Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection

by Hawkins, Jessica

  His gaze dropped to the floor, his head shaking as if he were adding it all up. “When Aaron was arrested for embezzling from the company, there was something off. I got this feeling . . . this feeling that there was something more to the whole thing. That he couldn’t have been acting alone. All those documents that had been tampered with. The money that had gone missing.”

  “Oh God.” I pressed my hand over my mouth.

  Rex looked at me. Panic streaked through his expression. “She left the day before he went to jail, Rynna. He got his sentence, and I thought things were finally going to be okay, and then I got home to find Janel leaving me.”

  “Oh God,” I said again. “Aaron . . . he was outside the diner this evening. About a week ago, too. He said something about me getting in Janel’s way.”

  Rex stared at me for a beat before his eyes went wide. Then he was bolting out the door and flying across the street.

  38

  Rex

  I sprinted across the street, taking the porch steps in two bounding leaps. I barreled through the front door. I had no clue what I was even searching for, but an overwhelming anxiety pushed me forward.

  I’d felt nothing but relief when I’d heard her car taking off ten or fifteen minutes ago. But right then? Nothing made sense. Everything I’d thought I’d known as truth had only been some kind of twisted fabrication. All these years, and I’d fucking thought I’d done something wrong. Neglected Janel. Didn’t treat her well enough. Didn’t give her enough time. Made her feel less than worthy. Because in truth, in my heart, she’d never been.

  Had every second of it been a set up?

  My eyes darted around the room, hunting for anything that might be amiss. Dishes littered the kitchen from the dinner Janel had been preparing, the trash bin out in the middle of the floor, pork chops dumped inside. Like she was pissed at me for suddenly sending her away.

  That, I understood.

  The idea that she might have been an accomplice to the bullshit Aaron had pulled all those years ago I did not.

  I couldn’t grasp it. Accept it. But the truth of it rang out in my consciousness. A promise she was guilty. That she’d been using me all along.

  Anger spiraled, and I clenched my teeth, turning to head down the hall, going directly for my room.

  It was just like I’d expected. It was torn apart. Ransacked. The contents of all the drawers were dumped out onto the floor in a mad search for anything of value.

  Blankets pulled from the bed, mattress shoved to the side, the small safe hidden under the bed gone.

  “Bitch,” I seethed.

  I should have known.

  I should have known better than to let her back into my damn house. Into our lives so she could just turn around and make another mess of it. But honestly, the only thing that mattered right then was the fact she was gone. I’d gladly accept the loss of the bit of cash in that safe if it meant Janel was eradicated from our lives.

  A plague eliminated.

  Extinguished.

  “Rex!” Rynna’s scream flooded my ears. I pushed back out of my room and into the hall.

  She was at Frankie’s door, her hand pressed to her mouth, the girl staring inside.

  For a beat, I froze in terror.

  Frankie.

  I sprang into action. Rynna stumbled out of my way when I rounded the doorway. I jerked to a stop in my daughter’s room.

  In a fleeting glance, you’d think nothing was out of order, her bed made and her stuffed animals still lined against her pillows.

  But the closet—clothes were pulled from the hangers and some of her shoes were gone. Frantic, I rushed for Frankie’s dresser. The drawers . . . they were empty.

  The worst kind of terror took hold of me.

  All the fears I’d ever had of losing my child rose to the surface.

  Rising above.

  Pulling me under.

  I couldn’t fucking breathe.

  My hands were shaking when I dug into my pocket for my phone. It was already ringing before I had the chance to dial, my mom’s name lit on the screen.

  I answered it, and every part of me twisted in two.

  My mother . . . she was screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming. “She’s gone. I don’t know where she is, Rex. She’s not here. Frankie’s gone.”

  39

  Rynna

  Jenny Gunner’s cries poured through the phone. Begging and screaming and weeping.

  And Rex? Oh God, Rex made an inhuman noise. Wailed this wail that came from his soul.

  Agonized.

  Devastated.

  Crushed.

  It reverberated from the walls and pummeled through my senses.

  I wound my arm around my stomach as if it might staunch the pain that split me from the inside.

  Frankie Leigh.

  I could feel my heart shredding at the same second my spirit moaned.

  I should have done something, said something earlier.

  My fault. All of this was my fault.

  Right from the beginning. I should have stayed that first night when Janel had cut me apart. I should have stood my ground and stood up for myself. Exposed Janel for who she really was.

  But I’d let her get away with her sins as if they hadn’t been committed at all.

  Rex spouted a bunch of incoherent words to his mother before he ended that call, quick to dial 9-1-1. I could hear the moment the operator came on.

  Rex had made another switch, pulling himself from the spiral of torment. His shoulders rolled back and determination set on his face. Refusing to allow his worst fears to happen. His voice was gritted—direct and hard—as he quickly relayed the information to the operator. Her name. The make and model of her car. Description of both her and Frankie. The last time both of them had been seen.

  Then he ended the call and came striding across the room and into the hall, all power and barely contained intensity. He grabbed me by the outside of my shoulders, his voice a plea. “Stay here, Rynna. In case they come back, stay here. Have your phone ready to call 9-1-1.” He gave a gentle shake. “Okay?”

