Invitation to Pleasure: Open Invitation, Book 2 (19 page)

Copyright 2011
Jennifer Skully

Cover design by Rae
Monet Inc

Dumped? For her
husband’s high school sweetheart he hasn’t seen in twenty years? Roberta Jones
Spivey isn’t going to lay down for that, no way. Instead, she decides to
reinvent herself. The new Bobbie Jones—new haircut, new name, new attitude—will
follow her soon-to-be ex to the small Northern California town of Cottonmouth.
And there she’ll show him—and his sweetheart—what a big mistake he made.

What better way to
show him what he’s missing in the brand new Bobbie Jones than taking up with
the town’s local bad boy—who’s also reputed to be a serial killer. Nick Angel
is devilishly handsome and sexy as all get-out. In a word, perfect.

It’s all going exactly
according to plan...until a real murder rocks the little town of Cottonmouth.
Of course, Nick didn’t do it...did he?

~Previously published in 2005 as
Sex
and the Serial Killer
~

Excerpt

 
    
A mixture of red dye and sweat trickled
down her forehead, hovered on her eyebrows, poised to drizzle into her eyes.
Soon to be blinded by runaway hair products, Roberta Jones Spivey could force
nothing more than a mousy squeak from her throat. She was about to go deaf,
too, from the hairdryer blasting her eardrums, and still, she couldn’t open her
mouth wide enough to shriek. Any moment now, her hair would spontaneously
combust. They’d smell the smoke first, then the aroma of singed hair, but by
the time any of the umpteen stylists scurrying about The Head Hunter’s main
salon came to her rescue, she’d be bald. If not charred to a briquette.

 
    
Help
me before my demise becomes a fifteen-second slot on a tabloid show
. Now
was not the time for a panic attack.

 
    
Drip, drip, drip, from her eyebrows to her
eyelashes. In a last ditch effort to save herself, she squeezed her eyes shut.
Burning tears leaked out to mingle with the caustic fluids. She clamped onto
the chair’s arms, a death grip, terrified that if she touched the stuff, she’d
end up rubbing her flesh off, too.

 
    
Someone.
Please. Notice me
.

 
    
The bowl of the dryer was suddenly jerked
up, cool air from the overhead fans wafting across her scalp.

 
    
“Bobbie, honey, why didn’t you tell me the
color was running?” Mimi was the only person who’d ever called her Bobbie.

 
    
Roberta dragged in a breath of air to
explain, then collapsed in a spasm of coughing as the stench of chemicals,
dyes, perm solution, and her own terrified sweat swooped down her throat.

 
    
Mimi’s shoes clicked-clacked away, then
back again. “Here, drink this.”

 
    
Water had never tasted so good. All Roberta
had wanted was a new look. Okay, so she needed a new life, too. Instead, she’d
almost died, and her heart was still pounding like the Pony Express. She handed
the empty paper cup back to Mimi, who crumpled it, executed a perfect free
throw into the trash can, then tugged at a few squishy locks on Roberta’s head,
and pronounced, “You’re cooked.”

 
    
Roberta was cooked all right. Roasted,
basted, filleted, flambéed. And limp as a wet noodle to boot. Residual quivers
made her knees wobble as she tried to stand up.

 
    
Mimi put a hand beneath her elbow. “Bobbie,
honey, you okay?

 
    
“I’m fine.” Well, except that Warren had
walked out on her three weeks, six days, and seven hours ago. On April
eighteenth. Three days after tax day. Two days after he’d left for his little
mission up north. In Cottonmouth, California. He’d dumped her with nothing more
than a phone call telling her he wasn’t coming back. Ever.

 
    
Roberta blew out a breath. “Yeah, Mimi, I’m
just fine.”

 
    
“Good, for a minute there under the dryer
you looked a little panicky.” Mimi patted her arm and led her to the rinse
bowl.

 
    
“I didn’t want to bother you while you were
busy.” Her, panic? Just because her husband of fifteen years had left her for
his long-lost, recently-located-through-the-Internet high school sweetheart?
The love of his life. The teenage bimbo who’d broken his heart, then
disappeared off the face of the earth—or at least left the San Francisco Bay
Area for parts unknown. Cookie. What kind of name was that anyway? It made her
think of some hairy blue monster on a morning kids’ show. Warren was bound to
see he’d made a mistake.

 
    
Okay, so she’d made a mistake, too, by
actually helping him search the Net. And mailing the hundreds of letters—because
he was nervous about calling all those women looking for the right one. And
letting him drive to Cottonmouth all alone that fateful weekend. She’d only
wanted to help him solve his problem. Because his problem was her problem.

 
    
Mimi pushed her head back into the bowl and
began rinsing with warm water. Roberta closed her eyes. The water turned off,
the soothing scent of citrus conditioner replaced the stinging dye in her
nostrils, and gentle fingers massaged her scalp.

 
    
“Bobbie, honey, you’re tense. Is work
getting to you?”

 
    
“No, it’s fine.” Except for those dreaded
whispers of “restatement” trickling out of the audit committee, and her boss
Mr. Winkleman’s finger pointing firmly in
her
direction, as Director of Accounting. But she wasn’t worried; she knew every
balance, every detail, inside and out. Her numbers were solid.

