Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (Eight Fun, Romantic Novels by Eight Bestselling Authors)

by Violet Duke

  As Tim dipped into the nacho chips, Adrianne noticed the distribution of the other chips around the table. One thing was quite clear. Mason was losing big.

  She grabbed Drew’s empty bottle and replaced it with another while she listened to the bidding going around. Mason met and raised on his turn. When she grabbed another can of soda for him, she peeked at his cards.

  He had nothing.

  She felt his eyes on her face and looked to find him watching her. Maybe he was as distracted as she was. If so, it was costing him—seriously.

  Hmm.

  She listened for a few more minutes and it took her only half that time to figure out that Mason was either losing on purpose or had no idea what he was doing.

  She heard a phone ring in the other room and an idea occurred to her.

  Her purse was in the bedroom and she slipped down the hall without being noticed and quickly dialed Drew’s home number from her cell—thankfully, he was too cheap to have caller ID. It rang three times and she heard chairs move on the kitchen floor.

  “I’m heading for the can,” Tim called.

  Adrianne hung up and waited for Tim to shut the bathroom door before she headed back for the kitchen. The phone call had succeeded in breaking up the game for a bit and Adrianne found Mason and motioned him to the corner of the kitchen that had no food or drink and therefore no other people. “Can you reach that pitcher for me?” she asked, loud enough for everyone to hear, pointing to the cupboard above the fridge.

  He stretched up, the position pulling his shirt tight across his stomach and chest. “Which one?”

  “You know, if you’re losing on purpose to make them happy, you need to not lose quite so badly. It would be more convincing to win at least a hand or two,” she said, pointing to the blue pitcher. “And you don’t want them to know you’re letting them win. That will piss them off.”

  “What do you need the pitcher for?”

  She took it from him and set it to one side. “I don’t. I needed to talk to you. Because I don’t think you’re losing on purpose. Am I right?”

  “I don’t really care that I’m losing.”

  “Answer the question, Mason.”

  “No, I’m not losing on purpose.”

  “So you actually suck.”

  Mason opened his mouth, but seemed to reconsider whatever he’d been about to say. “Yes. I actually suck. At poker, anyway.”

  “Here, will you put this back up there?” She handed him the pitcher. “Have you ever played?”

  “No.”

  Adrianne glanced at him and fought a smile at the disgruntled look on his face. “Never?”

  “Never wanted to.” He stretched to replace the pitcher.

  “Then why are you playing tonight?”

  He shrugged. “They asked.”

  She rolled her eyes but also understood. Mason had never been included in group stuff with the guys in his class in Sapphire Falls. The invitation to do something with them now had likely been too tempting.

  “Okay. But you’re going broke,” she pointed out.

  “I don’t mind losing the money,” he said.

  “Well, you’re losing respect too.” Adrianne pointed to a clear glass pitcher. “Grab me that one.”

  “I’m losing respect?”

  “They won’t let you play anymore if you keep this up. They like to win and they like to brag, but beating the worst poker player in the history of the world isn’t much to brag about.”

  Mason reached for the pitcher, saying nothing.

  She took it from him. “Okay, so I’m going to help you win a couple. Or all of them if you want to.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll cheat.”

  He lifted an eyebrow.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “Drew and Roy would both cheat you in a heartbeat given the chance. And you’ve basically handed them over a hundred dollars of your money by now. This is you getting your own money back.”

  He looked amused as he took the pitcher and put it back in the cupboard without being asked.

  “You ready for the plan?” she asked.

  “There’s a plan?”

  “If we’re going to cheat effectively without them catching us, we need a plan,” she said. “But it has to be simple.”

  “The gist, I would imagine, is that you’re going to walk around behind the guys, pretending to wait on all of us while looking at their cards.”

  She smiled. “You really are a genius.”

  Mason laughed and Adrianne felt a warmth curl through her that made her want to make him laugh again.

  “We’ll need signals I suppose,” he said.

  She nodded, grinning like an idiot. This sounded like fun. She was counting on Mason’s superior memory and ability to process things quickly. “I’ll press my lips together to take one card, yawn for two and cough for three.” She pointed to the silver studs in her earlobes. “If I touch one it means raise.”

  Mason rolled his eyes.

  “If I drop something it means fold.”

  “What if you drop something accidentally?” he asked.

  “I won’t. I’m very graceful,” she returned with a little sass that made him smile wider and made her grin right back. “I’ll touch the shoulder of the guy with the best hand.”

  “I’d rather lose all my money than have you get too friendly with any of the other guys,” Mason said.

  From his tone, Adrianne thought maybe he was only partially kidding. The idea that he might get jealous made her want to climb up on his lap and reassure him that he was the one she wanted.

  “You’d better get back to your game,” she said, trying to keep from kissing him.

