Free Back To The Stars: ROMANCE: ALIEN (Alien Invasion Abduction SciFi Romance) (Fantasy Anthologies & Collections) by Clare Morgan Page B

fact, when she was in high school and college, she was probably the type of girl who made fun of girl’s like you because you weren’t stick thin and had real curves like a woman is supposed to have. But, now that she’s approaching middle age and has popped a few kids out, that once pristine size 2 waist has now ballooned to a size 12 and she’s sagging and aging just like the rest of us. You can’t help but gloat a little bit even as you hand her more tissue.
    She’s in such a state because her former college sweetheart and husband of 15 some odd years has been coming home later and later every night over the past couple of months. Which, at first, didn’t bother her all that much because he had accepted a promotion at work that gave him a significant pay bump and would require him to work some extra hours. She didn’t mind this because all of their kids were in private school, the mortgage for their McMansion is $3000 a month, and their credit cards were maxed to the hilt because of retail therapy and the suburban sport of keeping up with the Jones. So, obviously, the promotion was more than welcome. At least until the reality of the extra hours set in, and she ended up never seeing her husband.
    He worked until well after 9 PM on the weekdays—sometimes even later—he worked weekends, and the job had him out of town and traveling at least 1 week a month. Yes, the money was nice, but she didn’t have a husband anymore, their children didn’t have a father. Plus, all the extra hours he was working were starting to worry her. How was all this extra responsibility affecting his health and mental well-being? But the fact was, she really wasn’t too concerned about his health and stress levels, she was worried about how his promotion was affecting her, and how it was most affecting her was that he hadn’t touched her in months. And because of this, she was starting to wonder if he really was working all those extra hours? She started wondering if maybe, just maybe, he was having an affair? Maybe with one of his co-workers, maybe his personal assistant, who knows? But she wants you to find out no matter the time or cost.
    You take the job—insisting on a $2000 retainer in cash because you know her credit is an absolute wreck—and here you are, sitting in your crappy 13-year-old sedan, noshing stale sandwiches, slurping cold coffee, and contemplating relieving yourself in one of your Gatorade bottles because you know that the possibly cheating husband is due to leave work and you don’t want to miss him pulling out of the underground garage you’re parked in.
    Yeah, this is the glamorous life of a private detective, kids, and the only reason you dream about this kind of life is because all of your other dreams have been crushed under the heel of reality. No Johnny and Joanie, you’re not going to be an astronaut or the president. You’re going to be a garbage man or an accounts payable clerk when you grow up if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you’ll end up just like me. Trust me, I know I sound bitter, but this is the life of a modern PI. I don’t track down murderers, I don’t squirrel after missing persons. I shadow cheating husbands and wives and when I’m not doing that, I’m running background checks for large corporations who are too cheap to hire someone in house—which is most of them—to do it.
    Oh, and I think about smoking cigarettes, a lot.
    I’ve been on this particular cheating husband for a little over a week now. His name is Stephen Marsh and he’s the VP of Human Resources for his company, Myriad Software. And his wife is pretty much as I described her, except she’s closer to a size 24 as opposed to a size 12, and I can completely understand why Mr. Marsh hasn’t touched her in months. Because simply put, Mrs. Marsh is what you would call a dragon lady. Sure, she’s a bit on the hefty side, but otherwise, she’s gorgeous, at least on the outside. On the inside, well, she’s