by Lori Foster
“I haven’t forgotten that you refused to even listen to my suggestions about your fighting style.”
Simon’s anger prickled and sharpened beyond all measure. No woman had ever affected him this way. No woman had ever been outrageous enough to talk to him like this.
Insane, he thought, but disappointment drove him as much as anything else did. Despite her being a royal pain in the ass, he’d wanted her.
Bad.
And now he knew he wouldn’t have her.
He felt the loss like a solid punch to the liver. “You want to know something, Dakota? I put up with you so far because, for whatever odd reason, I thought you were a little sexy.”
“Sexy?”
It seemed she found that idea as ludicrous as he did. “I figured I’d play along with your whacky nonsense, get laid, and then bid you farewell. But now I have to wonder.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Wonder about what?”
Simon leaned close and put his hand on her thigh.
She stiffened straight as a flagpole.
Voice low and mean, Simon said, “If I go between your legs right now, am I going to find warm woman, or a set of brass balls?”
Taking a sudden sharp turn, Dakota slammed on her brakes, throwing Simon to the side of the truck. She snarled, “Get out.”
Simon already had his seat belt opened and was reaching for the door. “Gladly.”
Her hands had a death grip on the steering wheel. From her neck to her knees, she looked rigid enough to crack.
She didn’t look at him.
She didn’t blink.
Simon had the awful suspicion that she wasn’t just pissed, she was hurt.
And damn it, he regretted that.
He stepped out of the truck and started to say something—he didn’t know what—but she sped away, tires squealing, rain puddle splashing to drench his legs. The door swung shut on its own.
Standing there in the pouring rain, Simon watched her truck disappear from sight. Well, shit. None of that had gone at all as he’d hoped. He hadn’t even gotten a small taste of her, much less the full-blown release he’d hoped for.
Rain soaked him to the skin. His brain churned. His guts burned. Never in his life had he found himself in such a position. He always knew just what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Hadn’t he walked out on Bonnie without a single regret?
But now…it felt like he had many loose ends, most of them surrounding an uncontrollable need to have Dakota Dream in his bed.
With nothing else to do, Simon started walking toward the gym, which was still a block away. He paid no attention to the rain.
His real father’s name was Barnaby.
What could the man possibly want after all this time?
STRETCHED out on her hotel bed, a gigantic bowl of popcorn balanced on her abdomen, an ice-cold Coke leaving another ring on the already ruined nightstand, Dakota wallowed in her defeat. Light from the television flickered around the darkened room, but she had no idea what was playing. She’d yet to taste either the popcorn or the cola.
Damn, damn, damn.
It had been three days since she’d forced Simon from her truck and into the rain. Three days of rethinking and wishing and…regrets. She hated regrets. God knew she’d lived with enough of them plaguing her for most of her life.
Why did she let Simon get to her? And with his refusal so final, why was she still sitting in a hotel room in Harmony, Kentucky? By now, she should have packed up her meager belongings and moved on to something less annoying. Singing jobs awaited her. Work would help distract her. She had a life elsewhere. Sort of. If you could call her day-to-day existence “life.”
She liked Simon, she realized. She respected him. Worse, she was very attracted to him when no man had drawn her in years.
But he’d thought her no more than a quick lay.
Bastard.
Closing her eyes, Dakota imagined how she could have done things differently. But she’d been over that scenario a hundred times. She’d chewed it every way imaginable, and always come to the same conclusion: Simon deserved better than Barnaby.
So maybe she hadn’t really put her heart into convincing him. Maybe she’d even done the right thing by not getting his agreement, and now she should let him—
Her cell phone buzzed, vibrating over the nightstand until it bumped into the Coke. Great. A diversion.
Not bothering to check the number, she snatched it up, hoping to hear the voice of a friend, or even a salesman. “Yeah?”
“How are things progressing, Dakota?”
Barnaby. A familiar lead weight settled around her. Slowly, she set the popcorn aside and sat up. “They aren’t. Progressing, that is.”
“Explain that please.”
Oh, she’d explain all right. “Funny thing, Barnaby, but Simon wants nothing to do with you.”
Two heartbeats of silence passed before Barnaby gave an audible sigh. “You need to convince him, honey.”
“I’m no one’s honey.” The words were harsher than she’d intended, but not since her ill-fated marriage and demolishing divorce had she willingly been “honey” to anyone.
