The Sassy Belles Read Online Free PDF Page A

was
trying to process and manage this unbelievable situation. But this was typical
Harry. Sometimes so closed off he became his own worst enemy. He locked everyone
out to make sure his image was so perfect it was almost not even human. It was
robotic, with all the right responses, always so prepared with just the right
answers. Sometimes he was just exasperating. Feel, I
thought. Let me see you. Though he would say that I
feel too much. I overfeel, he had said once. Too
happy, too sad, too angry.
    What was happening to us was much like the story of Scarlett
and Rhett. You don’t show me any emotion, so I won’t show you any. Both of us
would be independent, spirited people, strong and stubborn, who just didn’t need
anyone but ourselves.
    And so it had gone for about six years now. Lots of work, lots
of career building and even lots of sex. But not much lovemaking.
    I wanted him to really see me
again. But he was not about to let me see him. In that moment I just felt sad
for both of us.
    We were still all crowded inside room 106 with the bright sun
streaming in like a laser beam through the open door. It made it difficult to
see anyone except in silhouette. But the next image I saw coming through that
door was a shape that I knew well. At six foot three, he looked ominous in the
shadows, even with his slender frame. Shadows or not—I knew that body all too
well. I’d know that man anywhere.
    Sonny Bartholomew had been all mine at one time. From my first
year of high school to my first year of college, Sonny was my on-again,
off-again love. Over those years we went from harmless exploration to seriously
discussing forever. And now, on the rare occasion that Harry and I had a heated
conversation, Harry would say, “Why don’t you just go look up your cop? I’m sure
you should have just married him anyway.”
    This was my cop. My detective,
actually.
    Sonny Bartholomew. Homicide Investigations.
    I fell in love with him back when he was the yearbook
photographer during our freshman year of high school. Back then, he was sort of
a misfit like me. Sonny had the cutest smile I had ever seen. He would cock his
head to one side as he grinned at me. That’s all it took. His smile turned up at
both corners of his mouth. He was precious, with his sandy hair and oversize
feet and it all came together to make him even cuter. And he sure grew into
those feet.
    At fifteen we were just the right age for the beginning of the
end of our innocence. But we never did go all the way. I was the good girl—at
least in that respect. Though, somehow, I have always wished I hadn’t been so
good back then. He should have been my first.
    It felt really good—and really odd—to see him standing there in
the doorway of the motel room. It had been a long time since I had run into him
last, at a Bama game a few years back. It was a fall football Saturday, with
bright blue skies and a bite in the air. We were in line for a beer at one of
the bars along the strip. I’d asked him about his life and prodded him for
information about his wife, a wallflower of a girl, Laura Logan. She’d gone to
Catholic school with me and Vivi. She was so quiet and certainly was never
involved in any of our infamous pranks. Laura was so shy and good that we
believed she might actually become a nun.
    Obviously, she did not.
    Sonny had seemed uncomfortable during our chance encounter in
the beer line. I told him I was married.
    “I know,” he said. “I saw it in the paper.”
    At that moment, standing in line on that football Saturday, I
suddenly couldn’t imagine a life without Sonny. We should
be friends, I’d thought. At least friends.
    I had loved him for as long as I could remember and so I’d
grabbed his hand in mine and said, “Look, we’re both married now. Can’t we all
get together sometime, all four of us? For a cookout? I know Laura, for heaven’s
sake. She was at my birthday parties growin’ up. We made our first communion
together. Whatdaya