Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series Book 4) Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  BEST SERVED FROZEN

  First edition. June 28, 2014.

  Copyright © 2014 Gerald Hansen.

  ISBN: 978-1501479410

  Written by Gerald Hansen.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series, #4)

  BEST SERVED FROZEN

  PROLOGUE—DERRY, NORTHERN IRELAND

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE—THREE MONTHS LATER/FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11—WISCONSIN

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT (AND HOW WE MIGHT SEE THEM LATER):

  PROLOGUE—1980

  CHAPTER ONE—TODAY

  Further Reading: Static Cling

  About the Author

  Keep in touch with all Gerald Hansen’s activities, freebies and special offers! Sign up for his mailing list here. Follow Gerald Hansen on Twitter, visit the Gerald Hansen website

  and please 'like' his Facebook page.

  Also by Gerald Hansen

  The Irish Lottery Series:

  An Embarrassment of Riches

  Hand In The Till

  Fleeing The Jurisdiction

  Best Served Frozen

  Static Cling

  Table For Nine At Kebabalicios: A Short Story

  Emergency Exit

  BEST SERVED FROZEN

  GERALD HANSEN

  To Mom and Dad, Lorna and Colin; what would I do without you all?

  “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” Eugène Sue, Memoirs of Matilda

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks again to everyone who has been so supportive to me! I couldn't have written this book without you. You have truly helped me during those dark, lonely hours when I'm hunched over the computer, a hermit, making these characters and their story come alive.

  Thanks, first of all, to all the many, many fans I've received over the past few years. You're the reason I wrote this book. I'm grateful what I've written has sparked your interest, and that you've allowed the Floods and Barnetts into your lives. I know there are millions of authors to choose from out there, and I'm delighted you decided to choose me. I'm relieved, actually, when anyone reads my books and enjoys them, so, truly, my deepest thanks to each of you. Special thanks to Dawna Bate, Marla Brugger and Deja Allen Cheek. Also to Gina Moye, Lana Lynch, Julie Fuchs, actually, all the Words and Wine Book Club in Camarillo, CA, and also the Fanwood Book Club, including especially Alice Ritchie Ballan and Barbara Singer Kitchen. And Anita Orlovich Fleming, one of the first fans! Thanks so much everyone!

  Specific thanks must go to my mentor Lorna Matcham. It was truly a special day when we met on Authonomy. I can't imagine my life without you now, even outside the writing arena. You have given me so much strength, brightened my days with your insight, your humor and your advice, which is always spot on. The reaction of the readers proves that. And a shout out to all the amazing writers I met through Authonomy, especially the wonderful Kate Rigby, Katherine L Holmes and Cynthia Cordell.

  Also, special thanks to Erin Lynch for her help, as usual, and to Gosia Kurek. You both help make sure what I write is readable! Aldercy Flores, once again, you have been a treasure-trove of inspiration! So many parts of this book are down to you, and I thank you! Colleen Reeves Taylor, who would've ever believed when we were riding that bus around the base at A T Mahan that you would years late become almost my personal publicist? Thanks so very much for all your hard work spreading the word! And for this I also simply must thank Maciej Rumprecht. We're a great duo together on Fridays and Satudays, aren't we? And Chingiz Akchurin, thanks for everything. Thanks as well to Zenya Prowell and Antonella Iannarino. You both made me realize my worth as a writer. Thanks for gems of inspiration to Ben Dimond, Estee Adoram, John Kelly and Carl Holder. And to Mark Gondelman for all his help. Ricky Lee, your finance/math skills were essential to the 'Killer Investors' part of this book, and for that I truly thank you! Anna Chernysheva, it was fun going on this journey with you. Jeana Barenboim, thanks for arriving early, Alysha Pilkey, thanks for getting me out quickly, Brandon Piazza, thanks for waiting patiently, and Rodney Hanna, thanks for taking my Saturday 5 to 9. Lawrence Martinetian, what would my life be without you? Thanks for showing me the world! Truly! You are a great friend. And to Kate Flood, thanks so much for enduring with great humor my constant maligning of your family name. I want it known that the Floods in this book are in no way based on actual Floods in Kells, Co. Meath!

