Her Mid-Life Cravings

By Robin Rance

Leila Brown was trapped in a loveless marriage until He, her happily ever after moved on to a much younger version of his ideal woman. She is much older than she once was, and must overcome many of her self-esteem issues and other anxieties before she will ever consider dating another man. Until she meets Drake Sanders.
“Are you stalking me?” What a stupid thing to say, why would he be stalking me?

“Hey, Leila, is it?” My head bobbed up and down on its own. “Would you know anything about teen girls and the underwear they like? I could sure use some help...”
I felt like a teen myself, this man had me all tongue tied, and I swear if I hadn’t been so thirsty I’d be drooling. Why didn’t the words ‘You can ask a sales person for help,’ leave my lips? No instead I heard myself saying, “I have a teenage granddaughter, and I think I can help.”
His eyes opened then crinkled at the sides as soon as he smiled. “No, way! You can’t have a granddaughter that age. I’ll bet she’s just as pretty as you are.”
I mumbled and stumbled over my words but managed to thank him for being so kind.
“No, thank you. It’s rather embarrassing shopping for your daughter, a wife maybe in this kind of a store, but...”
He was so charming, and all intentions of shopping for my own underwear had left my thoughts. Until he said, “Here, let me set that stuff on the counter, and I will buy it for you as a gift for all your help.”
Oh, my sweet heaven, his smile took away all my coherent words, and instead, I heard something that sounded like, “I... I... you that... who oh, what?”
He tossed back his head and laughed. “At least let me buy the pretty blue set. It’ll bring out the spark in your eyes.” He took both sets of underwear from me and handed them to a girl behind the counter. “Will you please hold those for me while we keep shopping?”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robin Rance
• Release date: Jul 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370509935

Robin Rance

Robin Rance is married but spent twenty-two years as a single mother of five before she married her forever husband. She was a letter carrier for twenty-four years and is now retired from the postal service. Now she lives in Southern Utah, where she writes her books, cooks, and spends quality time with her family and grandkids.   Robin began writing after a reoccurring dream kept making an appearance. She wakes up regularly with other stories begging to be told. Robin generally writes contemporary romance and has written other genres, including inspirational romance and a fantasy historical book. She also has three children’s books, one a sweet young adult book.  Robin currently has over thirty books that are all self-published and is always working on writing more. If you enjoy what you’ve read, please remember to leave a review, and please recommend her to your friends and family members who read

Book preview

Her Mid-Life Cravings

Are you stalking me? What a stupid thing to say, why would he be stalking me?

Hey, Leila, is it? My head bobbed up and down on its own. Would you know anything about teen girls and the underwear they like? I could sure use some help…

I felt like a teen myself, this man had me all tongue tied, and I swear if I hadn’t been so thirsty I’d be drooling. Why didn’t the words ‘You can ask a sales person for help,’ leave my lips? No, instead I heard myself saying, I have a teenage granddaughter, and I think I can help.

His eyes opened then crinkled at the sides as soon as he smiled. No, way! You can’t have a granddaughter that age. I’ll bet she’s just as pretty as you are.

I mumbled, and stumbled over my words but managed to thank him for being so kind.

No, thank you. It’s rather embarrassing shopping for your daughter, a wife maybe in this kind of a store, but…

He was so charming, and all intentions of shopping for my own underwear had left my thoughts. Until he said, Here, let me set that stuff on the counter, and I will buy it for you as a gift for all your help.

Oh, my sweet heaven, his smile took away all my coherent words, and instead, I heard something that sounded like, I… I… you that… who oh, what?

He tossed back his head and laughed. At least let me buy the pretty blue set. It’ll bring out the spark in your eyes. He took both sets of underwear from me and handed them to a girl behind the counter. Will you please hold those for me while we keep shopping?

Robin Rance retains 100% of the rights and copyright licenses to the manuscript and all other materials found in this book.

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. 2017

This is dedicated to anyone who suffers from self-esteem issues.

You are beautiful no matter what anyone might tell you.

Love yourself for who you are, and not what you look like.

Get help if you are struggling for acceptance.

Her Midlife cravings

The End and the Beginning

Chapter 1

I climbed out of the shower. It was time to pull myself out of the slump I'd been in for the last eleven years. He was gone, it was time to get over it. He, being my husband, had been gone longer than that. We were married for fifteen years. We hadn't had sex or romance of any kind for the last ten of them.

He wanted someone younger, firmer, and thinner. All the things that I no longer was. I dried myself off then determinedly stood in front of my floor length closet door. I quickly closed my eyes, then slowly opened them. I was stark naked, and I needed to know what time had done to my once thin, hot body.

