Free Life After Wife by Carolyn Brown

back in the shadows, when he saw her come out of the house. He quickly shimmied down the ladder into the barn and headed toward the house.
    “What are you going to do?” she asked.
    “Watch
60 Minutes
, a little
Sunday Night Football,
and then
Cold Case
at nine o’clock,” he said.
    “I watch
Desperate Housewives
at nine,” she said.
    “The big screen has
Cold Case
on at that time. You want to watch anything else, you do it in your part of the house,” he told her.
    “Anyone ever tell you what a mean old rat you are?”
    “One time. I broke his nose. Anyone ever tell you what a witch you are?”
    “Twice. They haven’t found their bodies yet.”
    He shrugged and went into the house, where he carefully removed a cinnamon roll from the platter and shoved all the others up to fill in the space. He put it on a paper towel and carried it to his room. He locked the door and sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed while he ate it slowly, relishing every single bite. When he finished, he licked the remainder of the brown sugary goo off the napkin and from his fingers, not wasting a bit of it.



CHAPTER FIVE
    “I promise I will be there for you just like you’ve been for me.” Fancy managed to flash Sophie a weak smile after the delivery of her six-pound baby girl.
    “You can be there for Kate, not me. It looked like too much pain for me,” Sophie said.
    Kate giggled. “I’ll come collect your word, Fancy Lynn, and I’m not going to be nice and deliver at supper time. I’m going to do it at three in the morning. You’re going to have to pay with interest. I want them two at a time so that I can catch up. Besides I’m tougher than either of you.”
    They were all gathered around Fancy’s hospital bed. Theron’s smile was bigger than anyone’s as he squatted down to show Tina the new baby.
    Hart stuck his head in the door. “Room for one more?”
    “Sure. Come and meet Emma-Gwen,” Theron said.
    “Emma-Gwen?” Sophie frowned. “I thought you were naming her something weird, like Fancy or Echo.”
    “That’s my name,” Tina said. “Echo Martina is my name. New baby can’t have my name.”
    Fancy winked. “Her full name is Glory Emma-Gwen, with a hyphen between the Emma and Gwen. Tina and I may still call her Glory.”
    “Her name is Emma-Gwen,” Theron protested.
    Tears welled up in Fancy’s big blue eyes. “Does all that name sound like something you cure with penicillin? We haven’t made the birth certificate yet. Does Glory sound too weird?”
    Sophie bent over the bed and hugged her. “Of course it doesn’t. Matter of fact, I like it very much. It sounds like the name for a woman president or Nobel Prize winner.”
    “Thank you,” Theron mouthed silently from across the room.
    Kate gave her a hug and grabbed Hart’s hand. “Now that our job as cheerleading crew is over, I think we’re going to get out of here and go home. Get some rest and call us. We’ll visit as soon as you get back to the ranch.”
    “When are we buying her a pony?” Hart asked Theron as Kate pulled him out into the hallway.
    “It’s already in the stall,” Theron answered before the door is shut.
    “I’m going, too. You need to rest and some family time,” Sophie said.
    “Thank you for being here with us,” Theron said.
    “Hey, we were just the cheerleaders. You and Fancy did the hard work after we left you in here alone,” Sophie told him.
    “You know what we mean,” Fancy squeezed her hand. “And since she was born on Sunday, we didn’t miss our gab fest. I’ll expect the same from you and Kate!”
    “Kate, darlin’! Not me! She’s the one tougher’n John Wayne. I’m the pansy. I’d be standing up in the stirrups screamin’ at them to bring me more drugs,” Sophie said as she left.
    Sophie sat in her truck for five minutes before starting it. She’d laughed and teased about what Fancy had just endured,but she’d do it ten times over for a daughter like Emma-Gwen, and that’s what