by Rachel Kane
Accidentally Yours
Superbia Springs Book 3
Rachel Kane
Copyright © 2020 by Rachel Kane
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Judah
2. Alex
3. Alex
4. Judah
5. Alex
6. Judah
7. Alex
8. Judah
9. Alex
10. Judah
11. Alex
12. Judah
13. Alex
14. Judah
15. Alex
16. Judah
17. Alex
18. Judah
19. Alex
20. Judah
21. Alex
22. Judah
23. Alex
24. Judah
25. Alex
26. Judah
27. Alex
28. Judah
29. Alex
30. Judah
31. Alex
32. Judah
33. Alex
34. Judah
35. Alex
36. Judah
37. Alex and Judah
In case you missed it… A Selection from “Spring Forward,” the first book in Superbia Springs!
Afterword
More Romance from Rachel!
1
Judah
Everyone who came to Superbia Springs found something to love about the old mansion, with its bubbling mineral-water baths, rolling hills and beautiful gardens. Some enjoyed the art gallery, some the expansive ballroom, and many loved the speakeasy bar tucked away behind a secret door.
Judah Cooper loved the basement.
When he was a kid, while the rest of the boys at school were devoted to football or baseball, whichever happened to be in season at the moment, Judah had hounded his brother Liam and best friend Noah to please play role-playing games with him, following them around with a small velveteen bag of richest purple that rattled with many-sided dice. Come on, just for a while, please? I’ll let you be the paladin this time!
He would slink back to the room he and Liam shared, having been refused yet again. He’d crack open one of the fat fantasy novels that towered next to his bed, and drop directly into a world where the forces of good—shining, bright and wise—battled the grim armies of evil—dark, ugly, twisted. He would imagine himself in those battles, questing down torch-lit dungeons, sword in hand, ready to fight a horde of monsters whose faces all resembled the other boys in school.
It was those books he was remembering now, as a man. Those adventures into darkness came to mind as he carefully stepped onto the creaking basement stairs, letting himself sink into the shadowy depths of Superbia Springs, the depths few had ever explored…and from which no explorers had ever returned.
Okay, okay, it’s just a basement, but it’s cool. He turned on his phone’s flashlight when he reached the bottom of the stairs. The electricians had rewired the entire place (under the careful eye of Liam’s contractor boyfriend Mason), and with a flip of the switch Judah could’ve brought the underground to a dazzling light…but he didn’t.
It was prettier down here without it.
Some places are made to be explored by candlelight, really. Something about the shadows made the halls stretch on and on, made the rooms to either side seem like caverns in a vast underground kingdom.
But there was only one treasure he was here for.
Only one thing worth staying up extra-late for, until he was sure Liam and Mason had gone to bed, until he was sure Noah was safely tucked away into the little turret room he stayed in when his boyfriend Dalton was away on business. Until the house was utterly silent.
Soon these trips would be impossible. Superbia Springs had started its life nearly a century ago as a resort, a destination for the wealthy and fabulous to soak their pampered bodies in hot mineral baths, and any day now, it would become a resort again. They had been working so hard getting it ready. The rooms were perfect, the staff was hired…it was going to be crowded soon, and these nights of silent exploration would be over, as these dark caverns revealed their true purpose as linen storage, pantries, the wine cellar and humidor. No more kobolds and dark elves to slay, once the lights were on 24/7.
So he had to enjoy these last moments with the secret he’d found down here. Had to enjoy the way his heart beat so fast with excitement and the anticipation of a secret known only to him.
It had been so shocking, the first time he’d seen them, that night weeks ago. Finding a locked door at the end of a long, unfamiliar hall. Fumbling with the ring of keys that had come with the house, trying to find which of the hundred jangling things might fit into the lock.
Finally hearing the click and feeling like he was embarking on the greatest, most important journey of his life.
Pushing open the door, not knowing what to expect, not understanding this strange excitement ballooning in his chest—but already cautioning himself not to get his hopes up, there was no buried treasure left in the world, there were no piles of glittering gold—he saw two sets of eyes gleaming…two sets of fangs bared.
That first night he had leapt back, the keys falling from his grasp, his flashlight bouncing across the floor, sending its beam crazily stabbing in all directions but the right one, the danger suddenly cloaked in blackness again, where it could leap out and grab him—
When the flashlight rolled to a stop, his shock had dissolved into puzzled amusement.
An amusement which in moments turned into something like love.
And tonight, with a feeling like he might be saying goodbye to them forever, he held his light on his new friends, and in the ambient glow, his smile gleamed. “Hey, lions.” He stepped into their chamber.
