Free She's Gotta Be Mine by Jasmine Haynes, Jennifer Skully

she wasn’t careful, she’d throw up on the Cookie Monster’s pale pink, high-heeled slippers. Not just every day shoes, but more like slippers. Like something Cinderella would have worn. Bobbie’s tennies , with their dark smudges of pancake syrup, assured that no man was going to get his nose anywhere near her feet.
    I hate you, Warren. I hate you more than anyone I’ve ever hated in my whole life.
    Not that Bobbie had ever hated anyone before.
    What made the situation worse was that there was no doubt in her mind that Cookie Beaumont knew exactly who she was. And from the look on the woman’s face, Warren had probably told her every revealing, humiliating detail of their lives. Even the sex stuff.
    Sweat trickling down her back in the hot sun, Bobbie shuddered. Of course, the Cookie Monster’s skin merely glowed through a fine sheen of perspiration. That was the essence of it. Bobbie sweated. Cookie Beaumont perspired. Delicately.
    “I know who you are.”
    She even had dulcet tones. Chocolate probably melted in that mouth. Okay, so it melted quite well in Bobbie’s mouth, too, but then it went straight to her hips. Cookie Beaumont didn’t wear chocolate on her hips. She wore pink knit.
    Her feet cemented to the sidewalk, Bobbie couldn’t run. The most she could manage was a wrinkling of her nose, as if she smelled something bad.
    “If you try to mess with my plans,” Cookie trilled, “I’ll make sure Warren doesn’t give you a dime in the divorce.”
    Warren hadn’t signed a single legal paper yet. He’d only made promises. But if Cookie wanted Warren to break those promises...
    Say something. Anything. Tell her to go...bleep herself .
    But Bobbie’s lips wouldn’t part. She couldn’t even turn her stiff neck to give the horrible woman a menacing look as she passed. All she could do was stand there as the Cookie Monster’s heels clacked down the sidewalk. In the window’s reflection, a beautiful black Jaguar XK8 enveloped the pink suit and hat, then glided out of the parking space.
    From inside, mute witness to the mortifying event, Harry stared, slack-jawed, as if he’d just seen Joan Crawford bushwhack her unsuspecting cousin in Harriet Craig . As far as master manipulators went, the Cookie Monster ranked right up there.
    It was deplorable, shameful, idiotic. Bobbie had botched the all-important first battle with her enemy. The Cookie Monster had stormed the beach and dug in.
    But it was only a minor battle, just a skirmish. The war was yet to be won.
    Bobbie’s tennies felt glued to the sidewalk. It took a whole five minutes to loosen her frozen, shocked muscles. It also took that long to pry her lips apart.
    The first word that came out was a heartfelt “Bitch.”
    Oh my God. She was developing a potty mouth. And she enjoyed it. Nothing kept her down for long, not since she’d become Bobbie rather than Roberta. The Cookie Monster might have fancy clothes and a disgustingly firm bottom, but she was also a first class bitch. And that’s where Bobbie had her beat. No one had ever called her a bitch.
    She’d survived her first two days at The Cooked Goose, two encounters with a serial killer, and her first battle with Cookie Beaumont. Survival was the key word.
    Bobbie hopped the step down to street level and crossed the intersection devoid of traffic. Her tired feet just might make it the few blocks to Mrs. Porter’s cottage.
    “Hey, come here.”
    From amid a weed patch covering the concrete pad of Beau’s Garage, a grizzled old man waved his arm. Sweat stained the armpits of his blue work shirt. He spat tobacco juice at an offending weed. Ewwe . The darn thing shriveled like the toes of the Wicked Witch’s sister after Dorothy’s house fell on her.
    Bobbie looked from left to right. She was the only one on the street.
    She pointed to her chest and mouthed, “Me?”
    “Yeah, you.”
    She crossed the last few feet to the weather-beaten gas pump, then stopped at a distance guaranteeing