Sweet but Sexy Boxed Set

by Maddie James

  Time for a forced smile. Did she want to spend the rest of her life with Thomas Dunlap? Become Mrs. Thomas Dunlap? No. For one thing, if she ever married, she would keep her maiden name. She would never succumb to an out-of-date tradition. And besides, she was too self-reliant, too used to doing what she pleased with only her daughter and her aunt to put her life in the hands of another.

  But Aunt Bess was dead and C.B. was married. Thomas was right. She was free.

  “This is such a surprise. Will you let me think about it?” She hated the timid note that crept into her voice. Slowly, Kelly disengaged her hands and withdrew the sparkling ring from her finger. It was too much bling. It was too much pressure. She handed it back to him. “You know I don’t do change well.”

  Thomas slid the ring back into its protective velvet box. He had the look of a man receiving a death sentence. I hate to hurt his feelings. She hadn’t quite told him “no,” but she hadn’t said “yes.” If the situation was reversed, she’d feel like shit.

  “You have a habit of avoiding things,” he said with a sharp shake of his finger, reprimanding her as if she was a six-year-old caught hitting another child on the playground. “It’s a character flaw you need to work on.”

  Kelly shifted on the park bench. Thomas was always too blunt. That was his character flaw. She pressed her right hand hard against the bench and fought down her annoyance.

  Yet could Thomas be right?

  Twenty-one years ago she had avoided telling C.B.’s father she was pregnant, but that was because his mother had found out they were secretly dating and warned her away from him. She made it perfectly clear her son had a future that didn’t include a small town girl from the wrong side of the tracks. It was evident she went behind her son’s back because he never said anything about his mother’s interference. Probably her husband didn’t even know about her scare tactics.

  But his mother was right. When they talked about life after high school, he made it clear he didn’t intend to end up in a small town like his father. He intended to go places, be important. Kelly was never part of that future he painted for himself.

  When she found out she was pregnant, Kelly couldn’t tell him. He didn’t love her. He would reject her and their child.

  And so once Kelly started keeping the secret, she had never revealed the truth to anyone, especially not her own father, who had threatened to beat it out of her and confront the boy and his parents. It was just as easy to avoid telling her mother, who could be bullied by her husband, and later C.B., who accepted life without a father. Leaving her hometown and moving to Louisville put distance between her and the problem.

  Thomas cleared his throat. “I won’t wait forever,” he told her.

  “Of course not.” Kelly shook off the memories and touched his sleeve. How did she soften her response? “I just need time to process this. Please?”

  He kissed her then—a typical Thomas kiss with lips pressed firmly shut and eyes closed. Kelly responded as always, timidly, tepidly—trying to deny the longing in her heart for the love of her life, someone who cherished her, didn’t want to change her and loved her just the way she was.

  Someone she was too afraid to find.

  ****

  “Did Thomas really say that?”

  Ear pressed to her iPhone, Kelly nodded even though her best friend Rachel couldn’t see the action. “Yes. You know how he is,” she said.

  Kelly leaned back against the headboard of her queen-sized bed with its cozy, apple green comforter and cotton sheets—her refuge from the untidy world where she lived. She’d never had sex in it. Thomas preferred the six hundred thread count, extra deep Egyptian cotton sheets of his king-sized bed. What’s more, he didn’t like anyone touching him when he slept. She was used to sleeping alone, so part of her didn’t mind.

  Another part longed to be held all night long, tenderly cuddled and caressed, not taken for granted once the deed was done.

  It was dark outside, almost ten o’clock. One lamp illuminated Kelly’s cream-colored bedroom walls, casting shadows over her night stand where her stack of to-be-read books was piled.

  “What are you going to do?” Rachel’s voice, low and soft, was not able to mask its cautionary note.

  “About Thomas?” Kelly paused. “I don’t think I’m the marrying kind.”

