by Giselle Fox
Contents
Title Page
Copywrite
Dedication
By Giselle Fox
Prologue
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
More
Sun Catcher
Book Two
by Giselle Fox
No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews. Please note that piracy of copyright materials is illegal and directly harms the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
© 2017 Giselle Fox - All Rights Reserved
Dedication
To true love, respect, passion, and fire.
To sauciness, romance, fairy tales, and happy endings.
To my beautiful wife; the embodiment of sexy and the greatest inspiration I could ever have.
Other Books by Giselle Fox:
Sun Catcher Book One
Rock Candy
Rare and Beautiful Things
Slow Burn in Tuscany
Claire and the Lady Billionaire Series:
This is an ongoing series of steamy contemporary lesbian romance featuring one of my favorite couples, Claire and Camille. Please check them out!
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Giselle Fox Amazon Author Page
Giselle Fox on Twitter
Gisellefox.com
One year earlier, Missouri, USA
It was 2 am. Her six-month-old son was desperately trying to sleep in her arms, but loud music and sounds of fighting downstairs were keeping him awake. She was so tired that she could barely stand but she had to because nothing else would calm her baby down. Stinger James, her husband, was downstairs with his crew doing business. At least that’s what he called it. It was more like doing drugs and drinking.
She heard something splinter and crack - something heavy, like wood. Whatever brawl was happening in the living room had spilled into the hallway. She knew it could soon come upstairs. She heard something else, the sound of glass shattering on the hardwood floor, the photo that hung by the front door. She didn’t know why she’d bothered to put it there. Maybe to remind her husband and everyone else that used her home like a clubhouse that a family lived there. Had it made a difference? No, not a bit.
She was up to her eyes sick of it. If she had any love left for him, she might have cared about the mess Stinger had become. But at that moment, all she cared about was her son. She put him back in his crib and took a deep breath. Somehow she had to convince Stinger to be quiet since he didn’t have the sense to do it on his own. She closed the door behind her and headed down the stairs. Sure enough, the banister was in splinters, sheared by some biker’s body. There was a hole in the plaster wall on the other side of the staircase. The fight was still going on. Two grown men were beating each other just for fun.
She heard Stinger howl again like his speech had been stretched through a time warp. When she stepped onto the landing, he was sitting in his favorite red chair. His shirt was off and he was sweating. A pasty sheen covered his skin. The man lived on a diet of booze and drugs but he still looked fierce. His gun was in his hand.
A pale blond woman was splayed on the coffee table in front of him, cackling to no one in particular. There was white powder all over her chest. Stinger leaned forward to take another hit off of her belly using his famous rolled up bill, the first twenty he’d made dealing.
He lifted his head and caught her watching him. He glared back at her. She was the reminder of his real life, the one he didn’t want to accept. She was everything that he hated. They stared at each other a moment. She knew the look, the warning don’t fucking say it look.
One of the other guys spotted her and nodded. He had a little respect, at least. He tried to turn the music down but Stinger just jabbed his gun at him. “Don’t you fucking touch it!” he screamed.
“Okay, okay,” the other one said. He looked back at her apologetically.
Stinger sneered at her like he was teaching her a lesson while his baby tried to sleep.
She couldn’t hear much above the noise but something in her knew her son was awake again. There was no point in trying to talk to Stinger. Nothing would change. She climbed back up the stairs and crept into her baby’s room as if opening the door could disturb him any more. Lunatics had already taken over the house. She heard a gunshot and then laughter. An accident - someone lodged a bullet in the floorboards. She grabbed onto her boy and held him tight to her chest.
She was so delirious that she fell into a sleep-like daze. Her son slumbered against her breast while she covered his little ear with her hand. She hoped he could only hear her heartbeat and not the madness going on downstairs. When she woke a while later, stiff and sore, the puppy dog clock on the wall told her it was after 4 am.
The stereo was still blasting metal but she couldn’t hear voices. She put her boy back in his crib and left him. When she crept down the stairs, there was no movement in the hallway, no shadows on the wall. She peered around what was left of the railing. The blond and Stinger were passed out on the couch, half-naked. Everyone else had gone. She knew it was time for her to go too.
She packed her son’s bag, diapers, clothes, and something warm to wrap him in. Her own suitcase had been packed for months. Everything she needed, almost.
She went downstairs again. The music was loud enough she knew they wouldn’t hear a thing; not her opening the back door and walking out to her car, not her moving her boy into his car seat and closing the car door. She was about to climb behind the wheel when she turned around. Something pulled her back inside for the last things she needed. Money and a gun.
