Something BlueFor the perfect wedding, love is all you need… but the right pharmaceuticals don't hurt, either.
Something Blue is Southern-fried Chick Lit -- funny, true and heart-warming -- about three generations of Southern women trying to survive a wedding without bloodshed, if not emotional trauma. Granny Lila is trying to keep her romp with the widower next door a secret; as she tells one of her granddaughters, "Your momma don't want me to have a dog, what do you think she'd say about a boyfriend?" Lila's daughter, Barby, runs the best beauty shop in town. Four days before the wedding, she gets a letter from Mattel threatening to sue her for copyright infringement. Barby knows three things: that she was named B-A-R-B-Y ten whole years before Mattel introduced their little plastic bimbo; that her former boss and main competitor in town, Gladys Moreland, is the one who set her up; and that she picked the wrong week to quit smoking. Oldest daughter Scarlett is the over-stressed soccer mom to two rambunctious boys. Scarlett just can't understand why no one in her family understands how hard she's working to make her little sister's wedding absolutely perfect. Bride-to-be Ellen is the sweet if scatterbrained baby of the family. She's nervous about facing the invasion of her Yankees in-laws, including a mother-in-law who's allergic to everything and a lecherous father-in-law going through a mid-life crisis. Middle-daughter Kate is the one who fled the small hometown for the big city. Now, her boyfriend has left her, the tattoo on her shoulder isn't hidden (as she'd hoped) by the hideous bridesmaid dress, and her mother is making her go to Wednesday night supper at the church she hasn't voluntarily set foot in for nearly ten years. She's desperately hoping that five little blue tablets of Valium will keep her sane at least until they cut the wedding cake. "Bridget Jones meets Steel Magnolias with hilarious results…. FIVE STARS!" |
What readers on Amazon have to say:
**** GREAT BEACH READ by Angie Q:
"This is the sort of book I enjoy when my brain decides to take a day off. Loved, loved, loved this book. The characters are recognizably Southern in every way and in all the various quirks. It was laugh-out-loud funny in parts and sweet and touching in others. It caught the essence of the crazy roller coaster in the week preceding a Southern wedding and dealing with all the crazy, neurotic, infuriating relatives (especially mothers and sisters) that you love." **** COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN by T Wright: "Best book I've read in ages! The characters are loveable, down to earth. I read this book out loud to my husband because he kept asking what was so funny. Someone should take notice and make a movie. YES! It was that good!" **** A TOUCHING, LAUGH-OUT-LOUD STORY by aacaboo: Lots of characters, a great mix of people & real life, "Happenings". I'm from a big Albanian Family & the before's and after's ....rehearsal, etc...could have been written about my family. A good laugh-out-loud book, great story line. Highly recommend it. |
**** EASY READ by Susan Hastie:
"This book was one that you didn't want to put down. The characters were very colorful and about as disfunctional as they could get. I found this book to be quite funny in parts. Thoroughly enjoyed it." **** FUN READ by Bobbie Largent: "I really enjoyed reading this book. Had a hard time putting it down once I started reading it. Loved the characters." ***** GREAT CHARACTERS AND A STORY THAT WILL KEEP YOU MORE THAN ENTERTAINED by Christeymg: "As a Southerner I saw people I know and people I'm related to in this story. Funny, sassy and smart. I understand the comparison to Steel Magnolias (which I love) but this is a story all to itself. Grab a copy and get ready for a truly enjoyable escape. Great summer beach read!" ***** DELIGHTFUL by Ann Lindell: "You'll recognize the many Southern female archetypes in this tale of the preparations for a small town wedding. The smart, sassy characters and hilarious dialog will have you laughing out loud! Highly recommended." |
For your reading pleasure, a free sample of Something Blue! Enjoy!
Chapter One: Blue Lights
She saw him too late, of course: the blue and gray state patrol car in the slice of daylight between the pines on the median. She eased her foot off the gas and stared into the rearview mirror. Her lips moved soundlessly: Please, please, please….
An arrow of blue lightening flashed through her heart and sent it plummeting as the patrol car pulled onto the highway.
Perfect, she thought. Just friggin’ perfect.
She slowed and eased onto the shoulder. It struck her that the sound of loose gravel under the wheels was a hateful sound, harbinger of speeding tickets, flat tires, dangling mufflers, the exchange of insurance cards….Damn it, damn it, damn it….
The trooper’s car rolled until it filled the rearview mirror. Kate pushed the eject button on the cassette player, cutting Mick Jagger off mid-yowl. The car went silent but for the slobbering snores from the back seat.