  She heard Rachel’s sigh of relief almost as if her friend were in the same room, not seven hundred miles away. Did Rachel agree? When they met, Rachel was single and didn’t have a child, but she’d always been willing to let C.B. tag along with them when they went out to eat or shop at the mall. Then Rachel met Carl on eHarmony.com and the rest, as they say, was history.

  Rachel had taken the chance Kelly had never been willing to take. She had married Carl and moved away settling in Beaufort, North Carolina, where she and Carl ran a thriving bed and breakfast.

  “Thomas is right about one thing.” Rachel took a big breath as if gathering courage. “Your life is wide open. It’s time for you to start fresh.”

  “But…”

  “No ‘buts.’ I don’t want to hear any excuses. Life just doesn’t happen. You must create what you want out of it.”

  Kelly flinched, her hand holding the cell phone suddenly going damp. She switched hands and wiped her right hand against her pajama pants. “I know. I’ve been thinking I should do something different with my life.” Part of her wanted to make a change. The other part remained terrified.

  “You know you don’t love Thomas,” Rachel said. “He was simply convenient.”

  “You’re right.” The room suddenly seemed cooler as if Kelly was closing a door. “I know I should take a few more risks, but I’m not good at it.”

  “You can do whatever you put your mind to.” Kelly sensed Rachel’s smile. “You’re stronger than you think.”

  Kelly shrugged off the praise. She’d never considered herself particularly strong. “Whatever.”

  “Call me tomorrow? We’ll talk some more.”

  “Yes, tomorrow.”

  “Good night, Kelly. And don’t worry about Thomas. He’s not for you.”

  “I know. Good night, Rachel.”

  Kelly ended the call and placed the iPhone on her nightstand. She sat forward and hugged her knees to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. Rachel was right. She needed change. She deserved it after all she’d been through and all the sacrifices she’d made over the years for C.B.

  But Thomas Dunlap wasn’t particularly the kind of change she needed.

  What did she need? Would she always date someone who was safe?

  Kelly sighed, trying to shake away her funk.

  C.B. and Daniel had moved into a small house in Middletown. He was taking care of her little girl now. What if she quit her teaching job and put her things in storage? Her apartment lease was up next month. She could let the realtor sell her aunt’s house. Then she’d be free to move to Lexington or maybe Northern Kentucky. At least she’d be away from the complication of Thomas.

  The idea of creating a new life was new and exciting.

  Yes, she’d do it. Having something to look forward to and making her mind up so quickly made her feel good.

  Kelly relaxed against the pillows only to jerk forward moments later as the ringtone “Back Home Again in Indiana” blared from her iPhone. Wonderful. Why did her mother always spoil her sweet dreams?

  Kelly squeezed her eyes shut a few seconds. Then she reached over and picked up the phone. “Hi, Mother.”

  “Kelly, dear, how are you?”

  “Fine. You’re calling late.”

  “I need your help. With Colleen settled and school out for the year, I thought you’d have time to come home and give me a hand.”

  Kelly had been home once in twenty-one years and that was a year ago when her father died. She had avoided Lanham, Indiana, like the plague.

  “What do you need, Mother? Is it something I can do for you from here?”

  “No you can’t.” Her mother�
��s voice was tight. “I’m moving out of this big house. It’s too much for me. I need your help to go through things. I’m afraid I’ll throw away something you or Colleen will want, you know things from your father’s family.”

  “I don’t think C.B. is interested in antiques.”

  “Kelly!” Her mother cut her off. “I never ask anything of you. Not since what happened. But now I need your help. And Colleen may want something from your father’s family since she doesn’t have her own father.”

  Ouch. Kelly should be used to her mother dredging up “the big mistake,” but it hurt just the same. “Mother, I don’t have time.”

  “You never have time.” She heard her mother’s deep intake of breath. “Kelly, I’m almost seventy. I don’t get around as well as I used to. I need your help.”

  Kelly read the pleading note in her mother’s sharp voice. “With C.B. married and Aunt Bess gone, I’m starting a new life, Mother.”

