by Kayla Perrin
“Care to explain yourself?” he asked her.
Lorraine tucked her purse and the envelope under her arm. “Hunter, I swear, I had no clue who your father was.”
“You expect me to believe it was a coincidence that you slept with me after befriending my father? You knew who I was when you saw me in the bar, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
He snorted in derision.
“I get it. This is the wackiest coincidence ever, so it’s hard to believe we met by chance. But I’m telling you the truth. I had no clue. My God, if I had, I wouldn’t have—” She stopped abruptly, not finishing her statement.
“Wouldn’t have what?” Hunter asked, his eyebrows shooting up. “Spent the night in my bed?”
Lorraine’s eyes frantically volleyed around at the passersby. She was worried that someone had overheard his comment. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t do this.”
There was a hitch in her voice, and he felt a tug inside his body. He wanted to be mad at her, but as he looked into her widened eyes, he was transported back to Friday night. The beautiful woman he’d held in his arms, her eyes filled with heat, not fear. The feel of her body trembling with desire beneath his. The way she’d dug her fingers into his skin and moaned into his ear...
Hunter’s member began to harden, and it was like a jolt to the system. He was on the street, in broad daylight, and he was supposed to be angry. Not thinking about how amazing that night had been. What the heck was wrong with him?
Lorraine started to walk again, and that broke the spell. Hunter fell into step beside her. “Why’d you give me a fake name?”
Her jaw flinched. “I never expected to see you again,” she said. “What did it matter if my name was Lorraine or Mary or Suzie Q?”
“It shows a deceptive side,” Hunter pressed on, though he knew he was grasping at straws. She had given him a false name because she’d never planned to see him again. That reality stung his ego. No woman had ever ditched him before.
Plus he was trying to make sense of all that had happened. The incredible sex with her, then the disappointment of her leaving, and now learning that his father had left her in his will.
Her back stiffened. He saw a flash of anger in those beautiful brown eyes. “Deceptive how?”
“I think you got close to a vulnerable, dying man and encouraged him to leave you in his will.”
“Yeah, I picked up on your seething distrust in the lawyer’s office.”
“What’d you expect me to do? Bring out the balloons? My father was not the kind of man who gave gifts to his own family. Why would he lavish gifts on a person he barely knew?”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Lorraine announced, and walked the short distance to a silver Ford Fusion.
He followed her to the car and pressed his body against the driver’s side door so that she couldn’t enter. “Answer my question.”
“I don’t owe you any explanation,” Lorraine shot back. Gone was the fear, replaced by irritation. “Get out of my way.”
Hunter didn’t move. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Answer my question,” he repeated.
Lorraine looked beyond him to the passersby on the street. Then he saw the rise and fall of her chest as she inhaled deeply. “What question? All I’m hearing from you are accusations.”
“In my shoes you wouldn’t be suspicious?” he asked.
“I might be suspicious, but I wouldn’t stubbornly ignore your explanation.”
“What explanation? I’m still waiting for one.”
Lorraine exhaled sharply, sounding exasperated. “I knew your father. The lawyer already made everything clear, didn’t he? I was his palliative care nurse. I was there for him, and I guess he appreciated that.”
“And he left you a store?”
Those beautiful lips parted, but it took her a moment to talk. “Perhaps if you’d been on speaking terms with your father, none of this would have come as a surprise.”
Hunter flinched, as though she’d kicked him. Such lethal words from such pretty lips.
“You—me—us—that was totally a coincidence,” she went on. “Think about it logically. Why would I have targeted you? To have to deal with this day, this moment? To deal with your suspicion and your wrath? Oh, yeah, great plan.”
Hunter bit the inside of his lip. She made a good point. An excellent one, actually. But he wasn’t about to concede. How could this be coincidence?
And in a flash, it came to him. Exactly why she might have sought him out after manipulating his father. “It was a great plan,” Hunter said. When her eyes widened, he went on. “A perfectly crafted one. You knew what you’d done with my father. Convinced him to leave you in his will. You probably thought that a man who never had any visitors would leave everything to you. Then you learned he didn’t plan to cut his family out of his fortune, and you knew that you being a beneficiary likely wouldn’t go over well with his rightful heirs. You probably asked him who his family was, did a little research. That led you to me. And then you targeted me, hoping that a night of sex would soften me when the ultimate blow of reality came today.”
“Are you actually being serious?” Lorraine guffawed.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
“I’m not even going to dignify your ridiculous theory with a response,” she said, squaring her chin defiantly. “Clearly, I made a colossal mistake at the bar by even talking to you. Biggest regret of my life.”
Hunter’s jaw flinched. Though that had been his exact thought when he’d seen her show up in Joseph Finkel’s office, hearing her throw those words at him was like a slap in the face.
The truth was, he’d loved their night together. He’d thought about her constantly in the days that followed. He’d even returned to the bar on Saturday night, hoping to see her, figuring they could rekindle what they’d started. The night together had been that good.
“And so you know,” she went on, “I don’t plan to accept your father’s gift. I never wanted anything from him. I’ll call the lawyer later, tell him to have paperwork prepared to sign the store over to you. Will you now please leave me alone?”
