Addicted to Love

by Addicted to Love (lit)

  But Rachael wasn’t just any woman. She was special. Thinking about her made him smile. A crystal clear picture of her rose in his mind — that cascade of wavy blonde hair tumbling helter-skelter over her slender shoulders, the excited light in her almond-shaped green eyes, the sweet, honeyed flavor of her lips.

  Truth was, she’d gotten to him. Slipped past his guard with her earnest beliefs and heartfelt desire to reinvent their hometown. He’d spent so many years on alert, in tight control of his emotions, holding himself back, keeping his feelings in check. He was stunned to discover how little self-control he really possessed when it came to Rachael.

  Lose control. It’s okay. Just let go.

  Easy to think, much harder to do. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. He’d tasted it on her. Her need. His hunger.

  So go after her. Seduce her.

  Brody fisted his hands. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t. But his dick was so hard he could barely draw in air. Dammit, how he wanted her.

  She’d done this to him. Made him desire her in a way he’d never desired another. Miserable. He felt mindlessly miserable.

  He tried to think of his ex-wife, tried to remember if she’d ever affected him like this. But for one blind moment, he couldn’t even remember her name. All he could think about was Rachael.

  Sassy, delightful Rachael, who’d turned both him and his hometown inside out.

  His hand strayed to the laces of his swim trunks, his fingers fumbled as his breath came hard and fast. He imagined it was Rachael provoking him, stroking him.

  Her fantasy touch caused every nerve ending in his body to jolt with electrical awareness as he recalled the feel of her soft arms entwining around his waist. He visualized her long silken curls tickling his bare skin. He saw her full, peach-colored lips tip up in a beatific smile.

  Daydream mingled with memory as his imagination escalated the scenario playing out in his head. His cock throbbed. His pulse raced. His brain hung on one thought and one thought only.

  Rachael.

  Stop, stop. You’ve got to stop this.

  But it was too late for that. His self-control was shot to shit. He was lost. Overcome by lust and need and too much deprivation.

  He stripped off his swim trunks and palmed his penis. His rhythm was frantic, desperate. He felt in equal parts embarrassment and inevitability and determination. He had to do something to alleviate the weighted need that had settled in him like granite from the moment he’d first spied her dangling from the Valentine sign.

  Just get it over with. Quick. Empty out the testosterone. Get your brain back.

  He closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, did what he had to do to reclaim his sanity.

  Rachael.

  A groan, half-pleasure, half-despair, slipped past his lips. How he wished she were here with him. Doing this to him.

  The lawn chair screeched against the cement, but he didn’t care. There was no stopping now. He was caught. God, what had she reduced him to?

  And then the orgasm was upon him.

  Rachael.

  Clenching his jaw, he shuddered as hot ribbons of milky white ejaculate shot up and spilled over his fist.

  In that moment of weakness, Brody realized something deadly profound. No matter how much he wanted to deny the dangerous pull, he was falling in love with her and he had absolutely no idea how to stop himself.

  “Rachael,” Brody muttered, feeling more confused than ever. “Dammit, woman, you’ve ruined me for good.”

  KELVIN SCOOPED UP his copy of Texas Monthly from Rachael’s porch. He thought about ringing the doorbell to see if she’d open up, but his heart wasn’t in it. What he needed was someone to talk to. His gaze swung across the street to Brody Carlton’s house.

  He walked over and knocked on Brody’s door.

  It took a while for the sheriff to answer. He was wearing swim trunks and nothing else. It wasn’t often he had his prosthesis on display and it was something of a shock to see the bionic leg. Brody hid his injury so well, three- fourths of the time Kelvin forgot he was an amputee. The sheriff looked both breathless and irritated.

  “Can I come in?” Kelvin asked.

  “Can I say no?”

  Kelvin didn’t bother to reply, he just stepped over the threshold. “You alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s your sister? She coming home soon?”

  “She’s taken Maisy to see our aunt in Del Rio. They won’t be home until Sunday night.”

