Free Unfinished Business An Angela Panther Novel (A Chick-lit Paranormal book) (The Angela Panther Series) by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson Page A

chatting with my mother in the middle of the afternoon a dream, then yeah, I’m still dreaming about her.
    I guessed it was as good of a time as any to let my husband know I was nuts. “Sort of, but I don’t think I’m actually dreaming.”
    He gave me his this isn’t going to be good look, the one I got when I told him I’d sneezed while driving through construction and rear-ended the car in front of me. It wasn’t my favorite look from him. I had hoped, instead for his oh goodie, a fun Angela story look, but that one was rare.
    “What do you mean, you don’t think you’re dreaming?”
    I sat still and searched for a way to answer his question without appearing absolutely nuts, but I got nothing. Hard to not appear nuts when I actually felt kind of crazy.
    Ma floated away from Jake, and over to me. “Go ahead and tell him, Angela. He’ll believe you."
    “Okay, here it goes. Yes, I’ve seen my mother, Jake and I am one hundred percent positive I wasn’t dreaming.” I sort of hoped that would feel a lot better than it did.
    Jake didn’t speak. He was probably waiting for me to say ‘psych,’ or something.
    “Well?”
    My husband took a swig of coffee and lit up a cigarette; a habit I wished he’d quit, especially since it killed Ma, and all. “You’ve seen Fran, and you’re one hundred percent sure you weren’t dreaming.”
    Jake repeated what people said a lot . At first I thought he did it because he thought what they said sounded stupid or didn’t make sense, but in time I realized the repeating was his attempt at comprehending. Most of the time, that is. I was pretty sure this time fell into the stupid category.
    “Yup, that’s what I said.”
    He took a drag of his cigarette and blew it out slowly.
    I rubbed my temples, feeling the start of a migraine.
    “Tell him, Ang."
    I rubbed my eyes, framed my face with my hands, and breathed in deeply. Here it goes. “Jake,” I breathed in another big sigh and released it. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I’m not. I promise.”
    I paused, mostly because I couldn’t figure out what to say, but then just went for it. “The first time it happened, I thought it was probably a dream, but after the third or fourth time I knew it wasn’t.”
    Long, uncomfortable silence.
    “It doesn’t happen when I’m sleeping and it’s at different times during the day, and I’m pretty sure I’m not hallucinating or a narcoleptic, Jake. This is for real.”
    Jake ran his hand through his hair, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the sky. After what seemed like hours, he finally leaned back toward me, picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. “After the third or fourth time.”
    See? The repeating thing again. Annoying. “Yes, but there have been more.”
    Jake stiffened into defend and attack mode. He did this when he was preparing himself for an argument. When he did it to other people I was fine, because I knew that ultimately they were going to get a serious ass chewing and it was sometimes fun to watch, but when he did it to me, things rarely ended on a good note. I’ve never been one to back down from a fight.
    “Tell me everything.”
    Admittedly, his reaction surprised me but I opened up like a broken fire hydrant. I told him about the memorial service, about the cemetery, including how Faith saw Ma, too. I spared no detail and he remained silent, which was actually sort of a miracle and even Ma was surprised. He was probably trying to think of whom he could get to babysit the kids while I was locked up in the loony bin and he was out of town.
    When I finished he sat for a minute and gave me a questionable stare before saying, “So you’re telling me you’ve seen Fran, as a ghost?”
    Ding ding! Give the man a prize! I refrained from my urge to jump up and smack him upside the head and say, “ By James! I think you’ve got it !” “Yup. That’s what I said.”
    My husband tried to be open-minded but wasn’t always successful. If