She twisted to look over the seat. She hadn't known a dog was capable of such noises, not even an asthmatic, over-weight English Bulldog. Hershel lifted his head and blinked at her. A long silver strand of drool waggled from his jowls.
She slammed the gearshift into park, turned off the ignition and glared into the rearview. The trooper was just sitting there as if he had all the time in the world. Did they learn that in trooper school? Or did sadism just come naturally for those attracted to the badge?
She fumbled for her wallet. The car rocked, buffeted by blasts of air as other cars whipped by at smug, illegal speeds. The trooper got out, hitching his pants up with one thumb. She watched as he adjusted the hat low on his brow.
Where was the registration, damn it? She clawed through the glove box and flotsam hit the floorboard. She fished through the ill-folded maps, pushed aside the flashlight with dead batteries and broken pink sunglasses. Finally she seized the vinyl owner’s packet, opened it and rifled papers until she found what she needed.
Kate tilted her head to look in the side mirror. The trooper stood with a radio close to his mouth. She felt an irrational stab of panic, certain that the dispatcher on the other end was going to hit a wrong key and bring up the rap sheet of a drug lord or bail jumper.
“Oh, come on,” she muttered.
He lowered the radio and grew larger. She rolled down the window only a few inches, hoping to keep the cool air inside the car, but the afternoon heat slapped her in the face. She glimpsed a swath of blue, a silver belt buckle, then the brim of a hat above two dark mirrors.
“Ma’am, I need you to get out of the car, please.”
This was something unexpected. Was this a new policy or did he merely resent standing in the hot sun alone? Bastard. Bad enough he was giving her a ticket, bad enough that he was taking his sweet time, bad enough that he had called her “ma’am” and not “miss.” Now she had to sweat, too.
She got out and the trooper backed away, his hands on his hips, as if he expected her to try something.
Yeah, I’m armed with half a bag of Doritos and a bottle of Mountain Dew. Watch out, buddy. I could put your eye out or rot your teeth. She slammed the door.
“Do you know how fast you were going?” His voice drawled only slightly.
She stared at him, incredulous. “If you don’t know, I’m certainly not going to tell you.”
His mouth tightened. He pushed the mirrors further up on his nose.
“Yes, ma’am. I do know how fast you were going, but I wondered if you did.”
She offered her license, registration and State Farm card from the tips of two fingers.
“Can we just get this over with?”
“There’s no need to be hostile.” He plucked the papers from her and looked at them. Slowly. One at a time. “I’m just doing my job, ma’am.”
“Would you stop calling me that?” Sweat trickled along her hairline. “I’m only thirty-six.”
“Pardon?” The mirrors bobbed up.
“I’m only thirty-six,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What’s that got to do with the price of eggs in China?”
“The price of tea,” she said flatly.
“Pardon?” He took his glasses off as they might be impairing his hearing.
“It’s the price of tea in China. The phrase. It’s supposed to be the price of tea in China, not eggs.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Well, it just sounds stupid — ‘the price of eggs in China.’” She shrugged. Why couldn’t she shut up? “Are you going to give me the da— the ticket or not?”
He slid the sunglasses back on. “You were doing eighty-one in a construction zone—”
“Construction zone?” Her heart sank even as her voice peaked. She glanced around at the orange cones and threw her hands into the air. “Oh, Christ! What construction? There’s nobody out here—“
A white truck slowed a few feet away. A man wearing an orange vest jumped down from the passenger side. He grabbed the nearest cone, tossed it into the back of the truck and waved lazily. Then he swung back into the truck.The pickup rolled a dozen feet to the next cone, where the performance was repeated.
The trooper turned his mirrored eyes back to Kate.
“You were saying?”
“Oh, this isn’t fair and you know it!” Kate locked her knees to keep from stomping like a thwarted child. She was trying to remember the last speed marker, the one about maximum fines where workers were present. Hell, the entire state of Georgia was a construction zone. The orange road work signs outnumbered mile markers two to one. Damn it! This was going to cost her a fortune. Her eyes stung and she blinked. The trooper was going to think she was a fool; he wouldn't know that she cried only out of suppressed feminine rage.
“You break the law, you gotta pay the price, miss.” He looked down at the insurance card again. “And this card has expired.”
That was it. That was totally fuckin’ it. As soon as she started to laugh, the tears came, too.
“Miss —“ He paused, glancing at her license. “Miss Tolson, this is nothing to laugh about.”