  “I’m starting one too, dear.” Her mother’s tone softened. “It’s just for a few weeks.”

  It had to be tough getting older. Aunt Bess had not taken kindly to old age and had gone kicking and screaming to the end, never acknowledging she wasn’t able to do what her aging body prevented her from doing. Her mother was different. She’d never written a check until her father died. Although always subservient to him, her mother had taken his passing hard.

  She and Aunt Bess could never understand Grace Baron’s passivity and abject dependence on her husband. They were two self-reliant women, cut from the same cloth and used to doing things for themselves. It was hard for them to ask for help, but they gave it freely as part of their DNA.

  “Okay, Mother,” Kelly said, knowing this time she couldn’t deny her mother’s request. “I can be up there in a couple of weeks. I have some things to get done here before then.”

  “You must arrive before July tenth. That’s when I’m, er, moving. Can you be here for your birthday on the sixth? It will be fun to celebrate it here.”

  “I’ll be there. Don’t worry.”

  As always her mother hung up without saying good-bye. Kelly slammed the iPhone down on her mattress. Damn! She set her jaw, flipped off the bedside lamp and stared into the darkness. Her mother was moving into a retirement home. She needed Kelly’s help, but Kelly dreaded going home.

  “You can never go home again,” James Agee had written. Kelly fled Lanham at eighteen, accepting the truth of that adage.

  By agreeing to help her mother, she was putting her life on hold one more time. Maybe Lanham was as good as any place to retreat and plot her next move.

  Chapter Two

  Lanham, Indiana

  Two weeks later

  Lanham, Indiana, was a small county seat in the southern part of the state about fifty miles north of the border. Kelly’s arrival on Saturday, July third, coincided with the city-wide Independence Day celebration on the town square.

  She avoided the square and drove three blocks to her mother’s house, parking in front. Turning off the ignition, Kelly stared at the two-story white frame house with its wraparound front porch. Surrounded by a white picket fence, the house had been built in 1909 by her father’s grandfather. An old-fashioned swing suspended motionless from the joists just outside a floor-to-ceiling bedroom window.

  This was supposed to be home. She swallowed hard, trying to erase the needless fear she felt. Her father was dead. Memories of her harsh upbringing were just that: memories.

  Because of her father’s strict rules, she had never fit in with other kids. Forced to wear long skirts and put her thick, red hair up into an out-of-date bun, she was often bullied and called names. While growing up, her father had limited her friendships and activities. Later he had stopped her from dating, thinking he could prevent exactly what happened.

  Taking a big breath for courage, Kelly climbed out of the car and grabbed her purse. She strode up the cracked, concrete sidewalk and mounted three short steps to the front porch. A board squeaked and the heels of her sandals made flapping sounds as she crossed the wooden planks to the door. A ruled notebook paper was taped to the glass. I’m at the square working in the cake walk booth. Come on down. Mom.

  Kelly read her mother’s scrawling handwriting and rubbed her nose. What had gotten into her “afraid of her shadow” mother? Pitching in at a charity event was contrary to her stay-at-home personality. Kelly fished for the house key in her pocket and opened the front door.

  There was nothing warm and welcoming in the living room. It was filled with packing boxes that were taped and labeled. All the old, comfortable furniture was gone—the worn flowered sofa from her childhood, the hand-crafted cherry tables built by her grandfather, and multi-colored cotton rag rugs braided by her grandmother.

  Kelly frowned. Why did her mother need her help? The packing looked to be well underway and professionally done at that.

  Her breath hitched. She couldn’t stay here. Regardless of its familiarity, this place had never been a true home, not like the one she and Aunt Bess had created for C.B. in Louisville.

  Backing out of the room, Kelly shut the door and pocketed the key. Returning to her car, she tucked a handful of bills and her iPhone in the pocket of her khaki cropped pants, tossed her purse into the trunk, slammed it, and locked the car door.

