Blackmail & Lace

by Tracy A. Ward

  Blackmail & Lace

  A Hard Men of the Rockies Novella

  Tracy A. Ward

  Hard Men of the Rockies Series

  Red Lace by Kym Roberts

  Tango & Lace by Misty Dietz

  Leather & Lace by Brynley Bush

  Beyond Lace by Mia London

  Blackmail & Lace by Tracy A. Ward

  Also by Tracy A. Ward

  Fair Play

  Blackmail & Lace

  COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Tracy A. Ward

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  September 2016

  ISBN # 978-0-9972827-2-6 Electronic

  ISBN # 978-0-9972827-3-3 Print

  Cover illustrator: www.sweetnspicydesigns.com

  Edited by: Deborah Dove www.deborahdove.com

  Interior Design by: www.PolgarusStudio.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue - Grayson

  Chapter One - Two Years Later - Adam

  Chapter Three - Grayson

  Chapter Four - Adam

  Chapter Five - Grayson

  Chapter Six - Adam

  Chapter Seven - Grayson

  Chapter Eight - Adam

  Chapter Nine - Grayson

  Chapter Ten - Adam

  Chapter Eleven - Grayson

  Chapter Twelve - Adam

  Chapter Thirteen - Grayson

  Chapter Fourteen - Adam

  Chapter Fifteen - Grayson

  Sample: Red Lace By Kym Roberts

  Sample: Fair Play By Tracy A. Ward

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to the 2016 authors of Chick Swagger, Kym Roberts, Misty Dietz, Brynley Bush and Mia London. You are a million laughs and an ever flowing fountain of encouragement. And to the Sirens, you are my kind of crazy. I raise my mango margarita to you!

  Prologue

  Grayson

  The line of over a hundred ahead of me, and as far as the eye could see behind me, hadn’t moved in hours. I shifted positions on the hot dirt then leaned against the edge of a gnarled wooden bench. The makeshift shade I’d created from tied together beach towels and my own dirty laundry might’ve blocked the sun’s direct rays, but it did little to stave off the heat. Sweat trickled down the valley of my spine, carving its way through formations of salt and dried grit left from all the days I’d been waiting.

  I flexed my stiff fingers. Once perfectly manicured and polished, a thick layer of grime now lay beneath my jagged nails, my digits swollen from heat and humidity. If my mother could see me now, she’d be appalled. Although she was one of the most sought after cardiologists in the United States, she was still as vain as a pageant queen. She’d go a hundred and eighty degrees of crazy if she knew I’d been out here for a week with no moisturizer, much less sunscreen.

  “SPF 50, Grayson,” my mother would say in her morbid doctor humor tone. “If melanoma doesn’t kill you, you’ll be so ugly you’ll wish you were dead.” But I’d learned after the first day here all that was pointless. In heat that stole your breath, you sweat off products as fast as you put them on.

  Using my fingers, I wiped the moisture that was mere centimeters from the corner of my eye. Christ almighty, I would’ve given my firstborn for a cold shower and an even colder drink.

  It won’t be long now.

  Was it a ghost of a whisper I heard, or the whisper of a ghost? Warily, I eyed the urn resting in my open backpack. Could it have been?

  No.

  Obviously I was in the midst of some sort of delirium brought on by heat and dehydration, causing an auditory hallucination. The very thought that my dead sister was communicating with me through her ashes was ridiculous. I was sitting in the middle of Matenwa, a village of shacks formed from sticks and held together by dust, waiting in line to receive a blessing from Mambo, the Haitian High Priestess. According to legend, Mambo possessed magical powers that would show a true seeker the way to their fate. All for a rock bottom price of twenty bucks. USD. Or so her website said.

  I wondered if these other suckers who’d been out here with me for three days, without so much as a banana leaf to naturally shade them, had a clue. Then again, maybe they were like me, on the first leg of a journey as an inheritor of a bold and dangerous bucket list.

  With nothing more to do than sweat and wait, I rested the back of my head against the seat of the bench and let my mind travel through time. Back to Rebecca and two summers before.

  “Quick,” she’d said to me. We were at the halfway point of our backpacking trip across Europe and had just settled into a hostel near Harfleur in Normandy. She was on the top bunk, I was on the bottom. “Name five things you want to do before you die.”

  Exhausted and half asleep, I’d gotten used to the sudden, and sometimes morbid questions from my older half-sister. But I guess that was to be expected. Like the rest of our family, Rebecca was a doctor. A surgeon to be exact, first year out of residency. Two weeks before our trip and through no fault of her own, she had lost her first patient. She’d never outright admit it, but the case had done a number on her head—a situation made worse by her annoying penchant to please everyone. And to say every. random. thing. that entered her mind.

  Until this trip she and I had been virtual strangers. I guess that’s what happened when two kids shared a dad but their moms didn’t get along. Not only was Rebecca several years older than me, we’d also grown up in different towns—she in Fort Collins and me an hour away in Denver. A backpacking trip across Europe was our dad’s attempt to force us to finally bond, because we had “so much in common.”

