Next Song I Sing (NEXT TIME AROUND) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedications

  Acknowledgements

  About this book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Next Song I Sing

  Book One of the Next Time Around Series

  by

  Donna McDonald

  * * * * *

  Copyright 2012 by Donna McDonald

  Cover by LFD Designs for Authors

  Edited by Toby Minton

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should delete from your reading device and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.

  This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.

  Dedications

  This book is dedicated to the many readers who asked for a series about 40 year olds who were divorced and starting over, and to those who survived the reality, like me.

  This book is also for those readers who look in the mirror, see a woman outside the magazine or runway model norm and wonder if love and romance is for them. The answer is yes, but you have to like that woman you see in the mirror well enough to let someone like her back. This dear readers is the hard part. The actual love and romance will likely be much easier. So smile at her and then go smile at everyone else.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my beta readers for their sage advice about Chloe and her friends.

  Thanks to my editor for his endless patience with helping me get this one smoothed out in all the places it was rough. May the muses reward you.

  About this book

  In 2011 after releasing most of the Never Too Late Series, I got quite a few messages and emails from some of my younger readers asking if I would write a series about 40 yr old divorced women having to start over. Having been one myself at age 41, I thought I could probably do justice to that request, and began work on creating characters and scenarios.

  This first book has been in progress for quite some time, but I was having trouble finding a title that resonated with me enough to do more books. My original working title for book one was “Weighing All Her Options”, and you’ll see as you read why I was trying to find a title referencing weight.

  However, “Next Song I Sing” ended up being perfect for the book and for Chloe’s story. I'm satisfied with all three now and looking forward to working on “Next Game I Play” and “Next Move I Make” later this year…much, much later. I am so backed up in series books right now.

  If the other two books turn out like the first, this series will be funny, full of mishaps, and lighter story lines that will hopefully make you laugh. I am dealing with a touchy topic here and there, but was definitely shooting for humor over heartache. You can let me know later how I did.

  Chapter 1

  Chloe sighed heavily when she saw a magazine with ear-marked pages being pulled from the bright red overnight case tossed on the roll-a-way cot next to the window. She hung her head and groaned like a woman dying, eliciting a wicked laugh from the bag’s owner.

  “Emma Wallace, I can’t believe you still do those silly quizzes. I will not be answering any questions about my favorite position during sex, so don’t even ask.”

  Emma studied her friend Chloe and then pointed the magazine at her, punching the air with it for emphasis. “I’ll take it easy on you because your divorce is still fresh, but you need soul-searching more than any of us, Chloe. You stayed with a man who cheated on you for more years than I did. This is not just a quiz. It’s part of your journey to self-discovery.”

  “Journey to self-discovery? Jeez, Emma, you’re starting to sound more and more like those greeting cards you write,” Taylor Baird said, dragging an expensive black leather overnight case on wheels into the room behind her.

  Emma and Chloe smiled at the svelte blond who looked all business in her suit. Chloe ran over to hug her, surprised to be getting all choked up over how happy she truly was to see Taylor.

  “Thank God you’re here. Emma brought a quiz,” Chloe complained, saying it as if it were a dirty word.

  Finally letting Taylor go, Chloe returned to her unpacking, a little embarrassed about how incredibly happy she was to be with her friends again. God, she should never have left.

  “Command some authority here, Taylor, and tell Emma no quiz questions. I moved to the West Coast to get away from being emotionally tortured,” Chloe said.

  Taylor laughed, her voice husky. “Remember in college when Emma got the idea that we needed to get our belly buttons pierced to be sexy?”

  “Unfortunately,” Chloe said, remembering the trauma all too well.

  She had screamed in pain while Emma had laughed and Taylor had winced in sympathy. But ironically, Chloe had kept the piercing over the years. Mostly because it had cost her so dearly to get it, but also because it made her feel sexy even when her husband Aaron hadn’t liked it. Wearing jewelry in her belly had been her way of rebelling against him when they fought, which ended up being often during the almost five years they had been married.

  “Earth to Chloe? Where are you?” Emma called, waving a hand in front Chloe’s face.

  “That piercing hurt like hell, Em,” Chloe informed her, glaring hard as she remembered the pain.

  “Everything worth doing hurts a little, even exercising. And who was it that ran around in navel-revealing shirts all that year? I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t me or Taylor showing off our piercings,” Emma reminded her, not a bit embarrassed to gloat.

  “What else could I do but show it off? I figured I might as well enjoy flaunting it after going through hell to get it done,” Chloe insisted, glaring at Emma, who stuck out her tongue.

