THE FUTURE WIDOW'S CLUB

by Rhonda Nelson

  Besides, she'd never liked this house. Located in a newer subdivision just outside the city limits it was cold and sterile, with designer grass and no trees. She had her eye on a little French Colonial fixer-upper on Lelia Street just off the square, one that would accommodate a cat, she thought, still miserably missing the long-time pet she firmly believed Chris had made disappear. Heartless bastard. After the divorce, she planned to put her accounting degree to better use, to take back her maiden name and hang a little shingle on the outside of the house.

  Though many strip malls and shopping centers had cropped up on the main highway on the edge of town, the old town square was still the heart of Moon Valley. Fancy pavilions dripping with lacy fretwork and stocked with picnic tables anchored each corner and a beautiful fountain stood in the middle, paying tribute to a statue of Jebediah Moon, the town's founding father.

  Every parade, be it Christmas, Homecoming, or Fourth of July, ended there, and the spot hosted their Annual Moon-Pie Festival each year. Between the Garden Club—Moon Valley citizens prided themselves on their ability to make things bloom—and the Civic Club, the quaint square was always dressed in her Sunday best. It epitomized Moon Valley life … one that her husband would never fit into.

  "Get out, Chris," she said tiredly.

  He slipped a finger down her arm. "I thought you might be feeling romantic."

  Jolie barely resisted the urge to grunt in disgust. This just showed how completely out of touch with reality he could be. They weren't lovers, weren't in love. And whatever small amount of misplaced affection she'd thought she'd felt for him had gone by the wayside as soon as she'd realized what a scum-sucking, bottom-feeding thief he was.

  She absolutely hated him—loathed him—with every fiber of her being.

  And yet he thought she might be feeling romantic? If she weren't pretending to be half asleep, undoubtedly her eyes would pop out of her head.

  He leaned over her and she felt his reeking breath hit her neck. She shrunk away from him. "Why don't we try and fix things, Jolie? They don't have to be this way."

  Had he lost his mind? she wondered. In order to facilitate getting her mother's money back, Jolie had suggested to Chris that they keep up appearances for the business's sake. After all, she'd reasoned, Marshall, Inc. was still a relatively new business, one that despite his lack of character, his drug habit and his other vices, he'd managed to make flourish.

  Unfortunately, word of his penchant for illegal substances and alcohol had begun to leak out and, though she'd managed to handle damage control, she grimly suspected that, despite their good-old-boy way of doing business, their local investors—the ones she'd unsuspectingly lured into Marshall, Inc.—were beginning to get a wee bit unsettled. Until she recouped all the money, that was a bad thing.

  In one of his rare reasonable moments, Chris had agreed that keeping up the pretense of the happy couple was best. After all, anything that was better for his bottom line was better for him. Jolie had instructed him to seek his pleasure elsewhere—like he hadn't been doing that already, she thought with an inward snort—and had indicated that the marriage would continue in an in-name-only basis. So far he'd honored their system with irreverent, purposely cruel, efficiency.

  She rolled over, putting as much distance between them as she could. "Yes, they do," she insisted through gritted teeth. "Now get out."

  "No," he said, his voice belligerent yet eerily calm. He lurched clumsily to his feet, staggered, then started fumbling with his pants. "It's our anniversary, darling, and I'm going to do what every man does on his anniversary—I'm going to fuck my wife."

  The first inkling of fear quickened her heartbeat, prodding her out of the bed. The fact that he could make her afraid in addition to all the other things he'd managed to do to her lit her temper like nothing else could.

  Jolie crossed her arms over her chest and summoned a sardonic smile. She cocked her head. "That's funny," she said, "because I have it on good authority that you've already fucked somebody else's wife tonight."

  Sadie, bless her heart, had pulled sleuth-duty until she'd determined whose legs were jutting out of Chris's car. And she'd documented the proof with her handy picture phone. Jolie's lips quirked. The whore in question was one Emily Dean—Sheriff Dean's wife. Getting bolder and stupider by the minute, her unfortunate husband, Jolie thought with a wry twist of her lips. She just prayed he kept it together long enough for her to get everybody's money back.