  “Here, you better end up with one after all of this in case someone’s taking notes.” He pulled a yellow plastic pitcher from the cupboard and handed it to her.

  What the hell did Drew need with all these pitchers?

  “I look forward to our partnership,” he said, making partnership sound sexual.

  He gave her a wink and sauntered back toward the table.

  Adrianne waited two minutes and followed with the pitcher full of Drew’s tequila and orange juice and a stack of cups.

  As she made her way around the table with the drinks, she avoided eye contact with Mason but she did pay attention to his hand of cards, and everyone else’s.

  She gave Mason two signals, one to take two cards and then to raise. She rested her hand on his shoulder as she leaned in to pick up some empty glasses from the middle of the table, telling him that he now held the highest hand in spite of Drew’s bluffing. She let her hand stay for a moment, enjoying the warmth and strength of him, considering it a perk of the favor she was doing for him.

  Mason won the hand, and she hid her smile so as not to tip the rest of the men off to their ruse. They were surprised enough that he’d won.

  Adrianne allowed Mason to lose the next hand so no one would get suspicious and ignored the frown he gave her.

  The next hand, after laying down new coasters at each man’s elbow, whether they needed a new one or not, she signaled for Mason to take two cards. He did, discarding the obvious two from his hand.

  She’d only checked Roy and Brad Peterson’s hands when Drew asked, “Hey Mason, have you tried Adrianne’s candy?”

  Adrianne froze and she slowly turned to face Mason. Since everything sounded sexual tonight, that certainly did.

  Mason pressed his lips together as he met her eyes, clearly trying to smother a smile.

  “Yeah, I’ve had a taste,” Mason answered.

  So she wasn’t the only
one taking that the wrong way.

  She turned away, trying to look busy with the cracker box. And not pant.

  “I think I’d definitely like more though,” he said.

  “It’s the best,” Tim said, tossing a couple of cards into the middle of the table. “Everyone says so.”

  She rolled her eyes and dropped a plastic cup on the floor. Mason should definitely fold.

  “Lots of people have had a taste then?” Mason asked.

  She blushed. Only she and Mason knew what they were talking about. Drew and Tim were talking about actual candy. But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t help her reaction to the combination of Mason, her and tasting in the same thought process.

  It also didn’t matter that not many people had been involved with her or her candy—real or analogous—since she’d come to Sapphire Falls.

  “Oh, sure a few. Not as many as will once she gets her shop at Sapphire Hills.”

  Mason paused in the midst of folding the cards together in his hand. “Her shop?”

  Oh, yeah. Mason didn’t know one of the proposed shops was hers. It wasn’t like she’d not told him on purpose but…okay, it was.

  Had he not seen her naked breasts she would have felt more comfortable asking him for money. Had she not climbed all over him, nearly orgasmed on his car hood that first night, she might have felt better about trying to sell him on something personal to her. She wasn’t all that comfortable selling him on anything at this point. Her role, as she saw it, was to give him general information about Sapphire Hills and keep him company in Hailey’s absence. She wasn’t going to be the one specifically asking him for anything that had even a little bit to do with her shop since sticking her tongue down his throat within two hours of meeting him.

  She didn’t want him to think the two things were connected.

  One glance at his face confirmed that was exactly what he was thinking anyway.

  “She’s been cooking and feeding us since she moved to town, but her candy is by far the best thing she’s got.” Drew took a swig of beer and must have thought about how that sounded. “Well, not the best thing she’s got in general. She’s also got great legs and…well, anyway, she’s got a lot to offer,” he said with a wink at her.

  “Hey, Adrianne, remember the candy you made for Karen’s graduation party?” Tim asked. “You should totally have those in the shop. Those rock.”

  “Thanks, guys,” she murmured, her eyes on Mason.

  Why did the pit of her stomach suddenly feel heavy? Like something bad had happened?

  “I’m all in.”

  She stared at him. He was all in? He was betting on that sorry hand? He should have folded long ago. He was going to lose everything.

  And obviously he knew it and didn’t care. He was staring right back at her as he pushed his chips across the table. All of his chips. Then he lay his cards down. His sucky, couldn’t-win-at-Old-Maid cards.

  Tim hooted and chuckled as he pulled the huge pile of chips toward him. Mason pushed back from the table. “I’m heading out.”

  “You’re leaving?” Adrianne asked, starting toward him without thinking about it.

  “I have some other things I should do tonight,” he said.

  She wished that sounded sexual. Because it didn’t. At all. It sounded kind of ominous in fact. She wondered if fighting with and dumping her were on his to-do list for tonight. Then she wondered if it was technically dumping when they’d known each other twenty-four hours.

  “I’ll drive you,” she said.

  “He’s been drinking soda all night,” Drew pointed out as he shuffled.

  “You don’t know what I’ve been putting in his soda,” she returned.

