The Marriage Wish Read Online Free Page A

further.
    “Do you know when you start how the book is going to end?” He had always wondered that. He assumed that knowing in advance would be helpful as far as clues and situations were concerned, but on the other hand, knowing the ending would make writing the book less interesting. Like seeing a movie for the second time.
    Jennifer couldn’t stop the memory from returning—
    “Jerry, you can’t kill the gardener. He’s the man who stole the will to protect Nicole’s inheritance. Kill the gardener and the will disappears forever.” Jennifer didn’t like the twist Jerry had added to the well constructed story. They had spent two months hammering out the details of a tight story plot and Jerry was changing the game plan a hundred pages into the book. They were out in the backyard, Jerry reclining in his hammock watching the 49ers and Rams game on his portable TV, Jennifer having come outside to find him. She dropped into the lawn chair beside him, retrieving the two pillows on the ground to use as a headrest. She was distracted momentarily as she realized she had missed the start of the game.
    “Who said the gardener was dead?” Jerry asked, handing her a diet soda from the cooler beside him.
    “Thanks,” Jennifer said, accepting the cold drink. She flipped open the dog-eared manuscript. “Page ninety-six, and I quote, ‘The bullet entered the man’s chest and did not exit. He fell forward into the cold waters of the lake without anyone seeing his departure from among the living.’” She dropped the script on his chest. “That sounds like dead to me.”
    The 49ers threw a deep pass which was caught inside the twenty. The discussion paused while they both watched the replay.
    “Did I ever say the man in the boat was the gardener?”
    Jennifer thought about it carefully. “No. The killer assumed the man in the boat was the gardener.”
    Jerry grinned. “Exactly.”
    “Okay Jerry, what are you planning?”
    “I don’t know,” he replied seriously.
    Jennifer tossed one of the pillows at him. “Why do you always insist on adding wrinkles to our nicely planned books?” she demanded, amused.
    Jerry smiled. “I have to keep you guessing somehow, don’t I?”
    Scott watched as Jennifer struggled to come back from somewhere in the past and answer the question he had asked. It was not the first time he had seen memories cross her eyes, and he wondered what memory had just made her smile. “Every book we wrote had at least one major change in the plot by the time we finished writing the story. We would construct an outline for the book, then take turns writing chapters. Invariably Jerry would create a few extra twists in the story.”
    Jennifer rested her hands loosely around the coffee mugand was amazed at how easy it was to talk to Scott about the past. Normally sharing about her life with Jerry brought back the pain, but not today. They were memories of good times, and she had thought they were gone forever.
    She had been so embarrassed by her panicked flight, her reluctance to explain exactly how she had gotten the black eye. It had taken over a week to put the incident into the back of her mind, get past the embarrassment, and thankfully accept the fact she would never have to see Scott Williams again. The next morning her agent had called. Jennifer had wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Her one consolation had been the mistaken belief that Scott would have at least let the incident go. It had taken her forty-eight hours to work up the nerve to come back to this beach. She was glad now she had. Glad that now he knew the truth.
    “You know what I do for a living, what about you, Scott?”
    “I’m CEO of an electronics firm called Johnson Electronics.”
    “Really?” She had expected him to be high up in some corporate setting, but she had not expected this answer. “How long have you been CEO?”
    “Three years. They’ve been good years for the industry, so I haven’t had to weather my first