His Tempting Love

by Anya Summers

  She got Milo situated with his breakfast and kissed the top of his head, inhaling his baby powder scent. She could do this. Move on. Do what was best for Milo. And given the circumstances, that meant uprooting him once more. She hated the fact that she would have to do it. It made her feel like the worst mother on the planet.

  But at least in Phoenix he would have his grandparents there to dote on him. She’d get some relief financially. And if she stayed with them for two years or so, that might be enough so that she could put enough money away to buy a house for the two of them outright.

  She tempered the raging grief inside her heart, trying to appear like nothing was wrong around Milo. He deserved better from her. She sat at the table, watching him eat his breakfast while she mainlined coffee. If only she could get an infusion of the stuff to get her through today. She just had to make it through today. Tomorrow would be easier. It was today that was going to suck balls.

  At the knock on the front door, Elmo yapped and she closed her eyes for a moment, praying for the courage she needed to confront whoever was there.

  Cora felt like she was eighty, her limbs and joints ached as she went to the front door. She scooped up a yapping, excited Elmo to keep him from darting out as she opened it.

  The breath she’d been holding escaped in a rush.

  Garrett.

  She’d known he would come. She’d been waiting for him to appear. He looked as haggard as she felt. There were dark smudges beneath his eyes. The hair sticking out from beneath the brim of his hat was disheveled.

  “Go away. I don’t want to see you. Please leave me alone or I will call the police,” she said.

  “Cora, please hear me out. And then, if you still want me to leave, I will,” Garrett pleaded. And for a moment she almost said yes.

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing to say. I think the show I walked in on last night spoke for itself. I don’t want to see you anymore, Garrett. Please, just go.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to say. It’s not what you thought it was. Five minutes is all I need.”

  “Garrett, come play with me,” Milo’s little voice said beside her.

  “Hey, squirt,” Garrett said.

  She tore her gaze away from Garrett and glanced down at her son, knowing she was about to break his heart. Out of everything, this was the hardest because he wouldn’t understand. “Baby, he can’t come in right now. He was leaving.”

  “No play?” Milo cocked his head.

  “Cora, I can—”

  She cut him off. “Garrett, if you cared anything for me, leave now and don’t come back.” She gripped Milo’s hand, Elmo wriggling in her other arm, and shut the door with her foot. Setting Elmo down she flipped the lock and picked Milo up as he started to cry.

  “Mama, play,” Milo cried, trying to reach past her.

  “Come on, you and I will go play, all right? Let’s go upstairs,” she said, her heart eviscerated by her child’s tears.

  Cora carried Milo upstairs to his room, where she rocked him as he cried. His little hiccups and sobs made her resolved. She was never getting involved with a man again. Not ever. It was too risky, not just for her heart, but for Milo’s. She had been through far too much heartache to last her a lifetime, she wouldn’t court more. It was far safer to remain single and out of the dating game. It was the only way she knew how to protect her heart, protect her son’s heart. She was good at being a mom and would make that be enough.

  Once she was able to get Milo calmed down, she spent the day with him, doing some arts and crafts. They made a fort out of the sheets in his bedroom and gave Elmo his first bath. That was an interesting experience. By the end, both she and Milo were as drenched as Elmo but laughing like loons.

  She clung to that laughter, to her son’s resilience. They would survive this setback. She still hadn’t called her parents just yet. She needed another day or so before she called them. They were paid up through the end of the month here anyway.

  She ordered pizza for them for dinner. Milo was over the moon about it. He loved cheese pizza. She’d just finished putting away the leftovers when the front door opened.

  “Uncle, uncle!” Milo shouted and raced over to Spencer. “Come see my fort!”

  Spencer knelt down and said, “Hey, bud. I need to talk to your mom for a minute. Why don’t you go up and wait for me, okay?”

  Milo nodded. “Hurry up,” he said and then headed for the stairs. Cora watched him go, still worried about him going up them by himself.

