Divine Conspiracy (Divine #1)

by Rose Hudson

  I head for the front door and right before I reach my target I hear Melba loudly question, “Everything okay,” over my shoulder and I give her a hand in the air to let her know that everything was. When I reach the sidewalk outside the bar, I stop, looking from one side of the parking lot to the other, but don’t see anyone. No headlights. No dust from a recent vehicle leaving the dirt parking lot. Standing in the silence, trying as best I can to gather my thoughts, I hear a cough from around the corner of the building. Walking closer I can hear heaving breaths followed by more coughing.

  If she’d been looking at me when I rounded that corner, she would’ve seen pure surprise on my face. Because there in the grass, bent at the knees and trying to catch her breath, was the woman I was searching for. Seeing her in the light provided by the utility poles illuminating the parking lot, I notice something I hadn’t seen before. She had on a black silken sash that blended in with the black strapless dress she was wearing, except for the words in silver glitter that spelled out, “Dirty Thirty”. Ah…she’s the birthday Melba mentioned. When my foot catches on the sidewalk, kicking some loose gravel, she looks up. Her look this time is a mix of confusion and amusement. I return her look of confusion when she straightens, placing her hands on her hips and laughing hysterically.

  “Umm…are you okay Ma’am,” is the first thing that I manage to ask when I open my mouth. She leans her head forward from its thrown back position and appraises me, her laughter dying down.

  “Do you always have this effect on women,” she asks with a giggle still apparent in her voice. Her question relieves some of the confusion I have, amplified by the adrenaline rush that I was still experiencing.

  I relax my stiff demeanor and can’t help but release an almost laugh before I reply, “Well, I guess that depends on what affect you’re talking about.” I give a lop sided grin at her light-hearted tone, thankful for the reprieve from the heaviness of earlier. “Are you okay though? Seriously.”

  “I’m okay, just a little concerned that maybe I shouldn’t be standing here talking to you,” she answers, giving me a cat-like smile and swaying back and forth a bit before reaching out to catch herself on my arm, but missing and falling against me. As I secured her from falling, my arms instinctively come up to wrap around her waist, trying not to squeeze her too hard, but still tight enough that every part of her touches every part of me. She stares up at me, and my chest tightens just like it had before. God, she is the most beautiful woman my eyes have ever settled on. And hell her body feels too right. Too perfectly conformed to the palms of my hands. Making them instantly feel on fire, tingling at every point they make contact with her.

  I hold her for what most would consider an inappropriate minute longer, then I pull her upright, straightening her and walking her toward a bench located against the front of the building.

  “I would’ve worn something else if I knew it was going to be cold,” she says as she sits down. All I have to give her is the button up shirt I’m wearing, so I unbutton it and placed it over her bare shoulders and arms. After a minute of standing there in my white under shirt, I understand where she’s coming from as I registered the cold front coming in.

  “Thank you.” I look at her when she speaks, and wish I hadn’t. Her face is flawless and I have the urge to run my thumb along the edge of her lower lip. Get it together man, quit staring!

  “Of course, you’re welcome. Uh, do you have someone you want me to go get? Do you want me to go get you a bottle of water from the bar?” I rattle off options, trying to regain some sort of involvement in the conversation. As if remembering something at my words, she covers her face with her hands and shakes it back in forth in a no response.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have taken that last shot, but I was trying to let loose and have fun like they wanted me too. Damn,” she says through splayed fingers.

  “It’s your birthday and you look like you’ve only had a few. Most people get out of hand,” I reassured her without hesitation, surprising myself again. I’m not a dick, but I usually don’t make small talk, and I especially don’t console. I find myself wishing she wasn’t in an altered state so I can really talk to her, but feeling thankful all the same that questions about who this woman is can’t be answered right now. I don’t think I can handle answers right now.

  “Not me though. I never get out of hand, that’s the problem,” she puts the tip of her thumb against her closed lips and flicks her dainty red nail against the edge of her front teeth, and I can’t help the image of what they’d look like wrapped around my dick. Clenching my jaw to distract my one-track mind. From the looks of things, she is in need of distraction as well, but contemplating something I can’t read. She looks at the watch on her wrist, holding it out in front of her, then bringing it in closer. I look at my phone.

  “It’s almost ten.”

  “Ten? We’ve only been here an hour!” I expect her to go on, fill me in on the issue, but she doesn’t.

  Swallowing hard and hoping to god I don’t sound as creepy out loud as I do in my head, I wait until she looks at me and ask, “I was just leaving; do you need a ride?” This woman doesn’t know me from Adam. I don’t want to scare her off by offering a ride when women are instructed daily not to take rides from strangers. But if it will ease her worry the least little bit and give me a chance at five more minutes with her, it’s worth a shot. She drops her hand from her mouth to her lap and peers up at me with the look I expect. One of skiddish confusion. One of ‘holy hell, I left my pepper spray at home’. After a beat though, it forms into one of consideration and reflection, and I know she is remembering the look between us in the bar. There is no way that what I felt standing there, looking at her in that mirror, was in any way one-sided, it was too powerful. Taking in the look she’s giving me right now only reinforces to me that I couldn’t be more spot on.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of stranger danger? How do I know you’re not a serial killer?” She pauses, battling her mind with reason. “I don’t even know your name.”

