Submitting to the Boss (18 page)

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My
Smashwords

Dead to the
Max
, Book 1

Evil to the
Max
, Book 2

Desperate to the
Max
, Book 3

Power to the
Max
, Book 4

Vengeance to the
Max
, Book 5

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Jasmine Haynes also writes as Jennifer
Skully, funny, sexy, poignant contemporary romances. Here’s an
introduction to Jennifer Skully’s Cottonmouth series!

She’s Gotta Be Mine

Cottonmouth Book 1

Copyright 2011 Jennifer Skully

Cover design by Rae Monet Inc

Dumped? For her husband’s high school
sweetheart he hasn’t seen in twenty years? Roberta Jones Spivey
isn’t going to lay down for that, no way. Instead, she decides to
reinvent herself. The new Bobbie Jones—new haircut, new name, new
attitude—will follow her soon-to-be ex to the small Northern
California town of Cottonmouth. And there she’ll show him—and his
sweetheart—what a big mistake he made.

What better way to show him what he’s missing
in the brand new Bobbie Jones than taking up with the town’s local
bad boy—who’s also reputed to be a serial killer. Nick Angel is
devilishly handsome and sexy as all get-out. In a word,
perfect.

It’s all going exactly according to
plan...until a real murder rocks the little town of Cottonmouth. Of
course, Nick didn’t do it...did he?

~Previously
published in 2005 as
Sex and the Serial Killer
~

Prologue

A mixture of red dye and sweat trickled down
her forehead, hovered on her eyebrows, poised to drizzle into her
eyes. Soon to be blinded by runaway hair products, Roberta Jones
Spivey could force nothing more than a mousy squeak from her
throat. She was about to go deaf, too, from the hairdryer blasting
her eardrums, and still, she couldn’t open her mouth wide enough to
shriek. Any moment now, her hair would spontaneously combust.
They’d smell the smoke first, then the aroma of singed hair, but by
the time any of the umpteen stylists scurrying about The Head
Hunter’s main salon came to her rescue, she’d be bald. If not
charred to a briquette.

Help me before my demise becomes a
fifteen-second slot on a tabloid show
. Now was not the time for
a panic attack.

Drip, drip, drip, from her eyebrows to her
eyelashes. In a last ditch effort to save herself, she squeezed her
eyes shut. Burning tears leaked out to mingle with the caustic
fluids. She clamped onto the chair’s arms, a death grip, terrified
that if she touched the stuff, she’d end up rubbing her flesh off,
too.

Someone. Please. Notice me
.

The bowl of the dryer was suddenly jerked
up, cool air from the overhead fans wafting across her scalp.

“Bobbie, honey, why didn’t you tell me the
color was running?” Mimi was the only person who’d ever called her
Bobbie.

Roberta dragged in a breath of air to
explain, then collapsed in a spasm of coughing as the stench of
chemicals, dyes, perm solution, and her own terrified sweat swooped
down her throat.

Mimi’s shoes clicked-clacked away, then back
again. “Here, drink this.”

Water had never tasted so good. All Roberta
had wanted was a new look. Okay, so she needed a new life, too.
Instead, she’d almost died, and her heart was still pounding like
the Pony Express. She handed the empty paper cup back to Mimi, who
crumpled it, executed a perfect free throw into the trash can, then
tugged at a few squishy locks on Roberta’s head, and pronounced,
“You’re cooked.”

Roberta was cooked all right. Roasted,
basted, filleted, flambéed. And limp as a wet noodle to boot.
Residual quivers made her knees wobble as she tried to stand
up.

Mimi put a hand beneath her elbow. “Bobbie,
honey, you okay?

“I’m fine.” Well, except that Warren had
walked out on her three weeks, six days, and seven hours ago. On
April eighteenth. Three days after tax day. Two days after he’d
left for his little mission up north. In Cottonmouth, California.
He’d dumped her with nothing more than a phone call telling her he
wasn’t coming back. Ever.

Roberta blew out a breath. “Yeah, Mimi, I’m
just fine.”

“Good, for a minute there under the dryer
you looked a little panicky.” Mimi patted her arm and led her to
the rinse bowl.

“I didn’t want to bother you while you were
busy.” Her, panic? Just because her husband of fifteen years had
left her for his long-lost, recently-located-through-the-Internet
high school sweetheart? The love of his life. The teenage bimbo
who’d broken his heart, then disappeared off the face of the
earth—or at least left the San Francisco Bay Area for parts
unknown. Cookie. What kind of name was that anyway? It made her
think of some hairy blue monster on a morning kids’ show. Warren
was bound to see he’d made a mistake.

Okay, so she’d made a mistake, too, by
actually helping him search the Net. And mailing the hundreds of
letters—because he was nervous about calling all those women
looking for the right one. And letting him drive to Cottonmouth all
alone that fateful weekend. She’d only wanted to help him solve his
problem. Because his problem was her problem.

Mimi pushed her head back into the bowl and
began rinsing with warm water. Roberta closed her eyes. The water
turned off, the soothing scent of citrus conditioner replaced the
stinging dye in her nostrils, and gentle fingers massaged her
scalp.

“Bobbie, honey, you’re tense. Is work
getting to you?”

“No, it’s fine.” Except for those dreaded
whispers of “restatement” trickling out of the audit committee, and
her boss Mr. Winkleman’s finger pointing firmly in
her
direction, as Director of Accounting. But she wasn’t worried; she
knew every balance, every detail, inside and out. Her numbers were
solid.

She gave herself up to the finger pads
working her scalp and the little knots at the base of her skull.
Her breathing relaxed, the whir of her mind’s gears slowed.
Ahh.