  Once she was certain Milo had made it all the way up, she said, “I don’t want to talk to you.” She turned away. And then all the fury she felt bubbled up inside her so that she could no longer contain it. Swiveling back around, she blasted him. “How could you? You, above all people I trusted. And instead you hurt me like this. I don’t understand.”

  “Cora, please listen to what I have to say and then I will leave. You know I love you and Milo. Some of this is Garrett’s story so some will have to come from him. But the woman you saw last night was an ex-girlfriend of his who was attempting to blackmail him. We coordinated a sting operation with the police to get a confession out of her.”

  “Yes, but the two of you were with her. I saw you,” she accused.

  “Garrett never touched her, Cora. I swear to you on my life. He wouldn’t touch her, refused to because of how much he cares about you. Cora, Garrett is one of the best guys I know and if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be standing here now. He saved my life when we were deployed together. If it weren’t for him, they would have shipped the pieces of my body back to the States. And what’s more, he loves you and Milo. Talk to him.”

  “I don’t know. So this sting operation, you got her to… to…”

  “I owed Garrett, for saving my life back there. It was my turn to help save his, and it’s not like I slept with her, just gave her a good old-fashioned flogging. I promise you, we would have told you if we could have. Garrett would have told you, but we were sworn to secrecy by the police. He couldn’t tell you.”

  Doubt entered her mind and she crossed her arms in front of her chest. There was a spark of hope flaring to life inside her and she didn’t want to trust it. “I don’t know, Spencer. It’s been a long time since I’ve had people I trusted hurt me this way. I just don’t know if I believe it.”

  He rounded the kitchen island and gripped her arms. “Just promise me you will think about it. And hopefully forgive me for the part I played in keeping it from you. We couldn’t tell you, not with the DA and law enforcement involved.” Spencer hugged her. “I love you, Cora, and will always be here for you. Just think about it, please. I’m going to head up and spend a few minutes with Milo, but then I’ll leave. I’m so sorry that you were hurt by this, that was never the intention.”

  “I’ll think about. Why don’t you go on up now? He’s only got about twenty minutes before bedtime.”

  Spencer released her and headed up the stairs. She listened to the sound of Milo’s excited chatter and Spencer’s deep laughter as she stood at her kitchen sink and stared out the window with quiet tears rolling down her face.

  If what he’d told her was true, then she’d blown things out of proportion. Maybe she should have talked to Garrett this morning. But she was just so hurt. She had to mull it over a bit more before she made any decisions one way or the other.

  Cora climbed the stairs when the allotted twenty minutes were up. In Milo’s bedroom, her son and Spencer were camped out under his fort and her heart broke a little more. Milo loved Spencer, adored him. Moving him to Phoenix, away from his Uncle Spencer, was the wrong choice. It might not be easy but she had to stick it out here a little longer, see if she could make this place work. Even if she had to do it without Garrett in her life. She’d not planned on having a man in her life when she’d moved here, anyhow.

  “Hey baby, it’s time to get ready for bed. Say goodnight to Spencer,” she said.

  Milo tossed his arms around Spencer
and he hugged her boy back. “We’ll hang out again soon, bud.”

  “Night, Uncle Spencer. Love you.” Milo did his squeeze hug on him.

  “Love you too, bud,” Spencer said and then set Milo down before standing. He approached Cora and tugged her in for another hug. As he released her, his black eyes searched her face. “Are we going to be okay?”

  “I think so. Just give me some time.” She blinked back the moisture that entered her gaze.

  “I’m so sorry, Cora. None of us ever meant for you to be collateral damage.”

  She exhaled a shaky breath and replied. “I know. I just need time.”

  “I’ll give you as much as you need,” he said, and then left.

  Cora put her son to bed and then took a hot bath as she attempted to wrestle with her feelings and the best path to take. By the time she crawled into bed, she was no closer to a solution.