“You have…. You have no idea!” She gasped, caught her breath, wiped at sweat and tears with the back of her hand, then succumbed again to a wave of rolling giggles.
“Have you been drinking?” His nostrils quivered, seeking alcohol fumes no doubt, and this set her off again. She laughed so hard she had to bend over and brace her hands on her knees. No, it wasn’t funny at all, but it was either laugh or cry, as her momma often said. And here she was, doing both on the shoulder of a scorched Georgia highway.
She finally straightened. He was just standing there, hands on his hips again, watching her.
“No, Officer….” She peered at his pocket. “Officer Stevens. I have not been drinking, but it sounds like an excellent idea. You have no idea what a total shit of a day it’s been. This isn’t even the half of it.” She rubbed her dripping nose and, with nothing else handy, wiped the snot on her jeans.
“Uh-huh.” He lowered his head and wrote something.
“What do you care, right? Well, go ahead, Dirty Harry, make my day.”
She had spoken lowly, not really intending for him to hear. Or had she? Mark insisted she muttered under her breath like that just to drive him nuts. It’s that damned self-righteous tone, he’d told her once. Even when I can’t catch what you’re saying, it drives me nuts and you know it.
Officer Stevens looked up abruptly, his jaw tightening. He lowered the pad to region of his belt buckle and stood with both hands cupped over it like a soldier at ease.
“Please.” His voice was flat with boredom and weary patience. “Take your best shot.”
“You don’t really want to know,” she sniffed.
“Oh, sure I do. You see, we have a pool going back at the station and I haven’t heard a winning excuse in — ” He glanced at his watch. “Oh, four, five hours maybe.”
She frowned, biting down on the impulse to laugh.
“Where is it you’re in such a hurry to get to, anyway?”
“Early.”
“Yeah?” He must have heard something in her voice. “What’s wrong with Early?”
“You ever been to Early, Georgia?” Obviously not, or he wouldn’t ask. “It’s a flyspeck.”
“I’m sure it’s a fate worse than death.” He glanced down at her driver’s license again. “You being from the great big city of Atlanta and all.”
Smart ass. She wished he would take those damned glasses off.
“Hey, Early's my hometown so I can make fun of it if I want to."
"I happen to like Early." His lips curved ever so slightly. "It's a nice little town."
"Little is right," she muttered. "It's so small that the local paper comes out once a week and the best restaurant in town has ketchup on the table."
He let out a bark of laughter, but instead of taking this as good sign, she thought he might be laughing at her. He was probably the type to put A-1 on filet mignon.
"Besides the lack of high cuisine and daily classifieds, what's wrong with your nice little hometown?"
"Look, I spent the first eighteen years of my life trying to get out of Early and now I have to go back for personal reasons I'd rather not discuss on the side of the highway, if you don't mind."
"Funeral?" he asked.
"Jeez, didn't I just say it was personal? Does that badge give you a right to pry into my personal business?"
"Hey, you don't have to bite my head off. If there's been a death in the family, I might cut you a little slack—"
"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, Officer. It's worse than a funeral, it's a wedding!"
"Aw, come on," he said, tipping his hat back slightly on his head. "What have you got against weddings?"
Oh, this was really too much! Her scalp felt like it was frying.
"I have to be a bridesmaid in my little sister’s wedding. My little sister, my only remaining unmarried sister." She blew air from her mouth and eyed him. "Of course, you’re a man. You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
She decided not to tell him how her sister had chosen pink for the dresses - a color Kate had not voluntarily worn since she was three. Or how the wedding would force her to set foot in the church where she'd spent her entire childhood and adolensce being convinced she would die in her sleep and go to Hell. Or about the thirty five members of the groom's family flying in for the occasion, or the way her mother was worried these stuck-up Yankees would think they were a bunch of hicks. But none of that was the real reason she'd burst into tears. Just thinking about the note on the refrigerator caused her throat to tighten and her vision to blur.
It hadn’t been much of a note, actually. Just a few words in Mark’s infuriatingly prim engineer’s printing on the bottom of the grocery list: Bread... Shredded Wheat... Mayo... Kate: This isn’t working. I’m sorry but I have to go. Mark.
“My boyfriend left me," she said through clenched teeth.
"When?" Officer Stephens was blessedly cool, and she was relieved. The slightest hint of sympathy and she'd lose it again.
