Smashwords version Sweet Surrender

by Georgette St. Clair

  She turned to him, clutching the metal railing that fenced in the outdoor table area. Her knees were turning to jello. “When you came in to Sweet Surrender that first morning, with Jeffrey’s ex-fiancee…”

  “I really did need to help Serafina plan her ex-bachelorette party. I knew she’d hate the place, so I picked it to annoy her, and do some recon at the same time. But the minute I laid eyes on you-“

  “Don’t, Rafe. Just don’t.” She was backing away from him now, holding up a shaking hand to block his words, his pleading look.

  She turned to Penelope, and her voice was dull and lifeless when she spoke. “You know, Penelope, I’m not the only one who’s just like our mother. You’ve spent your whole adult life punishing me for the sins of our mother – just like she spent your whole life punishing you for your dear old dad. She’s the woman you hate the most in the world, and you grew up just like her.”

  The look of triumph vanished from Penelope’s face, replaced by shock and fury.

  It should have made Poppy feel better, but she just felt numb.

  Rafe reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, and she knocked it off. She heard a roaring in her ears, and turned to rush away.

  Behind her she heard Viola yelling at Jeffrey “You know this all along! He’s your brother, and you let him lie to her! You knew!”

  And then she heard Viola shouting “Bitch!” and the unmistakable sound of Viola’s fist meeting Penelope’s nose, with a horrifying crunch moments before Penelope hit the sidewalk.

  Chapter Nineteen

  $127.33.

  Poppy sat on the edge of her bed and counted the pile of money on the nightstand for the fifth time. It was all she had left after she’d used the money from her bakery manager’s paycheck to bail out Viola on assault charges, and paid for two week’s stay at a motel in a reasonably decent area of Port Rollins.

  She’d been there for a week, and the dull ache that throbbed where her heart used to beat had not lessened.

  She looked down at the pile of money, and considered counting it again, and then looked away in disgust.

  Am I just like my mother, wallowing in misery because I made a fool of myself over a man? She wondered.

  She took a deep breath and stood up, not sure what she’d do next. She only knew one thing. She’d been lying around here for a week, drowning her sorrows in Breyer’s ice cream, bad cable TV movies, and late night masturbation sessions that made her ache for the feeling of Rafe’s strong arms around her and the thickness of his cock sliding inside her. And she was tired of it.

  She was tired of looking at the two ugly brown and orange abstract paintings bolted to the motel room walls, tired of sleeping under a stiff, shiny orange polyester comforter, tired of living out of a suitcase, tired of feeling horrible.

  Screw worrying about whether she was like her mother, or like Penelope, or like anyone else. She was Poppy Donavan. She was twenty-eight years old and she had her whole life ahead of her. She had a best friend whose phone calls she’d been dodging for a week because she was too depressed to face the world, and she was sick of lying around drowning in a puddle of her own misery.

  She could find a job somewhere. Waitressing. Legal secretary. Something.

  And sure, she’d never find a man who made her feel like Rafe did, but had she ever really believed she’d find true love? He’d been a glorious and all too brief interlude, and that part of her life was over, and it was time for her to move on.

  Through the window, the vast blue of the sky beckoned, and gentle breezes ruffled the leaves of the trees. It was time to rejoin the world.

  She stuffed the last of her cash in her purse, grabbed her keys, and opened the front door, ready for whatever the day would bring her.

  What it brought her was Viola, in black leggings and black tank top and metal tipped combat boots, standing on her doorstep with a scowl stamped on her face, fist raised to knock on the motel room door.

  “Viola!” Poppy stepped aside as her best friend stomped into the room.

  “Seriously, I ought to punch you in the face. What the hell did you think you were doing, disappearing like that?”

  “I was going to call you this week, but you’re right. I’m sorry. That was selfish of me. I was just so….” Penelope sat on the motel room bed.

  “So thoughtless?”

