Queen of Hearts: (Family Stone #6 Shelley) (Family Stone Romantic Suspense)

by Lisa Hughey

  Which led Ric right back to his current problem. This wasn’t going to be a fun convo.

  While Shelley was in the bathroom, he quietly dialed Jack. “Tell me you got a picture of Kandi’s friend.”

  “Yep,” Jack said. “I’m running it through the facial comparison program now.”

  “There was something about the way he moved.” Ric mused. “Did you see it?”

  “I thought so too,” Jack said. “Good call. It is him.”

  So Kandi’s friend was the one who trashed Shelley’s hotel room.

  Although Shelley’s protection duty had only started this morning, he was ready to have this particular job over with. Sitting next to Shelley tonight at dinner had been torture. Every time she moved in that dress, he remembered the night before.

  She was unbelievably sensual.

  He wanted to eat her up. But first they had to catch the people harassing her.

  “So it’s likely Kandi was working with him to try to scare Shelley away.”

  “What the hell is her end game?” Jack snarled.

  “Hopefully the cops can round them up quickly and we can find out.” Ric let relief swell over him. This would be over with soon. Ric hesitated which pissed him off. He wasn’t the hesitating type. “What about Connor?”

  Jack barked out a laugh. “What?”

  “It has to be asked.” Ric paced to the bed and back as he ran his fingers through his hair.

  That shut Jack up. “You can’t really think—”

  “Doing the job you asked me to do, Jack.”

  “Shit. You’re right. Even though you’re wrong. There’s absolutely no way my brother had anything to do with whatever is going on with his biological egg donor.” Jack blew out a frustrated breath. “Fuck.”

  “I need to have a chat with him.” Logically Ric didn’t believe that Connor Stone had anything to do with the threats to Shelley. But he wouldn’t be doing the job Jack asked him to do, the job he’d vowed to do, if he didn’t pursue the lead.

  “I’ll call him,” Jack said. “I need to prep him.”

  Ric didn’t like the idea of giving Connor a heads up but he understood Jack’s reasoning.

  “I’ll send him down.” Jack said, “You keep watch on Shelley while I work with the police.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Ric said fiercely.

  “Thanks, BP.”

  Ric heard the strain in Jack’s voice. He had been aware of the distance between Bliss Lee and Jack tonight at dinner. “You make any headway on that other project?”

  “I thought I did but it was a dead end and I’m running out of time,” Jack said wearily.

  “You may want to come clean with your fiancée.”

  Of course, what did he know about fiancées? His failed marriage had been over years ago.

  “Giving it a few more days.” Jack was unable to let go of his hope. “Later, BP.”

  Ric hung up and waited for Con to arrive.

  Shelley emerged from the bathroom. She had changed from her dress into a pair of running shorts and a t-shirt. There was nothing overtly sexy about the outfit and still every nerve in his body came to attention. Like a pointer dog on the trail of prey, his cock rose toward her.

  Sweet mercy, it was going to be a long night.

  A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts and Ric’s cock deflated faster than a popped balloon. This was going to be ugly.

  Shelley’s head lifted from the magazine she was pretending to read on the sofa. “Who do you think it is?” Her eyes were wide and startled.

  “Connor.”

  She shifted getting ready to answer the door but Ric held out his palm. “I’ll get it.”

  He let Jack’s younger half-brother into the room. Connor nodded tensely at Ric. He knew exactly why he was here.

  Connor Stone was a wickedly smart man.

  “Hi Con.” Her smiled faded at the serious expression darkening the younger man’s eyes.

  Connor knelt next Shelley. “I’m sorry.”

  Right away Ric’s hackles rose. What the fuck? Could Jack have been wrong?

  “You have nothing to be sorry for.” Shelley grabbed Con’s hands and Ric immediately went for his weapon. “Put that away,” she demanded.

  Shelley ran her hand through Connor’s hair.

  “Shelley.” Connor bowed his head. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Con, you are not responsible for her actions.”

