chapter 1

"Life doesn't get much better than this.”

Ellie Boatman Conger laughed heartily at her friend Tammy's comment as she stretched out on the chaise, her eyes closed tightly against the bright Florida sunshine.

Carefully smoothing a thin white coating of sun tan lotion over her legs, Tammy continued, “I mean, I love my family as much as the next gal but hell, a body deserves a tiny little break every now and again.”

From the lounge next to Ellie, Mary Beth chimed in with glee.

“I swear the only way Buck even knows I'm gone is that the dirty dishes don't magically place themselves in the dishwasher. I suspect he believes it's the work of some kind of Sink Fairy. You know, like Santa and the Easter Bunny. Only the Sink Fairy comes every night and takes his big ‘ole stack of greasy plates and...poof! Lord only knows how he thinks those plates get themselves back into the cupboard.”

She shook her head in mock disgust.

“We've got their mamas to blame. Buck's mom spoiled him so. When I married him, the man didn't even know how to open a can of soup, let alone heat it.”

Sitting up slowly, Ellie reached for the glass of iced tea sitting on the small table next to her.

It was a shame this was their last day of vacation.

The three friends had been making this annual pilgrimage to Ellie's house in Wellington for what seemed like forever, long before the Ya-Yas had proclaimed their sisterhood. Once a year, usually late in September after their children had settled themselves once more into the back-to-school grind, the trio would load up their suitcases and head south. They jokingly referred to this trek as their “Thelma-and-Louise-and-Lulu-Belle-Birds-of-A-Feather-Southern-Migration.” For one week out of the year, they could recapture their rowdy, raucous bachelorette days without worrying about traumatizing—or embarrassing—their spouses and offspring.

Over the years though, the all-night partying started drawing to a close earlier and earlier and their adventures grew progressively tamer. For the last few years, it was a delight just to lie in the sun or be able to enjoy a good book without being interrupted. Or having to drive someone somewhere.

Squinting, Ellie read her wristwatch and frowned.

“I hate to break up the festivities ladies, but our flight leaves in four hours. Let's see, that's two hours to get through security, an hour to shower and get done up, and Miss Tammy…”

She paused and winked at Mary Beth.

“It leaves an hour for you to do your hair. Will that be enough?”

“Not my fault that y'all let yourself go to seed,” Tammy yawned, refusing to rise to the bait.

Ellie and Tammy had first met years ago on the pageant circuit, a virtual rite of passage for Southern girls. While Ellie had long ago cropped her once waist length hair to a short manageable bob (it saved time which between the kids and the farm was in very short supply), Tammy clung stubbornly to her beauty queen bouffant. Try as they might the friends couldn't dissuade Tammy from this hairstyle which, truth be told, had looked dated even when it was in style. Tammy cherished the years she'd been, among others, Miss Yellow Neck Squash, Miss Greater Tulley County and Miss Boonesville Agricultural Days. Her booty—the sashes, tiaras, and trophies—still held a place of honor in her home, carefully positioned around the fireplace.

Lately though, Tammy's daughter, with her mom's coaching and enthusiastic support, had been racking up an impressive string of titles. Just before the group had taken off for Florida, they'd cheered Riley's twin triumphs as Little Miss Southern Charm and Supreme Champion Southern Charm Talent Pre-Junior Division. There hadn't been a dry eye in the house when she finished her heart-felt rendition of “I'm My Momma's Little Ray of Sunshine,” a song Tammy had commissioned specially from a professional song writer in Nashville.

“I just don't know where the week went,” sighed Mary Beth. “Buck and the boys are picking me up at the airport and I just know they will probably be wearing the same jeans they had on the day I left. I just pray it isn't the same underwear. Is there anything on the planet less hygienic then a teenage boy? My theory is, ya know how everyone says that the boys are growing like weeds? It's because they carry their own dirt around with them!”

Ellie smiled. God, she hoped it wasn't true. She had three children, Tate the oldest, and Noel and Chrissy, the twins. She had it all to look forward to eventually—filthy teenage boys and an emotionally overwrought teenage daughter.

“Anyone for one last swim?” Ellie asked, standing up and adjusting her bathing suit. For the mother of three she still looked pretty good. Not as good as in her pageant prime but that had been more than twenty years earlier.

“And get my hair wet!” Tammy shrieked in mock horror. “We'd have to stay an extra week just to get it dry.”

