by Tara Rose
Sin Hospital
There’s a New Sin in Town
HR director Vivian Tremaine spent ten years of her twelve-year marriage waiting for her ex-husband to be released from prison, only to have him ask her for a divorce. She finally gets together with Luke Henderson, her long-time friend next door, the same week she agrees to go out with Dr. Preston Benson, the new chief trauma surgeon at Sin Hospital that she hired.
Luke’s wife and infant son were killed by a drunk driver years ago, and he’s been half in love with Vivian all his life. He waited too long after her divorce to ask her out, and now he might lose her to the new doc in town.
Preston has a secret he hopes stays behind in Chicago. But Vivian knows it, and she goes out with him anyway. As he comes to realize if he wants her, he has to share her with Luke, his secret is uncovered and his job is threatened.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 40,067 words
THERE'S A NEW SIN IN TOWN
Sin Hospital 1
Tara Rose
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
THERE'S A NEW SIN IN TOWN
Copyright © 2015 by Tara Rose
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-103-6
First E-book Publication: March 2015
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
This entire series is dedicated to the people of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The six years I lived there left a profound impression on me. The warm people, the quaint town, the diverse culture, the unique phrases, and the amazing food. Thank you for the memories, and for the lessons learned while there.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
About the Author
THERE'S A NEW SIN IN TOWN
Sin Hospital 1
TARA ROSE
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
Vivian Tremaine rarely took US 231 when she made the twenty-mile drive from Sin, Tennessee to Murfreesboro. For one thing, it took her past the Chick-fil-A where she and Cletus used to hang out when they were dating, and she didn’t like to be reminded of him. Not that it was possible to avoid every single place she’d ever been with her ex-husband.
In a town the size of Sin, where everyone knew everyone else, and where most of the residents’ ancestors had settled the town, the likelihood of finding so much as a rock that didn’t remind her of Cletus was slim. But that was no reason to borrow trouble, as her granddaddy used to say, so Vivian took the back roads whenever possible.
She tuned the radio to her favorite country station and sang along with Kenny Chesney, taking her time because it was Saturday, and this trip up to Haynes Brothers Lumber Company was an excursion that would bring healing to her life.
Cletus had been arrested for armed robbery and aggravated assault six months after they were married. Her brother-in-law, Luke Henderson, had warned her not to marry Cletus. And he hadn’t been the only one. But Vivian always did have a thing for the bad boys. She hadn’t known just how bad Cletus was, though.
A commercial came on the radio and she switched stations until she found one that was actually playing music. As she navigated her pick-up truck onto Midland Road, she sang along with Dolly Parton and let the memories of her bizarre marriage wash over her.
Her granddaddy always used to say that there was no point in rehashing the past, but her mother had taught her that it was best to let those images run their course. Then once they were gone, put them up for good.
On their one-year wedding anniversary, Cletus had begun his jail sentence of ten years in Whiteville, and then he’d filed for divorce almost as soon as he was released a year ago. He now lived in Georgia with his public defender. As if that hadn’t been enough of an insult to last her the rest of her life, he’d been drunk the night he told her he wanted a divorce, and had punched holes in the Sheetrock all over her house.
She’d put this off long enough. Now it was time to fix it herself because he sure wasn’t going to do it, despite the fact that paying for the repairs was part of the divorce settlement.
Vivian had been helping her daddy in his home repair and construction business since she could lift a hammer, so it’s not like she couldn’t take care of this on her own. But she still intended to send the b
ill for the Sheetrock to Cletus and what’s-her-name.
She slowed the truck when she spotted a Jaguar pulled off to the side of the road. A tall man dressed in Dockers and a polo shirt fiddled with a cell phone while pacing next to his car, oblivious to her approach. He didn’t glance her way until she pulled up behind his Jag.
“Well, I’ll be…” She smiled, hopped out of the truck, and approached Dr. Preston Benson III. “Hey there. Looks like you have trouble.”
