Callie and Jack are preparing for marriage in this prequel.
The only real mystery is who stole Lovie's gorgeous cake but
oh, what fun the author has with it. The Southern Cousin
Mysteries focus on Callie and Lovie's attempts to solve
various murders. This story relates the story of how Jack
and Callie met. Jack is calling on his mentor, Charlie, and
knows better than to get entangled with any dame but there
is something about Callie.
Callie is madly in love but realizes that she knows very
little about Jack and he isn't talking. The mysteries are
always told from the perspective of at least two characters.
This story involves, Elvis, Callie's mother, and her best
friend, Fayrene. Each story contains some kernel of truth
but with very different elements.
The reader will be very amused at the narrations and the
over the top activities that ensue to figure out who stole
the cake and the efforts to recover it. Miss Webb has done
another wonderful job with JACK LOVES CALLIE TENDER.
Between the malapropisms of Fayrene and the song titles we
get from Elvis, the reader will have a hard time deciding
which part is funnier.
Elvis is back—and he’s giving the lowdown on how his human
parents met and got hitched. In this prequel to the popular
Southern Cousins Mysteries, the canine sleuth and
Mooreville’s suspicious minds (Lovie, Ruby Nell and Fayrene)
tell how they saved Jack and Callie’s wedding. This novella
also includes a Companion Guide to the Southern Cousins
Mystery series, as well as bonus recipes from Lovie’s
Luscious Eats.
Excerpt
Prologue
I wasn’t on the premises when my human mom and dad met, but
that doesn’t stop a basset hound of my intelligence and
charm, not to mention my mismatched radar ears, from being
the best dog to tell the story. After all, I’ve heard it a
million times from Ruby Nell Valentine (Callie’s mama), who
likes to think she runs the show around this little corner
of northeast Mississippi. Of course, that honor goes to
yours truly, but I don’t let on to Ruby Nell. She’s my
source of peas and cornbread.
Naturally, I’ve heard the story from Lovie (Callie’s
cousin), whose version is slightly altered from that of
Callie and Jack (my human parents).
I’ve even heard it from Fayrene. She’s Ruby Nell’s best
friend and the owner – along with her husband, Jarvetis
Johnson – of Gas, Grits and Guts, the best little
convenience store in downtown Mooreville, Actually, it’s
the only convenience store in Mooreville (population 652
since Callie’s manicurist Darlene moved in with her little
boy). Of course, she also moved in with a vicious cat named
Mal and an uppity dog called William, if you want to count
them. But who in his right mind would count a mean-eyed cat
and a Lhasa Apso with legs so short he can’t even lift them
to mark a tree?
Back to Gas, Grits and Guts… Considering the Johnsons sell
everything from pick axes to pickled pigs lips - and that
Fayrene knows every morsel of gossip about everybody and is
more than willing to tell it - they’ve put Mooreville on the
map.
Of course, Fayrene’s version of Jack and Callie’s story is
slightly different from Ruby Nell’s. And I’m not even going
to discuss how far off their version is from all the rest.
But listen….I’m dog who can bury a bone where Callie’s silly
spaniel can’t find it; not to mention that I was a world-
wide icon in my other life as a singing sensation in a white
sequined jump suit. I know how to dig up the truth. I know
how to patch it up so that all the different versions make a
coherent whole. Well, sort of.
Besides, I know more about love me tender than anybody in
the Valentine family. After all, I once spun love and
heartbreak into a hit record faster than you can say, “Pass
the PupPeroni.”
I admit that my motives for telling this story are mixed.
Naturally, I want to keep my fans happy by letting them be
the first in the know. There’s nothing I like better than a
horde of adoring fans.
But I also want to turn Callie and Jack’s impossible dream
into another wedding between my human parents. What could be
better than seeing two people who are soul mates together
again?
Before you start pinning a medal on me, I have to confess
that I’m a noble hound with a selfish side. I’m tired of
being swapped back and forth. In spite of the fact that
Jack put the star on Callie’s Christmas tree after Corky’s
arrest in what the Valentines are calling the Blue Christmas
caper, he’s still got that tacky apartment he rented after
Callie threw him out.
Maybe a stupid fish wouldn’t care whether his fish tank sat
on the bedside table in Callie’s charming house or landed on
the scruffed-up kitchen table at Jack’s place. But I’ve got
a brain.
Not to mention a mission.
Why do you think I got sent back here in a dog suit in the
first place? So I could take care of these misguided humans,
that’s what. If I’m over at Jack’s place, how can I make
sure Callie stops trying to take care of everybody else and
takes care of herself? Who will be there to lick her face
when she needs to hug a compassionate dog?
And if I’m snoozing on my pink silk guitar shaped pillow by
Callie’s bed, how can I teach Jack that he deserves a home?
How can I be the amazing dog-on-the-spot who teaches him
that dirty laundry left more than three weeks is a hazard to
health and courtship?
I could go on all day about the things I need to teach my
humans, but I promised the real story of Jack and Callie.
Never let it be said that Elvis Valentine Jones is not a dog
of his word.
***
Chapter one
Callie and Jack have been Mooreville’s hottest topic of
conversation since he pulled a gun at Gas, Grits and Guts to
catch the Blue Christmas killer. Until then, everybody
thought he was an international businessman. Now the
speculation runs from FBI to CIA and even CNN, thanks to
Fayrene.