  I quickly think of a way to calm her fear. Anything that will show her that I’m just someone wanting to help her. Just five minutes. I reach into my back pocket and pull out my billfold, opening it and locating my driver’s license.

  “Patrick Lawson, at your service Ma’am,” I say with a smile, trying my best to lighten the seriousness of my offer. I’m rewarded when she releases a small laugh and examines the words printed on the hard laminated card. After tilting the card slightly back and forth, I’m guessing to check for the hologram icon, she looks back up to meet my eyes and hands it back to me.

  “Patrick Lawson,” she says, the name falling off her lips in the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. Be it my given name or not, hearing it come from her was like being sworn in as King of England. Life changing. Pushing off the bench and standing on shaky legs, she speaks up, “Well White Knight, thank you for coming to my…”, before losing her balance and crashing into me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I brace her, holding us both steady and peering down at her, trying my damnedest not to be pulled in by the beautiful aqua of her eyes, but that is becoming a losing battle every time.

  “I swear, it’s these damn heels that Chanin made me wear, honest,” she explains, defending her fall and giving me an embarrassed smile. I lessen my hold on her but don’t release her. I have no real explanation for what I’m doing with this woman other than my gut is telling me not to let her go. And if there is one thing I have remaining trust for, it’s my gut.

  “Why don’t you sit back down, and I’ll go in and tell your friends that I’m taking you home. I’ll get your shoes and whatever else you have and bring them back with me, okay?”

  She looks down at her feet and then back up to me, smiling and shrugging when she realizes that, in fact, she isn’t wearing any heels, and says, “Yeah, I guess I kind of need my shoes, huh?” Well, if she ain’t the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.

  Turning to leave, head
ing back into the bar, I can’t help but smile at her. In my opinion she didn’t need shoes. I would pick her up and carry her wherever she wanted to go. I’m sure I’ve taken more than one woman away from Charlie’s shoeless before. But this time I felt the need to play my cards a little differently. This time I decided to play them right.

  COMING OUT OF THE bar, carrying her shoes in one hand and her purse in the other, I think for a split second that this is what boyfriends and husbands everywhere are faced with, and ironically, it’s a first for me, thank god. I’m watching her as I walk, and she’s sitting with her chin propped on one hand as the other scratches at the glitter on her sash, shrouded in light provided by the neon signs hanging on the front of the building. She looks so innocent that if I didn’t know tonight was her thirtieth birthday, I would think she was much younger. Sensing my presence, she sits up straighter and grins at me with eyes clearer and slightly more alert than they had been before. After working as quickly as I could to convince her friends that she was in good hands, once again having to pull out my ID, this time Chanin taking a picture of it for reference so that she could come collect my balls were anything to happen to Erin, I shot toward the door like a bolt of lightning to get back to her.

  “My White Knight, carrying my shoes and purse. Now that’s a sight I never thought I’d see,” she jokes. Imagining what I must look like from her point of view, I can’t help but laugh as I look from one hand to the other appraisingly.

  “I’m a full service type of knight. Whatever you need, I’ve got it,” I wink and watch as her eyes go from amused to what I think is heated at my comment, and my cock twitches in response. I mentally bitch slap myself. On any other night, with any other woman that held my attention for even half as long as she has, I would spill one-liners like this with every intention of getting between their legs. But for some reason, one that makes me question my fucking sanity, that’s not my motive with her.

  Taking in her bare feet, I look down at my left hand holding a pair of heels that look impossible to walk in. There’s no way I’m letting her walk from here to my truck barefoot, and especially not in these damn skyscraper heels. I turn my back to her.

  “Jump on,” I instruct. Getting no response, I look over my shoulder. “There is no way you’re walking barefoot or in these heels, so you might as well hop on and let me carry you.” After another long moment of hesitation, I guess she accepts the fact that I’m right, because she balances one hand on my shoulder and steps up onto the bench. She pulls me back against her, wrapping her arms around my neck first, and then her legs around my waist. The reaction my body gives to the feel of her wrapped around me is sickeningly impure for something so innocent as a piggyback ride.

  “You got a good hold,” I ask for both of our benefits, adjusting my stance and reaching around to hold her legs. When my palms meet the silky skin where the backs of her knees meet her thighs, I feel like I have entered into the longest most torturous challenge of my fucking life. That feeling is only amplified when she speaks and the heat of her breath grazes my ear.

  “Yeah, I’ve got you.”

