Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “You bitch!” Trinity Moberly-Kitson shouted at me and waved her hand as though she were about to attack me. “Do you have any idea how much you suck as a real estate agent? I want to buy the house in Lionsgate! I want that house. I want to be that close to Damion and his stupid wife! Nobody will ever understand him or love him the way that I do!”

  I could not even begin to put that into sensible words. “You can’t live there!” I shouted at Trinity. “The restraining orders prevent you from even getting close enough to the house to look at it. Much less live in it!”

  “They’re violating my civil rights! I’ve called the ACLU!” Trinity was actually moaning as though she were about to lose it out there.

  The ACLU? Was this woman out of her mind? She had to be! I squirmed out of Val’s arms and marched down the steps. I heard Val grunt as he decided that he wasn’t letting me that far out of his sight. “Are you out of your mind?” I shouted at Trinity. “Your civil rights? What about the civil rights of the people you’ve been harassing and stalking? You broke into the engine shop and loosened pieces of vehicles that belong to random strangers! How sick is that? How can you claim a violation of your civil rights when you’re violating just about everyone else’s everything?”

  I don’t know what she was going to say. I do know that she got all indignant and tried to say something. But at that moment Rory Stein appeared in front of my apartment. He shoved Karl Kitson out of the way and came charging toward me. I felt Val’s arm around my waist as he grabbed me in a bear hug and pivoted to put his body between me and Rory.

  But Rory never had a chance. There was a high-pitched shriek of anger and then I heard Trinity Moberly-Kitson shouting at the top of her lungs. “Don’t you dare touch her! I’m the only one who gets to kill that bitch!”

  As Val and I watched in utter confusion and shock, Trinity launched herself at Rory Stein. He seemed just as surprised as we were when he had to turn and catch a spitting, hissing woman with her fingers curled into claws and her lips drawn back into a grimace that exposed her teeth. She looked like a rabid cat.

  Before I could say a word, Rory caught Trinity by the forearms and sent her sailing right on past him. Trinity cartwheeled her arms to try and hold onto her balance, but it was too late. She crashed into the bushes and went head over heels into the spiny, thorny mess. I heard her shrieks and cries of anger and rage as she struggled to get out of that position.

  “Hey!”

  Rory turned just in time to catch a fat hunk of raw roast in the face. The bloody chunk of meat bounced right off the center of his forehead as though Karl Kitson had perfect aim, which he probably did. The guy was a stellar tennis player. At the moment he was lobbing raw food at his target as though he had no interest in tangling with Rory Stein in a directly physical way.

  “Don’t you touch my wife!” Karl Kitson shouted at Rory. Then he waved at me and Val . “Did you call the police? You need to call the cops! This bastard is crazy!”

  “Me? Crazy?” Rory curled his lip at Karl Kitson and started to stomp in his direction. “Are you out of your mind? You just threw raw meat at me! That’s not even sanitary!”

  Another roast went sailing through the air. I wondered how many Karl and Trinity had picked up for their apparently planned assault. It made absolutely no sense, but neither did their appearance at my apartment.

  My apartment. Right. This was my place. They were all trespassers. And right now I grabbed hold of my phone and dialed the police for what seemed like the millionth time recently. Pretty soon they were going to stop answering my phone calls. They would put me on their no-answer, false-alarm list.

  “Police, what’s your emergency?”

  I rattled off my address. “And hurry! There is some guy throwing hunks of meat at me!”

  There. That should get their attention. Right? Except by now it seemed that Val and I were utterly forgotten in this situation. We were standing together in front of the open door of my apartment. Rory was ducking the meat chunks that Karl Kitson was throwing at him. And poor Trinity Moberly-Kitson looked both dazed and confused after falling into the thorny bushes. It was certainly one of the weirdest things I’d ever seen.

  Trinity got up off the ground and launched herself at Rory once again. This time he was facing Karl and did not see her coming. She wrapped her arms and legs around his middle like a little barnacle. Then she dug her heels into his hip joint area and started kicking.