Time hadn't been the only enemy. My husband had been the one to rip my self-esteem out from under me all at once. He’d worked on it a little at a time, but any that I still had was completely and thoroughly taken away from me that day. I’ll refer to it as RUK me day. R. U. Kidding me! I'll remember RUK me day, for as long as I live. That day he told me he was no longer attracted to me, and he didn't want to have sex with me ever again.

I was in my prime; my sexual peak was still climbing. If I hadn't loved Him so much, I would have walked out on him right then. Unfortunately for me, I stayed thinking he was just going through his own mid-life crisis. He was fifty-four, and I was forty-six. Big mistake.

I should have paid attention to all the signs. They were there; I just chose to ignore them. He had a pair of those sunglasses; you know the kind where He could stare at any young thing without my knowing. Yeah, like I was that stupid. Who wears sunglasses inside a mall? Then there were those times when he got himself all cleaned up, shaved, brushed his teeth and flossed. He only used mints on those days. They were the ones where he was going to special work meetings.

He stopped the mints long after we were married. His breath was atrocious, and I didn’t like to kiss him until he brushed his teeth. Oh well, I didn’t have to worry about that anymore. Not only had the sex stopped, but we didn’t touch in bed at all, in fact, I placed a pillow in between us just to make sure. Avoiding Him had become an obsession. One He didn’t seem to mind at all. We didn’t cuddle, hug, nor kiss. Not even to say goodbye or hello. The only physical contact between us was when he grabbed my hand to hold it in front of others. I guess the idea of us still being together when it came to how others perceived us, was the only thing still important to Him.

That really irritated me. I didn’t even want to hold hands with Him. He had destroyed my self-esteem and taken away my self-worth. The question was, why? Why had I let Him have that much power over me? It was all in the name of love. That romantic love that you search for all your life. The romantic love that only happens in those juicy romance novels. I’d thought I’d found it with Him. While we’d been dating, the sex was good. Actually, it was glorious.

But, c’est la vie. His declaration of the no sex war had floored me, and it took a long time to get off that floor. After that, I didn't care anymore. I ate myself out of my size sixes, soared past size ten and landed somewhere on my size sixteen fat butt! It was time to face my new reality head first and see if I could pull myself out of the dregs of my past, ten-year existence.

Once my eyes were open, I decided to start at the top and make my way down. I started by squinting, and realized that was defeating the purpose, rose colored glasses and eye squints were not going to show me as I really was. A deep breath and I was ready to face the truth.

My hair that He’d once called, ‘dirty blond,’ was now a platinum silver blond. I wore it long and depending on my mood, I either straightened it or let it go naturally curly. He had hated the curls so I could revel in them now. My face was plumpish but mostly unlined for my age. I had always used a night cream. I was grateful for my grandmother’s advice to always put something on your face to keep it moisturized. I'd been heeding her advice for many years. My eyes were still an unusual shade of blue, and my once very thick curly lashes had lost some of their thickness, but still had that curl. My upper lip had thinned, like so many older women. Dang it, it still needed to be kissed.

I slowly moved downward. My neck had no beginnings of the dreaded double chin, and that was a bonus. Yay! My upper chest had taken on many of the sun damage spots and signs of old age, but it wasn’t too bad. Maybe one of those dermabrasions would help. My boobs, on the other hand. What had happened? Saggy, yes, larger than most, yes, but was it normal for the areola to be so large? Oh, well, going braless wouldn’t be an option for me in the near of far future.

My stomach and belly in the past had been one of my best features; I lifted one of the rolls to look at my belly button. I’d had it pierced when I was forty and had always adorned it with baubles and belly rings until RUK day. At one time, my belly had been very show worthy. Now it looked like it was smiling; the button part of it stretched across my middle. Could I even do a sit up anymore?

Belly sag, yes, I had that too, but well deserved after having my four children. My legs were never my best body part. I always had big knees, and my thighs wore out more pairs of jeans where they’d rubbed near the crotch area. Speaking of the crotch, did that change its appearance as it aged? Who knew?

I turned around to look at my behind, then quickly faced forward. I had a lot of work to be done on myself before I’d ever considered dating again. I had one more thing to examine, and that was my feet. They were still very pretty as far as feet went.

I had to decide on a plan of attack; it was a really good plan that I could follow through with, At least He wasn’t around to sabotage me anymore. He had done that so often before. I think he realized that if I got back to my skinny self again, I might leave him, so he did his best to keep me fat, and it had worked.

Leila Suzan Brown, you can do this! I knew I could. My kids weren’t close anymore so they wouldn’t be around to stop me from exercising. I would eventually get me a part time job, but for now, the settlement from Him would sustain me long enough to do what needed to be done, or until I chose differently.