  He hugged her tightly for a moment. Then, because he understood that Shelley’s blind faith wasn’t enough, he stood and addressed Ric, “What do you need?”

  Ric nodded. “Just a few questions.”

  Shelley jumped up. Her heart was pounding so hard he could see her chest shake. “What are you talking about?”

  Ric was pretty sure this conversation was going to deep six any chance of sex in the future but if it kept Shelley safe then he’d forgo the extra hot hook up in a heartbeat. “I need to verify that Connor didn’t have anything to do with your attacks.”

  Connor’s mouth tightened but he nodded. Shelley on the other hand jumped in front of her adopted son as if to shield him from Ric’s evil interrogation.

  “Shelley.” Ric’s heart sunk.

  “He had nothing to do with what happened.”

  Connor curled his palm around Shelley’s wrist. “He’s right to ask.”

  “No, he isn’t,” she said fiercely, a mama bear protecting her cub. She glared at Ric. Fantastic. He definitely wasn’t getting laid any time soon.

  “Have you had any contact with Kandi Kane recently?” And didn’t that sound like something straight out of a porn flick? She must have legally changed her name.

  Shelley fumed beside Connor.

  He shook his head. “She came by the house once when I was around four. I vaguely remember it being…unpleasant.”

  Ric had a difficult relationship with his mother but at least she’d been around. And she loved him. He knew that even if they weren’t particularly close.

  “Any other contact?”

  Con replied, “No.”

  “Would you be willing to submit your phone?” Ric asked.

  “Sure.” Connor reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” Although his surrender of his phone really proved nothing since Connor was a computer genius.

  “You know that I could program my phone not to show specific contact information? Or I could have a burner.”

  All that was true. Connor was savvy enough to do it.

  “This is absurd.” Shelley curled her arm around Connor’s shoulders. “He has nothing to do with Kandi and her issues.”

  Ric rubbed his palm over his face. “Shelley. Jack asked me to keep you safe. If I don’t follow all potential trails, then I’m not doing my job.”

  Her mouth flattened into a tight line.

  “So that was the first time you’d seen your mother in years?”

  “Uh yeah.” Connor looked ill at ease. “In the spirit of full disclosure, I did…look her up when I was about seventeen or eighteen. But I didn’t have any contact with her.”

  “Oh, Con,” Shelley said softly. “You could have asked me.”

  “Yeah, I wanted to do it on my own. But once I did some research I knew I didn’t need to see her in person again.”

  “Sweetie.” Shelley’s green eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Not your fault she’s a fucking gold digger.” Con clenched his fists and his face contorted into a brutal frown. “I promise you. I will not let her hurt you.”

  “I know that.” Shelley turned and glared at Ric. “This is done.”

  It was. Ric could see by the sheer affection between them and the way that Connor shielded Shelley from Ric that Connor would never hurt Shelley. “Can you, uh, stay in the room with Shelley, while I make a quick call?”

  “Yeah.” Con smiled.

  Ric let himself out of the room.

  Shelley pa
ced around the sofa trying to burn off the frantic, angry energy that Ric’s questioning had caused.

  Neither one of them said anything for a few moments. Then she couldn’t stand it anymore. “You know I had nothing to do with that, that travesty that just occurred.”

  “Shel, I’d be more worried if he didn’t question me.”

  “Well that sucked. Of course you don’t have anything to do with whatever is going on.”

  She kicked at something on the floor and it skipped across the carpet next to Connor’s shoe. He picked up the crumpled condom package. Oh my God. The maid hadn’t been allowed back in the room since the incident and somehow they’d missed one.

  “Yours?” Connor raised one eyebrow.

  “Oh my God.” Her face burned. She’d blushed more in the past day than in the past twenty years. But there certainly wasn’t going to be any more sex happening here now.

  “At least you practiced safe sex.” Con snickered.

  “You want to think back a few months to me walking in on you and Ava?”

  That shut him up.

