Divorced, Desperate and Deceived

by Christie Craig

  “Okay, he’s even a bigger idiot than I thought.” Luke pulled her against him and tugged some of the sheet over himself. Not that she hadn’t already noticed his condition.

  She swallowed, and for reasons she didn’t even understand, she wanted to tell him the rest. “It wasn’t all a lie.”

  “I beg to differ. Last night was—”

  “That was different. I’ve…I’ve learned a few things since…since then.”

  He cocked his eyebrow up. “With who?”

  “With Lacy and Sue.”

  His eyes widened.

  Realizing what he thought, she giggled. “Not like that! None of us were having sex, so we talked about sex. Every Friday we would choose a topic, and we’d all research it and then share what we learned. Different positions. The most sensitive parts of a man’s body. Oral sex, food and sex, sexual fantasies, anything to do with men and sex. Sometimes Lacy would insist on adding a discussion about history or something, but mostly we’d talk about sex.”

  Luke’s mouth hung open, and he continued to stare. He blinked. “Food and sex?” he managed to eke out.

  “Yeah, foods that go with sex: strawberries, chocolate, grapes. Oh, Sue’s husband Jason brought home a moon pie. And Sue got very creative.”

  He started laughing, and Kathy couldn’t help it; she joined him. When at last their laughter faded, he asked, “Exactly what did she do with the moon pie?”

  Kathy giggled. “It’s one of those things you can’t explain.”

  “Oh, come on. I gotta know!”

  “Nope.” She reached up and pretended to lock her lips with a key.

  “You can’t do that! Come on!”

  She shook her head and giggled. And then they were kissing. Touching. His hands were everywhere, giving pleasure upon pleasure.

  Kathy felt his sex hard against her thigh. Pushing him onto his back, she crawled on top and with one swoop took him inside her.

  “Here’s another thing we talked about,” she said in her best sultry voice. She concentrated on squeezing all her inner muscles surrounding him, remembering that she’d read this could bring a man to orgasm quicker than almost anything else.

  He let out a deep moan. His hands found her waist and held her in place, and he pumped into her hard and then harder. She rode his movements, trying to concentrate, to keep her muscles squeezing, and all of a sudden the pleasure became too intense, and she was almost ready to explode when—

  “Shit!” he growled. He picked her up and tossed her off him. Catching his breath, he rolled over and wrapped his arm around her. “Sorry. I…No condom.” He pressed a hand over his face. “Are you on the pill?”

  Kathy dropped an arm over her face. “No.” What the hell had she been thinking? Okay, she hadn’t been thinking. She’d just been feeling. Which was a prime example of why she couldn’t just let her emotions rule.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice still husky. He swallowed, hard. “I didn’t mean to be so abrupt. But when I realized what we were doing, I was a fraction of a second from coming.”

  She shook her head, feeling embarrassed. “I was the one who started it.”

  “Hey.” He picked up her arm and leaned his head down to peek at her. “That was fucking amazing. Promise me that when I come back, you’ll do that again. Jeez, that’s all I’ll think about while I’m away.”

  His smile chased off all embarrassment. “You know,” she said, “there’s more than one way to skin a rabbit.” And suddenly struck with a jolt of self-confidence, she trailed a finger down his chest until she found his sex, which was still rock hard, and wrapped her fist around him.

  “Did you guys have a Friday night discussion about this, too?” he asked, his voice throaty.

  She grinned. “We might have.”

  Joey had parked in the empty lot where Lola was yesterday and watched the sunrise. He hadn’t slept. He couldn’t. After he’d left the cabin, he’d driven to a service station and washed up. And washed up. He wasn’t sure how long he stood in the bathroom, scrubbing his hands and face over and over. It was as if he could still feel the blood on him.

  Not that he had any now. He’d changed, then gone back to where he’d buried Donald’s body and burnt his bloodstained clothes.

