Moonshell Beach by Joann Ross

Author:Joann Ross
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9780451237385
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2012-07-03T04:00:00+00:00

23

Peter Fletcher stood in the shadow of a copse of trees, watching as Stephanie—he would not think of her as that fake name she’d taken on when she’d dared to run away from him—drove away with that hayseed farmer.

He waited until the truck was out of sight. Then, using the same set of lockpicks that had gotten him out of that ankle monitor, he opened the door to the farmhouse.

Instead of the one-of-a-kind imported Italian and French furnishings he’d paid a fortune for in their Denver home, this place had a random bunch of cheap, mismatched pieces, some obviously manufactured, others looking hand hewn. There was a woodstove against a brick wall, split logs stacked up next to it. As he imagined Stephanie lying on the rug in front of it, naked, while the hick farmer pounded into her, there was a throbbing behind his eyes, an intense, blinding pain that always came when he allowed the fury boiling in him to break its chains.

Knowing that if he trashed the place like he wanted to, he’d only give himself away, he took several deep breaths, reining in his temper.

Then continued wandering through the rooms, taking in the paperback books, the rental DVDs in their red and white envelopes, the beer and cheap wine in the refrigerator, which, like the living room furniture, didn’t match any of the other appliances. The wine was domestic. He unscrewed a bottle of chardonnay, took a sniff, and grimaced.

There were four bedrooms. He went into the master, opened the closet, and saw a woman’s clothes hanging there next to the farmer’s. But they couldn’t be Stephanie’s. These were tacky, casual jeans and T-shirts—one actually a horrid bubble gum pink with cupcakes printed on it—that if she’d dared try to wear when she’d been with him, he’d have burned.

If the clothes were hers, it was obvious his wife had lost her mind. How else to explain that she’d leave him, and the wealthy, privileged life he’d given her, to shack up in this dump for some guy who mucked around in the dirt all day and undoubtedly had pig shit on his boots?

How had she managed to forget all her training? He’d taken away her romance novels because they weren’t just brain candy; they gave impressionable women false expectations of relationships between men and women.

He’d skimmed through the colorful paperbacks she’d brought on their honeymoon and found that not only were the women dangerously independent; the men eventually turned out to be pushovers, even to the point of groveling for forgiveness when everyone knew that a strong husband was always in the right, so there was no need for apologies.

He’d taught her to appreciate the theater. Along with the ballet, and the opera, where he’d enjoyed showing her off in her tasteful, designer gowns. The pride he felt when other men had openly envied the way she’d behaved with deference, unlike their mouthy, opinionated, ballbuster wives, was a better high than any drug.

And now what was

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