“So, where’s your husband taking you for
your birthday?”

Roberta’s eyes flew open, and all that
lovely mellowness fled through the soles of her low-heeled
pumps.

“He’s picked out this new restaurant he
heard about on Nob Hill.” The lie just sort of slipped out. Roberta
believed in little white lies to keep everyone comfortable. Except
that there wasn’t anything comfortable about turning forty. Or
about being dumped. What was next? Menopause. Old age. Death. “It’s
very exclusive, very dressy, and very San Francisco, he says.”

She wouldn’t have had a thing to wear
because she’d lost ten pounds since Warren left. But if Warren was
taking her out for her birthday, then she wouldn’t have lost the
ten pounds because he wouldn’t have left, and then she would have
had something to wear. Her temples throbbed. Everything was so
confusing.

“You’ve really got yourself a prince
there.”

Yeah, a prince. She just hadn’t realized
that princes needed Prozac. Or that a good psychiatrist cost
upwards of two hundred dollars an hour—excuse me, fifty
minutes—just to say, “Mrs. Spivey, you must realize that
antidepressants will have a negative impact on your husband’s sex
drive.”

He
had
no sex drive. That’s why he’d
gone to a doctor to begin with.

Tears suddenly pricked the corners of her
eyes. “Yes, Warren’s a wonderful man.”

At least she’d thought so. But he’d gone off
the drugs for the Cookie Monster, for God’s sake. And the woman was
married
. Another dumpee in the making. Maybe Roberta should
call Mr. Cookie Monster to commiserate.

Maybe she should sue Warren’s psychiatrist
for putting the idea of finding closure with his high school
sweetheart into his mind in the first place. Instead, she’d dyed
her brown hair red.

“Maybe I need a new haircut, too.”

Easing her to a sitting position, Mimi
wrapped a white towel around Roberta’s head and squeezed the water
from her hair.

“Something bouncy and short?”

Her head enshrouded in terrycloth, Roberta
nodded.

“Thank God, Bobbie. I’ve been telling you
your hair is naturally curly, the length and weight just pulls it
all out.”

Mimi tugged Roberta to her feet and guided
her to a chair. The towel came off. What she’d thought would be red
was merely a darker brown. Richer maybe, but still brown.

“Don’t pout. It’ll look red when it dries.
Now, how short shall we go?” Mimi fluffed the drying strands.

Roberta pointed to her shoulders.

Mimi grimaced in the mirror. “That’ll drag
your face down. As we get older, we need to make sure our faces
don’t drag.”

Who was this
we
? Mimi was a pert,
perpetual twenty-nine-year-old with lively black hair, wood-nymph
brown eyes, and unlined skin. Without opening her mouth, Roberta
skimmed the bottom of her ears with shaky fingers.

Mimi beamed. “Perfect.”

Then she started snipping, clipping, drying,
and poofing. Roberta squeezed her eyes shut amidst the cacophony of
voices, laughter, running water, and blow dryers.

“You can open them now.”

A scintilla of the hysteria she’d felt under
the dryer tingled along Roberta’s nerve endings. Then she looked in
the mirror.

“Oh my.”

Behind her, Mimi bounced with expectation.
“Whad’ya think?”

Roberta didn’t recognize the face framed in
silky red hair just brushing the tips of her ears, hugging her
nape, gently curling across her forehead. Her hazel eyes looked
greener, lush, like new spring grass. Her lips looked fuller. And
the tired lines pulling at her mouth seemed to have vanished.

“It makes you look like you’ve lost weight.
I think you need to buy a new outfit to celebrate.”

The woman in the mirror needed a whole new
wardrobe. Business suits and tailored blouses just wouldn’t go with
that face. That face needed vibrant colors and short skirts.
Four-inch spike heels.

The hand in the mirror touched the full
lips. Lipstick. Something overstated. “Maybe I need some new
makeup, too, Mimi.”

“I’ve got just the thing.” Mimi disappeared
from the mirror, click-clacking across the linoleum.

Yes, she needed new makeup. Because fixing
your whole life couldn’t be accomplished simply by changing your
hairstyle.

No, that new hair needed new makeup, new
clothes, new shoes. And a new name. Like Bobbie. Bobbie Jones.
Without the Spivey, which had always made her think of the word
spineless
. Spineless Spivey. Warren? Or herself?

And Director of Accounting would never do
for Bobbie Jones. Bobbie needed something...exciting. A job where
she’d meet new people every day. Doing something she’d shine at.
Where she couldn’t help but be noticed.

Where there were no Mr. Winklemans pointing
their fingers and saying,
She did it. Fire her
.

God, could she really do it? Could she
really quit, try on another career like a new outfit?

What on earth was standing in her way? There
was no Warren. And there was money in the bank to tide her over
until she found just the right job.

Could she? Would she? She stared at the
familiar yet changed woman in the mirror. That woman could do
anything she set her mind to. That woman would find a new goal in
life.

Roberta sat straighter, squared her
shoulders, put a hand to the brand new curls that overflowed the
top of her head. Bobbie Jones wouldn’t have to worry about negative
impacts on a man’s sex drive. Bobbie Jones would have her pick.

Roberta Jones Spivey could stick with a job
she hated and grovel at the feet of the Winklemans of the world.
Roberta Jones Spivey could have panic attacks under a hair dryer
because she’d decided to change the color of her hair. Bobbie Jones
had better things to do. Important things to do. One all-important
thing.

Bobbie Jones was going to Cottonmouth to
show Warren what he’d thrown away when he drove off into the sunset
to find the Cookie Monster.

Oh yeah, and one more really important
thing. Bobbie would have sex for the first time in...much too
long.