  Also, the book wouldn't exist without the amazing skills of my photographer Marcin Kaliski, and the brilliant cover of Marco Maldera, and my website courtesy of Fabrizio Caso. Thanks for your talent, and for being friends.

  And of course, thanks so much to all my students and the marvelous people at both Manhattan Language and the Olive Tree/Comedy Cellar, NYC, especially Bonita Vander and Noam Dworman.

  HOW TO PRONOUNCE THE NAMES:

  Fionnuala: Fin-noo-lah

  Dymphna: Dimf-nah

  Siofra: Shee-frah

  Eoin: Owen

  Padraig: Paw-drig

  Seamus: Shay-mus

  Ursula: Uhr-suh-lah

  Sorca: Sor-kah

  Maire: My-ra

  Ailish: Eye-lish

  Maeve: Mayve

  PROLOGUE—DERRY, NORTHERN IRELAND

  Fighting back the tears, Dymphna Flood crouched over the plush carpeting with the fifth match. The black silk and white lace trim of the La Perla camisole strained against the heft of her breasts. The matching tap panties were taut against her thighs as she lit one Jo Malone scented candle after the next.

  She had found the candles on a shelf of her future mother-in-law's walk-in closet. They seemed expensive, and were just sitting there in a box doing nothing, so Dymphna had appropriated them for the evening's mission. Costly or not, Dymphna thought, Zoë Riddell could well afford them, minted Derry Businesswoman Of The Year as she was. Well, runner-up, anyway. And...future mother-in-law? Please, please, please, merciful Father, and the Virgin Mary and all, let it be!

  Sniffling, Dymphna crab-walked on her haunches, flames flickering anew in the wicks of the wild fig and cassis, the lime basil and mandarin, the vanilla and anise, the English pear and freesia. The candles formed a path of two rows from the bathtub, out the bathroom and wound down the hall, through her bedroom door and on towards the foot of her bed. The match went out, and she reached for another.

  Dymphna knew lads weren't into candles and romantic things like that, but she prayed Rory would find the journey through them
towards the bed enticing. If he didn't—

  But, no. She bit a knuckle and new tears welled in her eyes. A little moan escaped. She couldn't think like that. This plan had to work. For the sake of the new little being forming itself inside her womb. Her third. But, sadly, not their third.

  Calming herself, she flicked the match and lit a pomegranate noir, hoping against all hopes Rory would never find out he probably wasn't the father of this new child either. And if the candles, the bubble bath, the massage with the loofah sponge, the rose petals on the bedspread didn't work their magic, she always had the allure of her firm 22-year-old body offered up to him, gift-wrapped in the scalloped leg openings that made her look like a sex-rabid French maid. Saucy! Lads went mad for that look, didn't they? She could almost hear the 'Pwoar!' from Rory as she lit a wild fig wick. A breast threatened to spill from the scanty camisole. Dymphna shoved it back where it belonged. Maybe Zoë was a size smaller than her after all.

  Dymphna had found the La Perla in Zoë's closet as well. It had been next to the candles, folded, the tags still on. Unworn. Dymphna's eyes had saucered at the price. And it was much more enticing than her own tired, frayed bed clothing. She would tie the tags on again and slip it back when she was done this evening. She wouldn't be wearing it long, God willing. Rory should rip it from her, so there'd be no need to wash it. One part of her brain wondered why Zoë didn't make use of it. It seemed made only to nab a man. But then another part of her brain answered: Zoë didn't need to.