  “I bet you still have your piercing,” Emma said with a knowing grin. “I don’t. Taylor doesn’t. Tell us the truth, Chloe.”

  “A woman has a right to some keep some secrets, especially from nosy friends,” Chloe announced, turning away from their knowing smiles.

  When both Emma and Taylor both laughed, Chloe rolled her eyes because…well, she had kept her piercing. And it had felt very brave to take a healthy chunk of her savings and buy a tiny real diamond studded ring to wear there. It made her feel a lot younger than forty. She had needed help to feel better about her thirty-six-year-old husband replacing her with a skinny woman half her age.

  Taylor laughed at Chloe’s and Emma’s bickering, thinking five years living on opposite coasts hadn’t changed the dynamic between them much. Back in college though, Chloe’s programming to please peopl
e she cared about had practically guaranteed she would never outsmart a determined Emma hell-bent on a make-over. Helping people improve themselves was practically a religion to Em, and she and Chloe were usually favorite converts.

  “We were twenty-one not sixteen when we got those piercings, Chloe Zanders. You could have said no about the belly button ring. You can say no to the quiz now. That was my point for bringing it up. It’s time to learn to command your own authority,” Taylor said on a laugh.

  “Trust me, Baird. I’m not the push-over I was in college. I command authority when I need to nowadays, but you’re not fooling me. If I don’t play along, you and Emma will think I’m just as boring as my ex did,” Chloe said, turning away to shake out her clothes from the exercise duffle she had brought.

  She glared at the plain black gym bag. It wasn’t red and perky like Emma’s or sleekly black like Taylor’s. It was black and old, not mention well-used, but her good luggage had been too large for a simple three-night stay in a resort, so Chloe hadn’t bothered with it. Everything that worked for California fit in the one small bag she’d carried on the plane.

  “You are so not boring, Chloe. Your ex was just a selfish jerk like my mine was. Own it, girlfriend—and then let it go,” Taylor said flatly, snorting in derision. “Trust me, you didn’t lose anything divorcing a man who didn’t appreciate you. One day soon, you’re going to be nothing but relieved Aaron is out of your life. It just takes a while to feel it.”

  Taylor unzipped her case and starting looking through her clothes. “Now come on. We’re going shopping for sexy new dresses to kick off our weekend. For once, I’m looking forward to letting Emma try to fix me with her quizzes and questions. I haven’t had a decent date in three months. I obviously need an attitude adjustment.”

  “It’s been two weeks since my last date,” Emma recounted, “but I’ve been sexually abstaining for several months. I’m balancing my chi and preparing for a better relationship. I want to be in an open and receptive state of being when I let the next man that far into my life.”

  Chloe snorted. “Balancing your chi? Wallace, you crack me up.” she shook her head and sighed heavily again. “Well, don’t try to balance mine, Em. I like my chi like it is. I’m still too mad at my ex to even think about sleeping with another man right now. I just want to enjoy my freedom for a while and be grateful I can stop worrying about what some guy thinks of me.”

  Taylor laughed, rich and full. “Well, speak for yourself. I don’t even remember the last time I had sex. I think I would like someone to unbalance my chi—and soon. What I need right now though is some minor lubrication, a late lunch, and some good old fashioned girl fun.”

  “Taylor, I booked us appointments in the spa like you asked,” Emma said, speaking to her very savvy business friend who had placed her order for the weekend with specific instructions that she would be picking up the tab for most of it. “Full works on all three of us tomorrow at ten, including massages. We’re going to be buffed, fluffed, and stuffed. I hope that’s what you had in mind.”

  “Stuffed? What do you mean stuffed?” Chloe demanded, gripping her most slimming black dress in her hands. “Just what kind of massages did you arrange for us, Emma? I told you I’m not ready for anything yet.”

  Taylor fell back on the bed laughing. “Would you listen to her? The woman who used to date three guys at once has now been replaced by an uptight version afraid of getting laid. Will you tell her sexual massages are not on the spa menu at this five star hotel? I swear I am never going to visit the east coast if Chloe is an example of what happens to people out there.”

  Emma put her chin on her chest and sighed heavily as she looked at Chloe. “I can see unwinding you is going to take some time.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’m about to show you two skinny blondes how much authority big women like me command. I’m going to sit on Emma’s tiny butt until she tells me what she means by stuffed,” Chloe said firmly, shaking out the five-year-old black capris that she hoped might still tame her curves.

  At an extremely healthy size fourteen, Chloe was not all that big by east coast standards. But in southern California where tanned and toned bodies were the norm, she was twice the size of her two skinny friends.

