Bet Your Bones Read Free Page A

sure Xander’s the real deal, Claudy? He sounds almost too good to be true.”
    “I’m a thousand percent sure. Hank was plain and borin’ as burlap, but Xander’s smooth as silk. You know what he says? He says Hank was infra dig. Isn’t that a scrumptious word? I love it, even if it is Latin. It means beneath one’s dignity and Hank was that, all right.”
    Hank was about as suave as a herd of Holsteins, but he was honest and hard working and beneath nobody’s dignity. He had developed his family’s dairy into a top regional brand and, in spite of a sort of innate gloominess, he had tried to make Claude Ann happy—a pied-à-terre in Atlanta where she could shop ’til she dropped and there’d been two or three vacations to Europe. Dinah felt she should put in a good word for him, but there was no percentage in sticking up for an ex. “Is Hank badly crippled from his accident?”
    “They had to amputate his left leg, but he’s back managin’ the farm, bossin’ the help around same as always. Sheesh, I can’t see why he’s so bent out of shape about the divorce. Jiminy Christmas, we haven’t had consortium since his wreck.”
    Dinah didn’t need the intimate details. “I guess Marywave misses her dad.”
    “Yeah.” Claude Ann looked again to make sure Marywave was still there. “I had to give her her own cell phone so she could keep in touch with her friends back home, but she mostly jaws with Hank. After she told him about me and Xander, he started sending me wacko letters warnin’ me to repent before it’s too late. Wantonness and licentiousness and walkin’ after ungodly lusts. Sheesh. To read one of his rants, you’d think I’d taken up streetwalkin’.”
    Dinah didn’t like the drift of Hank’s thoughts. Every day of the week some unhinged man gunned down his wife, his children, and any bystanders unlucky enough to be caught in his cross hairs. “Has he threatened you, Claude Ann?”
    “Nah. He’s gonna leave my punishment to God. I just wish he wouldn’t brainwash Marywave.” She shook off the mood and put on a big smile. “But I’m not worried. She’ll come around once she starts school out here.”
    “Your letter mentioned that Xander has children. Does Marywave get along with them?”
    “She won’t have to. They’re as old as we are.”
    Dinah did the math. Xander had to be in his fifties. “How long has Xan been divorced?”
    “He’s not divorced. His wife died over twenty years ago and he’s never remarried.”
    “How is it that someone that wonderful managed to stay single for so many years?”
    Claude Ann added another spoonful of sugar to her Koko Head. “I think he was afraid to let himself fall in love again until now. His wife dived off a cliff into the ocean and killed herself. He must’ve been super traumatized. After all these years, he still gets grouchy if anybody goes near the subject. The only reason I know about it is ‘cause Lyssa, that’s his daughter, dropped it into the conversation like a live rat. Lyssa’s a bitch, but I had to include her in the weddin’ for Xan’s sake. Thank God she’s married and lives way off in Virginia so we won’t have to fake the sweetness and light all that often. Her husband is worse than she is. A real snake-in-the-grass. Xan’s son Jon lives on the Big Island, but he’s kind of a hermit.”
    “Will he come to the wedding?”
    “I hope so. He’s the apple of Xan’s eye, but there was some kind of a silly rift and they don’t talk much.” She reached across the table and clasped Dinah’s hands. “Gosh, I’m glad you came, Di. I want things between us to be like they used to be. I was mad at you for a long time. Mostly, I think I was mad at myself. Anyhow, I’ve missed you.”
    Dinah had a momentary urge to blurt out the truth, but it no longer mattered. In fact, it would be gratuitous cruelty. Claude Ann was in love again and Dinah was beginning to see this breakup with Hank as a culmination of her