The first thing that I would do after I got myself dressed would be to go to the superstore and buy only healthy food. I’d thrown away everything that would tempt me. Then after I got the groceries, I was going to make myself a menu and stick as close to it as I could.

Tomorrow I would get up and start walking, then after a few days of that, I’d move on to bigger and better things at the fitness club that I’d signed up for online. It was late February, and the days were warming up. By summer, I hoped to be at least forty pounds lighter. I didn’t have any scales to go by so I’d have to judge my progress, by the way, my clothes fit. I made up a chart to track my measurements and to keep track of my fitness routines. Visualizing helped me with all aspects of my life.

I was determined to date a man again, and if I were lucky, I’d find someone who would have sex with me, too. Please, God. Just one more time before I die?

Day 45

I was so proud of myself, this morning I’d been able to squeeze into a few of my size twelves. I’d walked almost every day, and had been going to the local gym three times a week. I’d even met a man there who wanted to take me dancing. I still had to think about it. He wasn’t very attractive, and the saying beggars can’t be choosers came to mind. It wasn’t just that, I wouldn’t mind someone who wasn’t good looking. It was his teeth and the foul smell coming from his mouth that turned me off. I wanted to kiss someone passionately again, and the thoughts of kissing that mouth turned my stomach.

I decided to treat myself every time I reached a goal. I hadn’t cheated once on my diet, and it was time for one of my favorites. I’d work it off hard later at the gym. I pulled up in front of the local ice cream store, Scoops And Wishes, and almost drove away. Everyone deserves a reward for meeting a goal. I’d met and surpassed mine; so, I did indeed deserve this.

I still felt guilty as I walked up to the door and entered the sinfully delicious smells of waffle cones and other delights. If I was going to do this, I was going to make it count. I would have one scoop, no waffle cone and it was going to be my favorite kind of ice cream, macadamia nut. I walked up to the counter to look for my flavor of choice.

The girl hiding around the corner texting on her phone stuck the phone into her pocket and pasted a smile on her pretty young face. Can I help you, Ma’am?

God, I hated that term. Yes, I would like a scoop of your macadamia nut ice cream, please.

Did you want that in a waffle cone or a sugar cone? She asked with a serious lack of feeling.

Can I get it in a small dish instead? I was so proud of myself. Before losing the weight, I would have asked for two scoops in a waffle cone and whipped cream on top.

I paid for my scoop and sat down to eat it. No more eating and driving for me. Another bad habit that I’d stopped doing. I took my time and savored each bite. Then as soon as I was finished, I threw away my cup and left for the local Goodwill to donate a bag of the clothes that were too large for me now. It was a great feeling.

After I had dropped off my bag of clothes, I decided to do my grocery shopping at the new superstore in town. Big mistake! He, my now ex, was also shopping with his latest and younger bimbo. Was she the one who he had been seeing while we were still married? Hmmm.

I decided to ignore him, and maybe he wouldn’t notice me. That had worked so many times in the past. I quickly turned my back towards them, then picked up the cans of food sitting on the shelves, and began reading the labels until I heard, Leila, Is that you?

Oh, it’s you. Yes, it’s me. I avoided looking directly at either one of them as I answered back. Nice seeing you again.

I tried to turn back to my cans when He asked. You’ve done something different to yourself, haven’t you?

I lost 220 pounds of asshole, is what I wanted to say, but thought I’d be polite. Yes, it’s my hair. Bye now! I pushed my cart into the next aisle to catch my breath; then I fled to the front of the store. Running into Him with her had upset me more than I thought it would.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, I repeated all the way to the cashier, then without looking around at anyone else, I paid for the few groceries I had in my cart and drove home.

When I got back home, I put away the items I’d bought at the store, except for the salty pretzels to snack on, then I changed my clothes. Hank and I were going to meet at a local club and go dancing. What the heck, I didn’t have any other plans, and if he wanted to kiss me after the date, I could always come up with an excuse not to.

What do people wear dancing nowadays? The first time I’d ever gone dancing with my now ex, had been nearly twenty years ago. I remembered it well. I had worn a slinky mid-thigh little black dress and black high heels. I’d never had alcohol before in my life, and I had ordered a Long Island iced tea. Of course, nobody told me it wasn’t really ice tea. I had three of them, and we had a great time dancing. No food of course, but I finished off all those tall ice teas and danced until the place was closing.

I remembered throwing up in the bushes just outside of the club, over and over again. I woke up the next morning with Him in my bed. I was much wiser now, and there was no way in Hell that Mr.