  Having just finished the first year of med school myself, I’d finally gotten tired of hearing my parents preach about family legacies and united fronts. Like we were modern medicine’s equivalent to royalty and usurpers were threatening the crown. But I couldn’t lie. Nothing in my family was ever given and lumpy beds or not, I’d bunk with Manson for a free trip to Europe. If I put petty jealousy aside that she was Dad’s favorite, Becca was alright for a sister, even if her personality did sometimes skim the edge of Pollyanna.

  Knowing Rebecca wouldn’t let me sleep until I answered, I replied, “I want to see the Northern Lights, go to the Great Wall of China, climb Mount Everest, cruise the Mediterranean and…I don’t know, go skydiving.”

  She yawned, long and loud. “Boring, boring, boring. Come on, Grayson. Northern Lights, the Great Wall and skydiving? You are a bucket list cliché.”

  “Have you seen the mortality rate for Everest? I’d hardly call that boring.” I would, however, give her cliché.

  “Before I die,” she said, prepping me for the rundown of her own list, “I want to receive a blessing from a Haitian High Priestess—”

  “A what?”

  “Dance with the tribal Aborigines, dive the caves of Jacob’s Well and live to tell about it, get snowed in at a Swiss chalet with Adam Holder.” She sighed at the mention of his name, “and at the end of all that, cleanse my spirit by hiking the Inca Trail.”

  I was still stuck on the high priestess thing. “Don’t the Haitians believe in voodoo?”

  Her voice lowered an octave. “Hollywood has given it a major bad rap.”r />
  Rebecca’s patient had been young, an overweight man in his early thirties who, in layman’s terms, needed a routine gall bladder removal. It was no wonder she’d given this bucket list thing a lot of thought. I rolled onto my stomach and tucked my arm under my pillow. “So who is Adam Holder and why is he so special?”

  “I used to think if a guy like that could ever want me…”

  “Why do you say it like that?” Becca was a classic beauty. Like a young Grace Kelly. Then again, at one time she’d been your typical science geek, with acne and braces and a mom who worked too much to steer her in the right direction with her wardrobe. I remembered the war that ensued when my mother tried. But Becca had been one of those women who’d peaked at just the right time. Not in high school or college, but grad school. When she had more than half a brain to handle male hormones.

  Her voice sounded dreamy and far away. “I was a little bit in love with Adam Holder, I think. He had this long, dirty blond hair, deep blue eyes, and looked like what I always imagined Thor would, before the Avengers movies were made and altered my mental picture.”

  “How did you know him?”

  “He was starting quarterback for CSU when I was an undergrad. I was pre-med, thought I wanted to go into orthopedics, so strings were pulled and I got on with the football trainers, aiding in PT and wrapping injuries.” The mattress squeaked when Rebecca shifted in her bunk. “Most of the players were dicks. Entitled, spoiled, egocentric. There was this one guy, Darius Harding, who always used to do these…things…every time I’d wrap his ankle. I knew better than to report it though. I’d be the one punished and kicked out of training. And I guess what he did wasn’t that bad anyway. Or so I thought at the time. He didn’t force himself on me or try to put his hands under my clothes. It was just…anyway…Adam saw Darius one day and right then and there he laid into him. Beat the hell out of him in front of half the team. And what the other half hadn’t seen, they heard. He said “no one disrespects a lady in my locker room or outside of it.” I waited for the team to gang up against him—most of the players were Darius Harding starter kits—but they never did. Adam just had that presence. That authority. More than anything though, the team respected him. Every day after that he’d look for me near the locker room or on the field. He’d just smile and wave.”

  Half in love with Adam Holder myself, I asked, “So what happened to him? Did you guys ever go out?”

  “No. He didn’t see me that way, but that’s okay.” She let out a sleepy laugh. “You remember what I looked like. He was sidelined with an injury later that season, but it was his senior year. I didn’t see him around after that.”

  A sharp rap on my ankle with a stick jarred me back to the present I peered out from under my make-shift tent to see a child, no more than eleven or twelve, rear back to whack me again. Luckily my reflexes were faster than his.

  “Get up,” he said. “Mambo say you next.”

  I looked at all the people at the front of the line. My throat was sore and scratchy from too much dust and not enough water. Though it was painful, I found my voice anyway. “But what about everyone ahead of me?” All these people who’d put a hex on me if I cut line.

  “Purple-haired lady tell Mambo you next. She won’t shut up ‘til you next.”

  Purple-haired lady?

  It hit me. Rebecca. She’d tried dying her hair to some variation of lavender before the accident that killed her. Her boss had been furious. So had our dad. Against my protests, it was returned back to her natural color just in time for her funeral. But no. The purple-haired lady couldn’t be Rebecca. I was only here because of the list she’d made. The deathbed promise. I didn’t actually believe any of this garbage.

  “Mambo say now or purple-haired lady stay in limbo.”

  “Limbo? You mean…like purgatory?”

  “Mambo say she can’t cross ‘til you finish the list.” Then he shrugged. “Help her or leave her…make no difference to Mambo.” The boy turned, angling toward the front of the line. Before he could move that direction though, I jumped up, placed a hand on his shoulder. “Wait, please.”

