Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 01 - Wendy and the Lost Boys

Wendy and the Lost Boys

Copyright ©2011 Barbara Silkstone

Published by Books on the Green

ISBN: 978-0-9837502-2-2

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used facetiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Books in the
Fractured Fairy Tales by Silkstone
series:

The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland, Age 42 and Three-Quarters

Wendy and the Lost Boys

London Broil

Zo White
– coming in 2012

This book contains bonus chapters from:

London Broil
, the sequel to
Wendy and the Lost Boys

Acknowledgements

Thank you for your purchase of this the second
Fractured Fairy Tale by Silkstone
. A word of caution: laughter is contagious. We suggest you choose your surroundings carefully before beginning to read this book.

Cheers for my first readers: Linda Cupp Mihay, Amy Pointer, MH Sargent, Kristen Stappenbeck-Baker, and Barry Brennessel. Special thanks to the dazzling Consuelo Saah Baehr.

A shout out to graphic artist, Katerina Vamvasaki for Wendy’s most excellent cover.

Many thanks to Jan Davy for Wendy’s chopper lessons. You rock!

Thanks to Phil and Kaki Burgess – yacht consultants.

Loving thanks to LC Evans and Karen Cantwell for their kind support, great advice, and super listening powers.
Secret Moose Handshake
.

But most of all, my sincerest thanks to Wendy’s Godfather, Buck Buchanan, who pushed her to exceed the boundaries of sanity while maintaining sentence structure. He has the patience of a saint, the eye of a hawk, and the sense of humor of a twelve year old. Now if he would just give them back…

And finally, heaps of gratitude to Shelley Holloway of Holloway House for offering Buck and me a third set of eyes to ensure my readers can enjoy as error-free a reading experience as possible! Wonderful working with you.

Dedicated to Victoria Station

WENDY AND THE LOST
BOYS

B
Y
B
ARBARA
S
ILKSTONE

Pirates

Chapter One

Sometimes the journey you set out on is not the one you return from.

I lay on my stomach on Belgian cream-colored sheets in my suite on the 370-foot yacht rocking in the waters somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. I had finished a pitcher of screwdrivers before the sun came up and was feeling woozy. As I dozed in my bikini, something jumped on my back. I tried to fight it off, rolled over, and found myself looking at a giant tongue and two beady eyes. It was like being married again.

All six feet of Hook’s bony body retreated when I brought my knee up catching him in his man-berries. He turned, rolling off the bed and abruptly slamming his johnson into the teak nightstand. His penis was huge, dark, and engorged. I was right about the blue pills in his master suite. They
were
erectile dysfunction drugs. Of course, with the name UpUGo, it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure it out.

“I knew you were taking that junk. Don’t waste your time,” I said to the naked old man with the flabby butt as he held himself with a panicked look on his face. “And get out of my suite. The door was locked for a reason! How’d you get in here?”

“It’s been more than four hours, Wendy,” he whimpered. “I’m still hard and it hurts like hell. Help me!” His once chiseled features hung like melted wax from his cheekbones.

“My promise to Marni to care for you did not include sex… no way… under no circumstances. That’s what you get for messing with that stuff. Just get out of my way!”

I snatched the ten-pound white hairball called Tinkerbelle from the foot of the bed and made my way to the sun deck. Hook’s
Predator
was a yacht on steroids. It took ten minutes to get from my suite to the upper floor. Hook had spent over $200 million of Ponzied money on this floating erection. He recited the
Predator’s
talents daily, like a mantra he hoped would keep away the feds, investors, and victims who wanted nothing more than to see him keelhauled.

Once on the sun deck, I reclined on a cushioned lounge chair. Tink licked my face, her Maltese dog fur tickling my nose. I wrapped her leash around my left hand and whispered into her ear, “You poor little puppy. You don’t understand we buried your mama yesterday.” The tears came. There was no holding them back.

How did I let myself get into this situation? I regretted the day I first heard Hook’s name and regretted even more the day I introduced him to Marni.

***

It started almost two years ago as what had become a normal poison-ivy-like night for me. Standing at the window of our suite at The Plaza, I gazed out over the pink and white blossoms of June in Central Park wondering when I would learn to say “no.” It was a hellacious sacrifice to drop what I was doing, leave my clients in Miami and haul up to New York to be at my husband Croc’s side as he pursued investors for his hedge fund Privateer, LLC.

