Hustled To The Altar

by Dani Collins

  Embracing his arm was like hugging a tree trunk. A sleek, warm tree trunk sanded to a satin finish, with an intriguing contour that attracted her fingertip.

  Spencer made a soft noise and pulled his arm away, running his wet hand down his stoic face.

  “Are you blushing?” she asked.

  He closed his eyes, as if enduring unbearable pain.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to embarrass you.” She took his arm again, realized her breast had brushed his forearm and stepped away, embarrassed herself.

  She felt as awkward as she had at fifteen, finding excuses to touch him, feeling confused when she couldn’t interpret his reaction. Giggling self-consciously.

  “Oh, hell, I’ve completely regressed. You make me nervous, Spencer.”

  He opened one eye and stared at her in apparent disbelief.

  “Silly, isn’t it? You barely speak but you’re so together. Always have been. It’s intimidating.”

  The tension in his shoulders eased and he tilted his head. “I intimidate you? Were you scared of me when we were kids?”

  Her insides melted. “I wasn’t scared scared. But I was scared I wouldn’t measure up. Scared you’d forget me.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Not possible.”

  Her heartbeat took a silly leap. She wanted to loathe herself, but she was too buoyant and happy. “I want to act casual, like I’m your old friend, practically a sister,” she said, taking his arm again, running her hand slowly along the inner crease of his elbow, feeling his muscles jump against her touch. “But I’m not.”

  “No.” He looked down her body. His arm rotated in her slippery grip as he reached out and settled his hand on her hip. He drew circles on her skin with his thumb and her tummy contracted in reaction.

  Light steam rose off the water, condensing on their skin, making his skin shiny and her palm slick as she stroked her hand up his arm to his shoulder.

  “I’m not prepared for this. Not today. Not right now,” she said.

  His chest rose and fell in a quick breath. “Not here.”

  “No,” she agreed, and laughed shakily. “Are you still feeling shy?”

  “Must be ’cause I’m dying to kiss you and haven’t yet.”

  Spencer couldn’t believe he’d just said that. He was so mortified, he wanted to dunk himself and stay under ’til the lights went out. He would have, but Murphy strode through a door labeled “staff only,” his feet squishing across the pool deck. When he came even with them, he crouched down.

  “Hello? Our guy just left. What are you two doing?”

  Spencer jerked his hand from Laila’s waist, rippling the water into a splash.

  “Yeah. Thought so.” Murphy smirked.

  “He left? Where did he go?” Laila asked.

  Murphy shrugged and Spencer felt a trace of relief. He didn’t feel good about Laila losing her story, but without the con man, her piece was dead in the water. He could breathe easier that she and Con wouldn’t be tripping over each other.

  “Why aren’t you following him?” Laila demanded.

  “Why aren’t you?” Murphy challenged.

  “You are kidding me, Murphy. Get out there and see if you can spot him.”

  “I’ll ask the receptionist if he said anything on his way out.” Murphy went back through the door.

  “I can’t believe I let a man distract me from my work. Damn you, Spencer!” She climbed the ladder out of the pool and he followed.

  Okay, she was losing her story. That wasn’t his fault, but he owed her an apology for raising her hopes by luring her here in the first place. He owed her the truth.

  When she would have headed straight for the changing room, he caught her wrist.

  “Easy, Samson. I don’t do well with physical restraint.”

  He let go of her wrist and rubbed his hand against the back of his neck. “I want you to drop this story.”

  She drew back, stared at him a long minute, as if waiting for him to take back what he had said, then shook her head. “No. I don’t do that for anyone.”

  “Please.”

  “You barely even know what I’m working on.”

  “People are being scammed at the Glacier View in Deception Springs,” he quoted. “I lured you here. I’m asking you to stop.”

  Her face lost all expression. “You’re Blackwing?”

  He nodded.

  She walked into the women’s change room.

  2:39 p.m.

  As Renny slammed out, leaving the field of play still smelling of her perfume, Jake turned aggressive eyes on Con.