  Trinity looked as though she were riding a wild bronc. “I’ll teach you! You don’t get involved. These are our targets! You’ve got no right to them!”

  “They got me kicked out of my grandmother’s house,” Rory roared indignantly. I cringed as he said it because that at least was true. Then I remembered that he had been beating up on his grandmother.

  “You’re an old lady abuser, Rory!” I called out.

  My words did not help Rory’s cause any. Both Trinity and Karl seemed to take offense at this. They turned and looked at each other before turning and giving Rory a hot glare of distaste. Karl Kitson shook his head at Rory. “That is so pathetic. Even we think that’s pathetic. And you don’t get to call dibs on a target for that anyway. We’ve been stalking these families for years now. You don’t get to poke your nose into that kind of history.”

  History? I looked at Val. “I think we finally have a small glimpse of why we can’t get rid of trouble.”

  “I have a better idea.” He looked at me and smiled. Then he took my hand and tugged me closer. He kissed me gently on the lips. I was a bit stunned. What on earth was this going to do to help the situation out there? It was only going to make it worse!

  “Hey!” Trinity shouted. “Don’t do that! Nobody wants to see that!”

  “What?” Val called out. “This?”

  Val kissed me again. I suddenly forgot all about my anger toward Trinity and toward Karl and toward anyone. Nothing mattered. Nothing but this playful man with his amazing smile and the incredible way he smelled and the way he tried to take care of me while he simultaneously was open and welcoming of my advice and opinions.

  “That is disgusting!” Trinity howled. She smacked Karl. I could hear her do it. Or I assumed it was Karl anyway. “Make it stop, Karl! Make the stop!”

  “I can’t do that,” he told her calmly. “Why do you care?”

  “Because I want to keep him and his stupid brother and that bitch you used to date and that horrible bitch right there from being happy! Nobody gets to be happy! Nobody, nobody, nobody! And when that stupid Kraus guy sues Damion, then everyone will be broke too!”

  Val stirred behind me. He pointed at Trinity and called out to her. “My brother isn’t liable for any of that, you scheming bitch! He doesn’t own any part of my garage. You need to get over it and just stop trying to get him back! You’re married. Start there!”

  “Dude,” Rory said disgustedly. “You’re married and you’re still stalking your ex? That’s pathetic!”

  “I’m not pathetic! You are! You beat up on your grandma!” Trinity tried to slug Rory, but he managed to duck out of the way just in time.

  There were sirens and flashing lights. Rory was now running in dizzying circles as he tried to keep away from Trinity. Karl Kitson just stood in the middle of the whole thing almost as though he were watching his dog misbehave at the dog park. I could almost believe he didn’t believe that he was part of any of this.

  The police were running this way. I snuggled closer to Val and waited for the cavalry to come and get the crazy people off my lawn. Somehow the entire thing had just become surreal. All of it. The strange stalking behaviors. Rory Stein and his attempts to hurt his grandmother. Maybe this was for the best. They could book all of these people for just long enough to keep them out of our hair. Maybe if we were lucky, they would even lose interest.

  “Oh, look at that,” Val told me with a chuckle. “Karl just tripped Rory. How cute of him to help his wife catch her man.”

  I giggled and tried to cover
my mouth as I watched Rory hit the frozen wet grass face first. I think he might have actually landed on a piece of discarded raw meat. But that didn’t matter right now because Trinity was actually lying on top of him with her arms wrapped around one of his legs. They were shouting at each other. The words made no difference. None of it did.

  I wrapped my arms around Val’s neck and kissed him full on the lips as the police started shouting for everyone to put their hands over their heads and get face-first on the ground. Maybe we were just hopeless romantics. Maybe we were just really in love. But somehow none of this was going to spoil what we had. I was determined to make that true at the least.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Valentino

  “And do you?”

  “I do!” Lena Schulte flung her arms around my brother’s neck and the two kissed as though they were preparing to repopulate the entire world. Right here. Right now. But there was no time for that because before that lip-smacking kiss was over, a massive decorative clock started bonging overhead at an almost deafening volume.

