Cinderella Busted (The Cinderella Romances #1)

by Petie McCarty

  “I’m within my legal rights to live right here until the Jupiter Town Council, and not you, tells me different,” she snapped, her patience at an end.

  He had the audacity to chuckle. “It’s merely a formality at this point, Ms. Foster. My offer is most generous now, however if you continue to fight our purchase, I’m sure the city will find other code violations as well, each decreasing the overall value of the commercial property and subsequently detracting from any future offers.”

  “How dare you!” she said indignantly. “That’s blackmail and extortion, and I won’t stand for it. I’ll report you!”

  The chuckle erupted again, sounding uglier this time. “Be my guest. You’ll only hasten the eventual result and a faster visit from a code enforcement officer. So, what will it be?”

  Tammy stared wide-eyed and mouthed, What do we do?

  Lily narrowed her eyes. “What will it be? Since you won’t name your client, Mr. Whittenhurst, you can be the one to kiss my ass!” She pounded the little red good-bye button with her fist.

  “Lily, we’re in big trouble.”

  Lily and Tammy found Rob in one of the greenhouses after the Whittenhurst call, and the three talked for almost two hours. Tammy and Rob finally headed for home, and Lily sat alone in the darkened nursery office, feeling positively morose. The news was worse than she had expected. The nursery was littered with dozens of code violations, nothing drastic enough to cause structural damage or endanger the safety of Bloom & Grow employees, but violations nonetheless. All had been discovered during a thorough hurricane inspection by an insurance company consultant.

  Rob had ordered the inspection in an effort to lower their hurricane deductible, and in the course of the inspection, the consultant—being totally up-to-date on state and local building codes—had happily pointed out their myriad deficiencies. The consultant had informed Rob the violations were small enough in nature that only an inspector or someone in that line of work would even notice, so they shouldn’t feel badly about the discovery.

  Rob had planned to have all the issues repaired as time and money allowed, but no way could the repairs all happen before the meeting at Jupiter Town Hall. He hadn’t thought to mention them to Lily and worry her since he had planned to take care of them as soon as possible.

  Rob had suggested calling his personal attorney, but the violations actually existed and had already been documented. His attorney couldn’t make the violations disappear. At least, Lily would still have the Code Enforcement Department manager there with her to vouch for her right to remain in her cottage. The Special Magistrate had to rule in her favor.

  To add insult to injury, she’d be forced to go into her trust fund for the very first time to fix all the code violations at once since she hadn’t planned for that level of expenditure in her fiscal budget. The unfairness of the situation grated on her. Code violations discovered only a couple weeks ago would be held aloft like dirty laundry for the whole world to see.

  No way would she let them force her to leave her childhood home. She vowed long ago never to give up the nursery’s location, regardless of her circumstances. She’d fight to the death for Hank’s spot on the Intracoastal Waterway. Okay maybe that was over the top, but she refused to give in. Hank had chosen this site, and for that reason alone, the nursery would stay right where it was.

  She had fought back tears ever since the Whittenhurst call, but sitting here all alone in the dark had worn down her resolve. She could feel the tears burning behind her eyelids, and she desperately wished Hank could be here to help her.

  She struggled to her feet. She needed to get to the cottage where she could have a good cry in peace. Just the thought of the cottage brought on a fresh supply of tears. How many nights did she have left in her home? Maybe she could just rent an apartment to have a legal address and still quietly slip back here every night. She brushed away the few escaping tears.

  No. Lily Foster is a rule follower. If the law says I can’t live here, then I won’t.

  She locked the front office door and headed out the back to go to her cottage. The air had chilled when she finally stepped outside, the suffocating heat in abeyance. She would normally go for a jog at this time of night, but she felt too overwhelmed. She locked the back door, pocketed her keys, and turned for the gravel drive.

  “Lily.”

  Her breath caught in her throat, and a momentary panic hit hard. She knew that voice and gazed into the shadows at the corner of the building. The light over the back door cast just enough illumination to make out Rhett’s form in the twilight beneath the trees. He looked even larger than she remembered, broader somehow, though she’d last seen him less than a week ago.

  He didn’t move. He just stood there and waited for her to do or say something.

  Except Lily felt paralyzed. It had been so easy to remain angry when she hadn’t been able to see him or hear his voice. Gazing through the shadows at the stark outlines of his handsome face and hearing the deep timbre in his voice thrummed every nerve ending in her body.

  Still he waited, and the silence seemed interminable. No doubt silence was one of his best negotiating ploys, and the thought perked a shot of adrenaline into her system. She wasn’t some company he could walk in and take over or run right over. His tactics wouldn’t work here. Some of her fire returned, and she recalled his heated words at the barbecue. Even now, days later, the words still carried a painful sting.

  “You’re trespassing,” she said softly and wished she could have sounded more firm, but she had trouble getting air into her lungs.

  “Yes.”

  That’s it? Just yes?

  She waited.

  So did he.

  Eventually impatience won out. “Why are you here?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  He took one step forward, nearer the light, and paused as though fearful she would run. He had gotten close before she spotted him. Now only ten feet separated them. She felt a pang of alarm, wanting desperately to stand her ground and yet fearful she might charge straight into his well-muscled arms.