  “I know. I know. It was just, I worked so hard for so long to make everything right. I studied and studied and made sure I had the best grades, and I was going to be a lawyer and save Penelope from herself, and have a great job at a law firm and be financially secure for the first time ever, and…everything just fell over like a house of cards. My job, my apartment, my scholarship. And Rafe broke my heart and made me feel like the biggest loser in the universe.”

  “Tell me about it,” Viola scowled, sitting down on the bed next to her. She took a deep breath and let it out in a long, heavy sigh. “You’re not the only member of the broken heart club around here. I need to ask your advice.”

  “You’re going to listen to my advice on something? This can’t be happening. I think they’re having a snowball fight in hell right now.”

  “Oh, shut up. Jeffrey bought Sweet Surrender and convinced Penelope to drop the charges against me.”

  “Say what, now?” Poppy stared at her in astonishment.

  “I guess Penelope was already sick of the bakery and wanted to go travel the world with some photographer she met, and do a travel blog. Jeffrey offered her a good price for the bakery on the condition that she refuse to press charges against me.”

  “Why would he…” Poppy’s head was whirling.

  “He wants me to manage the bakery and be part-owner, with a percentage of the profits. He says I’m really good at it.” Viola folded her arms and scowled at the floor.

  “You are really good at it. You’re amazing. I bet you tripled the business from the minute you walked in that door. It’s like you were born to sell edible smut.”

  “I was, wasn’t I?” Viola managed an unhappy smile. “Should I forgive him? He’s bombarding me with bouquets of black roses and begging me to come back and…I don’t know…he let Rafe lie to you. If I give him another chance, am I betraying you?”

  “No. No, you definitely are not betraying me. You know that old cliché, actions speak louder than words? Well, he bought a frickin’ bakery for you! You should give him another chance, and you should manage that bakery. You’ve been drifting around from job to job your whole life, trying to figure out what you wanted to do, and you are awesome at this.”

  Viola smiled. Amazingly, Poppy felt the ache in her heart ease just a little. Viola’s happiness meant the world to her.

  “There’s one more thing,” Viola added, standing up. “Two more things. One, I hate doing the books and all that paperwork crap, and you rock at it, and you’re unemployed, so you’re hired. Shut up, don’t argue. And yes, you have to work the floor sometimes. You will hand penis pops over to whoever wants to buy them, and like it.”

  Poppy choked on a laugh. “Ahhh…thank you?”

  “You can come back and stay in Penelope’s old apartment above the bakery if you want. Rent free. Jeffrey bought the whole building. I’m still staying at my aunt’s for now. And the other thing…”

  Poppy felt her heart skip a beat. “Yes?”

  “Rafe has been begging me to tell where you are and tell you he’s sorry and he loves you and he wants to tell you himself if only I’d tell him where you are and he blah blah blah wahh wahh wahh. He looks miserable. He’s got circles under his eyes. I punched him a few times.”

  “Good,” Poppy said, scowling. “I hope you put some Irish into it. And I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “I know he should have told you from the beginning, and if I were you, I’d be pissed off too. But I actually think he really fell for you. I mean, he didn’t have to stick around any more than Jeffrey did. If all he cared about was getting an insurance report, as soon as he knew Penelope wasn’t
committing fraud, he’d have ridden off into the sunset. He just renewed the lease on his apartment and he comes over to my aunt’s house every day with presents for you, which I throw on the ground and stomp on, and he begs me to tell where you are.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Are they nice presents?” Poppy asked in a very small voice.

  “Probably. They looked nice before I stomped them. They were in fancy packages.”

  Poppy couldn’t help it; she started to laugh. Viola started to laugh. Then they were sitting there howling, and Poppy’s eyes filled with hot tears, and she was laughing and crying and Viola was hugging her.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know. I was so afraid he’d break my heart, and he did.”