“I think I'm going to head in,” Mary Beth said as she stood gathering her things. “I still have a few things left to pack. And I need to cut all the price tags off the new clothes I bought. That way, if Buck happens to notice, and Lord knows that's a real long shot, I can just sweetly say Why Hon, I've had that dress for ages! You remember when I wore it to your mother's? It works every time!”

She headed back into the house through the enclosed patio.

Diving in, Ellie cut through the water with long, easy strokes. The water was cool, almost cold. Fall was definitely coming and while it came milder in Florida than back home in Kentucky, she could still feel winter lurking just around the corner. Ellie would be back to Florida again in January for the horse show circuit. The Winter Equestrian Festival was one of the premiere horse show events in the nation with almost five thousand horses competing. Each year Ellie brought five or six of the ponies she had bred to be exhibited and sold to new young riders.

Reaching the end of the pool, Ellie easily flipped over and swam back towards the other end. In the middle, she stopped and rotated, now floating lazily along on her back.

It really had been a great week. But she was ready to be home. She missed Roy and the kids, not to mention the assorted ponies, cattle, goats, chickens, and numerous cats and dogs who called Promise Keep Farm home.

“Come on Esther Williams, we need to get a move on if we are going to make our plane,” Tammy coaxed. “Everybody out of the pool!”

She extended her hand to Ellie who reluctantly paddled over to where Tammy waited patiently. She reached up, took the proffered hand, and pulled herself out of the water. Tammy threw a fresh towel at her.

“Here ya go. Dry yourself off. I'll see you inside. Dibs on the Jacuzzi,” Tammy announced firmly, leaving no room for argument.

Ellie toweled herself with the ample and plush towel. As she swabbed at her shoulders she felt a tug.

The clasp of the necklace Roy had given her the day she departed for Florida had caught in the pile of the cloth.

Just before she had left on her trip, moments before Mary Beth and Tammy had arrived in the limo to pick her up (another part of the annual tradition), Roy had come to her bedroom and placed a small velvet box on the dresser.

“Enjoy yourself,” he said quietly as he turned and headed back downstairs to his office. When she opened the box, she was surprised to see an exquisite diamond and opal pendant hung on what appeared to be an antique gold chain.

Now, cursing, Ellie gently tried to untangle the necklace but it was caught tight. She awkwardly struggled to extricate the fine gold chain from the fabric but she couldn't really see where the problem was as it had gotten caught up near her shoulder out of her sight. Slowly, she attempted to bring the tangle to the front but thetension on the delicate chain was too much.

The chain broke. The pendant fell at her feet.

“Shit!”

Ellie extricated the broken chain from the towel and stooped with annoyance to pick up the pendant. How could she be so careless? Roy would be angry. Maybe she could have it repaired before he noticed. He'd been so busy with work lately his hours were long and erratic. With any luck she could have the piece in to Frank to repair and be wearing it again with Roy none the wiser.

Immediately Ellie felt a pang of guilt. Here she was thinking about deceiving Roy when he had been sweet enough to buy her the necklace for no reason, no special occasion. Who said the romance in a marriage disappeared with time?

Hurrying back into the house, Ellie stopped just for a moment to wrap the necklace in a tissue and stuff it in a zippered pocket of her suitcase.

After a quick shower and five minutes with a blow dryer, Ellie was ready to go. She pulled on a well-worn pair of jeans and a pale blue tailored cotton shirt. She grabbed a pair of sandals, wishing instead she could put on her favorite pair of paddock boots. At the farm, Ellie spent so much time in her boots that they were as comfortable for her as Nikes were for most people. But Tammy had long ago banned Ellie's boots from the Migration.

“No my darlin'! There is no way you're wearin' those shit kickers when we are playin' sexy young things. Nope, not goin' to happen!”

She would not be moved on this point.

So Ellie brought along open-toed sandals. She only really got to wear them once a year for the trip because, given all her livestock, the slippers were far too impractical to wear at the farm!

Tammy, Mary Beth, and Ellie collected in the living room, just as the limo pulled into the driveway. Handing the driver their bags, they settled comfortably into the back seat.

“Okay then,“ Mary Beth announced, leaning forward and removing a bottle of champagne from the minibar. “Time to toast a great Migration!”

Ellie slid open the concealed panel in the back of the car and took out three crystal flutes, offering one each to Tammy and Mary Beth and keeping one for herself. Mary Beth peeled the black foil from the neck of the bottle and with a practiced move, removed the cork with a resounding pop. Then she carefully poured the champagne into her and Tammy's glasses without spilling a drop—no easy feat as the car sped along. Pushing the cork back firmly into the bottle with the flat of her hand, she replaced it in the small fridge and took out a bottle of root beer.

