The Battle: Alone: Book 4 (28 page)

     Linda had remarried within a year. The marriage only lasted two years and was full of problems. She waited a bit longer to marry her third husband, and the third time seemed to be the charm for her. The third husband, Tony, was a good man, who treated Linda and the boys well. At least it appeared that way to Tony. He didn’t know that since their divorce, Linda had gotten very good at putting on airs and keeping secrets. Keeping the ugly truth from Scott made it easier for Scott and Tony to be casual friends. Scott eventually found out that Tony was a con man and a user, who’d taken Linda for pretty much everything she had.

     It was Scott who helped her get back on her feet. She banished Tony from her life, and swore off marriage forever.

     From that point on, Linda chose a life less complicated. A life with an endless stream of boyfriends who didn’t provide a sense of stability. But they were a lot easier to get rid of when they didn’t work out.

     Their boys had been brought up in a stable environment, which meant they were well behaved and relatively problem free. Neither of them ever got into drugs, or ran away from home. Neither of them had gone to jail, or left a string of broken hearts. Both of them were good kids, who had bright futures ahead of them. Or so they thought. Actually, there were problems ahead, which none of them knew about, but which their father would soon discover.

     Yes, all in all, Scott was a lucky man, despite his being just an average guy. And he was living a pretty comfortable life.

     That was about to change.