  The only thing that she did know was that she loved Garrett. But she had no idea what to do about it.

  Chapter 28

  The following day Cora was cleaning her condo. She’d called Matt first thing that morning and canceled her classes. Matt didn’t fight her on it. He’d even apologized for his treatment of her the other night. Which meant that everyone in the club had known about the sting operation. Everyone but her. Why had she been left out when Matt had been included?

  She knew the answer. It was because she wouldn’t have been impartial to Garrett being with another woman. Even though from what Spencer had said, Garrett hadn’t touched her.

  She’d just switched another load of laundry while Milo was taking his afternoon nap when there was a knock at the door. She grimaced, not really ready to deal with Garrett, but at least Milo was sleeping.

  She opened the door expecting it to be Garrett. But it wasn’t. She squinted up at the man on her doorstep, trying to place him. The light brown hair was mostly covered by a black Stetson, but then she recognized the hazel eyes. Garrett’s friend from the club. What was his name?

  He spoke first. “Hi Cora. I know you might not remember me. I’m a friend of Garrett’s, Jackson Stone. I’m a detective with the Jackson Hole Police Department. Could I come inside and talk to you for a minute?”

  “Do you have a badge?” she asked before she agreed to let him into her place. After everything that had transpired in the last two days, she wasn’t taking any chances.

  A slow smile spread over his lips. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He reached in the back pocket of his jeans, withdrew a small wallet, and flipped open a leather case the size of a billfold. The sunlight made his badge glint a bit more, the silver and gold star winking up at her, along with his picture on a card insert that had Jackson Hole Police Department written on it.

  “Come on in, Jackson, is it?” she said, stepping back to allow him inside.

  He slipped his badge back into his pocket and stepped in. “Appreciate it. And please, call me Jack.”

  She closed the door and led him into her kitchen. “Can I offer you anything? Coffee, tea or anything?”

  “I’m fine, but thank you for the offer. I’ll get to why I’m here. You walked in on an operation my department coordinated.”

  “So I hear,” she said and leaned back against the counter.

  “When Garrett first brought the subject to my attention, I recommended that he keep it between us. Not to hurt you, but because of the sensitive nature of the matter. You see, the suspect was a woman he had dated in college.”

  “Yeah, Spencer told me.”

  Jack shoved his hands in the front pocket of his jeans and replied, “But he likely didn’t tell you that she was trying to blackmail Garrett with a tape she’d recorded of them having sex. She recorded them on purpose, without his knowledge, and what was in the video portrayed Garrett in a rather bad light.”

  “It couldn’t have been that bad. They were having sex,” Cora said. Sex was pretty basic. Even the bondage stuff at the club.

  “Well, the thing is, I know you understand a bit about the world of BDSM, where pretty much anything goes as long as it’s safe, sane, and consensual. And the suspect in question liked rape fantasies.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

  “So if it had gotten out without Garrett proving that she had asked him to do that, fulfill that fantasy, he would have gone to prison,” Jack explained.

  Her heart thumped in her chest. How could she have been that wrong and jumped to such wild conclusions? “And did she confess?”

  “That’s why we did the operation. We used a Dom method and through Spencer flogging her, were able to get her on tape admitting that she had asked for the rape fantasy and had taped it without Garrett’s consent. What’s more, the FBI was able to locate other men she had blackmailed who had never sought help from law enforcement out of fear that the tape she had of them would get out.”

  That changed things immensely. “I see.” She did—or at least, she wanted to—but there was a part of her that was still resisting.

  “Cora, I’m going to be frank with you. Garrett didn’t want to keep it from you. He was ordered not to speak about it, and not just by me but our district attorney. And it wasn’t because you would have talked or couldn’t be trusted, but this was a need to know only thing. Because in the event that you didn’t believe him and things went south…”

  He didn’t have to say more. She got it. Garrett would have gone to jail for something he hadn’t done. “Boy, are you guys Garrett’s cheerleaders.”

