Preview: We're a Wonderful Wife - Book 4 of 4 - All Good Things
by Duleigh

©Copyright 2024 Duleigh

Chapter 1

STAVE 1

It was a dark, cold, and wet Christmas Eve in Northern Colorado and Karole Krigbaum was fuming as she waited for her Uber. Incredibly tall with a beautiful face, natural platinum blond hair and a figure that drew stares from men and women wherever she goes, large breasts, narrow waist, sexy round hips and a southern accent as thick as sausage gravy. She has a body that any man would kill for, but she refuses to let any man near her, except for one. Her smile and her heart were saved for him and his wife.

The weather was as undecided and as bleak as her future; it was cold, dark, and dreary with no sign of improving and she tried to resign from her job but at the last minute changed her mind. The cold December rain suddenly turned to light snow, and all that did was highlight her hatred of this holiday. She looked back at the warm dry lobby of Torgeson and Briggs Financial Consulting, bedecked in Yuletide decorations, there were garlands, ornaments, and tinsel hanging from every conceivable portion of the lobby filling the air with a false holiday cheer, bringing a faux joyeux Noël to the office of an accounting agency whose only claim to being a business was a phone bank. Torgeson and Briggs Financial Consulting was just a nasty, angry contract bill collecting agency and Karole just spent Christmas Eve harassing people to the brink of tears. She made damn sure that the victims of her wrath knew that the call came from the friendly offices of Torgeson and Briggs Financial Consulting, a violation of company policy, but what are they going to do, fire her from a job she is one step from quitting?

Fuck Christmas.

Tired of being cold and wet, she went back inside to wait for her Uber, which was now ten minutes late. She stepped through the doors and turned around, looking out onto the bleak Loveland Colorado parking lot, soon to be covered with a fine layer of ice. She was almost glad that the bank repossessed her pickup truck. It would get her home safely in this weather, but she couldn't afford gas for that beast. What about an electric car? Karole scoffed, why not just get a Rolls Royce? She couldn't afford an electric car, let alone the extensive wiring job on the house needed to build a charging station.

As she looked out on the bleak, unwelcoming world, a deep voice rumbled behind her. "Come on Miss Krigbaum, you know that no one is allowed to loiter in the lobby." She looked over her shoulder and there was Marly, the huge, black as the night security guard. He was bearing down on her like a battleship charging toward an errant rowboat. His name was John Wilson, but he was called Marly by the bill collectors of Torgeson and Briggs Financial Consulting because of the unlit Marlboro hanging from his lips from the hour of 4:30 PM when management left, till whatever hour Marly left. They knew he had secret locations where he would light that smoke. The peons just never figured out where they were.

"Marly, it's raining outside, ah'm just waiting for my Uber, it will be here any time now."

"I can't let you do that Karole. You know that" he implored. Then he recited his script, "the lobby is for customer use only."

Karole looked around the lobby, bedecked in holiday cheer, resplendent in yuletide joy. All that there was for a customer to use was a couch, a chair, a coffee table, and a cashier's window, where overdue bills with unreasonable interest fees were collected. A pair of people from the custodial staff appeared with a stack of plastic totes and began removing the Christmas decorations. What a way to spend Christmas Eve, taking down Christmas decorations. They were as bad as she was. "Ok, ah'm goin'," she groaned.

"Why don't you go across the lot to Don Pollo's for the office party?" asked Marly.

"Slam back a bunch of tequila in a room full of people ah detest working with? Not a brilliant career move."

"I hear ya." A smile crossed Marly's normally impassive face. Of the dozens of people that work here, Marly is the only person who Karole likes. "Karole, I have to ask you to step outside, it means both of our jobs."

"Sorry Marly. Hey, can ah bum a smoke offa you?" Marly eased a pack of Marlboro Red from his pocket, and, with an expert flick of the wrist, he extended a cigarette halfway from the pack and offered it to Karole. "Thanks Marly," she said as she took the proffered smoke. "Got a light?"

Marly extended to her a small butane lighter, but he refused to release it when she tried to take it. The waiting room around them faded to black, the custodial people taking down the decorations disappeared into the dark. The only thing she could see now was Marly, who implored, "Karole, you have to let go of the hate, it will become an anchor chain around your neck."

"It's all ah have left," she responded, suddenly scared of the one man she has ever met that was taller than her. "Why are you bothering me?"

"It is required of every man," Marley replied, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life…"

"Yeah, yeah, ah know the rest," sneered Karole. "Every English teacher ah ever had required me to do a report on a Christmas Carol because of my name." Her southern accent copied a British accent as she said, "And if that spirit goes not forth in life it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world - oh, woe is me! Yadda yadda yadda, ah heard it all before. What cha gonna do, sic a buncha ghosts on me?"

