First Word

Chapter 1 I placed her body in the trunk of a gold Toyota Camry. I gazed down at her with my hand still holding the trunk lid. Her dark eyes were glassy now and stared up at me, lifeless, and somehow accusing. Her form was bent out of shape and her thick, dark hair was mussed with just a hint of dark blood smeared in it from a single wound. “Dead,” I thought and closed the trunk. *** One year earlier … It was a sunny fall afternoon. The sun shone through the sliding-glass door and woke me up. My blue eyes fluttered opened, and I looked out the slider toward the pool area where our white standard poodle Maisy slept curled up in her fleece bed. Brown, crisp fall leaves had blown up on the porch and piled around her dog bed. I was alone as my husband Paul had taken the kids to school already. We switched mornings, and this morning I got to sleep in, which I enjoyed. He was always a prick about it, though. Said it wasn’t his job and had once told me he was just...

11 The next day, Kale summoned me to the office – early again. He said he wanted to talk about something important. When I arrived, he was dressed in a button-down, light-blue, short-sleeved shirt that matched his eyes and jeans. He looked happy to see me. We seemed to be making progress – our relationship had mellowed into a comfortable ambiguity. It felt so warm and nice to be around him that I thought I would take what time I could get alone with him and enjoy it. I also suspected he called me in early to ensure quality alone time before the staff arrived. It seemed like Monica had made it her habit lately to interrupt us. I didn’t know if Kale had noticed, but I sure had. I had completely avoided any discussion that would define their relationship because I held out hope that their intimate closeness was in my imagination. A California girl could hold out hope anyway. Kale walked straight over to me and hugged me. To my utter shock, he leaned ove...

Purchase on Amazon ( Click Here ) 10 I walked into Bardot and immediately spotted Ryan sitting alone in a corner, drinking what looked like gin and soda with a twist of lime. He was wearing a thin royal blue long-sleeved shirt that hugged his biceps and made me horny just looking at him. His shorn sandy-colored hair had light gel running through it. He waved me over, and I moved with a sexy sway to my hips. I was wearing a low-cut, leopard-print, long-sleeved blouse with a silver-and-cream-colored beaded choker and matching earrings. Ryan stood right up and hugged me. I felt his warm, hard body against mine. He was handsome, rugged and built. He kissed my cheek, ordered a margarita for me (I supposed to pay homage to our tryst), and then we settled down and sat across from each other. An awkward silence fell between us, and I finally looked down and asked, “Are you sure Johnny would be okay with this?” “Johnny moved out,” he said bluntly. “I don’...

  Available for Sale on Amazon in print and Kindle. Also on sale in Nook and Apple iBook versions. 5 Kale soon returned to Arizona for more on-set work. Other staffers from the office went with him so the place was quiet. I didn’t mind. I was able to get a lot of work done, and believe me, the pile of notes for rewrites had only grown. I’d heard, though, that they were actively casting the movie and that Johnny, the hot man I’d met in the hallway, had won the Drew part. As I rewrote Drew’s scenes, I wondered if he would see the movie. It occurred to me as I wrote the female lead that her words might make him feel the least bit repentant, but somehow I doubted it since Drew never expressed remorse. I was staring out my office window thinking about this when I heard a voice come from behind me. “ Are you busy?” I turned around to find Monica standing in the doorway, which surprised me since she had gone with Kale to Arizona and was obviously...