Stinger’s eyes were open, but he saw nothing. The state he was in wasn’t sleep. His eyes were so red and swollen that he was almost unrecognizable. An empty bottle of scotch lay on the table in front of him, a syringe lay on the floor beside his chair. How was he still alive? she wondered. The woman that hung over his lap looked sick.
Stinger’s gun lay on the floor beside him, inches from his fingers. She picked it up and tucked it into the back of her jeans. There was cash on the table so she grabbed that too. Then she saw the suitcase under his old red chair.
She pulled it out and lifted the lid. When she saw what was inside, she sat back on her heels. Rows of hundred dollar bills wound in plastic, neater than anything Stinger could have done. It was more money than she’d ever seen. Under the top layer were more rows of hundred dollar bills.
She pulled one of the packages open and sat back in Stinger’s chair. The gun stayed poised in one hand while she flipped through the stack of money with the other. Why? she wasn’t sure, but her gut told her the bills were marked. What kind of deal Stinger had made to get that kind of cash she didn’t know - but he was
into things her father would never have touched.
She looked at Stinger again, passed out with a suitcase of marked bills. He had no idea what he’d walked into. More than ever, she knew it was time to leave. She put the money back in the suitcase and kept the gun.
She took the steps down to the basement as fast as she could and moved the stack of junk that hid the safe in the floor. Experience told her that Stinger probably still used the same combination he always had, a mix of their birthdays that he’d come up with in high school - back when anyone would have called them sweethearts. She twisted the dial but the numbers didn't work. Then, with one last try, she added her son’s birthday.
She turned the handle and pulled the door open. There was money - not as much as she’s hoped for - but enough to get her where she needed to go. She grabbed a pillowcase from the pile of laundry and stuffed the cash inside. And then, below everything else in the safe, she saw something she recognized; her father’s ledgers, books that she’d seen him up with late at night, pages that kept track of his deals, information that he always kept close.
Why Stinger had them, she didn’t know, but she didn’t want the police to find them. She pulled them out and stuffed them into the pillowcase, locked the safe and covered it up again.
She crept out the basement door and loaded the pillowcase into the car. Her baby was still fast asleep in his car seat wrapped up tight. Her mother would know what to do next - she was sure of it. She let her car roll back onto the road as far as it would go before she started the engine. Then she drove like the devil himself was behind her.
CHAPTER ONE
Present day, Barcelona, Spain
Cate opened her eyes. She focused on the features of the room: the plastered vault ceiling, the line where the deep blue paint of the stucco wall met the white picture rail. For a few seconds, she had no idea where she was - until the details of the night before came rushing back. She reached out but felt only empty space beside her. She sat up. “Lexi?”
A moment later, Lexi stepped from the bathroom, naked but for a jug of water in her hand.
Cate’s heart pounded in her chest. “I thought you’d left me.”
Lexi smiled gently. “No, I’m still here.” She placed the jug on the table beside the bed and poured two glasses. “I was thirsty,” she said and handed Cate a glass.
Cate swallowed half the contents and placed the glass on the nightstand. She reached out her arms. “Come. Talk to me.”
Lexi bent down and kissed her lips. “What about?”
“How about everything? How did you know I was here?”
Lexi sat down on the bed and leaned back against the pillows. She looked at Cate for a moment and then reached for her hand. “I hacked your email account.”
Cate’s jaw dropped. “Okay … wow.”
“Your router has a known vulnerability. Your ISP should really give you a better one.”
Cate was stunned. “I’ll make sure to ask for one when I get back. Wait a second ... my router? You were in my building?”
Lexi looked back at her but said nothing.
Cate shifted her body so she could face Lexi head on. “Lexi, answer me. Were you outside my apartment?”
“Yes.”
Cate didn’t know what to say or think for that matter. “When?”
Lexi exhaled. “The first time was in May and then again at the beginning of August.”
Cate shook her head. “You came to Chicago to spy on me?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it spying.”
Cate tried her best to see it as anything other than spying. “Then what would you call it?”
“I don’t know ... keeping an eye on you?” Lexi sighed and shook her head. “I guess that sounds just as bad.”
“Yeah … it does,” Cate agreed.
Lexi reached for her hand again. “I wanted to make sure you were okay after everything that happened.”
“Why didn’t you just talk to me ... or call?”
Lexi looked at her squarely. “Would you have talked to me, Cate?”
Cate thought back to how she’d felt about Lexi in those first months after she’d returned from Panama: confused, shattered, overwhelmingly not good. She shook her head. “I don’t know ... maybe not.”
