Ultimate Alphas: Bad Boys and Good Lovers (The Naughty List Romance Bundles)

by Synthia St. Claire

  “Sounds delicious,” he said, stretching out his arms and yawning tiredly. I felt him slide out from underneath me and then he stood. I took the opportunity to lie back and watch his naked form pass through the many slanted beams of fading sun that streamed in through cracks in the wooden walls.

  “Where the heck is my shirt?” he asked as he wandered around clumsily in the dim light. I couldn’t help giggling when he scratched his head and then bent over to sift through the scattered hay on the barn floor like a loveable cave man.

  “It’s right here,” I said and held it up. We’d used it as a sheet to cover our impromptu mattress. When he tried to grab it, I pulled it away quickly and dangled it back out in front of him. He reached for it again, but this time I laughed and placed it behind my back. After a bit of a lightheartedly wrestling match, he finally pushed me back onto the hay and tickled me until I gave up.

  “Ok, ok, you can have it,” I called out, nearly crying and my face flush with laughter. “I didn’t expect to be tickled into submission.”

  It was too late, though. He didn’t want the shirt anymore, he wanted more. My smile evaporated into an open-mouthed expression of bliss and surprise as Shane’s mouth found my breasts again and he began to lead me back into his world of pleasure.

  My parents were officially introduced to Shane at dinner that night as more than just the man who saved my life. No one seemed to mind that we showed up a little later than I’d intended.

  It felt awkward calling Shane my boyfriend because it seemed like he was so much more than that already. Still, it was the only word I knew that really applied…and I could use in front of my family. Mother appeared to be quite happy with the news and kept giving me congratulatory looks – when she wasn’t trying to force feed Shane another biscuit or an extra serving of peach cobbler. It turned out that there was no way she was going to let Abby cook dinner on a night we had such ‘important company’, so she’d put out a feast that put most people’s Thanksgiving meals to shame.

  The entire evening went perfectly. Daddy never once went for the gun cabinet. I think he was just happy that I had apparently moved on and wouldn’t be hassling him anymore about hiring Hale. He was also pretty interested in Shane’s case against Patterson Reid, and pumped Shane for as much information as he could get. In return, Shane asked Daddy all about working a farm. By the end of dinner, the two men were laughing and talking like long-lost friends.

  Fourteen

  Shane and I made it a point to be together as often as possible after our unforgettable experience on the farm. We were enjoying each other so much, days turned into weeks in the blink of an eye. I was wrapped up in it, in him, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I’d found the missing piece that made me whole.

  Most of the time Shane was busy handling his case against Patterson Reid and I was tied up with chores around the farm, but Shane and I nearly always found a chance to see each other in between. There was ample time on most days and I was also thankful for the opportunity to get out of the house.

  Sometimes I would meet Shane for coffee at the same place Cindy had caused me to blow a gasket when we weren’t able to be together later. We also went out to nice restaurants in the city on weekends, took in movies, rode the horses (he was getting much better!), or toured the city or the countryside in his sleek car looking for things to do. More often, though, we kept things simple with a quiet dinner together in the suite he was renting followed by a thrilling night of rumpled bed sheets and ceaseless pleasure.

  Occasionally, Shane would have to work late into the evening, handling whatever new stumbling block Reid’s legal defense threw at him. It was hard to be away from him even for a single night. It was similar to how I’d felt with Hale when I left for school, only much more profound. This time, though, I was confident that it would only be a short while before I was back in Shane’s arms and experiencing everything he had to give.

  “Your new fella takin’ you to the Harvest Festival?” Daddy asked me while I was washing dishes after lunch one afternoon. “Gon’ be a biggun this year. I hear ol’ Patterson Reid done spent a heap of money to make it a nice ‘un. Gots to put a shine on things to keep folks ‘round here holdin’ up them protest signs and all.”

  “Shane hasn’t said anything about it,” I answered with a shrug.

