Loren Piper Strikes Again (Unlucky Strikes #1)

Chapter 1

LOREN

Mom

Don’t forget to gas up the hearse before the funeral.

Everyone has heard the saying: Love conquers all.

Well, that’s a load of bull if you ask me.

I’d love to know why the folks who came up with it didn’t write more helpful proverbs. Something like: “Don’t fall for someone at a funeral.”

I know what you’re thinking: But Loren. That’s obvious. Funeral homes aren’t for falling in love; they’re for mourning and grief and death.

Normally, I would agree with you. However, when you spend ninety-five percent of your free time stuck in the funeral home your parents own, you don’t have a lot of spare hours to troll the bars or dating apps or wherever the rest of the world’s twenty-somethings meet other twenty-somethings. Or thirty-somethings.

Or forty-somethings if they’re hot.

But let’s get back to the falling in love part.

Here I am, offering tissues to a bunch of related strangers mourning the crochety old woman who lived right next to us for as long as I can remember. Guess what I don’t remember? Any of these people coming by to help mow her lawn or bring her meals when she couldn’t leave the house anymore.

Makes me wonder how genuine these tears really are.

I actually knew Hazel VanMeter and, I’m sorry for saying this considering she’s stretched out in a pine box at the front of the room, but she was awful.

When I was twelve, she called the police because I accidentally left the back tire of my bike on her lawn.

As I got older, she constantly ratted me out for sneaking out after curfew.

I’m still not sure how she knew because I was pretty damn stealthy slipping from my bedroom window and down the drainpipe.

Most recently, she told my parents I was smoking in the shrubs at the back of our house.

That one, I can honestly say wasn’t true. I haven’t smoked a cigarette a day in my life except that one time back in college when my friend Erin and I were drinking out the back of a frat house and I thought I’d try it.

Disgusting, by the way. Would not recommend.

The fact that I’m a twenty-five-year-old woman and can make my own choices didn’t stop my mother from texting me picture after picture of grayish-brown lungs that became riddled with disease after their owners had fallen victim to their vices.

Needless to say, I’m not shedding a tear for poor old Hazel VanMeter.

These tear-free eyes have a decent view of the whole funeral home as those who’ve gathered “celebrate” the life of the Wicked Witch of Westmorland Street.

They all bow their heads for Amazing Grace performed by my mother on the organ in the far corner next to two arrangements overflowing with lilies and baby’s breath—the world’s worst flower name, in my opinion.

How did someone come up with it, anyway? Baby’s breath.

Makes me think of blended peas and sour milk.

As I’m scanning the crowd, my gaze snags on a guy toward the back. Taller than the older blonde woman and the silver-haired man next to him, he doesn’t seem that put out by the loss of my old neighbor. His head isn’t even bowed.

This should probably be some sort of red flag.

He could be a psychopath who feels no emotions.

Then again, maybe Hazel called the cops on him when he was twelve too.

Although that would mean he would’ve had to stop by her house at some point, and I have never seen this guy in my life.

That square jaw and those shoulders are two things I would definitely remember.

Thirteen-year-old Loren would’ve tried sculpting his features out of clay during her artist phase.

Fifteen-year-old Loren would’ve found out his full name and deep-dived his social media profiles so she could learn everything there was to know about him and then drop hints about all the things we “have in common” during a completely “impromptu” run-in at his favorite place to hang out.

Yeah, teenage Loren was weirdly obsessive.

I blame it on this one-stoplight town where nothing interesting ever happens.

Thankfully, quarter-of-a-century Loren is much, much smoother.

I’ll casually sidle up to him after the committal and say something witty and charming that will endear him to me. In no time at all, we’ll be walking down the aisle hand-in-hand, me in an ivory gown and him in a sexy black tux.

Call me an optimist, but this feels like fate finally coming through for me after Sean Malloy and I broke up.

Who is Sean Malloy, you ask?

The other undertaker here.

Tall. Dark. Pale as a vampire.

A product of my Paranormal Romance phase.

Everyone says not to date a colleague, but for a hot minute I thought, why not? Might as well find someone interested in taking over the family business because I sure as heck don’t want to.

Sean was fine.

But I’m not looking for fine. I want fizzy tingles and flapping butterflies and shortness of breath.

Enter: The tall mourner with a great head of thick, golden hair.

If the older man next to him is any relation, this one might even get to keep all that hair when he gets older.

Unlike poor Sean who has aged at least ten years since our breakup.

My ex smiles at me from where he stands next to my father, the light above them reflecting off what’s left of Sean’s dark hair, their hands clasped in front of them like they’re ready for caskets of their own.

I love my father, but I do not want to end up with someone exactly like him.

Tried it. Hated it. Not for me.

The service ends, and the family and friends shuffle out, waiting for the pallbearers to carry the casket to the hearse. Guess who gets to drive that sex machine?

