Page 8 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

Five

“What’s happening, Scotty?” Dondi asks with a gap-toothed smile and a fist in my direction that I meet with my own.

Just shy of thirty, Dondi’s half Native American, half white with shaggy dark hair, a lanky build, and an oddly charming gap between his front teeth.

He talks and moves with a kind of drawl that belongs on a surfboard in California more than driving dead bodies around the mountains of North Carolina, yet here he is.

I met him at a bar where he was wearing a ridiculous hibiscus-covered shirt and telling some friends he couldn’t find a job because he has a weak spot for weed and a rap sheet of petty crimes a mile long.

“How do you feel about driving dead bodies around?” I asked, interrupting the conversation he was having.

He looked at me, as if really pondering the question, then said thoughtfully, “The Dondinator would consider it an honor and privilege to chillax with those heading on to what’s next. ”

I looked at him, wondering what the hell The Dondinator was, but something about him was oddly disarming.

A sweetness of sorts. Like a three-legged dog.

“I’ll give you a chance,” I said, his friends looking at me like I was a guardian angel with twelve heads.

“But if you fuck it up, that’s it.” The next day, I convinced the town’s funeral home, Tranquil Departures, to partner with me to hire him.

In the year and a half since he’s been here, he’s been amazing.

Not only does he pick the bodies up in his beloved Ice Pop, he’s also gone through trainings so he can service the retort and the rest of the machines we use in the cremation process.

“Dondi,” I say, noticing his Hawaiian shirt is less wrinkled than usual and, due to the belt he’s wearing, the sag of his pants less severe. “You have a hot date or something?”

He drops into the wingback chair in the witnessing room, glancing at Wanda as she sashays in wearing fitted black pants, a low-cut red shirt, and hooker-blue eyeshadow. “The Dondinator is starting to realize life is a date, is it not?”

I pinch my lips at his ridiculous Dondinator, which I now know is his third person name for himself, but don’t miss the look him and Wanda exchange as she sits on the couch with a small smile.

“Noted,” I say. Then to Wanda, “Morning. ”

She smiles, but it’s worried as her eyes bounce across my clothes—plain shirt, yoga pants, and rubber ankle boots I haven’t worn in years. “You sick or something, honey? That what this meeting’s about?”

“I got a house,” I tell them, matter-of-fact as I lean against the window. “And I’m going to live in it while I renovate it.” I ignore their shocked expressions. “Like one of those people on HGTV without the dumb drama of needing to take down a load-bearing wall.”

June’s request of me hosting Thanksgiving and the overall state of the house forced me to come up with a plan.

She’s never once asked me to do something like this, and I couldn’t say no.

For as long as we’ve been friends, I’ve been the forever single, basically orphaned third wheel.

I owe her. I’ll renovate the house, host the godforsaken feast, and then list it.

I immediately emailed a realtor who responded with a list of comp properties and the speculation that with its location on the lake—and if fully updated per the list of items he included—it could net nearly a million dollars.

I almost fell over. I could repay Lydia for the house, pay off the crematorium and sell it, and have plenty left to start over somewhere else.

Even the massive to-renovate list he sent didn’t seem so scary in the scheme of the freedom it would give me.

I clear my throat.

“Wanda, you still need somewhere to live?”

She nods, seemingly stunned into silence.

“You can have my apartment—while I do this—rent free if you take on some of the responsibilities that come with that.”

She brings a hand to her mouth, thick lashes fluttering.

“And, Dondi,” I direct at him. “Your job will stay the same unless Wanda needs help with something and I’m not around.” He opens his mouth, but I talk over him. “Unless that’s a problem, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done at the house, and I need time to do it. ”

They stare; I clear my throat.

“What I’m saying is, I’m moving out of the apartment and spending less time at work. I’ll be at every send-off, of course, but the in-between things I’ll be—I’ll need to—I won’t be here.” I huff, annoyed by how they’re looking at me like I’m performing a miracle. “Will that be a problem?”

“You’re moving out of the crematorium?” Wanda asks, hand to mouth as she rises from the couch and takes short steps toward me, face filling with emotion.

Here we go.

“To work,” I correct.

“Whoa!” Dondi says with wide eyes. “The Dondinator would never believe this if he wasn’t sitting here. The Ash Queen leaves the fire. What’s next, you selling to Tranquil Departures?”

