Sweet but Sexy Boxed Set

by Maddie James

  In the soft glow from the lamp and television, they celebrated all the promises they’d made. There was no need to rehash it all with resolutions.

  He was comfortable with all that was unspoken between them.

  Hailey had kept her promise that they would celebrate this magical moment when one year rolled into the next with the traditional kiss. Nate had faith the second half of that promise—that it would be the first of many—would be fulfilled too.

  THE END

  Constance Phillips

  Constance Phillips lives in Ohio with her husband, daughter, and four canine kids. Her son, now on his own, is planning a wedding, reconfirming that romance still lives and breathes. When not writing stories of finding and rediscovering love, Constance and her husband spend the hours planning a cross-country motorcycle trip for the not-so-distant future…if they can find a sidecar big enough for the pups. Visit Constance at http://constancephillips.com/

  CROSSROADS

  Janet Eaves

  Desperation has a way of changing everything.

  There is no way anyone could have ever convinced Sharon Clark she’d one day return to Legend, Tennessee.

  With her mother playing the leading role of town slut when she was growing up, with the townspeople either pitying her or looking down their noses at her all her young life, with the child she’d carried and hidden from the town’s prying eyes and expected condemnation all those years ago, going back now is just not an option…

  But desperation has a way of changing everything….

  Legend Post-Dispatch

  Mrs. Adeline Hamilton Bynum, 83, known to the Legend community as Ms. Addie, passed away on April 8 in the comfort of her home after a yearlong illness. A lifelong resident of Legend, she was preceded in death by an infant daughter Caroline, and her husband Roger Bynum, the owner of the Post-Dispatch and other community businesses.

  Ms. Addie was a member of the Legend United Methodist Church where a public celebration of her life will be held on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. In life, Ms. Addie was a private woman, who enjoyed her rose garden and grew championship roses. Over the years, she also touched the lives of many children, participating in the county foster family program and giving part-time work to deserving teens. She also had a soft heart for stray animals. Cats were her favorite, but she also contributed to the local animal rescue charities.

  Ms. Addie is survived by a great-nephew, Jeremy Hamilton of Louisville, Kentucky. Memorial gifts can be made to the Legend Animal Shelter or Alley Cat Advocates alleycatadvocates.org.

  Prologue

  8:00 a.m. Courtroom 204, Memphis Municipal Court

  “As to the matter of spousal support, the petitioner’s request is denied. Ms. Gilbert, given your statement that you have been the one to maintain the family income without expectation of support from Mr. Gilbert during the course of the marriage, it is the determination of this court that spousal support is unwarranted.

  “As to the matter of child support, the petitioner’s request is warranted and therefore granted. Even though you state, Mr. Gilbert, that the minor, Kyle Gilbert, is not your biological child, he was born while you and Ms. Gilbert were legally married and you have represented yourself as his father since. Therefore, it is the determination of this court that you will pay child support at the standard percentage rate until midnight the date before the child turns eighteen years of age. Have proof of your income to my clerk this afternoon at the latest.”

  The judge turned to his bailiff. “Who’s next?”

  ****

  10:30 a.m. The Cock and Crow Sports Bar and Grill

  “I’m sorry, Sharon, you’ve been great and dependable, and I’ll be happy to write you a letter of recommendation, but I have no choice. We aren’t making enough to stay open. I’m really sorry, but you’re out of a job just like the rest of us.”

  ****

  2:10 p.m. 2120 Pricilla Street, Apartment 310

  “Look, I’m sorry, but your husband signed the letter of Intent to Vacate a month ago. I’ve already rented the apartment. You have to be out by the end of the month. I know that’s only a couple of days away and I’m sorry about that too, but it’s done. I assumed you knew Mr. Gilbert released the apartment.”

  ****

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  Lost in mind-fog, her head reeling with the events of the day, Sharon Gilbert taped the first of the boxes she’d picked up in the alley behind The Cock and Crow. She turned to open the next box, relieved there were probably enough already taped together that she’d only have to buy one roll of packing tape to put the rest of the boxes back together.

  For once being poor worked in her favor. Once Gerald moved out and took what he wanted, there was really nothing much left for her to pack.

  Still, it was completely unfair. He hadn’t earned a penny the entire marriage because he got to continue with his education, his post-graduate studies, and now his residency while she’d worked her fingers to the bone at both the bar and a pet-grooming salon. Not even the clothes Gerald walked out with were really his to take, but that hadn’t stopped him from taking most of the furniture too.

  Unfair seemed to be the theme of the day.

  Sharon knew she should be raging mad, but she couldn’t allow that. Kyle would be home from school very shortly, and she had to hold herself together. The news that they’d be leaving would devastate him. He’d be forced to leave the high school football team, the one and only thing that meant anything to him. And to top it off she had no idea where they would be moving to, or if the option of him joining another team was even possible. It had cost her so much just to keep him in the sport to begin with. Money she’d worked overtime at both jobs to earn. It was highly doubtful she’d be able to finance him joining another team. Right now she didn’t even have a way to put a roof over their heads.

