Shirley Jump - The Other Wife

But as I looked into her blue eyes—such a vibrant color compared to my own plain brown ones—I couldn’t hate her.

“I didn’t know,” she said, taking a step closer, lowering her voice. “Not until I read the obituary in the paper.”

I decided to believe her. If he’d fooled me for fifteen years, surely he could have fooled her, too. A hundred questions filled my mind, but before I could speak his mother was reaching for me. So I gave the other wife a slight, dismissive nod, and slipped back into the perfect portrait of what everyone expected of me.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her walk away. We were members of the same club now, she and I.

I hoped like hell I wasn’t going to find anyone else with a membership before this day was over.

Bookseller’s Best Award winner Shirley Jump didn’t have the willpower to diet or the talent to master under-eye concealer, so she bowed out of a career in television and opted instead for a career where she could be paid to eat at her desk—writing. In the worlds Shirley gets to create and control, the children listen to their parents, the husbands always remember holidays and the housework is magically done by elves.

She sold her first book to Silhouette Books in 2001 and now writes stories about love, family and food—the three most important things in her life (order reversible, depending on the day)—using that English degree everyone said would be useless.

Though she’s thrilled to see her books in stores around the world, Shirley mostly writes because it gives her an excuse to avoid housework and helps feed her shoe habit.

To read excerpts or just find information on her latest title, visit her Web site at www.shirleyjump.com.

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Dear Reader,

People always ask me if my stories are based on my real life. I can honestly say the bigamy part of this one is not, although the quest for change, for finding your place in the world, is a part of all of us. We grow up, but we may never grow away from things that hold us in place. Penny’s quest is one that resonates with me, and I hope it does with you, too.

I don’t own a Jack Russell terrier, and neither of my dogs can do anything more incredible than fetch the newspaper on snowy mornings, which isn’t such a bad trick when it’s hovering around zero. Max, Annie’s dog, is based on my real-life Max, who forgets he’s way too big to be a lapdog and is as incorrigible as a toddler.

I have loved reading the Harlequin NEXT line since it debuted and am thrilled and honored to be a part of it. This book was definitely a blast to write, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed dreaming up the story line.

Shirley

To my good friend Janet Dean, who has helped me make

every book better and supported me even when I thought

there was no way I could pull off a funny story about a

two-timing husband and his piano-playing dog.

Also, a big thanks to Joe Murphy and his adorable wonder dog, Katie, who has brought smiles to hundreds of people over the years.

Finally, as the owner of a shelter dog myself, a huge thank-you to all the hard workers and valuable volunteers at animal shelters across the country. Consider opening your heart and home to a rescue animal. Yours might not sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but will undoubtedly bring some wondrous fun to your life.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

The last person I expected to see at my husband’s wake was his wife.

Yet, there she stood, to the right of his casket, wiping away her tears with a lacy white handkerchief, a fancy one with a tatted edge and an embroidered monogram, the kind your grandmother hands down to you because tissues aren’t as ladylike.

She was tall, this other wife, probably five foot eight, and wearing strappy black heels with little rhinestones marching across the toe. I wanted to grab her, shake her and tell her those stupid shoes were completely inappropriate for the funeral of the man I’d been married to for fifteen years. Go get yourself some pumps, I wanted to scream. Low-heeled, sensible, boring shoes.

I wasn’t mad at her. Exactly. I was madder than hell at the man lying on the top-grade satin in an elaborate, six-thousand-dollar cherry box, a peaceful expression on his cheating face.

Even in death, he looked ordinary and normal, the kind of guy you’d see on the street and think, oh, he’s got the American Dream in his hands. A slight paunch over his belly from too many years behind his desk, the bald spot he’d been trying to hide with creative combing, the wrinkles around his eyes from finding humor in everything from the newspaper to the cereal box.

Just your typical forty-year-old man—a forty-year-old whom I had loved and thought would be sitting beside me on the porch, complaining about the neighbors’ landscaping habits and debating a move to Florida, long into our old age. A man who could make me laugh on a dime, who’d thought nothing of surprising me with flowers, just because. He’d been a typical man in a hundred different ways—and so had our marriage.

Sure, a little dull at times, marked by trips to the dry cleaner on Tuesday and scrambled eggs every Sunday morning. But it had been a marriage, a partnership.

Or not, considering the two-wives-at-one-time thing, something I’d discovered last night in a picture of his double wedded bliss, stuffed behind the AmEx in his wallet.

Forty-eight hours ago, my life had been normal. While I was picking out a roast for dinner that night, paramedics had been rushing him into the hospital. Someone found my number on his cell phone because I, being the practical one, had seen some commercial about setting up an I.C.E. list, in case of emergency, and inputted my cell number. Dave, the spontaneous one, had laughed at me, but kept the number there.

The voice on the other end told me he’d had a heart attack. I’d rushed to Mass General, then stayed by his bedside fretting, pacing, shouting at the doctors to do something. But there wasn’t anything they could do.

The Big Macs and Dave’s habit of burning the candle on all ends had caught up with him.

Either that or the weight of his conscience had squished an aortic valve. In my less-charitable moments, I wanted to think it was the latter.