  The audience grabbed for their ears as the clock continued its racket. I glanced down beside me at Tansy. She was grabbing her ears and pressing her face to my side as though she were going to climb right into my suit jacket. My parents were doing the same, hands over their ears and pressed together. In fact, the only ones that seemed okay with the enormous clock were the bride and groom. They were laughing. Eyes dancing, heads thrown back, and then just as suddenly as the whole thing had started, it stopped.

  I watched my idiot little brother pull something out of his ears. Lena did the same. Then they tossed the earplugs over their shoulders. Damion swept his bride into his arms and swung her around.

  “Surprise, everyone!” Lena shouted. “Now let’s all of you be off to the food tables because I’m starving and we still have photos to do! So leave some goodies for us!”

  It was a safe bet that the several hundred guests mingling about the Jewel Box at Forest Park weren’t entirely sure what to make of the whole thing. I saw lots of whispering and a whole slew of that weird uncomfortable clapping that people do when they’re at a public event and they don’t know what else to do.

  Tansy grabbed my arm and steered me toward the stairs where the food tables had been set up down on the first level of the Jewel Box. Other weddings guests were streaming down the steps behind us. I spotted Lena’s sister, Eleanor, and her boyfriend, Kevin Landau, who had driven in from Kansas City to attend. Tansy waved to Eleanor, but made no move to go to her friend. Thayla Landau was already with her brother and Eleanor, chatting away at about a million miles an hour and using her hands to gesture to the decorations hanging all over the interior of the old solarium-style greenhouse.

  “Thayla did a lot of the decorating,” Tansy explained to me as she snatched up two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter. “I know you don’t particularly care. I just thought I would explain why she looks like she in such a hurry to explain all of the decorations to Lena and her brother.”

  “I think Kevin’s eyes look like they’re glazing over,” I murmured to Tansy.

  Tansy swatted my arm and laughed. Then she took a deep drink of her champagne. “That’s so rude!”

  I was about to tell her that it was never rude to tell the truth when someone came strolling in through a side entrance. It was Beau. Except I only thought it was Beau. He actually looked—well, the word that came to mind was clean. Beau looked clean.

  “Hey, Beau!” I slapped him on the back and for once I did not feel as though my hand came away greasy. “Look at you! I know Damion’s getting married, but I had no idea it merited such a special response.”

  Beau looked mystified. “What special response, Boss? What does that mean?”

  “He’s talking about taking a shower,” Tansy offered. “We can both tell that you’ve had a bath.”

  “Oh, I took a shower,” Beau said, seemingly remembering right this very second as he glanced down at his very second-hand suit. “I went to the truck stop down the street from the shop. That’s where I shower sometimes. It’s nice there.”

  A truck stop. Hmm. Okay. I suppose I really couldn’t judge him on that. It wasn’t like his little trailer was equipped with a shower. I cleared my throat. “I thought you showered at your mother’s place. You know, where you used to live before you moved into the trailer.”

  Beau lifted his right hand to scratch his head. That same old odor wafted over me and I actually felt the urge to retch. It was just so sudden. Beau was saying something about his mom and his stepdad and how they didn’t want him in their bathroom anymore because he just made such a mess. But I was about ready to puke so I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the details. Not right then.

  Beside me, I could tell that my poor Tansy was in the same state. She had covered her nose with one hand and looked more than a little green around the gills.

  “And that’s why I prefer the truck stop,” Beau said decisively. “They don’t care how much of a mess you make. And nobody says anything about my special cologne.”

  I felt like a bird dog on point, but Tansy got there first.

  “What cologne?” she demanded. “What special cologne, Beau? Is that what I’m smelling right now?”

  “Well, yeah.” Beau was bobbing his head, his dirty blond cowlick bouncing up and down almost comically as he moved. “You know, it’s on account of all those vampires and ghosts we’ve got messing around in the shop at night. So I read on this website that if you use deer urine, dead rat’s dandruff, shredded rotten garlic, and the heart of a white onion, you can keep the vampires and ghosts away.” Beau looked briefly worried. “I’m not sure about the witches though. And we all know that Trinity Moberly is a witch. The worst kind too.” Beau leaned in closer to whisper and I thought I might actually be in danger of passing out. “She’s a succubus.”

