Read Online Life After Wife by Carolyn Brown - Free Book Online

a picture of a bull on the front. He’d followed the Pro Rodeo circuit for several years and won enough moneyto keep his ranch afloat for many years ahead. He and Kate had married in the spring, and from the get-go she’d insisted that Sunday afternoons belonged to her and her two friends. Most of the time, he didn’t mind when there was a rodeo on television or even football or basketball. But that day the house was silent as a tomb.
    “What are you grinnin’ about?” Eli asked.
    “Those women. Sophie givin’ you a hard time, is she?”
    “Worse than a hard time,” Eli admitted.
    “That’s the way Kate was in the beginning,” Hart said.
    “That reminds me. Sophie said what’s said in their witches’ meetings is confidential. She told me a little about the way y’all got together, but she said I should ask you about the rest.”
    “What’d she tell you?”
    “Not much. Just that you were her knight in shining armor.”
    “Not armor. I’m her knight in shining whatever, because she forgot the word ‘armor’ the first time she said it.”
    “And Theron is Fancy’s forever thing, right?”
    Hart chuckled down deep in his broad chest. “Yes, he is but he can tell you that story. Kate and I have a history going back to when we were kids. We went to school together over in Albany. She was a couple of years behind me, and I didn’t notice her until my senior year. By then I was tied up with Stephanie, the head cheerleader. After graduation, Steph and I broke up, and I ran into Kate on the playground one night. We started seeing each other on the sly. I was scared to death of her father, so I didn’t ask her out on a real date. Anyway, she got it in her head that I was sneaking around with her because I didn’t want to be seen with a half Mexican. We broke up when Stephanie came cryin’ back to me. That was my first big mistake. I was young and stupid and ignorant.”
    “Weren’t we all?” Eli nodded.
    “So anyway, after we broke up, I went to college and she moved away. Stephanie and I lasted a few weeks before the final split. When I came home for fall break, Kate was gone. I looked for her everywhere I went when I started bull riding professionally but never found her. Then Theron and Fancy got married, and I went to the reception. But back up. First I got this call from Stephanie, after more than a decade. She said she was in trouble and needed to talk to me. So I went to her motel room.”
    Eli raised an eyebrow.
    Hart threw up a hand and shook his head at the same time. “Left fingerprints everywhere, but nothing happened between us. Anyway, I gave her my best advice, which was to call the cops and tell them her sad tale of woe, and went on to the wedding reception. Kate was there as maid of honor and dressed in this red satin dress that just took my breath away. I asked her who she was, and that made her mad enough to almost knock me on my ass. But in my defense, I was afraid to hope that she was really Kate Miller. So we danced and that led to having a drink, which led to the motel where we sat up half the night talking. She slipped out the next morning, and I thought it was her knocking on the door because she forgot her key. Imagine my surprise when there stood two policemen with handcuffs and guns and a warrant for my arrest for murder.”
    “You are kidding me!” Eli scraped the bottom of the plastic sundae cup.
    “Not a bit. They found my prints all over that motel room, along with Steph’s dead body. I couldn’t tell them that Kate was with me, since she was a relief police officer and tryingto work her way into a full-time job. She was a crackerjack detective down in New Iberia, Louisiana. They hated to see her leave down there and tried to talk her into coming back when she’d been gone about six months. Anyway, it wouldn’t look good if she was my alibi or that she had spent the night with me in a motel. We only talked that night, honest to God, but small towns have their own