The unearthly beasts he had discovered that night were cold under his fingers, frigid bronze statuary. Each the size of a large dog, they were poised as though to attack whoever came through the door. Rubbing their heads, he looked into their unseeing eyes, as though they were his beloved pets. Their frozen aggression was just a put-on, he knew; these were the gentlest animals in the world.
They were beautiful. Ugly in their way—hideous, Noah had said—but somehow their ferocious mien made them that much more wonderful. Who were they protecting anyone from, with their chests jutting forward, full of a sweetly vain pride?
Judah wasn’t an art guy. At all. Museums bored him, modern paintings were unfathomable, and the great literature of the library upstairs went untouched by him.
The lions, though, had turned his head. Here was art he could get behind. The strangeness of beauty. The beauty of strangeness.
“You’re masterpieces,” he whispered secretly to them, running his hand over their anatomically and geometrically impossible figures. They were clearly old. He’d tried looking them up, failed, but had gotten close to the right era, he felt. The powerful yet unnatural lines suggested they were Art Deco, which as it turned out was very different from Art Nouveau, a distinction that had never meant anything to him before. But the lions had inspired some art history homework.
Their manes jutted like up-ended fish scales, appearing sharp and menacing, like if you touched them, your hand would come away cut and bloody. Yet Judah couldn’t help reaching out and running his finge
rs lightly over them. They weren’t as sharp as they looked. His hand was uninjured. The menace was all a show. They were nothing but big kittens.
The lions sat forward, streamlined, like at any moment they might leap into the future. But a retro future, the future as it had been imagined a century ago, a future with a sky full of flying cars with gull-wing taillights.
What were they for, these lions? He had asked himself that many times since first discovering them.
They were for admiring. For being amazed by. He’d never seen anything like them in his life, and nobody else seemed to care about them, so he had claimed them as his own.
And that, as it turned out, was a problem.
He’d been coming down here nearly every night, trying to figure out how to get them upstairs. They were so heavy. He’d pushed with all his strength, pushed until veins stood out in his neck and temples, until his feet pressed so hard against the floor it felt like he might break through…and they hadn’t moved at all.
He knew he was going to need help.
He also knew how hard that help would be to get. Everyone was busy, these last few days before the resort opened. It was surprising anyone was asleep at all—there had been recent nights when Liam had been up till dawn, reviewing the finances, studying the staffing plans, looking over those first reservations to make sure they were really real. Nobody had time for monsters.
They were monsters, weren’t they? They were like the beasts drawn on medieval maps, dragons and hippogriffs warning travelers away from dangerous uncharted territories.
He hugged the one closest to him, like someone might hug their favorite golden retriever.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m going to find a way to get you out of the dungeon.”
“Absolutely not,” laughed Liam.
“I mean—”
“No.”
These were some of their last peaceful mornings, and Judah didn’t want to spoil this one with a fight with his brother.
Well, he kind of did. This was important. But he knew he shouldn’t.
The kitchen was quiet in a way it simply couldn’t be once guests were staying here, and the sight of Liam and Mason down here, feeding his niece Roo her breakfast, was one he was going to miss.
Roo still has to eat, you know. It’s not like she’s going to get out of her booster seat and start working the front desk once the place opens.
“God, why are you people up so early?” yawned Noah, sweeping in with his silk robe, rubbing his eyes. “Is there coffee? Let me correct that: Is there good coffee?”
“I just made a pot,” said Mason, pointing at the counter where the big coffee maker sat.
“You made it, and not Judah?”
“I promise, I never touched it,” Judah said, lifting an aluminum can. “After the last time, I swore I’d stick to energy drinks instead.”
“Dalton has me spoiled,” Noah said. “Did you know his family invests in coffee farms around the world? He was telling me—”
Judah rolled his eyes. The problem with your best friend having a billionaire boyfriend is that you had to hear about everything he owned. He let Noah go on for a while, then raised his hand. “Can I get back to my fight with Liam now?”
“We’re not fighting,” said Liam.
“Can I get back to my discussion with Liam?”
“We’re not discussing, either,” his brother said, dabbing at Roo’s chin with a napkin. “You’re not bringing those godawful statues up here.”
“Oh no,” said Noah, “is he back to those lions again?”
“I don’t know how they were moved down to the basement,” said Mason, “but it’d be a hell of a project to get them back out. Those things are heavy.”
“I’ve been giving that some thought,” said Judah, “and I think if we attached a rail system with a block-and-tackle to the support of the basement ceiling—”
“No,” said Liam. He set down Roo’s cereal bowl in front of her, and her greedy little fingers waved her spoon around her head happily. “You’re not drilling holes into the house just to move those things up here. We don’t have anywhere to put them.”
