Can I Get an Amen Again

505 Pages·2016·1.34 MB·English

by  Sims Janice

JANICE SIMS • KIM LOUISE

NATALIE DUNBAR

NATHASHA BROOKSHARRIS

ARABESQUE®
CONTENTS
BROWN-EYED HANDSOME MAN 11
by Janice Sims
THE REAL THING 133
by Kim Louise
MY PROMISE TO YOU 243
by Natalie Dunbar
A CHANGE IS GONNA COME 335
by Nathasha Brooks-Harris
BROWN-EYED HANDSOME MAN
Janice Sims
For the women of A.A.W.W.K: Ask A Woman Who Knows.
Gwen, Melanie, Dera and Leslie. Because you know that “the end”
is not always the end. And although we have very little control over
what life chooses to send our way, we CAN choose how we react
to it. Hence, we tend to be lemonade-makers.
I’d like to thank our general manager, Linda Gill,
for asking us to do another Amen, and our editor, Evette Porter,
for doing her usual wonderful job.
Doing the first anthology, Can I Get an Amen,
was a positive experience due to the company I got to keep:
Nathasha Brooks-Harris, Natalie Dunbar and Kim Louise.
Here we go again, ladies!

Chapter 1

“T
hat’s what he gets for marrying a woman more than
twenty years his junior.”
Gena Boudreau, the woman the speaker was referring
to, paused with her hand on the door that led to the
kitchen. The voice belonged to her recently deceased
husband’s sister, Cynthia, who had driven from New
Orleans to attend his funeral. Gena supposed she should
be grateful Cynthia had shown up. Taylor’s two grown
children had not.
Still, Cynthia’s comment made Gena heartsick. She’d
always known Cynthia didn’t like her, but it was beyond
cruel for her to say something so mean-spirited about a
brother whom she had supposedly loved. Taylor had
always been kind to Cynthia.
She knew it had to be Cynthia’s grief talking. Pain made
you say awful things. Things you instantly regretted. She
took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
Cynthia and the woman to whom she’d been speaking,
a stranger to Gena, gasped in surprise. Cynthia lowered
her eyes, shame evident in them. The other woman did not
look down. She narrowed her eyes, her expression cold
and accusing. “Here’s the widow,” she said derisively
12 Janice Sims
while walking toward Gena. Petite and shapely, she was
in her late forties. Her hair was stylishly cut, and her
black dress equally so.
“You don’t know me,” she said when she was standing
directly in front of Gena. “Taylor and I were seeing each
other when you entered the picture. He dropped me for
you.” Hatred permeated every inch of her body. She fairly
bristled with it. An evil smile spread across her attractive
face. “I told him then that he would die without me, and
I was right.” Her eyes sparkled with glee at the knowledge.
Gena calmly turned to Cynthia. “Is this woman a
friend of yours?”
At least four inches taller than the stranger, Gena
looked over her head at Cynthia, demanding a reasonable
explanation for the woman’s presence on the most devas-
tating day of her life.
Cynthia grabbed the other woman by the arm. “Come
on, Karen, you promised you wouldn’t make a scene.”
“You brought her here?” Gena asked incredulously.
“We’ve been friends for over thirty years. I thought she
and Taylor were going to be married one day. Then you
stole him!” Cynthia wasn’t in the least repentant.
Gena didn’t feel as if she had to explain herself to
Cynthia, or anyone else, where Taylor was concerned.
When she’d met him, two years previously, he’d told her
he was single and unattached. In fact, she’d met him when
he was a heart patient at the hospital in New Orleans
where Gena worked as a registered nurse. After Taylor
was released, with a clean bill of health, she thought, and
the promise of a long, full life if he took care of himself,