  Poor Tansy. She was doing her best to keep herself from either laughing or throwing up. I could tell. At the last minute, she nodded to Beau. “I can appreciate the need to keep yourself safe from vampires and ghosts, but Beau why does my car smell like that? Did you get special cologne on my seats or something?”

  Ah yes. Tansy was convinced that her vents smelled like Beau’s horrible scent. I hadn’t put much credence into this theory. I figured it was just because Beau had been in her car briefly and his oily state left a residue that had likely already worn off. Nobody could really blame Tansy for being paranoid. Not when the smell was enough to make me vomit too.

  “Oh, that!”

  Beau actually looked pleased with himself and for a moment I felt my first real stab of concern. “What, Beau? What do you mean by oh that?” I demanded as my gut twisted into knots.

  “Well, when we started having trouble with people’s cars getting messed with by the ghosts and vampires, I decided to try and use my special cologne in the vents to keep those pesky vamps and ghosts away. It worked too. Didn’t it?.” Beau clucked and winked and shook his head as though he were the smartest guy on the planet. “You never had any vampires or ghosts in your car, now did you? Nobody messing with it either. Huh? Not even that witch Trinity Moberly!”

  I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to say. I could hear the other wedding guests talking and laughing around me, but right here and right now there was nobody but Beau and me. And I was about to kill him.

  Then Tansy grabbed my hand. “Oh Beau, that was very creative of you. It really was. So, could you tell me then, how long does your special cologne last? You know, because I’ll, uh—need to spray it down with my own special blend.”

  “You’ve got a special blend?” Beau was instantly riveted. He jabbed me with his elbow. “Boss, you got yourself one heck of a lady here if she’s got her own special anti-vampire and ghost blend.”

  “Rosewater and oranges with olive oil,” Tansy told him. She even managed to keep a straight face. “My parents brought that back from Greece.”

  “Wow.” Beau gave a low whistle
of appreciation. “I bet that smells better too! You foreigners are smart ones. You know that?”

  “Thanks, Beau,” Tansy said drily.

  We both watched Beau whistle as he walked away with a definite bounce in his step. I wasn’t sure what was more hilarious. The way that Beau’s cowlick hair flopped around behind him as he walked, or the way that everyone who got within ten feet looked as though they were about to gag as they tried to cover their noses with their hands as they struggled to decide who or what the smell was coming from.

  “Oh my God,” Tansy whispered. She grabbed my arm and practically dragged me down just a little lower so that she could whisper directly in my ear. “Did you hear that? Tell me you heard that. I wasn’t losing my mind, right?”

  “No. But apparently I owe you a big old vent cleaning for your poor car,” I grumbled. And then I remembered several other customers—regular customers—who had mentioned the same thing after getting an oil change. “And I imagine I’ll be offering a free vent cleaning with every oil change for a few months too. Dammit!”

  Then Tansy started to laugh. The joyous and rather jaunty sound was irresistible. I couldn’t hear that and not laugh myself. So within minutes we were both cackling like hens. Other guests were staring at us as though we had lost our minds. I didn’t care. Funny how being with this woman made me feel as though I did not give a shit what the rest of the world thought.

  My father smacked me on the shoulder. “What’s so funny?”

  I glanced over at Mom. She was busy giving Tansy a hug. In the last few weeks the two of them had become very good friends. I could almost say with pride that my parents liked Tansy better than they did Lena Schulte. Or I guess her name was Lena Alvarez now. But that didn’t actually matter to me. Not really. I was just glad that Tansy was in my life for good.

  I looked at my father and wondered what he would have done if he’d discovered that Beau was spraying “special cologne” into the cars of our shop’s customers just to make sure that they didn’t run the risk of having a vampire or ghost infestation.