  The last thing she wanted to do was go to the Fourth of July festival where she might run into people who had known her as a kid but never accepted her—people who quickly passed judgment when she got into trouble. Granted, she had passed plenty of judgment on herself, but the criticism from Lanham busybodies didn’t help matters. That had been part of the reason she left town.

  ****

  Rob Scott sat balancing on a narrow piece of hard plastic over a five hundred gallon polyethylene dunk tank. It was surrounded by a vinyl-coated steel protective cage. Mercifully his white T-shirt and blue swim trunks remained dry. The assorted spectators peering at him from the courthouse lawn had failed to hit the red bull’s-eye which would dump him into the cold water below.

  He didn’t mind exposing himself like this, perching above the water, egging people on to get them to spend money on chances. Further, the more chances these people bought, the more funds he raised for the Lanham Children’s Club, a local organization that needed help. It had fallen on hard times over the years he had been gone from his hometown. When he returned five years ago, he had taken an interest in it, becoming a volunteer and trying to return it to the well-run club that had been there for him when he was growing up.

  Rob wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. The weather was oppressive. The blistering July sun beat down on his head, and the humidity was so thick he could almost see it. Maybe a good drenching was what he needed.

  “C’mon, Jake,” he called out to a wide-eyed boy who attended the afterschool program and now stood smacking bubble gum in front of the tank. “Let’s see you hit the bull’s-eye.”

  “Ain’t got no money, Mr. Scott,” the boy replied with a shake of his head.

  “Step aside, kid.” A short man with a beer belly paunch under his ribbed, wife-beater undershirt edged the boy out of the way. “Your time has come, mister,” the guy said with a cocky grin and proceeded to throw three baseballs, each of them missing the target.

  “Aw, c’mon, buddy,” Rob shouted. “You throw like a girl!”

  The guy paid a dollar for three more chances and missed again. He went away grumbling, but a teenage boy took his place. Rob heckled his attempt. The boy failed to connect. Maybe Rob would get through his shift without being dunked.

  And then he saw her.

  She stood behind a group of small girls. A sharp pang took his breath away. Kelly? He hadn’t seen Kelly since graduation when she had given him the cold shoulder, but there was no mistaking that shock of dark red hair. She had cut it so it was short like a boy’s, probably shorter than his.

  He shouldn’t be surprised to see her, for he knew Kelly was coming to town. In fact, h
e and his father planned to have dinner with Kelly and her mother tonight. Yet spotting her in the crowd, all grown up and gorgeous threw him off kilter. He didn’t anticipate their meeting this way, and the shock of seeing her left him confused, an emotion he was all too familiar with lately.

  Memory sliced sharply into his chest. Her father was strict and he didn’t have the guts to run afoul of her old man. He didn’t date Kelly openly. Instead they met at the library, and he walked her part of the way home, bought her Cokes, and dreamed about her at night. But he avoided her in school, taking the coward’s way out.

  Other boys thought Kelly was ugly. But it was the way her father made her pin up her beautiful hair and wear skirts and long-sleeved shirts as if he was trying to hide her natural beauty. Kelly was more than a pretty face. She was kind and giving and smart. And she was strong, maybe too strong for her own good.

  Regret cut through him. He remembered her long, silky hair, and how he had lost himself in it that night when it slid over his bare chest. Their time together had been brief, leaving him longing for more.

  “Hey, Kel,” he called out to her. “Let’s see that pitching arm of yours. Or has old age caught up with you?”

  She stood stock-still, staring at him. She had that same piercing green-eyed gaze that intrigued him at the library senior year. He saw her set her jaw. She dug into her pocket and paid for three balls.

  “C’mon now, let’s see what ya got! Wind ‘er up, sugar.” He played his role, egging her on.

  He saw her take a steadying breath. With deliberate movements, she faced her shoulder and lower body so they lined up toward the target. Her back was perpendicular to the bull’s-eye, her hips closed and pointing in the same direction. She stepped toward the target with her lead foot, pushed off her back leg, and threw the ball using her entire body.

  The ball glanced harmlessly off the yellow target canvas.