by Stacy Gail
“And still you think the worst of me. Maybe that’s what you would do—no, scratch that. It’s definitely something you would do, and you’d do it with an obscene amount of glee,” he added derisively. “But I’m a fair man. Just as I was responsible in protecting the names of the descendants of those who worked in Louisa’s brothel, you have my word that I’ll protect your name, as well.”
There was a beat of heavy silence. “Does this mean you won’t reveal the tangle our families made of the past?”
“I didn’t say that, Mayor. This is news. Old news, I’ll grant you, and interesting to no one but historians. But it’s still news and as the paper of record for Bitterthorn, the Herald has a duty to report the truth without bias and with as much accuracy as possible. However, if you’re uncomfortable with publicly acknowledging Miss Louisa is part of your family tree, I’d be guilty of said bias if I treated you differently than the other descendants associated with this story. If you’d like to get it all out in the open as everyone else has chosen to do, I’d be happy to interview—”
“No.” She held up her hands as if to ward off a swarm of demons. “The Weems family has worked long and hard to disassociate ourselves from...that. Let it be buried once and for all.”
“If that’s the way you want it.” For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he was cutting her so much slack. Probably because after a lifetime of seeing attacks that were never there, she just seemed so pitiful. “It looks like I’ve got one more late night ahead of me, putting together another special edition. But you have my word as editor-in-chief that the Bitterthorn Herald won’t mention the Weems name.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Man, I’m beat.” Taking a moment to yawn until his jaw cracked audibly, Chandler fell into the booth Parker had snagged by the window inside Mabel’s Diner. The dining room bustled with the early morning rush while the wait staff flew up and down the aisles with steaming pots of coffee and armloads of piping-hot short stacks and eggs-and-bacon specials. He didn’t seem to take note of any of it as he slid a folded newspaper across the table toward her. “This would have been one hell of a lot easier if I’d just examined Declan Junior’s tobacco tin more closely. Only one special edition of the Bitterthorn Herald would’ve been needed, rather than the second one we just put out.”
“You’re a good man for setting the record straight.” She nudged her coffee cup in front of him and smiled when he took a fortifying gulp. “You know how much I adore history—it’s the reason I do what I do. Watching you go that extra mile to make sure this town doesn’t forget where it comes from is enough to make a girl like me nerdgasm for weeks on end. I may never be the same.”
He lifted a brow, the fatigue shrouding his eyes replaced by the glitter of raw masculine hunger. “That sounds intriguing. Just what does a nerdgasm feel like?”
“It’s difficult to put into words.” Lightly trailing the tips of her fingers along his forearms, she smiled and eased a foot out of her sneaker to trail her sock-covered toes along his calf. “Just imagine me lying in bed—eyes closed, a smile on my face. Can you picture that?”
“Definitely.” A corner of his mouth curled when she stretched her leg upward, until her heel topped the seat between his legs. “Keep going.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re such a wicked tease.” His laugh was no louder than a whisper for her ears alone, and the sensuality in it made her bite her lip. “Right here, right now, I want you to keep going.”
Excitement fluttered in her chest. Keep going, indeed. “Normally, nerdgasms start with shortened breath and tingling skin.” Her foot wormed its way between his legs, and she moved it in such a way that caressed his inner thighs. “Any amount of stimulation can set it off. Though of course, the more stimulation, the stronger and more memorable the nerdgasm will be.”
“I’m all for more stimulation.” His eyes slid closed on a sigh, and he shifted forward in his seat until her foot rested against his crotch. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching before she pressed the ball of her foot into the hardening bulge. His low moan of approval made her pulse skip a beat. “If the world had stimulation like this, it’d be one hell of a happy place.”
“I take it you appreciate how extraordinary nerdgasms can be, then.” She curled her toes against him, trying to wiggle her way into the denim flap covering the zipper of his jeans. A sound escaped him, a grunt of pleasure so delicious it made the cleft between her legs ache with damp heat. “I’m glad. I’ve had some magnificent ones myself. That’s why I love being a nerd.”
One of his hands came down to his lap, pressing her foot against him as his breathing shallowed out. “Baby, I love that you’re a nerd.”
“Good.” She pressed again, using a deliberate rhythm against his length she could now distinctly feel beneath the tight veil of denim. Her stomach muscles clenched in sweet sensuality when he swallowed hard against what she instinctively knew was a groan. “Because I’m not going to change. I have a very healthy appetite for nerdgasms.”
“Appetite.” He echoed the word slowly, as if he could barely comprehend its meaning. Then, as if he were fighting against himself, he removed her foot from his lap. “You have no idea how hungry I am to be inside you right now.”
“I think I have some idea.” To her surprise she was almost panting with an arousal that had built up without her noticing it. She’d been so intent on watching his that she’d barely made note that her intimate flesh pulsed, yearning to be filled by him. “In fact, I think I’ve done us both in.”
