The Trouble With Lust

by T. M. Cromer

  “Let’s not make this a habit. My nerves can’t take it.”

  “Promise.”

  “And if you are as cranky as last time, I’m letting Dane be your errand boy,” she warned.

  Dane snorted.

  Mason offered up a sleepy grin. “Who does a guy have to kill to get a glass of water around here?”

  Shonda knew he was joking but the comment brought back the fact she took Billy’s life today. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and her stomach churned. She barely had enough time to make it to the bathroom before she was beset with dry heaves. Over and over her body tried to retch as she thought about the sweet kid he’d been and then his lifeless body there on the floor. She tried to tell herself it had been him or Mason. It didn’t help.

  A cool cloth found its way to the back of her neck, and a cup of water was placed beside her on the sink. She offered Dane a small smile of thanks and rested back against the bathroom wall, trying to collect herself.

  * * *

  “She okay?” Mason asked his brother as he stepped out of the bathroom. “I didn’t think…”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. She’s tough. She’ll be fine.” Dane presented him with water and placed a hand on his shoulder. “How about you? Can I get you anything else?”

  “Don’t let her mourn for that bastard. He’s stabbed her in the back at every turn and then shot me. I honestly believe he would have killed her had she not taken him out first.”

  Dane was silent. Mason knew his brother was the thinker, piecing together what he wanted to say and how he should best go about doing it.

  “The police are down in the lobby. They’re going to want your statement.”

  “You can tell them I’m awake. Just give me a few minutes with Shonda first.”

  “Will do.”

  Their eyes, so alike, met and held for a long moment. Mason noted the fading bruises around his little brother’s eyes and nose. “I’m not sorry for punching you.”

  Dane grinned. “I’m not sorry for kissing your girlfriend.”

  Mason laughed and grabbed his stomach as the pain shot through him. “Fair enough. We good?”

  “Like you had to ask. I’ll call Ma and tell her she can rest easy.”

  “Appreciate that.”

  “Is it going to bother you if I crash at Shonda’s?”

  Mason gave a half smile. “Nah. I’d actually feel better knowing someone is looking out for her while I’m stuck in here.”

  “Somehow, I suspect she’ll be here full-time to take care of you. Though I have to say, the way you’ve treated her up until now leaves a lot to be desired. If it were me, I’d let your sorry ass rot.”

  “I thought we had a truce?”

  “Can’t recall that word ever being spoken. But a truce doesn’t mean I can’t tell you when you’re being an asshat, bro.”

  Dane had the balls to ruffle his hair before he walked off, whistling a jaunty tune.

  “Dickhead,” Mason called. All he received for his effort was the bird. Again, he laughed, then groaned. It was nice to be back to normal with his youngest sibling. The tension between them over the last month had been wearing.

  Shonda came out of the bathroom, looking a little ragged and worn out.

  “I suppose this is the point where I say thank you for saving my life—again,” he said softly.

  “That goes both ways. Billy would have shot me.” She shook her head and walked to look out the bank of windows, seemingly blind to hills in the distance. “I still don’t understand why.”

  “Money is a strong motivator, love.”

  She nodded, a mechanical gesture. The silence stretched as she remained lost in her own private hell.

  “Shonda.” When he had her full attention, he beckoned her closer. “You had no real choice.”

  “No, I get that.” She said, distracted. “You said money was a strong motivator.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He gave her a blank look.

  “I have some money, yes. Not enough for someone to off me,” she said, starting to warm up to the subject. “Plus if I was killed, having no husband or children, my estate would revert back to my mother and father.”

  Mason went cold. The puzzle pieces fell into place. “Shonda, you need to get your parents on the phone, immediately.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll explain it all at once. Hand me my phone and call your parents on yours. Three way if you have to but do it.”

  He thanked his lucky stars that, for once, she didn’t argue. For once, she complied with his directions. Or at least attempted to.

  “I’m not getting an answer.” She glanced at the clock on the wall and then back at him. Her expression turned grim.

  His call to Bucky Whitmore was answered immediately.

  “Bucky? Hey, man. I need you to do me a favor. Will you contact the Springdale PD and have them perform wellness checks on Shonda’s parents?”

  Bucky’s voice came over the line, demanding answers. “What’s going on, Mason? Does this have to do with that car bomb last month?”

  “I think so.” Mason went on to explain the circumstances surrounding them recently. He started with the break-ins in St. Thomas and continued on to explain the shooting here in Thornton. “At first I thought good old cousin Billy was a fuck up. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “Go on.”

  “I think he was desperate for money, for reasons he took to the grave. But I think he was in on it with Shonda’s sister.”

  Shonda gasped at the same time Bucky asked, “Shonda has a sister?”

  Mason met her startled eyes. “A twin, to be precise.”

  “Can you call in the wellness check, and then I’ll explain?”

  “What’s the address?”

  Mason handed the phone to Shonda in order for her to provide Bucky with the details. She disconnected and handed his cell back.

