Ralphie’s Wives
Christine Rimmer
MILLS & BOON
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For Rebecca Reynolds
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
COMING NEXT MONTH
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was an adventure for me, from start to finish. And so many people reached out helping hands along the way.
To my sister-in-law Millie Stratton and my niece, Lily Dunning—thank you so much for sharing your stories of the Prairie Lady Music Hall. Those lucky enough to remember the Prairie Lady will see echoes of her in the Prairie Queen. To Susan Mallery, thanks always for the endless support and unflagging encouragement. To my plot group, I so couldn’t have done it without you. And to Susan Crosby, who read the first draft and suggested some great fixes—you’re the best.
For a variety of information about the OCPD and the workings of law enforcement in Oklahoma City, I am eternally grateful to Captain Jeffrey Becker of the OCPD and to Maggie Price. For last-minute medical counseling, thank you, Darlene Graham. And for help with my somewhat rusty Spanish, thanks to Leslie Crosby. All errors and omissions, medical and procedural, are completely my own.
PROLOGUE
Remember. If it has tires or testicles, you’re going to have trouble with it.
—from The Prairie Queen’s Guide to Life, by Goddess Jacks
AT A LITTLE AFTER 4:00 a.m. on April fifteenth, Ralphie Styles lay spread-eagled in the middle of an Oklahoma City street, face up, dizzy and bleeding. That was right after the beat-up red van rolled over him and drove off.
He heard a groaning sound and then, a moment later, realized the sound was coming from his own mouth. He stared up at the night sky and tried to move his legs. Nothing.
He tried his arms: no luck. His hand. No. A damn finger…
Wasn’t happening. Zero response from the various extremities. The control tower was operating on its own.
The good news was that he felt absolutely no pain.
Or maybe that was the bad news….
He listened. Heard water dripping nearby and a siren, far off, fading to nothing—not coming for him. He smelled asphalt and he tasted his own blood in his mouth.
Darla, he thought, the blood in his mouth mingling with his stunned awareness of her betrayal, making a taste like rusted iron. He remembered. All of it. Every day, every hour, every moment he’d had with her: Darla Jo Snider, who was now Darla Jo Styles.
Ralphie had known a lot of women in his fifty-eight years of life. Known them and loved them. It was his greatest natural talent: to love a woman and love her well. When Ralphie loved a woman, he loved her all the way and over the moon. When Ralphie loved a woman, she was the only one—for a while, at least. And when it was over, well, he went on loving her. Just in a different way.
Darla, though. Darla was…special. No. That wasn’t it. They were all special, every woman he had loved. But Darla? Well, with Darla, Ralphie had been certain that he’d found her at last—found the woman he’d always been looking for, the one he’d hold on to for the rest of his life, the one from whom he would never stray.
A tiny smile tipped the torn edges of what was left of his mouth. He’d been right about Darla. Oh, yes, he had. Because in spite of everything, he still loved her. He couldn’t help himself. And since the rest of his life was beginning to look a lot shorter than anticipated, it was pretty damn likely he’d be loving Darla Jo when he died.
Ralphie stared up at the faint, faraway stars and managed to whisper her name to the night. “Darla Jo.” And he felt pain then, though that particular pain did not reside in any of the broken parts of his body.
It seemed so wrong, for this to be happening. He hadn’t even mailed in his tax return yet. And damn, he could use a smoke. Just one more. For the road…
Ralphie swallowed blood. Everything was kind of slowing down. And he was floating, not exactly able to care much that he was lying in the middle of the street in the darkness before dawn—all alone, bleeding, his arms and legs limp and unresponsive as slabs of raw