  We reach my truck in record time and I lay her purse and shoes over in the bed to free my hands. Reaching behind me, I grasp her thighs to help her down gently. Her sharp intake of breath and the instant heat that spreads on my palms, makes the tips of my fingers squeeze instinctively. I’ve always gotten a kick out of those vampire shows, ya know, where the guy vampire loses his shit over a woman and turns? Well, let’s just say I’ve just gained some perspective. Pausing for a much needed second, I adjust my hands before pulling her from my back around to my front. Her legs stay wrapped around me and for one long second, she stays there, my arms shelved under her ass and her arms locked around my neck. It’s so fucking strange, but I can see myself carrying her everywhere; down the beach, up the stairs, to the bed. Reminding myself that this is a rescue mission, I slowly loosen my hold on her and she slides down the length of my waist, landing softly on the rock surface of the ground beside the passenger door of my truck. Like a shudder of chills runs over her, she rapidly lifts one shoulder, then the other. She looks from my chest and up to meet my eyes, clearly as affected as I am by the contact. Clearing her throat with the smallest of sounds, she reaches for the handle and pulls it, holding my eyes before turning and climbing up the side step into the truck. I take the brief moment it takes me to walk around to the driver’s side, to thank God for small miracles.

  “You’ll have to cut me a break on the directions,” Erin says, giving me an impish smile. “I haven’t lived here that long. Still learning my way around.” I finish putting her address into the GPS and look over at her, taking in how perfect she looks sitting in the passenger seat, like she belongs there. Shaking off the thought, I smile in return.

  “No worries. I’ve lived here for years and still don’t know my way around half the time.” She releases a scoffing laugh.

  “Well, I declare! A man that carries shoes and purses, and admits he needs directions? Have I slipped into some alternate universe,” she replies in a mocking Southern Belle accent, fanning her face and giving me a feigned look of shock.

  “And apparently I’ve picked up Suzanne Sugarbaker,” I fire back playfully. I internally cringe at my reference, hoping she doesn’t catch it.

  “Me…Suzanne? Nah, I’m more of a Mary Jo.” She winks at me before bursting into full blown laughter. Damn. Tipsy or not, if she remembers any of this conversation tomorrow, I can kiss any chance of seeing her again goodbye. Her laugh though. It’s one of those laughs that even if you have no idea what she’s laughing at, the pure contagiousness of it forces you to laugh in return. Feeling the need to reclaim my man-card, I jump out of my head and back into the conversation.

  “Take it easy. Yes, I watch Designing Women and it’s a damn good show. Plus, it’s always on in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep,” I say in my defense.

  By this time, she is laughing so hard that a snort escapes her, and she covers her mouth in embarrassment, which in turn, makes me laugh harder than I have in longer than I can remember. I take my eyes off the road for a brief second to glance at her, and when I do, I’m met with that same connecting stare we shared earlier. This time though, the feeling in my chest grows in its intensity and it’s all I can do to force air into my lungs.

  “In half a mile, your destination will be on the right,” the GPS chimes in, breaking our connection and forcing my attention back to the task at hand. I turn my eyes back to the road and out of the corner of my eye I see Erin straighten in her seat, regaining her composure. My internal voice of reasoning checks in and I reluctantly use that half mile to get my shit together.

  Pulling up to the front door, I place the truck in park, but don’t cut the engine, not knowing exactly what to do and not wanting to act like a presumptuous ass by turning off my truck. The urge I have for just five more minutes with her is strong and foreign, but unfortunately squelched when Erin feels around in the back seat and gathers her shoes and purse, before reaching in and pulling out her keys. She turns to me, a look of uncertainty gracing her features, like she doesn’t know what to do here either. Seeing that the feelings are mutual eases my anxiety.

  “Well, White Knight, I appreciate the ride home and thoroughly enjoyed the revealing conversation.” Her smile is wide and beautiful and I just want one taste of the lip gloss shining from the reflections of the dashboard lights. Just one. “Maybe I’ll see you at Charlie’s again sometime.” She offers me her hand to shake and I take it, holding it suspended in the air for a second before shaking it. I can hear the voice in my head screaming at me to do something to extend this moment, but I’m frozen. And before I can get my bearings to say something, she turns and opens the door, sliding out of the seat.

  Instead of landing on her feet, like an answered prayer, she apparently misses the side step and falls to the ground. I know that sounds like a dick thing to say, but hell, who ever said divine intervention had to b
e gentle? I’m out of the truck so fast I barely realize it by the time I reach her side, helping her up from the cobblestone driveway.

  “Shit Erin, are you okay? I knew I should’ve walked around and helped you down,” I spew in a panic, pulling her to me and bracing her up with my arm around her back.

  “It’s not your fault that I’m so graceful. I’m okay, really.” She looks up at me, and just when I thought she couldn’t get any more stunning, her eyes catch the moonlight shining through the trees above our heads, and I forget everything that exists outside of me holding her. I slowly loosen my grip on her and pull back slightly, clearing my throat. She attempts to take a step away, but falters, letting out a soft squeal of pain.

  “I think you twisted your ankle. Here, sit down for a sec.” I lift her up to the passenger seat and hold out my hand for the keys. She hesitates for a moment, looking at me like she’s convincing herself I’m not a serial killer. I give her a reassuring look, and she hands me the keys, singling out the one to the front door. After walking to the front door and pushing it open, I return to the truck, presenting my back to her.