Gotcha! (28 page)

Finally the call came. I was trying to unclog the garbage disposal and almost didn’t answer it, but caught it on the sixth ring. It was my editor at the time who has since retired, telling me that Walter and she would be coming to Charleston the following week to discuss my submission. Walter was Walter Zacharius, the founder and owner of Kensington Publishing. Walter was my boss, and my friend. I want to say right here and now that I absolutely adored that man. He saw me through some bad times, the death of my husband, and then the death of my youngest daughter a few years later. Just talking to him made things right somehow. In my heart of hearts I knew I would have to abide by whatever his decision was because I respected his opinion. I’m sad to say he has since passed away and I miss him terribly.

I never did fix the garbage disposal. I had to call a plumber.

I called the girls. We went to the Barbed Wired again. We ate but passed on the beer this time around and got home under our own power. Talk about beating a dead horse. Why was Walter coming here? To tell me no way, no how would the book fly? To tell me he loved it and wanted to sign me up for all seven books? We were all a nervous wreck. The days crawled by. And then the day of the meeting finally arrived. I was early because I was about to crawl out of my skin.

Flash forward forty minutes, after the amenities, and Walter said, “It won’t work. It’s too over the top, too out of the box.”

“It will work. Give it a chance. Can’t you trust me when I tell you it will work? If you get behind it . . .”

We argued back and forth till I was about ready to cry. Then I looked at my editor who up to this point hadn’t said a word. She winked at me.
WINKED?

Walter the businessman, and not my friend at the moment, said, “Tone it down.”

“NO! If I take out what you’re referring to, it’s not the same book. It will work.”

“Tell me why it will work.”

Ahhhh, I thought I had him right there. “Because, Walter, the woman hasn’t been born yet who doesn’t have someone she wants to get even with. That’s why. The more daring, the more over the top, the more reason it will work. I know I’m right. I did my homework, I talked to hundreds of women. It will work. Just so you know, Walter, I’m not giving up.”

“Okay. We’ll do it.” Well damn! Just like that, we’ll do it! I was over the moon.

To be honest, I don’t remember what happened after that. I remember what happened the next day, though. Walter came to Summerville where I live and we sat on my veranda and drank mint juleps. We talked for hours until it was time for him to leave for the airport. I walked him out to the car and he hugged me and said he’d snatch me bald-headed if it didn’t work.

Ooooh.

But it did work. You know how I know that? Because I’m writing this and you’re reading it.

Before I end this letter, I would like to share one more thing with you all. It is my opinion that most writers, if asked, will say there is one thing or another that lets them know what they’re working on will either work or not work. It could be a whole chapter or perhaps just a scene or a scenario, it really doesn’t matter. With me that thing is my dogs. I run everything by them. I have four dogs, two golden retrievers, Jam and Jelly (95 pounds each). Then there is Lucy Red (65 pounds) who is a rescue hound dog, and last but not least, there is Charlie, a Yorkie (12 pounds). He’s the boss. I whistle, tell them all to line up and they do it. Then I read what I wrote. If they don’t go to sleep, that means it works. If they lie down, I have to scratch what I wrote. I’m serious here; I’m not kidding. When they don’t approve, they don’t get a treat, so you can see they’re spot on. My dogs are very smart. (Every dog owner says that, just so you know.) But, Jam and Jelly can buckle up their seat belts. Jelly knows how to lock the kitchen door. Jam is the bigger of the two, she knows how to ring the doorbell, which is too high for Jelly to reach. Lucy knows how to open the refrigerator. She does that four or five times a day. I think she just does that to feel the cold air on her face. That’s her only trick. Charlie is so smart he doesn’t have to do anything. He knows to the minute when it’s time to eat. He knows to the second when it’s time to go outside. He heads for the bedroom before I can get out of my chair at 10:57. He is never off by more than a minute. So, readers, when you read one of my books, know that four of the most important creatures in my life have given their seal of approval.

