by Cassi Carver
Dedication
For the real Bratty. Now you’ll live forever, baby.
Chapter One
When the e-mail popped up at exactly eight a.m. that morning, Rayna was already nestled into her couch with her laptop open, waiting for it to hit her inbox. Today’s challenge. She was pretty sure Kyle scheduled the challenges to send the night before, but then again, it was also possible he was sitting at his computer at work, thinking about her at that very moment.
To the incomparably brave and beautiful Rayna Sommers:
Your mission for today, Agent Sommers, should you choose to accept it, is to walk until you see a flower. Pick it and put it in a vase. Show it to me tonight. You will be rewarded.
Kyle
A familiar combination of fear and lust surged through her veins. She was such a frickin’ pervert. She knew exactly what Kyle’s reward would be, and it was getting hard to get to sleep at night without it. What would her parents think if they knew she had a virtual lover? And more importantly, how long would she have to walk to find a flower and earn her reward?
Was it worth it? What if she had to go two—even three—blocks to find a bloom she could swipe from some unsuspecting green thumb? Shit. Kyle was pushing it these days, but then Kyle seemed to know how hard to push.
Rayna drew a deep, fortifying breath through her nostrils and typed two words into the reply: Mission accepted.
Why wait? she thought. Just get it done. But even as she talked herself into it, her skin broke out in a sweat.
But she wasn’t going to think about it. She was just going to do it. Yeah. Get her black trench coat on. It didn’t matter if it was summer—she wouldn’t be gone long. And she couldn’t forget her slippers. But then they were already on her feet, so that was taken care of. Coat? Check. She tied it tightly around her waist. Chicken? Wait, where was that bratty hen?
“Bratty? Come on, baby…I got some treats for you…” Yeah, she was empty-handed. But Bratty, for all her sassy sweetness, wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. She would come running when she heard Ray’s tone of voice and wouldn’t figure out she’d been duped until they were out the door.
Sure enough, her black Silkie hen came dashing into the room with her wings flapping for extra speed, moving so fast that she lifted almost a foot off the ground. And for a Silkie, that was something.
Ray adjusted Bratty’s diaper and cleaned a small glob of corn mash from her twisted beak, then she opened her coat and shoved the bird under her arm. “You ready? We’re going to get a flower. Maybe we can pull a handful of grass for you on the way.”
Of course, then she’d have to feed it to the bird one blade at a time, slipping it into the open side of her crossbeak, and that wasn’t such a great idea with a deadline looming on her latest erotic romance novel. But the flower mission? Oh yeah. She had time for Kyle’s flower.
Rayna inched toward the door of her apartment. It was a nice two-bedroom, two-bath, and she was proud her writing paid the bills and allowed her to live in a cute neighborhood in Santa Barbara. She’d chosen this area for the low crime rate, but she still grabbed her house key from the hook as she passed. To lock or not to lock, that was the question.
If she locked the door, she couldn’t get back in as fast. If she didn’t, someone could slip in before she returned. Kyle suggested locking it—said that’s what he’d do, because “another ten seconds outside isn’t really a big deal”. Not a big deal for him, maybe.
She slid the chain from the lock, cracked the door open an inch—just the width of one eyeball—and peered into the hall. Mr. Jeffries was leaving for work. He raised his hand in greeting. “Hello, Rayna!”
“Hi there!” she hollered before slamming the door shut and pressing her back to the wall.
She gave herself a minute to catch her breath. Holy stinking shit. She wasn’t going to get that flower if she didn’t woman up. And if she didn’t get it, Kyle wouldn’t give her the prize. She’d thought once before that she could sweet-talk him into changing his mind, but that man wasn’t messin’ around. If she didn’t succeed, they’d probably spend the evening playing an online zombie-assassin video game or listening to music rather than taking a trip to Naughtyville like she so wanted to do.
Bratty made a small, purr-like growl from under Ray’s armpit. “I’m going,” Ray answered. “We can do this. We can totally do this, right?”