  A sob threatened to escape, and Sharon clamped her lips together as her cell phone rang. She pulled it from her hip pocket, frowned at the number she didn’t recognize, then figured what-the-hell-else could go wrong, and answered.

  “Sissy? Is that you?”

  The voice from the past nearly took her to her knees. After all she’d endured today, this was the last thing she needed.

  “Mmmmmom?”

  “Oh, well good! It took me forever to pry this number from that damned lawyer in town. Had to trick his receptionist into leaving her desk. But now that I have you, you must come home.”

  And Bam! Sharon sure hoped that was the last shoe to drop because she’d run out of feet two shoes ago. “What lawyer? What are you talking about? I haven’t seen or heard from you in years. Why are you calling now?”

  Why today of all days!

  “Well Sissy, to make a long story short, I’m sick, and I need help. Since you’re my only child, of course I would call you. Who the hell else would I call? Now come home.”

  Not likely!

  She hadn’t been Sissy since leaving the day after she graduated from high school and she had no desire to be Sissy again. Sissy had been known as the chip off the old block, with the “old block” being her disreputable mother back in Legend, Tennessee.

  Candy had married a total of eight times, nine if marrying Bob twice counted as one more. Of course she hadn’t minded opening her legs to any man within Legend Township or outside of town for that matter when a penis-toting human turned an interested eye her way. Nor had she minded the money, clothes, jewelry, and trinkets they seemed happy to buy for her while she waited for husband number…whatever…to appear.

  All of the dignity she’d tried to build for herself over the past decade, plus, fell away and she was that dirty, disgusting, child she promised she’d never again be. With her mother as her only example, Sharon grew up thinking her sexuality was a commodity to be used to her advantage and she’d made some seriously poor decisions for herself in her early teens as a result. The only thing Sharon had ever done halfway right was to get out of the small, simple-minded town and start over where no
one knew anything about either her mother or herself.

  It wasn’t as if that turned out well either.

  Still, to go back now, following a failed disastrous marriage, still being under-educated, and supporting a disengaged fourteen-year-old son who would likely disengage even more now… No, she couldn’t! It would only feed more fuel to the town’s gossip mill and reignite the shame that was the basis of her life for so long.

  Ms. Addie wouldn’t approve. Not at all!

  The only bright spots in her memories of Legend were those with Ms. Addie in them. That dear woman was kind enough to sit her down and tell her some really hard truths while fostering her for the three months her mother spent in jail for petty theft.

  Sharon couldn’t believe her mother would call for her help now after basically throwing her out on the streets when she aged out of the system all those years ago. It hadn’t mattered she was already eighteen years old and Ms. Addie was given a ten-sibling family unit to foster and no longer had room for her. She’d still just been a broken-hearted kid, but Candy had husband number…whatever…hooked and he was being reeled in and Mommy Dearest didn’t want her much younger pregnant daughter being a distraction.

  Even if her mother was seriously ill, it was just too darned bad. There was nothing she could do for her, and Sharon would rather live in the back alleys of Memphis’s worst streets than be exposed to such ridicule again. Because that’s all Candy had ever felt her daughter deserved. After more than a decade of complete silence, her mother had some nerve even hunting down her phone number and calling. She owed her mother nothing, and nothing was exactly what she would get. Sharon had nothing to give, anyway. She had her own problems—terrifying problems.

  All the righteous reasons to ignore her mother’s pleas slipped and slid through Sharon’s mind, but the truth was she couldn’t just ignore the woman who should have loved her but hadn’t known how to. And it wasn’t like Sharon had anywhere else to go… A roof, any roof over her son’s head was better than them living in the Jeep, surely.

  Oh, darn!

  Sickened but resigned to the inevitable, Sharon promised herself she would go back just long enough to make sure Candy’s dramatic ramblings hadn’t been anything more than that. She’d find some type of job and save every penny she could for as long as she could stand being there, and then she’d get back out of her mother’s house and Legend just as fast as she could. Where she would head to next was uncertain and depended to a great extent on her finances once she could make her escape. But staying in Legend one minute longer than necessary wasn’t an option she would ever entertain.

  “Sissy! Are you listening to me?”

  Sharon seriously considered throwing the phone across the room, but she couldn’t afford to replace it. “Yeah, I’m here, but I have to go. I’m tied up right now.” Without giving her mother a chance to respond, Sharon hung up the phone and ignored it when it instantly rang again.

  She took a look around the room and sighed. Broken dreams were no stranger to her. All she’d ever wanted as a kid was a father who didn’t walk in and then out of her life only to be replaced by another daddy. Or, much worse, those daddies who, throughout her teens, thought she should also satisfy their sexual needs. At least her mother had cared enough to throw those two out as soon as Sharon complained, but she knew Candy had also resented both her young daughter’s beauty and the loss of her meal ticket in order to fulfill her role as a parent.

  But she couldn’t blame her mother for everything. She’d made a whopper of a mistake in marrying Gerald so soon after meeting him. It didn’t matter she’d been on the rebound and desperate for any type of anchor, given her condition. His motivations had only just become clear recently. And she felt like a fool for never guessing what was going on when the signs were there all along.

