Your Bed or Mine? Page 25

  She paused at the top of the stairs, turned around, and faced him with a flirty smile. “Right about what, Rick?”

  “You know what,” Rick said.

  Zada said, “All I know is how much I love it when my gorgeous blond husband puts on his sexy black mask.”

  “What you’re trying to do is change the subject,” Rick argued.

  Zada crooked her finger.

  Seductively.

  She turned around and disappeared down the hallway.

  Rick let out a defeated sigh.

  Poor, clueless Jake Sims.

  The guy had no idea what he was walking into.

  When Zada made her mind up, there was no changing it.

  Zada called out his name.

  “Coming, master,” Rick called back.

  He grinned, shook his head, then skirted the stairs two at a time.

  About the Author

  When Candy Halliday first started sending manuscripts out to publishers, the rejection letters all said the same thing: too humorous for our needs. It didn’t take Candy long to decide that romantic comedy was where she needed to be. Six years and eight books later, Candy’s romantic comedies have been translated into six different languages and published in nine different countries around the world. Candy lives in the Piedmont of North Carolina, loves to hear from readers, and can be reached via e-mail at her Web site: www.candyhalliday.com.

  WHAT’S YOUR FANTASY?

  Even if you don’t have one, these naughty housewives have got one for you.

  Please turn this page for a preview of the next HOUSEWIVES FANTASY CLUB NOVEL

  Dinner First, Me Later

  Available in mass market June 2007.

  Chapter 1

  Alicia Greene grabbed her bedside phone on the first ring and said, “I’m running late this morning, Alfie. I’ll have to call you later.”

  “This will only take a minute, sis,” her twin insisted. “I have great news.”

  Alicia sighed. One Alfie minute always equaled thirty Alfie minutes. And they both knew it.

  “Then I’m putting you on speaker phone,” Alicia told him. “You talk. I’ll finish getting ready.”

  Alicia slipped on her blouse and buttoned the buttons while Alfie rambled on about the new woman he’d met at Starbucks earlier that morning. She was stunning. Absolutely the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  “And you know I’m a sucker for beautiful women,” Alfie said.

  “I won’t argue with that,” Alicia said, and walked across the bedroom toward her closet.

  He’d seen her at Starbucks several times before, but he’d never had the courage to approach her. She really was that beautiful. And she was a redhead.

  “And you know I’ve always been a sucker for redheads,” Alfie said.

  “Uh-huh,” Alicia agreed, and reached into the closet for her skirt.

  They had been the only two early birds at Starbucks this morning, so he’d finally found the courage to talk to her. He explained he’d always been an early riser. She explained she was an emergency room nurse, and always stopped for coffee on her way to the hospital.

  “And, I hate to keep repeating myself,” Alfie said, “but you know I’ve always been a sucker for nurses.”

  Alicia wrinkled her nose at any mention of the medical profession; her famous neurosurgeon ex-husband being the reason for her frown.

  Edward Carlton had fooled her completely during the entire year they’d dated before he proposed. Not once had Edward given her, or anyone else, any reason to suspect he was marrying her only to preserve his sterling reputation. If she hadn’t caught him in a compromising position with their twenty-something Latino pool boy less than a year into the marriage, she still might be trapped in a tragic farce of a marriage.

  That thought made Alicia shudder.

  But she was past the ugly divorce now. Past her deep depression that followed the divorce. Past letting Edward destroy her self-esteem. Thankfully, past Edward Carlton altogether.

  “Her name is Gwen, and I really think she could be the one, sis,” Alfie said, but a needy please-let-it-be-so sigh followed his statement.

  And how many times had Alfie said that before?

  Too many times to count.

  Alicia refrained from pointing that out, however. If she argued, the conversation would quickly escalate into a full Alfie hour. She didn’t have an hour to spare this morning. Not when her neighbor, Zada Clark, was determined to play matchmaker. Not when Zada fully expected to set her up with the womanizing playboy who had recently moved into their quiet Woodberry Park subdivision. And especially not when she intended to tell Zada at coffee this morning to back off and forget her matchmaking idea once and for all!

