Free Kiss and Tell by Fern Michaels Page A

to sleep as Myra snapped open her laptop. Annie sat down and did the same thing. “Amazing what you can learn on the Internet, isn’t it, Myra?”
    â€œIt certainly is. I’ll take wife number one, and you do numbers two and three. And together, we’ll do the current Mrs. Macklin. The two kids come last, but they aren’t really kids anymore.”
    â€œThat works for me!” Annie said, offering up a devilish grin.
    Myra and Annie worked side by side, making comments from time to time as they worked on their Internet searches. The only sound in the great room was the soft tapping of the keys and the dogs’ gentle snoring. An hour into their Internet searches, Annie suggested coffee and said she’d make it.
    While she waited for the coffee to drip all the way down, Annie stared out the kitchen window at the falling snow. To her untrained eye, it looked like there were about five inches of accumulated snow. She shuddered when she thought about her own mile-long driveway. She hoped the man she had on retainer was hard at work clearing the white stuff away. She had no desire for a fall or a broken bone. She hated thinking about her bones and the drugs she had to take to keep them from deteriorating. The good news was that her doctor said she was slowly rebuilding bones. “Golden years, my ass,” she mumbled to the empty kitchen.
    â€œWhat did you say?” Myra asked, as she entered the kitchen.
    â€œI was talking to myself, Myra. About my bones, and hoping that guy, Dwayne, whom I have on retainer, is clearing my driveway. I was also mumbling about the golden years.”
    Myra joined her friend at the window. “Remember how as children we loved snow. And how our girls took after us. They could stay outside for hours and hours and come in all rosy cheeked and wanting hot chocolate,” Myra said with a catch in her voice. She looked up at Annie, who had tears in her eyes.
    And then the unbelievable happened. Both women saw the vision at the same time. Two young girls in cherry red jackets lined in white fur, waving to them from a snowdrift.
    â€œYou see them, don’t you, Annie? Please, God, tell me you see our daughters,” Myra whispered.
    Annie reached out for Myra’s hands. “I do. I can see them. We bought those jackets at the same time,” she whispered in return.
    â€œLook, Annie, they’re going to throw us a snowball. We taught them how to do that, remember?”
    Both women reared back when two snowballs hit the kitchen window. “No one will believe us if we tell them about this,” Myra said.
    â€œI know. And I know if we go outside, they will disappear. I was just standing here feeling so very melancholy.”
    â€œI told you, Annie, they come when we need them most. We have to accept it because there are no other options.”
    â€œThey’re fading away,” Annie said, waving frantically. Myra did the same thing.
    â€œDo you feel any better, Annie?”
    â€œYes. No.” She shrugged. “I wanted more. I will always want more. They really did throw the snowballs. If only we could preserve that.”
    â€œIt doesn’t work that way, you know that. This is for now until the next time. Be happy we got this. And we saw them. It wasn’t just a presence or a feeling or whispered words. We saw them,” Myra said.
    Annie wrapped Myra in her arms and together they had a good cry. For the would-haves, the could-haves, and the should-haves.
    â€œOkay, enough of this drama; we have work to do,” Annie said, wiping her eyes on her shirt sleeve the way she had when she was a child. Myra did the same thing.
    Myra poured coffee. “Did you get anything interesting, Annie?”
    â€œWell, wife number two is named Carol Jones, if you can believe that. Macklin married her two years after his divorce from his first wife, Mary. She was a bookkeeper at an accounting firm when he met her. She went on to