Free Lone Star Lonely by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page B

hide from him. She tried not to look scared. “Just buy me
some time, would you?”
    With a sigh, he nodded. Then he gave her one
last searching glance, got to his feet and headed downstairs to
join his brother and sister-in-law.

    He was seeing too much. More than she wanted
him to see. He’d already gotten past her icy-bitch persona and
touched the woman she used to be, the one she’d thought was dead
and buried. Nobody had ever been able to get to her the way Adam
had. God, she’d loved him to utter distraction once.
    She forced herself to get up, choose clothes.
A cool frosty green sleeveless jumpsuit, white belt and flats. She
laid them on the bed and took a five-minute shower. Then spent
thirty more blow-drying and spraying and applying makeup. She
didn’t have time to do her nails, but yesterday’s white polish
didn’t look too bad, and it matched. Little white pearls on her
ears. Great. She glanced into the mirror. “The bitch is back,” she
muttered. But she wasn’t. Not really. Her eyes were soft with
something she really didn’t like seeing in them. Something she
didn’t even dare analyze right now. She wasn’t ready for what she
was glimpsing hints of in her own eyes.
    Kirsten found Penny pacing the living room,
back and forth past the foot of the stairs, pausing every so often
to glance up. Catching sight of Kirsten, she threw her arms open
and raced up to meet her. That warm hug almost brought Kirsten to
tears, but she hugged Penny back. Penny, the woman who’d been her
best friend, then a total stranger who not only didn’t remember her
but mistrusted her, and finally her friend again, and closer than
before. And even she didn’t know the truth. Her husband, Ben, knew
part of it…but not all. If he knew it all, he would hate her,
too.
    “Sweetie, are you okay? My God, it’s terrible
about Joseph.”
    Kirsten met her friend’s eyes, glanced past
her, didn’t see Adam or Ben nearby. “You know things were bad
between us, Penny. I’m not exactly broken up over his death. It’s
almost a relief.”
    “I know. I know, but…honey, you’ve got to be
scared to death, staying here with a killer on the loose.”
    She shrugged. “Adam won’t leave. I suppose
I’m safe enough with him around.”
    Penny eyed her. “Yeah. I’m finding that one
pretty puzzling myself.”
    “Tell me about it,” Kirsten said. Then she
had a thought that frightened her. “Where is he? With Ben?”
    Penny nodded. “In the kitchen.” And when
Kirsten started to rush past her, Penny caught her arm. “Ben told
me, Kirsten. About…about what you confided to him that night at the
dojo. And I imagine by now he’s told Adam, as well.”
    “No. He wouldn’t have…he gave his word he’d
keep it between us.”
    “Maybe he thinks the stakes are higher now
than they were when he made that promise.”
    Kirsten sank onto the bottommost stair,
lowering her head. “What…what did he tell you?” What’s he telling
Adam?
    “He said you were blackmailed into marrying
Joseph Cowan. That Joe had something on you, and that you were
hoping to get something equally damaging on him and force him to
let you go.”
    Kirsten closed her eyes, sighed deeply.
    “You can’t blame him for telling us. Honey,
this could all be involved in what happened to Joseph. The truth is
going to have to come out sooner or later.”
    “All the truth is going to do, Penny, is
provide the police with yet another motive to add to the ever
growing list of reasons why I might have murdered my husband.”
    Penny frowned at her. “Kirsten, none of us
are going to pass this on to the police.”
    “Penny, your brother-in-law is the
police.”
    “And you’re family,” she insisted.
    “No. I was never family.”
    Penny’s eyes got misty. She closed a hand
around one of Kirsten’s. “You are to me.”
    Closing her eyes, Kirsten whispered, “Thanks
for that.”
    “So, did you succeed? Did you ever get
anything on Joseph?”
    “No. If I had,