  The boy stepped aside, swept his arm wide, and bowed.

  Chapter One

  Two Years Later

  Adam

  I recognized the collection of bumper stickers as I slowly passed. It was Madi’s Jeep alright, parallel parked in front of a brand new bar I’d never seen. Her headlights were dim in the way that signaled her battery was running dangerously low.

  Shouldn’t have surprised me.

  She’d always been careless like that. With the winter storm moving in, it would take AAA hours to reach her for a jump. And she could forget about a tow truck. I’d told her for years to either buy a newer model car with automatic lights or stop being so scatterbrained. Now that her commercial decorating business was doing so well, it wasn’t like she couldn’t afford the newer car option.

  The side streets of Fort Collins, Colorado near the Colorado State campus were empty, even for a Monday night in October. But that’s what happened with high wind gusts, low wind chill and an ass-ton of snow just now threatening to fall. Needing to make sure she was okay, I double parked beside her. Finding she’d at least remembered to lock her doors, I hunkered down against the bone-freezing cold and went inside.

  Her ass was the first thing I noticed when I walked into the bar.

  The second thing was that there were absolutely no customers in the place. Were they even open? I couldn’t recall seeing a sign.

  A slow grin spread across my face even as a pang of nostalgia tore through my gut like a ripcord pulled on a parachute. We’d really been something together once, back during our carefree high school days. Now we were good friends with occasional benefits. Benefits I hoped to take advantage of at some point during my Colorado stay.

  Madi shifted her hips as she bent over an empty table, doing what exactly, I couldn’t tell. Her hair was blonder than when I’d last seen her. And longer. But that was to be expected with women. Extensions were becoming the norm, even among the unpretentious like Madi.

  It had been months since I’d last seen the woman who’d once been my fiancé, if you could call our spontaneous and short-lived idea of commitment when we were eighteen an engagement. Months since my Grandma Rosie’s heart attack had me and the rest of my family running back to Fort Collins to be by her side, afraid for the worst. But it had only been days since the end of the LaKendrick Smith trial, where Adam Holder had become a household name. And I was still riding high and feeling invincible, coming off the greatest victory so far in my legal career.

  I probably should’ve given Madi a heads up that I was coming back to town, but that just wasn’t our way. Since I’d be around for the next four weeks, helping my cousins update and remodel Grandma Rosie’s family home, my plan had been to look her up later. Even if Madi hadn’t been my first priority, she wouldn’t begrudge me admiring the view before I made my presence known.

  She shifted again, causing her flannel shirt to ride up. A mismatched, purple lace camisole peeked out from underneath. She wore black boots with a thick, minky-fur lining. They came up just above her calf and were sturdy yet stylish if there was such a thing for snow boots. Her leggings, made of high quality dri-fit material, stretched taut across her backside in a way that conjured caveman fantasies, ensuring the survival of the species for billions of years to come.

  I’d gotten so used to seeing women covered in tailored business suits that I’d forgotten what this—the watching of a salt-of-the-earth woman doing an unspecified task—could do to a man. In D.C., where I now lived, women were powerful, sexy, and smart as hell. But nothing could compare to the draw of a strong, equally smart and beautiful, home-grown Colorado girl.

  The frigid breath of wind rattled the windows, but even that sound didn’t faze her.

  Soon she straightened.

  I saw a clipboard and pen in her hand, the colored-cord of earbuds hanging from her ears.

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nbsp; Without thinking of consequences, my palm wrapped around her hip and gave it a squeeze.

  She reacted quickly, bringing her elbow up and around.

  Years of football training, dodging hits and tackles, kicked in and I ducked, circling her around to face me as I did. Trying to keep us both on balance, I gripped the bottom of her flannel shirt. The material gave when she swung again, from the opposite direction, this time making contact with my temple.

  The rrrriiiiippppp and thwack happened at the same time. Buttons scattered just as the clipboard connected with my skin. An explosion went off inside my head but I remained on my feet.

  From the center of her chest, she yanked the earbud cord from her ears.

  “Whoa, angel. I didn’t mean to…” I watched as she pushed her hair out of her face. My stomach dropped. “You’re not Madi.”

  Her hands connected with my chest in a very un-Madi-like way, knocking me back two paces. “No shit, asshole.”

  Something from the side of my face dripped onto my shirt. My hand rose to my throbbing temple. Heart rate accelerated as my mouth went dry. The floor beneath me tilted, a visceral reaction as I looked at the red staining my fingers.

  The girl-not-Madi cursed again. “Are you…you have got to be kidding.”

  Leaning sideways, I braced myself against the table.

  “It’s just a scratch,” she said, her tone gentler now. She pushed a chair against the back of my legs then pulled me down.

  “Sure,” I agreed, still looking at the blood. “Barely broke the skin.” It was the last thing either of us said before the world went dark.

  I’d taken worse hits in kindergarten pee-wee training camp. But admitting the sight of blood had me passed out on my ass made me look just as weak. Maybe if I kept my eyes closed a little longer she’d leave and I’d be able to slip out of the bar with my dignity intact.