Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Davonshire House Publishing
PO Box 9716
Augusta, GA 30916
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely a coincidence.
© 2017 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin
Copy Editor: Teri Thompson Blackwell
Cover: Koou Graphics
Olivia Gaines Make Up and Photograph by Latasla Gardner Photography
ASIN: B07281NZYJ
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 9 8
First Davonshire House Publishing July 2017
DEDICATION
For Angel...
“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A special thank you to the Tuesday Sushi Club, Jessica and Hildie, for keeping me grounded.
To all the fans, friends and supporters of the dream as well as the Facebook community of writers who keep me focused, inspired and moving forward.
Write On!
Also by Olivia Gaines
The Slice of Life Series
The Perfect Man
Friends with Benefits
A Letter to My Mother
The Basement of Mr. McGee
A New Mommy for Christmas
The Slivers of Love Series
The Cost to Play
Thursday in Savannah
Girl's Weekend
Beneath the Well of Dawn
Santa’s Big Helper
The Davonshire Series
Courting Guinevere
Loving Words
Vanity's Pleasure
The Blakemore Files
Being Mrs. Blakemore
Shopping with Mrs. Blakemore
Dancing with Mr. Blakemore
Cruising with the Blakemores
Dinner with the Blakemores
Loving the Czar
The Value of a Man Series
My Mail Order Wife
A Weekend with the Cromwell’s
Other Novellas
North to Alaska
The Brute & The Blogger
A Better Night in Vegas
Other Novels
A Menu for Loving
Turning the Page
This is Scott and Zelda
Chapter 1
Friday Evening, Houston
Zelda sat at the weathered wooden table, resting her arm on the top as one uneven leg teetered back and forth and creaked in complaint each time she leaned forward. Her fingers toyed with the stem of a semi-clean cocktail glass as she glanced up occasionally at Margo or Jinny, her longtime friends. Both of their mouths were flapping, scolding her as if she were some child who frequently pulled the heads off expensive baby dolls. The conversation, of course, was about Scott, her new man of only two months.
Earlier in the week, her friends showed up on her front doorstep to a day that Zelda now referred to as her totally tantalizing Tuesday to perform what she also considered to be a major cock block. The stay was cut short by Zelda forcibly pushing them out the door so she could continue to get to know her new man. Thus far, a few quirks in his personality had surfaced, but no real red flags to make her want to put on the brakes. At this point, she really only wanted to board a plane, fly to where he lived, and spend the night in his arms. The idea was a far cry more pleasant than where she was currently sitting – in arm’s length of two suffocating octopuses.
Or would that be octopi?
Octopus is already plural.
Octopussies.
Yeah, I like that one better.
Two overreaching, long armed, tentacled octopussies.
Her eyes lifted from the glass to see the mouths still flapping, still scolding, still judging her life choices. If anything were to be a point of concern, it was the bar they were sitting in. She wasn’t sure who picked the spot, but she never wanted to come back again.
The Bucking Bull was a dump of a watering hole. It was the type of bar that drew in single women with low self-esteem who came in droves to find something sturdy to rub up against while the hard body constantly passed out compliments. The music was loud, the food greasy, and the company, like the table, was teetering on annoying. The ice in the drink she nursed was rapidly watering down the already watered-down beverage that she truly didn’t want anyway.
She wanted to be with Scott.
In his arms.
Feeling the hair upon his chest rub against my breasts as I climb on top of him, aiming that big, solid, rock hard co...
“Zelda, are you listening to me?” Margo asked, snapping her fingers as if Zelda were a manner of untrainable dog.
“No, I am not, Margo,” she responded.
A man with one leg shorter than the other limped over, dragging the bad leg behind him with each step like an arch villain destined to end her life. He grinned as he approached the table, showing off a smile that showcased two missing front teeth. The poor fellow smelled worse than the bar, which carried an odor of old grease, bad meat, and desperation. Sir Limp A Lot had to be desperate as well to come over to a table of three women engrossed in deep conversation. He spoke with a quiet confidence as if he actually would have a chance if and when he asked one of them out on a date.
Jinny looked up to see the raggedy man standing next to her, smelling as if Death himself paid him a personal visit and hung around longer than needed.
“No,” she said firmly. “Whatever it is you want to ask, want to buy, want to say, or want to try, the answer is no. However, since I am a lady and I will help you save face on your walk back to wherever the hell you limped over here from, I shall do this.” On a corner of a napkin, she scribbled the phone number to the police station in her district.
“Here ya go, Sexy,” she said, slipping the napkin into his hand. She pushed him off pretty much in the same manner Zelda had done to them on Tuesday.