  Mrs. Riddell already had everything a woman could possibly want—a child, and a son at that!, one 'real' grandchild, thanks to Dymphna, a fully-paid house, a posh one with heated kitchen tiles, seven heads on the shower, a DeLonghi steam espresso and cappuccino maker, a bulging bank account, Chanel No. 5 on her vanity table, a gym membership that she actually used to good effect, and glasses with frames from Burberry. And no man, no husband to complicate things (Mr. Riddell, Dymphna didn't know his first name, had been killed by the IRA decades before).

  What Zoë had was freedom. And speaking of freedom, though lack of it, Zoë also had a skivvy, a sort of indentured servant—Dymphna herself—to toil away at one of the family businesses for a pittance. After Rory had proposed and Dymphna had moved in, it had been at the Pence-A-Day storage units, and now at the fish and chip van. To teach her, Zoë had said, 'the value of money,' but that was flimmin stupid. Dymphna already knew there were 100 pence in a pound, five pounds in a fiver, ten pounds in a tenner and so on. Did the woman think she was a simpleton?

  The flame flickered in her unsteady fingers, and as Dymphna wondered suddenly what the bleeding hell wild fig, anise and freesia were and why the pear was 'English,' the blood pounded in the veins of a brain still struggling to overcome the hangover from the night before...and it was now—she peered through the frame of her bedroom door at the alarm clock on the nightstand—a quarter to six in the evening!

  Rory would be back from his soccer game soon—the blue and white stripes of his kit covered with muck, stinking of male sweat, a pint of lager or two on his breath and ready for the shower she had revamped into a seductive bath would include a stint with the massaging nozzle. She still had to prepare the bed. She lit the last candle, blew out the match, and padded down the stairs to collect the roses she had tugged from the back garden.

  She would remain true to Rory Riddell, her betrothed. She loved him. Loved him. She couldn't cheat on him. At least, that was the thought that consumed her as she had scrawled the lipstick on her mouth the night before. The lipstick was Sephora's Red Seductress and not Zoë's. Dymphna had nicked it from the makeup counter at the Top-Yer-Trolly superstore downtown. The expensive lipsticks were kept under lock and key; you had to ask a sales assistant to unlock the cabinet if you wanted one, and then they carried the tube over to the till for you, hawk-eyed as it sat on the conveyor belt before it was finally rung up. But Dymphna knew from her time working there they had the samples just laying there on the streaked glass, having touched who knew how many scabby lips, but just begging to be stolen.

  But the night before she had ended up shagging the guy who worked as a shelf stacker at the Top-Yer-Trolly in the loo of the pub. She had woken up in the morning with strange pains and a head burning with the shame of a slapper.

  While Rory and his mother nattered over toast in the kitchen, Dymphna had thrown Keanu and Beeyonsay into their stroller, sneaked out of the house and caught the mini-bus to the Moorside. She had inched herself into the church and crept into a confessional as a matter of course. The stroller wouldn't fit, so she had to leave it outside (the confessional, not the church). But the Hail Marys she had rattled off as penance, and all the stations of the cross with a rosary, hadn't done much to assuage her guilt. It had made it worse it, with the eyes of Peter and Paul and Luke and all the other saints staring down at her accusingly like that. And the eyes of the children staring up. The wanes. Beeyonsay was Rory's, but Keanu was Henry O'Toole's. And this new wane? Whose was it, exactly?

  Rory's? Fabrizio's? Dymphna hadn't been able to control herself when she met the hot Italian on the cruise a few weeks back. She knew what his sexual equipment looked like, knew what his arse looked like, but struggled to remember his face and didn't even know his last name, his job, how many brothers or sisters he had or if he had none, where in Italy he came from (indeed, if it weren't for the fact that it was shaped like a boot and easily discernible on every map, she might have also struggled to know where the country actually was) or where he might be right now. Why hadn't she thought to friend him on Facebook?