“You’re going to pay for this.” It was a promise that made her shiver in feverish anticipation, her mind scattering at all the erotic possibilities. “Never in my life have I been tempted to throw a woman on a table and screw her in front of everyone like I want to do right now. I don’t even give a crap that half the town’s here enjoying their breakfast.” He grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth, where his teeth bit at the base of her thumb. Her heart tripped over itself at the poorly contained passion burning in the rough caress. “I’m so hot right now I don’t even care if the whole world sees me buried inside you, with your feet over my shoulders and you screaming my name.”
She could picture it so clearly she could feel his thrusts. “You’re trying to kill me.”
“Turnabout’s fair play.”
“You’re the one who asked the question. All I did was answer it.” Frantic to stop herself from making things worse, Parker picked up the paper with her free hand and pretended an interest in it while she struggled to get a hold of herself. “So. Your latest special edition.”
“Yeah.” He blew out a breath, sounding like a bull about to charge. “Good subject. Nothing sexy about it. Go with that.”
She’d try her best. “I wonder how the mayor’s taking the news regarding her ancestor’s actions. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from her shortly, no doubt with a fleet of lawyers in tow.”
“No, I won’t, because nothing about the original Weems was mentioned.”
“What?” His voice had dropped so low she barely heard him, and once she’d processed their meaning, she was sure she’d misinterpreted him. “Chandler, you...wait. What?”
“This is ancient history, Parker. It has no bearing on the people who are alive now in the twenty-first century—unless it causes them pain. That was the reason why I chose not to print the surnames of the women who worked for Miss Louisa in the first special edition. I believed that publicly airing those names without permission would serve no purpose other than to potentially offer up some residual embarrassment for the descendants. The Bitterthorn Herald isn’t in the business of deliberately alienating the citizens of this town.”
“No, but it is in the business of being the paper of this town’s public record.” With her passion rapidly cooling, she shook her head. “Whenever I hit a new
job, one of the tools I rely on for accuracy is the local newspaper. Something you should know well enough.”
The beginnings of a frown darkened his brow. “Sure, to re-create the physical appearance and approximate dimensions of a building. That type of information doesn’t cause any damage to the people living in the here and now. The same can’t be said in this particular case. Revealing a name that’s connected to someone in present-day Bitterthorn against their wishes serves no purpose.”
“History isn’t brimming over with an abundance of happy frolics through daisy fields and people singing in perfect harmony. More often than not, history is an ugly tangle of balled-up chaos, with a few wild-eyed loose cannons doing things that make normal people cringe. There are even some cases like this, where it’s uncomfortable and inconvenient for everyone involved. But it is what it is, and now that you know what happened you have no choice but to accept it as your new reality.”
“Inconvenient doesn’t even begin to cover it,” came the muttered reply, before he paused to give a passing waitress their breakfast orders. “Wouldn’t you know that of all the times this particular secret could have been discovered, I’m the one who’s in charge of the Bitterthorn Herald,” he went on once they were alone again. “The timing of this sucks.”
“That brings up another point. What if someone else were in charge of reporting the news of this town? What if Doris was the one in charge? Would she choose to censor the facts just to make things more comfortable for a certain party?”
“Considering that the certain party we’re talking about is Doris’s least favorite person in town, I’d have to say no. I, however, can take an emotionally detached view. Miss Louisa was already noted, which makes her an established part of the background of Bitterthorn’s beginning, but not necessarily pivotal. Considering the delicate position of Louisa’s current descendant, there’s no reason to reveal the full identity of that long-dead madam, especially since I’ve already offered the same courtesy to the other people involved in that brothel.”
“If this were a matter of ordinary people, being vague with the truth might not be a big deal,” Parker said after a moment while her insides squirmed at his decision. Yes, real people were involved, but this was the historical record they were talking about. There wasn’t a lot she held sacred in this world, but respecting the past was right up there with breathing.
His cognac-colored eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, your lineage isn’t populated with average, everyday people, Chandler. Someone from the royal side of your family tree will one day get wind of this story. When they do—and it might be sooner than you think—they’re going to come nosing around to see if it’s legit. What are you going to do then, hide the truth just because some self-serving politician is too squeamish to let some loony ancestor out of the closet?”
“I’m hiding nothing.” His voice was sharper than she’d ever heard it, and it made her straighten in her seat. “First, last and always, I take pride in reporting the facts. I made sure that every pertinent detail of this story was reported, with one name redacted—a fact that I also shared with the public—at the request of Miss Louisa’s descendant. That doesn’t invalidate the article, nor does it undermine the integrity of the Herald as Bitterthorn’s paper of record. I’m confident the reporting was both accurate in documenting what happened historically, and responsible in protecting those who are currently affected by this story.”
“I understand, but—”
“I don’t know why you care so much about this, Parker. This isn’t your town. This isn’t your mayor or your history, and a week or two from now you’re going to be gone. So what does it matter to you, unless you think I’m not ambitious enough by not making this into a sensational story?”
“Whoa.” She recoiled, stung by the harshness of his tone and the reality of his words. If she’d had any doubt about where she stood in his mind, he’d just put them to rest. “Don’t confuse me with that idiot you were once engaged to. Don’t you dare.”