  “He said he’d call you in about twenty minutes. What’s going on, Mason? How is it you believe my twin survived? You think my father lied about putting her up for adoption?”

  “No. I believe he was telling the truth—as he knew it to be. Remember he said he’d been in Italy when your mother went into labor? It struck me as odd he worded it the way he did. ‘By the time I could catch a flight home, you were already tucked into your crib, your sister was gone, and your mother blamed me for everything.’” He paused and searched for the right way to get across what he was trying to say. “Why wouldn’t a grieving mother wait for the father in order to bury their infant daughter? Why would she have a funeral without him present? The delay wouldn’t have been that long. Now, add to that the fact that I saw your twin in St. Thomas the night of the second break-in.”

  Her arrested expression told him she’d thought of something else.

  “What did you remember?”

  “Billy was there. Or at least I thought it was Billy. I remember thinking it was odd he wouldn’t greet me. Then I told myself I must’ve been seeing things. It was the same night you said you saw the woman who looked like me at the bar. It made me forget all about him.”

  “They had to be working together even then,” he mused.

  “Working on what? The GenCon ads?”

  He could tell she didn’t want to see the connection.

  “Shonda, you said your mother had essentially run out of money.”

  “Yes, but Papa still makes sure she has everything she needs. He has the chain of restaurants and his family money.”

  He lifted a brow and let it sink in. Her horrified look struck him hard in the gut, right next to the bullet wound from her damned cousin.

  “You once told me your mother was never there while you were growing up. That it was also the reason she and Nolan broke up.”

  “Yes, she was gone so much of the time, he thought she was having an affair. She must have been spending time with her other child.”

  “I believe that is why her house was
lit on fire while she was out of town. Because she needed the insurance money from her home.”

  The pieces came together for her, too. But in a very different pattern. Tears flooded her eyes, and shock kept her immobilized, frozen in horror.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Shonda’s mind tried to reject that her own mother would plot to have her murdered. And until she’d heard or had seen any evidence directly, she may never believe it. Yet, Mason’s theory couldn’t be rejected out of hand. It just needed to be expanded upon. So much made sense now.

  If her mother had raised them separately, it meant she’d planned to divide them while they were still in the womb. Shonda guessed that she’d been meant to go to her father—her mother’s way of being fair by offering up one of the children. However, when he’d stated he had no time to raise a baby—a complaint Shonda had heard from her mother’s own mouth many times growing up—Eva was forced to keep both girls apart. How could the other child be explained after the fact? How could Eva risk a visit between the sisters? Her young daughter, not knowing any better, would’ve probably blabbed to her father that she’d spent time with her very own twin.

  As the years went on, her mother had become more distant, taking off for longer periods of time. By middle school, if Shonda saw her mother for a week a year, it was a lot. She’d essentially been raised by a whole slew of nannies. Her father had kept throwing money at the situation, not really seeing it as a problem. His business was his new love. He’d poured his heart and soul into building a multi-million-dollar enterprise with the name Luigi’s in big bold letters.

  Allison Grant had to be the missing link. She had to have been in on the scheme from the beginning as well. It had to be the reason Billy had been part of the whole plot to take Shonda’s life, the reason the sisters-in-law had been “estranged” from before Shonda’s birth.

  “They’d planned for me to disappear in St. Thomas and for my sister to take my place,” she said woodenly. The knowledge she was not only unloved but was inconvenient to all of them struck her hard. “They were looking for something in my room. They were looking for my passport.”

  Because all her energy was depleted, and she feared her legs would no longer hold her upright, Shonda sat.

  “What are you saying, love?”

  “It wasn’t just about the money. My mother could’ve had that at any time. Don’t you see? They want my twin to be me. If I disappear, she could easily step into my place. Then she’d have access to my father’s millions and no longer be in the shadows. Because we rarely see each other, they believe he wouldn’t know the difference. She only needed my passport, and then they could’ve done away with my body for her transformation to be me.”

  “But they never found it that night,” Mason concluded.

  “Right, because the passport wasn’t in my purse. I’d already put it in the safe as soon as I’d checked in.”

  “Billy was never looking for a hard drive. He was looking for something that might have told him what your passport number is. At the very least they could’ve claimed it was lost or stolen.”

  Their eyes met, both of them realizing for the first time, that because of a chance meeting, she was alive today.

  “They never counted on you,” she whispered. “You were there at every turn.”

  “So the whole GenCon thing was a false trail?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I think that was to set me up. With all that’s happened, the attacks on me, the loss of my job, they’d predicted I would do exactly what I did. I would go off by myself because I had nothing holding me in place. What better way to target a victim? What better way to assume someone’s life? No one knows the real me here. How easy would it be for a look-a-like to step into my shoes and become me?”

  “Christ, Shonda. When I think about how close they came…”

  Mason looked a little green. She imaged they were a matching pair.

  “How do we prove it?”

  Shonda smiled her first real smile of the day. “Billy.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He was the light in Allison’s sky. That was never in dispute,” she said. “She’ll take his death hard. I would imagine she’ll turn against my mother.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  “She will, if there’s no money left to inherit from my father.”