Hunter’s heart began to pound. Was she so desperate to be rid of him? “That’s it? You never want to speak to me again?”
“What, after this pleasant conversation? Are you kidding me?” Lorraine ground out a frustrated breath. “I don’t have time to deal with this. I’m getting a stress headache.”
“All right. Then let’s exchange numbers. We’ll talk about this later.”
Exasperation flashed in Lorraine’s eyes. “Why? So you can continue to berate me?”
“You think my questions are berating you? My father did something I don’t understand, and I’m not allowed to ask you about it?”
“You think you’re the only one with questions?” Lorraine shot back, giving him a pointed look. “Where were you, by the way? Your father was dying, and he had no one. It broke my heart to see him like that, knowing that he was alone in this world. And yet he was a father. He had a son—you. But you weren’t there for him when he needed you the most. In fact, you were so torn up over his death that you were out at a bar picking up strangers!”
Lorraine’s words hit him like a knife to the chest, cutting deeper than before. He moved away from her car door and sucked in air, the pain inside him squeezing his lungs. The reality that he’d come home to find his father at death’s door, and then for him to die so quickly, had left Hunter reeling from unexpected grief. It had suddenly become clear to him that their squabbles and disagreements didn’t matter when it came to the big picture. And the big picture was that they were all each other had left of their family, and they should have been there for each other.
What made that reality harder to deal with was the fact that Hunter kn
ew his father had wanted them to reconcile. Hunter was the one who had pushed him away. And he wasn’t sure he’d be able to forgive himself.
But he said to Lorraine, “You don’t understand.”
“No. I don’t understand,” she agreed. “If that had been my father, I would have been there. Come hell or high water, no matter what grievances we’d had in the past, I would not let him die alone.”
You think that’s what I wanted? were the words that popped into Hunter’s head. He hadn’t even known his father was sick. But saying that to Lorraine wouldn’t help the situation. His words would seem like a pathetic excuse.
“I’ll talk to the lawyer,” she said, pulling him from his thoughts. “Find out the steps that need to be taken to sign the property over to you. I’ll see if we can get an appointment on Friday to get this over and done with. Clear your schedule.”
Hunter’s eyes narrowed in confusion. And before he knew what was happening, she was behind the wheel of her car. She started it, then drove away without giving him a second look.
Chapter 8
Lorraine pressed her foot down on to the gas pedal, accelerating at extreme speed. Her heart pounded wildly as she drove away.
She glanced in the rearview mirror. Hunter was still standing in the road where she’d left him. Still looking in her direction. Even from here, she could see the crestfallen expression on his face.
Lorraine turned right onto Blossom Street, her tires squealing as she did. Finally, Hunter was gone.
Only then did she loosen her fingers on the steering wheel, but she couldn’t truly relax. If only the physical distance she was putting between her and Hunter could be permanent. But would she have to see him again in order to deal with the property Douglas had left her?
Of all the insane coincidences! Why did he have to be Douglas’s son? Her stomach had bottomed out when he’d turned and faced her. She’d left his bed, never planning to see him again, only to have to face him across the table at the lawyer’s office!
“This is what you get,” she told herself. “It’s your punishment for having a one-night stand.”
Sleeping with a stranger had been totally out of character for her, and now she had lived to regret it.
Lorraine slowed down considerably and drove the rest of the way home at the speed limit. No point in getting a ticket on top of everything else today.
Her townhouse complex looked the same as it had when she’d left. The beige stucco walls and orange clay roof hadn’t changed. The palm trees were still stunning. It didn’t seem possible that the rest of the world hadn’t changed considering Lorraine’s personal world had shattered.
Minutes later, she went into her end unit and collapsed onto her bed, where she stayed for over an hour. She forced in easy breaths, trying to get herself to relax, hoping she would fall asleep. But she couldn’t put the day’s events out of her mind.
After an hour of reliving the morning’s horror and getting no rest, Lorraine threw off the covers and sat up. Her stomach roiled, but she knew it wasn’t because she hadn’t eaten solid food yet. She was sick over the shock she’d received this morning.
A prickly sensation raced down Lorraine’s arms and back. She needed something to calm her nerves, but she wasn’t sure anything could make her feel better. The way Hunter had glared at her...
Lorraine trudged out of her bedroom and went to the kitchen, where she set the kettle to boil. Perhaps some lemon balm tea would do her some good right now. And she really ought to eat something.
Maybe some oatmeal with bananas and walnuts. She frowned. No, she wanted something more convenient. She wanted comfort food.
Her eyes went upward to where she kept her guilty pleasure. A bag of plain salted potato chips was unopened on top of the fridge. Lorraine quickly snatched it as though she were scooping up a hundred dollar bill. She tore open the bag, and the fragrant scent of the fried potatoes filled her nostrils. Lorraine inhaled a deep, satisfying breath.
Not bothering with tea, she went to the living room with the bag of chips and sank onto her sofa.
