Sadie, you are truly the best secret keeper in the county and therefore deserve to be an honorary member of the club. (Sophia, see to it would you? This is my last nomination, after all.)
Finally, don’t be mad at me, girls, and I hope this doesn’t change your opinion of me. We were all married to bastards who needed killin’--I was just the one to do it. I’ll see you in the hereafter. Until then...
Much love from your Bitsy
P.S I glued the dick to the bloody statue with denture adhesive. Brilliant, eh? I’ve left a sizable fund that should take care of old Jeb, by the way. In coupons, of course. Ha! Just kidding.
Hands shaking, lips twitching, Sophia lowered the letter and looked at both of them in turn. “Well.”
“My God,” Meredith breathed. “I never dreamed-- Never imagined.”
Sophia shook her head, seemed to be lost in her thoughts. “Me either.” She looked heavenward and blinked back tears, and Jolie listened as she said the one thing that she nor Meredith had the courage to say. “Thank you, Bitsy,” Sophia whispered softly.
“What are we going to do with all this stuff?” Meredith asked, typically moving on to practical matters. “Everybody thinks our husbands died of natural causes, but Jolie’s is a different story.”
Jolie knew that going to the police would probably be the right thing to do, but she couldn’t bring herself to suggest it. Bitsy was dead and buried--they couldn’t do anything to her. Furthermore, going to the police would involve outing the FWC, and Bitsy had worked too hard to protect it and to protect them, specifically. She gazed out the window, not really looking at anything, trying to think.
Then the barbeque pit seemed to swell before her eyes and she smiled and looked back at Sophia and Meredith. “How about a bonfire?” Jolie suggested. “It’s a chilly night, after all.”
Instantly taking the hint, Sophia and Meredith and Sadie shared a smile and five minutes later a big fire burned in the pit. Smiling, they each held a petite four in honor of Bitsy’s favorite dessert, then lifted them up for a toast of sorts.
“Our undearly departed...” Sophia said softly.
“...may he never rest in peace.”
HARD LEMONADE - Sneak Peek!
Can’t get enough of the ladies from The Future Widows’ Club in Bless Her Heart, North Carolina? Check out the sneak peek of the 2nd book in the series, Hard Lemonade, available for pre-order now!
HARD LEMONADE
...And all those Ills which thou so long hast mourn'd;
Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.
~William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697
When Lucy Campbell set a trap to catch her cheating fiancé, she hadn’t meant to almost kill him. She felt her expression blacken.
Though she was certainly contemplating murder at the moment.
“Ms. Campbell, Owen has had a severe allergic reaction--“ The doctor’s uneasy gaze slid to her fiancé’s extraordinarily swollen red penis. “--in a localized area, of course, which will eventually subside, but the anaphylactic shock induced from the allergen is still an unresolved risk.” He frowned. “We’re not sure what caused the reaction, though given the location of the p-problem we can certainly assume some sort of s-sexual lubricant is the source.”
Lucy merely smiled and didn’t address the elephant in the room--each and every person clustered around her fiancé’s hospital bed knew that Owen hadn’t had his “reaction” while in bed with her. She’d been on her mail route, tossing a dog treat to Roscoe Winchester’s Great Pyrenees to keep the enormous animal from trying to leap into her truck, when she’d gotten the dire call from her mother that she needed to come to the hospital.
“It’s Owen,” she’d said. “Hurry.”
Thinking that he’d been in an accident of some sort, Lucy hadn’t even bothered to drop her mail car off at the post office, but instead had rushed to Lucas County General. She’d called the post office from her cell and had arranged for another carrier to come and swap out her car and finish her route.
Had she known he’d only injured his cheating-unfaithful-couldn’t-keep-it-in-his-pants dick, she wouldn’t have bothered.
Furthermore, she knew the exact source of the allergen, because she’d put it there. She just hadn’t realized that he’d have an allergic reaction, particularly one to this degree. Her wryly mutinous gaze drifted over his white sheet draped form.
The corner of Owen’s bottom lip was bruised where they’d intubated him and his usually tan complexion had an unhealthy grayish tinge. His normally perfectly smoothed-back hair--very European, she’d always thought--lay in sweaty disarray and hung in weary clumps over his forehead. His eyes, the clearest, most compelling blue--eyes that had sucked her in and made her believe every slick lie that had rolled off his equally slick tongue--were bloodshot and watery. He gazed at her now, seemingly equally relieved and terrified to see her.
And with good reason.
Lucy dredged her soul for an ounce of pity and came up empty. Fucking bastard, she thought, too pissed to even shed a tear at this point. She’d known--known--that he’d been screwing around. God knows she’d watched her father cheat on her mother enough to recognize the signs. The late nights, the hushed phone calls, a whiff of unfamiliar perfume. The most telling, of course, had been the recent depletion of her KY Warming Gel.
They certainly hadn’t been using it.
He’d been too tired.
He’d been stressed out.
He hadn’t been in the mood.
Oh, he’d been in the mood all right, she thought, giving him a death ray glare. Just not with her. A momentary prick of pain nicked her heart, pierced the armor of her womanly confidence, but she determinedly batted both insecurities down with a blow of logic and hard-earned self-confidence. His infidelity wasn’t her fault. She wouldn’t own his mistake, wouldn’t give him any quarter whatsoever.
But why, why, why had she fallen for another man who was clearly incapable of being faithful? Was she fatally flawed? Was her judgment that bad? Geez God, what the hell was wrong with her? Lucy knew she wasn’t a sex goddess or runway material, but she tried to be an attentive, energetic lover--was always faithful, dammit--and, while she wasn’t going to win any beauty contests, a man wasn’t going to turn to stone by looking at her either. She was intelligent, relatively interesting, reliable, a bit dramatic at times. She was a happy drunk, a Braves fan and a chocoholic. Was she a bit paranoid, a bit manic when it came to fidelity?
