by L. B. Dunbar
www.lbdunbar.com
Copyright © 2020 Laura Dunbar
L.B. Dunbar Writes, Ltd.
https://www.lbdunbar.com/
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.
Cover Design: Shannon Passmore/Shanoff Designs
Content Editor: Melissa Shank
Editor: Jenny Sims/Editing4Indies
Proofread: Karen Fischer
Table of Contents
Other Books by L.B. Dunbar
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
More by L.B. Dunbar
Keep in touch with L.B. Dunbar
A sip of Silver Biker
(L)ittle (B)lessings
About the Author
Other Books by L.B. Dunbar
Silver Fox Former Rock Stars
After Care
Midlife Crisis
Restored Dreams
Second Chance
Wine&Dine
The Silver Foxes of Blue Ridge
Silver Brewer
Silver Player
Silver Mayor
Silver Biker (2020)
Collision novellas
Collide
Caught – a short story
Smartypants Romance (an imprint of Penny Reid)
Love in Due Time
Love in Deed
Love in a Pickle (2021)
Rom-com for the over 40
The Sex Education of M.E.
The Heart Collection
Speak from the Heart
Read with your Heart
Look with your Heart
Fight from the Heart
View with your Heart
Spin-off Standalone
The History in Us
The Legendary Rock Star Series
The Legend of Arturo King
The Story of Lansing Lotte
The Quest of Perkins Vale
The Truth of Tristan Lyons
The Trials of Guinevere DeGrance
The Island Duet
Redemption Island
Return to the Island
Paradise Stories
Abel
Cain
Modern Descendants – writing as elda lore
Hades
Solis
Heph
Dedication
For Loving L.B. (on Facebook) – you keep me grounded and sane, and filled with laughter and stock in #sexysilverfox images
1
Put a Ring on It
[Janessa]
“What are you doing in here?”
My eyes leap up to the mirror over the dresser to meet the rich brown ones scowling back at me. The depth of his voice doesn’t match his face. He’s smooth and handsome, almost pretty, with silver at his temples and a clean-shaven jaw. His question is a good one.
What am I doing in this town?
What am I doing in his house?
What am I doing in his room?
Staring back at him, I slowly lower my hand to my belly. The fingers of my right hand struggle with the item on the left. I shouldn’t be in here. I shouldn’t have done this.
“Who are you?” he growls.
“I’m Jan,” I say, struggling on the name as I admit a partial truth. I should clarify, but I don’t want to get my mother in trouble. With all she’s sacrificed over the years, I don’t want her to lose this job working for him. I don’t need to ask who he is. I’ve heard plenty about him.
Charlie Harrington, mayor of Blue Ridge, Georgia.
“I asked you a question.” His voice softens a little, but the command is clear.
“I heard you,” I snap, still tugging at my left finger with my right ones. I can’t believe this is happening to me. It’s what I get for being curious.
Mami sent me over here so she could go with Papi to the doctor. I didn’t want to be here, and my eyes wandered when I was supposed to be picking up the bedroom. Make the bed. Straighten the pillows. Fresh towels in the bathroom. Toss the laundry in the washroom. I wasn’t the housekeeper, and I didn’t want to act like one. I didn’t want my mother to be one either, but she’d dedicated her entire life to cleaning up after others. It was what she did. She even did it for my brother and me.
“You still haven’t answered my question. I’m giving you to the count of ten before I call the police.”
Dear Lord, he’s acting like I’m a child, but I’ve done something childish. I couldn’t help myself. I just wanted to know what it would look like, but now I’m struggling to remove it. My right fingers tug as the skin on the knuckle of my left bunches.
“One. Two.”
The louder he counts, the more I sweat, and my ring finger swells. His voice isn’t helping either. It’s deep and rugged, clashing with the sharp suit and open-at-the-collar dress shirt. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Mami said he left for work.
“Three. Four. What are you doing?”
My eyes lift back to the mirror, watching him stalk closer to me in the reflection. He’s almost to my back, but his aroma precedes him. Manly and woodsy like this area. I didn’t grow up in a place quite so lush with foliage and greenery. Texas was more dry dirt and barren. Dull brown, actually.
His presence overshadows my childhood memories. His chest nearly presses into my back.
“Five. Six. I’m still waiting.” He pauses, and then his body language shifts. “Are you trying to steal something?” His pitch elevates. His brows pinch, furrowing his smooth forehead, and I glance up at him again through the mirror, but he’s not looking at me. He’s scanning the top of his dresser, which is relatively clean for a man. He’s not a bachelor; this I also know about him. He’s a single father who lives in this large house with his only child, Lucy. My mother is her nanny along with her other responsibilities.
