I’ve put up teasers from THE GOOD LIFE on this website before.

Here’s another one I shared the other day on Facebook featuring Ginny and Tommy from The Downey Trilogy:

THE GOOD LIFE

~~~(Copyright 2014 Genevieve Dewey, subject to editing, all rights reserved, etc):~~~

 

“Man, I love weddings,” Ginny Sommers declared breathlessly as she joined them, all but dragging Tommy behind her. “And this is our third in the last six weeks.”

“Third?” Tommy frowned.

“Your parents, then Kiki and James—”

“My dad’s doesn’t count as a wedding so much as a media circus fused with an inter-agency cluster-fuck.”

Ginny shrugged and grinned at both Kyle and Demi, “Anyway. Never gets old, weddings. The awkward social interplay between now connected strangers, the equally awkward ritual of…” she broke off and cocked her head. “Why don’t you two get up and dance?”

“Might be awkward with the plate full of cake between us,” Kyle joked.

Demi choked a bit on the bite in her mouth.

Tommy chuckled. “Talked to the DJ and the groom, and they’re going to do the official ‘aw, wook at da happy couple’ dance they forgot to do, so that means you guys are gonna have to shortly thereafter.”

“Aw, thanks for that,” Kyle responded with an insincere grin.

“Hey, no problem, partner,” Tommy replied with an equal amount of sarcasm. “But it ain’t about you. Rain man here can’t stand it when the rituals aren’t obeyed.”

“Uh!” Ginny smacked him. “I am not that bad.”

“You and Kyle’s sister—Kate—would get along great,” Demi laughed.

“As it happens, I’ve just finished chatting with the bride. We gave each other the standard anthropologist hand shake.”

Tommy laughed, “Which, near as I can tell, is an alcoholic beverage and mentioning Binford, or Boas, or Goodall…”

“…And other people no one’s heard of,” Kyle concurred.

“Everyone knows who Jane Goodall is,” Demi scoffed. “Anyone who actually cares about the environment and not slaughtering animals does anyway. I wouldn’t expect Mr. I Heart Bacon here to understand.”

Tommy snickered.

“I’ve mentioned Demi’s a bunny-hugging twig-eater, haven’t I?” Kyle teased.

Ginny seemed amused by the exchange, but she didn’t respond beyond a quick clink of her glass with Demi’s. Kyle flashed a grin at Demi who opened her mouth, flushed, then quickly turned back to Ginny.

“It’s nice you could get time off to come be Tommy’s date, Agent Sommers,” Demi said, dusting off that ethereal tone.

As usual it gave Kyle the twin desire to shake her and kiss her. He dropped his hand to slide it between her legs. She stopped it with her own and dug her fingernails into his skin. Interestingly, she didn’t move his hand.

“Call me Ginny,” Sommers protested. “And it’s pretty easy actually; I always schedule visits with work, so technically I’m here to consult on a case. What I do on my off time is my business.” She adjusted the special harness she wore to conceal her sidearm with her dress.

“It helps there’s an actual FBI budget line for ‘spying on Tommy Gates’,” Tommy snickered. He dodged the smack she sent his way.

Ginny hesitated and tilted her head shoulder to shoulder with an endearing sort of grimace, “Actually, that’s sort of the truth.”

They looked at each other and laughed. The love in their gazes was easily apparent and almost made Kyle feel like he was intruding witnessing it. He shot a side glance towards Demi. She was watching them with a wistful hint of a smile.

“We prefer to think of it as monitoring known contacts of fugitives on our Most Wanted list,” Ginny continued.

“Details,” Tommy acknowledged with an eyebrow wiggle.

“Only, I am not paid to watch him—”

“She just does it for free,” Tommy interrupted with a snicker.

“On account of the obvious,” she finished with a laugh, grabbing his hand and interlacing their fingers.

“It must be difficult to live so far from each other…” Demi said absently. She was staring at her plate, moving bits of cake crumbs into formations, looking pensive.

“Mmn, we make it work,” Tommy said with a shrug. “It’s not preferable, but she’s worth breaking my strict no-long-distant-relationships rule. And she’s Aunt Claire approved.”

Kyle chuckled. Claire Anderson-Underwood was a sweet and steady woman who didn’t speak much, but she could ferret out a bad match the way a fox could sniff out a hare, and was never shy about sharing her opinion if she felt someone wasn’t worthy of one of her loved ones.

“It’s great Aunt Claire and Uncle Jack could drive over from Chicago,” Kyle acknowledged. “It means the world to Katie.”

“Oh, she gave Ginny the thumbs up way back when I started working on the Bonanno case with Uncle Jack,” Tommy said.

“You know what I learned from meeting Tommy on that case and getting to know his family?” Ginny said ponderously. Her gaze suddenly locked on Demi’s. “I learned that, truly, some lives are meant to connect. They intersect, ebb away, then reconnect again, defying all logic, or practicality. The joy is in accepting it, and in doing so, we figure out why. And then the practicalities just have a way of working themselves out.”

“Yes, she does always speak in riddles like that,” Tommy joked with heavy sarcasm.

–Copyright 2014, Genevieve Dewey.