 
    
She gave herself up to the finger pads
working her scalp and the little knots at the base of her skull. Her breathing
relaxed, the whir of her mind’s gears slowed. Ahh.

 
    
“So, where’s your husband taking you for
your birthday?”

 
    
Roberta’s eyes flew open, and all that
lovely mellowness fled through the soles of her low-heeled pumps.

 
    
“He’s picked out this new restaurant he
heard about on Nob Hill.” The lie just sort of slipped out. Roberta believed in
little white lies to keep everyone comfortable. Except that there wasn’t
anything comfortable about turning forty. Or about being dumped. What was next?
Menopause. Old age. Death. “It’s very exclusive, very dressy, and very San Francisco,
he says.”

 
    
She wouldn’t have had a thing to wear
because she’d lost ten pounds since Warren left. But if Warren was taking her
out for her birthday, then she wouldn’t have lost the ten pounds because he
wouldn’t have left, and then she would have had something to wear. Her temples
throbbed. Everything was so confusing.

 
    
“You’ve really got yourself a prince
there.”

 
    
Yeah, a prince. She just hadn’t realized
that princes needed Prozac. Or that a good psychiatrist cost upwards of two
hundred dollars an hour—excuse me, fifty minutes—just to say, “Mrs. Spivey, you
must realize that antidepressants will have a negative impact on your husband’s
sex drive.”

 
    
He
had
no sex drive. That’s why he’d gone to a doctor to begin with.

 
    
Tears suddenly pricked the corners of her
eyes. “Yes, Warren’s a wonderful man.”

 
    
At least she’d thought so. But he’d gone
off the drugs for the Cookie Monster, for God’s sake. And the woman was
married
. Another dumpee in the making.
Maybe Roberta should call Mr. Cookie Monster to commiserate.

 
    
Maybe she should sue Warren’s psychiatrist
for putting the idea of finding closure with his high school sweetheart into
his mind in the first place. Instead, she’d dyed her brown hair red.

 
    
“Maybe I need a new haircut, too.”

 
    
Easing her to a sitting position, Mimi
wrapped a white towel around Roberta’s head and squeezed the water from her
hair.

 
    
“Something bouncy and short?”

 
    
Her head enshrouded in terrycloth, Roberta
nodded.

 
    
“Thank God, Bobbie. I’ve been telling you
your hair is naturally curly, the length and weight just pulls it all out.”

 
    
Mimi tugged Roberta to her feet and guided
her to a chair. The towel came off. What she’d thought would be red was merely
a darker brown. Richer maybe, but still brown.

 
    
“Don’t pout. It’ll look red when it dries.
Now, how short shall we go?” Mimi fluffed the drying strands.

 
    
Roberta pointed to her shoulders.

 
    
Mimi grimaced in the mirror. “That’ll drag
your face down. As we get older, we need to make sure our faces don’t drag.”

 
    
Who was this
we
? Mimi was a pert, perpetual twenty-nine-year-old with lively
black hair, wood-nymph brown eyes, and unlined skin. Without opening her mouth,
Roberta skimmed the bottom of her ears with shaky fingers.

 
    
Mimi beamed. “Perfect.”

 
    
Then she started snipping, clipping,
drying, and poofing. Roberta squeezed her eyes shut amidst the cacophony of
voices, laughter, running water, and blow dryers.

 
    
“You can open them now.”

 
    
A scintilla of the hysteria she’d felt
under the dryer tingled along Roberta’s nerve endings. Then she looked in the
mirror.

 
    
“Oh my.”

 
    
Behind her, Mimi bounced with expectation.
“Whad’ya think?”

 
    
Roberta didn’t recognize the face framed in
silky red hair just brushing the tips of her ears, hugging her nape, gently
curling across her forehead. Her hazel eyes looked greener, lush, like new
spring grass. Her lips looked fuller. And the tired lines pulling at her mouth
seemed to have vanished.

 
    
“It makes you look like you’ve lost weight.
I think you need to buy a new outfit to celebrate.”

 
    
The woman in the mirror needed a whole new
wardrobe. Business suits and tailored blouses just wouldn’t go with that face.
That face needed vibrant colors and short skirts. Four-inch spike heels.

 
    
The hand in the mirror touched the full
lips. Lipstick. Something overstated. “Maybe I need some new makeup, too,
Mimi.”

 
    
“I’ve got just the thing.” Mimi disappeared
from the mirror, click-clacking across the linoleum.

 
    
Yes, she needed new makeup. Because fixing
your whole life couldn’t be accomplished simply by changing your hairstyle.

 
    
No, that new hair needed new makeup, new
clothes, new shoes. And a new name. Like Bobbie. Bobbie Jones. Without the
Spivey, which had always made her think of the word
spineless
. Spineless Spivey. Warren? Or herself?

 
    
And Director of Accounting would never do
for Bobbie Jones. Bobbie needed something...exciting. A job where she’d meet
new people every day. Doing something she’d shine at. Where she couldn’t help
but be noticed.

 
    
Where there were no Mr. Winklemans pointing
their fingers and saying,
She did it.
Fire her
.

 
    
God, could she really do it? Could she
really quit, try on another career like a new outfit?

 
    
What on earth was standing in her way?
There was no Warren. And there was money in the bank to tide her over until she
found just the right job.