Read The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off for Free Online Page A

five in a limo. We can discuss this over champagne on the way.” Lenny lowered his voice seductively.
    â€œAre you insane? You cheated on me. Is Bridget pregnant?” Carlene screamed into the phone.
    â€œI only slipped this one time, Carlene, and no, she’s not pregnant,” Lenny said.
    â€œAnd now you are lying. Your precious Bridget told me that you’ve been seeing her for five months.”
    Silence.
    â€œWell?” she said.
    â€œWhen you cool down, call me. We can work through this. You’ve been so busy with your business that you haven’t had any time for me,” he said. “I even made time for you when the Chili Kings and I were working on the cook-off every year. But since you got that damned old store, you’ve been ignoring me.”
    â€œThis is not my fault!” She wished that cell phones had a button that made the sound of someone slamming a receiver down violently. But they didn’t so she beat it against the door frame and hoped that it burst his eardrum.
    ***
    Patrice always used a tape measure when she had to leave her lair of figures and computers to help out in the sales department.
    Kim measured out to be a 34C. Patrice was envious. She’d love to be that size so that she could buy her bras anywhere but oh, no, she got a healthy dose of the Cordell genes and they shared DNA with Guernsey milk cows.
    Carlene took a common C-cup bra and Patrice had always been jealous of her, too. And she’d been jealous of Carlene when she’d landed Lenny Lovelle. He’d chased everything that wore a skirt from the time he was old enough to know the difference in little girls and boys. Everyone in Cadillac had figured he’d have a trophy wife if and when he ever settled down. So it had come as a big surprise when he proposed to Carlene Carmichael, a slightly overweight woman who worked at a bank in Sherman.
    She met Carlene coming out of the stockroom with a dozen bras lined up on her arm. “What or who were you screaming at in there? Did Lenny call?”
    Carlene nodded. “He’s acting all cool as a cucumber. He wants me to go with him to dinner. Limo, wine, and the whole works while we talk about the problem. And it’s my fault because I’ve been working too hard. According to him he even made time for me during this beloved old chili cook-off,” Carlene whispered.
    â€œScrew him and feed him fish heads.” Patrice rattled off one of their favorite sayings.
    â€œI don’t want to screw him and I’d rather feed him poison.”
    They walked away from each other and Patrice picked out a dozen bras to take back to the dressing room. She looked down at her own endowment and sighed. It was a good thing that she wasn’t in the church choir. If she had to jump around doing choreography while singing “Shout for Joy” she’d sure enough have a problem with her shirt popping buttons and her boobs falling out for the whole congregation to see.
    When Patrice hung the bras around the dressing room, Kim picked out her favorite two and Patrice waited outside. It wasn’t long until Kim jerked the curtain back. There she stood in jeans and high heels and a black lacy bra.
    Damn, that brought back memories.
    Patrice had been the last one of the three cousins to turn twenty-one and the other two girls had taken her out for a party in Dallas. That was six years ago and her first and only one-night stand. That damn Lenny Joe Lovelle was sexy as hell, smooth talking, and he’d come on to her after the other girls had already gone up to their hotel room. She’d stayed for just one more drink and suddenly there he was on the bar stool next to her with that big smile on his sexy face.
    Thirty minutes later she was weaving in front of an oversized mirror in the hotel room in nothing but jeans, a black lacy bra, and high-heeled shoes. The next morning she had chalked it up to too much whiskey and he never