  While there, he’d talked to Donald again. He knew Donald couldn’t hear him, but he’d talked anyway. He confessed about killing Foster, about how he’d hated it. How he couldn’t understand how Donald had done such things. And the only time he’d felt better about what he’d done was when he thought about Lola—about saving her from Foster. Which was when he’d decided he had to see her. He had to see her one more time before he met Pablo and Corky, before he went with them back to the cabin and probably had to do to them what he’d done to Foster. That, or he’d die by their hands.

  He didn’t want to sound pessimistic, just realistic. Which was another reason he wanted to see Lola: He didn’t have much to his name, but why let what he had go to the state of New York?

  He actually considered going to the police and confessing everything, but then he realized that his confession wouldn’t save the redhead or her kid. Lorenzo would still get Hunter and probably the mother, too. He looked at his watch. It wasn’t quite six. He wondered what time Lola showed up. In less than an hour he was supposed to meet Pablo and Corky. All he wanted was to see her.

  Almost as if he’d wished her there, the big truck pulled up. Lola looked too small to drive the vehicle. She turned her head and stared at his car.

  He got out. Instead of dressing in the damn monkey suit Lorenzo insisted his employees wear, he had put on his jeans and a T-shirt. It felt good to be in his own clothes, too.

  When Lola got out, she smiled. Damn if that smile didn’t put everything into place. All guilt evaporated.

  He met her halfway across the lot. Her smile widened. “I…not know if I ever see you again.”

  Don’t ask him how he knew it would be okay, because he didn’t have a freaking clue, but he leaned down and kissed her. When he realized she was kissing him back, another sense of rightness exploded in his chest.

  He didn’t let the kiss go too far, just enough to hint about his feelings. When he pulled back, he smiled. “I hope that was okay. I wanted to do it yesterday and…I didn’t, and I was sorry that I hadn’t. So…”

  She grinned. “It’s okay. I sorry you didn’t do it yesterday, too.”

  He laughed. “I don’t have much time, but I needed to see you.”

  “You have to go to work?”

  “Sort of,” he answered.

  She looked down at his clothes. “You look different.”

  “Good different or bad different?”

  “Good different,” she said, and smiled. “You want some coffee?” She looked back at her truck. “I need to start cooking. Maybe you talk while I cook? Maybe you tell me about your job, that one day you dress in suit and the next day you don’t.”

  His gut tightened. “Can I help you do anything?” he asked, and walked with her, wondering how he would explain his profession.

  “You get the tables and chairs set up, si?”

  Ten minutes later, she poured him a cup of coffee. He leaned against the counter, watched her scramble a big skillet of eggs.

  “You eat?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Her brow creased. “I not charge you.”

  Reaching over the counter, he touched her face. “I know. I’m just not hungry.” He took a deep breath. “I need to ask a favor of you.”

  “A favor?”

  “I want you to keep something for me. Just keep it until…Just a minute.” He went back to his car and got his briefcase. Setting it on the counter, he tried to think of how to say this.

  She looked down at the briefcase and frowned. “I not…” She shook her head. “I not do anything illegal. If this—”

  “No. It’s not illegal. I promise.” He opened the briefcase, which contained his bank records, his checkbook and some personal i
tems.

  Her expression changed when she saw the three birding magazines. “You read about birds, too!”

  “Yeah. But I’m not queer.”

  “Queer?” She didn’t understand the word.

  “I like girls,” he said.

  She laughed. “I not think you…you like boys.” Her gaze cut back to the briefcase, and she pointed to a picture resting on top of the magazines. “Is this you? May I?” She asked permission to pick it up.

  He nodded. “It’s my mom and my brother…and me.” He pointed himself out. It was the only picture he had of his mom. “I was probably eight. My brother was six.”

  “You cute boy.”

  “Nah, I was always too big.”

  “You not too big. You are just right size.”

  He grinned, then picked up his checkbook. He’d already made out the check. The only thing lacking was her name. “This is…my checkbook. I don’t have a lot of money.”

  Her brow creased, and she looked in confusion at the written check. “That is a lot of money.”