  “Of course,” I told him, but the words were barely a breath. He pressed his lips to my forehead and then he was gone, the only trace of him the sound of him gunning his truck and it roaring down the street.

  Silence swooped in like a cold, steely drape. Clamoring against the walls and trembling across the floors.

  Ominous and foreboding.

  I wrung my fingers, and my feet took the hall. Back and forth. Back and forth. Desperate to do something. Intuition promised there was no chance Janel would come back here.

  My mind rolled. I couldn’t quiet it, the way images flashed and blipped, the way voices murmured as if someone were right there, whispering them in my ear.

  Jenny Gunner’s words when she’d come to Pepper’s Pies.

  “Don’t really know a time she lived in this town when she didn’t work for your grandma. From what I know, she started out when she was in high school.”

  My mind flashed to Aaron on the street, the way he’d been peeking in the window.

  “Always in Janel’s way, aren’t you?”

  All of it spun and spun. Winding to a sum.

  That thread of awareness finally took hold.

  It’d hadn’t been by chance that Aaron was outside the diner, peering in. It wasn’t out of curiosity or the interest of an old restaurant reopening.

  He’d been spying. Wondering exactly what was going on inside.

  A slow chill trickled down my spine.

  Freezing ice.

  Cold.

  It seeped into every cell. I could barely breathe. Lungs heaving around it, breaking its bindings, I fumbled for my phone. I was already racing out the door and across the street when I put it to my ear.

  Rex’s phone went straight to voice mail.

  “Shit,” I mumbled, trying to balance the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could unlock the door. I was jumping into the driver
’s seat when the message beeped. “Please don’t be angry, but I’m going to the diner.” The words were a ramble.

  I threw my SUV in reverse and backed out, quick to shift into drive. “It’s probably just a hunch, and God, the last thing I want to do is distract you, but I can’t ignore this. I need to make sure Janel isn’t there. I just . . . have this feeling, and I have to act on it. I’ll let you know if anything seems off.”

  I ended the call, tossed my phone to the passenger seat, and flew. Flew through the neighborhood and onto the main street. Streetlamps blurred past, streaked in my eyes and sent my heart into overdrive. I took the three turns required to get me into the middle of town faster than I should, until I finally made the last left onto Fairview.

  The entire street was shut down for the night except for the single bar on the end, and only a few exterior lights shined from the awnings of the rest of the businesses that had been closed for hours.

  I slowed when I reached Pepper’s and swung into a parking spot. My headlights sprayed across the long pane of darkened windows. Glinting, blinding light reflected back.

  I killed the engine, cracked the door, and stepped out. The construction site directly across from the restaurant was dark.

  Vacant.

  The only movement on the whole street was a foreboding breeze that blew through.

  I was scared.

  Terrified, really. I’d walked in this diner a million times, and never before had it evoked this type of reaction in me. But I couldn’t ignore what was screaming out from inside.

  I grabbed my phone, 9-1-1 already programmed to dial, my footsteps slow and cautious as I edged around the front of my SUV and along the sidewalk that ran in front of the restaurant. Holding my breath, I slid the key into the lock and quietly nudged open the door.

  Silence rained down.

  Ominous and thick.

  Too thick.

  So thick, dread flashed across my flesh. It sent a tumble of goose bumps across my arms and tingling in my hands, awareness a prickle of needles across my neck.

  I inched inside, each footstep measured as I tried to keep completely silent. I eased through the dining room, my breaths shallow and panted as I wound around the long counter and pushed open the shiny metal swinging door.

  I inched forward, vigilant as I stepped into the kitchen.

  A footstep crunched. A reverberation through the dense, dim air.

  A footstep that wasn’t mine.

  Every cell in my body seized in fear. Slowly, I attempted to slide my finger across my phone.

  A swish of blonde hair flashed at the corner of my eye. Fear sped and my finger fumbled. I sucked in a breath when I heard the whoosh, felt the shift in the air, before something metal cracked against the back of my head.

  Pain. So much pain. I tried to hold on to consciousness. I needed to fight. Fight for Frankie. But I could feel darkness pressing in, taking over, and everything went black.

  40

  Corinne Dayne – Three years ago

  Anger burned through my old, brittle bones. Apprehension sank into the pit of my stomach, my veins drumming with sluggish, burdened blood, a shrinking fear that vibrated out to take hold of my already shaky, weathered hands.

  I should have realized it a long time ago. There’d always been something off about that girl. But I’d been the fool that’d ignored it, thinking people were different and I didn’t have any right to make judgments about them.

  But this?

  I did.

  When her car pulled in across the street, I moved out the door and onto my porch. For the first time in a long time, I wished I were younger. Stronger. That I didn’t do it with a limp and my body didn’t protest every step.

  She pulled that sweet baby girl from the backseat and kissed the side of her head as if she weren’t wretched all the way through.

  The sky had darkened to a dusky blue, the horizon holding the last vestiges of oranges and pinks as the day fully melted away. Ambling across the street, I held the evidence tight against my chest, voice shaking, no longer able to hold back the accusation. “What did you do?”