I thought I’d finally found a good man when I first met James Crocowski at a fundraiser for hurricane victims. We continued to bump into each other at a series of charity events over the next few weeks. After a few months of frantic dating, I woke up in the bridal suite at the Luxor Hotel in Vegas. I was Mrs. Crocowski, the thirty-nine year-old wife of a hedge fund manager. I was ready to admit I’d made a mistake.

“How do I look?” Croc did a spin in his tux.

I turned from the window to study him. The man was an optical illusion. He looked intelligent, hardly the picture of a guy who’d just lost triple-digit millions. And obviously to
him
he looked primo. I bit off a really nasty comment and settled for, “Stop panting. You sound like a dog.”

“Yeah, but how great do I look? We’re going to a Charlie Hook party. It’s important.”

The name meant nothing to me. This was not a charity event, despite the embossed wording on the invitations. Croc, aka the
Crocodile,
was set to snare a new pool of investors with his welcoming grin and promises of extraordinary returns. I was sick to my stomach with what I suspected were his less than honest guarantees. I regretted my last minute decision to join him, torn between wifely loyalty and rat-sniffing instincts.

Dressed in my size-six little black dress that screamed designer original, while I screamed inside my head, I grabbed my velvet coat and struggled into it. My highlighted hair swung loose on my shoulders. “You look fine.”

“Didn’t I buy you some bling to wear to these events?”

I shot him my dirtiest look, feeling unclean being in the same room with him.

The doorman helped us into the hired limo, and we headed to a private party in Montclair, a city in northern New Jersey. I settled back and watched the cars rat race along.

Somewhere on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge we were sideswiped by another vehicle. First there was a thump and then a shattering crunch.

“What was that?” I yelled to our driver. The limo bounced over rough pavement, hit gravel, and came to rest against the guardrail.

Crack! A gun shot and then another ricocheted off the front right fender in a splash of sparks.

Croc threw his weight against the limo door but it didn’t open. I yanked his sleeve. “Don’t leave me here, you chicken-shit!”

We were still struggling when a tall thin man reeking of cologne and cigars got into the front passenger seat. He aimed a large gun at my husband. “Don’t move or I’ll blow your head off.”

I pegged his accent as Russian.

My precious mate tried for the door again, knocking me in the ribs with his right elbow.

The Russian flashed me a quizzical look. “You married this coward?”

“I was drunk at the time.”

He smirked. “I could never get that drunk.”

“Nobody asked you,” Croc snapped. His smart mouth was about to get us both killed.

I put my hands in the air and slid into the far corner of the car trying to fold into the upholstery.

The limo driver sat stone still, almost blasé.

“We told you three weeks. You have until Monday. Ninety-three million dollars,” the Russian said.

“I promise 18% on your money if you wait until Thursday!”

Had my husband lost his mind? Facing a gun he negotiates interest rates?

The Russian cut his eyes to me and left the car.

Croc exhaled in a whoosh. “I guess they want their money back.”

“Give it to them.”

“I don’t have it. We had operating expenses.”

It dawned on me. “Are you involved in a Ponzi?”

“No, it’s a creative new-age investment opportunity and my tireless efforts are under appreciated.” He avoided eye contact and stepped out of the car.

“Doesn’t this shake you up?” I asked the driver as I dialed 911 on the car phone. “By the way, shut off the engine.”

“Lady, welcome to the new Wall Street. You get used to it after a while.” He yawned.

Outside the limo, Croc puffed on a cigarette. I’d never seen him smoke before. There was a lot I didn’t know about this man I married after I’d downed three bottles of champagne. Drink in haste. Repent in leisure. I put my head back and closed my eyes. It was time to see a lawyer.

The police arrived in less than ten minutes. By then Croc had disappeared. Maybe he walked off into the night or maybe the Russians decided not to wait until Monday. Either way, my wish had been granted. I was Croc-less.

Along with the details of the mugging, I filed a missing person’s report then went back to the Plaza and did a happy dance in our suite. My husband had abandoned me. Confirming my morning flight back to Miami, I changed rooms and for safety’s sake registered under my maiden name… Wendy Darlin.