The Three Mrs. Wrights Read online

  ALSO BY LINDA KEIR

  Drowning with Others

  The Swing of Things

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Linda Keir

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542019705

  ISBN-10: 1542019702

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant

  For Mark Stevens

  CONTENTS

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Chapter One

  LARK

  What’s in a name? I say everything.

  —“How I Lied about My Name and Discovered My Truth,” a TED Talk by Jon M. Wright

  Hotel bars were not Lark’s scene. Fairly or unfairly, she associated them with balding, fiftysomething bros who ordered their second drinks while halfway through their first ones, and who one-upped each other’s sports injuries while name-dropping vacation spots to prove who had the fattest wallet and the biggest penis. Their jobs would be equally uninteresting: management consultant, investment adviser, salesman.

  Granted, at twenty-six, she had very little experience, so she was mostly just guessing. And yet here she was, in an honest-to-god hotel bar in the godforsaken town of Buffalo, New York, and she had to admit the place was living down to her imagination. Last updated in the early 1990s—so around the time she was born—the place held a sad handful of couples and singles, and the guy nearest her, the one twisting a heavy gold watch around his meaty wrist, looked like the third-generation owner of a regional waste-management company. A cheesy lounge trio would have provided welcome comic relief, but instead the piped-in music was soft rock from her mom’s teenage years.

  She was consoling herself that she’d be on her way home to sunny LA tomorrow afternoon when he walked in.

  He was tall and fit, with wavy brown hair that would look overdue for a haircut on anyone else. On him it somehow framed his face perfectly. As he made his way to the bar, Lark had the fleeting thought that he didn’t belong there—nobody truly belonged in a hotel bar in Buffalo, but he looked a cut above the rest of the customers. He was wearing jeans, a blue sport coat, a casually wrinkled white shirt, and brown leather shoes that cost more than any purse she’d ever owned. She looked away as he scanned the room, definitely not wanting him to catch her staring.

  Also, the bartender, buzzed hair and gap-toothed, was in front of her, tribal tats curling up his forearms and disappearing under his rolled shirtsleeves.

  “What can I get you, miss?” he asked.

  “Vodka and soda with a lemon.” One quick drink and then back to her room.

  He nodded seriously and turned away to pour it. Miss sounded a little too formal coming out of his mouth, but maybe he felt like he had to compensate for the tattoos by overcompensating on the professional front. Maybe he regretted the clichéd ink, among other poor life choices, and was dedicating himself to mixology. The hotel bar was his apprenticeship to growing a bushy beard and opening his own craft cocktail joint.

  She gave a quiet snort, amused at her ability to invent a life story for a random stranger who probably was nothing more than he appeared to be. When she looked down the bar, the brown-haired man caught her eye and gave the briefest smile, as if amused she was amused, before looking away.

  The bartender brought her drink, centered it on a napkin, and with a flourish scooped brown-and-orange snack mix into a tiny bowl before moving down the bar toward the brown-haired man, who was already in conversation with two middle-aged women. Within a minute, the four of them were laughing, and all four had drinks, even the bartender, who had apparently been purchased a shot by the brown-haired man.

  Lark hated schmoozers but had a grudging respect for the skill. She simply couldn’t understand how some people made a thousand easy friendships without wondering where they’d lead or how long they’d last. Her plan for tonight, after enjoying her token drink in a token hotel bar, was to turn in early and be at her best for the pitch meeting that had brought her to Buffalo in the first place.

  Except that she stayed for a second drink, watching in fascination as the brown-haired man made friends. He had an undeniable magnetism, and it was painfully obvious that both women would have slipped their room keys into his pants’ front pockets if he’d given them the slightest provocation. They were probably his age or a little bit older, and he was probably—what, forties?—but he wasn’t flirting with them. He was just . . . charming them. He didn’t seem to be making an effort to keep it going, though, and eventually, with obvious regrets, the two women paid their tabs and left. Waste Management had already gone, too, and when the bartender went out into the room to bus some tables, Lark and the brown-haired man were alone.

  Seeming to feel her looking at him, he turned and caught her. As a startlingly warm blush seared her face, he smiled, nodded, and turned back to the TV.

  Why isn’t he hitting on me? thought Lark, an embarrassing thought she’d tell no one ever. After all the needy drama that defined her relationship with Dylan, she definitely wasn’t looking for anything, but she knew she was attractive, knew her face and breasts and blue-streaked shoulder-length black hair had an effect, mostly because men were so bad at disguising their interest.

  Something she was apparently bad at, too.