He eyed her like she was bird shit on his windshield. “Trouble? Lady, I have more than trouble. Don’t they have laws down here about tossing out sheets of metal onto the roads?”
He has no idea who you are. Then again, she wore a suit and heels to work, not the boots, jeans, and Predators sweatshirt she currently had on. And she hadn’t bothered to do her hair this morning, to boot. She never wore it wild like this inside Sin Hospital. Not that it would matter if she did, but Vivian had a work day look and a weekend look, and they weren’t anywhere near the same.
She walked around his Jag, whistling when she spotted the rear passenger tire torn to shreds. “What did you hit?”
“How the hell should I know? It’s back there somewhere if you want to take a look. All I know is it was sharp, and it cut the fuck out of my damn tire.” He slapped his thigh. “And why the fuck can’t I get a damn cell signal out here?”
Vivian bit her tongue to keep from laughing. “Yeah, good luck with that. Once you get a ways off the main road, the signal all but disappears.”
“Lovely.” He eyed her again, his gaze moving down her body and then up again. He had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. It had been difficult enough to keep from staring at him during his short interview last month. Now, it was even worse because he looked so human right now, not all buttoned-up and professional as he had the last time she’d seen him.
There was no doubt he was as good looking as they came, but a true Yankee all the way. It had taken her a while to convince the board he’d do fine as their chief trauma surgeon. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
His face was red, and he looked angrier than a mule fighting off bees. If he cussed like this in front of the nursing staff in their ICU, they’d eat him for breakfast and spit him back out in time for lunch.
“Do you happen to have a working cell phone?” His voice was full annoyance and his speech perfectly clipped. He’d need to smooth out those edges a bit or no one would understand what the hell he said.
“I do, but it won’t work here. You got a spare tire in that Jag?” She’d have it changed in a jiffy for him. He didn’t look like the kind of man who knew how to change a flat tire.
“No. I don’t.” It was obvious he was barely holding his anger in check, and she hoped again she didn’t regret her decision to hire him. He was more than qualified for the position, but he also had a secret in his past that she knew had forced him to take any job he could get. Dr. Preston Benson wasn’t happy about being here, but he’d had no other choice.
She chuckled. “Best to have one in these parts. You never know what you’ll find on the road. Come on. I’ll carry you to Murfreesboro. The only place I know of that might be able to fix you up with a tire for this ride is Christian Brothers.”
“Are you freaking kidding me? Don’t you have a service center closer than that?”
“It’s just up the road a ways. I was heading into town anyway.”
He stared at his cell phone. “I’d rather call AAA.”
“They won’t get anyone here any faster than I can run you into town. The closest tow truck is back in Sin, and it belongs to Pete Rivera. He was out last night with his wife, celebrating their anniversary. He’s probably still hungover. You could be standin’ out here in the cold for a spell waitin’ on him. But suit yourself. I’ll drive back to town and let him know where you are.”
She turned and started back toward her truck, then stopped when she heard footsteps behind her. “Change your mind?”
“I thought I heard banjos in the woods.”
Vivian laughed and opened the passenger door for the doctor. “No, that’s only in Georgia.” She slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “We prefer guitar pickin’ here.” He didn’t say anything, but she caught the soft sigh as she turned up the radio. “Not a country music fan?”
“No, I am not.”
“Want me to change it to a rock station?” She gave him a sideways glance. “We have those here, too, just in case you were wondering.”
“Good to know.”
She made her way back to US 231, despite the fact that now she’d have to pass the Chick-fil-A, because the route she’d planned to take would delay their trip by about ten minutes, and he looked ready to jump out of his skin. “So, you’re not from around here.”
He gave her a droll look, and Vivian debated whether to reveal her name to him. Would he even remember it? What a pompous ass. If hiring him came back to bite her she’d never live it down.
“No kidding. I’m from Chicago.”
“First time in Tennessee?”
