LITMIR.BIZ

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cranky because I’m dead! I’m dead and doomed to spend the rest of eternity in this corset because Mimi never came to loosen the knots.”

      Everyone looked at the dark-haired Mimi, dressed in a sumptuous French robe de chambre. She shrugged. “I, myself, was busy dying.”

      Over in the corner of a red-velvet chaise, Rosebud looked up from reading Madame Bovary. “Could we please talk about something else? We have discussed the fact that we’re dead every day for the past one hundred and nine years. There was a gas leak. We died. It’s time to move on.”

      “I would love to move on!” Flo shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t believe that Belle Bulette, of all people, has gone to the Great Sunday Picnic in the Sky and I’m still here.”

      “I miss Belle,” Sunshine said wistfully. But she smiled as she said it.

      “You would.”

      “It was never this boring when she was around,” said another one of the girls, a strawberry blonde in a lavender chemise.

      “Oh, I know. She was always so spirited.”

      “Spirited—ha, ha.”

      “Oh, Flo, you know what I meant.”

      “One makes one’s own excitement and profits, as vell. Is zat not so?” An elegant woman dressed in a Chinese-silk wrapper lounged against the doorway next to one of the brass-potted palms. She gestured toward the guests checking into what was now the Inn at Maiden Falls. “Specifically, I vould like to make some excitement viz zat fine young buck.”

      “Countess, you know the rules,” Sunshine reminded her.

      “My dear, for him, I vould break zee rules.”

      Sunshine watched as a lone male—they all had such broad shoulders these days—checked into the hotel. He had a fine face, sure enough, and held himself with a confidence that promised confidence in the bedroom, as well.

      However, everyone knew Miss Arlotta’s Golden Rules, specifically the no hanky-panky rule, and what would happen if a girl broke them—a black mark in the Bedpost Book. Too many black marks and there would never be a chance of earning the ten notches it took to go to the Eternal Picnic.

      After decades of bemoaning their fate, Miss Arlotta and Judge Hangen, who had unfortunately been visiting Miss Arlotta at the time of the gas leak, figured out that since they’d sold fake love in life, they could redeem themselves by selling true love in death.

      Or something. Whatever the reasoning, their plan seemed to be working.

      Sunshine didn’t know if there was exactly a Great Picnic, or an Eternal Picnic, or whatever, but when they were alive, every Sunday Miss Arlotta’s boarders had dressed in their finest and driven the buggy through the town of Maiden Falls to the lovely shaded meadow where they’d picnicked and laughed and sometimes taken a dip in the pool beneath the falls.

      Sunshine and the others had loved the Sunday picnics—even Belle, the sharpshooting, whiskey-drinking cynical gambler. It had taken quite a lot of man to handle Belle. And quite a lot of men had.

      Anyway, being outside, feeling the grass tickle her bare feet, wading in the pool, even just plain lying around in the shade was what Sunshine missed the most.

      She and the others couldn’t leave the inn proper. Oh, they could go out on the roof, but it wasn’t the same.

      But what if they didn’t even have that? It could be worse. And now they knew that there was a way to go on to—if not the Great Picnic as they’d taken to calling it—then someplace else fine and good. Someplace Belle had gone. Someplace Sunshine was going to go, too, as soon as she helped one more couple on the path to true love. So fine, face or no, the man wasn’t worth risking a black mark.

      “Ooh-la-la. That is a fine one indeed.” Mimi’s accent became more pronounced the nearer a man got to her. It was generally agreed that she more than likely came from Paris, Texas, rather than Paris, France.

      “He must be the groom.” Sunshine, along with the others, drifted over to the lobby check-in desk. “There’s a wedding this weekend, you know.” She clasped her hands together. “I just love weddings.”

      “Oh, that was canceled,” Lavender said.

      “It’s back on,” Rosebud informed them from her place on the chaise. She was more interested in her book, which Lord knows she’d had over a hundred years to read, than she was in men. She simply didn’t know any better. Poor Rosebud had the misfortune of arriving at Miss Arlotta’s just before the gas leak, so her experience of men was extremely limited. Extremely.

      “If the wedding is back on, then the bride and groom must need help,” Sunshine said.

      “Same wedding, different bride and groom,” Rosebud told her.

      “Me, I would like to give that man some very special help.”

      Lavender sighed. “Oh, Mimi, wouldn’t we all.”

      “I wouldn’t,” Flo snapped. “No man is worth giving up the chance of a loosened corset.”

      “Amen to that,” drawled a voice from the door of the secret passage. “Listen up, ladies, and Glory Hallelujah will set you straight. Desdemoaner and I have been on the roof and, y’all, that man is not the groom. Looky yonder at the door.”

      At that moment, a distinguished older man with silver temples and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair strode through the lobby as though he owned the place.

      Sunshine had seen his type before—usually with a gavel in his hand or a badge on his chest.

      “Behold, the groom.”

      “Oh, it’s an older couple then. A second marriage maybe? How nice.” Sunshine ignored all the eye rolling. So she chose to look on the bright side all the time. Might as well enjoy life, er, death. Or whatever limbo they were in.

      “Not quite.” Glory hooked her thumb over her shoulder as a dark-suited younger woman joined the man at the reception desk.

      She had her hair cut in one of those styles that looked as though she’d hacked at it with a dull knife on a windy day. Sunshine patted her own long curls.

      “His daughter?” Flo asked.

      “The bride,” Glory announced.

      “And I say brava!” The Countess clapped slowly.

      “And, me, I say it depends on how much money he has.” Mimi rubbed her fingers together.

      Flo cackled. “Honey, it wouldn’t take much for me.”

      “It never did, Flo, it never did,” the Countess murmured.

      “I heard that!”

      “And so did I.” A voice boomed around them.

      Sunshine could never figure out how Miss Arlotta, who spent most of her time in the attic, was nevertheless able to hear all and see all and speak to them wherever they were.

      “Sunshine! The bride is checking into your room.” Lavender was hovering behind the guest register.

      “And the groom?” Mimi asked.

      “The new section.”

      “Well, that can’t be good,” Glory said.

      “Why not? You know the groom isn’t supposed to see the bride on their wedding day until she walks down the aisle.” Sunshine sighed. “It’s so romantic.”

      “Sunshine will assist this couple,” Miss Arlotta pronounced. “Older gentlemen are her speciality.”

      “Thank you, Miss Arlotta!” Sunshine drew a deep breath as the others protested—but not too much—before gradually drifting away to other parts of the inn. Older men who were lonely and liked her youthful looks and innocent chatter had been, indeed, her speciality.

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