“I’m not—”
“And it matters to me, because you matter to me. You’re a journalist with integrity, which is why I know you care about doing the right thing.”
“As far as I’m concerned, I’ve done the right thing. This discussion is closed.”
* * *
With such a craptastic beginning, Parker should have known the rest of the day would suck like a black hole on steroids. Nothing went right, from her continued wrestling match with suppliers and their incorrect lumber shipment, to a crane’s hydraulic system that gave up the ghost while lowering the salvaged Italian marble main fireplace into position. Her black mood didn’t help. No matter how hard she tried to kick her restlessness to the curb, she couldn’t kill it. Damn it, she loved history. Loved. As her family bounced from place to place, history was the one thing she’d come to admire to the point of reverence—probably because she’d never had a personal sense of history herself. It was her touchstone, the one element she looked to in order to understand her work. History reminded her that no single event happened in a vacuum, and the roots of a shared background built up a heritage one generation at a time, just the way a building was created one story at a time. Something like that could hold entire civilizations together.
In the grand scheme of things, the omission of a single surname wasn’t a big deal. And it wasn’t that she wasn’t sympathetic to Patricia Weems. That woman’s family history was one wolf-child away from a freak show. Not to mention the mayor’s unfortunate personality only made it worse. She was so uptight it was doubtful she acknowledged her own parents had sex to create her. Admitting to Miss Louisa skulking in the shadows was no doubt enough to make her break out in hives.
But that was how history worked. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t made-to-order. Whatever happened in the far-distant past didn’t carry a taint in the present. If anything, it only underscored that human beings can achieve tremendous heights, even from the most humble of beginnings.
But that wasn’t what had her pacing the confines of her small trailer office. The source of her agitation was Chandler. She felt like he’d stabbed her when he confirmed he saw their time together as temporary. Obviously he was already thinking about when she’d be long gone from his town. His town. Not hers.
He’d never indicated he wanted their relationship to be anything but temporary, she reminded herself brutally, fending off a wave of despair that birthed a knot of bitter emotion in her throat. Neither had she. That only made sense, after all. This was supposed to be a finite deal, hooking up while she was in town. Since she was the idiot who allowed it to get complicated with emotions she’d never felt before, she had no right to resent him for not joining her in her idiocy.
Damn it, she had no one to blame but herself.
But she hadn’t had any choice in falling for Chandler, came the wailing response from deep inside, and the weight of near-grief threading through it pulled her into a darkness she didn’t want to know. From the moment she’d laid eyes on him, she’d felt an all-consuming attraction. She’d been so happy to discover that it was mutual, she’d let her guard down and gave herself over to it completely. A boneheaded move if there ever was one, she realized now. The moment she forgot to protect herself, her stupid heart spilled into the combustible chemistry there was between them, and boom—instant train wreck.
God, if she weren’t so miserable she would have laughed at what a soap opera she’d become.
The ringing of her cell phone made her jump before she recognized Sharon’s ringtone. Chandler had called a couple times throughout the day, but both times she’d ignored it. She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. “Hiya, Sharon. What’s up?”
“You are going to give me such a bonus for coming through in a pinch,” came the excited response. “You gave me the near-impossible task of finding Thorne Mansion’s bluepri
nts in Carl Junker’s archives, correct?”
“I wouldn’t say near-impossible, but go on.”
“Trust me, I’ve been all over the globe via phone calls, and near-impossible is a perfect description for what I’ve been through.”
Her heart sank. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Let’s just say that Sisyphus had better luck rolling his boulder up a hill than I did...at first.”
Apparently her heart had decided to become a yo-yo, as it zipped back up in place. “You know you’re killing me, right?”
“Dealing with Austrian people who had no clue what I’m trying to say in English was what nearly killed me. Or at least gave me a headache worthy of an aspirin commercial. Not to mention I had a dream last night where everyone sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
“I knew that’d be a toughie when I gave you the job,” Parker said, making a sound of sympathy. “What about HAER in the Library of Congress?”
“Who’s telling this story?”
“Oops. Sorry.”
“Unfortunately for my head, the Library of Congress was the last place I looked.” Sharon sounded like she’d had her parade rained on and her lollipop taken away, and all she wanted now was a nap. “I thought it made sense to go straight to the builder’s country of origin, but they had nothing on Junker’s American projects. HAER, however, did. Long story short, I have a copy of the original blueprints of Thorne Mansion, and from what I can tell, your plans and Junker’s plans are almost identical. Looks like you’ve pulled off another miracle, boss.”
“Hot damn, something’s finally going my way today.” Parker let out a whoop and indulged in a mini chair dance. “Any problem getting your hands on the plans?”
“Nope, it was a snap. Floor plans, building materials suppliers, the whole shebang. I’m about to send it to you, so hopefully you won’t have to do any adjustments on the project and you can leave it in the hands of the building contractor. And that means your job is now officially complete, and you’re free to head for France. See? I told you you’d want to give me a huge bonus. Considering the amount of money the marquis is willing to pay for your services, you’ll more than be able to afford it.”