  “I thought not.” She was mostly teasing him.

  Con wrapped his arms around her shoulders and tugged her into a hug. No hesitation, no tentative pause before he showed her affection.

  Shelley’s heart melted at the fact that Con finally, finally embraced her with no hesitation. All it took was having her hotel room trashed, being poisoned, and threatened by her baby daddy’s ex-girlfriend.

  Shelley almost laughed.

  “I’m glad you’ve got someone, Shel.”

  “It’s only temporary.” That truth hurt. It was realistic. It was only temporary. Their few hours of pleasure had somehow turned from a one night stand into a bizarre unexpected need for protection. Ric had promised to protect her body, but she wondered how she was going to protect her heart.

  “You never know,” he said softly. “It was killing him to have to interrogate me about Kandi. Because he knew it hurt you.”

  Shelley shrugged.

  “Shel, he did it anyway, to keep you safe.” Connor said, “It takes an honorable man to do what’s right even if it will make things difficult for him.”

  “Aw, sweetie.” Shelley hugged Connor. “I love you. You know that right?”

  “I know.” He rested his cheek against her hair. “Love you too.”

  In the oddest way, Kandi had managed to give Shelley something she’d been waiting and hoping would happen for years. Connor had finally fully accepted her.

  Thirteen

  He was sick of these four walls.

  Shelley paced around the suite, which yesterday had seemed fairly large. But after being confined for the past twenty-four hours while the police, and the extended Stone family, searched for Kandi had taken its toll.

  In an odd twist, the boyfriend had come forward last night and turned himself in for trashing Shelley’s hotel room. He’d had a massive fight with Kandi after they left the restaurant last night, and he’d gotten a look at the Stone family.

  He knew when to cut his losses. So he’d confessed to the crime, and today his attorney plead the charge down to the more minor misdemeanor charge plus a fine with no incarceration.

  He also told the cops that Kandi was totally cray-cray. What he didn’t know, was where Kandi had disappeared to.

  He’d confessed about the same time that Con had broken the encryption on the Las Vegas emails. The poor guy was pretty broken up about the fact that his mother was the one who’d been harassing Shelley.

  But now Kandi was in the wind.

  Between him and Shelley hiding out in this damn room together, they were both beyond tense. The urge to jump her was growing stronger. He really wanted to lay her out on the bed and ravish her.

  Never in his fucking life had he used the word ravish. He was going crazy and he was pretty sure Shelley wasn’t far behind.

  Not to mention the fact that she was still pissed at him for questioning Connor.

  Shelley counted off the steps to the floor to ceiling windows. Then she paced to the sectional sofa. “You know I hate to complain, but I’m going nuts.”

  Before he could answer, she started babbling.

  “Actually you don’t know I hate to complain. Because you don’t know me. But I do. I hate it. I’m used to being swamped.”

  Ric thought about security. He thought about Jack’s influence. Maybe he could do something about their combined antsiness. They needed to get the hell out of this hotel room.

  “Give me half an hour.”

  She stopped dead in the middle of the room. Interest, speculation lit up her bright green eyes. “For what?”

  “I don’t want to get your hopes up.” Ric pressed a number on his cell.

  It took more like forty-five minutes, but Ric managed to get them entrance into the closed fitness center and spa.

  The security guard who escorted them to the secured facility and let them in admonished Ric, “Call when you’re done. Use the phone at the desk. Your cell won’t work in here. And please, don’t leave a mess.” Ric had a feeling this wasn’t the first time he’d escorted guests into the supposedly closed spa.

  The previously soothing reception area was bathed in darkness except for one soft spotlight over the registration desk. The fountain in the corner was silent.

  “Oh my God.” Shelley giggled, practically giddy with the forbidden. In her pale gray and neon yellow running shorts and tight gray and white spandex halter top, her sleek form taunted him. “I can’t wait to get some action.”

  Action. He wanted to groan. He needed some serious physical action to keep his mind out of the gutter and off of getting some action with Shelley.

