Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
You’ve got the younger woman of your dreams, the site said, but do you know how to ensure her happiness—and yours?
I had felt a frown break out on my brow. Part of me hadn’t wanted to admit I understood precisely what the words meant. Then, as I read on, my heart rate had gone up a notch, and my eyes had widened.
To put it very frankly, do you know how to train your bride? Here in Rocky Falls, we can help.
Mandy
I looked over at Rick and saw that he had turned his attention to me, rather than to the Franklins and their strange and scary little drama. I felt my brow furrow. Why would he be so interested in my reaction, rather than in what the hell was going on here?
The answer came to me in a flash that made me take a little gasping breath in through my nose.
Because he knows exactly what’s going on with the Franklins. And he was expecting that kind of thing to happen here.
My eyes went wide. I looked back over at the couple having the little fight, then at the other two couples in the lounge. The older couple were in conversation, their heads close together, and to my dismay I saw smiles on their faces. The Franklins’ scene clearly amused them.
The younger couple had reacted very differently. Indeed, the wife met my eyes, and I saw that she had an expression on her face that looked if anything more shocked than my own.
“I don’t care!” Mrs. Franklin said. “I don’t care what I checked or signed or whatever!”
“Heather,” John said, and then his voice got too quiet for me to hear.
Heather Franklin looked at Miss Haddon, a strange desperation in her eyes.
I glanced back over at the third young wife, the one with the shocked expression who had looked at me. She returned my gaze again, her eyebrows rising, it seemed, near to her hairline. Then she looked over at her husband, who—just like Rick—had focused on his wife, as if to assess her reaction to the Franklins’ argument.
“Mr. Franklin is right,” Miss Haddon told Heather. “I’m afraid that if you refuse to go to the private couple’s room on your own, I’ll have to call a skycap to help your husband take you there.”
I didn’t want to turn back to Rick, but my body made the decision for me: I turned my head to look at my husband, afraid of what I would see in his eyes.
He looked back at me very steadily.
“What the hell?” I hissed. “What’s going on?”
John Franklin raised his voice for the first time. I turned to see that he had stood up, and had extended his hand to his wife, inviting her to rise as well. Heather Franklin had folded her arms tightly across her chest, clearly attempting to appear defiant. The red in her face, though, and the sparkle of tears at the corners of her eyes, gave the lie to the strength of her resistance.
“I’ve tried very hard to be understanding, Heather,” John said, the decision in his voice sending a shiver up my spine. “But it’s time for you to learn your lesson the old-fashioned way. You know your behavior is out of control. We’re lucky the New Modesty program accepted us as inquirers, and we’re getting on that plane whether you can sit comfortably on the flight or not.”
Heather’s face dissolved into tears. “John!” she said. For the first time since the argument had begun, she seemed to remember that other couples surrounded her, and to my dismay she looked at me. I tried to make my face sympathetic, but I knew that I almost certainly looked horrified instead. I looked away immediately, and I saw her husband looming over her, a severe expression on his face.
My heart seemed to flip over in my chest, and a distressing tremor seemed to take hold of my lower body. That expression… a little angry, a little disappointed, maybe a little reluctant to force the matter, but above all determined… I didn’t want it to, but it reminded me of Rick—not my Rick, really, the kind, loving man I had gotten to know gradually during our courtship, but the resolute man who had built a business and knew how to manage it.
I turned to him again, my heart pounding in my chest, hoping I would see on his face a very different expression from the one on the clearly insane John Franklin’s. Instead, I saw the very same determined look, along with the shade of reluctance that said, I didn’t want it to come to this.
“Do I have to get a skycap, Heather?” Miss Haddon asked, her own sweet voice more severe than I had imagined it could get. I noted with a chill how the agent had switched to Heather’s first name, as if the bride had lost the right to be treated as an adult. “Or will you obey your husband?”