  Chris's sweaty mouth formed a sneer. "Jealous, are you?" He alternately stalked and stumbled toward her. "Don't worry. There's enough of me to go around."

  "Then go spread it somewhere else," she threw back.

  Though it nearly killed her, Jolie stood her ground. There was something about him tonight—a recklessness she'd never seen before—that absolutely chilled her blood. But she knew from experience that Chris fed off her emotions. If she showed him even the slightest hint of the fear currently chugging through her veins, he'd press his advantage … and she wouldn't care for the outcome.

  His eyes were every bit as hard as his voice. "Now why would I do that when I have a tasty little piece like you at my disposal?" He twined a lock of her hair around his finger. "I mean, you aren't the best I've ever had … but you'll do in a pinch."

  "Well, you won't, and I've developed higher standards." She jerked back, pulling her hair in the process and moved to go around him. He grabbed her by the upper arm, his fingers biting painfully into her flesh. She swallowed a gasp, fighting back fear.

  "Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" His red-rimmed eyes narrowed. "Have you been screwing around on me?" he demanded. He shifted his weight, seemingly having a hard time remaining upright. "Letting somebody else have what I'm not getting?"

  Common sense told her taunting him in this state wasn't the brightest course of action, but the fury tightening every muscle of her body wasn't in the mood to entertain reasonable thoughts.

  She blinked as though confused. "You're getting it," she said sweetly, "just not from me."

  "Are you screwin' around on me?" he demanded, shaking her for emphasis.

  Jolie snorted, rolling her eyes. "Now that's the pot calling the kettle black if I've ever heard it." She looked pointedly at his hand on her arm. "Let. Me. Go."

  "When you've answered the question." His expression turned thoughtful, then shrewdly calculating. "I know you're not getting it from your old boy Jake. From what I've heard he's chasing every kitty but yours." He licked his lips, smiled. "But he leaves a fair amount of leftovers for the rest of us."

  Jolie felt her stomach lurch. She'd shared her relationship with Jake with Chris when they'd first met—not everything, of course—but he'd managed to put the rest together once he'd moved to Moon Valley. It hadn't been hard. In a place where secrets were few and gossip frequent, Jake and Jolie's relationship had been almost legendary, their names linked since grade school, an extension of the other documented in yearbooks and newspaper clippings.

  Chris had a way of ferreting out a person's weakness, then capitalizing on it. When he was feeling particularly spiteful, he'd invariably wield Jake like a knife, cutting little gashes into her already broken heart, occasionally parrying hard enough to puncture.

  Like now.

  She knew Jake had taken lovers—she'd heard and would never have expected him to remain celibate—but knowing it didn't prevent her from feeling like a rug had been jerked from beneath her feet when she thought about it. The idea of him touching another woman, of those big warm hands, that supremely carnal mouth doing the things they'd learned together to another woman…

  Jolie tried to jerk free again and Chris smiled knowingly. He swayed on his feet. "That's what I thought. You're still my ever-faithful wife."

  "I'm not your ever-faithful anything." Taking advantage of the various drugs—Viagra and ecstasy, she imagined—and alcohol wreaking havoc with his equilibrium, Jolie gave him a quick shove and wrenched her arm free. Chris wobbled, the
n his eyes flashed, and he did something he'd never done before, but something she'd recently feared was just a matter of time.

  He back-handed her.

  Clumsily, but the slap split her lip, made her ears ring and caused white spots to dance before her eyes. She reeled from the blow and her cheek blazed from the impact.

  Seemingly spent, Chris fell back onto the bed, laid there and laughed. "Stupid bitch," he muttered. "I'll … teach you. I'll show you … who's boss." He flung an arm over his forehead, then passed out.

  Though shocked and astounded, Jolie's first inclination was to hurt him. She wanted to slap him, claw him, beat him, pounce on him like a cat and not stop until every bit of the anger and frustration he'd dealt her had been given back three-fold.

  When unconscious, he wouldn't feel a thing, and when conscious, he could hurt her far worse, so giving in to the fury would ultimately be futile, she knew. But she couldn't let it go completely. Couldn't let the incident pass without some form of retribution.

