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Then, came a low keening sound. It fled from her lips, and on anyone else, it would have sounded like she was mourning. But this was born of rage and fury.
“I knew it!” The words came out on a screech. “I knew it. I told Frank but he didn’t believe me. How could you, Joshua Lewis? Your best friend’s widow!”
She turned her snarl on Samantha. “And you, you slut. You’ve barely waited for the grass to grow on his grave before you’re turning your wiles on some other rich schmuck.”
Samantha straightened her shoulders. “Josh proposed to me, Janice. Not the other way around. You’ve known him long enough to know that he’s a man who knows what he wants. I can’t, and haven’t, made him do anything.”
Janice’s hair, dyed a new shade of auburn t
oday, whispered around her shoulders as she began throwing her arms about like some kind of insane whirling dervish. “I told him you were a slut. I told him. But he never listened. He thought you walked on water. The idiot. And you can barely wait for him to grow cold before you’re moving on.”
“Janice!”
Josh’s voice was a harsh bark that had Samantha flinching, and Janice jolting to attention. Having seen the other woman space out before, it hadn’t come as a surprise that she’d reacted that way. It told Samantha that they’d picked an unfortunate moment to come calling—midway through a bottle of Scotch on Janice’s behalf.
“You bastard,” the other woman snarled,
Then turning to Samantha once more, she did the unthinkable, she spat at her.
Honest to God shot her a loogie.
For a second, Samantha stared down at the once-clean light blouse she’d been wearing in astonishment.
That hadn’t just happened, had it?
Surely not.
She blinked down at the sloppy liquid anointing the fabric, and whispered, “You’re an animal.”
“I’m the animal? You’re the slut!”
“Janice, one more word and I’ll have you in court for slander.”
Janice’s eyes flared wide. “You dare to threaten me?”
“I’ll do a damn sight more if you can’t calm down.”
“You were sleeping with her before Jamie died, weren’t you? That’s why he started taking more of that horrendous stuff. I knew it. It’s all your fault!”
A stillness overcame Samantha at her mother-in-law’s words.
She’d thought…
Well, Janice had never caught Samantha’s allusions to Jamie’s addictions. She’d never seemed to catch on, and Samantha hadn’t believed it had been willing ignorance, simply a lack of awareness of her child’s true nature.
But now?
Janice had confirmed something she had never even suspected.
“You knew.”
The words were a statement, not a question. But they didn’t come from her lips, they came from Josh.
“I knew he was taking far too much. I warned him to slow down. But he wouldn’t listen, he never listened. And why would he when he was so upset about his best friend and his own wife fucking behind his back.”
She didn’t know where it came from, didn’t know where the urge stemmed because if anyone knew violence wasn’t the answer, it was Samantha. And yet, she watched, almost as though her hand didn’t belong to herself as she whipped it back, and with full force, aimed at Janice’s face.
With inches to spare, fingers appeared and banded about her wrist. “Don’t. You’ll regret it later.”