“And for you...”

She handed the amber bottle to Ellie who twisted off the cap and poured the frothy hazel liquid into her own glass.

“Thank you kindly,' Ellie smiled.

“How long..?” Tammy asked with a note of sincere admiration in her voice.

“Clean and sober thirteen years, five months, and twenty-two days,” Ellie announced. It had been the hardest challenge she'd ever faced and each day was a victory to be proudly recounted.

“Darlin', you are my hero,” Tammy proclaimed with all the unabashed pride she showed for her daughter's achievements.

“All righty then.” Mary Beth, ever the organizer, brought them back to the task at hand. “Ladies, raise your glasses. A toast, to our family and friends and how wonderful it is to leave ‘em all behind for seven of the shortest days of the year!”

“Here, here!”

The three raised their glasses, brought them together with a sharp clink, and then took a deep swallow.

“To us old, and I do mean old, friends. Who know all we are and all we have been and still love us in spite of it!” offered Tammy with a sly wink.

The three repeated their ritual, giggling wickedly as they did.

Finally, as it had been in all the years past, it was Ellie's turn.

“May the year ahead bring us all the pleasure and happiness of the year we leave behind, ‘cause we all are not getting any younger. Seems like a fair request to me!”

“Amen to that,” Tammy agreed with a nod. “Next year, I may have to forego our little adventure and take the week to pay a visit to Dr. Hal!” she pronounced seriously, invoking the name of Lexington's best-known plastic surgeon.

“You have got to be kiddin'!” Mary Beth was clearly appalled. “If you go down that path, where does that leave the rest of us who weren't third runner up Miss Kentucky 19 blah blah blah!” She knew better than to state the actual year, which was a touchy subject for Tammy.

“I'm not sayin' I will,” Tammy tried to reassure her, “but I am getting to a certain age where I need all the help I can get!”

There was silence for a moment as the trio considered this undeniable fact. None of them would ever see their twenties or even thirties again. Hell, Ellie thought in the hush, she didn't feel old. She in fact felt more secure and more balanced than she had been in her younger days. But, truth be told, Tammy was right. They were, at least by the chronological definition, middle age women.

“And that is why the good Lord, in all his wisdom created marriage,” Mary Beth explained. “‘Cause our husbands will always see us as the gorgeous young twenty-somethings they married.”

“No darlin', that is why the good Lord made our eyesight grow worse as we aged. So we can't see what's in front of us!” Tammy corrected. “So I say ‘amen' for husbands with myopia!”

The car pulled up to the West Palm Beach terminal and the friends disembarked. They checked in and cleared security quickly. Boarding the plane, Ellie reflected again on how much she enjoyed this yearly respite. Her life at home was so filled, hectic—Roy, the kids, the animals, running the farm, her charity work and the numerous boards and committees she sat on. She had to admit that sometimes weeks could go by without her realizing the passage of time. She was up at six every morning and seldom went to bed before one or two. Even though each year as the Migration approached she felt pangs of guilt for all the tasks she was leaving undone and responsibilities she was forced to delegate, it was just as certain each year she returned refreshed and renewed.

As her daddy always said, “Honey, you wouldn't ask a racehorse to race every single day of the year. You know he'd need a rest. Now why would you do for a horse what you wouldn't do for yourself?”

The flight went smoothly with none of the turbulence Ellie hated—she much preferred driving to Florida! She flipped absentmindedly through the People magazine she'd bought at the airport, only mildly interested in what famous celebrity was walking out on some other equally famous entertainer. Ellie had no taste for gossip; she was too direct a person to find much sense in it.

Coming in to Lexington, Ellie admired the view from her window. Vast green pastures growing Kentucky's most valuable crop, thoroughbred racehorses. While Ellie herself chose to breed and train pony hunters for the horse show circuit, most of her good friends were third or fourth generation horse breeders, a few of whom were even lucky enough to claim a Derby winner from their lines.

The plane touched down with a jarring thud and Ellie took a deep breath aware at last of how tense she had grown during the landing. The unfamiliar noises and sudden drops in altitude caused her to grip the arm of her chair until her fingers lost all feeling. Intellectually, she knew flying was one of the safest forms of travel; in her gut, she much preferred her Chevy dually.

Anxious to get out of the plane and back on firm ground again, Ellie grabbed her pocketbook and stepped into the aisle.

“I'll meet you guys in the terminal.”