  She decided on the passive aggressive approach, one she'd used many times over the past couple of years to make her feel better. Still breathing heavily, she marched into the bathroom, grabbed his toothbrush from the holder and, smiling grimly, scrubbed it around the toilet bowl. Then she put it back where it belonged.

  Afterward, she calmly retrieved her overnight bag—the one she kept packed and ready for nights similar to this—and left. As always, her first inclination was to go home—home being her mother's small cottage on the other side of town—but like always she ruled out the option. Her mother had enough to handle without adding this newest development into the mix. Luckily Sadie had an empty apartment over the shop that had served as a refuge of sorts in the past, and it would certainly work again.

  For the umpteenth time since this nightmare began, she felt the urge, the almost palpable need, to run to Jake, to lose the brave little soldier face and find solace in the safe-harbor of his arms. The thought made a whimper bubble up her throat and tears burn the backs of her lids, the ache of loss wrenching her insides until she thought she'd come apart. Unfortunately, Jolie thought as, she sucked in a shaky breath, that wasn't a viable option.

  Jake's arms were already full.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Those will do better if you plant them in the morning sun."

  Feeling her hackles rise, Sophia gritted her teeth, straightened from the flower bed she'd been working in and turned to glare from beneath her straw hat at the infuriating man who'd issued the advice. Looking decidedly cooler than she, Edward Jennings leaned against her picket fence and regarded her with amusement.

  Sophia made a grand gesture of alternately looking at the seven a.m. sun, her bedding plants, then him. She cocked a brow, silently questioning the validity of his eyesight, then twisted her lips into a superior smile. "Thanks, Edward, but I think I've been planting pansies long enough to know where they best thrive."

  Honestly, she thought, exasperated. Just because he'd snatched the Garden Club presidency from her—a position she'd coveted since she'd planted her first petunia, dammit—the man had become insufferable. One who lived two blocks over and who'd developed the annoying habit of strolling by her house.

  Every morning.

  Which was why she'd wrestled herself into a girdle this morning to go outside and work in her garden. Sophia pursed her lips.

  Clearly, she'd lost her mind.

  Edward inclined his snowy head and a wide smile split his tanned face. "Ah, I see that now." His light blue eye twinkled. "Your rump was in the way before."

  A rebellious spurt of pleasure bloomed inside her before she could squash it out. Damn the man. He shouldn't be looking at her rump, much less letting her know that he'd been looking at her rump.

  Sophia dusted the dirt from her gloves and regarded him coolly, no small feat when she was quaking inside like a virgin on her wedding night. "Are you suggesting, Edward, that my ass is so wide it blocked out the morning sun?"

  He dipped his head, chuckled, the sound at once pleasing and masculine. Almost intimate. "Absolutely not. I was merely making conversation."

  Sophia sidled forward, tugged her gloves off one finger at a time. "A word of advice then, Edward, since you don't seem to mind doling it out. If you'd like to initiate a cordial conversation," she explained patiently, "then you'd be better served to begin with a simple, 'Good morning, Sophia.'" She smiled sweetly. "Not offer criticism. People might get the impression that you're an arrogant know-it-all with an exalted opinion of your own wit."

  He looked out over her garden, stroked his chin. When his eyes found hers once more she detected lingering humor and something else … something she couldn't readily discern. Uncertainty, maybe? He let go a small sigh. "Well, that would be most unfortunate," he said softly. "Thanks for the advice. I'll be sure and keep it in mind." He inclined his head and, whistling tunelessly, strolled away, leaving her standing at the fence.

  Sophia felt her smile fade as she watched him go, and something akin to disappointment welled in her rebellious breast.

  It most certainly was not disappointment, she told herself. With slightly shaky hands, she crammed her fingers back into her gloves, stomped back to the flat of pansies she'd been planting before he'd interrupted her. Disappointment indicated that she cared what he thought—about her and her rump, drat him—and that was simply not acceptable.