This girl.

Did I mention how much I hate my job?

Thankfully, the graveyard isn’t far away, and once Hazel VanMeter is in the ground where she can’t haunt me anymore, everyone is free to head back to the church for a dinner catered by the local diner where Hazel had a corner table reserved in her honor.

I use the term “reserved” in the loosest sense of the word. Basically, everyone was too scared to sit there in case she came in and ripped them a new one.

The crisp autumn air rattles the browning leaves still clinging to the branches as I lean against the hearse and wait for everyone to pile into their cars so I can maneuver this gigantic black metal cockroach out of here.

“Hey.”

I turn toward the deep voice and holy hell, the golden god with shoulders of stone has found me.

Is this real life?

“Hey.” Not exactly the smoothest start to a meet cute. Good thing there’s nowhere to go from here but up.

I can see my own reflection in his aviator sunglasses, and while my hair is on point, my smile looks tight as hell.

Oh no…

Words are starting to bubble from my throat and— “How do you know the Wicked—I mean, the deceased?”

Tell me I didn’t nearly call this man’s poor relative the Wicked Witch of Westmorland Street! Those are inside thoughts, Loren.

The bridal march playing in my mind has morphed into the out-of-tune chorus of Amazing Grace because this is now my funeral.

He mustn’t have caught my slip, because his lips tug into a smile. “Hazel was my great aunt, but I didn’t know her very well. She and my grandmother didn’t exactly get along.”

That voice. Think Clooney crossed with Damon.

Perfect. Just perfect.

If he can look past my terrible introduction, we’re destined to be together. I just know it.

Okay, maybe I don’t know. But a girl can hope, right?

He pushes his sunglasses onto his forehead, revealing a pair of deep-brown, puppy-dog eyes that look a little sad. Like a young Richard Gere or John Cusack. You know the eyes I’m talking about. When they meet mine, my stomach doesn’t just drop. It completely bottoms out.

When he holds out his hand and says, “My name is Josh,” my knees go weak.

“Loren. Loren Piper. Of Piper Funeral Homes.” Why did my mouth think it was necessary to add anything after Loren?

“Nice to meet you. Are you going to the dinner after this?”

“Oh, yes. We’re a full-service funeral home. Taking care of everything from start to finish.”

Thank goodness the beautiful man takes pity on me and chuckles.

Flashing me another perfect smile, he slides his glasses back into place. “I’ll see you there, Loren Piper of Piper Funeral Homes.”

The golden god blessing our tiny town with his presence is named Josh Bosnick.

I learned his last name over a plate of crispy fried chicken and green bean casserole in the church social hall. For reasons I cannot fathom, Josh stayed by my side the entire dinner, and then asked me out to dinner the next night.

Dinner led to a movie which led to the most glorious goodnight kiss a girl could have ever asked for which led to coffee the next morning and lunch after he finished helping his father prepare old Hazel’s home for an estate sale.

He’s charming and smart and handsome and everything I’ve ever wanted in a partner. The only downside is that he happens to live in Nashville.

That’s right.

Nashville Tenne-freaking-see. A short ten-hour commute from where we currently stand on his great aunt’s front porch.

Now there’s nothing to do but say our goodbyes.

It’s funny how someone you barely know can become so important in such a short amount of time. The thought of him leaving brings tears to my eyes.

Surely that has to mean something, considering Sean and I dated for almost two years, and when we broke up my eyes were as dry as the grass on a sunny July afternoon.

Josh hugs me tight and presses the sweetest of kisses to my lips, saying, “I wish we had more time.”

It’s like the end of one of those terrible movies I watched as a kid that you thought was a romance but ends up being a depressing drama. My heart feels like it’s being shattered into a billion pieces by one of those comically large sledgehammers at the county fair.

I kiss Josh one last time and wave goodbye as I watch him drive away.

My mother calls from our porch, telling me someone needs to collect the lilies from the florist for tomorrow’s funeral.

Is this how I want my life to play out? An endless wheel of death and sickeningly sweet flowers and hearses?

Hell no.

When you find love, you chase after it, no questions asked.

If you don’t, you’ll be living in a perpetual third act break up instead of finding the happily-ever-after you deserve. At least that’s what all those classic nineties romcoms have taught me.

And I’m desperate for a HEA of my own.

I race over to my house, telling my mother as I pass that there’s somewhere else I want to be (hint: it rhymes with Crashville Spennessee).

As I stuff all my worldly possessions into suitcases, my dad threatens to disown me, reminding me that, as their only child, it’s my responsibility to take over the funeral home that has been in our family for three generations. They spend the rest of the night trying to talk me out of leaving.

When I wake up the next morning to get an early start, my mom cries on the stoop, sobbing loudly enough for the neighbor we have left to hear.

But I’m following what could be true love.

And when you follow your heart, nothing can go wrong.