“Convince him, Dakota.”
“Impossible.” She took a measure of glee in telling Barnaby the truth. “Things were going fine, he seemed nice enough, then I mentioned you and he became a real dick. Seems he doesn’t like you much. Odd, since he hasn’t even met you, huh? Then again, maybe his mother told him all about—”
“I doubt his mother ever mentioned me, one way or the other. But if she did, she would have kept it brief.”
“Really?” That sounded odd. “How come?”
“Shall we discuss mothers, honey? There are plenty of things I haven’t told you yet.”
God, Dakota hated herself for asking, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Like the fact that your mother wrote some letters before her death.”
Her heartbeat thundered as an invisible fist clenched around her throat, making speech difficult. “Letters? To who?”
“Some to me.”
“Why would she write you letters when you were always with her?”
Rather than answer that, he said, “And some to God.”
Dakota frowned. Had her mother written them out of suffering? Out of grief? Breathing seemed impossible. “I want to see them.”
“I destroyed them,” he said. And then, calculating, “But a few were to you. And I still have them.”
Her body and mind went blank. “No.”
“Yes. You see, it seems Joan was struggling with a lot of decisions, especially those decisions that concerned you.”
Tears rushed to Dakota’s eyes, but her voice sounded steady enough when she asked, “You read them?”
“Of course. As her husband, I had every right to know her secrets, and her state of mind.”
Dakota’s eyes closed, forcing the tears to trickle down her cheeks. She dashed them away. Barnaby took great pleasure in tormenting her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how he succeeded. “You’re just dying to tell me what they said, so go ahead.”
“You couldn’t be more wrong. I have no intention of telling you anything.”
Her eyes snapped open again. If Barnaby didn’t want to tell her the contents of the letters, that could only mean one thing—they hadn’t all been hateful. If they were, he’d have already told her. He’d have relished telling her.
Unless he’d just found them.
Dakota calmed herself, thinking through her next few questions. “Funny that you’ve never mentioned any letters before. Why is that?”
“I saw no point in mentioning them…until now.”
“Or maybe you just decided to make this up, and that’s why you haven’t mentioned them.”
“It matters little to me what you believe, Dakota.”
Damn it. “How long have you supposedly known about them?”
“I found them right after Joan’s deat
h. The silly woman had them hidden.”
Now Dakota knew he lied, and told him so. “Get real, Barnaby. Mom was in a coma. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. How would she have hidden anything?”
“Obviously, she wrote them before she got so badly hurt.”
But why? Why would her mother do such a thing? “I don’t believe you. You’re making it up.”
“She hid them in the oddest place,” he said, ignoring her accusation. “All the photos of you had been stored in a drawer, if you’ll recall. Joan didn’t want daily reminders of the daughter who had disappointed her so badly. But after her death, I gathered the photos to send to you.” He paused for effect. “That’s when I found the letters hidden behind one of your framed photographs. It was a high school picture, I believe.”
Disbelief, excitement, and hope brought Dakota to her feet. A memory danced through her mind—her mother hugging her, her mother smiling.
Her mother trying to protect her from things Dakota had never even imagined.
She again heard her mother’s words as they sat together on the sofa. “Dakota, listen to me. There are too many times when you’re home alone while I’m at work. We never know what might happen, so I’ve put some emergency money behind your photo.” Her mother showed her five one-hundred-dollar bills neatly stashed within the frame, behind the photo.
She’d been so young and innocent then, she’d laughed at her mother. “What would I need with that much money?”
Another smile, this one tinged with sadness. “I don’t ever want you to feel helpless. We don’t have any family to turn to, and sometimes things happen. If I was in a wreck, or I got hurt some other way—”
“Mom, don’t talk like that.” Dakota could still feel the security of her mother’s arms when she’d hugged her close. “You should take that money and buy those new shoes you liked. Or get us a new TV or—”
“Shhh. Dakota, listen to me. Things happen. I know, because I wasn’t ready for your father to die so young. We hadn’t planned at all, and…I want you to be better prepared. Five hundred isn’t much, but it’ll help you for a few days if…if you ever need it.” Her mother stroked her hair, kissed her forehead, then held her away so she could smile at her again. “It’s not for pizza or a new CD, but you and I are the only ones to know about it. Do you understand, Dakota?”