  “Good.” Kelvin sank down on Brody’s couch. He picked up the remote control and flicked on the TV to ESPN.

  “Come right in, make yourself at home.”

  “Thanks.”

  Brody sat down in the chair across from him. “What’s the matter, Mayor? You look like you’ve been sacked in the end zone. Did you just find out Giada’s kicking your ass in the polls?”

  Kelvin tensed. “What did you hear?”

  “Nothing.” Brody frowned. “Seriously, Kelvin, are you okay?”

  “Women. They screw with your head.”

  “Not going to argue with you there. Any woman in particular got you twisted up inside?”

  “I’m forty-seven years old, Carlton. Forty-seven and I’ve never felt like this.” Kelvin sprawled his arms across the back of the couch.

  “Are you saying you’re in love?”

  “No.” Kelvin rasped in a breath, but that was exactly what he was afraid of. “Not love, but something . . . ”

  “So who’s the woman?”

  Kelvin scowled. “You promise you won’t laugh.”

  “I won’t laugh.”

  “It’s Vito.”

  Brody laughed.

  Kelvin slapped a palm against his forehead. “I know; it’s fucking hysterical.”

  “Hey,” Brody said. “I’ve got problems of my own.”

  “She’s going to win this election,” Kelvin said gloomily, “and I’m going to be left with nothing.”

  “Maybe not. I mean, come on, the Wentworth name founded this town.”

  “That doesn’t seem to matter much anymore. People want a change. There’s a restlessness going around. Nobody wants to believe in love anymore, or traditional hometown values.”

  “Do you really think a theme park reflects hometown values?”

  Kelvin shrugged. He didn’t know what he believed. “I can’t even think straight anymore.”

  “If Giada ever figures out that she’s got you running scared, you’re seriously screwed.”

  “Tell me about it. Thing is, I can’t stop thinking about her. A smart politician would drag her through the muck, doing whatever it took to win, but . . . hell, I just can’t. There’s something about her that’s dug into me itchy as a chigger. It’s weird. I feel as if it’s more important for her to win this election than for me. I don’t want to fight her anymore.” Kelvin leaned forward and propped both elbows on his thighs, wishing he hadn’t said all this to Brody.

  “Okay.” Brody raised his palms and gave Kelvin a shaky grin. “You’ve officially got me scared. You want me to make an appointment with Doc Edison for you?”

  “Hey, look,” Kelvin said, turning off the mute button on the television. “Roy Firestone is interviewing Trace Hoolihan.”

  Quickly, Brody turned his attention to the TV.

  Kelvin sank back against the couch again and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. His gaze was fixed on the screen, but his mind was hanging on to Giada. Initially, he’d been attracted to her smoking-hot body, then her square-shouldered moxie. The woman possessed more passion and determination than most men he knew and Kelvin respected her for those qualities.

  Except that when he’d kissed her, he’d discovered something else beneath that tough, competitive outer shell. He’d found a rival who could just as easily become a friend. There was a tender, generous woman hidden underneath those layers and he couldn’t help wondering just what he would find if he could peel them all away to expose the real Giada Vito.


  Was he kidding himself? Was it possible to fall in love at forty-seven? Was he falling prey to his own PR hype? Or deep down inside was this really his last chance at finding true happiness?

  BY THE TIME the doorbell rang two hours later, Rachael had managed to pull herself together after what had happened in Brody’s backyard. Her mother had gone quilting with a group of friends and Rachael was alone in the house, the remains of a Lean Cuisine chicken scaloppini frozen dinner still resting on the TV tray in front of her.

  The doorbell rang.

  Brody.

  She hopped up off the couch, ran to the door, and peeked through the peephole.

  Giada Vito stood on her front porch. Her head was held high, her shoulders ruler straight. She looked determined.

  Disappointment pushed air from Rachael’s lungs on a long sigh. Reluctantly, she opened the door. “What do you want?”

  “May I come in?” Giada asked in impeccable English. Except for the faint hint of an Italian accent, no one would ever guess she hadn’t been born and raised in Valentine.

  Rachael stood aside.