  “Stuffed as in lunch, Chloe. Lunch is included in our treatment. Relax, will you? When was the last time you had any fun?” Emma demanded, shaking her head sadly.

  Chloe stopped sorting her clothes. When was the last time she had fun? Good grief, she couldn’t even remember. Sex she’d had, if you could count sleeping with her cheating ex-husband, but fun was sorely lacking. How pathetic was that?

  “The last time I had fun was in college,” Chloe answered finally. “Despite Aaron’s time out here, he and his family had very different ideas about fun than I did. Honestly, I don’t know now why I married him. When it came right down to day-to-day living, we didn’t have much in common.”

  “I know why you married Aaron. You were almost thirty-five and thought the world was ending because you were still not married. It was easy for you to cave in to the sexy, semi-retired football player who spent all his time trying to get you into bed,” Taylor said wisely.

  “That’s the truth, and Aaron is still very sexy,” Chloe said wistfully, sighing again. “I didn’t leave him because the sex was bad.”

  “Oh—please. Stop mooning over leaving a repeat adulterer,” Emma ordered, her tone fierce. “Trust me, it’s a total waste of time.”

  Chloe opened her mouth to tell Emma that Aaron wasn’t as bad as her ex, but Taylor chimed in first.

  “You married Aaron for the same reason I married Lewis and in the same year. Being single at thirty-five sent you right into the arms of the first sexy man who popped the question. Lewis was good in bed too, but that didn’t make up for his lack of morals. Luckily, my opportunistic ex-husband moved on to his next victim when the business failed. I don’t even think I was a woman to him. I was just an investment plan. God—the business failing put me on the right track in a lot of ways.”

  Taylor looked over at Emma, who hadn’t said anything. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed in a meditative pose, listening and looking serene. Unfortunately, Emma was always serene, Taylor thought, and it wasn’t healthy to hold the hurt in that tightly.

  “I guess when it comes down to it, Emma is the only one of us who even came close to finding real love,” Taylor said wistfully

  “Real love? What are you talking about? Brad got another woman pregnant before I even found out for sure that I couldn’t have children. A bad marriage doesn’t get much more pathetic than that,” Emma said lightly, not breaking her pose. “But I’ve separated myself from his energy now. He’s already working on baby number two with his new wife, who is also a twenty-something. So I know how you feel about being tossed out ot the curb because of a younger woman, Chloe.”

  Chloe looked at Emma and blinked. Aaron’s defection had nicked her pride because she hadn’t wanted to fail in her marriage, but it hadn’t affected her heart much. Emma hadn’t been so lucky. Though divorced the longest amount of time, Emma had loved her husband sincerely, and there had been no serious man in her life since.

  Chloe bit back her first response of denial. Emma didn’t need more pain.

  “Fine. I concede we all need help with our love lives, but if I’m going to have to answer those dumb quiz questions, it’s going to require more than mild lubrication. I think I’m going to start at lunch and do a follow-up drink every hour to make sure I maintain a buzz all day to get through it,” Chloe said, gracing Emma with as sincere a smile as she could manage. “It shouldn’t take much though. I haven’t been inebriated in years.”

  Shaking off her mood, Emma stood to wiggle her hips and her eyebrows as she looked at Chloe. “Does alcohol still make you want to get extra friendly?”

  “Yes. So if I do get tipsy, don’t let me run off with some strange man. That’s a bit more self-exploration than I’m ready for right now,” Chloe said, let
ting herself find the humor in it at last.

  Listening to both her friends laughing at her plea, something inside Chloe eased. She hated being defensive, hated that she’d brought that attitude to these two women who had been true friends to her through thick and thin. They didn’t need her angst on top of their own. She was the fixer not the fixee in their group.

  Taylor laughed at Chloe’s confession and sighed at the kindness and caring on her face as well as the return of ease to Emma’s expression. “I have missed you something fierce, Chloe Zanders. The California sunshine is going to melt all that East Coast angst away soon. By the time you get your tan back, you’ll be a new woman.”

  “Wow. Aren’t you the optimist for once? Saving a business agrees with you,” Chloe teased. Then she sighed. “I’m glad to be back. It was way past time to make a change.”

  Taylor sprang up from the bed, lithe and confident in her dress clothes, which she intended to shed right now for crops and the tightest T-shirt she owned. “Wear something easy to get out of, girls, and bring slut shoes if you have them. We’re going shopping.”

  Chapter 2

  “I just love this place,” Emma said, flipping through the racks. “Upscale consignment, and just look at all these wonderful recycled clothes. I’ve said it before, but, Taylor—you really are amazing.”