because Delaney’s intel was hard to explain.

“Well, if she won’t talk to the doctor…”

“She wants Gracie to stick her head in my stomach and take a gander at our son…”

“Daughter,” Mickey corrected her automatically. They had a bet riding on the outcome, and he was sure he was going to win.

Luci gave him a look that was almost cranky. “So I left.”

He’d have been more than cranky if he were the pregnant one. Both she and Miss Weena were running late. Miss Theo had begun the migration into the next life three years and five days ago. Dying was probably the only thing the three sisters couldn’t do together—not if they all wanted to be buried in the same crypt. An obscure city law passed during a long ago epidemic, decreed that crypts couldn’t be opened until a year and a day after use. Miss Hermi took her scheduled turn and now it was Miss Weena’s, only she was still here.

Mickey was afraid she’d decided to pass up her deadline because of the baby. She was one stubborn old lady. If she could chase Luci, who was also a Seymour and should have been immune, out of the house, what was she going to drive Mickey to? Wasn’t it hard enough waiting to be a father without the last of Luci’s aunts throwing more weird into the mix? He looked at his watch.

“I’ve got time to buy you lunch, before I have to go process those two bozos.” It was the best he could do for her, other than holding a pillow over Miss Weena’s face until she quit kicking. And that would provide only temporary relief. She’d probably return as a ghost, just to see him go to jail.

There was something in the Seymour make-up that drove men to love and to homicide—if family legend were any guide. Though it had never been proven, they all believed a rejected suitor had murdered Miss Gracie fifty years ago. He’d learned to live with Luci’s aunts, but with their deaths reducing the weird factor around the house—and the potential of increasing the technology factor—he wasn’t exactly mourning their collective shuffle off this mortal coil.

“I’m not sure there’s room inside me for food,” Luci said, “but I’m willing to try.”

She held out her hands and Mickey heaved her to her feet. He waited until her back was turned to wipe away the sweat that popped out on his forehead and to catch his breath. If she didn’t have that baby soon, he was going to get a hernia.

“Pick a bumpy road. Maybe we can shake the kid loose,” she suggested as she did her penguin waddle toward his car.

Mickey shook his head. If anyone had told him he’d ever find that sexy, he’d probably have shot them. He got her settled in the car and straightened, feeling a twinge in his lower back. When he climbed in beside her, the twinge sharpened a bit. Mickey exhaled, and then turned to Luci. “How about something drive through?”

Luci gave him a long look. “All right—wimp.”

The cool of her aunts’ house closed around Luci like a comfortable and very old shoe. At least here inside the house, people didn’t recoil in horror at the sight of her stomach. It was pretty much a lose-lose situation for her until the baby came. At home she was bored and restless. Outside, she was a huge object of curiosity. If it were just the