  “Haven’t you said enough?” she asked. “What could be left to say?”

  “I’m sorry, for starters.”

  He took another step, and she did consider bolting. Would he give chase? He could surely catch her in a few strides. If he pulled her into his arms, she was lost. She couldn’t risk that. She couldn’t let him hurt her again. The risk was too great. The pain was too much. Almost as bad as losing Hank. She needed to hate Rhett Buchanan. She wanted to. Safer that way.

  She couldn’t.

  “I was wrong, Lily. So very wrong.” His voice came low and soft through the shadows, like passionflower vines twining around and pulling her close.

  “Yes, you were.”

  “I was a damn fool, too. I’ve spent my entire life either not good enough and too poor to fit in with the other kids or surrounded by people who only wanted to get close to me because of my money. There was never any in-between for me. Until you. You were different. You wanted me for me, and I fell hard for you because I’d been searching for someone like you my whole life. When I thought you were—” He paused.

  There was just enough light around him she could see his jaw muscles flex.

  “—masquerading as someone I wasn’t, you insisted on believing I set a trap,” she said stiffly.

  He winced. “I’m sorry. When I thought, what I thought, I felt so betrayed and hurt, so mad about losing what we had, I went a little crazy.”

  She lifted her brows. “A little?”

  “Okay, a lot. I had no right to say all those things to you. Even before Shaw set me straight, I think I knew deep in my heart none of those things could be true. But seeing you at the gala with Shaw and then at the barbecue with that
horn dog, Aidan Cross, I was so angry I couldn’t see straight. I don’t think I knew what I was saying at the barbecue. I just knew I didn’t want either of those guys with you, touching you. Lily, I will do anything to make it up to you. I was wrong, and I have never in my life been so glad to be utterly and completely wrong about someone.”

  Somehow he’d eased to within a few feet of her. The floodlight near the back door allowed her to see him clearly now. She lost herself in his gaze. He stared as though willing her to see into his soul. He’d gone deathly still. He didn’t blink. His eyes looked so trusting, so confident she would make the right decision in this life-altering moment between them. She felt overwhelmed by the impact her next few words would make.

  “Forgive others, if you expect forgiveness yourself,” Hank always said.

  Eyes really are a gateway to the soul if one is patient, and suddenly she saw the truth. Rhett had hurt her out of fear and insecurity, not for lack of caring or emotion. He had cared too much, and his own vulnerability had blinded him. He now trusted her to make the right choice for both of them. He had left the choice up to her.

  She could trust Rhett! She knew it like she knew the sun would rise tomorrow. She knew with a certainty that made her feel lightheaded, and she knew with just as much certainty she loved this man. He had bared his heart, and now he waited for her answer.

  She watched the confidence in his eyes turn into questions. Would Lily rant? Would she be calm? Would she forgive him? Did he still have a chance?

  “Garrett will be so sorry he didn’t get to hear you admit you were wrong,” she said softly.

  He inhaled sharply and then a smile twitched at the edges of his mouth and slowly spread across his face. She had left the door open without committing. The next move was his, and like Rhett, he wasted no time. He covered the distance between them in two strides and pulled her into his arms, crushing her so hard against his chest she could barely breathe.

  And she felt wonderful.

  “Oh Lily,” he whispered into her hair, “I’ve missed you so much. Forgive me. Tell me you forgive me.” He pulled back and cradled her cheeks in his palms to see her eyes.

  “I’ll forgive you if you’ll forgive me for not telling you about my nursery right when I met you.”

  His mouth was on hers before the last words left her lips. Holding tight to her cheeks, he ran gentle strafing runs across her lips to tease them apart and steal her breath. When she parted her lips, his tongue sank into her mouth deepening the kiss until she clung to him, weak-kneed and dizzied. He slowly made love to her mouth with the same rhythm she knew he planned for her, and she felt not the slightest hesitation.

  Her desire pressed her into him, and her tongue curled into his in passion’s sensual tango. His hands were everywhere, her shoulders, her back, her bottom. She threaded her tingling fingers into the curls at the nape of his neck and held on for dear life and tried her best to keep his lips pressed against hers until she absolutely had to come up for air. She had been so sure she would never feel his arms around her ever again, and now that those muscular arms had her all wrapped up, she felt like a dying-of-thirst wayfarer who suddenly stumbled into an oasis.

  She felt the words I love you bubble up from her throat, and then an explosion rocked the earth beneath their feet and spun them backward toward the building.

  Chapter 15

  Rhett pushed Lily back against the nursery office and shielded her body with his. Her ears felt like they had turned inside out, and for several seconds, she could only cling to Rhett with her face buried in his shirt and wait to see if another explosion would follow.

  His grip felt like a vise around her ribs, and she finally wheezed in his ear, “I can’t breathe. You’re squeezing me too tight.”

  “Oh Lord, I’m sorry.” He pulled back to brush the hair from her face. “Are you all right?” His voice sounded hoarse.

