Thy Neighbor's Wife (2 page)

she’d been carved out of marble, then painstakingly buffed until her

skin glowed. She looked visibly relieved to see her dog and smiled

an impeccable white smile as she reached out for him.

“Didn’t get so far after all, did you, rat boy? I oughta skin you

and have you for dinner.”

Kinsey set to work bathing his owner’s face this time, his tail

wagging rapidly. She accepted the treatment for another minute,

then set him down inside her sliding glass door and snapped it shut.

The dog stood pathetically, looking out through the glass like a

doomed prisoner.

The woman turned and held out her hand to Jennifer. “Alex

Foster.”

Jennifer placed her hand in Alex’s, feeling both warmth and

strength radiating from her. “Jennifer Wainwright. Nice to meet

you.”

“Thank you so much for grabbing him, Jennifer. He can’t be

trusted. He’s got a one-track mind and when he puts that nose to

the ground, he’s off like a shot. He would have just kept going and

probably would have ended up a doggie pancake on the main road.”

She kept her tone light, but the worry in her eyes betrayed her

voice. She was obviously attached to the little guy and the prospect

of such an accident made her queasy.

“No problem,” Jennifer replied. “I’m glad I saw him. Has he

gotten out before?”

“Once or twice, yeah. It’s really in his blood, just a characteris-

tic of the breed.”

“He’s a terrier, right?”

“Yup. He’s a Westie—a West Highland White Terrier. He’s

bred to be a rodent hunter, so like I said, he puts that nose to the

ground, trying to sniff up the mice or the chipmunks and nothing

else in the world exists for him. Especially now, in the spring, when

everything’s coming out of hibernation.”

Jennifer smiled at the image of the adorable little pooch pre-

tending not to hear his mommy calling him. “So, I take it walking

him without a leash is out of the question?”

“Absolutely. I’ve tried that.” Alex then added sheepishly,

“Three times.”

“Three times?”

“What? I thought maybe he was just a slow learner.”

“Sounds like the slow learner was you,” Jennifer commented

with a smirk.

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“Hey! You just met me. You can’t insult me for at least twenty-

four hours.” She laughed, taking Jennifer’s ribbing as the fun for

which it was meant. “So, you said you just bought the place?” She

gestured behind Jennifer to the house.

“Yeah. My husband, Eric, is inside taking care of the details

right now. I’m not sure exactly when we’ll move in, but it’s ours.

I’m pretty excited, so I hope I don’t sound like a total goof. Have

you been here long?”

Alex smiled at the enthusiasm in her new neighbor’s voice.

“This used to be my aunt’s place. I spent a lot of time here as a kid

and now I’m living here.”

“Well, this is my first time on the lake, so maybe you can show

me around sometime?”

“You’ve got yourself a deal, young lady.” She smiled a dazzling

white smile and Jennifer wondered how many men had simply

fallen at Alex’s feet.

They stood quietly, but not awkwardly, in easy familiarity for a

couple minutes just looking out at the water. Jennifer was surprised

to feel a tiny pang of disappointment when she heard Eric’s voice

calling for her. She was baffled by the little part of her that didn’t

really want to introduce Eric to Alex. It had been so long since

she’d had something that was hers and only hers and she was feel-

ing a bit possessive; she wanted to keep Alex all to herself. Strange,

since she’d only known the woman for ten minutes.

* * *

Alexandra Foster was so pleasantly surprised by her new neigh-

bor that she could hardly keep the smile from plastering itself on

her face. She had begun to feel a little lonely in her new home and

was excited by the prospect of a new friendship…and one with such

an attractive woman.

Jennifer’s strawberry blonde hair was pulled back into a French

braid, a look Alex found incredibly sexy. Her green blouse accented

her eyes nicely. The beige designer jeans perfectly hugged her lower

body and Alex had trouble keeping her eyes from sliding over the

smaller woman’s backside, not wanting to frighten off her new

neighbor before their friendship had time to begin. She chuckled to

herself as she had a vision of Jennifer catching her ogling her, then

sprinting back to her house in horror, hoping to prevent the final

signatures from making their way onto the contract. Instead, they

made small talk and enjoyed one another’s company.

Because she found Jennifer so appealing, Alex’s inner child

really wanted to hate Eric Wainwright. She was determined to dis-

like him. He was obviously rich, judging from the house they just

Thy Neighbor’s Wife 7

bought and the Mercedes in the driveway. He was devastatingly

handsome, she could see as he approached, and he was married to

Jennifer. What reason was there not to hate him?

“Making friends already, honey?” he asked with a smile as he

reached a hand out to Alex. “Eric Wainwright.”

“This is Alex Foster. We were just talking about living on the

lake.” Jennifer’s green eyes sparkled as she introduced Alex to her

husband.

They shook hands. “You lived here long?” he asked, as Jennifer

noticed his subtle appraisal of Alex and gave herself a point for pre-

dicting his impression of her.

“I spent most of my summers here as a kid.”

“This used to be her aunt’s house,” Jennifer filled in.

“Were you friends with the previous owners of our place?”

Alex was barely able to keep from rolling her eyes. “Um, no.

Mrs. Cavanaugh wasn’t exactly…approachable.” She managed to

keep herself from going on too long about her ex-neighbor, not

wanting to speak ill of the dead. Ethel Cavanaugh had been a rich

old biddy who considered herself higher up on the food chain than

most of the rest of mankind. She could barely be bothered to give

Alex the time of day, but did favor her with disapproving looks any

chance she could. Alex had not been disappointed when the

woman’s homophobic heart had given out and the idea of having

young neighbors was almost too appealing for words. “You’re going

to love it here. There’s nothing like living on the water.”

