The Marriage Intervention Read Online Free Page A

and she was just getting ready to take her first shot. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, hoping Alejo would find the move sexy. Just as she swung her club, she heard the cat calls and teenage snickers. Alejo, embarrassed, insisted, very loudly, that she meant nothing to him, while her face burned with embarrassment. He told his friends she’d begged him to take her golfing as soon as she found out he got a new car. “Just like a woman,” he sneered. His friends laughed. She missed the shot. They finished the golf course and never spoke again.
    The grown-up Josie could never share this story with Scott, though. Whenever she told him a story, his eyes darted around the room, looking for something more interesting. So she pasted on a smile and went to Orbit Golf to lay their relationship to rest among fluorescent lighting and glow-in-the-dark paintings of misshapen aliens.  
    Of course, they went back to her place, where he insisted on having rushed, rough sex disguised as a passionate final act.  
    That night and every night thereafter for a few weeks, she cried herself to sleep. Of course, Josie Garcia wouldn’t let any man—not even Scott Smith—know how much he’d hurt her, so she showed up at school each day in a sizzling-hot outfit she hoped would magnify the tragedy.
     

    ***
    Two weeks later, Paul Comstock walked into Josie’s life.
    Paul was exactly the opposite of Scott, and maybe that’s why she fell for him so quickly.
    They met the second week of that same school year, when she saw him in the classroom next door. He was talking to the second-grade teacher, Susie Lockhart, and Josie snapped a mental photo. Artists dreamed of profiles like Paul’s: all clean lines and perfect angles.  
    He stood with his thumbs hooked into his gun belt and his head cocked a tiny bit to one side as he listened to Susie’s questions about the presentation he planned to give that afternoon.  
    The moment he smiled, Josie knew she was hooked (although she should have known she was hooked the moment she realized she was totally and completely frozen in place, leaning against the doorjamb, her mouth hanging open as she watched him speak).
    He had deep, striking crows feet at the corners of his eyes, and rather than making him look old, they made him look fun and kind and downright sexy.  
    She imagined him directing that smile at her, then wrapping those big, sculpted superhero arms around her waist right here in the doorway of Susie Lockhart’s classroom.
    When he did, she would put her arms up around his neck and pull his face to hers. What would he smell like?  
    Probably leather and cologne, soap and coffee. Don’t all cops drink coffee?  
    Susie Lockhart cleared her throat, and Josie jumped, snapping her mouth closed.  
    “Did you hear me, Josie? This is Paul Comstock, with the Juniper Police Department. He’s coming in next week to give a presentation to my kids.”  
    “Paul,” Josie said. “Paul Comstock. Nice to meet you. I’m Josie Garcia.”  
    He took her hand to shake it and looked directly at her. So directly, it almost made her uncomfortable. It should have made her uncomfortable.
    Only, it didn’t. It made her all fizzy inside, like champagne. Little bubbles kept rising to the surface, bursting gently on her skin and making her shiver.  
    “Nice to meet you, Josie,” Paul said. “Very nice to meet you.”  
    No poetry, just straight talk.  
    He would later admit he experienced that same fizzy feeling during the handshake and had been rendered idiotic for the rest of the day, misplacing his handcuffs and leaving his gun in the bathroom stall at the police station.  
    The moment was fleeting though, because Paul’s phone vibrated on his belt and he answered it right away in a tone so serious Josie smiled.  
    Susie wiggled her eyebrows up and down behind his back as he walked into the hallway. Josie shook her head and took that opportunity to slink back to her own classroom, her