Tammy barely looked up from gathering the bags she had stowed under the seat in front of her.

“Go ahead hon.”

As the line of passengers slowly filtered down the narrow aisle towards the exit, Ellie fell in when it was her turn. She hoped Roy hadn't been planning to take her and the kids out for dinner after they picked her up. It would be several hours before her stomach would catch up to the rest of her. Maybe next year she could convince the girls to make the Migration a road trip.

“Welcome to Lexington. Thank you for flying with us today,” a perky blonde flight attendant recited over and over to no one in particular, a smile frozen on her face.

Ellie bustled down the jet way as quickly as she could without knocking over any fellow passengers.

The vacation was a total success. God, it was great to be home!

Entering the terminal, Ellie scanned the crowd for Roy and the kids. Usually the twins would have been waiting right by where the ramp met the building, calling her name and pushing each other aside to be the first one to greet her. Tate, although only a year older than his siblings always held back slightly, as if in that year's difference was a lifetime of maturity. He would wait until she'd hugged Noel and Chrissy before stepping to her for a hug and kiss.

When she'd spoken with them all last evening each on a different extension phone, they'd excitedly shared all the days events with her, their words tumbling out overlapping and interrupting each other. Finally, before hanging up, she'd sent them off to bed as she had every night since they'd been born just as her mother had done for her: “I love you, babies. I love you from here, to the sky, and back again.”

But today Ellie didn't see the kids anywhere. Her eyes searched the throng of people: businessmen carrying briefcases and laptops, senior citizens off to see grandchildren, people greeting arriving family with hearty hugs and back slaps.

Next to a pillar, over by a cigarette machine, Ellie recognized Brenda Fitzhugh. Ellie turned away, not anxious to have to deal with the woman. It was sure to sour the ending of a heretofore-perfect week.

Maybe Roy had gotten tied up at work and was running late.

She had started to dig into her pocketbook for her cell phone, when she felt a hand touch her arm.

“Hey there, I wondered where...”

She was staring into the face of a woman.

Ellie couldn't place where she knew her from, but she was certain she did.

Even though the woman was wearing sneakers, she was nearly a head taller than Ellie, who at 5'2” was petite by any standards. The stranger wore a plain gray short-sleeved polo shirt with a logo on it, although the shirt had clearly been worn and washed so often that the logo was indistinguishable. Her hair, a rich mahogany auburn had been pulled back into a ponytail, however stray pieces from the crown (bangs she was growing out?) kept falling into her eyes. She nervously brushed them aside with one hand.

In the other, she held a manila envelope.

Ellie suddenly recognized the woman; she was a semi-regular customer at the Red Horse, the antique store Ellie used to own. It had been years since Ellie had seen her.

“Hi...” Ellie started politely. “...It's so good to...”

The woman took a deep breath and cut her off.

“I am so sorry to have to be doing this. Are you Eleanor Bentley Boatman Conger?” she inquired, staring at a used candy wrapper on the floor, which suddenly seemed to have become very important to her.

No one ever called her Eleanor. No one had since her Grandma Lucy died three years ago.

Ellie stuttered, “I am...I don't seem... What is this...?”

The woman (Rena? Ellie puzzled) hesitantly thrust the manila envelope at her.

“I am with the Bourbon County Sheriff's Office. These are for you. You have been served. I really am so sorry...” the woman mumbled apologetically, then turned on her heel and quickly strode away through the milling crowd.

Ellie stared down at the envelope uncomprehendingly. It had her name on it. Served? What the...?

She slid her fingers along the sealed flap and reached in, pulling out a thick stack of legal looking papers. Her eyes swam as she scanned the top page seeing only snippets of sentences...

“Emergency Protection Order... The State of Kentucky v. Eleanor Bentley Boatman Conger... Ms. Conger is forbidden to come within 300 yards of the minor children Tate, Noel, or Christine Conger... Ms. Conger shall not have any unsupervised contact with aforesaid minor children...

Panic overtook Ellie. This had to be some kind of mistake. A joke, a sick joke. Her hands began to shake making it hard to flip to the next page. What was going on?

The heading on the next page hit her like a blow to the stomach. She gasped.

“Notice of Petition for Divorce: Royalton Pickett Conger v. Eleanor Bentley Boatman Conger...”

Her legs gave way as she sank heavily to the floor, vaguely aware of the sound of someone sobbing piteously. It was her.

 If you enjoyed this excerpt from Unbridled Injustice go to www.UnbridledInjustice.com for more information about the book and its author.