“I hope I get time to enjoy it,” Eric muttered.

“You will,” Jennifer scolded gently as he put his arm around

her.

“We should go finish up with Jake,” he said. “It was nice to

meet you, Alex. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other often.”

“Same here,” she replied. “And if you need any help with mov-

ing or anything, just holler.”

Jennifer seemed to want to linger, but Eric took her hand and

tugged her along behind him. Alex was surprised to feel disappoint-

ment at her departure.

“I’ll be back in twenty-four hours to deliver a proper insult,

okay?” Jennifer called over her shoulder.

“Don’t be late.” Alex laughed. Jennifer waved goodbye. “Back

to high society wife,” Alex said softly.

It was going to be an interesting summer.

She headed back into the house and Kinsey looked up at her

expectantly. “What? You think you get some kind of reward for that

little escapade of yours?” He cocked his head to one side, the way

he always did when his owner scolded him, his ears pointed straight

up, his brown eyes wide with the attention he was certainly paying

8 Georgia Beers

her. He looked so damn cute like that and he knew it. Alex couldn’t

resist him and he knew that, too. She swooped him up in her arms,

let him rain kisses all over her face, and told herself they were

surely kisses of apology.

Chapter

Two

“Eric, honey, they do this for a living. Would you please just

relax and let them work?” Jennifer spoke through clenched teeth,

trying not to explode on her husband. She was getting fed up with

him constantly trying to tell the furniture deliverymen how to do

their job. He’d been directing them all morning and she’d had just

about enough of it. Judging from the disgusted scowls on their worn

faces, so had they.

“Well, he’s right, dear. That will never fit through the door-

way.” Claire Wainwright had decided to “help” with the move,

much to Jennifer’s dismay. Her mother-in-law never failed to take

the opposite side as Jennifer and she had been antagonizing the

poor deliverymen nearly as often as Eric had. Between the two of

them, Jennifer was ready to scream.

“How ’bout we let them try?” she growled. She caught the

grateful glance tossed her way by the largest of the three hulky men

and she tried to smile her reassurance that she was doing the best

she could for them.

They stood in silence as the men from Stickley spun the new

sofa into several various positions until they did indeed find the one

that would allow them to bring it through the front door. Jennifer

bit her tongue to keep from sneering, “neener, neener, neener” at

her husband and his mother. Claire shot her a look, one that clearly

said how much she hated when Jennifer was right.

Claire Wainwright was a beautiful woman. Even if she hadn’t

had enough money to buy herself the perfect hairstyle in the perfect

color, the most expensive manicures, and the best in designer

clothes, she still would have been beautiful. At age fifty-eight, she

looked like she was in her mid-forties. Her bottle-blonde hair was

impeccable, not a strand out of place, and it gently brushed the back

of her neck. Her eyes were the same chocolate brown as Eric’s,

made up with subtle perfection. Jennifer had managed to keep from

rolling her eyes when Claire had arrived in her typical moving

attire: a beautifully tailored black pantsuit and pumps of Italian

10 Georgia Beers

leather.

Jennifer had known Claire for as long as she could remember.

She was five and Eric was six when Jennifer’s father had made part-

ner at Eric’s father’s law firm. Michael Remington and Daniel

Wainwright had become fast friends, as had their wives, Kathleen

and Claire. They did the same things, moved in the same circles,

and became members of the same country club. Both their families

were small—Jennifer had a brother and Eric had an older sister—

and it wasn’t long before they became a nearly inseparable group.

Because Eric and Jennifer seemed to get along so well from the

beginning, it became a sort of predetermined destiny that they

would end up together.

Claire was a typical mother in the sense that nothing—and no

woman—would ever be good enough for her baby boy. She and

Daniel had never had what could be called a happy marriage, so it

often seemed like she’d decided to try her best to control her son’s.

Jennifer understood this behavior and had spent much of her life

trying to accept it, but Claire was interminably hard on her and

every once in a while, it really got on her nerves.

Like that moving day. Claire continued to supervise the mov-

ers, despite Jennifer’s kind attempts to get her to stop. She took

issue with the way Jennifer sought to arrange her kitchen cupboards

and directed her to stock them the way Claire saw fit. She had sev-

eral opinions on the window dressings that were needed, none of

which agreed with Jennifer’s. She even pointed out streaks on the

glass that Jennifer had missed in her cleaning. Jennifer’s irritation

bubbled slowly in the pit of her stomach all day long until she

started to worry that she might say something nasty. She knew she

had to get away before her mouth went on a rampage without her

permission, one she would truly live to regret for Claire Wainwright

could hold a grudge longer than anybody had a right.

“I need some air,” was all she could manage to grind out before

stomping out the back door sliding it shut with such force that she

was sure Claire had a comment. She walked through the thick green

grass of the backyard straight down to the dock. Much to her sur-

prise, the gentle lapping of the water against the wood immediately

calmed her racing heart and boiling blood. She took a deep, cleans-

ing breath, walked all the way to the end, and just looked out onto

the peaceful surface of the lake.

The air was still fairly cool so early in the season. Jennifer had

grown up in a suburb much closer to the city and had yet to get used

to the temperature difference near the water. She felt goose bumps

break out on her arms and rubbed them vigorously, choosing to be

chilly rather than return to the hostile environment of the house

behind her. She tried not to think about the fact that Eric never

Thy Neighbor’s Wife 11

sided with her and against his mother and she was annoyed at her-

self for not being used to such behavior by that point. Eric was sim-

ply accustomed to Claire’s antics and had no trouble just tuning her

out. Jennifer was exceedingly envious, wishing she could do the

same, but knowing it was impossible for her.

Apparently, I prefer to take all remarks as personally as I possi-