Love is in the air? Brianna’s not so sure. Celebrate Valentine’s Day with the psychic from Lottawatah. Read an excerpt from UNDYING LOVE IN LOTTAWATAH
 

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Chapter 1
 

The first valentine I ever received
was from Charlie Riggins in first grade. It read, and I can still quote it in
its entirety. “Roses are red, Violets are blue, I don’t smell, but you
sure do.”

Needless to say the romance was over.
My only regret was that I had given him my genuine fake three dollar bill that
my great-uncle Sy had given me for Christmas that year. Needless to say I wasn’t
too fond of Sy either since even at the age of six, I knew there weren’t any
three dollar bills in circulation.

Anyway, my Momma always told me that
Valentine’s Day was a made-up Hallmark holiday and I shouldn’t get swept up in
the commercialization, yadda, yadda, yadda. To be honest, I often tuned out
when my mother would get on her high horse about these issues. And let’s be
honest, the woman absolutely expected a card and an increasingly expensive
present when the made-up holiday of Mother’s Day popped up every May.

But I was trying to tamp down my
expectations about Valentine’s Day and my main squeeze, Deputy Cooper Jackson.
He’s not what I would call gift-imaginative. My Christmas present had been a
bottle of J Lo’s Miami Glow perfume and I wasn’t sure what the message was
since I immediately remembered that Charlie Riggins had made a comment about my
smell too. Besides this cologne was a mixture of Pink Grapefruit, Coconut
Water, Passion Fruit, Heliotrope, Sheer Amber, Crystal Musk, Vanilla Orchid and
Blonde Woods, so essentially I was going to smell like a fruit bowl. His other
gift was a new toaster oven because he likes English muffins in the morning and
my toaster has two settings, light and burnt.

So like I said, I didn’t have high
hopes for Cupid’s Day. And yet, it was less the pink frilly card that had me
worried and more the deadline I had set for myself., After six months, I was
still hanging around Lottawatah, Oklahoma, and it was time for me to figure out
if I was staying or firing up Matilda, my motor home, and hitting the high
road. I thought I’d make a decision by the first of the new year, but then had
resolutely, pun intended, decided that Valentine’s Day was the drop-dead
deadline for the move it or lose it decision.

I was still muddling over the do I or
don’t I question, when a quick glance at the clock almost made the decision for
me. If I was late for my job at Pearl’s Soak & Spin one more time, I’d be
unemployed and would almost certainly have to hit the road in search of gas and
food money. Lottawatah’s economy, if it ever had one, had crashed long before
the rest of the nation. Jobs, as Miss Pearl had reminded me, didn’t grow on
trees. Although logging wasn’t out of the question if push came to shove.

I grabbed my coat and dug my hands in
the pockets for my gloves, and came up empty. I frantically looked around what
is lovingly called the living room in Matilda (also known as the dining room,
kitchen, and driver’s seat), when I remembered that I’d left them the previous
night at Cooper’s apartment.

Mutt Jeffrey, the gravel-voiced host
of the morning drive show, had already cheerfully informed me that it was going
to be “downright cold” today. Mutt is happiest when the weather is at
its worst. I had to walk a mile into town to get to the Soak & Spin, and
wasn’t looking forward to frozen fingers when I remembered an old pair of
gloves that had belonged to my Great Aunt MaryEllen. They’d been passed down to
my grandmother, MaryEllen’s younger sister. I don’t have many memories of my
grandmother, except she had a gap between her two front teeth and could whistle
loud enough with them to summon a cab from the next county. I’d tossed most of
the old clothes, keeping only a few mementos in an old shoe box. I’d stored the
chocolate brown, elbow-length cashmere gloves in Matilda’s glove compartment. I
had dreams of someday owning a dark mink coat to wear with them.

I pulled them on, flung open the door,
and stepped out into the frigid Oklahoma air. A gust of wind nearly blew me
over.

“Where’s your hat? Your brain’s
gonna freeze.”

I did a full 360 before I caught a
glimpse of her. At first I thought it was Grandma, but ghosts usually appear as
they did at death. Which is why wearing good clothes when you kick the bucket
is always a plus. No this wasn’t Grandma, although she had the same gap-toothed
smile. Guess orthodontia wasn’t a big priority during the Great Depression era,
judging the date from the clothes. This was a woman about 60, wearing a
brown-checked coat, felt cloche hat, and I’m pretty sure, a pair of brown
cashmere gloves.

Crap. Hello ghost of Great Aunt
MaryEllen. She’d died in the early ’80s, hit by a cab while crossing the
street.

“Don’t be getting any dirt on
those gloves. They’re genuine cashmere, you know. Harry Grady brought them to
me from the French Quarter in New Orleans.”

Ghosts don’t seem to be affected by
the cold. MaryEllen was leaning casually against Matilda, looking like she had
all the time in the world for a chat.

“Think you could walk with me.”
I motioned for her to follow. “I’ve got to get to work and I’m betting you
have something you need to tell me.”

Don’t they all? Why on earth, pardon
the pun, was Great Aunt MaryEllen, dead more than 30 years, picking a freezing
winter day, with me late for work, to show up?

My name is Brianna Sullivan. I’m a
psychic. My limited talents include communicating with ghosts, finding lost
objects and people, and an occasional success with water well witching. I’d
never planned on making a career of this woo woo stuff, but a girl’s gotta eat.