Guilty Pleasures

by Tori Carrington

  He would have said that Brutus missed her, but they both would have known it was a lie. At best, she’d merely tolerated the loveable canine.

  He got to his feet and hefted the box to sit on top of the others on the front porch.

  “Well,” she said. “I just want to let you know my attorney is encouraging me to take you to court.”

  “For?”

  She shrugged. “For breaking your promise to me.”

  Jon ran his hand over his hair, then let it hang from the back of his neck. “Julie, we weren’t married.”

  He didn’t want to point out they weren’t even engaged.

  “Not yet. But when we moved in together, that was the expectation. At least it was mine.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Do what you need to,” he said. Then he met her gaze earnestly. “But I recommend you not go that route. Move on, Julie. Find the man who is going to make you stop thinking about attorneys and lawsuits and how the world is always shortchanging you. A man who will make you happy. Lord knows, I never felt like that guy.”

  He put his keys to the house on the kitchen table, then walked through the door, turning before closing it behind him.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t work out.”

  She looked away. If she had tears in her eyes, he couldn’t tell. But he did hear her say, “Me, too.”

  26

  IT SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE to believe it had been a month since she’d come home to find FBI agents waiting for her.

  Mara lowered her welding mask and then turned up the flame, the music of The White Stripes reverberating throughout the large warehouse. She stood with her legs squared, working to meld the last section of her latest sculpture to the main body. It stood seven feet high and five feet wide and she’d finished it in record time. Normally a piece of this size took her months.

  Let’s just say I was possessed, she thought, mesmerized by the licking flames even as she controlled them.

  Or perhaps the correct word was obsessed.

  Thirty days…

  Reece…

  She turned the flame up higher.

  Considering all she’d gone through during that time, she’d think the last thing to come to mind would be the man instrumental in so much of what had happened…good and bad.

  No, bad. Mostly bad.

  Her hand faltered.

  Damn.

  She lowered the flame and pushed back her mask, wondering when the constant obsessing over Jonathon Reece would finally stop. She placed the torch in its stand and reached over to lower the volume on her portable stereo. It wasn’t bad enough she woke every morning with him on her mind, and went to sleep at night yearning for him in ways she couldn’t even begin to count.

  You spent seven days in an FBI holding cell because of him, she reminded herself.

  Do you trust me?

  “No.”

  She responded aloud, wiped her brow against the sleeve of her T-shirt then reached for the soda bottle on a stool next to her.

  She didn’t trust him.

  She didn’t trust anybody.

  “What bullshit.”

  The truth was, everything he had said, all the advice he’d given, had ultimately been right on target. She’d stayed in that holding cell not so much because she’d been held there—after the first few hours, they’d offered to let her go—but because the agent in charge had recommended she stay on when she’d agreed to work with them to finally dismantle the militia group that had once played such an instrumental role in her life.

  It still did.

  I’m sorry…

  She stood stock-still, letting the words echo through her.

  Those two words had been waiting for her on her answering machine when she’d returned to her apartment. The message hadn’t been from Reece. No. Rather, Gerald Butler had been the one to leave it.

  And they weren’t the only words he’d said.

  She slowly sipped her soda, remembering, word for word.

  I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry, Mara, he’d said. For hurting you back then, and for setting you up to take the fall now so I could save my own ass. Out of everyone in my life, your ideals were the ones that most closely matched those I proclaimed to uphold. Ironic, isn’t it? I was supposed to be the teacher. But when it came to you, well, I was the student. You deserved—deserve—better than what I’ve done to you. Both back then and now. The only thing that brings me comfort is I know you’ll be cleared. How could you not? You’ve done nothing wrong. I just wanted to tell you to do what you need to. Protect yourself. And that nobody in the group will ever try to harm you again.

  “Hey, Mar?”

  The live words sounded above the ones reverberating through her mind.

  She looked up to see Trent standing at the top of the stairs leading to her apartment. He was part of the group she’d decided to take with her.

  Thankfully, that had been all she’d heard from Gerald. And, surprisingly, they’d been words she’d needed to hear.

  “Lunch in five,” Trent said.

  She gave him a thumbs-up, although she wasn’t anywhere near hungry.

  “I thought we could discuss that online gallery idea I have a little more, too.”

  She smiled. “Be up in five.”

  “Cool.”

  He went back inside her apartment.

  Trent was one of her few conditions when she’d decided to turn federal informant. He was not to be touched and would be immune from prosecution.

