Divorced, Desperate and Deceived

by Christie Craig

  He took a step—a possessive step—forward. He had no claim on her. Zero. Zilch. In a week or less, he’d be long gone from her world. But damn it to Hell and back, as long as he was here, he wasn’t about to let any trash near Kathy Callahan.

  “Hi.” Luke forced a friendlier look onto his face and moved between them. “You need something?”

  His tone must have missed the friendly range, because her smile faded. “I need a plumber.”

  “Well, then this is your lucky day!” Johnson moved in so close that his shoulder brushed Kathy’s.

  Luke shot the jerk a warning glance, which was ignored.

  “Name’s James.” The jerk held out his hand, which Kathy took, but Johnson held on a second longer than was warranted. “And it would be my pleasure to work on your pipes.”

  Johnson’s men snickered, and Kathy flinched. Luke moved forward, his blood pressure soaring. “Back off,” he growled. “She’s here to see me.”

  Kathy’s gaze, one eyebrow arched in challenge, shot to him. “I am?”

  Johnson chuckled. “Sounds as if the woman’s got a mind of her own, Bradley.”

  Luke frowned, hoping like hell she got the message that now wasn’t the time to play games.

  “You think you could swing by?” Kathy asked. She addressed Luke, and from the way she scooted a bit closer, he saw she understood.

  “Now, don’t go making any hasty decisions,” Johnson spoke up. “Why don’t you let us both make a bid and see who comes in cheaper? I can guarantee your sweet ass that I’ll beat this man’s bid, ‘pants’ down. And I got better equipment to do the job with, too.” He winked.

  Kathy frowned and took another step closer to Luke.

  Johnson wasn’t ready to call it quits. He moved forward and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Now, sweet-heart—”

  Luke didn’t hear what Johnson was going to tell her. Neither did Kathy, because Luke yanked the man up by his shirt and physically repulsed him several feet. “I said, back off!” He looked at Kathy. “Now get out of here before—”

  His words were cut short as Johnson’s fist slammed into his cheek, and the next thing he knew it was him against Johnson and all three of Johnson’s men. The contractor just stood there, yelling. Good thing Luke knew how to fight.

  Luke had just knocked Johnson to the ground with a hard right to the nose when he heard Kathy scream. He swung around to make sure no one was messing with her. They weren’t. She stood there, dancing from one foot to the other, screaming like a female—and looking good doing it. Her breasts bounced with the up-and-down motion, and…and that’s when he caught his second punch to the face.

  Women, Luke thought, ignoring the pain. Spinning, he lunged to give someone a taste of his own medicine. A taste that held almost four years of frustration. And with so much pent-up fury to spend, this was one fight he was destined to win.

  Luke slammed the front door to his rented house and went to the freezer in hopes of finding anything to help ease the swelling of his face. His mug was supposed to appear before a judge and twelve jurors next week, and being black and blue wasn’t part of the plan.

  “Shit,” he muttered, and touched his swelling eye. Then, in spite of the fact that he hurt like Hell on roller skates, he laughed. Damn, if he didn’t almost feel like himself again! It had been a long time since he’d let himself do what he did best. Well, second best. But he hadn’t done number one in a damn long time either.

  Remembering what he would be up against when he went back to his real life, he stopped laughing and yanked open the freezer. Not a damn thing in there. Not even an ice tray. He wasn’t exactly surprised. He wasn’t even sure why he looked, considering it was his freezer and for anything to be in there would mean he’d have to have to put it there. His mind jumped back in time to when he might have opened his freezer and found all sorts of frozen vegetables, Weight Watchers meals, and 90% ground round made up into ready-to-grill patties. Things his wife, Sandy, would have put in there.

  Slamming the door so hard that it banged against the wall, he yanked off his shirt and tossed it to the floor. He unsnapped his jeans and got two steps toward the shower. Then his doorbell rang.

  It was probably Claire, his elderly landlady, wanting him to change another lightbulb. He liked the woman, appreciated the food she regularly dropped off. Many days he’d come back to find a homemade meal waiting on the stove top. But tonight he was so not in the mood to listen to her go on about her irritable bowel syndrome.

