The Groaning Board

wants to marry her?
    As for Silvestri, their entire
relationship had been fraught with risk, and she’d gotten hurt.
    But she wouldn’t rewrite anything so
far. Basically she loved her life, for better, for worse.
    So, was Bill Veeder, the married man,
a risk? Oh, yes. Should she play it safe and walk away because she might get
hurt? Never. She would take the risk. She was forty years old and the rest of
her life was ahead of her. Whatever it held for her would be a surprise. That’s
the way she wanted it. “Leslie?”
    “Bill?”
    “Tell me.”
    “Gender games are not my style, Bill
Veeder. I never went to singles bars, never did a share on Fire Island or in East Hampton. My friends... they know. They’re afraid for me. I want you. It’s a constant.
Maybe this is what happens to forty-year-old spinsters whose hormones are
percolating.“
    “Leslie, I don’t give a damn about
hormones, or spinsters, or how old you are. If I were free I would marry you.
As I’m not, I want you in my life any way you’ll have me.”
    “Marriage never interested me. I
don’t want to be anybody’s mother. I’ve never felt maternal. However we can do
it, I want you in my life.”
    “Then it’s a deal,” he said gravely.
“Let’s shake on it.” Lordy, lordy, she thought, but she gave him her hand.
“It’s a deal,” she said.

About the Author

     
     
     
    ANNETTE MEYERS has a long history on
both Broadway and Wall Street. On Broadway, she was assistant to director-producer
Hal Prince and worked on such productions as Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret,
Company, and Follies. On Wall Street, she was a senior vice
president with an executive search and management consulting firm.
    About the Author

    Meyers is the author of six other
Smith and Wetzon mysteries, most recently These Bones Were Made for Dancin
’, and coauthor with her husband Martin of The Dutchman historical
mystery series. She is the current president of Sisters in Crime and lives in New York City.