Good Christian Bitches

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Book: Good Christian Bitches by Kim Gatlin Read Free Book Online
Authors: Kim Gatlin
Tags: Fiction, General, Family Life, Christian
she added, mostly to herself. “In Newport Beach you’d have thought I was a heretic for not having a hybrid.”
    “Trade it in,” Elizabeth implored. “An SUV’s a lot cheaper than the car he gave you, so you could make a few bucks on the deal.”
    “Mom, I’m not looking to make a few bucks.”
    “Well, between the trust your daddy gave you and other investments he made on your behalf, plus the fact that you’re certainly going to make enough off your divorce, it’s not exactly like you’re unwilling to take money from a man.”
    For Amanda, that did it. “Okay, that’s it, Mom. I’ve had it! This discussion is over! I don’t need this aggravation from you! It’s not like you didn’t inherit a ton of money from your father and you never worked a day in your life while you were married to Dad!! And we’re talking about my father and my soon-to-be ex-husband here—this guy’s just some random stranger with an inappropriate way of showing he has a crush on me! I don’t know who gave me that car. I don’t care who gave me that car. I’m not trading it in for an SUV, and what I do in my private life is none of your damned business.”
    A thin smile played at the corner of Elizabeth’s lips. She had gotten to her daughter, which, in some ways, was her whole point in having this conversation.
    “You sure you’re not going?” she asked, knowing exactly what the answer would be.
    “Of course I’m not going,” Amanda said, tired of the whole discussion.
    “Well,” Elizabeth said mischievously, “I am.” She scooped the Maybach keys off the kitchen table, picked up her purse, and marched out of the kitchen.
    “Mom, you most certainly are not! And not in his car!” Then Amanda saw Sarah, who had crept back into the living room and who had obviously overheard the entire conversation.
    “Sarah, didn’t I ask you for a moment with your grandmother?” she asked her daughter, irritated.
    Then, to the receding figure of her mother, “Mom, don’t you dare go!”
    “Try and stop me,” Elizabeth said with a laugh. She was out the front door before Amanda could move.
    A moment later, Sarah, Will—who had wandered into the living room to see what all the commotion was about—and Amanda heard the sound of the Mercedes engine starting up. They looked out the window. Elizabeth was on her way. As sweet Mimi used to say, “If the people who love us didn’t love us when we were bad, nobody would ever love us.” She had to have been referring to her own daughter.

Chapter 7
     
     
    A t eight o’clock that evening, Sharon Peavy and Heather Sappington arrived at the doorstep of Darlene Cockburn, widely considered one of the most powerful women in Hillside Park. At sixty-seven, Darlene had changed husbands over the previous three decades approximately as many times as the United States had changed presidents, and, just as many Americans had little good to say about their succession of presidents, neither Darlene nor people in her social circle had all that much good to say about her various husbands.
    The best thing that Darlene, or anyone, could say about her first four husbands was that they either died (the first and the third), or were deported because of tax and fraud matters (number two), or went to prison (number four). Before their demise, disappearance, or loss of freedom, each had managed to enrich Darlene’s personal fortune by anywhere from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, giving her the financial wherewithal to become one of the community’s leading philanthropists and power brokers. A word from Darlene was all it took for an individual to become socially prominent or a social pariah.
    Her fifth husband, a retired admiral with a background in engineering, maintained a separate residence in Fairfax, Virginia, close to his lobbying interests, his fox-hunting farm, and a wide variety of mistresses, whom Darlene monitored by means of various private security agencies, with the

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