The Future Widows' Club
Page 1
The Future Widows’ Club...where a woman
prepares for widowhood before her bastard dies.
THE FUTURE WIDOWS’ CLUB
New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author
RHONDA RUSSELL
Text Copyright © 2017 Rhonda Russell
All Rights Reserved
2nd edition, Rhonda Russell.
Published by Firefly Press
No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, copied, or stored in any form or by any means without permission of the author. Your respect and support of the author is appreciated.
All characters, events, brands, companies, and locations in this story are used fictionally and without intent of slander. Any resemblance to actual people are purely coincidental.
More from Rhonda Russell
Bless Her Heart Series
The Future Widows' Club, #1
Hard Lemonade, #2
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
Disenchanted: A Witchy Business Novella
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
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
EPILOGUE
HARD LEMONADE - Sneak Peek!
ABOUT RHONDA RUSSELL
PROLOGUE
“Bless her heart, if ever a woman needed to be a widow, it’s that one,” Sophia Morgan said from the side of her mouth with a significant look across the crowded dining room. She shook her head and tsked under her breath.
Bitsy Highfield and Meredith Ingram leaned slightly back in their chairs and followed Sophia’s line of vision. Looking sleek and polished as always, her short dark hair coifed in a flattering bob, Meredith instantly recognized the woman in question and her mouth curved knowingly. She shot Sophia a shrewd look.
Bitsy, as usual, wore her typical vacantly bewildered expression. “What woman?” Her heavily penciled eyebrows formed a wrinkled line above her purple cat-eye glasses. “I don’t see a woman.”
“Jolie Marshall,” Meredith hissed. “There.” She gestured with a willowy bracelet-clad arm. “See her?”
Bitsy adjusted her bifocals, peered across the room. “Ah, yes. I see her. But if you ask me, her husband looks near enough to death as it is.” Her wrinkled brow folded into an exaggerated frown. “Rather pasty-looking fellow, isn’t he?”
Sophia swallowed a long-suffering sigh. “Not her, you idiot. Her. The young woman with the long auburn hair. Wearing the cream suit. And that guy’s not pasty-looking, for heaven’s sake,” she snapped. “That’s a statue of Poseidon.”
And a poor one at that, but it was in keeping with the owner’s taste. George Brown fancied himself an expert on all things Greek. His restaurant, Zeus’s, was crammed with Greek statuaries and pictures of mythological gods, murals of Prometheus, Athena, Persephone and Zeus.
Which might have been appropriate were it not a steak house.
Sophia sighed, resisted the urge to roll her eyes. But it was the best Bless Her Heart, North Carolina had to offer, so she ignored the tacky décor and carved off another bite of her filet.
Meredith snickered as Bitsy’s blank look turned to one of dawning comprehension.
“Oh,” she murmured. Then, “Oh. Why she’s just a child!”
“Not a child, but a young woman,” Sophia clarified. She harrumphed under her breath. “Too young to be shackled to that bastard of a husband of hers, that’s for sure.”
Meredith quirked a regal brow. “That’s Fran Caplan’s girl, right?”
“Oh, I’ve heard that story,” Bitsy piped in, her voice dripping with gossipy innuendo. She was notoriously scatterbrained and clumsy, was blind as a bat, but her memory and hearing were sharp, both of which made her a valuable asset to the Club. “I heard Sadie talking about it a couple of weeks ago down at The Spa while I was getting my hair set.”
That was hardly surprising, Sophia thought with a droll smile. Sadie Webster owned The Spa and the trendy hair and nails boutique, like the ones in most small towns, was the main hub of Bless Her Heart’s gossip wheel. In order to satisfy her addiction to gossip and aerosol fumes, Bitsy kept a standing appointment. Much to the shampoo girl’s chagrin, no doubt, Sophia thought with a wry smile. Bitsy was notoriously cheap, so tight that she tipped in coupons instead of cash. She and Meredith had tried to break her of the tacky habit, alas to no avail.
“Sadie and that Jolie are friends,” Bitsy continued with a not-so-covert look at the woman in question. “I only caught part of the conversation, mind you--I was under the dryer--but apparently, from what I was able to piece together, she met that rounder on a vacation, fell hard for him, and he convinced her that he could take the proceeds from her Daddy’s life insurance policy and triple it.”
Her bejeweled fingers sparkling against the candlelight, Meredith calmly sipped her sherry. “I take it he didn’t.”
“No,” Bitsy said. “That’s what makes it so interesting. From what I gathered, he has--they own that new software company down on the square, something to do with business systems, the Internet and all that,” she said absently, as though it didn’t signify. “He just refuses to give the money back. Somehow, despite the fact that they’re partners, he’s stashed it in one of those off-shore accounts.”
“Still,” Meredith hedged, the perpetual voice of reason. “If she’s a partner, then why doesn’t she do something about it?” She shrugged a slim shoulder. “If the company is so successful, why doesn’t she just hire a good divorce attorney and take half?”
