Ghost of a Chance

Ghost of a Chance

by

Jezebel Jorge

Copyright © 2014 Jezebel Jorge

Cover art by Jezebel Jorge

Images purchased from 123rf

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Ghost of a Chance

Message from Author

About the Author

Ghost of a Chance

Oh, fudge, sludge, mud. Lucinda slammed on the breaks of her mint green Jaguar, narrowly avoiding a collision with an errant U-Haul that slid through the light just as it turned red.

Twenty-four years and five boy children had taught her to temper her language, but in the privacy of her car she couldn't resist flipping the driver a belated middle finger. The FU symbol pretty much summed up her life.

She couldn't really blame that driver from wanting to get the hell out of Tampa and all this damn rain. It was as if the heavens had opened up and cried non stop since her husband's not so unfortunate death.

Lucinda once again slammed on her breaks, narrowly avoiding rear ending a silver Mercedes that looked an awful lot like the car her husband had supposedly sold after she had gotten him a shiny new red one on his forty birthday five years ago.

The box that contained his ashes sailed to the floor and she held her breath, hoping he wasn't going to pop out and nasty up the plush interior of her brand new Jag. It would have been just like him to try to destroy anything she actually gave a damn about.

He'd certainly gone out with a bang, putting a pistol to his temple right in the middle of their brand new king sized bed. Eliot’s gory brain matter had ruined the new bedding their daughter-in-law had gotten them for Christmas. Not to even mention killing the resale value of their million dollar home.

The realtor had gotten plenty of curious walk-throughs, but no one had any intention of making an offer on the house where Eliot Grant, Tampa's most beloved weatherman, had taken his own life.

This is all your fault. Lucida whipped the Jag into a parking space and glared at the shiny black box. You've got some nerve having your lawyer schedule this meeting on Valentine's Day.

Bile rose in her throat as she remembered how she'd opened the door that morning to find some pimply kid from the florist holding a spray of red roses. Ever the unoriginal anal Capricorn, Eliot had a standing order to send her a dozen red roses every Valentine's day, birthday, anniversary, and whatever special holiday his secretary might choose to remember.

Never once had he noticed she hated the stench of those damn flowers, and red at that. He couldn't have made it any more cliché. That inept lawyer of theirs should have put a stop to Eliot's reckless spending as soon as he'd gone over their financial records.

Red roses from a ghost... happy freaking Valentine's Day!

Lucinda pulled down the visor to apply a fresh coat of icy pink lipstick and attempted to powder down her flushed cheeks. She'd stood by that man through thick and thin. Today would have been twenty-five years of for better or worse.

These last five years had been nothing but the very worst. She might have been a clueless child bride at seventeen, but not anymore. If that mistress of his thought she was going to get a dime, that little bitch had another thing coming.

Since it didn't look like the rain was going to stop anytime soon, she got her umbrella at the ready and had her hand on the door handle before she remembered Eliot. She wasn't about to stick him in her Chanel purse, so she dumped the stuffed animals she'd gotten for her grandbabies and stuck Eliot in a plastic Toys-R-Us bag.

Lucinda clicked the keyless remote on her Jag just as her cell phone rang. She started to reach inside her purse when a burst of wind blew her umbrella backwards, splattering rain onto her conservative beige pantsuit. Whoever it was would just have to settle for her voice mail. So much for the attempt at trying to fix her makeup. After getting the umbrella reversed she forgot all about the mommy speak and cursed Eliot under her breath.

Thinking of Eliot reading this stormy weather forecast off his teleprompter while burning in hell actually made Lucinda smile as she trudged toward the overpriced attorney's office. She'd gotten her dead husband the job when her parents had still owned the TV station before selling it to a multimedia conglomerate.

Without her, Eliot would probably still be a used car salesman. He might also still be living if she hadn't threatened to go public with the fact that he hadn't finished high school, much less earned a degree in meteorology. Eliot's only job skills had been the gift of gab and looking handsome in one of the suits she'd bought and dressed him up in to get him off her millionaire parents shit list after he knocked up their underage only daughter.

Just for spite, Lucinda shook out her umbrella in the entranceway, not caring if it did drip on the hideously ugly brown marble tile. If there was any kind of justice the bitch would slip and fall making her grand entrance. Of course, she'd probably sue the lawyer and rack up even more cash.

The receptionist didn't even acknowledge her presence, so Lucinda went into the ladies room hoping she could get some kind of grip on her dignity before this meeting started. That idea took a flying leap as soon as she saw the name Steve under missed calls. Never mind