Free Good Christian Bitches by Kim Gatlin Page A

children and a crazy ex-husband? Who’d want to get involved with someone like that?”
    “Maybe he doesn’t want to get involved. Maybe he just wants to . . . spend some time with you.” She smiled and winked at her daughter.
    Amanda shrugged as she flipped the hamburgers. “If you want to spend time with a woman, you can generally do that for a lot less than the price of a Maybach. Appearances can be deceiving. I think we’ve all learned that the hard way.” She gave her mother that knowing look.
    “That’s just negative thinking,” Elizabeth replied, her tone dismissive. “I’ll finish the hamburgers. Just throw something on, do something with your face and hair, and get your butt on over there.” A crafty smile suddenly broke out on her face. “Unless you’re just playing hard to get.”
    “I’m not playing, and I can’t be gotten,” Amanda said flatly. “I’ve got no interest in this guy, or any other guy. I just want to get my life back together. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”
    Elizabeth’s smile slowly faded as she realized that her daughter truly wasn’t going out to meet the mysterious car-giver, whoever he might be.
    “You don’t have to have dinner with the guy,” Elizabeth said, exasperated, making one last run at getting her daughter to rethink her position. “Just have a drink. Thank him for the car. See who it is. Aren’t you dying to find out?”
    “Honestly, Mother, no,” Amanda said, sliding the burgers off the grill and onto buns. “I don’t even want to know who it is. I just don’t want anything to do with the whole subject of men right now.”
    “Well, you’ll have to start thinking about it eventually,” Elizabeth said. “It’s not like you’re getting any younger,” she continued, unwilling to quit. “And, who knows, by the time you decide you are ready, this great catch could be long gone.”
    Amanda was incredulous. By her mother’s standards, all a man needed to qualify as a great catch was that he could afford to give away a Maybach!
    “That may be, but who says it has to be tonight? I’m moving in the morning—assuming that truck shows up. Don’t you think I’ve got enough on my mind without starting a social life? I’m not even legally divorced.”
    “In this town, that’s never stopped anybody.”
    “Mom, I’m not going, and that’s that. And the car is going back to the dealership in the morning. I don’t need anybody’s charity.”
    “I’m not talking about charity—” Elizabeth began, but Amanda cut her off.
    “I seriously can’t believe you,” she said heatedly. “My whole life, I’ve listened to you and your friends gossip about women who accepted or even solicited extravagant gifts from men. You always deemed it inappropriate to accept certain gifts from any man who wasn’t your husband.
    “Whether it was over-the-top jewelry, boob jobs, furs, cars, homes—whatever—you used to say there was a name for girls like that, and it wasn’t ‘sweetheart.’ I remember when Nancy McRae was engaged to, what was his name . . . Derek Tarver. And he bought her a new Mercedes as a wedding gift, but he gave it to her a month before the wedding. And when she called the wedding off at the last minute, her daddy called Derek to ask what he’d paid for that car and then he sent him a check. You and all your friends hailed that as the right thing to do!
    “Now you want me to accept a car even more expensive than that from a complete stranger? I don’t understand what has happened to you since Dad died. You would have never encouraged this behavior before.”
    Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Stay out of my damn business! And are you kidding? You’re not keeping the car?” she asked, stunned.
    “Why should I?” Amanda asked, going to the refrigerator and taking out a head of lettuce and a couple of tomatoes for a salad. “I don’t even like sedans. I like the SUV I’m driving right now. Even if it is a gas guzzler,”