The hen poked her head out, making the trench coat gape, and pecked at a soiled spot on Rayna’s nightshirt. If a person was skilled at interpreting illegal urban-chicken behavior, they knew the casual peck was chickenese for hell yeah!
“Oh, Bratty. Cool, calm and collected, like always.” Ray tried the door again. The coast looked clear. “Yeah…let’s do it.” Kyle, you are going down.
Nine hours passed, five of which were spent at the keyboard, feverishly working on her novel, one hour soaking in the tub, two eating and surfing the net, and one rereading Kyle’s e-mails—and her responses to them—from the early days almost three months ago. As she read, she could actually see it happening—see herself falling for him. See him open up to her in a way she doubted he’d done with many people before.
She’d since memorized the first fan letter Kyle had sent her. When she received it she hadn’t responded for a few days because he had a penis, and, well, ninety percent of her fans didn’t. But once they’d started corresponding, their friendship had blossomed like a dandelion in a vegetable garden.
Kyle was smart. He was funny and compassionate. And he called her dirty mind “brilliant”. His unwavering confidence in Rayna’s ability meant the world to her, because although she loved the heck out of her family, they had a hard time seeing her writing as a real career. Sometimes daydreaming about Kyle or mentally plotting a book was the only way to get her through a phone call from her mother. This was one of those times.
“Are you listening to me, Rayna?”
“Yeah, Mom. I’m here.”
“But are you listening? I said Tuck Halston finally drank himself into the grave, God rest his miserable soul.”
“Tuck Halston is dead?”
Her parents’ ranch in Texas bordered the old man’s and they’d had some ugly spats over water and cattle throughout the years, but his son, Carter, was one of Rayna’s oldest friends. Kids weren’t picky about playmates when there were no other children within walking distance, and they didn’t let little things like family feuds and water rights get in the way of more important things, like shooting cans off logs and playing hide-and-seek.
“That’s horrible. I wonder if Carter’s going to be able to make it back for the funeral.” Though she wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. His old man had been meaner than a rattlesnake, and Carter had borne the brunt of his attacks for too many years.
Rayna glanced at the clock on her computer, then jumped up from the couch and hustled down the hall to her bedroom. Kyle was going to call in exactly six minutes. This news from Texas was important, but it would take an act of God to get her to miss Kyle’s nightly call. She set the phone on her dresser and put it on speaker so she could change out of her cotton bra and panties into something lacier.
“Carter’s been back for months now,” her mother said.
“Really?” Oh, the guilt. Had it been that long since she’d reached out to him? After what he’d done for her in high school, she’d vowed they would never lose touch.
“Yes, really. He was taking care of the ranch and staying at the hospital with his dad. You know, that boy has really blossomed. The military has done him good. I mean, I’m no leopard, but…rawr!”
Rayna burst out laughing, which seemed so wrong after h
earing about Tuck’s death. “I think you mean cougar, Mother.”
“Exactly. You know, you should come home and visit. You and Carter would make such a cute couple. He already knows about your condition, and he couldn’t ask for a better helpmate on that oversized ranch of his.”
“Uh…” Rayna was speechless. She’d never felt that way about Carter, probably because he was two years older than her and had always treated her like a little sister. Unfortunately, her mother took the speechlessness as mulling the idea over.
“Wouldn’t that be perfect? Dad and I would be just over the fence! No more arguing over whose cattle uses what water. Free grandchild babysitting,” she continued.
Rayna’s mouth opened and closed uselessly, like a fish on the deck of a boat, gasping for water.
“You know I didn’t try to stop you when you got that crazy idea to move to California,” Mom said, “but don’t you think it’s about time you settled down and found a man instead of just writing about it?”
The moment of truth. She’d known she couldn’t hold this off forever, and it was time to—Shut. Mama. Down.