“No, it is not. I interviewed at Sin Hospital last month.” He sat up a bit straighter, and actually puffed out his chest like a peacock. She half expected to see tail feathers spread out in a fan behind him. “I’m their new chief trauma surgeon.”
“Congratulations.” Her body shook with the effort of holding back a laugh.
“Do you live there? In Sin, I mean. God that sounds ridiculous. Who names a town ‘Sin’?”
“The same pissed-off preacher who started the Lost Bridge Road Church of Christ.”
“Excuse me?”
“Jeremiah Sinn. That’s spelled with two Ns at the end of his name, not one. He started the Lost Bridge Road Church of Christ. Only when they made the sign, they spelled his name with one N at the end because he was no more a preacher than I am.”
He shook his head and the corners of his mouth turned up. The gesture lit up his face, and reminded Vivian how gorgeous he actually was. “So he founded the town, as well?”
“Oh, no. The town was already there, but it didn’t have a name. Leastways not an official one. You see, there used to be a bridge over the branch of Dry Fork Creek that runs past Lost Bridge Road. The road wasn’t called that back then. It wasn’t called anything. It was nothing more than a dirt path that led from one farm to another. But the bridge washed away in a storm one day, and because the people who lived around there had to find another way over the creek, they started calling it Lost Bridge Road.”
“You’ve lost me.”
She turned onto Memorial Boulevard. “We’re almost there. Okay. The road was named after the bridge washed away. You with me so far?”
His grin and the admiring look in his eyes both caught her off guard, and made her pussy wet. She’d married Cletus twelve years ago, the summer between her junior and senior years of college. And for ten and a half of those twelve years, the only man in her bed had been a plastic wand that plugged into the wall. She’d recently nicknamed the Magic Wand Magic Mike, after the movie.
“Yes. I got it,” he said. “The bridge washed away in a storm and then they named the road. But how did the town get its name, and what does that have to do with a preacher named Sinn?”
“Hold your horses. I’m gettin’ there. The people who lived around there started calling the town Lost Bridge, after the road, and then the name just sort of grew on everyone. So along comes this preacher named Jeremiah Sinn. They all thought it was odd that a preacher had that name, but he said it was God’s way of reminding him to preach the gospel every day. So he started a church, named it after the unofficial name of the town, and then asked some of the locals to make a sign for it. They put his name on it as preacher.”
“And they left off the second N on purpose?”
She pulled into the lot at Christian Brothers then looked for a parking space. Good thing he hadn’t had his car towed here. He’d have a long wait on a Saturday. “Yes, because the preacher got drunk every
weekend and did more gambling than preaching. It was meant to be a joke, but he didn’t find it funny.”
“I’ll bet.”
“But the sign stayed up on that church until Jeremiah passed, and then they made a new one. And after he passed, the name of the town was changed from Lost Bridge to Jeremiah Sin’s town, with one N. Over time, it was shortened to Sin, and there you have it.”
“That is the most fucked-up story I’ve ever heard.”
“You best be careful not to cuss so much at work.” She got out of the truck and he followed.
“Why not? Don’t they swear inside Sin Hospital?”
“Oh, we do. But until folks get to know you, you might want to try and fit in some.”
He stopped walking and narrowed his eyes. “We? You work there?”
Vivian grinned. She’d let this go on long enough. “Yes, I do.” She stuck out her hand. “Vivian Tremaine.”
His jaw dropped open, and his eyes filled with regret and embarrassment. Nice to know he could feel both emotions. He stared at her hand, and then his gaze lifted once more to her face. “Shit. I don’t know what to say right now. You’re… Are you?”
“Yes, I am. The HR director. I’m the woman who hired you.”
Chapter Two
Preston was having a bad year, and this incident wouldn’t help. He shook her hand, conscious now of how her hair shone in the sunlight, like copper. Her eyes were dark, but looked more golden in the bright sun. What the hell was wrong with him that he hadn’t recognized her?
You were too busy judging her. “I apologize.” To be fair, she’d had a different hairstyle during the interview, and she had worn a suit and heels.
