by Libby Rice
“Kate didn’t leave you.” Lissa grinned up at the woozy sky. Up at him. “She chose you.”
He didn’t smile back, but the tension leached from his muscles and eased his fierce expression. Testing her cheeks with the back of the free hand not supporting her torso, he said, “You’re hot again.” His knuckles trailed over her forehead, making her skin ripple with pleasure instead of pain.
“Always am—”
“All this destruction”—he looked over his shoulder at his felled sister-in-law—“when I could have let Kate go.”
You never would have. “You didn’t know.”
He shook his head, as though clearing out cobwebs of negative thought trying to stand their ground. “I’m glad I didn’t.”
“Know Kate had fallen for Rhea?”
“Give Kate my blessing to be with Rhea.”
“Why?”
“Rhea was a time bomb, hurting people without rhyme or reason, even in her own mind. She would have ended Kate eventually, but she would have hurt her first, like she did Trevor. You wouldn’t have been here to stop my retaliation. The circumstances of Kate’s death—or at least what I thought were the circumstances—brought us together.”
Right, she hadn’t let him commit a Class Two felony. Go her. Lissa swallowed, willing the dizziness away. “I didn’t give you absolution.”
“No.”
Heart sinking, Lissa nodded.
“You taught me that I didn’t need it. Or want it.”
If that was true, then Lissa had healed him.
“And not because you revealed that Kate didn’t kill herself. Because this whole time you knew she loved me more than I thought. She would have wanted me to be happy, not constantly fighting having loved more than she could love back.”
Yes.
Beyond the breadth of Cole’s shoulders, Trevor hauled Rhea to her feet. He didn’t lift her or comfort her, but he supported her weight as she limped from the clearing, Kent trailing behind with the box.
If nothing else, Rhea’s journey to incarceration would be humane. The woman’s face held not happiness, per se, but a truckload of resignation and even a glimmer of peace. Forgiveness may never come from the Rathlen men, but telling the truth might have been the first step toward forgiving herself.
Lissa closed her eyes and let snowflakes clutter her lashes. “They say those who love the most, love again.”
“Do they? You remind me, my Lissa, wheeler-and-dealer for all that she wants, I’ve a bargain for you.”
Lissa lifted heavy lids to examine Cole, who looked down at her in all his rattled, serious, battered glory. “Do you?” she asked with unconvincing nonchalance.
Mmmhmm. And just like your offer did, mine will require practice. And compromise. It’ll probably be challenging. It may take us to crazy places with squat toilets and inquisitive locals.
She waited, dizziness be damned.
“If I can be your first,” he said finally, “then you can be my last.”
The tears froze to her damn face. “You already are, Cole. You always will be.”
L. O. V. E. D.
Epilogue
Two weeks after Lissa accepted Cole’s pact, he locked her out of their bedroom.
But only for an hour so he could set up.
International travel had been postponed in lieu of all the activity surrounding the reopened investigation into Kate’s death, Rhea’s arrest, and transitioning the supportive might of the Rathlen clan to Trevor, who was proving that Cole hadn’t known the meaning of the word reclusive.
Cole lit candles but didn’t turn down the sheets. The frenzied beat of Lissa’s favorite Indian pop song pulsed through the room, and Darjeeling tea brewed on a hot pad by the bed, its calming floral scent spicing the air.
He’d sent Lissa to Boulder for food. Now that the Supper Solutions’ deliveries had ended, he and Lissa were inching into the culinary arts one burnt chicken breast and sliced finger at a time. Mostly they kept Boulder’s take-out industry in the black.
“A man who banishes his woman to the hall rarely samples the chicken vindaloo for which she drove seventy minutes round-trip.” Lissa’s muffled voice tapered off on the other side of the bedroom door. Then he heard her cooing, asking Sasha if he enjoyed Indian food.
Hell, no. Last week she’d fed the pup meatballs stuffed with herbed mozzarella. The consequences of feeding a two-hundred pound dog an entire plate of rich food had been… epic, in a replace-the-carpets kind of way.
Cole jerked the door open to find Lissa standing on the threshold with a brown paper bag. Sasha leaned into her side, head stretched to the bottom of the sack. She stroked his muzzle and lowered the booty to give him a good sniff.
“You wouldn’t,” Cole predicted.
“Try me,” Lissa countered. “This is why he likes me more than you.”
“He likes you because you smell like strawberry shortcake.” Or Frosted Flakes. Or cinnamon Red Hots. Cake batter. Juicy Fruit. God, one day she’d managed to smell like Skittles. In another life, she’d totally been a confection perfumer. Should the prize he’d set up on the mattress be rejected by the masses set to view it, edible scents could be her second career in this one.
She beamed and brushed passed him with a breezy, “Like father, like son. Who doesn’t want—”
The joke died on her lips. “Cole,” she breathed. Knowing what was coming, he stepped forward, ready for the moment the bag of food landed in his waiting hands. In slow motion, Lissa approached the bed. “It’s us.”
“Our work,” he corrected.