I puff a slight laugh. “Not today.” But soon. The funeral home has been trying to buy me out for years—like they need to be the death conglomerates of Ledger—and I’ve always shot them down. Once I know the house isn’t a complete waste, I’ll call them.

Wanda hugs me with a squeal, making me grunt. “This is amazing, honey. Anything you need, Dondi and I are here to help. Aren’t we?”

“You know it,” he pipes in.

“And we can do any of the send-offs too,” Wanda adds, dabbing at her eyes with the pads of her fingertips.

“No!” I snap too loudly, taking a breath before adding in a more even voice: “No, I can’t pawn all the work off. It’ll go to your head. ”

They chuckle, but they also know the truth: I do the send-offs because the send-offs are why I’m here.

“I never thought I’d see the day you move out of this place,” Wanda says, her red lips shaky with emotion. “Thank you for this, Scotty. You’ve given me more than anyone else in my life, and I mean that.”

Something claws at my throat with the looks on both of their faces, but a loud knock banging on the back door saves me.

We look at each other—the door is the service entrance that leads to the back of the building and only used by us.

My eyes narrow. “Stop looking at me like your eyes are made of pudding and get to work. I’ll see who it is. ”

I don't wait for them to respond, and in my short walk to the back, another knock bangs. “I’m coming!” I shout.

When I push the heavy door open, warmth from outside mixes with the coolness from inside at the threshold.

“Can I help yo—”

My words die, replaced by pure hatred for the face in front of me.

There, with smiling eyes despite the flat line of his lips, stands Ford Callahan. In his police uniform.

I groan, moving to pull the door closed.

He grips the edge of it, swinging it open. “Five minutes, Scotty.”

“No.”

He holds the door open, filling the space around me like a bear on a country road. “Please.”

I cross my arms over my chest, leaning in the doorway. “Why? ”

“You caught me off guard the other night, and I don’t like how it ended.”

“So you’re here for a happy ending?” I quip.

A smile tugs at his lips, but he neither moves nor says anything.

I stare at him, debating. He looks so nice and normal; it’s hard to believe he’s an emotional terrorist under that uniform. I eye his belt. They even give this menace a gun.

“Everything okay, honey?” Wanda calls, wedged heels clicking behind me.

When I catch her gaze over my shoulder she halts, eyes wide, before adjusting her chest with her hands and smiling something sinister, tone shifting to pure lust. “Well, hello there, Officer Callahan.”

I snort, looking back to Ford who dips his chin toward her. “Wanda, good to see you. Scotty asked me to stop by. Just fulfilling my duties to the fine citizens of Ledger.”

I roll my eyes; he winks.

I can’t wait to get out of here.

“Fine,” I grit out.

Without another word, I step out into the sun and let the door close with a heavy slam behind me. Ford looks at me, long and wordless, making my entire body burn like feet on summer concrete.

“Any day now,” I say, bored.

“It’s about Zeb.”

I groan, turning to walk back into the building. He wraps his hand around my arm, stopping me with his strength .

“I’m not doing this, Ford, let me go. I said all I needed to say about my brother.”

I tug at the handle, remembering it’s locked from outside and groan again in frustration as Ford keeps a grip on my arm with one hand and something makes a clanking noise.

“Sorry, Scotty”—metal clicks as he twists me around and presses me belly-first against his cruiser parked behind the building, keeping my arm bent and pinched to my back—“I knew you were going to be a stubborn pain in the ass about this, and I need you to listen.”

“Handcuffs?” I shout furiously as I try to pull my arms apart. The metal digs into my wrists as I wriggle my torso against his car with a grunt. “Are you fucking kidding me, Ford?”

He turns me around to face him and I spit in his face; he wipes it, as unfazed as if it were a raindrop.

“Let me go, you bastard,” I demand, more arm pulling and more getting nowhere.

“You going to listen or keep hissin’ like a damn viper?”

“This is illegal,” I snap.

He chuckles. “Call the cops.”

Heart pounding in my throat, I feel trapped. I am trapped.

“You knew as well as I did Zeb had gotten deep into drugs,” he begins, voice calm as he leans against the cruiser while I struggle to break free with grunts and swears. “You and I talked about it, but with both of us gone at school, I don’t think we knew how bad it was. ”