  She pulled her gloves off. Only she hadn’t known she had to make that particular deal. It seemed Reece had been busy before catching his plane back to Colorado. He’d driven out to the bunker and pulled Trent out of there before the FBI arrived, and had dropped him at her place, where she’d found him when she walked out of the holding facility of her own volition.

  She still wasn’t sure how she felt about residing with someone after having lived alone for so long. But as far as bunkmates went, Trent was easy.

  Of course, she was preparing a room in the opposite corner of the warehouse for him so they wouldn’t be within kicking distance of each other for much longer.

  She reached to switch off the oxygen and acetylene tanks when a dog’s bark brought her attention to the doors. Since the warehouse wasn’t air-conditioned, she liked to encourage every spare breeze she could and had left the doors open, her recovered Camaro parked just inside. She switched off the gas then headed toward the doors to check it out.

  A brown dog with huge, googly eyes and a curly tail startled her when it barked just feet away.

  “Hey, buddy,” she said, crouching down and putting her hands out.

  He wore a black, spiked collar with tags on it.

  “Come here and let’s see who your owner is so we can get you back home,” she said.

  He came to her, pink tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth, his gait resembling that of a bowlegged bulldog.

  She laughed as he licked her chin.

  “First mystery solved.”

  Mara nearly fell backward at the sound of the familiar male voice.

  Her hands froze where she petted the dog, keeping him from licking places she’d prefer to keep dry even as her gaze snagged on a pair of scuffed cowboy boots that were also all too familiar.

  Reece…

  She realized her hands were now trembling.

  “As for the second part,” he said, smiling at her cautiously, “well, I guess that depends on you.�
��

  She squinted at him, though the sun was directly overhead and not in her eyes.

  “The home part.”

  Her heart expanded like the flame on her torch when she turned up the gas.

  She turned away and walked back toward the office without saying a word.

  The dog followed her.

  “Brutus, here,” Reece said.

  Brutus. Such a big name for such a small dog. But fitting.

  Of course, the dog didn’t listen. He trailed on her heels.

  “Brutus?” she couldn’t help saying, tossing the dog a chip from a bag on her desk.

  She was aware Reece had followed and stood in the doorway. “Yeah. He may be a puggle, but he likes to think himself a German shepherd.”

  Mara didn’t want to look at him. Couldn’t. She wasn’t ready.

  What was she talking about? She had never expected to see him again.

  Yet here he was, saying things that made no sense.

  She puttered around with things although she was too scattered to really be doing anything.

  What was he doing there?

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, finally swiveling to face him.

  He visibly winced. “I wanted to come by to see how you’re doing.”

  She raised her brows then spread her arms wide. “I’m fine. There. You’ve seen. No thanks to you, I might add.”

  Her turn to wince.

  That wasn’t true. She was fine mostly due to him.

  Had she done things her way, tried to keep running, she wouldn’t have ended up in a holding cell she could walk out of at any time. She quite possibly could be still facing life in prison if not the death penalty. And she’d still be running, forever afraid of who might catch up with her.

  Instead, the right man was going to trial—Butler, who’d ordered the hit on the prosecutor—and the militia had been shut down, with the worst of them also facing trials of their own.

  “I deserved that,” Reece said.

  “You’re damn right you did,” she said.

  Just being this close to him again, seeing him standing before her…well, made her feel alive again.

  “You also deserve this….”

  She walked the few steps separating them and kissed him, her arms snaking up under his arms, hands grasping his shoulders.

  She had intended it as a hungry demonstration of her ongoing need for him only; she hadn’t planned on things spiraling so quickly out of control.

  She moved her hands to his chest, nudging him slightly away. Not all the way, just slightly.

  She needed to catch her breath. She’d forgotten how profoundly he affected her.

  No, scratch that; she hadn’t forgotten. She just hadn’t expected to experience it ever again.

  Reece smiled down at her. “I think I like that better than the other.”

  Against her will, she smiled back.

  He nodded over his shoulder. “That wouldn’t happen to be me, would it?”

  She looked toward the seven-foot sculpture holding the Winchester in a mixture of reverence and awe.

  “Nope. It’s Trent,” she lied.

  Reece laughed and she laughed with him.

  As if hearing his name, Trent yelled down from the top of the staircase, “It’s getting cold. You coming or what? Oh, hey, Reece.”

  Mara rolled her eyes at how casually the kid greeted him, as if he saw him every day.

  “Hey, yourself, kid. Got enough for three?”

  “Sure do. Come on up.”