  “Good for you, Alfie,” was all Alicia said about her twin’s great news.

  “Good for you?” Alfie’s disappointed snort blared through the speaker. “I’ve just told you I think I’ve met the love of my life this morning, and all you have to say is ‘Good for you?’”

  “I told you I’m running late,” Alicia reminded him as she slipped her feet into her high heels. “But I’ll call you later and we’ll talk as long as you like.”

  Another snort echoed through the speaker.

  “Let me guess,” Alfie said curtly. “The reason you don’t have time to talk to me, is because you’re hurrying off to have coffee with the Housewives’ Fantasy Club.”

  Alicia glanced at the speaker.

  Her twin’s ability to read her mind always amazed her.

  And yes, before she headed off to her real estate office, she planned to have coffee with the women in her cul-de-sac who were fondly known as the Housewives’ Fantasy Club. Tish Jones, Jen Marshall, and Zada Clark had become her closest friends.

  Which certainly hadn’t been the case six months ago.

  Six months ago, she’d been depressed over the divorce. She’d been out pushed out of the loop. And she’d been downright bitter toward Tish, Jen, and Zada, who were basically treating her like a piranha at the time.

  “Those women wouldn’t give you the time of day six months ago,” Alfie said, again saying out loud exactly what she’d been thinking.

  Alicia frowned at the speaker this time.

  Scary.

  “What was it they said about you behind your back after your divorce?” Alfie asked, refusing to drop the subject. He mimicked in a high-pitched voice, “Alicia Greene is what you’d get if you put Anna Nicole Smith and Pamela Anderson in a blender. Except with ten times the class, old family money, and an MBA from Harvard. In other words, every wife’s nightmare.”

  Alicia walked over, turned the speaker off, and picked up the phone. “Yes, Alfie. That’s exactly what they said about me after my divorce. And in retrospect, I really don’t blame them. An attractive, wealthy divorcee doesn’t exactly fit in with the suburban married couple’s social scene.”

  “My point exactly,” Alfie said. “So why is attractive, wealthy, and divorced you still living in the suburbs with a bunch of jealous housewives?”

  “They aren’t jealous of me now, and you know it,” Alicia said. “We’ve all become good friends.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Alfie cautioned. “Jealousy is the only motive I can think of that would make your so-called good friends try to fix you up with the likes of Jake Sims.”

  Jake Sims.

  As in infamous retired Chicago Cubs baseball player, Jake Sims. King of the tabloids, Jake Sims. A new model or starlet on his arm every week, Jake Sims.

  Who looks yummy in his underwear commercials, Jake Sims.

  Alicia pushed that thought aside. Besides, her new neighbor was also the Jake Sims who had recently become a single dad when his equally famous supermodel ex-wife was tragically killed in a car accident. Jake had custody of his thirteen-year-old daughter now. Thus, the reason Mr. Playboy had been forced to give up his penthouse in downtown Chicago, and was now living in the suburbs.

  Having custody of his daughter
was yet another reason Alicia wasn’t interested in Jake Sims. As if she really needed another reason in addition to his notorious reputation with the ladies. She couldn’t explain it, but kids and dogs always hated her on sight.

  Alicia sighed and said, “For your information, Jake Sims is the reason I’m in a hurry this morning. Zada is planning a dinner party on Friday night, and guess who happen to be the only two single people on her guest list?”

  Alfie gasped. “And what are you going to do about that?”

  Alicia said, “I’m telling Zada at coffee this morning to back off, and I mean it. I am not, nor will I ever be interested in Jake Sims.”

  “Thank you,” Alfie said, obviously relieved. “There isn’t a brother in his right mind who would want his sister paired up with a known player like Jake the Rake Sims.”

  “Good morning, Jake,” Tish Jones said with a smile when she opened her front door. “Come on in. Zada and Jen are in the kitchen.”

