Truth and Justice - Fern Michaels Page 0,60
husband were. She had never been sure if Andy viewed their shared secrets as sacrosanct the way she did.
Sara shook her head. She had no way of knowing if she and Bella Ames were anything alike. She hoped not. She didn’t want to be anything like anyone but herself. What she did know for certain was if she was in Bella Ames’s position and knew about those eight pieces of paper, she would be turning the world upside down to locate those eight specimens—progeny, Andy’s sons and daughters. She loved the way those words rolled off her tongue.
If Andy had shared his best-kept secret with his new wife, then Bella surely would have contacted Andy’s parents’ lawyer, or at the very least tried to find her, Sara, to ask for help. Then again, maybe she was spinning her wheels because Bella didn’t like kids, Andy’s or anyone else’s kids. Not everyone was cut out to be a parent. She ought to know, she thought sourly.
Sara plucked a magnet off the refrigerator that said Alfonso would deliver a pizza with the works along with a quart of sweet tea in twenty minutes for the princely sum of $20 plus $5 for delivery and a $10 tip. Total $35. Cash only. No credit cards. No checks.
Sara dug around in her purse. She had forgotten to go to the ATM today. Tomorrow, for sure, she would need to hit one up. After pawing through the contents of her purse, she came up with the full amount, with the last two dollars being in change. She shrugged. Money was money. That’s when she realized how hungry she was and that she hadn’t eaten anything today except for that little chunk of mold-free cheese.
While she waited for the pizza delivery, Sara uncorked another bottle of wine, this one more costly than the last bottle she’d opened. She swirled it around, sniffed it, then sipped the wine. She was no connoisseur, that was for sure. It was dry and sweet, and that was the way she liked it. Knowing next to nothing about wine, she decided it was probably worth the money. You could get a buzz on with cheap wine just the way you could with expensive wine. Had she been smart, she would have chosen Bud Light. Beer went with pizza more so than wine. But . . . the crowd she was running with these days preferred wine with pizza. When in Rome . . .
Alfonso was as good as his word. The doorbell rang exactly twenty minutes from the time she had made the call. Money changed hands. Sara was careful to lock both locks and slide the dead bolt into place.
The pie smelled heavenly. Sara dived into it with gusto and gobbled four slices so quickly she could feel a bad case of heartburn coming on. Like she cared. She reached for the fifth slice and chomped down. It tasted just as good as the first bite had. She finished the wine in her glass and knew she needed to take a nap. She reached for the tea bottle and chugged with gusto. Cold and frosty, tongue-numbing. She loved it. But yes, a nap was definitely in order. She’d wake up refreshed and, she hoped, full of spit and vinegar and ready to take on Andy’s widow, Bella Ames Nolan, the little snot.
To Sara’s wooly, woozy mind, a two-day marriage counted for nothing. Not when she had access to, at the very least, six hundred years of the Andy Nolan–Sara Windsor bloodline sitting right in front of her.
* * *
Sara rolled over on the couch. She reared back when her face brushed against the scratchy brocade of the sofa. It took her a full two minutes before she realized where she was. Normally, she slept in a king-size bed in a bedroom bigger than most people’s houses. She did like lots of room. At the moment, it simply didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered now was that she get up, wash her face, brush her teeth, and get down to work.
Sara returned to the kitchen thirty minutes later wearing a silky, slithery hostess gown, a gift from her third husband . . . maybe the second one, she really couldn’t remember. Nor did she care. The only thing she really liked about it was all the different shades of purple that went into the swirling mass of material. She felt like a fairy child when she wore it, a feeling