  Was she interested? Or was the second vodka soda simply doing its work?

  “Keep staring at me and you’re going to have to buy me a drink,” the brown-haired man finally said, his eyes still on the TV and a sly smile in his voice.

  Fuck it, she thought. Hotel bar in Buffalo. Have a drink with a good-looking man.

  Sliding off her stool, she pushed her drink down the bar, leaving a snail trail of condensation behind, and sat down next to him.

  He turned, grinned, and offered a hand to shake. “I’m Trip.”

  “Lark. I guess both our parents liked four-letter words.”

  That made him laugh. He had full lips, appealingly imperfect teeth, and a few threads of silver in his thick head of hair.

  “Four-letter words are an essential component of parenting.”

  She wasn’t about to ask him whether he had kids.

  The bartender was back, hands spread on the bar, grinning like he thought he knew something.

  “I’ll have another,” she said, pushing her half-full, half-melted drink toward him because she really didn’t want to overdo it. “And whatever he’s having.”

  As the bartender went away, Trip leaned in ever so slightly.

  “I was wondering how long it would take you,” he said, not quite making eye contact.

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself,” she told him. What was it about him that made her lean in, too?

  He shrugged. “Don’t take that the wrong way. Nobody wants to spend an evening in Buffalo alone. Certainly no one should.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say hi first?”

  Trip studied his bottle of beer, rotating it slowly with his fingers. “Because I’m attracted to strong women. I wanted to see if you were one.”

  Her loss for words coincided perfectly with the bartender’s return. Fortunately, Trip thanked him in a way that clearly disinvited him from joining the conversation, and the bartender sidled away and picked up his phone.

  “What brings you to Buffalo?” he asked, angling his body so he was close but not
intrusively so.

  “Games,” she blurted.

  “Games?” he asked with a wry smile.

  “I’m a . . . board game designer. A Hunter-Cash scout spotted one of my prototypes at a toy fair and invited me to come in and pitch it to them. I have a meeting tomorrow.”

  “So you’d be selling your idea to them?”

  Lark sipped her drink. It was stronger than the last one, so either the bartender was pouring with a free hand or simply layering the vodka on top, hoping for a bigger tip. Which was a move she could appreciate from her waitressing days.

  “I’m not sure they’ll make an offer,” she answered finally. “But that’s why I’m here.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said, looking actually interested.

  Lark always hated this part. Sketching ideas, building prototypes, and watching people’s kids interact with them was so much fun she never felt time passing. Pitching her creations to people who understood investment, marketing, and sales—and Trip looked like he came from that world—always made her feel dry mouthed. Like a kid who really didn’t know how the world worked.

  On the other hand, this was perfect preparation for tomorrow.

  “It makes science fun for middle schoolers,” she said after taking a deep breath. “I designed it specifically for girls, because I always wanted to be a scientist, but I struggled with math and science in school.”

  “So you created the tools?”

  “I worked with some grad-student friends at UCLA who are studying how girls learn and came up with a board game that’s also a chemistry set.”

  “Interesting concept.”

  He was doing a perfect job of listening even if his main goal was to get into her pants—the thought of which didn’t sound nearly as bad to her as it should.

  “There are very basic, nontoxic agents that combine in different ways to create different outcomes. The game itself is kind of like Life, where you’re navigating a career, only here you’re trying to become a successful scientist. At key points you win things you get to pour into your beaker. And when you complete the game, you get the activating ingredient that does something simple but cool, like making the solution change color, or give off a puff of smoke, or suddenly crystallize.”

  She liked the way Trip waited until he was sure she was done before he spoke. And when he did say something, it was another question, not a piece of advice or an excuse to turn the conversation back to himself.

  “Can you play it more than once? Seems like it might be one and done.”

  One and done. Lark felt a pleasant shiver with the thought.

  “There are different possible outcomes each time, and enough supplies for four players to play six times before you have to order a replacement pack or an upgrade. Most board games are only played several times after they’re purchased anyway, so some parents may feel satisfied even if their kids only play once or twice.”

  “What do you call it?”

  “Activate! There’s probably a better name. I kept playing with the word solution, but I couldn’t figure it out.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Every time.”

  He tipped his beer bottle back and swallowed, then picked at the label while nodding thoughtfully. “I don’t really know the market, but it sounds like a terrific idea. And from the sound of your voice, I sense you might have a hard time letting it go.”

  As if she had the financial freedom to turn down a reasonable offer. Now she was getting nervous about pitching, and she really didn’t want to think about that right now.