Yes. Because frankly, she knew she deserved better.
And she’d vowed to never be like her mother--walking the floor, tearful, full of insecurity and self-doubt. Her father’s repeated affairs had consumed the better part of her teenage years and her mother, who’d thankfully divorced his miserable ass years ago, had finally had enough. Lucy had seen what cheating could do to a couple, and knew the impact it had on not only the main participants, but the people stuck on the fringe as well.
Dr. Hyde--a name that had no doubt made him the butt of many jokes--cleared his throat. “Owen says he’s unaware of any allergies. Do you have any idea what might have caused this reaction?”
Lucy’s gaze never wavered from Owen’s. “As a matter of fact, I do. I suspect it might have been the habanero oil I added to the sexual lubricant in our bedside drawer.” She had the pleasure of watching his red-rimmed eyes widen in shock as she slipped her engagement ring off her finger and carefully deposited it onto his chest.
Then, smiling bitterly, she leaned down until she was only inches from his face. “Not exactly the type of hot sex you were looking for, was it, O?”
A couple of startled gasps and a smothered chuckle erupted as she turned to make her exit from the room.
Her mother immediately straightened away from the wall as she entered the corridor. “Well? How is he?”
Lucy released a pent-up breath and massaged the bridge of her nose. The back of her throat burned, from the an
tiseptic, she told herself, and swallowed past the lump in her throat. “His penis looks like an enormous smoked sausage, but otherwise he’s fine.”
Relief chased away the anxiety on Bridget Campbell’s face. “Oh, thank God. When I saw that tube in his throat, I panicked. I was afraid that he’d--“
“Died?” she supplied helpfully. “No, he’s not dead. But our relationship is.” Lucy and Owen, March 2015-January 2018. R.I.P. Just another tombstone to commemorate another failed relationship in the graveyard of her love life.
Her mother’s gaze darted to Lucy’s empty ring finger and a sad smile shaped her lips. “Oh, Luce,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry, honey.”
“Better I find out now than later,” Lucy told her, looking for a silver lining to this dismal cloud of betrayal. She shoved her suddenly chilled hands into her pockets. “Better to break up than wind up divorced, right?”
“Yes, but honey--“
Lucy squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “Mom,” she interrupted. “It’s done.” She didn’t want to talk about it. She wasn’t quite ready to complete the autopsy on their relationship. There’d be time enough for dissecting her emotions later, preferably after she’d tossed Owen’s things out into the street. She paused, felt a wrinkle emerge between her brows as a thought struck. “How did you find out? About Owen, I mean?”
Her mother would have been at work at Dilly’s bakery. Had one of the paramedics who’d responded taken the call while in her store? Had one of the nurses on duty called her mother when Owen had been brought in? Granted Bless Her Heart, North Carolina was a small town, so either scenario was possible...but from the look on her mother’s face, neither was accurate.
A sinking feeling of dread landed in her belly and she felt her heart-rate trip into an irregular rhythm. “Mom?” she prodded.
Regret, worry and dismay tightened every line in her mother’s still-pretty face. Her mouth worked up and down, as though trying to find words that either didn’t want to come, or were too terrible to utter.
“Mom.”
An awkward movement past her mother’s shoulder caught her attention. Her sister, Willow--named after their grandmother’s china pattern and just as fragile--limped gingerly into the hall, her legs spread apart as though an imaginary basketball were lodged between her knees. Lucy frowned. What the hell--
A nanosecond later the truth slammed into her, pushing a startled gasp from between her lips. The pain of disloyalty lanced through her, momentarily cutting off her ability to breathe.
Willow. And Owen.
She felt her mouth gape open and her gaze jumped back to her mother’s. A sympathetic smile shaped Bridget Campbell’s lips and she winced, evidently unsure of what to say.
And really, what could she say? Willow, better known in their family as The Fey Fuck-up, had struck again.
And this, Lucy thought as her furious, slightly blurry gaze connected with her sister’s, was the fatal blow to their relationship. Done.
Done, dammit.
A bitter smile stole over her lips and a bark of mirthless laughter erupted from her throat.
I should have known, she thought, then turned on her heel and made her way down the hall away from her family--her sister, specifically--to keep from throttling her as well.
No point in going to prison over that stupid bitch.
ABOUT RHONDA RUSSELL
A New York Times best-selling author, two-time RITA nominee, Romantic Times Reviewers Choice nominee, and National Readers' Choice Award Winner Rhonda Russell writes hot romantic comedy for Harlequin Books and Firefly Press, her indie press. With more than forty-five published books to her credit and many more coming down the pike, she's thrilled with her career and enjoys dreaming up her characters and manipulating the worlds they live in.
Rhonda previously wrote as Rhonda Nelson, but getting married necessitated a name change. She and her husband (aka The Sweetest Badass in the World) and their menagerie of pets happily make their home on a 166-acre farm in the middle of nowhere in a small town in Northern Alabama near the banks of the Tennessee River. If you’d like to see videos of baby ducks, spoiled turkeys who like to ride in the car, guineas who think they’re turkeys, then be sure to check her out Facebook Page Author Rhonda Russell.
More from Rhonda Russell
Men Out of Uniform Series
The Player, #1
Major Perfect, #2
The Maverick, #3
The Loner, #4
The Hell-Raiser, #5
Letters From Home, #6
The Soldier, #7
The Rebel, #8
4-Book Romance Omnibus
Love You More
Bless Her Heart Series
The Future Widows' Club, #1
Hard Lemonade, #2
Disenchanted: A Witchy Business Novella
The Future Widows' Club Page 21