  “Whatever game you’re playing isn’t working. You haven’t scared me into leaving.”

  “Trying to make you leave would imply I’m threatened by you, Jake. By all means, stick around and keep things interesting.”

  Jake looked ready to kick his ass. Con contemplated letting him do it. He wasn’t feeling too good about what he’d just done to Renny. Her adolescent arrest didn’t mean a damn thing to him, but the fact that Jake still wanted her had been a move he hadn’t expected. He had reacted instinctively, ruthlessly, in an attempt to sever the relationship.

  And there was no take-back on that move, dammit.

  “Do you have any idea where she’s gone?” Jake asked.

  Con tried to remember whether Renny had said anything. “Probably Felix’s apartment,” he guessed.

  “I’ll go after her. Where does he live?”

  “I’ll go.” Con wiped at his mouth, looking for smudged lipstick.

  “You’ll just upset her. You were way out of line, Con.”

  Out of line. Disruptive. Unconventional. Con had heard every variation on the theme. He ignored the defensive tightness the words created in his chest. Jacob symbolized the standard by which all men were measured. He didn’t want to be Jake’s kind of man, but he suffered an awkward moment of feeling as though he had fallen short. Again.

  “So long as I wasn’t just a little out of line. I hate doing things in a small way.”

  Jake took on the look of a man with a slipping temper, flushed and bright eyed. “Do you take anything seriously?”

  “Dungeons and Dragons. If you don’t fully embrace it, you’re missing the point.”

  “How about Renny?”

  “She takes it very seriously, and, like me, will only play basic D&D. She doesn’t like the point-based system of the later versions, but I’m sentimental about the original because the succubus illustration got me through puberty.”

  “I meant, do you take Renny seriously?” Jake looked ready to snap.

  “Renny doesn’t want serious.”

  “You don’t know what Renny wants.”

  Jake’s contempt annoyed him. “Okay, I’ll bite. What does she want?”

  “Security. She wants to know a man loves her enough to commit himself to a lifetime with her.”

  “And if you weren’t hired to say that, I’d be impressed, Jake.”

  “Fuck you, Con. Don’t act like I’m a lowlife when you only want her back to prove you can get her. How about acting like an adult and thinking of someone else for a change?” Jake jerked on his own lapels, obviously disturbed by his outburst.

  Con was disturbed himself. “You can quit acting anytime, Jake. Gran can’t be paying you that much. How much is she paying you, by the way?”

  “Why? Are you willing to up the fee? Are you worried you can’t win the old-fashioned way, so you think you can pull out your checkbook and cheat? Oh, my mistake. For you to feel threatened by my feelings for Renny, you’d have to have some of your own.” Jake jerked his chin. “Why don’t you leave?”

  “I’m paying for the suite.”

  Jake’s face went purple.

  Con knew there were times when he should shut up and let someone else have the last word, but if there was an opening to volley back, he was usually compelled to follow through. This time he might have resisted the urge, if only because he liked to think he had a flicker of compassi
on in him somewhere, but he was too shocked by Jake’s loss of composure.

  It wasn’t Jake’s anger that made him uncomfortable. It was the sense that he was in a face-off with himself. Jake’s feelings for Renny were right there on the floor where he’d spewed them. Jake appeared to be as motivated to win Renny as Con was. Con considered the possibility that Jake actually loved Renny more than he did.

  Oh, hell, he loved her.

  Con cared for many people on many levels, but he had learned not to go begging for love. That’s why he had let Renny walk away without fighting, why he had waited for her to come to him before making an effort to get her back. That’s why he would go to elaborate lengths to convince her to come back to him without actually putting his feelings into words.

  He didn’t want to love her. How dare she make him vulnerable to pain like this? He ought to walk right now.

  Yeah, that would teach her a lesson.