  Giada swept into the room.

  “Have a seat.” Rachael waved at the couch.

  Giada perched on the edge of the cushion. She wore a silky peach-colored blouse cut in an Empire style, slim-legged black slacks, black-and-peach sandal stilettos, and pearl earrings. Her hair was pulled back from her face in an elegant twist and anchored to her head with a fat brown barrette. She held her black-and-peach Coach handbag in her lap and crossed her legs at the ankles, the epitome of culture and cool. The woman possessed an efficient kind of beauty that made Rachael feel like a slacker in her gray sweatpants, faded blue cotton T-shirt with the slogan i heart valentine on it, and slouch socks with a hole in one toe.

  “I want you to join my campaign,” Giada said.

  “That’s straight and to the point,” Rachael said. “I’m not very political.”

  “You don’t have to be political. You just do what you do.”

  “Meaning?”

  Giada leaned forward, her expression intent. “We’ve got to shake this town up. They’ve been putting too much emphasis on romance. Education takes a back burner and that concerns me. When I asked my students about their life goals, fully three-quarters of the high school girls said they want to get married and have babies. Can you imagine? No ambition.”

  Rachael could imagine. Once upon a time she’d been one of those girls. Could still be one if she let herself give in to temptation. She thought of Brody, then pushed the thought aside. Too much temptation.

  “I’ve already stirred up trouble.” Rachael nodded to the copy of Texas Monthly resting on the coffee table beside the Lean Cuisine tray.

  “Exactly,” Giada said. “That is precisely the reason I want you on my campaign. You have started a passionate dialogue in this town the likes of which has never been seen. For the first time people are examining what this town stands for and they’re beginning to realize they’ve sold out their inner values and beliefs for the sake of tourism.”

  “Tourism is Valentine’s economy.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” Giada said. “I know a way we can turn this town around.”

  “Oh?”

  Giada lowered her voice. “I don’t want to tip my hand. I have to know if you’re a confederate before I let you in on my secret weapon.”

  Rachael ran her tongue over her lips and shifted uncomfortably. A couple of months ago, caught up in the heat of anger from being jilted, hung up on the fact that her parents were divorcing, she would have jumped at Giada’s offer, anxious to get her message out. But now, in the fallout from the article, with her lips still achy from Brody’s kisses, she wasn’t so sure.

  “You’re addicted to it,” Giada said.

  “Addicted?” Rachael asked, trying to play innocent, but she heard the stress in her own voice.

  “To romance. It’s why you started Romanceaholics Anonymous. Why you wrote the article.”

  Silently, she nodded.

  “This is why it’s so important to do something about it before more young girls become addicted to the fairy-tale belief of true love and happily-ever-after.”

  “I know,” Rachael croaked.

  Giada reached over and put a hand on hers. “What are you so afraid of? I’m throwing you a life preserver. Grab hold, Rachael. Hold on for dear life. Save yourself.”

  She thought of Brody. Of how much she wanted to romanticize their relationship. Of how badly she yearned to fall madly in love with him. Already she imagined herself moving into his house, wearing his ring, having his babies. Making the same old mistakes. Leaving her heart open for more pain and disappointment. She had to nip these feelings in the bud.

  Thoughts whirling, she met Giada’s eyes. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it. I’ll join your campaign.”

  FOR DAYS RACHAEL’S article in Texas Monthly and speculation over the upcoming political debate between Giada and Kelvin buzzed through the Valentine grapevine like wildfire through a timber drought. The restless edginess over romance that had started the day Rachael desecrated the billboard escalated as the town took sides. Divisions split friendships and families and love relationships.

  Brody’s wariness grew. With everyone stirred up, something unpleasant was bound to happen. The vandal hadn’t struck again — not since graffitiing Rachael’s car, but Brody hadn’t stopped investigating. He had the field narrowed to a handful of suspects — most of them mischievous high school boys — but he had no proof. All he could do was wait for the vandal or vandals to strike again.

  And Rachael was a prime target.