  “Fifty thousand really isn’t a lot,” he said. “The thing is…” God, how could he explain this? “I have to do something in the next few days and I might not…I might not be able to use this money.”

  She stared at him. “What are you saying?”

  “What I’m saying is, if I don’t come back in a week, I want you to have this.”

  She shook her head. He saw something like fear in her eyes. “Why you think you not come back? What you do to make so much money? I do not understand. But I do not want this.” She pushed the briefcase back and dropped the picture. “I not get mixed up in anything bad.”

  “I didn’t do anything bad to get that money!” he told her. “I was a bodyguard. Yes, the man I worked for, he…he did bad things. And I took care of his mess one time, but I never got paid to do bad things.”

  She blinked and stared at him. “You not hurt anyone?”

  He let go of a deep breath. He couldn’t lie. She deserved the truth.

  But would she understand?

  “The only time I hurt anyone, it was to protect someone else.”

  She took a step back, almost as if she was afraid.

  “Please…” He closed his eyes and sent up a prayer. “The man was going to hurt a woman. Two women. And I couldn’t let him do that. So I did what I had to do to protect someone else. You have to believe me.”

  She met his gaze, hesitant at first, and then she moved closer. “I believe you. But I still do not want your money. I do not understand why you say you might not need it.”

  Joey couldn’t ever remember anything being so hard to explain. “I have to do something, and if I don’t come back…”

  “Why you not come back?” Her expression was worried.

  He ignored her question. “If I do come back, I would like…I would like to get to know you better. Actually, I’d like to get to know you a lot better.”

  She shook her head again. “I do not understand. Why you think you not come back? Do you…you think you die?”

  He didn’t answer, but neither did he deny it. And he didn’t look away from her.

  Her eyes were awash with emotion. He put his hand over hers. “I have to do this.”

  “What do you have to do, Joey? What are you saying?”

  “I can’t explain. I just want you to keep this.” He moved his briefcase closer to her. “And if I don’t come back, I want you to use this money to help you and your daughter.”

  “No! I do not want this.” She moved away. “I do not want you to do something that maybe get you killed. You keep your money. And you stay safe. If you want to know me better, then you not…you not go do this thing that maybe get you killed.”

  “I have to.” He glanced at his watch. His time was up. “I have to go.”

  “No! You take this! I do not…”

  He didn’t listen to her. He did what he had to do and left. The image of her standing in the parking lot, his briefcase in her hands, would forever be etched in his mind. He just hoped that would be more than a few hours.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Jason was jolted awake by a thought—a thought that, at the exact moment of alertness, did a U-turn and left him with only a vague feeling that whatever the thought had been, it was important.

  He rolled over and looked at the clock. Almost six. It was Saturday, and he didn’t need to go to work. So he lay there, stared at the ceiling and tried to find the thought that had bounced right out of his head.

  Sue stirred beside him, and he turned over and looked at her. It never failed, his first glimpse of her every morning sent the same message right to his heart: He was one lucky bastard to have her in his life. The sweet love they’d made last night was foremost in his mind. He felt himself grow hard and was tempted to wake her up for a repeat performance, but then, just like that, the thought that had bounced out of his head bounced right back in. He heard Claire Banks’s words echo in his head: “I even gave him free rein to use my cabin.”

  He shot out of bed and ran into the living room to find his cell. Picking it up, he called Chase.

  There were five rings before his friend picked up. “This better be damn good!”

  “It is. It woke me up. Mrs. Banks said she gave Bradley free rein to use her cabin. Maybe—”

  “Where’s this cabin at?” Chase asked, understanding completely.

  “I don’t know, but it might be worth checking out.”

  “You call her.”

  Jason could hear Chase getting out of bed. The idea of waking the woman at six in the morning didn’t hold much appeal. “Why don’t you call her? You’re senior.”

  “Because it’s you she’s sweet on. Call her and get an address.”