  Daddy took one last bite of chicken and handed over his dish to me. “Uh-huh. Don’t you want to go, Lil’ Bit? You used to love ridin’ them rides when you was a youngin. Figgered you’d be bouncin’ like a junebug about it but you ain’t actin too excited.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Oh, George, I know she wants to go,” Mother joined in from the kitchen table. Her voice was slight but didn’t waver. She was fingering the ceramic handle on her cup of coffee and looking out the window and I’d almost forgotten she was sitting there. The plate of food in front of her had barely been touched and she’d been as quiet as a mouse since morning.

  “She can’t fool me. I seen her eyein’ that poster for it down at the drugstore the other day,” Mother continued. No sooner than she’d finished talking, Momma had a fit of raucous, hoarse coughing that seemed to rattle right through her bones.

  I flung some of the soap off my hands and walked over to her. “Are you ok, Momma? You’ve been coughing like that for a week now and it isn’t getting any better.”

  She turned towards me, wiped her mouth with a napkin, and brushed it off. “Fine, I’m fine, Mary Katherine. A cold, is all. This weather settlin’ in has put an itch in my lungs.”

  “Maybe you ought to go back and see that doctor-” Daddy started and she gave him a grunt.

  “Ain’t no use in it. Don’t need no doctor, you, and quit a-changin’ the subject,” Mother shot at him. The old fire was still there, that much was certain. Daddy shut his mouth, held up his hands and stepped into the living room, muttering to himself the whole way.

  “Jus’ ask him, Mary Katherine,” Mother said, and clutched my hand. “I’m sure that nice boy would love to take you.”

  “He might not want to, since the whole thing is being financed by Patterson Reid. You know darn well Shane’s prosecuting him.”

  “That don’t matter,” she said earnestly. “I can see somethin’ special between you two. Don’t let some rich old fool stop ya’ll from goin’.”

  Her hands were so cold, like the life was draining right out of them. She was thinner than before now, even weeks after the chemotherapy had ended. When she came home from her last appointment, she had told all of us that everything was going to be fine. Was she lying? I could hardly believe that the person in front of me was the same resilient, vibrant woman I’d known all my life.

  “Momma, please…eat some more of your lunch. You’ve barely touched it.”

  She let go of me, peered down at her plate, and then let out a sigh. Her sunken eyes moved back to the window and she resumed watching the brown and drying cornfield, which had been laid into broken, hollow stalks from the harvest. “Maybe in a little while. I ain’t hungry right at this moment, Mary Katherine.”

  “You have to eat, Momma.”

  She continued to stare out at the field and whispered softly, “Not now, honey.”

  “But you’re withering away!” I said, louder than I wanted, and brought my voice down as I continued, “You’ve been like this for days, just sitting around and…and moping. It’s not like you, Momma. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, Mary Katherine. Just thinking on some things, s’all. Can’t a person just sit for a while and think?”

  “Thinking? About what?”

  “Never you mind,” she said, more defiantly, and choked back another bout of coughing. “Jus’ leave me be, honey.” I grabbed the plate to take it away, but she surprised me with a slap on the wrist. “Now, I done tol’ you, I’m gonna eat that in a little while, girl. You jus’ leave it right there where it is and get on them clothes. Reckon the ones hangin’ up outside is ready to come in by
now. I can finish up with the dishes while you do that.”

  I raised one eyebrow and felt her hand retreat from my wrist. Before I could say anything else she’d already turned back to the window and was looking out again.

  That night, after a hello kiss and before we’d even reached the end of the farm’s driveway, Shane asked, “So, do you think you’d have any interest in going to that big event they’re having over at the county fairgrounds? I hear it’s going to be the biggest thing this town has seen in a long time.”

  I was dumbfounded, to say the least. He actually wanted to go?

  “The Harvest Festival, you mean?”

  “Yeah. I know,” he said with a shrug, reading my reaction, “It’s really the Support Patterson Reid Festival more than anything. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to go.”