“What good would that do if he’s hid the money from her?” Sophia pointed out. “If he can show that the company doesn’t have it?”
Bitsy inclined her head. “I know that she’s talked to Judge Turner about it. There’s also a shady pre-nup, though I don’t know the particulars.”
“So what’s she doing?” Meredith asked.
Bitsy smiled and a determined glint flashed in her pale blue eyes. She leaned forward, as though sharing a juicy secret. “Now that’s the real mystery. If the rumors about her temper are true, then she definitely wouldn’t sit idly by, but no one seems to know what she’s doing about it. All anyone knows is that she is doing something. She’s got a degree in accounting; she’s on the board and has signature authority. My bet is that she’s working that angle.”
Sophia shifted in her seat, vainly wishing that she hadn’t eaten that last bite of her steak. She firmly believed the last bite of every meal was what had made her pack on twenty pounds over the past two years. “Meanwhile,” Sophia sighed, “he’s making her miserable. He’s a cheat and a liar. He’s not the least bit discreet about his affairs and seems to delight in embarrassing her.” She lifted a shoulder in a negligent shrug. “He’s a bastard,” she said glibly. Her gaze drifted signif
icantly between the two of them. “And we all know what it’s like to live with one of those.”
Bitsy and Meredith both frowned, evidence of the truth of that statement.
Meredith gave Sophia another probing look. “So she’s the reason we’re here?”
Sophia nodded. “Her mother talked to me about it, asked us to intervene. I think she’s a good candidate and I want to issue The Invitation.” As founding members of the Club, they all had to agree. “Do either of you oppose?”
Bitsy snorted indelicately, her spiky gray curls bobbing. “I certainly don’t. She’s young. She could use some widow-training, and from the sounds of it, the poor girl’s going to need all the help she can get.”
Never one to make snap decisions, Meredith’s gaze slid to where Jolie Marshall sat across the room, seemed to take her measure. After a prolonged moment, she nodded. “I agree.”
Sophia let go a breath, pleased. She lifted her glass, waited for the other two to do the same before readying their standard toast. The three shared a conspiratorial look, a secret smile. “To The Future Widows’ Club.”
CHAPTER 1
“Would you like to go ahead and order, Mrs. Marshall?”
Jolie forced a smile at the waiter and shook her head. “No, thank you, Charlie. I’ll give Chris a few more minutes.”
Charlie nodded, gave her an uncomfortable look, then swiftly moved away. A sigh stuttered out of her mouth as she lifted her water glass, the glass she’d like nothing better than to hurl across the room. But considering that she’d like to aim it at her husband’s head--and he wasn’t here--she resisted the urge.
Chris, damn him, should have arrived twenty minutes ago. The fact that he was late was no surprise--he enjoyed making her wait, was just another power play, one that she’d grown accustomed to over the past two years.
Two years--to the date--of sheer hell.
Though she was tempted to scream, then dive into a pool of self-recriminations, Jolie checked the impulse. Making a scene, calling herself every kind of idiot, wondering why she’d made the disastrous decisions she’d made, pondering the if-only’s wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make her feel any better and, more importantly, it wouldn’t get her mother’s money back, or any of the other investor’s for that matter.
Every ounce of her energy, every thought had to be directed to that end, and having a therapeutic temper fit, then mulling over the wreck her life had become wouldn’t get her any further to that goal. So no pity-party, dammit. She’d simply have to cope. She smiled at passersby, blew out a small breath to release some of her current pressure, and imagined blithely signing her divorce papers.
It was nobody’s fault but her own that she’d royally screwed up and now she was left with the unhappy, nerve-wrecking miserable task of fixing it.
Which, thankfully, was going better than she’d initially anticipated. So long as she stepped carefully--translate: didn’t rock the boat with her son-of-a-bitch husband--she could recoup the rest of her mom’s investment within the next three months, as well as the other investors’, then she’d swiftly, gleefully file for a divorce. She chuckled darkly. He’d live to regret that token appointment to the board, she thought with no small amount of satisfaction.
Her cell chirped, snagging her attention. It wouldn’t be Chris, she knew. Though he was late, he’d never give her the courtesy of a phone call to let her know why. Things like courtesy, respect, fidelity and friendship had fallen instantly by the wayside the moment he’d realized that she knew he was a thief. She’d learned other things as well. Hadn’t known him at all, she’d found out too late. Since then, he’d been a condescending, sarcastic control-freak who delighted in seeing how angry, how wretched he could make her feel. Given present circumstances and her admittedly short fuse, she made it entirely too easy for him, a fact that she was desperately trying to rectify.
She’d started carrying a worry stone in her pocket and, though she’d been tempted to hurl it at him many times--not to mention the fact that she’d rubbed a blister on her thumb--she couldn’t deny that she found it soothing.
She finally fished her cell out of her purse. Her lips quirked. Sadie. “Hey,” she answered.