She couldn’t tell what she felt more of, anger, frustration, or relief. Lexi was back in her life. The previous six months had been a roller coaster of emotion - wishing it would happen and knowing it should never happen again. In the middle of the night when she’d been woken from her dream, feeling Lexi beside her had felt so right. With everything that followed: Lexi’s touch, her body, her love, her whispers, Cate had felt like she’d been given a second chance. But now, in the light of day, knowing the truth made all the doubt come rushing back.
“Last night, after I arrived here, I felt so incredibly lost,” Cate began. “I watched this couple in the square up the street. They were kissing under an awning. They looked so incredibly in love.” Cate paused a moment as she thought about the previous six months. “All I could think of was you. This place reminded me so much of Panama, even that bloody balcony out there, it all made me miss you ... so much. After I called Alice and Yolanda and they didn’t know where you were, I thought that was it … you were gone forever.” She turned and looked into Lexi’s eyes. “And now you’re telling me you were in my building, right outside my door.”
Lexi slid her fingers gently down her arm. “No matter what I tell you, it’s going to sound weird.”
“You read my emails.”
“Only the travel-related ones.”
Cate sighed. “You know, Peter was a computer geek too. I only half paid attention to him … but he was always going on about hackers and vulnerabilities and what I should do about security.”
“How is he?”
Cate stared back at her. “Do you care?”
“Only if he’s bothering you.”
Cate shook her head. “He’s not bothering me. I haven’t spoken to him in six months.”
Lexi leaned her head back against the headboard and gazed through the open balcony doors. “Good.”
“Did you ever break into my apartment when I wasn’t there? Be honest.”
Lexi looked back at her, her brow furrowed. “No.”
“Well, you got into my building, I just thought -”
“I wouldn’t do that. Ever.”
“Did you follow me?”
Lexi sighed. “Yes, a little.”
Cate sat up again. “This is totally nuts.”
“I know it is. I’m sorry. I don’t want to lie to you.”
“What were you doing that day before I left Panama when I saw the computers in your apartment?”
“Getting information.”
Cate began to feel frustrated again. “What kind of information?”
“Cate,” Lexi said softly. “That’s stuff we can’t talk about.”
“What did you mean in your letter? What happens in the fall?”
Lexi bit her lip.
“Let me guess, you can’t tell me. But it’s happening soon, right?”
Lexi nodded.
Cate exhaled heavily and then laid back down on her pillow. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. “Ignorance is bliss. Was bliss.”
Lexi gently pulled her hands away and looked down at her. Her eyes were blue but it was still the same Lexi.
“Do people get hurt when you do the things you do?” Cate asked. She had to know even though she was afraid of what the answer might be.
Lexi looked pained. “You want to know if I hurt people? No … I would never do that.”
“I guess that’s all that matters. Oh God, this is too much.” She hid behind her hands again.
“Cate,” Lexi said softly.
Cate didn’t respond. She thought of giving denial a try. Maybe then she’d feel like a normal woman having a normal holiday.
“Cate.”
“I just need a minute,” she answ
ered.
Lexi laid down beside her and ran her fingers over the callouses on her hands. “You’ve been climbing.”
Who was she trying to fool? The minute Lexi laid down beside her, Cate felt her body turn to mush. “I got myself a membership at the climbing gym,” she mumbled through her fingers. “But you probably already knew that from reading my emails.”
Lexi stroked Cate’s hand gently. “I watched you do CrossFit one day. You were out in the parking lot with the rest of the group.”
“Shit,” Cate said and then laughed at the thought of what that must have looked like. She stared back at Lexi. “I suck at CrossFit. Why did you have to watch that?”
Lexi smiled down at her. “You didn’t suck. You’ve gotten stronger. I felt it last night. Your hips ...” Lexi ran the tip of her finger down the crest of Cate’s hip and then grinned at her.
Cate grinned back.
“Look, I know you said you wanted me to stay last night … but I’ll understand if you’ve changed your mind,” Lexi whispered.
Cate looked into her eyes. “I don’t want you to go. I just want to understand all of this.”
Lexi kissed her. “I’m not a normal girlfriend, I realize.” She rolled her body on top of Cate’s and stared down into her eyes.
“That may be the understatement of the year,” Cate said. She wrapped her arms around Lexi’s back and grinned up at her. “Are you really my girlfriend?”
“I love you, does that count?”
“You love me?”
Lexi nodded again. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About this.” She cast her eyes down between them where their bodies were pressed together.
Cate felt the surges of that glance rip through her body. But then she let out a loud groan since she knew she should know better. “I really shouldn’t have fallen for someone like you. I’m a lot smarter than this.”
“I know you are,” Lexi whispered.
“But I can’t help it, can I? I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I left Panama. I was so ... pissed off at you. None of it was fair.”