  Jake followed Tish down the hallway, thinking that having morning coffee with three extremely attractive women used to mean one of his famous parties had lasted all night. But that was before Carla’s tragic accident had turned his life upside down. Before decisions had to be made that would change the course of his life forever.

  Doing what was best for his daughter hadn’t been an easy decision, in fact, far from it. The easiest thing would have been allowing Danielle to remain in LA and live with his ex-mother-in-law, Ranatta Harper, of the famed Harper Modeling Agency in Hollywood. He’d considered that option briefly for Danielle’s sake, knowing uprooting her from her home and her friends, and forcing her to live with a father she only saw on her birthday and occasionally at Christmas would only add to the trauma of losing her mother.

  But that had been before news broke out in the gossip columns that all-business Ranatta was already lining Danielle up to step into Carla’s supermodel shoes. Jake simply couldn’t allow that to happen. Carla had been on the cover of every teen magazine available by the time she was thirteen, and where had that gotten her? Caught up in world where image was everything, where the pressure to stay thin and beautiful was constant, and where drugs were simply a way of life. In other words, dead before her time.

  News of the high levels of cocaine found in Carla’s system had made the headlines for days. To keep the story alive as long as possible, the media had even dragged him and his own free-wheeling bachelor lifestyle into the picture for a little more drama. That’s when Jake realized if he truly wanted a better life for his daughter, things in his own life had to change.

  Exit Mr. Big Time.

  Enter Mr. Housewife.

  The women who had invited him to coffee this morning had also taken him under their wing and had given him a crash course in Domestic Living 101 over the last few weeks. The new house in the suburbs was ready now. Danielle was registered in a good school. He was signed up to car-pool three days a week, and his chicken casserole wasn’t half bad, even if he had to say so himself.

  A new and improved Jake Sims was ready to step up to the plate now—the challenge ahead of him far more important than any baseball career.

  “Alicia should be here in a minute,” Zada told him as Tish placed a cup of coffee on the kitchen table in front of him. Zada pushed a plate of fresh blueberry muffins in his direction. “I wanted you to meet the only other single person in our cul-de-sac before my dinner party on Friday night. I think you and Alicia will really hit it off.”

  “About the dinner party… .” Jake began.

  Zada pointed a stern finger at him. “You are not backing out of my dinner party, Jake Sims. I understand your main focus has to be on your daughter. But Danielle doesn’t arrive from LA until Sunday. You can attend one last adult function before you become super-dad.”

  Jake started to argue, but Zada jumped up from table at the sound of the doorbell. “That’s Alicia now,” she said and darted out of the kitchen.

  The guilty looks Tish and Jen exchanged told Jake something wasn’t right. But he never had the opportunity to ask. Raised voices from the hallway gave Jake his answer.

  “Don’t shush me, Zada! The very idea that you think I would be interested in Jake Sims makes me mad enough to spit. You, Tish, and Jen might be in awe of his baseball fame and glued to the television every time his stupid underwear commercial flashes across the screen, but don’t include me in your little fan club.”

  “Alicia, please!”

  “And spare me the reformed bad-boy speech you gave me yesterday. I’ve never been attracted to bad boys. Especially not bad boys who prance around in their underwear, claiming to be reformed! So don’t expect me to be nice at your matchmaking dinner party Friday night. I intend to tell Jake Sims to his face I’m not interested. Got it?”

  “Well, I got it loud and clear, didn’t you?” Jake asked. He looked over at Tish, then at Jen.

  Tish and Jen were both too embarrassed to speak.

  Embarrassed also described the look on Alicia Greene’s face when she came to a screeching halt in the kitchen doorway. But she was breathtaking. Possibly, the most genuinely beautiful woman Jake had ever seen: long, blond hair, a definite stop-traffic figure, deep blue eyes round with shock at finding him sitting at Tish’s kitchen table.

  Until their eyes met.