  “What do you do?” she asked.

  Finally, he locked eyes with her. His brown irises were warm. “I could tell you, but I think we’d both be bored. And bored is the last thing I’m feeling right now.” He paused. Smiled. “How about I tell you in the morning?”

  Lark woke panicked, her mouth dry and her head faintly throbbing: Was it her room or his? How much time did she have before her meeting?

  A glance at her phone reassured her she had plenty of time, and a look around told her they were in her room. Her carry-on, never unpacked, lay neatly across the luggage caddy.

  And Trip, whose last name she still hadn’t learned, lay next to her, his breathing light and even. His clothes were draped over the chair on his side of the bed.

  She had friends who would have felt a stab of shame: they may have proudly worn pink Pussyhats but still had internalized the patriarchal preaching that girls didn’t do one-night stands. Lark was different. Her mom, a freethinker who’d written a book in the 1980s about feminist theory—a mostly forgotten tract for an academic press, but still a book—had told her since age sixteen that there was nothing wrong with having sexual desires and acting on them, as long as it was safely done. Which it had been. Twice.

  What she’d expected to feel was a sense of having completed a dare in service of a story she might tell her roommate, Callie. She’d fucked a handsome salt-and-pepper guy in a hotel in Buffalo, of all places, and it was awesome. Anonymous hotel-room sex and the guy had actually been a considerate—no, incredible—lover.

  What she was actually feeling was something different. Kind of—god, don’t think it—a glow. A tingly combination of satisfaction and the lust for more.

  She rolled onto her side so she could study him more closely.

  He opened one eye. “Morning, Lark,” he murmured, shifting toward her.

  And not that a guy deserved credit for remembering her name, but at least he wasn’t afraid to use it.

  In the gray light seeping around the edges of the drapes, he looked a couple of years older than he had last night, and she could see there was a lot more salt in his stubble than there was in the hair on his head. His hair was flat on one side and wild on the other. But those eyes, crinkled around the edges.

  That smile.

  He threw back the covers and, with his fingers, traced the tattoos visible just over her left hip, then nudged her onto her stomach so he could see the full-color scene on her back. The whole thing—Mauna Kea and the rolling waves of the Big Island, done by an artist who specialized in the Japanese style—had cost three years and thousands of dollars but had been worth every sting and every cent. Trip, as far as she could tell, was uninked.

  “I didn’t get a good look at this last night,” he murmured. “It’s amazing.”

  “My dad grew up in Compton, and my mom grew up in Hilo,” she told him, rolling back on her side. “I was born in Honolulu, but we moved to LA when I was little. A piece of my heart will always be in Hawaii, but I’m a California girl.”

  He grinned. “You’re not like any California girl I’ve ever met.”

  She didn’t even answer, just worked herself toward him, felt his insistent stiffening, and plucked another condom from the nightstand before climbing on top. Lark was not usually one for morning sex, for kisses laced with morning breath and for sheets smelling of sweat and alcohol. And they didn’t kiss. Where last night’s sex had been hot and frantic, despite his consideration, this morning they started slow, continued slow, and kept it going until she thought she was going to lose her mind.

  If she was being honest, the thing that put her over the edge was the eye contact. Those penetrating brown eyes locked on hers and never looked away, never gave her a moment to suspect he was thinking about another girl or the meetings he had to have scheduled this morning. His eyes, his smile, and the achingly slow crescendo as they moved in unison.

  He finished first but she was close, riding him, grinding against him, gripping his arms tighter and tighter until she finally came, surprising them both with a cry of relief and delight that quickly became happy laughter as she collapsed against his chest.

  “Morning, Trip,” she whispered.

  They ordered room-service breakfast and Trip signed it to his room, explaining to the bellhop that yes, he knew which room he was in at the moment. Wearing robes, they set the tray between them, fluffed up the pillows, and reclined while they worked their way through coffee and orange juice, toast, and mixed fruit, with a side of eggs and bacon for Trip. The toast was cold and the fruit was hard and flavorless, but Lark wolfed it down, hungrier than she’d been in months.

  She remembered her last breakfast with Dylan, the day she’d finally told him to move out. He’d been stringing her along for months as their relationship deteriorated, always insisting he was just about to land a job or sell his screenplay, until she began to suspect he hadn’t been trying at all and had simply been hoping she would have a change of heart. At their usual Saturday-morning spot, he ordered french toast smothered in syrup with a side of sausage patties—the same thing he’d had every single time for two and a half years—and she suddenly realized he would never change. She wanted a larger world, and he was content on her couch.