  What she hadn’t known while she’d been busy juggling two jobs, trying to raise a child and make a loving home environment twenty-four/seven for all their years together, was Gerald was sleeping with several pretty little willing nurses on the side. Finally, with no contrition whatsoever, he’d confessed he and his latest had a lot more in common and could make a better life together, especially since Nurse Nancy hadn’t slept with half the football team while attending high school.

  That had, without question, hurt more than anything else. She’d trusted him with her deepest, darkest secret early in their relationship. He had embellished it and used it against her, both privately and in open court. If she hadn’t been completely stunned with embarrassment, she probably would have killed him right then and there and would have had to spend the rest of her life in prison. Though she was sure that would be better than going back to Legend, she had a son to consider, and the easy road and she had yet to meet.

  Sharon blew out a breath before lifting the box to carry it down to her raggedy old jeep. The unexpected knock at the door caused her heart jump and the box to hit the floor with a thud. She hesitated only a moment before glancing back to make sure the deadbolt was thrown. Relieved, she made her way across the small room and looked through the peephole.

  Unless the local riffraff had improved, the smartly dressed man standing on the other side of the door was either a bill collector or someone wanting to expound on the benefits of making Jesus her personal savior. She could only surmise, since he was alone, he wasn’t there to indoctrinate her into the life of a Mormon. Knowing Kyle would be home from school at any moment, Sharon unlocked and swung the door open, only to have the middle-aged man smile at her as if he’d won the lottery.

  “Mrs. Sharon Clark Gilbert?”

  Sharon nodded cautiously.

  “I’m Braxton Halstammer. I’m here on behalf of Graham Winchester, a lawyer from Legend, Tennessee, who is handling the Addie Bynum estate. Could you spare a moment?”

  Sharon’s eyes widened. Her mother had told her about Ms. Addie’s passing years before, and though the news had hit her chest with a thud and had filled her with sadness, Sharon hadn’t had the time or energy to give it more thought in years. She nodded and stepped back. “What does Ms. Addie’s estate have to do with me?”

  Braxton Halstammer slid his hand into the side pouch of his leather briefcase and withdrew an envelope before holding it out for her. “I was sent this to pass along to you from Mrs. Bynum’s solicitor. That’s really all I know. The contents aren’t my business. Have a good day, ma’am.”

  The lawyer saw himself out and closed the door softly behind him. Sharon stared at the envelope as the seconds ticked by. The handwriting was clearly Ms. Addie’s. In the months she’d lived with her, Sharon watched the woman write out numerous checks to benefit one cat rescue mission after another, as well as the envelopes Sharon then walked down her long driveway from the big white house where Ms. Addie lived, to the miniature version of it used for sending and receiving mail.

  The sound of the door opening broke the trance she’d fallen into, and Sharon glanced over to see her son drop his backpack before pushing the door closed and locking it.

  “Since when do you leave the door unlocked?”

  Sharon sighed. “Hi to you, too. How was your day?”

  Kyle shrugged and memories swamped her. He looked so much like… No, she wouldn’t go there. Ever again.

  “Yeah, hi. It was okay I guess. I can’t wait until Friday night. If it wasn’t for the game, I’d hate school. It’s so boring sitting through classes that don’t matter. You know….” Kyle shrugged, which meant the conversation was over.

  Sharon wanted so badly to walk over and hug him, but Kyle was at a stage where he didn’t welcome human contact. At least not from her. It killed her that the one bright spot in his life was his love of football and she was about to take it away from him. It hurt as much that she’d never been able to see him practice because she’d been working so hard to take care of them all, and pay for football camp, and all the things he’d need to be able to play. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we have to move.”

&n
bsp; Kyle turned his gaze on her then looked at the sparsely furnished room. His lack of reaction was unexpected and worried her more than a tantrum would have. “You understand there isn’t a choice, right?”

  “Whatever.”

  Sharon held on to her temper. Kyle was going through a lot. Not only was he losing his friends, his home, and the man who he’d always thought of as his father, but he also now knew Gerald wasn’t his father. Though Gerald hadn’t ever been that involved in Kyle’s life, at least he’d been there, some.

  “What’s that?”

  Sharon looked at the envelope she still held out in front of her and shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s from a lady I knew a long time ago.”

  For the first time since entering the apartment, he actually looked at her. “Are you going to open it?”

  Sharon stared at him helplessly before she nodded and quickly slid her finger under the sealed flap then winced when it sliced her fingertip. She stuck it between her lips for only a second before opening the flap.

  “It’s a letter,” she said, shaking out the single page with one hand while returning the burning finger to her mouth.

  “Duh!”

  Sharon silently counted to ten then focused on the letter with the staple in the upper left hand corner that held a business card against the letter’s back. Ms. Addie’s large script had always made her think the woman sang songs in her head while writing.

  “What’s it say?”

  Sharon glanced up without moving her head. Given his attitude, she wanted to tell him it wasn’t addressed to him, but since he rarely if ever expressed interest in anything she decided to read it out loud.

  “My Dearest Sharon,

  It has been such a long time since I last laid eyes on you, but I am sure you are as beautiful now as you were all those years ago. I, on the other hand, have dwindled with age and heart illness these last few years.”