  She quickly recovered, the lift of her chin saying she meant every word. She’d never been attracted to bad boys like him. And reformed or otherwise, she never would be.

  Jake managed to suppress a bad-boy grin. Maybe he would go to Zada’s dinner party on Friday night after all. If for no other reason than to enlighten his feisty neighbor with a few very important facts.

  First, bad boys didn’t prance.

  Second, even bad boys could be reformed.

  And third, never say never.

  THE DISH

  Where authors give you the inside scoop!

  From the desk of Amanda Scott

  I’ve always loved Sir Walter Scott’s poem “Lochinvar,” the tale of a young Scottish hero who rode off with his lady-love from her wedding to another man:

  “While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,

  And her bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;

  And the bride-maidens whisper’d, “Twere better by far

  To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.”

  While constructing the plot for Lady’s Choice (on sale now), I was hiking in the High Sierras one day when that poem popped into my mind and every writer’s favorite phrase began to twitch: What if I were to begin Lady’s Choice with a fourteenth-century Highland version of that wedding? What if the “Lochinvar” everyone cheers turns out not to be the young gallant, “so daring in love and so dauntless in war,” but someone truly dangerous?

  To stir more trouble, what if my Macleod bride believes at first, just as everyone else does, that the abductor is her Lochinvar? And what if her own sister, firmly believing the bride loves someone else, set the whole thing in motion and then has to deal with the consequences when she learns someone has usurped her plan to suit his own evil purpose?

  Best of all, what if Sir Hugo Robison, the hero meant to benefit from that plan, knows nothing about it because he did not bother to reply to the urgent messages sent him by the bride’s loving, caring sister, or to attend the wedding? And what if all of the above somehow impacts the fate of the legendary, long-lost Knights Templar treasure found by Lady Isobel Macleod and Sir Michael Sinclair in my previous book, Prince of Danger?

  To say that Lady’s Choice was fun to write is an understatement. I hope you enjoy it.

  Sincerely yours,

  Amanda Scott

  http://home.att.net/~amandascott/

  From the desk of Candy Halliday

  When my editor mentioned she’d like a switch in my next book from single-in-the-city to married-in-the-suburbs, I jumped at the chance. Finally, I thought. Domestic divas are going to get their due. Any wife will tell you that as hard as it i
s to find Mr. Right, the real quest begins after the wedding. Making the marriage a success—now that’s the challenge of a lifetime. Or a hopeless cause, to some desperate housewife.

  Like Zada Clark, my shero in YOUR BED OR MINE? (on sale now). Poor Zada thought she’d found Mr. Right—until she realized his name was Mr. Always Right. Divorce has to be the only solution, but the old-school judge won’t grant it unless she and Rick reach a compromise over who’s keeping the dog and the house.

  What does Rick do? Move back in and challenge Zada to a real-life game of Survivor. The first one to outwit, outplay, and outlast the other wins. Never one to back down from a challenge, Zada says, “Game on!” Of course, Rick doesn’t know she’s got a secret weapon: the three other members of her Housewives’ Fantasy Club. Together, they’ll help Zada create a fantasy that will out-tease, out-tempt, and out-tantalize Rick into losing the game with four little words: Your bed or mine?

  The battle of the sexes has always been fascinating to me, and boy did I have fun forcing Zada and Rick to live together again. The icing on the cake for me, however, was creating a group of women best friends who stick together (yes, I’m a 9 to 5, First Wives Club, and Thelma and Louise junkie) but in YOUR BED OR MINE? I’ve added a slightly naughty but incredibly delicious twist—these women are sensuously secure enough to get together once a week to share their most secret desires.

  Need a little spice to jump-start your sex life? Want to be entertained with thoughts of guilty pleasures you’d never allow yourself to pursue? Welcome to the Housewives’ Fantasy Club series. Viva Domestic Divas, ladies! Enjoy the fun and start a Housewives’ Fantasy Club of your own.

  Cheers!

  Candy Halliday

  http://www.candyhalliday.com/