The Almost Wives Club: Kate

by Nancy Warren

Kate spent a lot of time walking beaches. She stopped whenever she felt like it, drank coffee, browsed surf stores and junky tourist places. And then she’d get back in her car and make her way generally south. Mexico seemed complicated. She didn’t speak Spanish and she didn’t feel like anything complicated. San Diego was too busy. She felt so raw it was like her skin had been stripped off. She couldn’t handle busy. She wanted a quiet place near the ocean where she could walk on the beach, listen to the waves soothe her. Where she could think. Heal.

  In twenty-four hours she’d broken her engagement and lost her job. She figured she was allowed to wallow.

  When she pulled into Carlsbad late that afternoon, she knew she’d found her place.

  The beauty of Carlsbad was that it was only an hour and a half from LA. They’d never in a million years think she’d end up there. It was too close. But no one she knew lived in or visited the seaside resort town which made it the perfect hiding place. She hoped that by the time the Carnarvons and their hired detectives discovered she wasn't in London, Sydney, Las Vegas or New York, she’d have a better idea of what she wanted to do.

  Ever since she ended her call with Lissa she’d felt that sense of power and freedom she’d experienced in that decrepit phone booth. She wouldn’t think about losing her job, not now. She’d find another job. For now, she could take a vacation for as long as her money lasted.

  Ted and his family wanted a virtuous wife so badly they’d tested her. The best and most permanent way she could think of to make them understand that she would not be marrying Ted, not now and not ever, would be to act as unvirtuous as possible.

  Kate, who had spent every one of her twenty-eight years as a good girl, was going to be a badass.

  Carlsbad might not be the bad girl haven, but she figured a woman determined to ruin her reputation could do it anywhere.

  Besides, she liked the atmosphere when she drove in for coffee. She found an apartment listed on Craigslist that was half a block from the beach. It was a little shabby but fully furnished. The landlord rented her the vacation apartment for a month. She paid in cash.

  He accepted her friend Lissa as her only reference. He said she had an honest face.

  Chapter Six