The Red Hat Society's Domestic Goddess by Regina Hale Sutherland Page A

Judy’s divorce. He always wished he’d done more to help. Theresa accepted that there
     were some times when nothing could help. She really hoped that this wasn’t one of them, though.
    “Help us,” Theresa appealed, wrapping her fingers around his hand as it swung at his side.
    “How?”
    “Join the class,” she beseeched him.
    “I’m not a bachelor.”
    “Neither is Millie’s son. Yet.”
    He turned toward her, stopping on the sidewalk, just outside their end unit. There were three in their building, with arched
     windows and doors, shining bright in the street lamps. The moonlight shone on Wally, caught a question in his shadowy green
     eyes. He wondered if that
yet
applied to him, too.
    She looked hard for the young man he’d once been. The one who, like a gentleman, would walk her home after their dates and
     steal kisses on her front porch. Maybe it was darker than she thought because she couldn’t see him. All she saw was an old
     man with graying hair and tired eyes, a man who’d given up, not just his business, but the life he used to lead. A stranger.
    She squeezed his fingers, and maybe he felt her desperation because he nodded.
    “All right. I’ll be one of your pupils.”
    And Theresa couldn’t help but wonder if the marriage they were trying to save was
theirs.
    S weat dripped from Kim’s hair and slid down the back of her neck. Theresa called it “perspiring” but she never admitted to
     actually doing it. Kim snorted. No matter the intensity of the class, Theresa barely glistened. On the other hand, she and
     Millie sweated. They weren’t classy ladies, not like their glistening friend.
    Kim was a little irritated with Theresa. She’d skipped her class to play welcome wagon lady to some new Hilltop resident.
     Maybe Kim’s new neighbor. The SOLD sign had been up in front of the unit next to hers for a while now.
    Kim really hoped her new neighbor wasn’t allergic to cats because that old fleabag was going to be Kim’s welcome-to-the-neighborhood
     gift. Heck, the cat had lived there first; it was only fitting it should live there again.
    It.
    Was it a male? Probably. That would explain why it hogged the whole bed and why, no matter how many times she told it not
     to, it kept climbing onto the kitchen counter. The thing couldn’t be trained, so it had to be a male. And when Kim was leaving
     the house, it wound between her legs, leaving cat hair all over her pants. Marking its territory. Definitely a male.
    Kim bent over, digging a towel from her duffel bag. She had just hooked it around her neck when she felt holes boring through
     her gray yoga pants and white leotard, into her backside. The feeling was familiar since Mr. Lindstrom spent more of the class
     staring at her rear end than attempting any of the exercises.
    But the class was over; Mr. Lindstrom and everyone else was gone. Millie was off working on Plan B to get her sons to join
     the Bachelor Survival Course, and she’d had to go grocery shopping before the lunch they’d scheduled with their Red Hat chapterettes.
     Kim had thought she was alone in the community center basement, but for the wide assortment of exercise equipment arranged
     around the area where she conducted her class in front of a wall of mirrors.
    She was not alone.
    She was being stared at. She could actually feel it. Hot. Another trail of sweat dribbled down, this one between her breasts.
     She put her hand back in her duffel bag, feeling around for Harry.
    “Kim,” Theresa’s soft voice called out, “I thought you were gone since class was over. But I see Mr. Fowler found you.”
    As she straightened up and turned, she looked first to her friend. From the twinkle in Theresa’s eyes, she knew what Kim had
     been reaching for. Then Kim turned toward Mr. Fowler of the hot stare.
    She hadn’t minded missing last night’s movie. Leo was not her thing, nor was she into Pierce Brosnan like Millie had once
     confessed she was. Kim was more into