Read Online The Almost Wives Club: Kate by Nancy Warren - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nancy Warren
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she wondered aloud.
“Mostly girls who don’t want to make a fool of themselves in front of some hot guy, sometimes guys who want to make fools of themselves in front of some hot girl.” He shrugged. “I had a woman instructor but her boyfriend was stationed at Camp Pendleton. Got transferred to Fort Bragg and she went with him.”
“I’m not really looking for a job.”
“Up to you. Pay’s fifty an hour.”
She thought rapidly. If she didn’t have to use her credit card or draw on her bank account too much that was probably a good thing. “Cash?”
“Sure.”
“And the use of a board and wet suit whenever I want it?”
He sucked his teeth. “You haven’t even taught an hour yet.”
“Well, If I’m surfing and get talking to people I can spread the word that I’m around and available to teach.”
He glanced at the racks of boards. They both knew it was the slow season and he was not going to run out of surfboards. He rubbed his chin. “Tell you what, I’ll outfit you for a week. We’ll see how it goes.”
She grinned. “Perfect.”
Of course, a woman who was going to be an on-call surfing instructor needed to have some kind of device for getting calls. Like a phone. So, reluctantly, she headed for the local Wal-Mart and bought the cheapest phone she could find. It cost less than twenty dollars. For another twenty she had a couple of hundred minutes, many more than she figured she’d need since there was no one she currently wanted to talk to.
She liked the phone. She liked its simplicity and its very lack of connectivity. She was tethered to no plan, registered with no company. No way Ted could find her.
Assuming he was still looking.
The weird thing was that when she creeped his Facebook there was no mention of the wedding being canceled. She did a quick search of the big papers where their wedding announcement had appeared and again there was nothing. Surely they didn’t still think she’d show up for the wedding? Did they?
Chapter Seven
In Nick’s line of work he found people to be generally deceitful. They were out to cheat the system, their spouses, the IRS, and definitely insurance companies. He was accustomed to thinking the worst of people. But Kate was different. She’d reminded him that decent people still existed.
And he’d hurt her. He’d ended up being the deceitful one and the knowledge rankled. He’d salved his conscience with the knowledge that she’d never know he’d been hired to try and seduce her, but she had found out.
Now she’d disappeared.
He paced his small office and stopped to stare out at the gray drizzle licking the street below him. Women walked by, some holding umbrellas, others hunched against the wet. He caught sight of a blonde head and for a second thought it was Kate. Then he realized the height and build were wrong.
He stood for another minute staring out the window brooding then pushed the intercom on his phone and asked his assistant, Susan, to “Bring in the Kate Winton-Jones file, will you?”
Susan brought the file in a minute later.
“Thanks.”
He spent the next couple of hours reading the dossier he’d compiled on the future Mrs. Carnarvon. He’d interviewed her mother first, then talked to past employers by posing as a head hunter. He got to a few of her old school friends by posing as a journalist writing about the wedding. He’d found over the years that most people loved to talk about other people. There was a nearly universal urge to gossip. He’d expected some jealousy and he wasn’t mistaken, but most people had warm recollections of Kate and wished her well.
He reviewed the dossier. Flipped through photos. Part of his work as a PI was psychology. What drove a person? What made them tick? And, in trouble, where would they run?
“Where are you?” he asked aloud, staring at a photo of Kate before she’d met Ted. She was laughing with a group of friends as they sat around on the beach. He went through the photos
“Mostly girls who don’t want to make a fool of themselves in front of some hot guy, sometimes guys who want to make fools of themselves in front of some hot girl.” He shrugged. “I had a woman instructor but her boyfriend was stationed at Camp Pendleton. Got transferred to Fort Bragg and she went with him.”
“I’m not really looking for a job.”
“Up to you. Pay’s fifty an hour.”
She thought rapidly. If she didn’t have to use her credit card or draw on her bank account too much that was probably a good thing. “Cash?”
“Sure.”
“And the use of a board and wet suit whenever I want it?”
He sucked his teeth. “You haven’t even taught an hour yet.”
“Well, If I’m surfing and get talking to people I can spread the word that I’m around and available to teach.”
He glanced at the racks of boards. They both knew it was the slow season and he was not going to run out of surfboards. He rubbed his chin. “Tell you what, I’ll outfit you for a week. We’ll see how it goes.”
She grinned. “Perfect.”
Of course, a woman who was going to be an on-call surfing instructor needed to have some kind of device for getting calls. Like a phone. So, reluctantly, she headed for the local Wal-Mart and bought the cheapest phone she could find. It cost less than twenty dollars. For another twenty she had a couple of hundred minutes, many more than she figured she’d need since there was no one she currently wanted to talk to.
She liked the phone. She liked its simplicity and its very lack of connectivity. She was tethered to no plan, registered with no company. No way Ted could find her.
Assuming he was still looking.
The weird thing was that when she creeped his Facebook there was no mention of the wedding being canceled. She did a quick search of the big papers where their wedding announcement had appeared and again there was nothing. Surely they didn’t still think she’d show up for the wedding? Did they?
Chapter Seven
In Nick’s line of work he found people to be generally deceitful. They were out to cheat the system, their spouses, the IRS, and definitely insurance companies. He was accustomed to thinking the worst of people. But Kate was different. She’d reminded him that decent people still existed.
And he’d hurt her. He’d ended up being the deceitful one and the knowledge rankled. He’d salved his conscience with the knowledge that she’d never know he’d been hired to try and seduce her, but she had found out.
Now she’d disappeared.
He paced his small office and stopped to stare out at the gray drizzle licking the street below him. Women walked by, some holding umbrellas, others hunched against the wet. He caught sight of a blonde head and for a second thought it was Kate. Then he realized the height and build were wrong.
He stood for another minute staring out the window brooding then pushed the intercom on his phone and asked his assistant, Susan, to “Bring in the Kate Winton-Jones file, will you?”
Susan brought the file in a minute later.
“Thanks.”
He spent the next couple of hours reading the dossier he’d compiled on the future Mrs. Carnarvon. He’d interviewed her mother first, then talked to past employers by posing as a head hunter. He got to a few of her old school friends by posing as a journalist writing about the wedding. He’d found over the years that most people loved to talk about other people. There was a nearly universal urge to gossip. He’d expected some jealousy and he wasn’t mistaken, but most people had warm recollections of Kate and wished her well.
He reviewed the dossier. Flipped through photos. Part of his work as a PI was psychology. What drove a person? What made them tick? And, in trouble, where would they run?
“Where are you?” he asked aloud, staring at a photo of Kate before she’d met Ted. She was laughing with a group of friends as they sat around on the beach. He went through the photos
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