“Don’t bother ordering,” Sadie told her by way of greeting. Her best friend’s usually chipper voice throbbed with outraged anger.
Jolie rubbed an imaginary line from between her eyebrows, cast a covert look around the restaurant, then let go a sigh. “Do I want to know why?”
“No, but I’m going to show you. Take a look at this.”
A picture of Chris’ red BMW appeared on her cell screen. His vanity plate--U WISH--glowed in the dark, proof that it was definitely his car.
But it was what was hanging out of the car window that drew her attention--a pair of legs.
Feminine legs that definitely didn’t belong to her husband. A dark shadow hovered just out of view--her husband heaving atop the woman who owned the legs, she imagined.
Jolie smirked, not the least bit or surprised. Well, it was their anniversary. She should have known that he wouldn’t miss an opportunity like this. It didn’t hurt because she didn’t care--she hated him--but she loathed being humiliated and he purposely chose whom he screwed around with to coincide with her maximum mortification.
“Jolie? Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” she muttered. “Give me a minute. I want to send that to my email account. It can go into The File.”
Though Chris didn’t know it, Jolie had amassed quite a bit of damning evidence for his take-down and her subsequent divorce. She’d need everything in order to invalidate the pre-nup she’d foolishly signed, the one he’d said was for her benefit. Another lie.
While Chris considered himself too smart to be double-crossed, his arrogance was actually working to her advantage. She’d been steadily documenting his shady business dealings as well as the infidelity, the worsening drug habit, and the mental abuse. She fully intended to ruin him, to make him pay for the way he’d treated her and her family. He’d picked the wrong pigeon this time and if it was the last damned thing she did, she’d make him live to regret it.
“That bastard,” Sadie hissed angrily. “I swear, I don’t think I’ve ever hated a man more than that son-of-a-bitch. Please tell me you’re close to finishing up,” she pleaded. “Please tell me that you can leave that bottom-feeder soon. Before I do something stupid, like kill him,” she growled in futile frustration.
Jolie chuckled lightly, heartened by Sadie’s outrage on her behalf. A vision of her friend’s short brown curls bobbing with indignation flashed through her mind. Shirley Temple meets Katie Kaboom, she thought fondly. “I will,” she promised. “Another three months, tops.”
Thank God. She didn’t think her nerves could stand anything else beyond that. She wanted her life back, wanted to be able to look at her mother without feeling the knee-buckling weight of shame hanging around her neck. In the meantime, she was avoiding her. Cowardly, she knew, but...
The fact that her marriage wasn’t a happy one was common knowledge in Bless Her Heart, so she didn’t hold any illusions that her mother had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but confirming the rumors then having to expand upon them was out of the realm of her ability at the moment.
Sadie grunted. “Another three seconds is too long. Honestly, I don’t see how you stand it.”
Jolie found her stone, absently rubbed it and smiled. “That’s because you married the right man, and I married the wrong one.”
Sadie had married her high school sweetheart, Rob Webster. They had two kids, a mortgage and a minivan, and were the picture of marital bliss. Did they have the occasional problem? Of course. Marriage, under the best circumstances, was still work. But they loved each other and they were both committed to the relationship, to their family.
Sadie’s sigh hissed over the line. “So what are you going to do?”
“Eat dinner,” she said, forcing a lighter note into her voice
, hoping her faux enthusiasm would prevent her friend for worrying. “I’m hungry.”
Naturally, Sadie saw through the ploy. Hell, they’d been friends forever--since kindergarten. Aside from one other person—her heart gave an involuntary squeeze—Sadie probably knew her better than anyone else.
“Do you want me to come over?” she asked softly. “Because I can. I can order a pizza for Rob and the kids and I can be there in--“
“No,” Jolie interjected. “But thanks for offering. I appreciate it.” And she really did.
“This sucks, Jo,” Sadie said heatedly, her ire renewed. “This sincerely sucks.”
It certainly did, she thought as she palmed her worry stone, but she’d endured two years of it and was too close to being able to return the investor’s money, most importantly her mother’s. She could endure another three months. Then she’d turn her evidence in to the rest of the board, return the investors’ money and she’d leave him. He should have paid more attention to the morality clause, Jolie thought with a small smile.
But she couldn’t wait to leave him. Imagining that scenario was the only thing that made things bearable right now. She clung to it like a life line, dreamed about it, prayed for it.
“I, uh... I know it sucks, but I can’t leave yet. You know the score,” she said, unwilling to talk about it over her cell. The laundering technique she’d successfully implemented--her way of insuring that everyone got their money back--wasn’t a topic of conversation one discussed over the airwaves.
Technically, it was embezzlement.
But Chris had started it first, and the difference between she and Chris was that she didn’t plan to keep more than what she’d originally put in. She was giving the money back to its rightful owners, while Chris, on the other hand, was simply keeping it for himself. “I’m almost there, Sadie. I just need a little more time.”
“I know.” Her friend exhaled a resigned breath. “Call me if you need anything, would you?”