His eyes narrowed as he softly growled, "You will be visited by two spirits and a ghost, their visit means more to you and your son than you could believe…"

"Screw that!" demanded Karole. "Scrooge was right 'What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books…' well, ah balanced my books and ah got jack shit! Ah got nuttin for my daughter, and next week ah won't have a roof over ma haid!"

The intensity faded from his eyes, and the color returned to the room. "Karole, please…" he said softly.

Panicked by his sudden change of personality without explanation, Karole was finally able to pluck the lighter from his huge fingers and she put distance between herself and the guard as fast as possible. She flicked the lighter and lit her cigarette as she walked to the exit. The doors opened automatically, and she turned and tossed the lighter back to Marly. "There's no smoking in the lobby," he called out, shaking his head as if to clear the cobwebs.

"I don't smoke," said Karole, emitting a cloud of smoke. That was mostly true. She doesn't smoke, unless she needs a quick buzz and then a rare coffin nail works wonders. "And ah ain't got no son."

Across the parking lot, they were whooping it up at Don Pollo's Margarita Bar. There was no sign of her Uber, and she was freezing. What was up with Marly? He doesn't even know the script. It was three spirits, not two spirits and a ghost, and he knows she's just got Krissy. Karole shows him pictures of Krissy all the time.

Karole decided that in the end Scrooge was right. Marly must have had something for lunch that didn't agree with him, "…an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you…"

Karole realized that a drop of rain almost put her cigarette out. She's not a smoker, so she didn't know to cup her hand around the stogie to keep it dry. She puffed it back to life and muttered, "I only lie to myself," a rule she tries to live by.

Karole's life was a shit show, and she was trying to pick up the pieces. Her ex-fiancé cleaned out her accounts and shattered her financially. Then, not long after the birth of her daughter, her house was surrounded by DEA, FBI and every local cop they could roust out of the donut shops. Jayce was arrested by the RCMP in Newfoundland for dealing meth and he told them and the DEA that his meth lab was in Karole's garage.

The investigation killed her license to practice respiratory therapy, which destroyed her medical career. They even arrested her next-door neighbor, the one man she loved in silence. Now here it is Christmas Eve, working a schlep job at a bill collector's office. Any extra money she had went to her daughter Krissy's few Christmas presents. Karole had one good Christmas in her life, and she hates herself for giving up the chance for another. She puffed on her cigarette, hating herself, hating the taste of the tobacco, and hating the nicotine rush.

Fuck Christmas.

Krissy is the center of Karole's universe and, as far as she knows, her only living relative. Karole's mom was long gone. She drowned in a drunken boating accident the day Karole graduated from the University of Georgia. All of Karole's childhood Christmas mornings were spent picking up the beer bottles emptied by Karole's mother and whatever redneck she was fucking at the time. She would spend every Christmas day fetching beer and aspirin for hung over human trash and if she was lucky, she would have a dollar store Barbi knock off and a pair of socks to unwrap. When she was ten, she got what she most desired for Christmas: ignored. She spent Christmas day locked in her house while her mother and her current "Uncle" went to St. Augustine for three days, leaving her behind with a box of pop tarts, half a gallon of milk, and a dozen cans of Chicken Noodle Soup. At least the cable was working.

Fuck Christmas

This is not an example of life in South Georgia, it is an example of Karole's alcoholic mother. Most of Karole's friends had warm, loving Christmas holidays, and they used those memories to taunt Karole at school. Last year was the best Christmas Karole ever had. She spent it with friends who waited on her hand and foot. She was pregnant with Krissy and received more gifts for Krissy than she believed possible from people she barely knew. Now, with her certification to practice at the hospital revoked, she lost her job, her truck, and she's going to lose her house. Here it is on Christmas Eve, and she has nothing to give to her daughter. Karole's greatest fear is coming true. She's turning into her mother.

Don and Lanh Campbell are her next-door neighbors, and they are the only thing besides Krissy that has made this entire shit-show of what is now Karole's life any form of bearable. When Rural Electric cut her power, they took her in, even though they're having money issues of their own. Don is the only father that Krissy has ever known, and his Asian wife Lanh dotes on Krissy like a second mom. Hell, Lanh was Karole's birth coach, holding her hand while her husband Don was right there mopping her brow as Krissy came into the world.