  Taking a deep breath, preparing to send her off to tend her bulbs and bowels alone, Luke yanked open the door. But it wasn’t his blue-haired neighbor. Not even close.

  Could his day possibly get any worse?

  Chapter Two

  He didn’t look happy to see her. Quite the opposite, actually. Kathy had sort of expected that. The fight was…well, kind of her fault. But with luck she could turn his mood around. Couldn’t she?

  “Hi.” Her voice rang too chipper. She tried to wipe the cheerful expression from her face, but unsure as she was of what approach to take, it was hard to change her facial features to anything appropriate. “So this is your place, huh?”

  He didn’t answer. She couldn’t exactly say he was glaring at her, but then again, because one of his eyes was almost swollen shut, she couldn’t be sure. Her gaze slid from his puffy eye to his puffy lip. He still had blood on his forehead, and she flinched.

  Shifting her gaze past his lips, she found his chest, his oh-so-gorgeous naked chest. As she remembered not to gawk at that, her gaze whispered through the trail of dark hair tiptoeing down into his unsnapped jeans. Elastic from his Calvin Klein’s peeked out from his unfastened Levi’s, and those darn flutters started up again in her stomach.

  “This really isn’t a good time,” he said, and his voice rumbled deep in his chest.

  Kathy snapped her gaze back up to his face, to see his frown. She offered him her hundred-watt smile. And, hey, she didn’t offer that to everyone! “I brought…butter beans. Plus a very big apology.”

  “Butter beans?” The brow over his good eye arched.

  “Well, they’re lima beans, but I guess they’re still butter beans.” She reached inside her purse and held out a cold-to-the-touch bag. “You know, frozen. To help reduce the swelling and pain.”

  He stood there staring, so she went ahead and pressed the bag to his puffed-up eye. Then, because her position was kind of awkward, she moved a little closer. Closer to his naked chest. Her next breath came scented with freshly cut grass and mint.

  He didn’t pull back, and while half his face was covered by a pack of baby lima beans, he continued to stare at her through his good eye.

  “I’ve always heard peas are better, but Lacy didn’t have any peas,” Kathy continued. “Or steak. I know some people use a steak. But it was either broccoli or limas. I don’t care much for broccoli, so…” Oh, Lordy, she was beginning to sound like Sue, chattering just to fill the silence. She continued to hold the beans to his face and took a deep breath. “Are you okay?”

  “Do I look okay?” His voice sounded tight—not quite angry but definitely annoyed. And since she was the only one close, his annoyance had to be aimed at her. Not that she could blame him, Kathy reminded herself.

  “No, you look like hell.” She shrugged. “Then again, you look better than the four jerks you left flat on their backs in that empty field.” She moved the veggie pack for just a second to get a good look at his eye. “Ouch.”

  “I’m fine.” He reached up and took the limas, pressed them to his face and stepped back enough so she had to drop her hand, but not far enough for her to slip inside his house. “Look,” he said. “I’ll take the beans.” His gaze lowered, and Kathy was almost certain he was staring at her breasts. “But you should probably go.”

  “I’d rather not.” Just the thought of him looking at her breasts had her heart racing, and darn if she didn’t feel her nipples tightening. For a very awkward second, she consider
ed crossing her arms over her chest. But hadn’t she dressed for him to notice? “I mean, the least I can do is make sure you’re okay. You know, clean you up a little. You still have blood…here.” She reached up and touched his brow.

  He swiped his finger across his forehead. “I can take care of it.”

  “I know, but it will make me feel a lot better if you’d let me do it.”

  Joey Hinkle watched the florist van park in front of the house down the street and hoped like hell it would leave just as quickly. When it didn’t, he reached into the backseat, snagged his briefcase and pulled out the binoculars. He’d brought them to bird-watch, not to spy—not that he’d ever admit it. In the circles in which he ran, bird-watching pretty much labeled you queer. Joey wasn’t queer, he just liked birds.

  Adjusting the focus, he spotted the redhead on the porch. She’d driven the florist van, but she didn’t have any flowers in her hands.

  He cut his gaze toward Donald, the bulldog-faced man sitting next to him. “It’s a woman. Maybe you should call Corky and Pablo and tell them to wait awhile.”

