Book Title: The Shop on Main Street
Author: Carolyn Brown
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date September 3, 2019
Steel Magnolias meets The Ya Ya Sisterhood from New York Times bestseller Carolyn Brown
Carlene Lovelle, owner of Bless My Bloomers lingerie shop, has everything she’s ever wanted: a loving husband, a successful small town business, and great friends who never disappoint.
However, that all changes when Carlene finds a pair of sexy red panties in her husband’s briefcase. She knows exactly who those panties belong to—they were purchased from her very own shop.
Carlene is shocked. Her marriage is over, her life in a tailspin. She’s humiliated, upset and heartbroken, but it’s time to move on to the anger stage of grieving.
Carlene finds that she has all she needs as the ladies of this small town rally around and teach her that revenge is a dish best served red-hot.
Excerpt: The Shop on Main Street
Some men are just born stupid. Some don’t get infected until later in life, but they’ll all get a case of it sometime. It’s in their DNA and can’t be helped.
Carlene could testify with her right hand raised to God and the left on the Good Book that her husband, Lenny, had been born with the disease and it had worsened with the years. Proof was held between her thumb and forefinger like a dead rat in the form of a pair of bikini underwear. They damn sure didn’t belong to her. Hell’s bells, she couldn’t get one leg in those tiny little things. And they did not belong to Lenny, either. Even if he had become an overnight cross- dresser, his ass wouldn’t fit into that skimpy pair of under- britches, not even if he greased himself down with bacon drippings.
They were bright red with a sparkling sequin heart sewn on the triangular front. They’d come with a matching corset with garter straps and fishnet hose. Carlene recognized them, because she’d designed the outfit herself at her lingerie shop, Bless My Bloomers. They belonged to a petite, size- four brunette with big brown eyes who had giggled and pranced when she saw herself in the mirror wearing the getup.
Carlene jumped when her cell phone rang. The ring tone said it was Lenny, but she was still speechless, staring at the scrap of satin in her hand.
She dropped to her knees on the carpet and bent forward into a tight ball, her blond hair falling over her face. She felt as if someone had kicked her firmly in the gut and she couldn’t breathe. In a few seconds she managed a sitting position, wrapped her arms around her midsection, and sucked in air, but it burned her lungs. The noise that came forth from her chest sounded like a wounded animal caught in a trap. Tears would have washed some of the pain away but they wouldn’t flow from her burning green eyes. Finally, she got control of the dry heaves and managed to pull herself up out of the heap of despair. Dear God, what was she going to do?
The brunette who’d bought the red- satin outfit had told her that she and her sugar daddy were going to Vegas, and she wanted something that would make him so hot he’d be ready to buy her an engagement ring. What was her name? Bailey? Brenda? No, something French, because Carlene remembered asking her about it. Bridget…that was it! Bridget had been to Vegas with Lenny. On how many other trips had he taken a bimbo with him and how many of them had been ten or fifteen years younger— and a size four, for God’s sake?
In seconds, the phone rang again. She picked it up and said, “Hello.” Her voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well or, maybe, a sewer pipe.
“Carlene, I left my briefcase in my office. I slept on the sofa to keep from waking you, since I got in so late last night. Bring it to me before you go to work, and hurry. There’s a contract in it that I need and the people will be here to sign in ten minutes. I’ll hold them off with coffee until you get here.”
No good- bye.
No thank you, darlin’.
Not even a please.
Did he talk to Bridget like that?
Anger joined shock and pain as she dropped the panties back in the briefcase and then removed the little card she’d made for him to find that morning. She’d written that she was sorry she had fallen asleep before he got home and that she’d make it up to him that night with champagne and wild sex. She stood up, straightening to her full statuesque height of just a couple of inches under the six- foot mark. Damn that sorry bastard to hell. How could he do this to her?
***
Excerpted from The Shop on Main Street by Carolyn Brown. © 2019 by Carolyn Brown. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.
