Crazy For You by Sandra Edwards Page B

Glen. Glenna didn’t
deserve that. She truly loved her husband, and this was the thanks
she got. Glen’s infidelity.
    And then there was Rich. How could he claim to love
Candy when he openly amused himself every night with a different
girl?
    One morning around six a.m., after she and Frank had
had a magnificent go of it, Roxanne lay comfortably draped over him
and decided to share her feelings about all the debauchery.
“Frankie...?” she called his name softly.
    “Uh huh.” Frank was almost asleep.
    “Why does Rich fool around so much if he’s
supposedly got it so bad for Candy?”
    “Well, she’s the one that doesn’t want any
commitments,” he said, a little more coherently. “And you can’t
expect him to swear off other women when he’s got it bad for a girl
who doesn’t want anything from him but sex.”
    Frank had a point. Maybe Roxanne had labeled Rich’s
guilt a little too quickly, but that didn’t mean she had to like
it. All she had to do was ignore it. Just block it out and it would
go away.
    “What about Glen?” she asked, her tone still
serene.
    “What about Glen?”
    “Well, he and Glenna are married.” Her tone took on
a definite edge.
    “Look,” Frank said hesitantly, “they have a strange
relationship.” He wasn’t exactly thrilled discussing Glen and
Glenna. “It’s better left alone.”
    Roxanne sat up abruptly. “So you condone his
actions?” she questioned him in a judgmental way.
    Frank, fully awake now, pushed himself up and leaned
against the headboard. “I didn’t say that.” His outward exterior
remained calm as he tried to conceal his true opinion. “I’m just
saying it’s none of my business. But that doesn’t mean I condone
what they do.” A hint of warning echoed in his voice. “You belong
to me. No one else is to have you.”
    “I take it that you practice what you preach?” she
asked amid a soft giggle.
    “I always practice what I preach,” he said with a
gentle laugh. His arrogance made an appearance at the prospect of
provoking jealousy in her. “I also understand…if you don’t want to
go to the bar every night, that’s okay too.” Frank thought he had
Roxanne figured out.
    He could see her struggling with what she regarded
as betrayal on Glen and Rich’s part. He didn’t necessarily disagree
with her either. He just had very different ideas about who was
being betrayed by whom.
    In the end, Frank and Roxanne compromised on the
nightclub issue. She would accompany him to the clubs on the
weekends, but during the week she’d wait for him at the motel.
    It took Roxanne about a week to get tired of
watching television while Frank rocked out at the neighborhood bar.
After that, it didn’t take long for an old passion to resurface.
Back in high school, she’d entertained her friends with her short
stories. When she married Chuck the writing stopped. She didn’t
know why. It just stopped.
    She hadn’t wanted to write anything in such a long
time. But she wanted to write now. In her mind, she’d concocted two
lovers suitably designed for one another, and placed them smack-dab
in the middle of a perfectly troubled world. Now the story longed
to be told.
    The tale of Ben and Cherie, star-crossed lovers with
the odds stacked against them, consumed Roxanne’s waking thoughts.
But she intended to see that love does conquer all. Every night
while Frank ventured out, rocking the clubs, she secretly crafted
her story. She decided to make Ben a rock star from another
country, where upon visiting the United States he met Cherie, who
had no idea who he was. And Ben wouldn’t let on. He wanted Cherie
to like him, not who he was….
    Roxanne decided to title the book The Secret. In
keeping with the theme of the story, she decided to keep her own
little secret. Elusive about the whole thing, she opted not to tell
Frank or anyone else about her project.
    It didn’t take Roxanne long to realize that she
needed help molding Ben’s character. And who