  “Cora, we don’t know each other well, but Garrett’s one of the most loyal beings I’ve ever met. When you have him in your corner, he will champion you to the end. He hated that he had to keep this from you but was under orders that he had to. If you need to see the tapes for me to prove it, I will break protocol so that you can see them for yourself.”

  “Thank you for explaining it to me. I don’t need to see the videos.” The fact that he was willing to show her police evidence melted away the last vestiges of her anger and hurt.

  “Well, then. I will get out of your hair,” Jack said.

  She walked him to the front door. “Thank you for stopping by.”

  “It’s been a pleasure. And I hope the next time we meet it will be under more auspicious circumstances,” he said and tipped his hat.

  She stood at her front door and watched him leave in his black SUV. After he’d gone, she called Spencer.

  “Yeah, I need you to come watch Milo,” she said as soon as he picked up.

  “I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” Spencer said and disconnected. The guy probably still felt guilty. And, well, a part of her was glad about that, even though she understood the circumstances surrounding it all now.

  Spencer was as good as his word and arrived inside of thirty minutes. She’d woken Milo up from his nap because if she didn’t, the kid would be impossible to get down that night. Her son was like her upon waking up, it was something he didn’t care for and he tended to show his displeasure.

  But as soon as Spencer walked through the door, Milo shifted gears and was ready to play with his uncle.

  “There’s leftover pizza in the fridge if I don’t make it back in time for dinner.”

  Spencer looked at her. “You going to Garrett’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank Christ. Take whatever time you need. I’ll see that the little dude gets dinner and everything.”

  She hugged Spencer and said, “Love you. And yeah, we’re okay.”

  He hugged her back. “Go get him, Cora. He needs you.”

  That’s what she was betting on. Not that he needed her, but that they needed each other. That neither of them was truly whole without the other.

  Chapter 29

  Cora pulled her minivan up the behind Garrett’s black truck in the circular driveway and stared at the big, grand house. Part of why she’d thought the worst of him so quickly was because his wealth scared her a bit. It made her uncomfortable. But that was her own issue she’d have to
work on.

  She exited her car and trod up the steps to the front door. She inhaled a deep, steadying breath and then rang the doorbell.

  Garrett opened the door looking bedraggled and unkempt. He wore an old army green tee shirt, black basketball shorts, and was barefoot. His hair stood up in spikes like he’d been running his hands through it in frustration. “Cora,” he said, his voice gravelly and low.

  “May I come in?” she asked, her heart tripping over itself. He was in such bad shape, all because of her.

  “Sure,” he said, wary as he stepped back, allowing her room to pass.

  She marched into his house. He shut the door once she was inside but took a few steps back, his face weary and drawn.

  One look at him and she knew. She strode right up into his personal space so that they were toe to toe. He tensed, like he was expecting her to slap him and leave. She looked up at him, her heart in her eyes and said, “You hurt me.”

  His shoulders sagged. The man who had been so confident and sure was absent. In his place was a man hurting over the blackmail of a former flame and Cora’s unwillingness to give him the benefit of the doubt, or at least a chance to explain. He said, “Cora, I’m so sorry. I never meant to lie to you.”

  “Are you done?” she asked, searching his face.

  “With what?” he asked, his confusion evident.

  “Lying. I need to know that because it’s not just me you disappointed,” she said.

  And then Garrett, the big bad alpha, knelt at her feet and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I never meant to and can swear to you from here on out, I will tell you everything. Just please don’t shut me out again, I don’t think I could bear it, I—”

  She put her fingers on his lips and looked down at him. “I love you, Garrett. At first, I thought it was wrong that I could feel so much because I worried that it made what I’d felt for Jeff less. And then I worried that you wouldn’t be good for Milo, but what I found was someone I can be myself with, who lets me lean just a little without taking away my independence. I know I come with baggage in the form of a three-year-old, but if you’ll have me…”