  She buried the spade in the ground, flipping dirt aside with a little more vigor than was necessary. She was sixty-two years old. Widowed, thank God, she added silently. Her children were grown and settled. She had four adorable grandchildren, a nice group of friends, and a multitude of enjoyable hobbies to fill her days. She sat back on her haunches, and glared down the street at his retreating figure.

  The last thing she needed was some Paul Newman look-alike to take an interest in her ass, making her long for something futile and elusive … like passion and companionship. A golden romance to gild her later years.

  Romance, Sophia thought, with a huff of disgust. Now there was a pipe dream. Or at least it had been for her. Memories unwound like a spool of thread through her mind and her gaze turned inward. She'd met and married Charles Morgan all within the space of a month. She'd been seventeen, just old enough to let those ripening teenage hormones over-ride what she liked to think was a fairly sound intellect, and that lone decision had shaped the course of her life as no other could have ever done. She'd thought she'd married a kind man with a good work ethic and a fine sense of family.

  She'd thought wrong.

  What she'd wound up with was a meaner-than-hell, lazy bastard who wasn't remotely interested in her or their children. By the time she'd realized that she couldn't change him, that no amount of prayer on his behalf was going to make him the husband she longed to have—the father her children needed—he'd had two blocked arteries and she'd already invested too much of her life in him to let him ruin her with a divorce. Everything they had, she'd worked for, and she'd decided she'd be damned before she'd give him half.

  At the time, two friends, Bitsy and Meredith, had found themselves in similar situations, both of them married to men who made them wretched, and one night after one too many hands of rummy and one too many Bloody Mary's, the idea of the Future Widows' Club had been born.

  Ultimately, it had saved her. Saved all of them. And now it offered hope to a new group of women trapped in loveless, miserable marriages. Women who needed a little vengeful humor to help them cope. Women like Jolie Marshall, Sophia thought, hoping that she'd come and join them. Women who, like them, preferred widowhood to divorce.

  And why not? Sophia thought, particularly proud of her brain-child. Being widowed definitely had the advantage. Instead of half—half your friends and half your assets—a widow got to keep it all. People sympathized and brought food. Black was slimming. A widow was pitied, not scorned. She was deemed a survivor, not damaged goods. Then there was the life insurance, Sophia thought with a fond smile. She harrumphe
d. Charles had definitely been worth more to her dead than he ever had been alive. Aside from the birth of her children, planting that miserable SOB in Shady Memorial—in the hottest patch of earth she could find—had been the single-most bar-none best day of her life.

  Which was what made the idea of entertaining any sort of feelings for Edward Jennings absolutely insane. It had taken her twenty-three years to get rid of the first man that had ever caught her fancy. What in God's name would possess her to want to try that again?

  She knew why, though it nearly killed her to admit it—sex.

  It used to be that practically no one her age was sexually active. Waning sex drives and impotency had all but obliterated sex from her social scene, but with the advent of enhancement drugs—Viagra, Cialis, Avlimil, etc.—sex had made a huge comeback with people her age. And with it, the needs she'd forgotten—or had deemed too trivial to waste her time on—had come raging back.

  Her own sex drive had been below the radar, lying like a dormant volcano for years, but now— Sophia smothered a frustrated groan. Dirt flew as she attacked her planting with renewed vigor. Now, a couple of smiles from a blue-eyed gentleman and some raucous talk of multiple orgasms and erections at the bingo hall had left her so wretchedly horny that her yearly trip to the gynecologist was actually something she found herself looking forward to.

  It was crazy. Insane. And yet she couldn't deny the ache in her breasts, the throb deep in her womb, the desire for a warm male body at her back.

  Both Bitsy and Meredith had taken lovers over the years, but Sophia had always abstained. She'd deemed herself above such needs and had secretly pitied their continued dependence on men. After Charles, though many had tried, she hadn't been remotely interested in forming any sort of relationship with a man. One had been enough, thank you very much.

  But something about Edward Jennings shook that stalwart reserve, made her watch those sexual enhancement commercials with the sort of puppy-dog longing that was downright pathetic, even made her yearn for something as simple as sharing coffee over the breakfast table.