  Brutus had started to bark the instant Trent opened the apartment door.

  “Got enough for your little friend there, too. Here doggy, doggy, doggy.”

  Brutus ran up the stairs and a moment later the apartment door closed again.

  Reece looked down at her, his gaze touching her as hotly as his hands.

  “How long before he comes again?”

  She curved against him. “Does it matter?”

  “Right now? Nope.”

  And he kissed her….

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt of Blazing Midsummer Nights by Leslie Kelly!

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  1

  SOMEONE ONCE SAID that the course of true love never did run smooth. As Mimi Burdette watched two of her good friends sway together in a romantic dance, however, she had to disagree. Because the true love between this couple had been obvious to everyone who knew them, almost from the moment they’d met.

  “They look like a prince and princess,” murmured Anna, her neighbor, friend, landlady and tonight’s hostess.

  “Considering the setting, maybe a fairy king and queen.”

  She wasn’t kidding. The woods surrounding the backyard of the old plantation house just outside of Athens had been turned into a mythical forest. As dusk fell and a thousand twinkle lights began to gleam in the night, everyone at the engagement party slowed to appreciate the beauty all around them.

  A trio of musicians softly strummed their instruments, the lyrical notes riding a warm, summer breeze. The Spanish moss hanging from the live oaks gleamed silver under the evening dew and the firefly-soft lighting. Magnolias the size of dinner plates dotted the trees, looking like a thousand full moons, filling the air with their evocative scent. Lanterns hung from the lowest branches of the graceful pines, and the arches of a dozen arbors were draped with writhing, sweet-smelling jasmine and heavily laden grapevines.

  Okay, the vines and fruit were fake. But what an effect!

  “You really outdid yourself,” Mimi said to Anna, who stood watching the proceedings, wearing a smile.

  The older woman, dressed as always in colorful, flowing robes, merely shrugged. “Setting the stage for romance is easy when the people involved are meant for each other like Duke and Lyssa.” She chuckled. “Of course, it didn’t hurt that I’m helping with the costumes and props for the downtown theater group’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

  With her filmy, billowing clothes, and her long ash-gray hair, loose and wavy and entwined with flowers, Anna looked more like a hippie than a retiree. So maybe it wasn’t so surprising that she could take a normal backyard, ringed by normal Georgia woods, and turn it into something out of a storybook.

  “Anyway, it was just a few lights, some fabric—easy.”

  “Maybe for you, but other than advertising, the creative wiring was left out of my genetic code. To me, this looks like pure sorcery and magic.”

  The soon-to-be bride and groom deserved a magical wedding. The
y were wonderful people, and she already missed having them as neighbors. They’d already moved into their new house, but until a week ago, had lived right across the hall from her own first-floor apartment in this grand old estate home.

  Anna and her husband, Ralph—dubbed Obi-Wan because of his love for all things Star Wars and his sage, all-knowing demeanor—had bought the place decades ago and raised their family here. Once the kids were gone, they’d divided the three-story mansion into six small apartments, figuring the rental income would keep them nicely provided for in their retirement.

  With the unit across from Mimi’s vacant, and another unrented one on the second floor, the big house was feeling empty. Plus, Anna and Obi-Wan’s volatile marriage was on the rocks again. Obi-Wan’s one fault was his jealous streak. He was always accusing other men of being after his wife. His latest accusation had angered Anna enough that she had moved into one of the vacant units to teach him a lesson.

  In this economy, three rentals not bringing in any money was not a good thing. She had to wonder where Anna had come up with the funds to throw this engagement party for her former tenants. Mimi had offered to help pay—she could certainly afford it and would have loved to help—but Anna’s pride wouldn’t allow her to accept. The most she would allow was the use of Mimi’s nice discount on much of the food.

  Sometimes it really paid to be the daughter of the owner of a chain of grocery stores. Not to mention being the head of marketing for said grocery store chain, with an express ticket to the executive offices of her family’s business.

  Some people wondered why she lived here, in a small apartment in an old house, when she could afford to buy her own home, or sponge off her parents at their estate. But Mimi loved this place, loved the history of it. More importantly, she loved the sense of community she found here, where she was free to be herself and didn’t have to wear the socialite hat, or the business executive one. She could just be Mimi.

  “Oh,” Anna said, snapping her fingers as she remembered something. “You’re going to have new neighbors. My daughter, Helen, and her little boy are moving from Atlanta next weekend, taking the vacant unit on two. And I rented the apartment across from yours today.”