THE FUTURE WIDOW'S CLUB

by Rhonda Nelson

  CONTENTS:

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  "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.

  Bitsy Highfield and Meredith Ingram leaned slightly back in their chairs and followed her 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 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', 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 Moon Valley, Mississippi, had to offer, so she ignored the tacky decor 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 most small towns, was the main hub of Moon Valley'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, but alas to no avail.

  "She 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, she fell hard for him and he convinced her that he could take the proceeds her mother had gotten from her Daddy's life insurance policy and triple it."

  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. "He just refuses to give the money back. Somehow, despite the fact that they're partners, he's stashed it in one of those offshore accounts."

  "Still," Meredith hedged, the perpetual voice of reason, "I don't understand. 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 prenup, 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 her shoulder in a negligent shrug. "He's a bastard," she said glibly. Her gaze drifted significantly 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 is 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 ONE

  "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 being as 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 been here twenty minutes ago. The fact that he was late was no surprise—he enjoyed making her wait, another power play 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 the money of any of the other investors 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 closer 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 that of 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. She 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, then flipped it open. Her lips quirked. Sadie. "Hey," she answered.

  "Don't bother ordering," Sadie told her by way of greeting. Her usually chipper voice throbbed with outraged anger.

  Jolie rubbed an imaginary line from between her eyebrows, cast a subtle look around the restaurant, then let go of 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's 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 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 sighed. "Give me a minute. I want to send that to my e-mail 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 prenup 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 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 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 Ka-boom, 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 Moon Valley, so she didn't hold any illusions that her mother had no idea 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 sighed. "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 from worrying. "I'm hungry."

  Naturally, Sadie saw through the ploy. Hell, they'd been friends forever—since Kindergarten. Aside from one other person, 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," she Jolie interjected. "But thanks for offering. I appreciate it." And she really did.

  "This sucks, Jolie," Sadie said heatedly, her ire renewed. "This 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 her 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."
<
br />   "I know." Sadie exhaled a resigned breath. "Call me if you need anything, would you?"

  "You got it." Jolie disconnected, then snagged Charlie's attention once more. She ordered a house salad, the filet, and a bottle of expensive wine all without the slightest hesitation—she'd charge it to the company. The idea drew a half-hearted smile.

  "I'll get that order in for you right away, Mrs. Marshall."

  Charlie turned and walked away, and a woefully familiar profile, one that made her belly clench, loomed instantly into view. The brave smile she wore faded, and though the knowledge that her husband was currently boinking some whore on their anniversary didn't make her so much as flinch, seeing Jake Malone with another woman made her belly tip in a nauseated roll. Jolie's mouth went dry and her eyes stung. Her hands trembled and she had difficulty swallowing past the inexplicable lump that had formed in her dusty throat.

  Oh, God. Not this. Anything but this.

  Jake and Nicolette stood at the entrance to the dining room, presumably to wait for a table. Though she knew it was impossible, she thought she caught a whiff of fresh hay, the scent she'd forever associate with him. He loved horses, had an almost supernatural gift with them, one that had always fascinated her.

  Rather than his usual T-shirt, jeans and boots, he wore a pair of khaki slacks and a white oxford cloth shirt open at the throat, cuffed at the wrists. Jolie imagined he'd ditched the tie as soon as his shift at the Sheriff's Department had ended. He'd worked his way up through the ranks, had finally earned his detective's badge, a feat she was certain he was proud of.

  She couldn't know for sure, of course, because he wasn't speaking to her—he hadn't since she'd thumbed her nose at his request for "more time" and married Chris—but she knew him well enough to know that he'd be thrilled with the promotion.

  His dark brown locks were mussed, a shade too long by his usual standards, and those soft gray eyes were presently drifting over his date. Jolie knew that look—that sinfully carnal caress—knew what it promised and she envied Nicolette in that moment so much that it hurt—and hated Chris Marshall more than she ever had.