  Con stared at the ceiling and drew in a breath that burned. Dammit, he wasn’t going to be able to stand here and work through this. At this moment, with his heart pounding and his throat tight, a strategic retreat was his only option. Forcing a smile, he said, “Make yourself at home, Jake. I’ll be back in a while.”

  2:45 p.m.

  After leaving the hotel, Renny went through the gears of the Spitfire with enough aggression to get herself pulled over for speeding. Leaning her backside on the driver’s door, she tipped her head back and groaned at the sky while she waited for the pregnant sheriff to waddle back with her driver’s license.

  Getting a ticket served her right. She was trying to hurt Con by destroying his transmission when it was herself she wanted to punish. All Con had done was reveal her dirty little secret. She had done the actual crimes.

  “Renatta O’Laughlin,” the sheriff said, returning to the side of the car and leaning her elbow on the top of the windshield. “I knew I recognized the name. You made a report to my husband this morning.”

  “That’s right.” Renny straightened from leaning on the door, heart settling back into her chest from the middle of her throat. She scratched inside the bend of her elbow.

  “I thought you phoned from Greenbowl.”

  “I did. Then I decided to come to town and see if I could find the confidence man. I spoke to your husband a couple of hours ago. I had spotted Felix, but he slipped away.” The back of her neck prickled and she tried to rub the sensation away.

  “I don’t know if we could do much more than put a scare into him, anyway. You said you don’t have any physical evidence? Copies of the policy he supposedly sells?”

  “No, he told my employer it would come in the mail.”

  “Sounds like a pro. He must be using a new alias. We didn’t get anything when we ran his name.”

  On the point of telling the sheriff that Felix was at the health mine right now, Renny asked instead, “So, if you arrested him right now, what would happen?”

  “We might be able to keep him overnight. It would likely scare him into leaving town, but he’d start up somewhere else. Without overwhelming evidence, it’s difficult to stop these people.” The sheriff tilted her weight onto her heels and rubbed the small of her back.

  Renny frowned at her driver’s license before putting it away. She could bring the sheriff to the health mine and get Felix arrested, and be free to leave town, but her conscience would torture her if he ultimately went free. And, besides, where would she go? She wouldn’t have a job because she had already worked out her notice with Mona. She wouldn’t have a marriage. She wouldn’t have the home she had come to love or the one she had thought she would make with Jacob. And Con . . . forget Con.

  She wouldn’t have anything to go to if she left right now and she would leave her self-respect behind. What little was left of it, anyway. To feel good about herself, she needed to stop Felix.

  “Where are you headed in such a hurry?” the sheriff asked.

  “The health mine,” Renny said, slipping her foot out of her shoe and using it to scratch the back of her knee.

  “If you’re concerned about your health, I suggest you slow down on these curves.”

  “Good advice. Do I need to pay a fine?” Her inner ear tingled. Talking to a cop was making her ears itchy, for God’s sake.

  “Normally, I would write you a ticket, but I appreciate your reporting a criminal working in my town. I’ll let you go with a warning.”

  “Thanks.” Renny took advantage of the sheriff’s generosity by speeding the rest of the way. A taxi was pulling out of the health mine lot as she pulled in. She frowned, hoping Felix had arrived in it since his car wasn’t among the few in the lot.

  Because she thought she knew how his mind worked, she slipped off her jewelry and stowed it in her purse, then ducked through the dust cloud she’d raised and walked through the double orange doors that formed the entrance to the health mine.

  The lobby was painted white, from the ragged ceiling of exposed rock to the concrete floor. The only colors in the room came from a second set of orange doors that led to the interior of the mine and from the admission clerk. The heavyset woman wore a blue dress with daisies blooming from collar to hemline. Silk daisies dangled over the brim of her blue hat, bouncing against her blond curls. A plastic daisy on the slope of her breast read, “Darla.”

  Darla lowered her half glasses, making the chain that secured them sway.

  “I’m meeting someone here,” Renny said. “A blond man. Mid- to late forties? Is he inside?”

  “Sixty-eight dollars, please.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Each treatment up to four hours is sixty-eight dollars.”