  Janel’s head whipped my way. She huffed out a breath. “Corinne, I don’t have time for your nonsense ramblings today. It’s been real rough around here, with all that’s been going on at Rex’s company. Need to make him supper. He’ll be home shortly.” She turned her back on me, Frankie Leigh hooked to her hip, and started for their porch steps.

  “That’s awfully convenient, isn’t it, fact that Aaron boy you were always so chummy with growing up is getting sent off to prison for doing your husband wrong? Stealing all that money. What a shame. And here you are, playing the innocent card. Guess that’s the way it’s always been, hasn’t it? Playing us for fools while you ran around manipulating everything to get your way?”

  Regret slithered through my spirit. Should have known it back then, in the days when my Rynna had run away. Oh, how my girl had pined after that Aaron boy, eyes always dreamy anytime he wandered in for a piece of pie, her whole world made when she’d finally caught his eye.

  Wasn’t until I was watching this video that I realized those two were to blame for her running.

  Janel and Aaron.

  Same as they both were to blame for what was happening to Rex.

  This time I wasn’t about to turn a blind eye.

  Janel froze at the door that she was pulling open. Slowly, she edged around to face me, her voice going dim. “What did you just say? Because it sounded to me like you were accusing me of something you shouldn’t be.”

  The videotape felt heavy in my hands. An overbearing weight. “You know . . . all these years the register has been coming up short. So many times that I thought I was goin’ crazy or maybe I just couldn’t count. But I figured I needed proof that it was time to shut the place down and retire if I couldn’t handle running the day-to-day. Imagine my surprise when I sat watching the video from last night.”

  Janel blanched. White as a ghost.

  She knew as well as I did what was on this video. Had considered telling her about the new cameras going in, but thought better of it, figuring I was either going senile or somebody was stealing right from under my nose.

  Just had no idea of the enormity of the stealing that’d been going on.

  The blip of video had been caught in the middle of the night in the back office, Janel and Aaron arguing about the fact Aaron was going away for embezzling from RG Construction.

  “You’re the idiot who went and got yourself caught,” Janel seethed.

  “And you’re the one who put me up to it. You’re the one who has the money, and I’m the one who’s gonna land in jail? I don’t think so, Janel. This was all your idea, and you’re gonna tell him. You’ve been controlling things for years. It’s about time it stopped.”

  “The hell I am. Rex doesn’t know shit, and it’s going to stay that way. You do what you’re supposed to do. Follow through, like a man, because from where I’m standing, you don’t look like anything but a pussy.”

  She edged closer to him, slid a hand up his chest. “Besides, it won’t do either of us any good if we’re both behind bars. We still have all that money they never accounted for. I’ll hide it, and when you’re out, we’ll pick back up right where we left off. Now that you’re out of the office, Rex is gonna need someone to take over. Who better than his loving wife?”

  Then they’d been kissing—along with other unsavory things that’d made my skin crawl. I’d been flooded with sympathy for that poor man who’d not done anything but work himself to the bone to take care of his family, Rex having no clue he was being betrayed.

  Janel set Frankie on her feet. The cute thing toddled forward, barely keeping balance as she blabbered around the two fingers she had stuffed in her mouth. Janel rolled back her shoulders. “Messing with me would be a mistake, old lady.”

  Probably so, but I couldn’t regret it. Not when that little girl squealed, innocent joy. Not when I knew the woman s
tanding over her was nothing but poison. The only thing Janel was good for was destruction, and I wasn’t gonna stand aside and watch her ruin anyone else.

  “Seems I’m holding all the cards this time, now, doesn’t it?”

  In a flash, Janel came blazing down the steps and rushing my direction. I rasped out in surprise when her fingernails dug into the skin of my wrist. “Give it to me.”

  Even though she was hurting me, mocking laughter rolled from my tongue. Anger for my Rynna. Anger for Rex. Anger for any other person she’d done wrong, because I was betting these two weren’t her only victims. “Take it. Plenty more where that came from. All set up and ready to go straight to the police.”

  She stumbled back a step. “I think you’re bluffing, Corinne Dayne, because if you had anything on me, you would have already run and snitched to the cops, just like your prissy granddaughter did when she went tattling to my mom. Two of you are just alike. What is it you think you want from me?”

  But that was where she was wrong. I wasn’t bluffing. I just wasn’t taking the chance that the cops would disregard the video or deem it inconclusive. Wasn’t taking the chance this schemer might go and convince that trusting man that I’d construed it all wrong. Take her back or give her another chance.

  I just wanted her gone.

  “What I want is for you to go. Go pack your things before Rex gets home and get out of town. Don’t ever come back.”

  Her blue eyes flamed with hate. Ice cold. “Are you insane? I’m not doing a thing you say.”

  “Then I’ll gladly forward this along. And if something happens to me, who knows where one of these videos is going to pop up.”

  Steam might as well have been rolling from her ears, her jaw sharp and clenched, hate pouring out. “You bitch, just like your snot of a granddaughter.”

  “Maybe, but it sure beats being a thief and liar and a cheat. I’m thinking your husband might agree.”