Sprinkles on Top (A Sugar Springs Novel)

by Kim Law

  Also by Kim Law

  THE DAVENPORTS

  CAUGHT ON CAMERA

  SUGAR SPRINGS NOVELS

  SUGAR SPRINGS

  SWEET NOTHINGS

  TURTLE ISLAND NOVELS

  EX ON THE BEACH

  HOT BUTTERED YUM

  TWO TURTLE ISLAND DOVES (A NOVELLA)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 Kim Law

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477824672

  ISBN-10: 1477824677

  Cover design by Georgia Morrissey

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014904439

  To Kristin Anders, for your awesome idea for the mirrors . . . and not for the crappy idea concerning legal matters (which my editor, thankfully, made me remove).

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Prologue

  Not interested.” Zack Winston snapped his mouth shut and focused on the two men staring back at him from the other side of the linen-draped table.

  Low lighting and the slight clink of utensils on fine china surrounded them as he waited.

  What he waited for, he wasn’t sure. What could they say? He’d made his stance clear. He wasn’t interested in getting to know them. That train had passed years ago.

  And he most certainly wouldn’t be heading north to visit their “quaint little town.”

  “I hope you’ll reconsider,” Cody said. Though the men were identical, it was clear he was the angrier of the two. He’d shown up with a chip on his shoulder the size of Zack’s bank account. “We’re not talking about moving there.” Cody was working to remain polite, but Zack could see that he wanted to tell him to go to hell. Good for him. The feeling was mutual. “Just visiting,” Cody continued. “Sugar Springs is small, but it’s a good town.”

  “Cody spent a year there as a teenager, then came back a few months ago,” Nick jumped in. “That’s where I found him.” Nick was obviously the peacemaker.

  Zack watched as Nick riffled through his thoughts as if searching for anything he could say to win him over. The fact was, nothing they said would win him over. He knew exactly what they were after, and it wasn’t brotherly love.

  Cody and Nick Dalton had shown up at Zack’s Atlanta high-rise the evening before, cornering him on his way out of the building. It had taken only one look to know who they were. They bore features strangely similar to his.

  Same hair. Same eyes. Same . . . everything.

  They’d claimed to be his brothers, one year younger than his thirty-three. And he couldn’t deny the truth. He had brothers, yes. He’d discovered the fact ten years ago.

  Adopted into a loving family as a baby, Zack had met his biological mother exactly once. And once had been enough. Pam Dalton had lived in squalor, just outside of Nashville. He’d learned all he needed to know about her and his two brothers at that meeting. Now, the only questions remaining were, how much money did they want?

  And when would they get around to asking for it?

  He balanced his fork on the edge of his gold-trimmed plate, concentrating to keep his expression blank. They didn’t need to know that their appearance had thrown him. He’d written them off after his meeting with their biological mother. That’s where they would remain.

  His heart thumped hard against his ribs.

  Only . . . why, then, did they claim to have found each other only three months ago? That was contradictory to what Pam had said.

  Which would mean . . .

  He settled his hands together on the table in front of him, fingertips touching, and didn’t allow himself to venture what that would mean. Instead, he systematically ran through the facts.

  Fact: All three of them had been separated at an early age.

  Their story matched his. He’d hired a private investigator ten years before, who’d reported back that Zack had not only been given away as a baby, but so had Cody, at the age of two—only he’d ended up a ward of the state. Nick had remained with Pam.

  Fact: Their father had died years ago in a bar fight. That matched the info he had, as well.

  Fact: Pam was dead.

  This was a new one. Apparently she’d succumbed to a failing system due to longtime drug and alcohol abuse, merely one week before Nick had supposedly discovered he had brothers and sought out Cody.

  Zack could buy organ failure as the cause of death. She’d certainly been well on her way to that fate when he’d met her. She’d shown up high as a kite before proceeding to down more whiskey in the thirty minutes they’d talked than he would wish for in a month. She’d also been the nastiest piece of trash he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. Barb had been equally unimpressed.

  He loosened his jaw after realizing that thinking of his ex-fiancée had made him grind his teeth together. She hadn’t mattered in years, and she certainly didn’t now. She was simply a lesson learned.

  As had been Pam.

  What Zack wasn’t buying from Cody and Nick’s story was that they’d only recently met. And that they’d never known he existed. That did not match his facts.

  But then, that particular fact had come from Pam.

  The strung-out, piece-of-shit drug addict who’d shown up to meet him only long enough to demand that he owed her money. She’d been running low on cash to feed her habit, apparently. Her claim was that she’d provided him with a good life by giving him away, thus he should repay her for that.