"About three hours ago," she sniffed, wiping at her eyes. "I had to go into the office for a while and when I came home to pick him up, he was gone. I'd thought we'd been robbed until I saw his note under an Oreo cookie magnet. Bastard took all my CDs and left his damned dog, which I had to bring with me ‘cause he never called the kennel to make a reservation.”
She was breathing hard through her mouth because her sinuses were completely blocked. Had she packed the decongestant? Her mother would not have any because her mother never got sick, at least not sick enough that she’d admit any pharmacology beyond Bayer aspirin was necessary.
Officer Stevens leaned towards the car, peering through the back windshield. Christ, did he think she was lying about the dog?
“The dog threw up on my new silk dress somewhere around Macon. The car stinks to high heaven of dog vomit, farts and drool.” She fell silent, out of breath and feeling sick to her stomach.
“Is that it?” he asked quietly.
“No,” she snapped. “I got my period this morning and the bastard even took the Advil. Now you’re giving me a ticket for speeding in a friggin’ construction zone that isn’t and my insurance has expired. Isn’t that enough?”
He lowered his head over the pad once more. Kate watched him write in sullen silence. Finally, he tucked the ballpoint into his pocket, ripped the ticket free and folded it neatly around her license, registration and insurance card. He held the tidy bundle out to her.
And if you tell me to have a nice day, she thought, I’m going to kick you in the balls.
“All right now, be careful, Miss Tolson.” He seemed about to say something else as he sauntered toward his car, but his radio squawked. He brought it to his mouth and spoke a terse “10-4, on my way.”
A siren pierced the air and she jumped half out of her skin. She glared as the trooper pulled away, siren wailing and lights pulsing. She turned back to her car.
Only then did she realize the worst thing yet. It was not that he’d given her a ticket or called her “ma’am,” or even that when he’d taken off the sunglasses for just that fleeting moment, she’d found herself thinking he was kind of cute. The worst thing was that she was standing alone on the side of the road, sweat trickling down her back and under her breasts while snot dribbled from her nose, and she had locked her keys in the car.
End of Chapter 1
An arrow of blue lightening flashed through her heart and sent it plummeting as the patrol car pulled onto the highway.
Perfect, she thought. Just friggin’ perfect.
She slowed and eased onto the shoulder. It struck her that the sound of loose gravel under the wheels was a hateful sound, harbinger of speeding tickets, flat tires, dangling mufflers, the exchange of insurance cards….Damn it, damn it, damn it….
The trooper’s car rolled until it filled the rearview mirror. Kate pushed the eject button on the cassette player, cutting Mick Jagger off mid-yowl. The car went silent but for the slobbering snores from the back seat.
She twisted to look over the seat. She hadn't known a dog was capable of such noises, not even an asthmatic, over-weight English Bulldog. Hershel lifted his head and blinked at her. A long silver strand of drool waggled from his jowls.
She slammed the gearshift into park, turned off the ignition and glared into the rearview. The trooper was just sitting there as if he had all the time in the world. Did they learn that in trooper school? Or did sadism just come naturally for those attracted to the badge?
She fumbled for her wallet. The car rocked, buffeted by blasts of air as other cars whipped by at smug, illegal speeds. The trooper got out, hitching his pants up with one thumb. She watched as he adjusted the hat low on his brow.
Where was the registration, damn it? She clawed through the glove box and flotsam hit the floorboard. She fished through the ill-folded maps, pushed aside the flashlight with dead batteries and broken pink sunglasses. Finally she seized the vinyl owner’s packet, opened it and rifled papers until she found what she needed.
Kate tilted her head to look in the side mirror. The trooper stood with a radio close to his mouth. She felt an irrational stab of panic, certain that the dispatcher on the other end was going to hit a wrong key and bring up the rap sheet of a drug lord or bail jumper.
“Oh, come on,” she muttered.
He lowered the radio and grew larger. She rolled down the window only a few inches, hoping to keep the cool air inside the car, but the afternoon heat slapped her in the face. She glimpsed a swath of blue, a silver belt buckle, then the brim of a hat above two dark mirrors.
“Ma’am, I need you to get out of the car, please.”
This was something unexpected. Was this a new policy or did he merely resent standing in the hot sun alone? Bastard. Bad enough he was giving her a ticket, bad enough that he was taking his sweet time, bad enough that he had called her “ma’am” and not “miss.” Now she had to sweat, too.
She got out and the trooper backed away, his hands on his hips, as if he expected her to try something.