  “They’re on their way.”

  “I know, but why do this now?”

  “Why not do it?” was Donald’s reply.

  Joey stared at the man and felt his revulsion grow. By God, sometimes he didn’t like these people. “Why can’t we wait until she leaves?”

  Donald looked at him and laughed. “What’s wrong, kid? You soft just because it’s a woman?”

  At almost forty, Joey didn’t see himself as a kid, but most of Lorenzo’s other help had at least ten years on him. “No. I’m just saying that—”

  “Well, stop saying it. It’s not our fault some bitch drops by for a visit, probably wanting a little dick. The boss wants this done. What the boss wants, he gets. Or haven’t you worked for him long enough to figure that out?”

  Joey dropped his binoculars into his lap. Yeah, unfortunately, he’d already learned that lesson. He’d had to bury the evidence in a patch of woods outside of town. The memory still made him queasy.

  Kathy stood on Stan’s porch, waiting for him to answer. He still didn’t look happy to see her. “Please, can I come in?” she asked.

  The bag of lima beans held to his face, he backed up, which she took as an invitation. Advancing two steps inside, she looked around at the combo living and kitchen area. His home was small, probably built in the late sixties, and looked…clean. Eclectic, garage-sale style, but bland, generic. Not at all what she’d expected. For some reason she’d imagined it as a tad more masculine, a tad more like a bachelor pad. Okay, and she had expected it would be messy.

  She made another quick inspection. Nothing was out of place except his button-down shirt tossed on the floor. The sofa was a dark tan. Centered before the couch was a glass-topped coffee table that needed refinishing. In the corner was a La-Z-Boy recliner that had seen better days facing a twenty-six-inch television set. The kitchen held an old oak table surrounded by four chairs. The kitchen floor was linoleum, and the yellow and brown faded design screamed it was from the eighties. The carpet in the living room was beige and newer than the rest of the furnishings. All the walls were painted white—bright white—and not a picture or a piece of artwork decorated any of them. Kathy got a feeling the place was rented and had come furnished and that Stan hadn’t added or changed a thing since he moved in.

  Her gaze shifted back to him, shirtless with his jeans unsnapped. He was without a doubt the best-looking furnishing in the room, and she had a sense he didn’t belong.

  “How did you know where I live?” he asked, breaking his silence.

  “You gave me the address to mail your check, remember?”

  “Oh.”

  The fact that she’d memorized it and had even driven by once—okay, six or seven times, okay, a dozen, but no more than that—didn’t need to be said. She wasn’t really a stalker. Just infatuated and unavailable. Unavailable until she decided to become available.

  For just a second, she wondered about her timing. Was it a coincidence that she’d decided to open herself up to dating—or, as she’d told Sue, “join the fornicating masses”—less than a month after her ex went and tied the knot with the woman who’d broken up their marriage? Surely she hadn’t been secretly hoping he’d come to his senses and return to her, had she? No! She wasn’t that pathetic. Obviously, she’d just needed some time to rebound. And now she was ready.

  Watch out, world. Watch out, Stan Bradley.

  The thought sent a wave of something like fear running down her spine. Honestly, she didn’t know what she wanted from Stan. Well, she knew some of what she wanted. She wanted some company, someone to chase away the empty feeling that always hit after she went to bed. She wanted to laugh with someone—a male someone. To share pillow talk, long lingering glances and desserts. But most of all, she wanted the loneliness to go away. Ever since Lacy and Sue remarried, her hangout time with her friends had been shortened. Not that she blamed them.

  Okay, maybe she did blame them just a bit, but she tried really hard not to let it show.

  Her gaze went back to Stan, who was still staring at her. Darn, even beat up and holding a pack of frozen beans to his face, he looked good. Too good. And right then she was forced to admit the other thing she wanted from Stan Bradley: sex.

  Yup, sex would be great. Not that she could expect it to be like her fantasies. He couldn’t be that good. Could he?

  Feeling her cheeks heat, she moved into the kitchen and dropped her purse on the table. “Why don’t you sit down here and I’ll grab a washcloth.” She looked around. “Where would you have a—?”