  “But I-”

  “That man doesn’t deserve any support at all if you ask me. I just figured if I show my face, people might get the idea that I’m not holding any grudges against the local workers. I’m working on something, like I told you before, that might just bring this whole thing to a close and let all those folks continue working. I just need a little more time.”

  “Shane, we can-”

  He sighed and gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I don’t know. It was probably stupid to ask anyway, Kat. I’m sorry. You probably have no interest in going-”

  “Shane!” I finally broke in and he raised his head a little in surprise. “I want to go. I was already going to ask tonight if you’d take me, but you beat me to it. To be honest, I never thought you’d want to go because of…well, like you said.”

  “Oh,” he said simply and nodded. Then, his smile broadened as if on instinct. “Ok. Yeah. That’s great!”

  “You still haven’t told me what this plan of yours is with Reid. Is that why you want to go to an event he’s sponsoring?”

  Shane was silent for a moment. As I watched him, I could have sworn I saw the gears turning in his head as he considered a response. Why was he being so secretive about this? Didn’t he know that he could trust me by now?

  “My presence there might help with it. Public support will be important in making a smooth transition if things go how I hope.”

  I scrunched up my eyebrows and tried to understand. “A transition to what?”

  “Kat, I…” He sighed again, but this time, I could tell it was directed at me.

  “Can’t you tell me?”

  “No, it’s not that,” he said.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “I’m trying to broker a deal to end this thing. Patterson’s damned scientific expert is doing everything he can to refute the survey data. I know he’s full of it, but it’s a real threat to the prosecution. He’s had almost a dozen employees claim before the judge that the plant was following government policy, even though even a blind man could see they haven’t been. On top of that, one witness recanted their testimony. It’s bad.”

  “Which one recanted?” I asked.

  “That Miller guy. The one who worked at the phosphate plant for so long.” Shane’s expression turned even more serious as he continued, “And damn it, we had him! I just know Reid paid the guy off. God only knows how much it took. I can’t prove it, though. Miller’s testimony was supposed to be a slam dunk, but he made all of us look like idiots instead. It feels like everything is falling apart.”

  “So Patterson might win?”

  Shane turned the wheel hard and pushed the accelerator. “He might, Kat.”

  “What kind of deal were you thinking of offering him? Surely you can’t just let him walk away after everything he’s done. It’s going to take years to clean up the mess left behind by his company.”

  “The deal isn’t with him,” Shane said, then he opened his mouth, as if to say more, but promptly clamped his lips together.

  “Who is it with?” I asked.

  Shane drove on, avoiding my gaze by watching the traffic in front of us. It became clear that he didn’t want to answer.

  I questioned him again, “You aren’t going to tell me?”

  “Look, it doesn’t matter, ok? If I can make it happen, Patterson Reid will be serving a nice long stretch in prison and no one has to go searching for work. That’s really all that matters here, isn’t it?”

  I craned my neck and observed him. He acted confident but he was obviously uncomfortable telling me about his plans. What was Shane hiding? Something didn’t sit right with me at all. I’d never seen him act so mysterious about anything.

  “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more than that,” he said. “It’s best if you don’t know too much about it. The whole thing could fall apart, anyway, and what I’m doing isn’t exactly something my bosses would agree with.”

  “It’s not illegal, is it, Shane?”

  “No way,” he said quickly and shook his head. “I’m almost certain that it’s not. It could lead to a lot of questions, however. There is no need for you to be involved in case it goes sideways.”

  The car continued to hum along for a while, passing the steel lamp posts arranged along the roadside and creating a steady swishing noise from the rush of air that dominated the cabin. As the outside darkened, the lamps all seemed to flicker to life in unison. We crossed over the bridge into Wilmington and I looked down into the empty water below, which looked like a black void that had swallowed everything up.

  “Are we…ok?” Shane finally asked.

  I thumbed the leather armrest. Why did I even have to open my big mouth and ask about the case?

  “Kat, talk to me. I don’t want this to come between us. I need to you to trust me.”

  “I do,” I said, almost a whisper. “I think I understand. Do what you have to.”