  Joey watched Corky and Pablo eat their fast-food breakfast sandwiches. How could they eat when they thought they were about to go kill someone, maybe two someones? They were no better than Donald or Trooper Foster. Even the few sips of coffee Joey had drunk at Lola’s were now acid in his stomach.

  Still, Joey would have loved to have left them out of this. But Lorenzo had made it clear that the three of them were to do this together. He’d even arranged the meet this morning. Taking a deep breath, Joey decided to put an end to all this. It was risky. They might turn on him, but at least he’d know he tried. Moving a paper napkin on the table, he said, “You know we don’t have to do this, right?”

  Corky added his seventh pack of sugar to his coffee. “Do what?”

  “We can walk away. All of us walk away alive. Let Lorenzo take his chances in court. If he goes to jail, so be it.”

  Pablo laughed. “You think Lorenzo would let us walk away?”

  Corky snickered. “Are you fucking nuts? We walk away, Lorenzo will find us and feed our balls to us one at a time.”

  Joey decided to try a different tack. It wasn’t altogether the truth, but lying was much less a sin than killing. “Foster killed Donald. Lorenzo had him do it.” He expected to see something in their eyes like grief. They’d worked with Donald for five years or more.

  For one second, he thought he spotted something in Corky’s eyes, but it faded quickly.

  Pablo said, “Donald screwed up. He was in charge. This whole thing was supposed to go down like clockwork.”

  Joey stared, amazed by their indifference. But then he added, “Donald isn’t the only one Lorenzo blames.”

  This got their attention. Both hit men stopped feeding their faces.

  “What are you saying?” Corky asked.

  “I’m saying Lorenzo blames all of us.”

  “Who told you this?” Corky asked.

  “Foster. Right before Hunter killed him. He said that we had all disappointed Lorenzo and that he plans to teach us a lesson.”

  “Foster’s dead?” Corky asked, his eyes wide with what looked like fear.

  Joey was surprised Lorenzo hadn’t filled them in; nevertheless he decided to play on it. “Hunter isn’t just any ordinary
guy. He was trained in special ops or something.” Joey didn’t even know whether special ops was real, but it sounded good. “He’s not going to go down easy. We could all die. And if we don’t, Lorenzo might just do us in anyway. Just like he did Freddy and Donald. We’re nothing to him, just bozos with guns.”

  “No,” Corky said. “We take Hunter down and Lorenzo will be happy.”

  “If we take him down,” Joey allowed.

  Pablo dropped his sandwich on the table. “I’d rather take my chances with Hunter than Lorenzo any day of the week. Because if we double-cross the boss, as long as he’s alive he’ll be after our asses. He doesn’t let people screw him.”

  As long as he’s alive. Pablo’s words echoed in Joey’s head as he leaned back in the booth. “Fine. I just thought I’d tell you what I know.”

  He saw Corky and Pablo look at each other. All he could think was that he’d tried. Tried to get them to turn back. Tried to save their sorry asses.

  As they got up to leave, Joey wondered how he should do this—or, rather, when. With his heart already racing, he told himself to wait, wait until they got to the woods. He’d fall in behind them and then he’d do it.

  But he didn’t have the silencer anymore, so the shots might warn Hunter. The man might come out and investigate. That meant even if he managed to stop Corky and Pablo without getting killed, he would very likely end up shot by one of the people he was trying to protect.

  It was just a chance he had to take.

  Luke heard Kathy start the shower, but he didn’t join her because he just kept feeling antsy. Was that because everything was coming to an end? Was it because he knew he’d be walking away from Kathy for who knew how long? Or was it more?

  He hadn’t slept all night. He’d kept going over and over his conversation with Calvin, searching for the reason something didn’t feel right. But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t put his finger on anything. It was just a hunch—but damn it, his hunches had been right before.

  Suddenly, Goodwill came up to the bed and barked.

  “What, you gotta piss again?” Luke asked. The animal wagged its tail and tried to jump on the mattress. Luke grunted an acknowledgment, got up, donned his jeans, got the dog on the leash, grabbed the gun and the phone, and headed outside.