Yeah, I’m armed with half a bag of Doritos and a bottle of Mountain Dew. Watch out, buddy. I could put your eye out or rot your teeth. She slammed the door.
“Do you know how fast you were going?” His voice drawled only slightly.
She stared at him, incredulous. “If you don’t know, I’m certainly not going to tell you.”
His mouth tightened. He pushed the mirrors further up on his nose.
“Yes, ma’am. I do know how fast you were going, but I wondered if you did.”
She offered her license, registration and State Farm card from the tips of two fingers.
“Can we just get this over with?”
“There’s no need to be hostile.” He plucked the papers from her and looked at them. Slowly. One at a time. “I’m just doing my job, ma’am.”
“Would you stop calling me that?” Sweat trickled along her hairline. “I’m only thirty-six.”
“Pardon?” The mirrors bobbed up.
“I’m only thirty-six,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What’s that got to do with the price of eggs in China?”
“The price of tea,” she said flatly.
“Pardon?” He took his glasses off as they might be impairing his hearing.
“It’s the price of tea in China. The phrase. It’s supposed to be the price of tea in China, not eggs.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Well, it just sounds stupid — ‘the price of eggs in China.’” She shrugged. Why couldn’t she shut up? “Are you going to give me the da— the ticket or not?”
He slid the sunglasses back on. “You were doing eighty-one in a construction zone—”
“Construction zone?” Her heart sank even as her voice peaked. She glanced around at the orange cones and threw her hands into the air. “Oh, Christ! What construction? There’s nobody out here—“
A white truck slowed a few feet away. A man wearing an orange vest jumped down from the passenger side. He grabbed the nearest cone, tossed it into the back of the truck and waved lazily. Then he swung back into the truck.The pickup rolled a dozen feet to the next cone, where the performance was repeated.
The trooper turned his mirrored eyes back to Kate.
“You were saying?”
“Oh, this isn’t fair and you know it!” Kate locked her knees to keep from stomping like a thwarted child. She was trying to remember the last speed marker, the one about maximum fines where workers were present. Hell, the entire state of Georgia was a construction zone. The orange road work signs outnumbered mile markers two to one. Damn it! This was going to cost her a fortune. Her eyes stung and she blinked. The trooper was going to think she was a fool; he wouldn't know that she cried only out of suppressed feminine rage.
“You break the law, you gotta pay the price, miss.” He looked down at the insurance card again. “And this card has expired.”
That was it. That was totally fuckin’ it. As soon as she started to laugh, the tears came, too.
“Miss —“ He paused, glancing at her license. “Miss Tolson, this is nothing to laugh about.”
“You have…. You have no idea!” She gasped, caught her breath, wiped at sweat and tears with the back of her hand, then succumbed again to a wave of rolling giggles.
“Have you been drinking?” His nostrils quivered, seeking alcohol fumes no doubt, and this set her off again. She laughed so hard she had to bend over and brace her hands on her knees. No, it wasn’t funny at all, but it was either laugh or cry, as her momma often said. And here she was, doing both on the shoulder of a scorched Georgia highway.
She finally straightened. He was just standing there, hands on his hips again, watching her.
“No, Officer….” She peered at his pocket. “Officer Stevens. I have not been drinking, but it sounds like an excellent idea. You have no idea what a total shit of a day it’s been. This isn’t even the half of it.” She rubbed her dripping nose and, with nothing else handy, wiped the snot on her jeans.
“Uh-huh.” He lowered his head and wrote something.
“What do you care, right? Well, go ahead, Dirty Harry, make my day.”
She had spoken lowly, not really intending for him to hear. Or had she? Mark insisted she muttered under her breath like that just to drive him nuts. It’s that damned self-righteous tone, he’d told her once. Even when I can’t catch what you’re saying, it drives me nuts and you know it.
Officer Stevens looked up abruptly, his jaw tightening. He lowered the pad to region of his belt buckle and stood with both hands cupped over it like a soldier at ease.
“Please.” His voice was flat with boredom and weary patience. “Take your best shot.”
“You don’t really want to know,” she sniffed.
“Oh, sure I do. You see, we have a pool going back at the station and I haven’t heard a winning excuse in — ” He glanced at his watch. “Oh, four, five hours maybe.”
She frowned, biting down on the impulse to laugh.
“Where is it you’re in such a hurry to get to, anyway?”
“Early.”
“Yeah?” He must have heard something in her voice. “What’s wrong with Early?”
“You ever been to Early, Georgia?” Obviously not, or he wouldn’t ask. “It’s a flyspeck.”