Thick hands land on my shoulders, and he spins me to face him. My back collides with the tall bureau, and I glance up at him, captivated by his eyes. The brown isn’t dull like desert sand, but earthy and rich like turned soil. His mouth curls downward as he continues to scowl at me.
“I wasn�
�t stealing anything.”
“Then what are you doing with your hands?” A brow tips again, the look almost playful as if he has something more to say, something mischievous to add, but he stops himself.
Lowering my head, I lift my left hand and hold the back to him so he can see what I’ve done.
“It’s stuck.”
He stares at my finger, focused on the gold band with a large emerald and two smaller diamonds on either side of the gem. It’s simple and beautiful—a priceless antique, I imagine.
“Where did you get that?” His voice lowers, the rugged sound turning rough and menacing.
“I swear I wasn’t stealing it. It was sitting in the dish.” He has a small bowl with coins and such on the dresser, and the ring sat inside with the collection of items. “I slipped it on.” I exhale. “I shouldn’t have done that because now I can’t get it off.”
With my right fingers, I tug once again, but my left knuckle is already red and raw from my aggressive efforts to remove the item.
“I should call the police,” he states, and he’s within his rights. I can explain, but again, I don’t want to get my mother in trouble. She says Charlie’s a good boss, fair and kind, and I don’t want to put any blame on her for this situation. I’m the one who slipped on the ring, and I’m the one who can’t get it off.
“Please don’t. Just…Just let me get this off my hand, and you’ll never see me again.” I’m good at being in the shadows. I’ve done it most of my adult life, married to a man who’d rather pretend I didn’t exist, at least not exist with intelligent thoughts.
Just stand there, Janessa. Look pretty.
Charlie grips my hand, and I instantly react when I shouldn’t. Something charged and prickly races up my arm, and my heart skips a beat as though it’s been jump-started even though it’s already racing.
Without a word, he tugs me forward, and I stumble after him. He drags me to the bathroom off his master bedroom and shoves my hand into the sink. He turns on the faucet with his free hand, and the water almost hurts it’s so cold. Reaching forward for the green bar of soap, he works at my hand, coating it in a thin lather. More woodsy fragrance permeates the air around us.
He drops the bar in the sink and massages my finger, but the ring isn’t moving.
“I don’t have time for this,” he snaps under his breath and rinses my hand, working his fingers over mine to wash away the soap. Once satisfied I’m free of sudsy residue, he lifts my hand, droplets of water sliding down to my wrist, and he opens his mouth.
“What…?”
Before I can finish my thought, my ring finger is inside the warm cavern between his cheeks. He closes his lips over the digit, and his tongue circles around my finger. Within seconds, his teeth scrape the length of my ring finger. He pauses at the tip like he’s pressing it with a kiss and then tugs my hand free as if it offended him. Leaning forward, he lifts his other hand and spits.
The ring drops into his palm, and he stares at the sparkling emerald with the almost white diamonds on either side of it. I tug at my hand still held within his, but he doesn’t release me. He glances up at me instead.
“This was my grandmother’s,” he states as if I asked, which I didn’t, but from the puzzled look on his face, I sense its value is more than something on a price tag.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, staring down at it, and then slowly, I lift my eyes, and we lock stares again. We’re standing in his bathroom, a space clearly occupied by only a man. The scent of aftershave. The woodsy soap. The dark towel over the rod. His eyes aren’t leaving my face, but slowly, he loosens his hold on my hand. There’s a question in those eyes. He wants to know more than who I am and what I’m doing in his room, but I won’t give him answers. He’s too similar to what I left behind, and I’ll never go back to where I was, who I was.
Once I sense I’m free, I draw back my hand, turn for the door, and race for the hallway. He calls after me, but I take the stairs two at a time, hopping down them as if I’m a teen instead of a forty-something woman trying to flee a man’s home, hoping to get away scot-free from both his house and those rich, haunting eyes.
2
Single Daddy
[Charlie]
“Dad, are you listening to me?”
“What? Sorry.” I zoned out almost immediately as my ten-year-old chatters about her day. My mind returns to the woman I found in my bedroom this morning. The woman I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. Her eyes matched the emerald stuck on her finger. Brilliant and bright green against her tan skin, the color captivated me, and then I recall the ring.
