Free A Bad Day for Romance by Sophie Littlefield Page A

straightening a bad man out and then convincing his ex that she was better off without even the new-and-improved version.
    “Well, she ain’t one of ’em. She was saying how she’s already got her eye on someone new, he plays bass in some band that opens for the Outlaw Junkies. Sounds like she barely waited for the door to slam on Bryant’s way out, tell you the truth.”
    “So, maybe he was the one all broke up about it? He threatened her, told her if he couldn’t have her no one else would either, et cetera… She, I don’t know, killed him in self-defense?”
    “No, sounds like he moved on, too. Divinity confirmed he’s seeing her old roommate, this Lexie girl. Honest, Stella, I think they really were down here doing just what Divinity said, rehearsing for her My Side of the Mountain audition.”
    “Her what?”
    “Aw, you gotta be kidding me,” Chrissy protested. “You never heard of it? On TLC? They run promos for it all the time.”
    “You know I only got the basic.” Stella had downgraded her cable in a cost-cutting move a while back and discovered she was just as content without all the channels competing for her attention, especially since the covert justice business tended to get done in the after-work and leisure-type hours when other folks generally found time to tune in. Also, in the recent months, when Stella had been trying to juggle both her romance with BJ and her Goat… entanglement , for want of a better word, she had discovered that she needed to spend a fair amount of time mooning and sighing and curling up in the corner of the sofa with a romance novel, looking for answers in her beloved dog-eared copies of Nora Roberts’s Three Sisters Island trilogy.
    “Well, it’s one of those reality shows. It’s like Hunger Games for grown-ups meets Survivor , with a lot of titty shots and fellas taking their shirts off. They film it in the Blue Ridge Mountains and they’re casting the second season now, only it ain’t like American Idol , you can’t just show up and try out. But Bryant knows somebody, so he got her an audition.”
    “Divinity wanted to be on a show like that?” Stella shook her head, remembering the Christmas cards she’d received from the Flycocks over the years, every one featuring Divinity in a frilly party dress with full makeup and her hair up in one fancy updo or another, eerily segueing from trussed-up toddler to glitzed-out teen to overdone diva. “Doesn’t seem like her thing. I seen them Survivor pictures in People , where everyone’s all slimed up with seaweed and they’re eating grubs and whatnot. You wouldn’t think Divinity would want people to see her au naturel.”
    “Divinity don’t much care as long as the money spends, is my impression,” Chrissy said. “ Mountain is tearing up the ratings and they’re only halfway through the first season.”
    “So let me get this straight. Bryant dragged her down to the state park on a camping trip so he could coach her on…”
    “Survival stuff, is what she told me. They were working on her audition video, showing her drinking out of a stream and picking berries and peeing behind a bush for all I know.”
    “So… where’s the video?”
    Chrissy was silent for a moment. “Huh.”
    “Didn’t think of that already? Neither you nor Lloyd nor any of the rest of the cops up here?”
    “Well, far’s I know they could have it tucked away in evidence or something—”
    “But nobody mentioned it? Not in all that time you were back there with those two?”
    “Well, I—”
    “Just how hard did you work him anyway?”
    “I’m not sure I like your tone,” Chrissy snapped. “ You try dealing with Divinity carrying on about how there ain’t any hand sanitizer and the crackers are stale, all while Lloyd’s edging his chair closer and closer to you in the visiting room starin’ at you like he don’t want to miss it if your skirt spontaneously falls off all by itself. It was distracting.”
    “So, what