Second Chance at the Sugar Shack by Candis Terry Read Free Book Online Page B

writing class. Looked like she was putting that imagination to good use. She shook her head to clear it and decided she definitely needed to get some sleep. Again, she reached for the gearshift.
    “Katherine Spencer Silverthorne, are you going to answer me? Or just sit there and ignore me like you did your entire senior year?”
    And now the voice in her head was pissed off?
    Kate whipped around in her seat. Sure enough, there was her mother, wearing her famous red plaid flannel over a white T-shirt and denim overalls. A cranky expression crinkled the skin between her green eyes.
    Had someone made a mistake?
    The woman in the coffin had looked like her mother but maybe something else had happened. Maybe it was like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the woman in the backseat was really an alien. And to come up with such a ridiculous idea, maybe Kate had been living in Hollywood too long.
    But how could the idea of a movie plot be any more bizarre than her dead mother sitting in the backseat?
    Kate blinked. “M-mother?”
    “Of course it’s me. Who else would it be?”
    “But you’re . . .”
    “Yeah.” Her mother leaned forward. “I know.”
    Kate scooted toward the door.
    “Too bad too.” Her mother rubbed her chin. “I had a new recipe for better-than-sex chocolate cake I intended to try out for Nancy Yost’s thirtieth birthday. You remember Nancy, don’t you? She was the cutest, chubbiest little thing. Never did change much.”
    “Mother?”
    “Katherine?” Her mother’s head cocked in a perplexed puppy way. “Are you going to tell me how I looked or what? Did my Bobby pick out a beautiful casket?”
    “You looked . . .” Dead. “. . . um, great.”
    “Not too much blush?”
    “No.”
    “And the casket?”
    “Oak with polished brass and ivory satin.”
    “Flowers?”
    “A white rose spray and dozens of autumn arrangements.” Okay, this was just crazy. “Jesus, Mom, what the hell are you doing here?”
    “Katherine! Do not use the Lord’s name and a curse word in the same breath.”
    “Sorry. I’m just a little . . . freaked out, you know?”
    “Imagine how I feel. One minute I was getting ready to ice a batch of cinnamon rolls, the next I was looking down at myself wondering why I’d never dyed the gray out of my hair.” Her mother glanced out the window, fidgeted with the wavy hair pulled up on top of her head. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
    “Frighten me? You’re scaring the crap out of me!” Then a thought screamed through her brain. “Wait. Does this mean I’m—”
    “No, Katherine, you are very much alive.”
    Kate exhaled. Thank God. If she died now, she would have some very ticked off clients back in L.A. “Then what—”
    “I had some unfinished business. And well, let’s just say when that light appeared, I kind of ignored it.”
    “A light?” Kate asked. “There really is a light?”
    Her mother’s brows drew together. “You think so many people would lie about that?”
    “I never really thought about it before.” Kate faced forward and undid the seatbelt so she could shift easier in the seat. “I can’t believe this.” She looked up into the mirror. Again her mother had disappeared.
    “Mom?” She heard a sigh.
    “Don’t bother lookin’ in the mirror. I don’t think I have a reflection anymore.”
    Kate looked into the backseat again and, sure enough, there she was. “Why?”
    “I don’t know.” Her mother shrugged. “I think when you go through the light, you get all the answers, like in some kind of dead person’s handbook or something. I’m kind of flying by the seat of my overalls.”
    “No. I mean why are you still here?”
    “Don’t you know?” Her mother’s voice rang with disappointment. A tone Kate had heard millions of times before.
    “Me?” She pointed to herself. “Uh-uh.”
    “Well, you don’t just wake up one day and say, gee, I’m going to leave all this unfinished business behind. Life’s a gift,