  Viola shook her head, wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “But Poppy, you anticipate heartbreak so much that you just about make sure it happens. I know he shouldn’t have let things get as far as he did, but when he came to my aunt’s house, he told me that he was just so attracted to you that he couldn’t help having sex with you while he was still in the middle of the investigation. I actually believed him.”

  Viola paused. “I mean, I still punched him in the face, but I believed him.”

  “Viola!” Poppy gasped. “You didn’t! In the face?”

  “Oh, don’t get your non-edible knickers in a twist. He barely even has a black eye.”

  Poppy groaned. It was a miracle that Viola had never landed in prison. She really did need to get that law degree quickly for when Viola needed a good defense attorney.

  “After you guys got together, I overheard him one day on the phone, telling someone that he was going to tell you, that you deserved to know. He made me swear not to tell, and he promised you that whatever it was he had to tell you had nothing to do with his feelings for you.”

  “Oh.”

  Poppy didn’t know what to think.

  Except that she’d just told Viola that actions spoke louder than words, and Rafe had been there for her from the day he’d met her, and he could easily have just wrapped up the investigation and forgotten all about her, but he hadn’t. There was nothing that he needed from her now, but he was so desperate to see her that he was putting up with Viola’s abuse on a daily basis, just to try to find out where Poppy was hiding out.

  “Okay, I…I just need to process all this.”

  She thought about it, then opened up her suitcase and pulled out a notebook and ripped out a piece of paper. She scribbled on the paper and folded it up, and secured it with scotch tape.

  “Give that to Rafe,” she told Viola. “And do not read it.”

  “Aye, aye, captain!” Viola stood up and looked around the motel room. “And please move your stuff back to the apartment today. This place is creepy. Do you need any help?”

  “No, I only have two suitcases. Everything else is in storage. You’re going to read the note, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am going to read the note. I am Viola Monique Aberdeen. I laugh at the rules of society; I cross in between, not at the green. I slice the tags off mattresses even when they say do not remove under penalty of law. I do what I am told not to.”

  “You can’t read the note! I taped it shut!”

  “Oh, scotch tape. That’ll stop me. And now, I should leave, because I guess I have a smut factory to run. See you there. Come get the apartment key from me when you’re ready.” She flashed a wicked grin at Poppy. “And I hope you surprise me by putting lots of dirty words in the note, although knowing you it’s g-rated.”

  Viola left, and for the first time in many days, Poppy took a deep breath without feeling a stabbing ache in her heart.

  Chapter Twenty

  Poppy paced the floor of Penelope’s – no, her – tiny studio apartment, stomach roiling in fear.

  She had a strange and unsettling case of déjà vu. She was wearing a pink negligee that she’d purchased from Sweet Surrender. Viola let her have it on credit, as partial repayment of her bail money. She was wearing pink silk mules trimmed with marabou feathers, with pointy little spike heels. She was showered and perfumed and had rubbed sweet swelling moisturizer into her skin, and as a special surprise for Rafe, she’d shaved herself, leaving only a little golden strip of hair on her gleaming pink sex.

  And, just the same as the last time she’d sent Rafe a note telling him to meet her in the apartment, she was so nervous she felt ill.

  Had Rafe changed his mind in the past few days? Did he still want her? Had he already moved on?

  Viola had sworn to her that Rafe’s face had lit up like a Christmas tree when Viola handed him the note, and he’d tried to hug her, and she’d shoved him away and told him that if he ever lied to her friend again she’d break his fingers.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall for the millionth time. It was 6:04. She’d told him to meet her at 6:00.

  She struggled to quell her rising sense of panic. Rafe was compulsively punctual. Why was he late, tonight of all nights?

  Maybe he really had changed his mind. Maybe she’d be standing here all night like an idiot in her filmy negligee, in this drafty room, until she died of pneumonia, and…

  She heard boots thudding up the stairs, and her heart started beating again. She rushed to open the door, heart floating as if it had sprouted wings…

  And Martin Gotschall burst into the apartment, shoving at her, slamming the door behind him.