  By the time we sat down for dinner, the subject had moved away from the case and Shane was flipped back into entertainment mode. We laughed and drank wine while sharing stories from our past. I told him about the Harvest Festival and what it was like during my childhood and he told me about the time his best friend dared him to climb the water tower in the middle of town. Afterwards, we retired to his suite, my head swimming from one glass too many, and in the darkness Shane quenched my other, deeper thirst.

  Try as I may, my mind would not rest about what he’d told me in the car. As I listened to him sleep, I pushed the worry away again and again. Shane was doing something he thought was right, but it must be something that could also get him into trouble. He claimed it was legal. Still, my gut was telling me that he was purposefully keeping information from me, and not just to protect me. What on earth was he getting himself into?

  Nearly a week passed and Shane didn’t speak about Patterson or the secretive deal again. That was kind of a relief to me. Maybe it had worked and I’d be hearing the verdict before I knew it. Perhaps he changed his mind about it altogether.

  I wasn’t going to let it bother me. At the moment, Shane’s arm was around my shoulder and he was escorting me towards the fairgrounds, which were in full swing.

  A sign above the entrance spelled out, “Welcome!” in thousands of bright, flickering, green and red lights. Whoever was in charge of decoration had opted for a Christmas theme. The sides of the archway that held the sign were painted like candy canes with billowing gold bows tied around them at the middle. Vendors had parked their food carts in rows alongside dozens of different carnival games and children raced back and forth to try and win all the prizes they could. Above us, holiday music rang out like background noise that mingled with the rumbling sound of the crowd. It looked like the entire town had come out to join the festivities.

  “Wow, Kat. They really went all out, didn’t they?” Shane said.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many people out here at once.” I looked above the stand advertising hot pretzels and watched a roller coaster full of patrons go whizzing around a curve on the horizon before turning sharply and heading back the way they’d come. “Check that out, Shane. I’ve definitely never seen
a ride like that here before. The most exciting thing I remember was the Ferris wheel or the Tilt-a-whirl.”

  “Patterson spared no expense,” he replied dully.

  “Might as well take advantage of it though, huh?”

  “Definitely.”

  We advanced to the ticket gate and were greeted by a young girl wearing an elf costume and pointy, plastic ears. She smiled brightly at me and then frowned when she saw Shane. When the ticket printed out, she yanked it from the machine and shoved it through the window like she couldn’t wait to get rid of it.

  “Enjoy,” she said with a voice filled by sarcasm. Shane took the tickets and gave her a half-hearted salute.

  “That didn’t take long. The natives are getting restless,” he said as we walked along.

  “Maybe she just didn’t like your jacket,” I offered. It was a weak attempt to lift his spirits, but I got a grin out of him nonetheless.

  “Yeah.”

  There was a nip of cold in the air, the signal of winter’s approach, and the cloudless night sky was brimming over with stars. We held hands and he led me through the people, just as he’d done that rainy day at the busy terminal in Raleigh. At the base of the roller coaster, we were greeted by a long line of people who seemed either excited to be there or agitated by the wait.

  When we finally made it to the gate the woman checking our ticket was none other than Miss Pauline, dressed as another one of Santa’s helpers. She had on a sassy, holiday-green dress that hung loose and short over her wide hips and looked far too young in style for her, and a mismatched red and white Santa hat situated on top of her short, dark, curly hair.

  “Lord hep’ me,” she said, beaming with delight once she saw me standing there, “If’n it ain’t little Kitty Kat! You better come here, girl!”

  “H-hi, Miss Pauline,” I said feebly as she squeezed my arms together and gave me a bear hug.

  Her cheeks brightened and her eyes narrowed as she gawked openly at Shane, who was still holding my hand. “Mmm-mmm-mmm. Lookit here. This that fine-looking lawyer boy I done heard so much about? Didn’t I see you at church with him not too long ago?” She leaned in closer to me and whispered loudly, “You done good, girl. Lot better’n that last fella you was runnin’ around with.”