But the biggest speculation is personal. Trixie Moffett’s
going to have a Christmas wedding to a man everybody barely
knows, and you know how gossip runs sideways and crossways
and even backwards. Now folks are talking about Jack and
Callie wedding. Where did they meet? How did they get
together? Where did he propose? Who was at the wedding? What
was Mooreville’s premiere society wedding like? Will Jack
ask her to tie the knot again so he can have Christmas
dinner down on the Valentine farm as part of the family
instead of a bad boy loner with a smart dog and a tacky
apartment?
About the only thing everybody agrees on is that when Jack
Jones first blew into Mooreville, he was wearing a black tee
shirt that showed every muscle he’s got and the tightest
black jeans this side of decency.
“Callie and Jack first met at the annual barbecue down on my
farm.” Ruby Nell, who is wearing one of the sequined caftans
she wears from Thanksgiving through New Year’s in honor of
the holidays, makes this pronouncement as if it’s law and
gospel.
“No, they didn’t. They met at Gas, Grits and Guts.” Fayrene
says her piece with equal certainty.
“I ought to know. I’m the mother of the bride.”
“Which makes you prodigious and therefore unreliable.”
In Fayrenese, prodigious means prejudiced. She’s
Mooreville’s Mrs. Maloprop. She can mutilate a word faster
than I can dig up my treasured ham bone from Callie’s back
yard.
“That’s just plain tacky to sit here and argue with me in my
own house, Fayrene. Especially during the Christmas season.”
We’re not actually inside the farmhouse. Callie’s mama and
Fayrene are sitting in rocking chairs on Ruby Nell’s front
porch, and I’m flopped on my belly on the top step enjoying
one of those sunny days down South that makes winter feel
like summertime. I’m down on the farm waiting for Callie to
finish up dispensing cut Christmas hairdos at her beauty
shop and take me home. It goes without saying that Ruby Nell
and Fayrene are meddling in Callie’s business.
Which is fine with me as long as they have a good motive.
And they do. Nothing would please Ruby Nell more than to see
her only child back in the arms of Jack Jones. Permanently.
She thinks he walks on water.
And whatever Ruby Nell wants for Callie, Fayrene declares
she wants it twice as bad. Ruby Nell may be the one to swoop
around in colored caftans and have Callie change her hair
color more often than most women change purses, but Fayrene
is the one who always dresses in the color of money and
drives a neon green hearse. In the drama queen department,
I’d say they’re about equal.
“Well, Ruby Nell,” Fayrene says, “if we want to settle the
argument, we can ride up to Hair.Net and ask Callie.”
“We will do no such thing. I’m not about to have my daughter
know that we’re down here discussing her business.”
“I don’t think that would be news to her.”
“Yes, but as long as I don’t admit it, she can pretend not
to know. It’s easier that way. “
“Why don’t we call Lovie? She can collaborate my story.”
But Ruby Nell is in no mood for corroboration or
collaboration. As usual, she just wants to be right.
“Flitter, Fayrene. Those two tell each other everything.
They grew up more like sisters than cousins. Suffice it to
say, Callie and Jack met at the farm.”
“Suffice it to say, I was taking Mayor Earl Getty’s credit
card for a tank of gas and Callie was holding onto a bag of
Lay’s potato chips when Jack Jones drove up in that fancy
silver Jag.”
“That was after my Fourth of July bash.”
“It was not. I still had a table full of fireworks.”
“You always have leftover fireworks after the Fourth.”
Fayrene ignored that remark and went right on with her tale.
I’ve heard it before and could quote it word for word, but
it’s best to hear it from her lips.
“He walked in looking like a movie star, all dressed in
black, and my jaw just about came unhinged. When he took
off those sunglasses and I saw his black eyes, I like to
have had a heart prostration attack.”
I don’t know whether Fayrene means the heat was about to do
her in or if it was her heart. Either way, she’s not the
star of this tale. If you’ll recall, the stars are Jack and
Callie.
“At least you’ve got the effect of my son-in-law right.”
“Ex.”
“Not yet. And not at all if I have anything to do with it.”
“I agree a hundred per cent, Ruby Nell. If ever any two
belonged together, it’s Jack and Callie. Why, when they saw
each, they created such sparks I could have lit a match and
blown Gas, Grits and Guts to Kingdom Come.”
“They’re always like that, Fayrene. That doesn’t mean they
met at your store first.”
”You can’t prove they didn’t.”
Fayrene is right. Ruby Nell is too close to the situation to
be a reliable witness, plus she’s always getting facts mixed
up with her more colorful fiction.
If the two of them would ask yours truly, they’d find out
they were both wrong. Jack and Callie are the ones who tell
the truth. Jack has told me the story a gazillion times,
especially since he lost Callie.
And my human mom has spent many an evening sharing popcorn
and Hershey bars with Lovie, spilling her guts and more than
a few tears over Jack Jones.
Both Fayrene’s and Ruby Nell’s stories have a grain of the
truth – Jack came to Gas, Grits and Guts first, but Callie
wasn’t there; and Callie brought Jack to Ruby Nell’s Fourth
of July picnic that first evening, but that wasn’t where
they met.
The real story is best told by Jack Jones.
Lying on Ruby Nell’s front step while my ears blowing in the
wind while she and Fayrene drone on about stuff they’re
making up on the spot, I rewind my internal record of Jack
telling how he met Callie.
***
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy