“Falling out of love is the worst thing that can happen to a person,” she whispered miserably. Could she get through a night without cuddling his hard, muscular body, or listening to his steady breathing lull her to sleep? Even now, when they were fighting, she spent hours craving the lovemaking they used to share, before they’d started growing apart. Her hands wanted to cup his broad shoulders, then trace over his pectorals and his washboard-flat belly.
Worse, with her mother gone and June married, there was nobody to give advice except Ellie—and Ellie had never been married before, either. Still, Susannah’s marriage had ended before this morning. Sometimes the spark would ignite unexpectedly, of course. Flames would devour Susannah and J.D., and for a moment, she’d believe their estrangement to be over, only to experience heartbreak once more.
“Mama used to say the secret to love is learning to forget,” she murmured. But now Susannah had no choice but to acknowledge all the things J.D. was doing wrong. An image of him and Sandy flashed in her mind, both naked as jaybirds.
“Where’s Laurie now?” Ellie finally asked.
“I dropped her off,” Susannah said. “June thought she’d spent the night with a girlfriend. Laurie was wearing an inchlong skirt, ripped fishnets, knee-high boots, and she had a fake tattoo on her thigh, of a skull and crossbones.”
“J.D.’s a lousy influence. Did she realize you found him in bed…”
Susannah quickly shook her head, her heart aching. All these years, she’d suspected him, but now…
“Here you go, ladies!” Delia arrived, setting down two oversize platters. “Eat hearty. Those plates better get so clean that I won’t have to wash them.”
“Ellie!” Susannah exclaimed when Delia was gone and Ellie removed sunglasses and lifted her fork, only to use the tines to toy with her eggs. Where Susannah was tall and willowy with honey hair and brown eyes, Ellie had a square-shouldered, almost boyish build. Her jaw-length, jet-black, wavy hair was pressed right up against her peaches-and-cream skin, making her look like a forties film star. “Your eyes are more red, white and blue than an American flag,” Susannah said. “You’ve been crying.”
“All morning.”
“I’m sorry! I’m so fixated on J.D. that I didn’t notice. What’s wrong?”
“Everything.”
“I thought things were great. Your daddy’s about to announce you’ll be running your family’s company after he retires next week, right?” Ellie was a shoe-in, mostly because she’d come from a family of n’er-do-well brothers—the sort of man Bayou Banner bred like fire ants. Ellie’s brothers weren’t reliable enough to run such an accurate polling service.
“Robby promised me that when Daddy made his announcement, we’d tell him about us. Then we made love all night.”
Susannah slid the charm along the chain around her neck as she did when she felt worried. Ellie had an identical necklace, and both charms had been engraved with the words, Remember the Time. Years ago, on a rainy Saturday in Bayou Blair, they’d asked a jeweler to make them.
“Then what?” Susannah prodded. After Robby had finished graduate school, he’d begun working for Ellie’s father, a man known around town as Daddy Eddie.
“When I woke up, I could tell he’d been staring at me while I slept.”
“And?”
“He said Daddy’s giving him the job.”
Susannah gasped. “Lees have run the company since it started. And that was back in the eighteen-hundreds.”
“Right. So I called Daddy. But he said it’s true. Robby could have told me last night, but before we made love, he sat there listening to me talk about how we’d work it out, once I got promoted and he was reporting to me.”
“Robby accepted the job?”
“This morning he said we should get married, and I should quit work and raise our family.”
“That snake in the grass!” Susannah exploded. She’d set out to be a homemaker, but Ellie had gone to college and graduate school. “You got honors in economics and statistics, and all the while, you were running Lee Polls. Your brothers were in school up North for years, flunking out of their classes, too.” Every single one of Ellie’s life decisions had been made with an eye to running the company, but Robby had just started working for Daddy Eddie this year. “What are you going to do?”
Ellie’s blue eyes turned steely. “Go to New York and start another polling business to compete with Daddy and Robby.”
Ellie was leaving Robby and Lee Polls? It would work out fine, of course. Ellie had traveled more than Susannah, especially since Susannah had come to hate accompanying J.D. when he’d started playing to larger crowds. People had treated her like arm candy, and that had been a blow to her ego, invalidating her many years with J.D.
“Come with me, Susannah.”
“To New York? To do what?” Her résumé consisted of a high-school diploma and the two-day seminar she’d just attended at a hotel near the airport in Bayou Blair. She’d always planned to stay in Bayou Banner and raise a family.
“You could find a man,” said Ellie. “At least you could say you slept with somebody besides J.D.”
“Other guys never got Robby out of your system,” Susannah reminded, still reeling. “But not seeing J.D. on the street would help,” she suddenly added. “I can’t divorce him if he’s nearby.”
“He’d change your mind for sure.”
Yes, he’d start kissing Susannah, delivering those little nibbles which were almost as famous as his music, then he’d take off her clothes, undoing buttons with his teeth, murmuring sweet nothings all the while. He’d trail hopelessly hot, wet butterfly kisses down her neck, the ones he knew drove her crazy, and by the time her panties hit the floor, she’d do whatever J.D. wanted. It had happened every time she’d tried to leave him, which lately, was about once a week. “I hate him,” she whispered.
“Divorce is too good for him.”
“The only thing I want from my marriage is what I brought to it,” Susannah said bravely. “Just Banner Manor. And it would do me good to have sex with somebody else. Anybody, really. Maybe even a few people,” Susannah added, the idea taking hold.
“I’m going to sleep with everybody I can,” Ellie assured her.
Imagining all the hypothetical studs, Susannah said, “They wouldn’t even have to be very cute, would they?”
“No. The whole point would be to get our minds off J.D. and Robby.”
“I can’t watch J.D. pack his bags,” Susannah admitted. “I’d feel too sorry for him and maybe have pity sex. He’s the one who should move into Hodges’ Motor Lodge.” It was where all husbands in Bayou Banner went during separations.
“You have money. You’re still handling J.D.’s finances.”
She could write herself a check for the trouble he’d caused her, but Susannah never would. “I don’t want J.D.’s money.” She’d settle for the ghost of the man she married. She’d been so sure she was marrying a guy who would run a tackle shop his whole life, and who’d be a good daddy to his kids.
“We can share a place until he leaves Banner Manor,” Ellie urged. “I’ll lend