  She’d skipped the part where his parents had handed over a hefty sum before she’d “given away” anything. They’d been more than happy to pay both the fees and Pam’s medical and living expenses during the pregnancy. Everything had been handled legally through a private adoption.

  However, as someone who’d been around for a while, Zack also knew that figures could be padded. Expenses faked.

  He knew that Pam Dalton had made out like a bandit.

  When guilt hadn’t worked on him, she’d resorted to blackmail. She could have sued him for seeking her out without her granting permission.

  B
ut she was his birth mother. He’d had to know.

  Thus, blackmail had worked. But only once. He’d also forced her to sign the waiver indicating she’d given permission to seek her out.

  Probably he shouldn’t have written the check, but he’d been more interested in getting him and Barb away from her at that moment. He’d heard enough. But when she’d seen that the amount on the check was only half of what she’d demanded, she’d started spitting like an alley cat. She’d let him know his brothers would be coming to collect as well.

  Only, he’d given all he was going to. He would not bow to more threats. There was no way those drugged-out hillbillies would get another cent out of him.

  Instead, he’d gotten the hell out of there and had never looked back.

  Until now.

  He stared across the table at the identical faces so similar to his, at the matching dark hair, both men waiting for him to speak. Now his past had shown back up. Claiming they wanted to get to know him.

  Pam had been a piece of work, many times over. But had she lied about his brothers?

  And if she had, did he care?

  He was pretty sure he didn’t. He had his work, his mother.

  He had a life that didn’t include Podunk, USA.

  As far as he could tell, he didn’t need anything else. Least of all two men who were most likely looking to scam him.

  “Surely you two don’t think there would be any reason I would want to visit,” he finally made himself speak. His mouth had gone dry, but he refused to reach for his water glass. If they wanted to pretend they hadn’t come here with their hands out, he would go along with their ruse.

  Yet he didn’t believe them for a minute.

  “I’m not seeking long-lost family,” he continued, “and I don’t need to see the backwoods of America to know that Atlanta is where I belong.”

  Nick’s brown eyes never left Zack’s, but disgust now pulled at his mouth.

  Zack needed time to think. To figure things out.

  To not be staring into eyes that looked so much like his own.

  He peered at them with disdain for two more seconds before lifting his hand to a passing waiter. What he didn’t need was to be ambushed into something that would bring on false hope. He’d had enough of that in his lifetime. “Check, please.”

  He was done there.

  Chapter One

  In closing . . .

  Zack turned his notes over and straightened in his seat. He didn’t need to run through his closing argument one last time—he had this. He was ready to go.

  In minutes, the case would be wrapped up, and Avery Butler would be a verdict away from free.

  He took in his surroundings as he waited for the judge to return to the bench. The two-hundred-year-old courtroom was packed, as it had been for the last three weeks. Only this time there was an added buzz of excitement that filled the room. It spread out, climbing the high walls until it hovered like a thick cloud of chatter in the air above them.

  An excited cloud.

  The entire case was down to two arguments. Then it would be in the jurors’ hands.

  What they didn’t know was that he was about to wipe the floor with the prosecutor.

  He was about to make partner.

  Cecil Lansing, founding partner of Lansing, Lansing, and Smythe, and longtime friend of the Winston family, sat beside him. Cecil had never given Zack an inch he didn’t deserve, but they both knew that when he handed this case over with the bow he was about to tie on top of it, he would deserve everything he’d get.

  A rectangle of light beamed onto the aisle of the gallery as the doors at the back of the room swung quietly inward. Two dark-haired boys tiptoed in. They weren’t twins, but they looked so much alike they could be.

  Which made Zack think of the two men who’d shown up in his life two months ago. Men who’d refused to exit his mind no matter how many times he’d tried to shove them out.

  He had never expected to meet his brothers.

  And he certainly hadn’t expected them to leave without asking for a handout.

  No one wants you. Not me. Not your brothers. Don’t you think they’d let you know if they did? They only want your money.

  Zack ripped his biological mother’s words from his head and refocused on the boys now heading up the carpeted aisle. Behind them came a well-dressed but somber-eyed young mother. Her gaze was locked on the man to Zack’s right. The tension on her face added a good ten years to her overall appearance.

  She was Mr. Butler’s administrative assistant. And those were his boys.

  The three of them squeezed onto the pew directly behind his client’s wife.

  Mr. Butler had likely treated his mistress and sons as callously over the years as he’d treated everyone else. With little to no regard for their personal well-being.