  “So we get him to change his will to exclude your mother.”

  “In the meantime, I’ll change mine. When she sees the money is tied up and out of reach, her reaction won’t be pretty. Especially after losing her son.”

  “I imagine we can get her to turn on your mother and sister,” he said, admiration lighting his eyes and voice. “You’re one brilliant strategist.”

  “That’s why Erica comes to me to help plot her stories.”

  “In the meantime, while I’m stuck in here, you don’t go anywhere alone. I want Dane with you at all times.”

  His concern thawed the pieces of her heart she thought had frozen over. Still, she needed to ask, “You trust me alone with your brother? Aren’t you worried I’ll seduce him?”

  His smile, when it came, was the same panty-melting grin that scrambled her brains every time. “No, love. I’m certain that will never be a concern for me again. Now come here, because I’ve waited to hold you long enough.”

  Careful not to bump his abdomen, she climbed on the bed and nestled into his warmth. She breathed deeply of his scent. How was it possible he always smelled so divine? Shouldn’t he smell like hospital and antiseptic? His pheromones did crazy things to her system.

  “Did you just sniff me?” he asked, teasing smile in place.

  “Can I help it if—”

  He trapped her words with his mouth on hers. The kiss was poignant, expressing everything he’d been unable to put into words.

  “I love you, Shonda.”

  She could hold out for pride’s sake, or she could give in to what she’d always longed for. “I love you, too.”

  “How determined are you to stay here in Colorado?” He asked sleepily, fatigue weighing heavy on his words.

  “Not very. I miss Stonebrooke.”

  “Good. I have a house on the lake I think you’ll love.”

  “Are you actually going to allow me to see your place?” she mocked, pulling back in shock.

  “I’m actually asking you to move in with me,” he returned.

  “I don’t know. You’re a moody bastard.”

  “Somehow, I don’t see you having a problem with that.” His laughter triggered her own.

  Six weeks later…

  In the end, Luigi’s lawyers, alongside the district attorney, were able to cut Allison a deal if she’d turn state’s evidence against Eva and Shayla, as Shonda’s twin was called. Allison did so without a moment’s hesitation. The previously fake estrangement had become real in every sense of the word. Her son was dead because of Eva’s unscrupulous plot. Allison didn’t owe anyone any loyalties.

  After Shonda’s mother and sister had been arrested, Eva had requested to see Shonda.

  “Are you going to go see her when you return?” Mason asked, supervising the loading of the last boxes for her move back to Stonebrooke.

  “I’ve toyed with the idea—for the sake of closure. But I think I’m done with her.”

  “What about your sister? Are you curious about her or her motives?” He pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her, and rested his chin on her head. Together, they watched as the movers closed up the truck and the taillights disappeared over the crest of the hill.

  “We know what her motives were, don’t we? Money and my mother’s approval. No, I don’t need to see her either. Erica’s my true sister. She’s the one I would have chosen.”

  Hand in hand, they wandered back up the driveway and into the now-empty house. Mason looked at the spot in the kitchen where they’d both almost lost their lives. He hadn’t realized his hand had tightened on hers until she protested.

&
nbsp; “Sorry, love. I…” Emotion clogged his throat, making it difficult to speak. “Six inches to the right,” he finally managed, and that said it all. Had she not stepped back, had the bullet been six inches to the right of where Billy had aimed, he would have shot her through the heart. Mason would have lost her forever. That, he now understood, would have been the one lost love he would never have recovered from.

  “I think we need to make a better memory for this kitchen,” she suggested, tugging at his hand.

  Surprised, he glanced down into her smiling moss-green eyes. “You don’t say.”

  “Yep. Exorcise the ghosts, so to speak. I mean, according to the doctor, you’re fit to resume normal activities in moderation.”

  “Have I ever said how much I love the way you think?” He grinned, and her panties were no more.

  Epilogue

  Mason strolled into their kitchen and, with a flourish, offered Shonda a bouquet of rose stems, sans the buds. She raised questioning eyes.

  “For you, my darling Morticia.”

  “Oh Gomez, you shouldn’t have!”

  “‘Unhappy, darling?’” he quoted a line from the Addams Family.

  “‘Yes, completely,’” she replied in kind.

  “‘Cara mia.’” He snatched her hand and started kissing the inside of her forearm.

  “‘Mon cher,’” she giggled, before swatting him playfully. “Let go. I need to put these in water.”

  He snorted at the memory of her angrily snipping the heads of the roses he’d brought her months before. But instead of releasing her, he took the headless flowers and tossed the bundle on the counter before dragging her more fully into his arms.

  He nuzzled her neck and held her tight to his chest. Her deep sigh filled him with contentment. “I love you, Shonda Grant.”

  Each time he said it, the words rolled a little easier off his tongue.

  “And I love you, Mason Sharp.”

  “Marry me.” He didn’t know where the words came from. He’d never intended to utter them at all. However, once they were spoken, he felt a rightness.