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    Jack Loves Callie Tender (A Southern Cousins Mystery prequel, companion guide and cookbook)
    Jack Loves Callie Tender (A Southern Cousins Mystery prequel, companion guide and cookbook)
    Jack Loves Callie Tender (A Southern Cousins Mystery prequel, companion guide and cookbook)
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Jack Loves Callie Tender (A Southern Cousins Mystery prequel, companion guide and cookbook)

    By Peggy Webb

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    About this ebook

    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.

    “(Southern Cousins Mysteries) Zany characters combine with a witty plot in a cozy sure to please series fans and attract new ones.” Publishers Weekly, (Oct.) 2011

    “This crazy romp has everything: stilettos, chocolate, a sexy bad-boy not-quite-ex, even recipes for an Elvis favorite, with all the sugar and sass of a pecan bourbon ball. Grab your funeral fan and visit a spell.” Cathy Pickens, Author

    “It’s good to have Peggy Webb back doing what she does best—making us laugh out loud while enjoying a good read.” Fresh Fiction

    “Peggy Webb and laughter go together like grits and gravy. Elvis and the Dearly Departed will leave you howling for more.” Vicki Lewis Thompson, NYT bestselling author

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPeggy Webb
    Release dateNov 24, 2013
    ISBN9780989955577
    Jack Loves Callie Tender (A Southern Cousins Mystery prequel, companion guide and cookbook)
    Author

    Peggy Webb

    Peggy Webb is the author of 200 magazine humor columns, 2 screenplays, and 70 books.

    Read more from Peggy Webb

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      Book preview

      Jack Loves Callie Tender (A Southern Cousins Mystery prequel, companion guide and cookbook) - Peggy Webb

      Jack Loves Callie Tender

      Peggy Webb

      A Southern Cousins Mystery

      (a novella prequel and series companion guide)

      with bonus recipes

      Copyright 2013 by Peggy Webb

      Original cover art copyright 2013 by Cecilia Griffith

      Cover design copyright 2013 by Vicki Hinze

      All rights reserved

      Smashwords Edition

      Note from the author:

      Elvis is back! His brand new cover look features original art, exclusive to this series, done by my sweet, talented granddaughter, Cecilia Griffith.

      Look for Elvis and the Bridegroom Stiffs (A Southern Cousins Mystery, Book 6) in January of 2014, and Elvis and the Deadly Love Letters (A Southern Cousins short story) in February.

      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’s 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

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