Getting Lucky Read Online Free Page A

raised an eyebrow. The questions were on the way and he still didn't have an answer for any of them.
       "She might be my twin sister. We're just alike," Lizz y argued.
       "I was there in the delivery room when your mother gave birth to you. Believe me, you were just one baby," Griffin said.
       "But I want her to be my twin sister. Can you go buy her so she can be?" Lizzy asked.
       "No, he cannot buy a little girl. Now you come in this kitchen with me and help me make cookies. You can tell me more about this little girl while we cook. And you"—Marita pursed her lips—"can tell me about the new teacher later."
       Griffin nodded. At least he wouldn't have to go into the whole thing that day. Maybe by the time he did have to discuss it, he'd have more information. He'd heard that everyone had a double somewhere in the world. Evidently, Lizzy had found hers on the first day of school. Probably by the time they were in school a week they'd be fighting and wouldn't be friends anymore. Or maybe the teacher would be gone when he took Lizzy to school the next day.

    Julie opened the closet doors to the slightly sweet smell of baby powder and an old woman's cologne. Starting at one end she took down dresses and pantsuits—some of which had to be thirty years old, judging from the mate rial and style—and folded them neatly into big black garbage bags to take to the nearest Goodwill store.
       When she picked up the pink floral, double-knit dress she sat down in the floor and leaned back against the wall. Her aunt Flossie had a dress just like that and had worn it to the hospital to see her when Annie was born. She'd taken one look at the baby and quickly came to the same conclusion Derrick had.
       "That baby is beautiful, but she does not belong to your husband. You've been sinning, Julie Donavan, and it has come back to bite you on the ass," Aunt Flossie whispered. Julie had been as surprised to hear that word come out of Aunt Flossie's mouth as she'd been when they laid the new baby in her arms the first time. Aunt Flossie didn't even use the word pregnant in mixed company and said it behind her hand when she absolutely had to use it among female friends. Most of the time the guilty party was "in the family way."
       That damned pink dress brought on a flood of memories Julie thought she'd buried and faced for the last time several years ago. She'd moved from Jefferson, Texas, to Saint Jo to get away from the gossip and here it was, following her around like a puppy in the form of a blasted pink double-knit dress with a zipper down the front. Along with one fine-looking cowboy who didn't even remember who she was. Had Aunt Flossie still been alive, she would have blushed at the string of scalding words that flowed from her niece's mouth right then.

    It had all started when Julie discovered her husband Derrick had been sleeping with the female engineer in the oil company his family owned. Julie and Derrick had been married six years and she had tried every fertility drug and concept on the market to have a baby. When she confronted him about the affair, he'd declared with bravado that it was her obsession with pregnancy that had driven him to the other woman. It was all Julie's fault because sex had become nothing but a means to a baby, not a spontaneous spark of fun like it had been in the beginning. Pompous son-of-a-bitch that he was, he'd laid a guilt trip on her.
       "Yeah, right," Julie said aloud. "He unzipped his pants. I damn sure didn't do it for him, grab his tally whacker, and lead him to the cute little engineer."
       She had filed for divorce even though a little tiny bit of her had always wondered if he was right and it had been her fault. Before the divorce was final, she, her sister, and a few friends went to Dallas for a weekend of shopping and fun. They met some college buddies who drove in from San Antonio, rented motel rooms, and shopped all day Saturday. That night they hit