Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakthrough Read Online Free PDF Page B

Didn't they claim there was no crime in Kettle? Hard to imagine. Maybe she should get accused of another few murders and liven things up.
      She lifted the lid, half hoping the keys weren't there, though she couldn't stand another minute in the car having to drive off and find them. They were. Two, on a chain with a little dangling plastic Mickey Mouse figure, puffy gloved white hand raised in a cheery wave.
      Insipid rodent.
      The storm door screeched like a dying monkey, but her key went smoothly into the dead bolt, turned and unlocked; the second key went in hard; she had to jiggle it a few times before she could turn it.
      "Come . . . on ."
      The lock gave suddenly, and the weight she'd been leaning against the door propelled her inside, not even giving her the courtesy of a long breath and solemn step over the threshold to experience the deep symbolism of the moment.
      Instead, she dropped half the clothes onto what instantly registered as the ugliest linoleum on earth, and gave an undignified grunt, which she followed with some of her choicest curse words.
      "Nice mouth."
      She glanced back at her erstwhile hero and nearly let him have one of her all -time favorites for his very own.
      One dark male eyebrow lifted as if he heard the word she'd chosen for him without her having to say it, and she swallowed and glanced around the kitchen instead, gut sinking in despair.
      Oh. God. Either she'd forgotten how bad it was or someone else had come in and wrought Kountry Kitchen hell. Green and blue pastel bunnies hopped around the white walls among sprigs of pink ivy, nibbling flat orange carrots; shiny red apples and mallard ducks cozied up on the cabinets. Cheery curtains with ruffles and smiling yellow and red Gerbera daisies fi ltered out the daylight.
      She thought back to her and Ed's kitchen: granite countertops, hardwood floors, copper, glass, stainless appliances. No bunnies.
      She was going to hurl.
      "Not what you're used to?"
      She turned and looked up at Mike, surprised at his intuition. Men she knew didn't tune in to women's feelings. Or rather, they tuned them out, too busy concentrating on their own, which were always more important and more weighty and, of course, always right.
      He was taller than he'd seemed outside, taller than Ed by nearly a foot. Ed had been Napoleon -short and just as complex. Mike was broader and damn handsome, with a farm boy, military edge. His eyes were blue, the shade that always seemed bright and alive, surrounded by dark lashes. Very sexy combination, fresh youth and weary cynicism. She wondered what had happened to start the transition.
      "How old are you, Mike?"
      "Thirty-three."
      She waited to see if he'd ask how old she was. Maybe he already knew; the trial hadn't left much of her private.
      He didn't.
      "I'll be forty soon." She waited to see if he'd ask when.
      He didn't.
      "November ninth. All gifts of expensive jewelry accepted. No fur, no cheap champagne, caviar is fi ne, but only if it's—"
      "Are you going to make me stand in your kitchen holding your underwear all day?"
      She laughed, a short burst of surprise. "Not today. But maybe we can arrange that another time, hmm?"
      He actually smiled, with both sides of his mouth. But not like he thought that was a terrific idea and he accepted. More like his teenage daughter had made her first clever comeback and he was proud while trying not to be.
      She suddenly wanted his arrogant silence out of her ugly house so she could be alone and fall apart with no dignity.
      "You can take my underwear to my bedroom and I'll follow you. I assume you know the house. I don't remember it."
      He nodded and preceded her into the living room, a horror in baby -blue shag carpet with a faded yellow -and-blue fl oral living room set, then up the baby -blue shag -carpeted stairs to the baby -blue shag -carpeted hallway.
       Gran, what were you