My grandmother’s ring. It’s a simple ring compared to the others my grandmother owned. Call me old-fashioned but my grandmother was important to me, important to all the Harringtons. As one of five grandchildren, the ring probably should have gone to Mati as the only sister in our clan, but I inherited the ring because Charles was the male version of Charlotte, my beloved grandmother’s name. My name also comes from my mother’s obsession with Roald Dahl when we were children. Charlie and his chocolate factory. Momma jokes she knew I’d be a leader like the young boy hanging out with his grandfather for a day in that candy factory.
“Who else can be trusted with all the secrets?” She often whispered that to me as a child as if we had secrets to be held. Us Harringtons are pretty much an open book. Our great-great-grandfather started brewing beer in the backwoods of this area and calling Georgia home before Georgia had a name, or so the old family folklore goes. Once brewing beer was legalized, Pap, my grandfather, established the brewery, and when it became legitimate for craft brews to be sold, Giant Brewing Company was born under the nickname of my eldest brother, George Harrington II, or Giant as he’s called. His size fits the name.
“Dad,” Lucy drones, and my attention snaps back to her.
“I’m sorry, Pint.” I used to call my daughter half-pint because of her tiny stature. As she was born a preemie, we almost lost her, and I hate the immediate memory that Angela hadn’t wanted our daughter in the first place. I no longer call Lucy half-pint as she’s quick to remind me the term means something small and inconsequential, and she’s nothing of the sort.
“I’d rather be demonstrative than diminutive,” she told me one night as she was learning her vocabulary list for school, and I marveled at the intelligence of someone so young. She’s mature in some ways because of her position—daughter of the town’s mayor without a mother—but as she whines my title for the third time, I’m reminded she’s still a child.
“Dad, you aren’t listening.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “Start over. You have my full attention.” I cup her cheeks in my large hands as I lean over the island counter. Focusing on her eyes, I try not to be distracted by the fact they match Angie’s blue and not my gray-brown.
“So I made a new friend today in art camp, and I want to ask her over to swim.”
This isn’t a big deal although I’m hesitant of new people in my home—case in point, this morning. Blue Ridge is a tight-knit community, most of us having grown up together, but the town’s size has nearly doubled in my four-plus decades in the area. Though the economy thrives under my reign as mayor, it comes with all sorts of headaches as I balance the locals’ desire to remain small town and the growing developments for tourism.
“I don’t see how that will be a problem. Let’s speak with Rosa.”
Lucy’s face drops.
“What? What’s wrong with Rosa?”
“I love Rosa, but I just thought you could be there instead.” I have a rule where my housekeeper or myself must be present to supervise when another child comes to my home. It’s just a way to protect my daughter, and something I learned from friends in the political culture. You never know who will go through your child to get to you. Sometimes, I feel silly about the rule, but I’d never let anyone use my child.
“Pint, you know I can’t be at every playdate, especially with as many as you have.” Lu
cy is a popular child, not necessarily from her status as the mayor’s daughter but because she’s so open and accepting of everyone. She twists her lips, another reminder of her likeness to Angela.
“Maybe Gran can be there instead,” Lucy sheepishly suggests of her grandmother, my mother, and my brows pinch. What’s wrong with Rosa? The woman has worked for me since before Lucy’s birth. She’s practically family.
“I guess we could ask Gran, but what am I missing here?” My hands slip from my daughter’s small cheeks.
“Vega’s mother wants to be present for the playdate as well.” Lucy smirks at me like this is a conspiracy. Vega? What kind of name is that?
“Well, she sounds like a smart woman.” I nod to emphasize my point. I’m definitely not hanging out with some other kid’s mother for an afternoon. Being a single father is difficult enough because some women think I’m desperate and lonely. “I’ll call Gran and then have Rosa set it up.”
Lucy looks pacified for the moment, but she still scowls a little at the suggestion.
“What else is bothering you, Pint?”
“Mom called. She wants to know when I’m visiting this summer.” Lucy looks down at the countertop. “Do I have to go?”
Angela lives in a high-rise in Philadelphia. City life was her dream and politics her mission. When I said I wanted to be mayor of my small town, she begrudgingly agreed as it was a steppingstone on the path to something bigger, only I stayed on the first rung of the ladder to success. Things fell apart after a few years, and she left, returning to the city where we met. Through the divorce agreement, Lucy has a two-week visit every summer.
“Pint, we’ve been over this. It’s only for two weeks.”
“But it’s always awful there.” As a kid raised in this large house with land, and the woods surrounding the area, high-rises and gated parks don’t cut it for my daughter.
“It’s only two weeks,” I remind her, but my chest aches at the thought. Fourteen days is a long time without her, even if I’m guilty of not spending as much time with her myself. Her head nods, acquiescing to the decree, and the guilt doubles.