  Dymphna tossed rose petals around the foot of the bed, removing little clumps of dirt as she went, then sprinkled some petals on the bedspread. It was flung open invitingly on one side. And for the finishing touch...she placed petals in the middle of duvet so that they spelled out M-A-R-C-H 4-T-H. She had wanted to spell out the second word, but couldn't decide if it was spelled 'forth' or 'forthe.' March 4th, in any event. The date she would demand, that evening, Rory finally marry her. Maybe it was hopeless. Was it really possible to coerce a wedding date out of someone with some posh candles and a few strokes of a loofah sponge?

  After the cruise, she had thrust down Rory's y-fronts and demand he take her the moment she got home, in case Fabrizio's Italian spermatozoa was particularly abundant. For a week, she had had Rory every place she could, a marathon of sweaty, lager-infused copulation on any flat surface they could find, and a few vertical as well. She hoped somehow, if Fabrizio had impregnated her, Rory's Irish Proddy sperm would force its way into her already fertilized egg, Isn't that was the Orange Proddy bastards were good at? Invading others and disrupting their ways of life? It was the history of British world-wide imperialism; she wanted Rory to invade her womb just as his ancestors had invaded her country. Rory couldn't believe his good luck, and Dymphna was thankful for their sex-a-thon, because her instincts had been right. First her period was late, and then it never came. Or was that because Rory had made her pregnant?

  She might never know. If the child inside her were Fabrizio's, it would probably have black hair, but then again, so did Rory. Though if it was curly...? Rory's hair was matted, but maybe it was the grease that kept it from curling. If the baby popped of out her without olive skin, then perhaps she could relax. Though, on second thoughts, even then she wouldn't be able to be sure. And only later, when it couldn't speak English correctly, would she know it was the Italian's. And Rory would know too.

  Somewhere downstairs a clock struck six. Rory usually came home at the same time, knackered from the soccer. Dymphna spritzed some scent under her arms, then daubed some of the holy water her Aunt Ursula had brought her back from Lourdes years ago behind her earlobes for good luck. She was half-surprised it didn't sting her flesh. She was a shameless slapper. A tart. A harlot. A slag. A sinner. She looked in disappointment at her face in the mirror and imagined, instead of this dark halo of shame that hung over her everywhere she trudged around town, her head bowed and more often t
han not staring down at two shrieking infants in a stroller before her, the results of her fecund love pot, she imagined that her head was instead held high and adorned with that accessory dreaded by some but pined after by most girls worldwide, a wedding veil... She hoped the Blessed Virgin wasn't busy elsewhere that evening and would see fit to redeem her.

  The front door clattered open. Dymphna tensed. She hoped she would soon be hearing a 'Pwoar!' and she hoped, hoped with all her might that her dream was finally going to come true. On March 4th. She heard the door close and his heavy steps up the stairs.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fionnuala Flood dreaded what the neighbors might think if they caught wind of her trip to the Waterside. She had shot her head from side to side, thankful for the cover of pelting rain, to make sure nobody was watching her heave herself up the steps of the bus. It displayed its destination far too plainly on the front, the neighborhood of the minted Orange Proddy bastards. Fionnuala had lived her entire life in Derry; indeed, she had rarely stepped outside it, and had never had the need, and certainly not the desire, to cross the River Foyle. Every curb the bus passed, she had cursed her daughter Dymphna for pairing up with a Protestant.

  Now the springs of Zoë Riddell's settee, her sofa, groaned under Fionnuala's bulk, and the dainty teacup was dwarfed by her meaty fingers, nicotine-stained and nail-chipped. Bleached ponytails swinging, she lowered her head towards the rim of the Wedgwood as if it were a trough and she a sow. She guzzled down a mouthful—milky with three sugars, just as she had asked for—then reached forward for a biscuit she had never seen the likes of in her life before. She longed to scoff it down, but daintily nibbled a corner, horsey teeth chipmunk-like. She felt a breeze on the nape of her neck and realized it was her daughter's excited breath, the usual scent of stale alcohol on it.