And then I saw a tube of something and lifted it.
Anal numbing gel.
I squinted at the label before darting my gaze back at that bushy foxtail. The end of the tail was a rubbery triangle thing. My eyes widened as I realized what I was looking at.
A butt plug.
I threw the tube of lube onto the tail, shoved the whole shebang into the box, and folded the flaps, all the while making little eep noises because . . . ugh.
And then I remembered last year when Scott had asked me to look online at some sex toys. He’d been thinking we needed to up our game and experiment in the bedroom. He’d mentioned some ring things and a butt plug. Or was that anal beads? No matter. I had nipped that idea before it could bloom into something that kept me from sitting for a week. It was fine for some, but a no-go for me.
I backed out of the closet, wondering what this find meant. Had he bought that months ago hoping I would change my mind, or was he experimenting with the tennis pro? The seal on the tube of lube had been broken, and one of the foxy ears was bent. The image of Stephanie’s foxtail swishing beneath her tennis skirt flashed in my mind, and I bit my knuckles as tears gathered on my lashes.
Oh God.
Not only was Scott cheating on me, but he was playing weird sex games with things that seemed, well, very uncomfortable.
A sob emerged as I caught my expression in the bathroom mirror.
Stupid woman.
Hysteria began to burble up inside me. I pressed my hands against my eyes and panted like a wounded animal. Not a fox. No. But some other wounded creature. Another sob tore loose before I muttered, “No . . . no . . . no.”
And as I said those words, something inside me stilled. Deep down under all the hurt and shock was an ice-riddled part of my heart that whispered, “Keep your head, Cricket.”
I dropped my hands, lifted my chin, stared at myself in the mirror.
With resolve.
With the first flickering of anger.
This calculating coolness came from my mother. My mother always did the correct thing. She lived by unwritten rules. Heck, she even embraced the written ones, which is why she fussed when I went over the speed limit. But she also knew how to control her emotions and evaluate a situation with a levelheadedness that made her a force to be reckoned with. She was a pain in my ass, but she’d modeled composure her entire life. Now I needed to draw on what my formidable mother had taught me.
Scott would be home in an hour or so.
He didn’t need to know that I knew anything about him, Stephanie, and his potential foxy frolicking. I wasn’t exactly certain that he’d gotten totally physical with the woman, but all signs pointed in that direction. I also wasn’t sure how to confront him. Or if I should confront him. Or if I should just go ahead and smother him in his sleep. But one thing was certain—things were about to change.
And not for the better.
Damn it.
CHAPTER FOUR
CRICKET
Five days later
“Do you have a car phone charger by chance?” Ruby asked as she rooted around on the floorboard of the 1977 Spider Veloce that had belonged to my grandmother. Sue Ellen Sutton had bought the convertible right after I was born, the day she’d moved her home for battered women—some of whom, yes, were ladies of the night—to a bigger house closer to downtown. As a philanthropist and one of Shreveport’s five feminists, my grandmother Sue saw the swaggy car as a symbol of what a woman of the 1970s could be—independent, modern . . . and windblown.
She’d driven it every day to Printemps.
I, on the other hand, rarely drove the car because it was a stick shift and made me feel conspicuous with all the bright red and zippiness. Besides, my van had air-conditioning and lumbar support so . . .
Yeah, boring.
And that was probably my whole problem. Which is why I had pulled it out of the garage earlier when I learned that Julia Kate was going to spend the night with a friend to celebrate the beginning of spring break and my husband was going to the club to meet with a client. I figured that was code for “chasing some skirt.” And now that I knew what skirt he was chasing, I could see for myself if my suspicions were true.
So I was parked several houses down from the tennis pro’s cute little cottage.
With Ruby.
“I think the charger’s in the bag. I put some protein bars in there, too,” I said, lifting the binoculars I’d found in my husband’s duck-blind bag from my lap and training them on the craftsman-style house with the brass mailbox. Thing was, I’d never used binoculars before, and I’d twisted the knobs seven ways to Sunday with no clear result. I couldn’t see anything and cursed the fact that the tennis pro I was spying on had a tall privacy fence that blocked the view into her backyard and detached garage. I couldn’t tell if Scott’s truck was sitting in the hidden driveway or not. Would Scott be so stupid as to have parked in the driveway of a woman he was secretly screwing? Maybe so, because I hadn’t seen his truck anywhere on the street.