Batting her lashes and pulling her mouth into a sympathetic pucker, she used her best Betty Boop impression to say, “But I thought you said your Hummer was indestructible.”

If possible, Zack’s face mottled an even darker shade of red. His eyes were so wide, they were practically solid white with only pinpricks of blue at the pupils, and he looked ready to explode.

“Arrest her!” he burst out instead, pointing a shaking finger at her while nudging Gage in the ribs with his elbow.

Gage raised a brow, startled by his sudden demand. He glanced from Zack to Grace and back again. “What?”

“You heard me,” Zack continued at a volume she suspected could be heard not only throughout the entire craft store, but at the other end of the strip mall where it was located. “Arrest her. Slap the cuffs on her, read her her rights, and drag her down to the pokey. I want her locked up for breaking and entering, theft because she took Bruiser, destruction of property, and just plain being a bitch.” His tone lowered at the last and he delivered the insult as though it were supposed to be a great, painful stab to her heart.

Grace nearly snorted. After walking in on him five minutes after he’d Zamboni-ed some random tramp, being called a nasty name didn’t make a dent.

Rising gracefully to her feet, she faced him full on, only the imitation-leather armchair separating them.

“I may be a bitch,” she told him, her voice turning frosty for the first time since he’d walked into the store and started tossing around accusations, “but I’m a faithful bitch. You, on the other hand, are a lying, cheating bastard, who doesn’t deserve a nice vehicle, doesn’t deserve a nice apartment, and most certainly doesn’t deserve a sweet little dog like Bruiser.”

If Zack noticed her positive reference to the Saint Bernard when in the past she’d mostly complained about how big, stinky, and in the way he was, he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he latched on to the rest of her diatribe.

A muscle in Zack’s jaw jumped as he ground his teeth. Leaning forward until they were nearly nose to nose, he said, “For your information, I didn’t lie and I didn’t cheat. Something I’d have explained to you if you’d stop being pissed off for five minutes and answered your goddamn phone!”

“Oh,” she replied tartly, “I suppose that bimbo was in your bed because she started choking on a salad shrimp during a promotional banquet and you decided to take her up to your hotel room to give her the Heimlich, right? And somehow during all the chaos, everybody’s clothes just fell off.”

“I didn’t take her to my room,” Zack insisted, eyes narrowed in growing frustration. “I didn’t even know she was there.”

“Yeah, and there’s this great piece of swampland in Florida I’m thinking of buying for a summer getaway.” She snorted. “I may have been dumb enough to date you for three years, but I’m not a complete idiot. You’re lucky your Hummer wasn’t set on fire, too.”

“So you admit you did those things. I told you,” he said, elbowing Gage again. “See, she confessed. Arrest her.”

“I didn’t confess to anything,” she replied softly. “I was simply making a statement. If someone else feels the same way about you as I do and decided to mete out a bit of karmic justice… well, I say, Yay, them. And screw you, Zack.”

Balling his hands into fists, he jabbed them on his hips and ground out, “Dammit, I didn’t cheat on you, Grace. You’d know that if you’d answer one of my phone calls and give me five fucking minutes to explain.”

“You don’t need to explain. I’ve got eyes to see and a brain that’s fully capable of adding two plus two to get four. And you can spend your five fucking minutes fucking someone else from now on.”

With that, she used her foot to rearrange some of the yarn on the floor that had gotten moved around and took her seat once again, returning to the job of unraveling as though none of the men hovering behind her even existed.

She heard grumbling, but couldn’t quite make out what Zack was saying beneath his breath. Obviously, some of the wind had been taken out of his sails-something that should have pleased her, but didn’t.

If she’d been home alone, she probably would have been curled up in bed by now with… Rex? King? Tonto?… and another pint of Ben and Jerry’s. As it was, she was hanging on to her composure by a thread thinner than the yarn she was even now pulling loose from her wedding gown pattern.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t anger that threatened to bubble over, but sorrow, and she hoped to hell Zack left before she burst into tears and let him know how much he’d hurt her.

Thankfully, he did, but not without a bit of prompting from his friends.

“Come on,” Dylan said. “Let’s get out of here. You’ll feel better after a couple of beers.”

“I’ll feel better after she’s behind bars,” Zack quipped, and she could imagine a sneer twisting his lips. Ironically, his tone didn’t seem to carry the same vehemence of only minutes before.

Even knowing he couldn’t see the gesture, Grace raised a brow and calmly said, “And I’ll feel better after you break out in genital herpes and your cock falls off.”

Purl 14

“You hope he breaks out in genital herpes and his cock falls off?”

Ronnie repeated the line for what had to be the six-thousandth time, followed by her six-thousandth chortle of laughter. This one just happened to be limoncello-induced.

Jenna was sipping at her own bright yellow drink, but even though Grace’s parting remark to Zack had been amusing, she hadn’t gotten quite as big a kick out of it as Ronnie apparently had.

After Zack had stormed out of the craft store with Gage and Dylan in tow, the ladies had continued on with their meeting. It had been a bit beyond them to pretend nothing had happened, but Grace had staunchly refused to comment on Zack’s accusations, remarking only on his infidelities and some of the less insane ways she’d handled it.

Not that taking scissors to a man’s hockey scrap-book and abducting his two-hundred-pound canine sounded particularly sane to anyone listening.

The women had all agreed, however, that she’d had every right to toss his clothes into the street-which had then led to a discussion about the classic scene in Waiting to Exhale when Angela Bassett’s character had stuffed everything her cheating husband owned into his car, doused it with lighter fluid, and set it afire.

Jenna cringed at the reminder, afraid it might be giving Grace fresh ideas. As it was, Grace took a tiny notepad out of her purse and jotted down the titles of every wronged-woman film the others in the group could recommend. Waiting to Exhale, Fatal Attraction, Double Jeopardy, and Chicago topped the list, but there were so many, Jenna thought she might have to confiscate Grace’s video rental card before she got the chance to do any more “research” into the fine art of making a man’s life a living Hell.

Soon enough, though, the meeting had broken up, and Grace, Ronnie, and Jenna had all agreed to head over to The Penalty Box for a drink. Even though she knew Gage would be there, waiting for her, Jenna felt the need to suggest that perhaps they go somewhere else. Because, of course, Zack would be there, too, and the way Jenna saw it, putting Grace and Zack in the same room together-even a very large room, filled with dozens of other people-was a recipe for disaster.

But Grace didn’t want to avoid the Box, she informed them haughtily. She wanted to go there, order a martini the size of Lake Erie, and have a good time, if only to prove to Zack that he couldn’t scare her away.

The Penalty Box had been their hangout for as long as Jenna could remember. Not just Zack’s and Grace’s, but the entire gang’s.