At this moment I would like to thank all you readers who bought the Sisterhood series, then wrote me to tell me how much you loved it. I want to thank my own vigilantes, my kids for encouraging me, and of course Walter, because without Walter and all his staff I wouldn’t have published
Weekend Warriors
, let alone been given the opportunity to write and publish twenty more books in the series.

Thanks, Walter, and thanks to all the wonderful people at Kensington who were there for me every step of the way, believing in me and taking a chance on my ability to create the Sisterhood series and making it work.

 

Warmest wishes,

Fern Michaels

They’re back!
The Godmothers return in Fern Michaels’s
brand-new novel:

CLASSIFIED
.

Read on for a special excerpt.

 

A Kensington trade paperback on
sale in October 2013!

 

 

 

H
aving tossed and turned for the past hour, Abby finally rolled over and looked at the alarm clock. It was 3:00
AM
, the witching hour. Chris had fallen asleep on the sofa downstairs in the formal dining room. She didn’t have the heart to wake him. She knew by the time he walked upstairs and showered, he would be wide-awake, and it would take hours for him to get back to sleep. He’d spent fourteen hours today stripping the wood floor in the dining room—backbreaking and exhausting work. He was sitting on the sofa when Abby went to the kitchen for iced tea. When she returned, Chris was sound asleep. She covered him with a light throw and decided to go upstairs alone.

Unable to sleep without Chris by her side, she switched the lamp on. A swatch of fabrics for the new drapes she wanted to order was lying on the night table. She picked it up, felt the different textures, examined the colors, feeling unsure. While she didn’t want something dark and heavy, she didn’t want something so light you could see through it. What she needed was something in between, yet something that stayed true to the Clay Plantation decor. Her mother had advised her and had spent many, many hours with her, going over the long history of the plantation, for she, too, had lived here for a short period of time when she was married to Garland, Chris’s father. There were old pictures of the many rooms, but they were so faded she could not even begin to guess what kind of fabric had been used to decorate them. One thing Abby knew for sure, she had to get rid of the heavy dark green velvet drapes. They reminded her of
The Carol Burnett Show
parody scene of Margaret Mitchell’s
Gone With the Wind,
which she’d watched late one night on TV. Carol Burnett, playing Scarlett O’Hara, had ripped the heavy drapes from the window and worn them as her new dress, hoping to impress Rhett Butler, who had just returned from fighting in the Civil War. Abby had laughed until she cried, but the drapes had to go. They were just plain ugly.

Not seeing any fabric or color that caught her eye, she found the remote and channel-surfed for ten minutes. When none of the television programs captured her attention, she turned the TV off. She flipped through the latest edition of
The Informer.
Josh was doing an excellent job, but the stories didn’t capture her attention, as they once had. Frankly, she thought they were silly and a waste of time. Why the sudden change of heart? She’d almost died because of that paper and that total idiot, Rodwell Archibald Godfrey—behind his back, they referred to him as Rag. He’d kidnapped her, locked her in a tiny closet, tied to a chair, while he waited for his ransom money to be delivered. As it turned out, her mother was the owner of
The Informer,
something that was unknown to her at the time. Clearly, Rag was also unaware of that minor factoid. It had been a horrifying experience for everyone, as well as one of the principal reasons she and Chris had moved to Charleston.

Now, for the past month, she’d been having trouble sleeping, only to be completely wiped out during the day. She thought of going downstairs to the kitchen to warm up a glass of milk, but she didn’t want to risk waking Chris. He’d worked so hard, and their new venture required his legal skills, making sure all their documents and contracts were legal. But he continued to tell her he wanted to be a farmer, and she now believed him. She remembered his telling her this when they had lived in Los Angeles, but she hadn’t believed him then. Of course, they had only been friends at the time. And he was her stepbrother, but not in a gross way. Her mother and Garland were married for a short period of time; Chris had been away at college; she’d been a teenager, spending time with her girlfriends, shopping, going to the movies, gabbing. Before she knew it, Garland had passed away. She and her mother, whom everyone called Toots, had moved into the house, which her mother would share many years later with Abby’s three godmothers.

Finally Abby started to get drowsy, and she turned out the light and curled up beneath the sheets. She drifted off to sleep quickly.

