Forty Candles by Virginia Nelson Read Free Book Online Page B

a divorce. No one has to know.”
    He nodded, looking all big and adorably helpless. “If that’s what you want.”
    Straightening her shoulders, she found resolve. “It’s what I want. No one ever knows.”
    “You know I keep your secrets, Chloe. Even when I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
    He would. He was right. And that was why she could never let herself love him. This she could survive. Jack?
    That might break her .
    Shaking off the dregs of the past, she wiped at tears she hadn’t even realized she’d shed. She was going to have a nice night with her friends and put this all behind her. Even if she also had to accept that she was old, unattractive, and couldn’t even manage friends with benefits, apparently.
     
    ***
     
    Stark came up out of the pond, wet and smelling like fish, a log in his mouth. The dog quickly abandoned the log when he saw the golf club in Jack’s hands.
    “Mr. Wilkerson’s gonna be pissed if you fill his pond with golf balls.” Dylan leaned on the truck, eyes trained on Harper, not Jack and his dog.
    “Not the kind I use. Talked to him about it. They’re water soluble. They dissolve if I can’t retrieve them…which hasn’t been a problem since I met Stark, here.”
    “That so?”
    Jack couldn’t help grinning. “Yeah. Watch this shit.”
    Hitting the ball with a satisfying thwack, it sailed into the air. The dog’s head arched back, following the tiny white dot into the sky. Entire body shaking in excitement, in a second, he was off, into the water.
    Swimming like a large black seal, the dog was halfway into the pond before the ball hit with a plop and splash.
    Catching it in his mouth, he headed back with the ball.
    “So you’ve got a golf caddy and a dog.” Dylan now grinned, too.
    “Helluva dog.”
    Jack forced himself not to turn when he heard the engine sound that signified Chloe made it to the picnic spot.
    “Before she gets out, and while my wife is distracted with the tennis racket, you want to tell me how the ‘plan’ is going?”
    Not turning to Dylan, Jack ruffled the dog’s wet fur and got his ball back. Preparing to hit it again, he answered. “Well, she jumped me yesterday.”
    “Define jumped,” Dylan ordered.
    “I’m not detailing my sex life for you. If you’re already bored with Harper…”
    Jack expected the swift hit to the back of his head and, laughing, dodged the next punch.
    ***
    Country music filtered out of one of the boys’ trucks, the smell of burgers frying in the boat house filtered on the breeze, and bugs zipped across the water.
    As the guys laughed, low and rumbling, and began to tussle, the dog’s barking added to the melee, and all of it seemed like the soundtrack to her youth.
     Chloe sat for a moment in the car, windows down and soaked it in. It felt good.
    Especially since nothing else in her life made sense right now. She had to accept the fact that she was old. Unattractive.
    Then again, when she was with Jack, she felt neither. She felt lovely. She felt irresistible. She always had felt beautiful when he had his big calloused hands on her. Blowing out a breath, and wishing she could banish the thoughts of him with it, she opened the car door, snagging the small cooler off her front seat and trudging up the dock to Harper.
    Harper waved a hot pink tennis racket and squealed when she made it to her side. “What the hell are you doing?”
    “Wasp!” Harper shrieked.
    “And you’re trying to take it out with a tennis racket? Ever heard of Raid?” No sooner did she finish speaking than Harper made contact with the bug with a snapping and show of sparks.
    “Ha! Got him.”
    “Harper Dean, what the hell is that?” Chloe moved closer to inspect the now zapping racket.
    “Got it up at Wally World. It’s a bug zapper tennis racket. Pretty cool, right?”
    Chloe looked at the now electrocuted bug and at her best friend. “I guess?”
    “Wait, watch this.”
    Moving to the edge of the deck, Harper leaned the