  He kept a close eye on her house, watching her comings and goings across the street with a pair of high-powered field binoculars. He told himself it was protective surveillance, but more than once his gaze had lingered inappropriately on the sensuous curves of her fine body and his mind would wander to that day in his backyard.

  As he watched her, Brody was sorry that his family had moved away when he was twelve. That he hadn’t lived next door to Rachael during her teenage years. That he hadn’t been there to watch her blossom from gangly kid into gorgeous young woman. Why did he feel as if he’d missed out on so much?

  The Friday before the political debate, Brody performed his new bedtime ritual. He took the binoculars from the drawer in his bedside table, pushed back the curtains, and trained his sights on Rachael’s driveway. It was just after ten, and while the VW Bug sat parked in the driveway, Selina’s Cadillac wasn’t there.

  Rachael was alone.

  The realization raised the hairs on the back of his neck as he imagined her all alone in that house, maybe stepping out of the shower naked, toweling herself dry. . . .

  That’s when he spied a figure dressed in black ducking through the shrubbery surrounding the house.

  “Sonofabitch,” he said, flinging the binoculars on the bed and reaching for his pants.

  Minutes later he was across the street, pulse thumping, gun drawn. A neighborhood dog barked. Crickets chirped. He could hear the gentle whirring of his Power Knee as he crouched and scanned the darkness.

  He spied movement at the back of the house. Was it a tree in the breeze or something far more sinister?

  And then Rachael screamed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Brody’s appearance at her back door was almost as startling as the face she’d seen — distorted by a stocking — peeking in her kitchen window.

  She caught her breath at the sight of the sheriff. An angry frown furrowed his brow and he held a gun clutched in both hands. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  Stunned, she waved at the window and managed to squeak out, “Peeping Tom.”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Lock the door behind me.”

  He disappeared as quickly as he’d come, leaving Rachael feeling shaky and unsettled. She locked the door, then sank down at the kitchen table, the glass of milk she’d come downstairs for completely forgotte
n.

  She’d managed to drag in a couple of deep calming breaths by the time Brody tapped on the back glass. She got up to let him in. He closed and locked the kitchen door behind him and laid his gun down on the counter.

  “Whoever it was got away. But there’s footprints in the dirt underneath your window. I’ll make an imprint. See if I can discover what kind of shoes the Peeping Tom was wearing. Was it a man?”

  “I think so.” His eyes met hers and Rachael realized she was trembling.

  “Peaches,” he said, calling her by the sweet little nickname. “Are you all right?”

  Helplessly, inexplicably, she burst into tears.

  “Aw, hell, Peaches.” He reached for her, pulling her into his arms.

  It felt so good here in the circle of his embrace. So safe.

  “Don’t cry.” His voice was raw and scratchy and he smelled of minty toothpaste and cotton pajamas. He was wearing his pajamas.

  “You were in bed,” she said.

  “On my way there.”

  “How did you get over here so quickly? I barely had time to scream and there you were.”

  “I saw someone creeping around your house.”

  “You were watching my house?”

  “I was.”

  “Watching over me?”

  “You’ve stirred up a lot of trouble in town. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Brody squeezed her tight. More tightly than he should. She felt so familiar in his arms. As if she’d always belonged there. It was a dangerous feeling but he could not shake it. Her body was so soft and warm and supple pressed against his. The scents of roses and lavender emanated from her smooth, creamy skin. Tears clung to her eyelashes and he had an irresistible urge to kiss them away.

  This was what he’d been so afraid of, from the very moment he’d fetched her down off the billboard. That she would somehow worm her way into his heart. And now he was holding her as if both their lives depended on this hug and his heart was pounding so hard he feared it might explode.

  At some point Brody realized he was rocking her like a child and smoothing her hair with his palm. And he had another flash of memory from their childhood. She’d gotten skates for Christmas one year and she’d fallen in her driveway and skinned her knee. He’d been out shooting hoops and had seen her fall. He’d gone over and scooped her up, holding her then much as he was holding her now. Seeking to comfort her. Make everything okay in her world.