Cole had done as she’d asked in a bronchitis-muddled moment—his-and-hers mixed media. Spread before Lissa’s wide eyes lay a collage of sorts. Lissa’s painting of the children playing in the Delhi traffic circle served as an enlightened backdrop for Cole’s more somber photos of the same.
Where she’d layered illusions of fenced-in entrapment beneath the carefree hope of children the world over, he’d shown the harsh reality of homeless kids without access to medical care.
The pictures lived within the painting, part of an integrated whole. Separate, his and Lissa’s philosophies presented drastically different takes on the same subject—literal versus whimsical, black and white versus living color, what was versus what could be. Together, the combined work read like a silent and subtle self-help book.
“The sheer creativity”—Lissa’s voice cracked—“in how you set the scenes, in how they play off each other. It’s like a dream, reminding us we filter existence through a personal lens, equally valid and unique for each individual, yet if we dare, we can see the gifts we have over the ones we crave.”
Always so astute, his Lissa. “You taught me that lesson. Now you can show everyone else.”
Lissa threw herself at him, her smile dazzling. The bag of rice and curry hit the floor with a wet thud. “You taught me I could show everyone else.”
Cole left the food. Sasha might have a snack, Styrofoam and all. After all, that’s why they made carpet cleaners.
The kiss lingered, long and hot and patient with the knowledge of a future of intimacy.
“Cole,” she whispered, breaking away, “you took a while to love me, but you’re really good at it.”
He couldn’t resist. “Baby, I know.”
THE END
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You’ve just read the second book in the Second Chances series. Love Drunk, Trevor’s story, will be available in the summer of 2015. If you would like to read an excerpt, please read on.
Love Drunk: Excerpt
Available Summer 2015
Wine importer London Whitley dots her I’s and crosses her T’s. Her meticulous nature insulates her from fears that she might just be crazy, as in certifiably, medically nuts. When her almost ex-boyfriend winds up dead at her hands and she’s soon accused of importing counterfeit wines, London’s carefully constructed world begins to crumble. There’s help to be had, but only in the form of an imposing stranger who threatens her ruin.
Trevor Rathlen is lucky to have escaped his marriage to a murderess alive and merely indebted to men who think the exquisite London Whitley’s innocence is a façade. A computer security specialist by day and hacker by night, Trevor agrees to return the favor owed by learning London’s secrets. The task should be an easy one, except Trevor is short on trust, London is long on lies, and together they battle an infinite attraction…
July—Denver, Colorado
Two weeks ago, London Rose Whitley had started a date with a living man and ended with a dead one. If she’d ever needed to arrive on time, today was that day. Latching the door behind her with an audible click, she spied a gleaming casket sitting too still down a center aisle. Stainless steel edges peeked from beneath at least a hundred wilting roses, the metal just shiny enough to catch stray rays of dusty summer light and hurl rainbows across a silent, mourning crowd.
A dead Dillon Farro still managed to rule the room.
“Always late,” her mother whispered as London squeezed herself into the end of an oak pew. Dr. Victoria Whitley subjected London to a round of slow scrutiny, no doubt taking in the wrinkles in her black skirt and the way the buttons on her shirt pulled ever-so-slightly around the middle.
“Late and not looking your best. You realize,” her mom said casually, now fighting a droning organ for supremacy, “we’re five minutes from downtown Denver, five minutes from your apartment. Your disrespect is unconsciously deliberate.”
Same criticism, different day.
Up top, London shrugged the shoulder her mother would easily see from the corner of an eye. Below, she wound a discrete arm around her waist, pressing hard against the ache that spiked at the woman’s complaint. Some psychiatrists—at least the ones who’d raised London—automatically sought reasons for behavior. A late client, they would deduce, exhibited signs of suppressed hostility. Ten extra pounds cried depression. A person who bawled out the checker at the grocery store felt resentful about having his power usurped by an hourly wage earner.
According to Dr. and Dr. Whitley, actions manifested themselves like the jerking reflex after a good tap to the knee. Every last move reflected deeply-seeded roots in the psyche. Lateness never sprang from a traffic jam. Weight gain didn’t come from a craving for jelly donuts. Acting like a jerk could never be attributed to a bad day.
“Yes, Mom,”—what to say?—“my being late and frumpy is an expression of power. I want to stick it to a dead man… show him he’ll have to stand in line for something not particularly worthwhile.”
Her mother stiffened against the unforgiving pew. “You make light of this?”
London balled her good hand. For once her mother’s outrage sounded genuine, not the product of a test to see how her daughter might react. Perhaps London ought to appreciate the show of support on this baddest of bad days.
Support nearly withheld.
Her mother had insisted London’s presence at Dillon’s funeral was, “a rash choice, reminiscent of the one that put Dillon in a casket in the first place.” Instead of looking angry over London’s audacity, her mom had grabbed her chin and peered into her face with concern, with a strained grief that implied the woman’s daughter had finally tipped over the precipice between compulsive and crazy, between rash and dangerous.
They’re wrong. Two psychiatrist parents didn’t always know best. Their labels wouldn’t rise to the level of self-fulfilling prophesies, no matter how many times words like impulsive and compulsive fluttered her way.