“I’ve already found a man.” And in her heart, that was true. The big question was, how long until she drove him away? She’d never been good at normal relationships or intimacy, and as much as she adored Kyle, something about the way she needed him scared her to death. She wasn’t good over the long haul. Just look at Carter. He’d saved her life, and she hadn’t even known his father was sick.
Her mother gasped. “What do you mean you already found a man? Where is he from? What does he do, and how serious is this?”
Rayna picked up her black eyeliner and added just a touch above her upper lashes. “Would you like me to include his social security number?”
“Good idea, honey.”
She chuckled and glanced at the clock on her nightstand. “Call off the FBI. He’s an upstanding citizen—I promise.”
There were some things she couldn’t tell her parents, even though she was a twenty-eight-year-old woman living three states away. When she’d shared that she was making a living writing erotica, they’d blamed themselves for failing her somehow. When she’d let it slip she was illegally housing a chicken in her Santa Barbara apartment, they’d sent her farming articles on avian flu and the dangers of living in close proximity with poultry.
It wasn’t that they didn’t have hearts of gold; they just couldn’t stop worrying about their only daughter. Listening to her mother now only confirmed that Rayna would have to have a screw loose to confess that her closest friend—and virtual lover—was a man she’d never actually met.
Who would understand that she spent nearly every night of the week online with a guy on the opposite side of the country, talking books, playing games or getting down and dirty? Her parents would think he was a stalker. Her old friends would say he must not have a life. And if they knew she touched herself on camera thinking of him, the whole lot of them would probably orchestrate an intervention and sever the cable to her Internet connection.
“And?” her mother prodded, her voice lacking the enthusiasm it’d had when she’d spoken of Rayna and Carter and grandbabies. “Tell me about this mystery man.”
Two more minutes until Kyle called. Rayna fluffed her hair and smoothed on some cherry lip balm. Excitement began to curl in her belly.
“His name is Kyle, and he’s in finance.” Hopefully, Mom would be so flabbergasted that Kyle wasn’t a rancher she’d miss the fact that Rayna hadn’t answered her previous question about where he was from.
“Where did you two meet?”
Don’t say he’s a fan. Don’t say he’s a fan. “In a book club.”
How could she explain to them that she’d let a fan into her life? She could hardly explain it to herself, except to say that Kyle Ford coming into her world was like a miracle freely given to someone who’d long ago stopped believing. Sifting through her e-mails three months back and finding his first tentative query was like stubbing her toe in the sand and unearthing buried treasure.
“He reads?” Mom sounded as awed as if their old horse Maddy had stamped out Einstein’s theory of relativity with her hooves.
“He does. He’s a total reader.”
“And you’re a writer.”
“Yeah. Crazy, huh?”
“Has he ever read…one of your books?” She said it as though speaking it aloud might summon a demon stripper to do a lap dance right there in her living room.
“Uh…yeah-uh. Maybe. He reads a lot.”
“And does he know about your disorder?”
Rayna put the cap on the lip balm and frowned into the mirror. “Of course he does—and it hasn’t scared him away yet.” But it would. It was only a matter of time. “Hey, Mom? He’s gonna be calling me on the other line. Can I call you back tomorrow?”
“Sure, honey. Sleep well, and think about what I told you. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Rayna hung up, yanked on her denim shorts and T-shirt, then dashed down the hall. She hurled herself at the couch with a happy squeal—happy to be free from all things Texas, happy because her lover was probably logging on to his computer at that very moment. It was five p.m. here in California, eight p.m. in New York. Kyle was likely just getting home from the gym, and he’d be all sweaty. And steamy. And heaven help her beleaguered sex toys if he kept leaving images like that in her head.
She tensed in anticipation when the chime sounded and her computer screen displayed the message Incoming Video Call. With an evil grin, she grabbed the flower off of the coffee table and tucked it into the minipocket on her V-neck T-shirt, then clicked Accept.