Don and Lanh opened their home to Karole and Krissy, feeding them when money was scarce, housing them for weeks at a time when the power was shut off, babysitting every time Karole needed a babysitter. In return, all they asked for was the opportunity to help even more. They would take her home to their family farm on holidays, where their entire family adopted Karole and Krissy and doted on them like they were family. They were showered with love and acceptance and Don and Lanh's family begged Karole to stay in Minnesota, and Karole kicked herself every time they returned to Colorado, but she wanted to stay close to Lanh… and Don.

Although Karole is absolutely in love with Don and Lanh, one small part of their lifestyle drives her nuts. Don and Lanh are Christmas crazy. Their decorations go up on the day after Thanksgiving and don't come down until January 5th, which Don informed Karole is "The twelfth day of Christmas." (Counting on her fingers showed he was right)

The Campbell home becomes a romance channel Christmas movie set; it is always festooned with lights and garlands and pine boughs and trees, a Christmas railroad threads its way through a Christmas village at the base of their perfectly decorated Christmas tree, their mantle over the fireplace is an explosion of holiday spirit with candles and pine boughs and holly and ornaments and stockings for Mr. Don, Miss Lanh, and of course Krissy and Karole. Every doorsill in the house was adorned with holly garland and red ornaments, illuminated with the tiniest white lights that Karole had ever seen. Even the paintings and photographs on the walls were removed and replaced with Christmas themed artwork, the frames of which were hand carved by a German wood carver that overdosed on peppermint schnapps, eggnog, and holiday cheer. No matter how overdone their house was decorated, it's nothing compared to Don's father's farmhouse. And everyone blames Lanh for that, and Lanh takes the blame proudly.

Karole and Lanh became best friends immediately after Karole moved in next door, which shocked Karole. Karole didn't make friends easily. Being raised by a drunken single mother who hauled her from trailer to trailer as she moved in with her "new beau" too many times to count ensured Karole grew up depending on herself and no one else.

Often Lanh and Karole hang out or go shopping together and they make an interesting looking pair, Lanh is a tiny Asian, slim with light skin, jet-black hair, and coal-black eyes, while Karole is over six feet tall, curvy, with skin that will go to a deep tan in the summer, light green eyes, and natural platinum-blond hair. They can spend a day shopping together, buy nothing, and come home to a sleeping Krissy whose face is covered in any sort of sweet mess, and Don cleaning the kitchen from his baking extravaganza with Krissy. Then later that evening Karole will spend the night yacking on the phone with Lanh, or Lanh's sister Kim-ly, with whom Karole found herself close to.

The only man on Karole's radar was Don. Both Karole and Kim-ly have a crush on Don, and both have promised to keep it to themselves, but Karole knows that if anything happens to Lanh, it will be a race between her and Kim-ly to see who gets to Don. Could this be the reason Karole refuses to take up the offers she's received to move to Minnesota? To remain close to Don?

And now here she is, standing in the freezing rain, waiting for a tardy Uber driver. Karole pulled out her cell phone to call Don and tell him she was running a bit late. Karole refused to admit her feelings about Don. They were wrong. She couldn't endanger her friendship with Lanh, she couldn't anger the family, and she couldn't embarrass Don, but she couldn't be separated from him. She was even willing to put up with intravenous egg nogg and gingerbread at Don and Lanh's house if it means getting out of this cold, wet weather and being near him.

"Hello, Don? Hey, I'm running a bit late, the Uber is late and…"

"It's ok, we're reading stories," said Don. Karole could hear Krissy's babbling in the background. She's 11 months old and getting closer every day to speaking. "Listen, why don't you…"

Karole was distracted when the rain turned to snow like someone threw a switch. The snowflakes swirled around her like being in a snow globe. Don would love this; she thought as she gazed at the swirling flakes. They reminded her of the only place she ever felt at home, Minnesota. She chuckled; he would call this Christmas snow; however, she knew that in the twenty miles between their two locations, the weather patterns could be vastly different.

Smiling for the first time today, she noticed the snowflakes had stopped. They were hovering in midair. She reached out to touch one and before she touched the snowflake; she felt a sudden jolt go through her. Not an electric shock, but like someone bumped her in the back. It was followed in rapid succession by ten more jolts, and then someone appeared next to her. Surprised at the sudden appearance, her feet slipped out from under her, and Karole dropped to her hands and knees. Her cell phone landed on the ground in front of her and Don was talking to her. She realized she hadn't heard a word he said and was trying to look up at the person who appeared when the apparition spoke.

"Ok, let's get this started. We need to get this right; this is the last chance we get," said the apparition, which had a familiar, haunting appearance…

…and then Karole recognized it and Karole's eyes rolled back in her head as she slumped to the ground.

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