  No one argued, including Mason. She hoped that meant that he wanted to talk. Or kiss. Kissing would be even better. And easier.

  But as she followed him to the front door, she doubted kissing was on the agenda.

  THE CANDY SHOP was hers.

  Of course it was.

  Fuck.

  The candy shop that couldn’t be built without his money and land. The money and land that he definitely didn’t want to give.

  One of the shops was hers.

  He hadn’t seen that coming.

  He really hated when things didn’t go predictably.

  “I didn’t make out with you to get your money.” She was slightly out of breath since she had to jog to keep up with him as he stormed down Drew’s front steps and long driveway to his car.

  “But you definitely knew who I was when you made out with me.” He didn’t look at her. When she’d offered to drive him home, his traitorous body and heart had been in full agreement—his imagination jumping to all the candy he still needed to sample.

  But now he realized that of course she’d offered to go home with him.

  “Why was I invited tonight?” he asked, whirling on her. They were right beside his car and it was so similar to the position they’d been in the night before that he had to make himself draw a deep breath.

  “The guys wanted you to play poker,” she said.

  “I never played poker with them in high school. It doesn’t make any sense that they’d invite me tonight unless the purpose was very specific.”

  “We want you to feel included, yes. We want all the alumni, particularly the investors, to feel welcome and have a good time.” She met his eyes directly. “It’s not a secret that treating you well is partly about our hopes that you’ll invest.”

  “And you know better than anyone, including Hailey, how much I have to offer,” he said, his gut churning.

  “I wrote your profile. I know what you’re worth, roughly,” she admitted.

  “So makes sense that you would put so much effort toward treating me well and making sure I have a good time.” God, that did make sense. He should have known. He should have questioned her motives from the beginning. He knew what was motivating everyone else in Sapphire Falls, but even after finding out she was on the committee and knew a lot about the project, he’d stupidly gotten caught up in the crazy chemistry, the draw that had him still wanting her even if she didn’t really want him.

  “Mason, I know how this looks but…” She seemed to be struggling for words. “Look, I don’t know what this is between us. I’ve never felt this so quick for someone before. But it’s real. It had nothing to do with Sapphire Hills.”

  “I’m not supporting the building project.”

  She didn’t even blink. “Because you can’t trust me?”

  “Because it’s really important to me that when I give you the best orgasm of your life you know it’s all about me, not about a damned check.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath and he saw her eyes widen. He wanted to think it was desire.

  “If I just wanted your frickin’ money, I could have been nice and polite. This is far beyond nice and polite.” She grabbed the front of his shirt, jerked him forward and proceeded to kiss him hot and long and wet.

  When she pushed him back, they were both breathing hard.

  “I intend to keep kissing you,” she informed him. “And I still want Sapphire Hills to happen. And I want you to have a good time here. So those things might all seem to collide at times. But I intend to keep kissing you, and when I do, you’re going to know that it’s just because I want to kiss you.” Then she turned on her heel and headed back for the house.

  He stared after her. Yeah, well, he intended to keep kissing her too.

  Regardless of any frustration or irritation, he couldn’t leave her alone now, and the next time his mouth was on her body, they were both going to know that what she was feeli
ng was about him and what he could do to her. No matter what his bank account said.

  She wasn’t going to use their chemistry to get anything out of him or as some kind of payback for what he could give.

  As he drove the dark, winding country road back to town from Drew’s, he was reminded of another night eleven years ago.

  God, women and Sapphire Falls just didn’t work out well for him.

  It had been spring, only a week before graduation, and he’d been driving home from Milt’s farm. It had been dark, almost too dark to see the figure walking alongside the highway leading back into town. But she’d been wearing a white top that had shone in his headlights and it had taken him no time to recognize the way she walked.

  Hailey had been walking home. She and her then boyfriend, Mark Andrews, had gotten into a fight, she’d told him to pull over so she could get out, and he’d done it.

  She’d been walking for about a mile when Mason pulled over.

  She’d been crying.

  He could still remember the way that had tightened his chest. That and the way she looked at him. Like he was her hero.

  He’d taken her home and she’d asked him to come in. Her parents were still out for the evening and she was shook up from the fight with Mark and walking alone in the dark. So he’d stayed.

  And she’d kissed him. She’d also taken off her shirt. He’d seen Hailey Conner’s naked breasts. They’d made out heavily until they heard her parents’ car. He was sure, even years later, that if her parents hadn’t interrupted, he would have had sex with Hailey Conner—the most popular girl in school.

  Her parents had been grateful to him for bringing her home and staying with her so she wasn’t alone. Hailey had walked him to his car and thanked him for being such a great guy. And she’d kissed him again.

  It stood to reason then, that he’d assumed he would be greeted warmly the next time she saw him.

  Not so.

  Mason’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and he scowled at the road in front of him.