  “I’m only going to be in there ten minutes.”

  “If you want to take full advantage of the radon—”

  “Actually, the radon makes me nervous,” Renny said.

  “Uh, huh.” Darla went back to working the crossword in her Woman’s World.

  “How much did you say you wanted?” Renny took out her credit card but hung onto it.

  “Sixty-eight dollars.”

  “The sign behind you says twenty-three.”

  “Twenty-three for the treatment, forty-five for keeping me here late. A dollar a minute.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Darla peered over the top of her glasses again. “You’re not the first to want privacy inside the mine, hon. I’ve seen it before, you wait until closing so you have the place to yourselves—which is what you want, right? You the couple that arrived this morning? Potency problem?”

  Renny opened her mouth but nothing came out.

  “The Dreamers’ Lounge is popular.” Darla plucked the credit card from Renny’s fingers and swiped it.

  Renny shook her head, but punched in her pin code and took back her card with the folded brochure Darla handed her. Darla pressed a button that caused the orange doors to buzz.

  Renny entered the dank interior of the cave. Sniffing experimentally, she discovered no smell and no instant death from radon exposure. She didn’t know much about radon gas, only what she had gathered from media warnings against it, and what she was learning from the handwritten testimonials hanging in frames on the sides of the cavern that celebrated the mine’s curative effects.

  The walls and ceiling were bare rock in every shade of gray and brown with streaks of red. The odd glitter had her wondering if gold could still be found. A concrete walkway made the cave wheelchair accessible, if not exactly inviting. Bare bulbs ran along a line of electrical wire, twisting around the corner, leading her further into the heart of the cave.

  Her tummy fluttered with nerves as she crept along, surrounded by silence. She didn’t see Felix or anyone else.

  Pausing to study the map in the brochure, she saw the cavern was a wormhole into the mountain without other entrances or exits. Alcoves twisted off the main path labeled things like “Reading Area” and “Reflection Corner.” Bigger hollows had names like “Pet Lounge” and “Lichen Room.�
�� The Dreamers’ Lounge was at the end, in the belly of the mountain.

  The sound of feet shuffling sounded a moment before a couple appeared around the bend, the man pushing the woman’s wheelchair. They smiled as they passed and left.

  Renny realized Darla hadn’t confirmed Felix had been admitted to the facility. Listening to the scrape of her own footsteps, she peered into alcoves as she went. She’d go a little further and if she didn’t find him, she would wait in the parking lot.

  Two women flung open doors in front of her, startling her with their appearance. Their faces and arms were smeared with greenish-black slime.

  “It’s lichen,” one explained. Grinning, the women marched past her, creating a breeze that surrounded Renny in an earthy, dank scent.

  Renny peeked into the Lichen Room, a dimly lit hole with seats carved into the stone wall. Water trickled from the ceiling leaving a shiny path to the floor where dark splotches of lichen grew.

  Primordial ooze, she thought sourly. The kind of slimy gunk that ought to stay underground. Not unlike her past. She let the door swing shut and continued her journey.

  The cavern grew dimmer. The bulbs back here were colored, giving off a greenish-blue light. The temperature dropped a couple of degrees and it seemed even more still and silent. She saw the sign for the Dreamers’ Lounge and opened the door long enough to see a half dozen cots in a room where only a little light penetrated. A fan hummed, but the air smelled stale, with a trace of lichen and human body odor. The perfect place to reacquaint herself with her inner criminal.

  Forget it. She wasn’t doing this. She backed out and turned to leave, but heard footsteps coming toward her.

  “Felix?” she said.

  The footsteps stopped.

  She moved forward to see past the next bend in the tunnel. Nothing.

  “Hello?” she said.

  No response. She couldn’t help looking over her shoulder, even though she was sure she’d got to the depths of the mine and seen no one.

  It had to be Felix stalking her, though. Jerk. She walked a few feet toward the entrance, just enough to see past the next bend.