“We have fifteen spare bedrooms,” Judah countered.
“For paying guests, not to store grotesque statues that already have a home! And Mason’s right. They’re heavy. They’ll scrape up the floor, they’ll destroy the finish—”
Judah blinked. “God, you sound just like Mom, the time I tried to bring that stray dog home.”
Noah laughed. “Oh my god, that is a memory. Do you remember, Liam, Judah came in with this mangy old mutt following him—”
“He wasn’t mangy, he just needed grooming!”
Liam raised his eyebrows in sympathy. “I remember. Wasn’t he half-German Shepherd? Honestly, I kind of wanted to keep him too. But our folks wouldn’t hear of it.”
“It’s kinda the same thing, isn’t it?” Judah asked, hoping the look on Liam’s face bespoke a change of heart.
In that, he was disappointed, watching Liam’s features tighten.
“It’s really not. You know how busy we are right now. Even if I wanted those things up here knocking into the walls and cracking the stairs, there just isn’t time for a new project. We barely got the last of the wallpapering done on time. I still have to finalize the menus with the kitchen staff. Can’t we just enjoy these last few quiet moments before the first guests arrive?”
In Judah’s books, battles were seldom fought with words. Diplomacy was always regarded with suspicion, as a form of manipulation. In the end, it was action that won the day. Action inspired by ideals, informed by bravery. Knights, wizards and warrior-priests didn’t sit around a kitchen asking for permission. They rushed in, swords and wands and maces held high, and may the gods help anyone who stood in their way.
That’s how he ended up in the car, once he’d finished the to-do list Liam had supplied him after breakfast. The idea had occurred to him while he was updating the resort’s website with the newest pictures. Visit historic Superbia Springs, and step back to a different time… He’d stared at the words on the screen. History, history. The whole house was history, built in 1925. They’d researched period decor. They’d brought in historic reconstruction experts.
History.
There was one thing that would convince Liam to bring the lions upstairs, and he knew just where to find it.
He was already planning his attack, as he drove through the tiny downtown of Superbia. Planning the words he’d say that would convince Liam—and Mason, and Noah—that he had the right idea. Oh, how their eyes would open when he laid it all out! How they’d beg him to forgive their foolish disagreement! Judah laughed. Okay, maybe it wouldn’t go that far, but Liam would have to admit Judah had a good plan. In fact—
When Alex Roth, town bookseller, stepped out in front of the car, Judah hit the brakes so hard that the car skidded, its tail flying forward, a ton of uncontrollable steel with more momentum than any swinging sword, a weapon he could not stop, and he watched in horror as the outside world spun around him.
2
Alex
Later, when there was time to think about things, Alex would remember Henry James (the great novelist who had written, among other classics, The Portrait of a Lady, one of his favorite books) and a mysterious injury James had suffered, that had puzzled scholars for more than a century. In his autobiography, James tells the tale of how, trying to help fight a fire, he had sustained “a horrid even if an obscure hurt.” Elsewhere he called it “extraordinarily intimate” and “most entirely personal.” Nobody knew what the injury might be, but in those days of Alex’s convalescence, his mind kept going back to the idea of this beloved author, caught between a water-pump and a rusted iron fence, doing himself an unnameable sort of harm.
Of course, the day of the accident, Alex was busy doing himself his own brand of unnameable harm, starting with a trip to the post office.
It had been a Mrs. Fortune morning. The older wom
an stood at the mystery section of The Unfinished Chapter, hemming and hawing.
“I don’t know…” she said, her voice trailing into an uncertain silence.
“You’ll like it, I promise,” Alex said. He wasn’t going to take the book off the shelf and put it in her hands; that was too forward, and Mrs. Fortune was scared off by anything too forward, like a wild rabbit offered a bit of picnic lettuce. She had to be coaxed into a sale.
“But the last ones I read…the ones where the cat solves the mysteries…”
He waited patiently for her to finish her thought, knowing better than to interrupt. A false patience, surely, with a gilt (and guilt) of irritation that he knew better than to show. Without Mrs. Fortune, there would be no bookshop. Without the bookshop, there would be no Alex.
She shook her head slowly. “I didn’t like them at all. That poor cat. All I could think was, he should be at home on a cushion, instead of catching criminals. What about…what about those books?”
When Alex saw the series her fingers pointed too, his eyes widened. “Oh, you don’t want those,” he said.
She peered at the spines. “The Inspector Kestrel Mysteries. By Ian Grant. There certainly are a lot of them.”
“No, no, not those. But we can find you something without cats,” Alex assured her. “What about witches? Do you like witches?”