“I’m sure it’s a fate worse than death.” He glanced down at her driver’s license again. “You being from the great big city of Atlanta and all.”
Smart ass. She wished he would take those damned glasses off.
“Hey, Early's my hometown so I can make fun of it if I want to."
"I happen to like Early." His lips curved ever so slightly. "It's a nice little town."
"Little is right," she muttered. "It's so small that the local paper comes out once a week and the best restaurant in town has ketchup on the table."
He let out a bark of laughter, but instead of taking this as good sign, she thought he might be laughing at her. He was probably the type to put A-1 on filet mignon.
"Besides the lack of high cuisine and daily classifieds, what's wrong with your nice little hometown?"
"Look, I spent the first eighteen years of my life trying to get out of Early and now I have to go back for personal reasons I'd rather not discuss on the side of the highway, if you don't mind."
"Funeral?" he asked.
"Jeez, didn't I just say it was personal? Does that badge give you a right to pry into my personal business?"
"Hey, you don't have to bite my head off. If there's been a death in the family, I might cut you a little slack—"
"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, Officer. It's worse than a funeral, it's a wedding!"
"Aw, come on," he said, tipping his hat back slightly on his head. "What have you got against weddings?"
Oh, this was really too much! Her scalp felt like it was frying.
"I have to be a bridesmaid in my little sister’s wedding. My little sister, my only remaining unmarried sister." She blew air from her mouth and eyed him. "Of course, you’re a man. You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
She decided not to tell him how her sister had chosen pink for the dresses - a color Kate had not voluntarily worn since she was three. Or how the wedding would force her to set foot in the church where she'd spent her entire childhood and adolensce being convinced she would die in her sleep and go to Hell. Or about the thirty five members of the groom's family flying in for the occasion, or the way her mother was worried these stuck-up Yankees would think they were a bunch of hicks. But none of that was the real reason she'd burst into tears. Just thinking about the note on the refrigerator caused her throat to tighten and her vision to blur.
It hadn’t been much of a note, actually. Just a few words in Mark’s infuriatingly prim engineer’s printing on the bottom of the grocery list: Bread... Shredded Wheat... Mayo... Kate: This isn’t working. I’m sorry but I have to go. Mark.
“My boyfriend left me," she said through clenched teeth.
"When?" Officer Stephens was blessedly cool, and she was relieved. The slightest hint of sympathy and she'd lose it again.
"About three hours ago," she sniffed, wiping at her eyes. "I had to go into the office for a while and when I came home to pick him up, he was gone. I'd thought we'd been robbed until I saw his note under an Oreo cookie magnet. Bastard took all my CDs and left his damned dog, which I had to bring with me ‘cause he never called the kennel to make a reservation.”
She was breathing hard through her mouth because her sinuses were completely blocked. Had she packed the decongestant? Her mother would not have any because her mother never got sick, at least not sick enough that she’d admit any pharmacology beyond Bayer aspirin was necessary.
Officer Stevens leaned towards the car, peering through the back windshield. Christ, did he think she was lying about the dog?
“The dog threw up on my new silk dress somewhere around Macon. The car stinks to high heaven of dog vomit, farts and drool.” She fell silent, out of breath and feeling sick to her stomach.
“Is that it?” he asked quietly.
“No,” she snapped. “I got my period this morning and the bastard even took the Advil. Now you’re giving me a ticket for speeding in a friggin’ construction zone that isn’t and my insurance has expired. Isn’t that enough?”
He lowered his head over the pad once more. Kate watched him write in sullen silence. Finally, he tucked the ballpoint into his pocket, ripped the ticket free and folded it neatly around her license, registration and insurance card. He held the tidy bundle out to her.
And if you tell me to have a nice day, she thought, I’m going to kick you in the balls.
“All right now, be careful, Miss Tolson.” He seemed about to say something else as he sauntered toward his car, but his radio squawked. He brought it to his mouth and spoke a terse “10-4, on my way.”
A siren pierced the air and she jumped half out of her skin. She glared as the trooper pulled away, siren wailing and lights pulsing. She turned back to her car.
Only then did she realize the worst thing yet. It was not that he’d given her a ticket or called her “ma’am,” or even that when he’d taken off the sunglasses for just that fleeting moment, she’d found herself thinking he was kind of cute. The worst thing was that she was standing alone on the side of the road, sweat trickling down her back and under her breasts while snot dribbled from her nose, and she had locked her keys in the car.
End of Chapter 1