  She bounced on her toes as she waited for him to open the doors to the exercise room. Ric quickly averted his gaze from the jiggle of her breasts. He tried to block the memory of her riding him, tits bobbing as she slammed down on him.

  Ric wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. Shit. Was it hot in here?

  Shelley zoomed over to the treadmill and hopped on. Her ass, cupped lovingly by the shorts, swayed enticingly as she started a brisk warm up on the treadmill.

  Ric figured that in the closed spa, with only the security staff and Jack knowing they were here, she was safe enough. However he was still armed. He placed his weapon on top of the water cooler next to an open treadmill. Ric vowed to stay alert. To keep his focus on the surroundings and off his principal.

  He started running. The slap of his shoes on the treadmill beat a cautioning taunt in his head, don’t look, don’t look.

  But he couldn’t help himself. Shelley was flat out running at an incline. Her breasts bounced with each stride. Her rich auburn hair had drifted from her pony tail to wisp around her face. A light sweat gleamed on her skin and her cheeks were already a little pink from the exertion.

  But what drew him like a fucking moth to a porch light was her beaming smile. Her lips curved with happiness and her moss green eyes sparkled. Her joy at the simple fix nearly knocked him over.

  “Oh my God.” She huffed out her breath. “Thank you. I could totally bow down to you right now.”

  An image of her on her knees bowing for a completely different reason flashed in his brain. His cock reacted immediately to the carnal thought.

  She must have realized how her words could be misconstrued because her face flushed bright red. “Um, you know, in thanks.”

  Ric snorted. He couldn’t help it.

  She wasn’t trying to be suggestive.

  “I’ll just shut my mouth now,” she said.

  They ran in silence, the only sound in the heating room was the swish of the treadmill belts and the thud of their feet.

  Shelley grabbed her water bottle and drank. Ric was mesmerized by the graceful arch of her neck. Now he was rhapsodizing over her neck. What the hell was wrong with him?

  “This feels so good.”

  “You work out a lot?” he asked, thinking if he could get her talking
he could ignore his body’s reaction to watching her run.

  “Most of my exercise comes from working on the farm. But I do try to get a run in a few times a week.”

  “Tell me more about the farm.”

  “I bought the land. I have several full time employees. The rest are transient. But we grow the crops, harvest the produce, and then the crop yield goes to the food bank.”

  Ric watched as her face blossomed with animation. “Isn’t that expensive?”

  “It is but we’ve implemented a program where people adopt an acre. So they pay the operating costs.”

  “Smart.”

  “It’s a fantastic program.” She gestured with enthusiasm. “That’s what the stupid article was supposed to be about.”

  “The article that prompted this whole thing?” Ric asked. “I thought it was a local piece.”

  “It was. Except it got picked up by a syndicated paper and things just sort of snowballed from there.”

  Kandi’s companion had told the police that she’d seen the article about Shelley and gone completely wacko. She believed that she should have Shelley’s money, Shelley’s life.

  “Although the original reporter,” Shelley grimaced. “Skewed the article to be more about me and the Stone mansion, the farm and the program got some good publicity. Our donations are up.”

  Ric admired her dedication.

  “So overall I’m happy.” Shelley continued to run. “Really, I can’t complain.”

  She took the extra attention on her personal life, and unexpected irritation of dealing with the stalkers, with grace. “Why aren’t you more pissed?”

  Shelley pressed the buttons to slow her pace. “My life is pretty damn amazing. I may have had some tough times but now I am grateful for every day and my healthy children and the ability to help other people.”

  Ric stopped his treadmill and hopped off. He grabbed one of the pristine white towels and rubbed down his face.

  “You are extraordinary.”

  “How can I complain? I’m blessed,” she said softly. Her eyes softened and her smile widened as her treadmill slowed to a halt. “But, thank you.”

  Yet whenever the subject came up she was more worried about her kids and their happiness.

  Sweat gleamed over her skin.