You Dropped a Blonde on Me by Dakota Cassidy Read Free Book Online

tabletop when she made “the face” with the wave of an arthritically gnarled finger. “Don’t you get huffy with me, young lady. You remember who slaves over a hot stove to make you creamed tuna on toast. All I’m saying is, instead of leaving your fate in someone else’s hands, make your own.”
    Oh. Okay. Yeah. That was the answer. “You wait here while I get my magic wand, oh Guru of Fate.”
    Mona snorted. “You’re a real comedienne. Can the funny. I’ll say this one more time. You let that deadbeat intimidate you and take everything without so much as a puff of indignant air. You took care of all his needs for twenty years. You were at his beck and call while he made big deals and you hosted fancy dinner parties. But in the end you get nothing? There has to be some way around it. Stop pulling the covers up over your head and fight back, Maxie. Where’s your gumption? What kind of judge is going to declare that even if you don’t deserve something, my grandson doesn’t either? Bah! That’s garbage, and if you started threatening that walking penis instead of hiding from him, you’d find out he’s not so big and bad after all.”
    Maxine clenched her fists, and her jaw, throwing in her thighs for good measure. Admitting her mother was right, that she was indeed afraid of all of Finley’s money and connections, was the hardest thing she had to do every day when she looked at her reflection while she primped for another interview for a job she wouldn’t get. “No, here’s how it’ll go. If I start threatening, he’s going to whip out that damned prenup he had me sign. You remember the one, right, Mom? The one I didn’t even know I was signing that said I leave with what I came into the marriage with? Which was nothing more than some tiaras and a pair of pom-poms. So it does me no good to threaten the walking penis!” Of all the mistakes she’d made in her life, blindly signing something she didn’t even read made her a tard to the nth degree.
    “Whose penis walks?” Gail Lumley, one of her mother’s crew of four friends, asked from outside the screen door. Her shortly cropped hair, sharp onyx eyes, and quick step never failed to make Maxine remind herself this mob of women were all in their seventies.
    With an upward tilt of her eyes, Maxine rolled her neck on her shoulders, and gave Gail the warmest smile she could summon while pulling out a chair for her to sit in. “No one’s penis walks, Gail. Mom and I were discussing Fin. Again.”
    Gail let the door slam shut behind her and nodded affirmation, plunking down with a groan of the old vinyl seat. “Right. The Peckerhead.”
    Mona cackled, slapping Gail on her thigh. “That’s the one.”
    Her mother’s friends had dubbed Fin “The Peckerhead” one night at bingo, among other things. Since then, thinking up new and innovative nicknames for her wayward husband had become an endless source of amusement, all of them involving his nether parts—especially if they were drinking malt liquor. “Shhhhh, ladies. You’re like second graders who just found a new game,” Maxine scolded with a grin she fought. “Connor’ll hear you.”
    Gail leaned into her with a saucy smile. “I’m sure Connor knows Penis-less is a peckerhead.”
    Maxine’s mother, head thrown back, began to cackle. “Penis-less. You crack me up, Gail Lumley.”
    “Penis-less? Aw, girls, are you trash-talking me behind my back?”
    A shiver, long and thready, slithered up her spine.
    For the second time today, Maxine found herself silently calling upon the Lord’s help. Again she prayed. If He were a good and gracious God, He’ d never let that be the silken tones of Campbell Barker coming from behind her, sliding into her ear like melting vanilla ice cream over warm apple pie.
    Gail snickered. “Nobody’d ever say a thing like that about you , Campbell Barker.”
    Okay, so today God wasn’t feeling particularly good or gracious.
    Clearly, she’d used her quota