Prologue
“Mom, Seth hit me!” “I did not!”
“You did!”
“Boys, if you don’t settle down, I’m going to turn this car around and take you back home.”
Emma glanced in the rear view mirror at her two sons. “And then you’ll have to sit in your bedrooms until your father gets home.”
“But he won’t be home until Friday,” Justin moaned.
“Exactly.” The boys immediately sat back, clutched their hands in their laps, and stared straight ahead as they had been told to do too many times to count.
Emma slowed the car for a stop sign, glancing into the rear view mirror with a stern, warning look one last time before jabbing the power button on the radio. Exchange one noise for another.
Her thoughts were a million miles away. As a popular pop song infused the car with its deep bass beat, she found herself thinking about recent trips she had made to the Pilot Point Spa and Resort. Or the Ranch, as it was called by its customers. She knew she should feel guilty, especially in light of the places those trips had taken her, both metaphorically as well as literally, but somehow the guilt lessened the more often she went. Was that how it was when he cheated on her?
She had known about Steve’s infidelity for what felt like forever, and yet, it seemed to color everything she did. Even now, as she went about her normal, Tuesday afternoon routine, she found herself wondering what he was doing while attending this software convention in New Mexico. Was he sharing his bed with a woman? Was she prettier than Emma? Did she do things Steve had never asked Emma to do? It drove her crazy, her mind spinning in circles as she thought about it.
Maybe that was why she didn’t feel so guilty about the time she’d spent at the spa. Or elsewhere. Emma eased the car around a corner, the park where the boys’ soccer practice was about to be held just two blocks ahead. She eased to a stop at a red light. The pop song had ended and the monotonous voice of a newscaster was talking about the state senate campaigns, an upcoming carnival, and other, trivial things she didn’t want to think about right now. Emma reached over to change the station when she heard a familiar name.
“…found dead today inside his Pilot Point home of what appears to be a suicide. Thomas Morgan was only twenty-five.”
The color drained from Emma’s face. She could feel it, feel the tingle of her nerves reacting to the sudden lack of blood flow. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, her foot pressing so hard on the brake that she was nearly standing. She stared at the radio as though she could see the newscaster’s face, as though she could somehow convince him that what he had just said was a lie. Tommy could not be dead. Not her Tommy.
The Fantasy Maker Description:
In her debut novel, The Fantasy Maker, author Emily Kendricks writes of a relatable everyday woman—Emma. Emma’s husband has recently been elected mayor of the small town of Denton, Texas. She is a loving mother and a loving wife, but Emma is a woman—whose well-intentioned husband simply can’t, or won’t, fulfill her intimate desires.
In an effort to alleviate her sexual frustrations, Emma’s friend introduces her to a ‘members only’ club, ‘The Ranch’—where pleasure is the main attraction for the wives of Denton’s rich and powerful. What begins as pampering full-body massages and mani-pedis, transitions into tantalizing pleasures beyond Emma’s wildest dreams.
Being the wife of Texas’s most promising young politician, Emma is at risk for exposure. In an unexpected turn of events, Emma’s new found pleasure becomes a secret that could destroy both her marriage—and her husband’s career.
