Excerpt from The Badass Widows

Prologue

Beth wore an itchy black dress and the biggest damn sunglasses she could find. She didn’t wear them to hide tear-swollen eyes, she wore them to hide her attitude. As the minister droned on, she glanced around the church. The pews were overflowing with people. Where had they been when she needed them? Nowhere, that’s where. Beth’s grown daughter, Marly, stood at her side with eyes streaming, lost in her own pain. Across the front of the sanctuary were showy floral displays, or “guilt flowers” as Beth thought of them.

She had retired early to take care of Jamie. Her thirty years with the FBI had in no way prepared her to be a caregiver, but she’d figured it out on her own. She’d ordered their groceries online, and only left the house for pointless trips to the doctor’s office. Her universe shrank until it fit entirely within their four walls. Jamie had kept his wonderful sense of humor for a while. His bushy eyebrows signaled their private language when he could no longer speak. But eventually his brows grew still over vacant eyes. Beth had been powerless against the disease. All that had kept her going was sheer stubbornness, a trait she had in abundance.

Beth had worked her way through the so-called stages of grief before Jamie died. Okay, so maybe she had circled back and pitched a tent in “Angry Town” for a while. But now that Jamie was truly gone, she was determined to forge a new life for herself. She just had to figure out what kind of life that was, a surprisingly difficult task. Everyone seemed to expect her to quietly join a garden club for her “golden years.” Not bloody likely. Beth straightened her shoulders and brought her attention back to the minister.