  “Bathroom, second door to the right.” He waved toward the hall. “In the closet beside the hamper.”

  The bathroom wasn’t quite as neat as the living room and kitchen. Good thing, too, because the man had been at her home, and Neat just wasn’t her middle name. Her middle name and Neat didn’t even share an initial.

  She spotted a pair of dirty socks on the floor, and strewn over the bathroom counter was some deodorant, aftershave and a razor. Unable to resist, she pulled the top off the aftershave and gave it a sniff. “Mmm…” It smelled clean and masculine. It smelled like him.

  “Find it?” he called.

  Feeling chastised for snooping, Kathy swung around to the closet and locked her eyes on the washcloths so she didn’t have to lie. “Yup, got it!” Then she looked around for a medicine cabinet, which she opened to see if Stan had any alcohol or antibiotic cream.

  The only things lining the cabinet were aspirin and condoms. An open box of condoms. A frown pulled at her lips, and she muttered to her reflection in the mirror, “Looks as if Mr. Bradley hasn’t been wasting his time waiting for me to come around.”

  “Did you say something?” Stan called.

  “Talking to myself,” she answered. “You got any alcohol or peroxide?”

  “Look under the sink. There might be some alcohol there.”

  She found it—and another pack of condoms. Okay, one pack was acceptable, but two meant…What did it mean? Was he involved with someone? If he was, she was so not gonna go there. Fantasies or no fantasies, lonely or not, the last thing she wanted was to become the TOW. Which meant that before she let things get hot and heavy, she had to find out whether he was committed to someone else.

  She grabbed the alcohol, and that’s when she noticed another box tucked in the back of the cabinet. This box didn’t hold condoms, but a hundred pack of 9mm bullets. And beside that was a gun.

  Okay, it wasn’t as if she’d never seen a gun before. She had. Heck, she’d learned to shoot before she learned how to whistle. She lived in Texas, for God’s sake! Everyone and their pet guinea pigs had guns. Her own Smith & Wesson, from her rebellious days, was tucked away in a closest at her mom’s, because no way would she have a gun with Tommy in the house. But the craziest questions fluttered through her: Did she really know Stan Bradley? Did she know him well enough to entertain the possibility of…
of what she was considering? Did she even know him well enough to be alone with him in his home?

  She almost laughed. Duh! The man had been alone with her in her own house a couple dozen times. If he were some sort of psycho pervert, he’d have already played that card.

  Right?

  Luke dropped into a chair. The frozen beans held to his face slowed the throbbing, and he hoped it minimized the swelling and bruising as well. He heard Kathy walking down the hall and looked up. The soft sway of her hips, the gentle way she moved—it all started a new throbbing.

  For a moment she looked as if she was having second thoughts about being here. She had no idea how right she was. If she knew what was good for her, she’d snatch her purse and get out while the getting was good. Hell, if he were a better man, Luke would have done her a favor and told her as much.

  He was not a better man. At least, he didn’t think he was.

  Not that any red-blooded man could blame him. Damn, she looked good in that green tank top and tight jeans. Add the fact that she wore her hair loose instead of up in one of those tight knots she usually favored, and that those auburn strands danced around her shoulders, playing peek-a-boo with that scooped neckline, and, well…suggesting she leave seemed downright stupid.

  Luke’s gaze shifted upward, all the way to her hazel eyes, and his breath caught. Kathy Callahan had traded in her usual teasing glint for a deep, seriously sultry look—a look promising that if he played his cards right, he could peel off those jeans and that shirt. How many times had he removed her clothes in his mind? The thought of doing it in actuality made the throbbing of his body painful. What he wouldn’t have given to have seen that look from her over the past three years! But not now, the voice of reason whispered in his head. Now was too late. Wasn’t it?

  She edged closer, moved between his legs. He was eye level with her breasts, and the sweet swell of cleavage had him dropping the frozen lima beans to get a better look. The veggies landed in his lap, a nice, chilling way to cover up the evidence of his thoughts. Except, the heat between his legs would cook those beans before too long. And when he looked up again and saw the tightening of her nipples under the green tank top, damn, he really wanted it not to be too late.