“Zelda,” Margo said, “I want to talk about this relationship with this Scott.”
“I fail to understand, Margo, how my personal life has become a point of concern for you,” Zelda said.
“I am concerned because you go from one extreme to another. Before Cro-Magnon man, you dated the toothpaste model who, by anyone’s description, was entirely too good-looking to even be alive,” Margo said.
“So, based on those two men, you have rationalized a reason to give your unsolicited advice, carte-blanche on how I should live my life,” Zelda said, toying with the stem of the glass. The smoky room choking her more than the current obnoxious conversation.
“No, Zelda, it tells you that I love you and I
am concerned about your choices. Before this last one and between the pretty man was that crazy woman,” Margo said.
Jinny slapped her hand. “She wasn’t supposed to know that we knew about the woman, Margo,” she implored.
“Well, we do,” Margo said.
Zelda held the watered-down martini in her hand, swirling the glass, watching the olive on the little stick roll along the innards of the container, listening, not caring, but hearing.
“I understand your feelings, Margo, but I am a grown woman capable of making my own choices of whom I allow into my bed,” Zelda said.
“Yes, but you are going from one extreme to the next like some teenager trying to find her best sexual self!” Margo exclaimed. “I am just trying to make sure I understand what you are doing here.”
“That is so altruistic of you, especially considering you were cheating on Jerry with the guy with the huge wang, I didn’t judge you or question what was missing in your marriage. Yet here you sit on your self-constructed throne telling me what is best for me,” Zelda said.
“I just can’t understand you, Zelda. You go from a gorgeous man to dating some butchy woman with an ass fetish. Then it seems as if you headed over to the museum of natural history and defrosted the display on the prehistoric man,” Margo said.
“I find your perception of me, my choices, and Scott to be unacceptable. He is a very good man, and he is mine,” she said to Margo. “If you value this friendship, here is where you will open your mouth and insert your fist so you can stop gnawing on your toes.”
Jinny reached over and touched her hand. “Margo, maybe you are taking this a little too personally. After all, it is her life,” she said.
Margo shook her head furiously. Jinny’s words did not sway her in the least. The last few romantic choices of her friend were reprehensible in her opinion. If something were to happen to Zelda, she would have failed her. She was not going to fail her this time.
“We look out for each other. We take care of each other. That is the code. It is our responsibility to be the voice of reason when all reasoning has stopped,” Margo said.
“Oh, shut up! I dated a woman because I wanted to and I enjoyed it. I dumped the beautiful man because he had an ugly soul. Scott is beautiful to me and he is amazing with me and he is mine. I am really pondering a life with him,” she confessed.
“No, you shut up! I can’t even see you coming to PTA meetings with his little hairy children, Zelda,” Margo said.
“Margo, I can no longer see you and I being friends. Until now, I never realized how much of a bitch you actually are,” Zelda said standing. “The check is on you.”
Zelda didn’t look back as she headed to the door, her purse slung across her shoulder as Jinny called her name. There was nothing left to say to either of them. She enjoyed Scott’s company. Moreover, she enjoyed him as much out of bed as she did in it. In a few weeks, she would be headed to Hebron, Kentucky to his home. Her flight into Cincinnati, which was the nearest airport, was all booked and she was ready.
The drive from the airport to Hebron, Kentucky was only twenty minutes. She had some vacation time and decided she needed more than a few days with her big sexy man. Her calendar was crossed out to spend three days before the conference with Scott at his home, plus the two days of the conference and one more for good measure.
At the end of the week, she was going to know for certain if she could build a life with him in his world. Two and a half weeks seemed like a lifetime away from finding an answer to her hear and her questions about Scott.
In two and a half weeks, her life would change forever.
*****
Michael rubbed the back of his sore neck as he rounded the corner coming into the kitchen. He was tired, hungry, and in need of some quality time with a sensual, giving woman. The food could wait if the woman was ready, but right now the food was ready and no woman was near. Surprisingly, he found his sister Zelda sitting at the kitchen table. The forlorn look which adorned her face indicated something heavy was on her mind.
“The last time I found you at the table looking so spaced out was after your love hangover with Scott. Is everything okay?” he inquired.
Before Scott’s departure, the two men had exchanged phones numbers. Yesterday, out of the blue, Scott sent him a text with a picture of a bookmark inside the pages of one of the novels Michael had given him to read. The book, one of the gifts to a kindred spirit, he hoped would be a point of conversation on the man’s next visit to their home.
“No, everything is not okay. I just had a drink with Margo and Jinny,” she said softly, looking down at her nails. I need a fill and a color change before I leave for Scott’s place.