Even Freud had acknowledged that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
“I don’t make light of today,” London insisted quietly. They could do only so much sparring from the back pew before attracting unwanted attention. “You do by insinuating I would ever want, consciously or otherwise, to show Dillon disrespect.”
She’d loved him, after all.
But love had grown silent, their relationship stale, and on the day she’d tried to break things off, Dillon had died.
Before her mother could bombard her with the usual, “Why, then, were you late?” or “What, then, do you mean to say with your shabby clothing and extra pounds,” a more sinister problem fell in London’s lap. A shadow crawled across her exposed knees, silencing the battle of wills raging between mother and daughter. Then came a pained scrape of a voice that nearly choked on swallowed anguish before words made their debut. “How can you sit there? Only a few feet from my murdered son?”
London looked up into a hollow, pinched face. All her determination to do the right thing vanished. Defiance crumbled to dust as deep as the kneeler crowding the tops of her tapping toes. Her mother had been right.
Nothing but insanity had tinged London’s decision to mourn Dillon openly. Maybe her late arrival and ugly outfit did amount to a tacit admission of something deeper, like guilt and lack of belonging.
Instead of offering grudging support, Doc Victoria ought to have met her daughter on the church steps with a white jacket and a promise of padded walls.
London swallowed and stood. Gaze averted, she slunk around the man blocking her path to freedom. When her arm brushed his in passing, he emitted a low howl, as though her limbs were coated in battery acid. Jerking away, London realized pain had a sound, one that would ring in her ears long after she fled the echoing church.
Pain sounded like a father confronting his son’s killer.
Pain sounded like Mr. Farro confronting her.
******
Trevor gazed up at his buddy through a shiny bar bisecting the view. “Add twenty-five to each side.” A cumulative three-fifty would max him out, yet he hesitated to go for gold. The trainer nearby with the do-rag, patterned track pants, and a set of eighteen-inch tatted biceps would take note. Then Trevor’s numbers would end up on a white board behind the gym’s front desk.
He shouldn’t be anybody’s goal.
Metal clanked above his head, foreshadowing the extra weight joining the bar. Not even the sound of an oncoming challenge dented Trevor’s vague sense of disinterest. Once, he’d been proud of the number three-fifty, or at least felt a sense of accomplishment. A guy who could bench three-fifty was strong. Strength meant speed, distance, endurance. Strength meant power.
Hoisting hundreds of pounds in the air had built him up, helping him do all the things that mattered, like winning. Now it provided an easy distraction—up, down, up, down—which helped him forget that none of his former priorities mattered at all.
Plus a beer only weighed around a pound, give or take the bottle.
Still, his routines had become more than habit. They’d become him. If Trevor stopped pushing, if he quit training and never completed another Ironman or triathlon or ski race, he might as well hand his murderous ex-wife a weapon and let her pick him off, too.
Not happening.
With movements honed by two decades of repetition, Trevor curled his calloused hands around the bar. He squeezed and felt a welcome tension grow in his torso. With a deep breath, he drove his feet into the floor, locked his hips, and unracked the weight.
His friend Kevin spotted Trevor’s movements with a low oath. “I won’t be coming by later with an ice pack for your crying, whining pecs.�
�
Ignoring the taunt, Trevor gulped another breath and rowed the weight downward until it touched his old T-shirt. Then he drove the bar back to lockout on a burst of coordinated power.
Resetting his lungs, he managed a quick, “Fuck off,” before his second rep. Then another before his third. On the forth, Kev no longer looked on with that smarmy, self-satisfied grin.
“What have you been eating, man?”
Mostly anger strapped to the back of grilled chicken breasts. Lots and lots of chicken breasts.
Before Trevor could share about protein overload, Kevin’s chin lifted and came to a slow stop. The attention once focused on keeping Trevor from wrapping the bar around his own neck homed in on something across the gym.
No doubt a woman.
Kevin’s reasons for prompting a change of gym scenery in the last month had become painfully obvious. Where their old gym had been about function over form, this one had yoga classes and soaking tubs and expensive shampoo in the showers. While those things meant fuck all to Trevor, they did result in one very important distinguishing characteristic—the presence of chicks.
As Trevor stared up at a textbook case of distraction, Kev’s look changed. A patient interest, able to bide its time, morphed into surprise, then panic. Without a word, Kev wrestled the bar back to the rack and disappeared from Trevor’s line of sight. So much for number five. Trevor rocked upward and let his focus follow his friend.
A developing emergency about thirty feet out hooked Trevor’s cloak of apathy and jerked. Hard. After six months of fuck everything but the basics—exercise, work, sex—he saw something worth effort.
She was… indescribably gorgeous, with black curls swept away from her face, exposing a delicate profile.
She also had about twenty seconds left on her feet. Her ponytail swished less and less with each step, legs swaying heavily on the moving treadmill. A small hand groped for the machine’s front rail.
Instead of flushed from her workout, the woman looked to have lost every drop of blood in her soft, plush body. At the same time, she seemed unaware of her plight, almost confused about what was happening. That hand missed the rail and fluttered to her face, graceful despite her obvious disorientation, and she rubbed at her eyes like she could shake the dizziness.