  She nodded. “What happened?”

  Still shielding her under his arm, he turned them, and she shrieked, “It’s the cottage!”

  Visible flames leaped high in the air on the far side of Lily’s cottage. She tried to bolt, and he held her firmly in place.

  “Did you have a propane tank?”

  “Yes,” she cried, trying to wriggle free.

  “Then it just blew up. You stay here and call 911. I’ll get a hose,” he ordered.

  He gave her a push toward the back door of the office and then streaked for the cottage as flames scrabbled up the clapboard siding and across the eaves on the far side of the structure.

  Lily yanked out her cell phone and called 911 and Rob in rapid succession as she raced after Rhett. He’d grabbed a hose from the garage side of the house and had a stream centered on the worst of the flames by the time she reached the driveway.

  “You get back!” he roared when he spotted her. “I lost you once. I’m not losing you again.”

  She ignored him and ran to the palm field bordering her small lawn and straight to the closest hose bibb with its attached coil of hose. She’d ordered two-hundred-foot hoses for the palm field and wondered briefly if that had been one of them God things Hank always mentioned.

  Rhett saw her lumbering back toward the cottage under the weight of the heavy coils, water flying out the end in all directions as she ran. “No, Lily! Stay back!”

  She could see the panic in his eyes even at this distance and knew it was all for her. “It’s my home, Rhett,” she shouted back.

  Nothing remained of her propane tank but a black metal husk, and she used her spewing hose to flood the smoldering grass as she passed by. The storm brewing out in the Atlantic earlier had headed inland, and she said a silent prayer for rain. Only wind showed up for the fireworks party and threatened to blow the flames quickly out of control. Their two small-diameter hoses couldn’t keep up with the spreading flames. They needed the gushing fire hoses to do proper battle.

  Gusts of wind grabbed sparks from the roof and scattered them in every direction like miniscule sparklers. Lily adjusted her aim to send her stream of water onto the roof, but the flames grew higher and inhaled the thin stream like a sadistic magic act. Gusts fluttered more sparks into a shower overhead, and Lily put up an arm to cover her head.

  “Dammit, Lily, get back!” Rhett roared again.

  Still she ignored him and shifted her stream of water to the highest flames.

  “Lily, I mean it!”

  She made the mistake of glancing over. Rhett looked furious, but no way would she move back. The tiny cottage was the only home she had ever known. Her parents’ pictures and homemade Christmas decorations were inside, along with her family Bible, her yearbooks, and her father’s landscape references.

  The crackling and snapping of the flames merged into a dull roar, and somewhere nearby, she heard a vehicle fly up and spew gravel. Seconds later, large hands closed over hers. “Let go of the hose, Lily,” Rob said. “The house is gone. We have to save the shadehouse.”

  She whipped around and saw small flames teasing at the edges of their new annuals shadehouse. No sprinkler system existed inside as all the annuals were specially hand-watered, according to their needs. “No!” she screamed and took off running.

  Rhett had her around the waist before she took three strides, and she pummeled his shoulders to get free as the sound of sirens echoed from nearby. “Let me go! Let me go!”

  He crushed her arms down to her sides in a bear hug. “Hold still, dammit!”

  Tears filled her eyes. Her whole life was going up in smoke.

  “I’m going to let you go, but I need you to run to the entrance to guide the fire trucks back here, or they’ll drive straight through your planting fields.”

  She nodded and he released her, but kept an eye on her as he jogged toward another hose bibb in the palm field, this one even closer to th
e shadehouse. Rob was already soaking down the roof of the shadehouse with the hose he’d heisted from Lily. She did exactly as Rhett ordered until he turned his hose and attention on the shadehouse, and then she sprinted toward the back door of her cottage. She had to get her pictures of Hank. They were all she had left to remember him.

  Smoke billowed out through holes in the roof as Lily raced around the side of the house. The wind caught the smoke and swirled it in all directions. An especially strong gust shoved a blanket of smoke down over her as she reached the back door. Her lungs coughed violently against the invasion, and she drew her T-shirt up and over her mouth and nose, then yanked open the back door.

  A wall of flames spread across the front of the house and inched steadily toward the family room in the rear. Thick smoke filled the inside of her cottage, and Lily couldn’t see into the kitchen to her left or the family room to her right. Memory alone would guide her steps to retrieve the beloved pictures.

  She had only seconds. Barely enough time to reach the frames on the end tables and maybe, the frames on the fireplace shelves at the far wall. Thick smoke stung her eyes. Squinting her eyelids to slits, she took careful measured steps through the family room to avoid falling over any furniture. If she hit her head, she died right here.

  Moving steadily forward, she skirted Hank’s recliner to get to the end table just beyond, which held two precious photos of her and Hank at Disney World. Rhett shouted her name outside, and she quickly shuffled forward, knowing he would charge in and drag her out. As she reached for the end table, dozens of stinging sensations erupted on her forearms. Her eyes opened wide. A shower of sparks fluttered down onto her arms. Her gaze jerked up in time to see the blazing beam break free from the roof above and drop straight for her head.