It was one thing for her to sleep with a man she’d never expected to see again. But then to not only see him, but learn that he was her deceased patient’s son? And then to suffer through his glares once the lawyer announced what his father had left her in his will?
Lorraine stuffed more chips into her mouth, but the salty flavor she loved didn’t make her feel any better. It had been bad enough seeing Hunter this morning. But what absolutely devastated her was the fact that he thought she had used his father. That she’d preyed on him.
Lorraine had done no such thing. She had simply been kind to a man who’d needed someone. She hadn’t spent time with him with the hopes of receiving anything. She’d done it only to put a smile on his face. And one of the reasons she’d had to take the leave from her job was because of him. She’d grown especially close to Douglas, almost as if he’d been her own father. Having lost her father to a heart attack when she’d been a child, Lorraine barely remembered him. For the first time in her life, she’d connected with Douglas the way she imagined she would have connected with her father. Though she hadn’t known Douglas long, and despite the fact that he was dying, he’d asked about her hopes and dreams, given her encouragement to pursue her passion. He’d even asked her what she thought would be the ideal location for her store. It had never occurred to Lorraine what he was up to. She’d simply enjoyed talking to someone who actually cared about what she wanted to do with her life. Her own husband certainly hadn’t.
Her relationship with Douglas had been mutually beneficial. Douglas had enjoyed her company, cherished their visits and had looked forward to seeing her each day. Lorraine had enjoyed spending time with him, and had especially loved their talks and his support of her dreams.
When Lorraine had been granted the leave of absence and told Douglas that she wouldn’t be around for a while, he’d been heartbroken. She’d seen it in his eyes. She had promised to come and visit him, and it was a promise she’d planned to keep after she had a little time to rest and de-stress.
But only a week after Lorraine had taken her leave, she’d gotten word that Douglas didn’t have much time left. He’d asked for her, and Tami, one of her colleagues, had called her. Told her to come quickly. Lorraine had gotten there just in time, and even as Douglas’s life was slipping away, he’d smiled at her. There’d been relief in his eyes. He’d taken her hand and hoarsely said, “Thank you.”
Lorraine put down the bag of potato chips and wiped tears from her eyes. For Hunter to even think that she’d done anything to take advantage of his father really hurt her. The truth was, she’d come to love the man. And she’d certainly been there for Douglas when no one else had.
More tears filled Lorraine’s eyes. It suddenly hit her—really hit her—that Douglas had left her the gift of her dreams. His hoarse whisper of thanks in his final moments held more meaning now. He’d left her this gift because he appreciated her. And dare she say, as a gesture of love.
But not the kind of love Hunter had implied.
A bitter taste filled Lorraine’s mouth, and she swallowed. Right now, she should be crying happy tears of gratitude and love. Despite her sadness, she should feel a sense of fondness remembering Douglas and realizing just how much he’d cherished their friendship. Instead, her insides were twisting painfully.
Lorraine went to the kitchen and prepared the cup of lemon balm tea. An image of Hunter, smiling at her in the bar, popped into her mind. The next instant, that flirty face morphed into an angry, suspicious one. She pressed her hands against the kitchen counter and tightly closed her eyes, trying to push thoughts of Hunter out of her mind. But she could never forget the fury simmering in his eyes hours earlier.
Despite being touched by Douglas’s gift, she would never be able to keep it knowing that Hunter
thought the worst of her. For that reason, she would willingly sign over the store to him.
She sipped her lemon balm tea, and it burned her tongue. “Damn it,” Lorraine cried out, fresh tears springing to her eyes. But she wasn’t really crying about the tea. Her body was jittery, her insides twisting and her temples pounding. All sorts of sensations and emotions were raging inside her. Happiness. Sadness. Love. Grief.
Horror.
She would have appreciated it if Hunter had spoken to her calmly and rationally about the situation. Instead, he’d jumped to horrible conclusions. She’d shared her body with him without reservation, and not only had the sex been explosive, they’d connected on a deeper level. How many times had she whispered how much she’d liked what he was doing, and begged him to touch her here, there...? They’d been instantly comfortable in the bedroom—shouldn’t he have given her the benefit of the doubt?
Their chemistry had been immediate and hot, their night together off the charts. They’d been playful in bed as well as passionate—something Lorraine hadn’t expected. In fact, their easy connection was one of the reasons she’d slipped out of his bed once he’d fallen asleep. She’d just ended a marriage. The last thing she wanted to do was jump into a new relationship.
And something about how well they’d gotten along had told Lorraine that she could easily see herself wanting to spend more time with a guy like Hunter. If he kept thrilling her in the bedroom the way he had, how long before she fell for him? So she’d left, happy to have a sizzling memory of their amazing night together.
But Hunter’s instant suspicion of her had rendered their night together meaningless.
Lorraine rubbed her temples. The throbbing in her head was turning into a dull ache. She needed to do something—anything—to keep her mind off this morning’s events.
The great thing about her townhouse complex in Ocean City was the pool and fitness center. Keeping active was always something Lorraine did when she wanted to de-stress. It was a picture-perfect day, with temperatures already in the high seventies. A perfect day for a swim.