  At least he was only on trial at this time for the mistreatment of his employees.

  “Mr. Winston?”

  Zack jerked around, realizing the judge had returned. He sat peering over his bifocals at him. “Problem?” the judge asked.

  Closing arguments. Shit. It was time.

  Only . . . fuck. He looked down at the table before him, his speech gone from his mind. He couldn’t pull out one thing he’d intended to say. His palms grew clammy as he glanced at the jury box. Then the prosecutor.

  He took in Butler’s two boys again, and suddenly imagined his brothers when they’d been younger. According to the most recent PI he’d hired, their story had been true. They’d both grown up like him, thinking they were only children.

  Yet after all this time, they’d managed to find each other and form a relationship.

  And now they said they wanted one with him. Not his money.

  But could they be trusted?

  Clearly Pam Dalton had lied with everything she’d told him. From what Zack’s guy had found out, Nick hadn’t even seen his mother since he was eighteen.

  Cody hadn’t seen her since he’d been two.

  All of this had wound in and out of Zack’s head for the last two months. His adoptive mother hadn’t helped the situation. The minute she’d learned that Nick and Cody had come to Atlanta, she’d chewed him up and spit him out for the way he’d sent them away.

  When he’d gotten the report back from the investigator, he’d been afraid his mother would call them up herself.

  Yet he didn’t need brothers in his life. No matter what his mother thought. He was a grown man. Putting his neck on the line for a half-assed relationship that would be pulled out from under him at the first bump was not what he was looking for.

  Plus, they already had each other.

  “Mr. Winston?”

  Notes. There were notes he could read from.

  He reached for them, his fingers seeming to have gone numb, and watched as one of the papers fluttered silently to the floor. Then Cecil Lansing put his hand down on top of Zack’s.

  As if he were having an out-of-body experience, Zack saw his boss nod to a colleague sitting at the opposite end of the table. The colleague stood. And then he proceeded to give Zack’s closing argument.

  Son of a bitch.

  This was his case.

  His partnership.

  Now flushed down the fucking toilet.

  Fury built inside him as he sat there doing nothing. He had never floundered like that before. For anything. Not through college, law school. Not even as a kid.

  Yet one glance at a pair of young brothers with dark hair and he’d frozen. Pathetic.

  Cecil slid a yellow legal pad across the heavy oak table, leaving it in front of Zack, while never taking his eyes from the proceedings before them.

  Zack looked down. On the paper was one line of text, written in a heavy, bold scrawl.

  See me in my office.

  His
hands curled into fists. He did not need the trouble he’d just bought himself. They wouldn’t offer a partnership to someone who couldn’t close out his case.

  As he sat there, watching his colleague finish the work Zack had put months of time and effort into, he also had to be honest with himself. This wasn’t the first mistake he’d made in the last couple of months. Cecil was aware of that.

  It was merely the largest.

  Sugar Springs had never looked so green.

  That was the thought running through Holly Marshall’s mind as she passed the WELCOME TO SUGAR SPRINGS sign for the small East Tennessee town. She’d been gone to Chicago for six weeks, and at times it had felt as if all she’d seen had been metal and glass. And people moving fast.

  Everyone had always been in a hurry.

  It had also been stifling there.

  Granted, it had been an unseasonably warm May all around, but mugginess had seemed to seep into every corner. The tower her cousin lived in, no matter how hard they’d run the air, had remained just this side of oppressive, and every time Holly had stepped from Megan’s building, heat had risen up from the concrete to close around her. She’d felt sticky and damp all the time.

  She rolled her window down now, letting the warm air flow in to mix with the cooler stream blowing from the car vents. It was hot here too, and though also on the muggy side, Holly knew it wouldn’t be the same. Not like in Chicago.

  There were no skyscrapers. Nothing to block out the purity of nature.

  She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that, but she was most definitely looking forward to stepping foot on her family’s land. She wanted to breathe the air in. To enjoy the picture the Smoky Mountains made rising up from the other side of the river.

  She also just wanted to chill. Her stress level had climbed to an all-time high.

  She’d honestly thought she’d love everything about the city. It had been her plan to live there for years. As well as to find success there.

  Both dreams had been shot down. Brutally.

  Bert Wheeler, the clerk at the pharmacy, lifted his hand in a wave as she entered the town square. Bert was sitting on a bench in front of the store, his white hair its normal puffy mess on top of his head. It was late Saturday afternoon, and though there were still people buzzing about, Bert was not letting that impact his relaxed state. He was on his break.