Chapter Two
The image on the screen solidified, going from black to gray to the grainy colors of a dimly lit room. Kyle’s navy sofa was dead center with rumpled shirts in one corner. That expensive-looking painting of a schooner battling frothy waves hung on the wall behind him. And in the middle of it all—Kyle.
His button-down white shirt was bright in the otherwise gloomy shot. He clearly hadn’t been to the gym or even had time to change into casual wear yet, so either he was exhausted from a long day or he was extra-eager to chat. His gaze flitted around the screen, taking her in, and he smiled. “Hey there. How was your day?”
Three months, and it still made her heart race to sit on the couch and exchange pleasantries with the man. “Good, except I just got off the phone with my mom.”
“How’d that go?”
“It was interesting. I learned our next-door neighbor just passed away, and I’m pretty sure my parents are arranging my marriage to his son so they can combine their parcels of land into a never-ending expanse of cattle and cow pies.”
He cocked a brow. “Nice. Is that matchmaking, Texas-style?”
“I’d call it more…medieval. Besides, the guy is like a brother to me.”
“Huh.” He smoothed his palms over his slacks, looking kind of cute with his lips pressed into a jealous line. “And what did you say to her?”
Rayna grinned. “Well, of course I told her to sign me up!”
He finally chuckled. “Hey, as long as your new rancher-brother-husband doesn’t mind me coming into your living room every night, we’ll make it work.”
“I won’t marry him unless he accepts you into my virtual harem, I promise.”
“Now I’ve been demoted to your virtual harem? And I thought what we had was special…” He buried his face in his hands for a moment, then looked up at her. “I think I’m overdue for a visit to California. Maybe I could change your mind.”
She laughed it off, showing him with her devious grin that she was enjoying teasing him. She usually didn’t answer directly when he spoke of a visit. It was less awkward that way.
After a minute, he relaxed back into his sofa. “So how did your writing go today?”
“I got four thousand words down. Hopefully they were good words.”
“Oh wow. You’re really flyin’! Another fou
r thousand means you’re almost done. I’m loving what you sent me, by the way. Your descriptions of the sand and the reefs in Barbados are so vivid, no one will believe you’ve never been there. Add to that the amazing sex and the totally inspired use of coconut oil and this book may be my favorite so far.”
“Aww…thanks.” She wasn’t sure if that expansive feeling in her body was her head swelling or her heart. “Feels like I’m never going to finish, but I guess I’m four thousand words closer to beating this deadline, so that’s something. How was your day?”
“Eh.” He exhaled and shook his head. “Not quite as good as yours, I bet. No betrothals. Nothing to write home about.”
Rayna chuckled at his attempt at corny writing humor, but it didn’t escape her attention that he was deflecting again. Kyle hated talking about work. He’d admitted that his desk job was stressful and he was nothing but a glorified paper-pusher, but beyond that, he didn’t say much. Rayna knew that in some ways, their time together was an escape for him, so she didn’t pry. And with how he tried to let her in to the inner workings of his mind—his thoughts, his feelings, his desires—the lack of work gossip didn’t bother her much.
The way he reclined made his dark slacks mold to his muscular thighs. “So how’s my girl doin’?”
Rayna grinned. The first time he’d asked that question, she’d thought he was talking about her. “Bratty’s doing great.” It took everything in her not to let that grin stretch to idiotic proportions. “We went for a walk this morning.”
“Hmm…” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his slacks. She had his full attention now. “Is that a flower in your pocket, Miss Sommers, or are you just happy to see me?”
She pulled the dark-orange starburst from her T-shirt pocket and held it close to the camera—close enough to fill his screen as she slowly ran the tip of her finger along the Gerbera daisy’s rust-colored petals. “Both. It is a flower, and I am so happy to see you.”
He chuckled softly but then narrowed his eyes. “You’re getting too good at these challenges. I’m starting to wonder if maybe I got played. When you’re not writing, you could be a door-to-door salesperson for all I know. Those panic attacks may simply be a ploy to get into my pants.”