 

 

Abby bolted upright in the bed. Trembling, she turned the light on. Chris ran into the room. “Are you okay?” He cradled her in his arms. “I heard you screaming.”

“Oh, Chris, I had a terrible nightmare. My God, it seemed so real.” Abby pushed herself up in the bed and leaned against the headboard.

Chris cradled her against his chest. “Want to tell me about it?”

Abby took a deep breath. “There was this girl, a young girl. She was . . . she was a slave. In the dream, she was scared and so alone. She kept calling for her mother. It was so sad.”

She stopped. Something in the dream was so familiar, tugging at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t place exactly what it was. “She was having a baby! Alone. She was all alone! Chris, there is something in the dream that I should know, something I’ve actually seen, but I can’t pull it up.” Abby wrapped her arm around Chris’s waist. “Sorry I woke you.”

“Hey, I’m glad you did. That sofa is not meant to sleep on. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“You looked exhausted, and I knew that if I woke you, once you showered, you’d be wide-awake, so I let you sleep.”

“And here you are in bed without me for the first time since we’ve been married, and you had a nightmare. What does that tell you?”

“Not to go to bed without you?”

“Yep. Now, since I’m up anyway, I’m going to take a shower. You want to join me?” Chris nuzzled her ear.

She gave a half laugh. “Not now, sorry.” She glanced at the bedside clock. It was almost five o’clock. “I tell you what. Why don’t you get your shower, and while you’re doing that, I can make us some breakfast. I won’t be able to go back to sleep anyway. If I get tired during the day, I’ll have a nap.”

Chris kissed her cheek and ruffled her hair. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Mrs. Clay.”

As soon as Chris said “Mrs. Clay,” she stopped midthought. “Chris, wait. Listen, I know this is . . . strange, but has this place always been called Clay Plantation?”

Standing at the chest of drawers, Chris pulled a pair of boxers out of the top drawer. “Good question. Why would you ask something like that?”

She didn’t know, but she somehow knew it was important for her to find out. It was the dream. The man in the dream. The man the young woman hated, the man she wanted to die. “Just tell me, has the plantation always been referred to as the Clay Plantation?”

“To the best of my knowledge, it has, but then again, it’s been around a few hundred years. It’s possible that it had a different name at some point before the Clays owned it. Is it important?”

Abby’s reporter instincts were at play. Instincts she’d scoffed at earlier. “I’m not sure. It’s something in the dream. I don’t know.”

“Well, don’t worry your pretty little head off. Now, woman, get your little rear end downstairs and fix that breakfast you promised me.”

Abby grabbed her robe off the foot of the bed, careful not to wake Chester, who was still sound asleep at the foot of the bed. “Some guard dog you are,” she said as she walked out of the room.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Abby started a pot of coffee. Her mind kept straying back to her dream, and it was silly.
Damn, Abby, it was simply a dream. Weird? Yes. Strange? Yes.
She opened the refrigerator. “What to make?” she asked herself aloud.

“Ruff!” Chester gave his low-sounding morning growl.

“You want some grub, old boy?”

Chester walked over and stood by his dog bowl. Abby had chicken breasts left over. She chopped half of one, threw it in the microwave for a few seconds to get the chill off, then scooped the chunks of chicken into his bowl. Mavis had started doing this for Coco and Frankie. Chester had been over a few times and received the same meal. Now Abby had to bribe him with chicken breasts just to get him to eat his dog food. “You are so spoiled,” Abby said, leaning over and rubbing him between the ears.

She grabbed a carton of eggs, a chunk of bacon, and a can of buttermilk biscuits out of the refrigerator. Usually, she loved the smell of coffee, but for some reason it gagged her now. She would swear she smelled a chemical smell coming from the pot. She lifted the carafe up to her nose. “Yuck.” She took a chamomile tea bag out of the canister, filled a mug with water, and popped it in the microwave. She usually loved her coffee, but not today. She felt shitty, like she was coming down with the flu. The last thing she needed now. With all that she and Chris had going on, she didn’t have time to get sick.