“Let me guess; Margo had an issue with you dating Scott. Jinny said nothing, other than, Margo... stop it,” he said.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“Unhappy women always have something to say when their girlfriend finds a good man,” he said.
“You think Scott is a good man, Mike?”
“He is, sis. However, Margo and Jinny are not good friends to you,” he told her. “Margo is happy to be around you as long as she believes she’s doing better than you. The moment you make a move to have a good relationship she has something to say.”
“True. I just never realized how nasty she can be. I mean, honestly, Mike, she actually had the nerve to fix her mouth and imply that I went over to the museum of natural history and defrosted the Cro-Magnon man display!”
Michael choked on his own saliva. Sputtering, in between coughs he managed to spit out, “That is funny!”
“It is not funny at all. Scott is a good guy, I just don’t know if I am the right girl for him, you know,” she said, her head lowered once more.
Her brother used the knuckles on his right and to lift her chin up so Zelda’s eyes were level with his own and to meet a warm smile. It bore a striking resemblance to the same smile he’d given her when she failed to qualify for the national gymnastics team. A warming grin that always said everything would be okay. The comforting curvature of his lips, with the corner slightly upturned which made her believe his words. He usually followed the smile with a personal revelation on his life.
Michael asked her, “Do you know why I am forty years old and not married?”
“I dunno, maybe it’s because you don’t like how girls make you feel in your man parts?” she said with a cheeky smile.
“Funny. Really funny,” he said. “You are partially right, though.”
He moved to the stove and opened the pots. Grabbing a plate from the cabinet, he made himself a plate of supper, offering to do the same for her, but she declined. Seated, he blessed the food and cut into the chunk of roast. Zelda didn’t interrupt him since she knew he was carefully choosing the words he wanted to share with her.
“Zelda, I have been an adult since I was 14. At that age, I was having to make decisions and choices no kid should ever have to make, let alone understand the reasons why I needed to make certain judgement calls regarding our lives. At 18, my plate was full, yet I still managed to hold down a job, go to college, and take care of everything else. I have never really been a child,” he said.
She eyed his hand movements as he moved the food about on his plate, slicing through the green beans, forking a couple of strings into his mouth.
“As much as I have been through, I need a certain kind of woman. I don’t want to come home to someone I have to raise. I don’t want a woman that I have to teach how to run my household. A man like me wants and needs a woman who makes him stand taller,” he told her.
“Yes, that may be what you want considering you had to do all those things with me, but most men want a sex partner and someone to have their babies,” she said.
“Not true. I can almost, with some certainty, say most men would rather wait after they have been married five years before the first child is born so they can enjoy the woman they have chosen,” he told her.
“I don’t
believe you. Most of these ass munchers want to get you pregnant, tie you down, and still pork you every chance they get,” she said.
“Zelda, relax a bit. You are getting really tense and tight around the mouth. Do I need to call Scott? Maybe fly him out to hook you up...I mean it’s only been a couple of days and you sound hostile,” he said with a shiver.
“You don’t even know what hostile is, Michael Fitzsimons,” she said, playfully slapping at his arm.
“Seriously though, Zelda, what I am trying to tell you is that yes, sex is important in a relationship. Good sex can make you overlook a few flaws in a partner. Really good sex can make you overlook a lot of stuff, but a man wants a woman who makes him stand tall. When Scott stands next to you, he is standing tall. You make him proud that you have chosen him,” he said with a faint smile.
“That’s nice of you to say, but you are my brother,” she told him.
“I am telling you these things because I am your brother. Zelda Fitzsimmons, you are a special kind of woman. You have made me stand tall. I can’t marry just any woman, Sis. I grew up to be the man you needed. I had to be that man as an example of whom you should look for in a mate. You have grown into the confident, radiant woman you are, making me put iron in my spine,” he told her.
Zelda teared up. “I feel like I have stolen your entire life from you.”
“No. Please, no. Don’t ever say that. If anything you gave me a better life because I had to be a better man. I am very happy with whom I have become. It makes me even more proud when I look at you and see the woman you have become, choosing a man based on his character versus his looks. I am okay to place your hand in Scott’s because whatever he has been through, too, has made him a better man. He’s waited patiently for you to come into his life. Don’t ever let anyone downplay or minimize what you are discovering in him and each other,” Michael told her.
“I think I am falling in love with him,” Zelda said.
“You think?”
“I ’m not sure. Right now, I more focused on my anger. Jinny and Margo make me so mad sometimes,” she said.
A Frickin' Fantastic Friday (The Zelda Dairies Book 3) Page 1
