Kiss Her Goodbye by Wendy Corsi Staub Read Free Book Online

thrilled, either. But Gregory was almost finished with dental school at the time. He had an engagement ring on her finger before they told a soul she was expecting.
    She’s always wondered about the circumstances of Jen’s birth. She assumes Kathleen met Matt while she was visiting her Aunt Maggie in Chicago as she did every Christmas; that she had gone back to the Midwest when her father sent her away. Presumably, Matt married her before the baby was born.
    But she isn’t sure about any of it. Nice Catholic girls like Maeve and Kathleen didn’t talk about things like that back then. She doubts she’d have known the whole story even if their friendship hadn’t drifted.
    Still, you’d think Kathleen would be over it now. You’d think she’d be willing to talk about what happened to her back then with her newly discovered best friend.
    Well, she doesn’t. Every time Maeve tries to bring it up, Kathleen changes the subject.
    Then again, does Maeve really need to know the details? She has other concerns.
    Like whether Mo will want to sleep with her tonight when he drives her home. Erin is spending the night at Rachel’s, so Maeve can’t use her daughter’s presence as an excuse.
    It’s not that she isn’t attracted to Mo. It’s just that he’s old . Past fifty, if she had to guess. A far cry from the twenty-something personal trainer she was sleeping with last month. The trouble with younger men is cash flow; the problem with older men is . . . well, they’re old.
    Maeve again finds herself envying Kathleen’s marriage. Matt Carmody is the perfect husband, the perfect father, the perfect man. If he weren’t spoken for, Maeve would have no qualms about going after him herself.
    Actually, if his wife were anyone other than Kathleen, she might consider it anyway.
    Then again, back in the old days at Saint Brigid’s, when Gregory was attending the all boys’ brother school, she seems to recall Kathleen acting awfully flirtatious around him at times, and vice versa. At one point, Maeve actually confronted him and demanded to know whether he was fooling around with her best friend behind her back. Of course he denied it.
    She didn’t even bother to ask Kathleen, who had the sweet, innocent act perfected back then. Maeve figured she wouldn’t admit to ever feeling a flicker of lust for the opposite sex, let alone for Maeve’s boyfriend.
    But now that they’re all grown up, Maeve won’t deny—at least, not to herself—that she occasionally feels more than a flicker of lust for Kathleen’s husband. Hell, there are times when she sees Matt Carmody and a whole roaring inferno seems to ignite inside of her.
    A delicious, forbidden fantasy slips into her mind: Maeve letting herself into Kathleen’s empty house with the spare key her friend gave her, then waiting, naked in the master bedroom for Matt to come home . . .
    But it’s a fantasy, nothing more. She’d never hurt Kathleen, despite whatever may or may not have happened back in high school. And she suspects that Matt wouldn’t hurt her, either.
    The perfect man.
    What on earth, she wonders again, did Kathleen do right?
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    Frantic, Kathleen pulls up in front of the Gattinskis’ house, the SUV’s brakes squealing when she jams on brakes.
    â€œJust like the Batmobile,” Riley says approvingly from the backseat.
    â€œStay in the car, both of you.” Kathleen jumps out and hurries toward the two-story Colonial that, aside from the white siding, red trim, shutters, and front door, is a cookie-cutter duplicate of their own.
    The place is lit up, inside and out, but there are no signs of flames or broken-down doors. Reassured, Kathleen tries the front door and finds it locked. The arched window is too high for her to see through.
    â€œJen?” she calls, knocking. “Matt?”
    Footsteps tap across the floor inside. She