Naked Ambition. Jule Mcbride
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won’t be for long,” Ellie said. “Your folks left the house to you. J.D. doesn’t need it. Between a lawyer and Sheriff Kemp, all those people will be gone soon.”
By then, Susannah should have racked up some flings and J.D. would be just a memory.
“I just wish he wasn’t such a…” Pausing, she searched for the right words and settled on, “Alpha man.”
“Him and Robby both. Alphas of the Delta.”
Susannah almost smiled at the play on words, but her heart was hurting. Suddenly tires screeched outside. She and Ellie craned their necks to peer through Delia’s window just as a late-model black truck swerved on Palmer and turned down Vine.
“J.D.,” Susannah muttered. “He’s going to kill somebody driving like that. And with my luck, it won’t even be himself.”
“At least he’s not in that new boat,” Ellie muttered.
Named the Alabama, the cabin cruiser was docked at a marina on the river. Given the wild company J.D. was keeping, Susannah had blown a gasket when she’d seen it, knowing that somebody would eventually was going to get hurt. “You’re too cautious,” J.D. had said. “You’ve got to loosen up, Susannah. Have a good time.”
Like he did last night, Susannah thought once more, an image of Sandy’s nude body flashing in her mind. “He’s probably headed to June’s. I told him I was going there, and that you were on a business trip, so he wouldn’t follow me here.” Her voice broke. “Oh, Ellie, what happened to him?”
“Fame. He changed, Susannah. He wasn’t always like this. He used to be one of the best people I know.”
Susannah’s eyes narrowed. Suitcases were piled in the backseat of Ellie’s car. “You packed already?”
“My flight’s in an hour. I came to say goodbye.”
Goodbye? Susannah stared at the corner of Palmer and Vine, from which her husband had just vanished. The intersection had been a landmark as far back as she could remember, but now J.D. was out of sight and Ellie was saying goodbye. Susannah was at the crossroad, too. She loved J.D. Still, she deserved a more stable life with a man who wouldn’t betray her.
“J.D.’s obviously not home now,” she found herself saying. “So…I’ll run in and grab a few things.”
“Really?”
Susannah nodded. “I’ll come with you, Ellie.”
A heartbeat passed, then the two women said in unison what they always had when making a new memory together. It was the phrase that had prompted them to have the charms on their necklaces engraved, one that had started so many sentences of their conversations. “Remember the time.”
Already, both could hear the other saying, “Remember the time we were sitting in Delia’s Diner? You know, the day we left J.D. and Robby?”
In years to come, it might well prove to be their most pivotal decision. “Remember the time,” they whispered, eyes locking. Then they hooked pinkie fingers, shut their eyes and made silent wishes. A moment later, after leaving bills on the table, they headed toward the door.
“Ladies!” Delia called. “You didn’t clean my plates, and now I’m going to have to wash them! You didn’t even eat your dessert. Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“On an adventure,” Susannah called as she opened the door.
And then she and Ellie linked arms and stepped across the threshold, toward their future.
Chapter Two
Eight months later
“SUSANNAH, YOU’RE MORE FAMOUS than J.D.,” Ellie teased, smoothing a hand over her black cocktail dress and looking around Susannah’s restaurant. “And any minute now, you’re going to get the call saying J.D. finally agreed to your terms in the divorce!”
“Don’t forget your polling company has been just as successful. Besides, none of this would have happened without you and Joe,” Susannah said breathlessly, her heart full to bursting as she glanced around the cozy eatery she’d opened six months before, then at Joe O’Grady the man who’d unexpectedly walked into her life. “When the foxhole shuts, the rabbit hutch opens,” her mama had always said. Still, Susannah was nervous about getting the call she expected from her lawyer tonight.
At noon, when she’d spoken to J.D. for the first time in eight months, he’d said, “Susannah, come home. Come tonight. Now. We have to talk.”
“Not after what you did.”
“I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Liar.”
“Listen to me, sweetheart.”
Against her will, she’d felt his voice pulling her heartstrings. “Are your friends still in our house?”
Our house. She’d said the words, knowing Banner Manor would remain hers and J.D.’s even after he was no longer allowed inside. “They’re not my friends.”
“At least you finally realized that.”
“I’ll get everybody out.”
That meant he hadn’t yet. “Promises,” Susannah managed to say. “I can’t see you,” she’d added, then kicked herself for even having considered it.
“Just do it. We’re worth it. What about all the years we’ve spent together? Come to town. Don’t meet me at the house. That way you won’t see any other people. Go to the Alabama,” he’d coaxed, picking up on her vulnerability. “Just you and me. No lawyers. No music people. There’s a direct flight in two hours. I checked. You’ll be at the airport in Bayou Blair by seven this evening, on the Alabama by eight. Just go outside right now and catch a cab to the airport. Don’t pass go. You know we can’t get a divorce.”
It was just like him, spontaneous to a fault, showing he’d never change, but she’d begin to weaken, anyway. “I can’t.”
“You have to, Susannah.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my wife.”
For a second, it seemed the best argument she’d ever heard.
“Say yes.”
The one word—so simple but so complex when it came to J.D.—came out before she could stop it. “Yes.”
“Eight o’clock on the Alabama,” he’d repeated quickly. Before she could change her mind, she heard a soft click, then the dial tone.
For the next few hours, she’d watched the clock, her eyes fixed on the minute hand until the time of the flight came and went. Then she’d phoned her attorney, Garrison Bedford, and explained that she was being pressured. When Garrison called back moments later he reported that J.D. now understood she wasn’t coming, and had to agree to the terms of the divorce. He’d promised to sign all necessary papers and vacate the house by eight, which was when she’d agreed to meet him. Now Susannah was waiting for Garrison’s final call.
Just a few moments ago, she’d thought it had come. She’d been called to the phone, but then the caller had hung up. Maybe it was J.D. again. Each step in the separation had been messy. For months, J.D. had tried to keep Banner Manor, if only to antagonize Susannah. “He’s saying possession’s ninetenths of the law,” Garrison first reported.
So Susannah had settled into the two-bedroom apartment she and Ellie had rented on the Lower East Side. She’d started scanning personal ads, just like Ellie, looking for hot dates, but then Garrison told her to stop, since it would jeopardize her divorce. She’s also taken the first waitress job she’d been offered.
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