  “What are you doing?” Poppy gasped in shock, staggering back.

  “You just don’t fucking learn, do you?” His eyes were bulging with rage. “You and your stupid bitch of a sister.”

  Suddenly a picture of the man who’d picketed their bakery flashed through Poppy’s mind. Big build, and the aggressive, forward thrusting way he walked…it could easily have been Martin in disguise.

  That must be what Viola had remembered when she’d seen Martin walk away from them at the chamber of commerce meeting. That distinctive walk. She just hadn’t been able to put two and two together, because he was dressed so differently from the crazy guy picketing their store.

  But that man’s face had been hidden under layers of dirt and thick ropes of dirty hair, which could easily have been a wig. And the bright blue eyes could have been contact lenses.

  Stall, she thought frantically, backing away from him as he advanced on her. Surely Rafe was coming for her. Wasn’t he?

  “You were the one who convinced David to attack the bakery, weren’t you?”

  “For all the fucking good it did. You want something done right, do it yourself.” He was between her and the doorway, his bulk blocking any hope of escape.

  “Why do you want this bakery so badly?” She was quaking with terror inside, but she kept her voice even. She frantically scanned the apartment for weapons; she had none. She didn’t even have long fingernails to claw him with.

  “I tried buying it from the old owner for years, but she’d never sell.” His big meaty hands were balled up into fists. “Then I tried to buy it from your sister. What the fuck is wrong with you people? It’s a fucking piece of property. I offered money for it. When someone offers you money, you sell!” He was towering over her now, his sour coffee breath washing over her.

  “Why this building?”

  “Because I bought the businesses on either side of it, because of the location, you stupid bitch! I’ve got a corporation interested in investing in this block, but only if they can have the whole block. I’ve invested a fortune buying up property here, I’m mortgaged to the hilt, and your sister is the only thing standing in the way between me and millions of dollars. Let’s see how much she wants to run this bakery after they find your dead body upstairs. She’ll fucking give it away when the news gets out.”

  “My sister sold it! She doesn’t even own it any more!” Poppy cried frantically.

  “Liar!” He hissed. “If she sold it, what are you doing here?”

  “I – it’s –“ She spluttered. It was to
o long and complicated a story to explain. As if he’d listen to reason.

  “I hate liars!” His eyes were bugging out of his head. His hands closed around her throat.

  Panic swelled inside her. Rafe wasn’t coming after all.

  Summoning up memories from the self-defense classes she’d taken in undergrad school, she raised her foot up and brought it down and stomped on the top of his foot with the pointy spike heel, and he let go of her, howling in pain.

  Panic lent her wings and she dodged past him and ran out the door, screaming.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Rafe was standing, arms wrapped around an enormous bouquet of flowers. Shock bloomed on his face at the sight of Poppy, wild with fright, being pursued by Martin.

  He dropped the flowers on the floor and rushed towards her and Martin, face darkening with rage. “Get your goddamn hands off her!” he bellowed.

  Behind her, she felt hands clawing at her back, and she tripped and fell, and the stairs were a whirling kaleidoscope, and there was an explosion of pain and white stars sparking behind her eyes, and then the world went black.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “She’s starting to come to…”

  There were beeping noises, and a hum of voices off in the distance and the cold disinfect smell of a hospital room. A blood pressure cuff squeezed her upper arm, tightening painfully.

  Poppy’s head was pounding, and she squinted and blinked several times before she finally opened her eyes.

  “Oh, thank God!”

  Who said that?

  Viola and Rafe’s faces hovered above her blurrily. She had to blink hard to get them to swim into focus.

  “What happened?”

  “We got him. He’s under arrest for attempted murder.” She could see Rafe’s lips moving, she could hear his voice, but the words seemed to come from somewhere else.

  “I don’t understand…”Poppy groaned. Her mouth felt thick and dry. “Water,” she rasped.