That was so long ago, before things had deteriorated with her mother—before Barnaby. Far as Dakota knew, the emergency money had remained there…and now Barnaby claimed her mother had also stashed letters in the same place.
“You never sent me any letters, Barnaby.”
“No.”
“But if they were meant for me—”
He laughed. “I decided I’d hold on to them. I thought they might come in handy someday, and I was right.”
Loathing him more by the moment, Dakota asked, “Handy in what way?”
“If you want to read the letters, bring my son to me.” His voice gentled. “I’ll gladly hand them over to you then.”
Of course. Barnaby hoped to use the letters—if in fact they existed—as a bargaining tool. “You weren’t listening, were you? Simon said no. He wants nothing to do with you.”
In a softer tone, Barnaby crooned, “You’re a woman, Dakota. You have the means to convince him.”
He had to be kidding. “You’re disgusting.”
“You have ten days—and then I’m burning one of the letters.”
And he would, too. Panic clawed at Dakota, but reasoning with him would never work. “You’re—”
“Smart? Calculating? Devious? I know. You only have three letters, honey, so stop wasting my time. Bring Simon to me. Soon.”
He hung up on her, and Dakota had to struggle to keep from throwing the cell phone across the room.
So many thoughts zigzagged through her mind. Why would her mother have written letters? Was there any chance at all that she’d forgiven Dakota? Had she softened toward her only child? Had she…still loved her after all?
She had to know.
New conviction chased away Dakota’s doubts and worries. Damn it, one way or another she would get Simon to Barnaby. She had to.
Those letters could be her salvation.
GOING back wasn’t easy, but Dakota hid her apprehension with a wide smile and a lot of inane chatter toward any fighter who got close enough to hear her.
She hadn’t seen Simon yet, but she knew by the uneasy way the others watched her that he had to be around somewhere. Sooner or later, he’d show himself, and then he’d notice her.
With any luck at all, he’d give her a chance to convince him to see Barnaby.
After two hours, Dakota was about to give up when Simon came onto the floor, freshly showered, in conversation with Dean and Gregor. Despite the cold weather, he wore a T-shirt with his jeans. Beneath the concealing material, fluid muscles drew her attention. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look unhappy, just deeply involved in their topic.
When Dean pointed toward a fighter making use of the ring, Simon looked up—and spotted her. He stopped dead in his tracks. Even across the distance separating them, Dakota felt the burn of his scrutiny. She wanted to look away from him, but couldn’t manage it.
Frowning toward her, Dean said something to Simon, they briefly debated, and Dean threw up his hands. He and Gregor headed in a different direction.
Simon approached her alone. When he reached her, he just stood there, looking her over, his expression inscrutable.
“Hi.” Dakota felt like an idiot, but she couldn’t take the silence any longer. “How’ve you been?”
“I thought we’d seen the last of you.”
“Afraid not.” Her smile hurt. Except for a cut on his cheekbone, Simon looked outright gorgeous. “I see you got caught. Did Dean do that, or Gregor?”
“Neither.”
So he was going to be difficult. She’d deal with it. “A wild bull, then? A bus? What? Come on, Simon, give me details.”
He looked her over again, and she knew now that it was with disapproval. He’d made it clear that she didn’t appeal to him, that he considered her too pushy and too mannish. But so what? Approval from him wasn’t what she needed the most.
While looking at the front of her shirt, he said, “Actually, it was Mallet.”
“Ouch.” She winced, feeling a moment of pity for the young fighter. “Is he dead, then?”
A small smile touched Simon’s mouth, but only for an instant. “No. I took it easy on him. I got the cut from his elbow.”
“Instructing him, then, and not fighting.”
“What makes you think so?”
She shrugged. “That’s easy enough. No way Mallet would be able to hurt you like that unless you let him.”
“Your faith is humbling,” he said with dry sarcasm. “Dean asked me to give him some pointers, but Mallet jumped the gun a little on a move I showed him. He’s young and impetuous, and at times too eager. I wouldn’t kill him over that, you’re right. But he’s catching hell from everyone else.”
Pleased that he’d strung together so many pleasant words, Dakota nodded. “No one wants to spar with a dirty fighter.”
“Something like that.”
She grinned. “At least now you know he has good elbows, right?”
“There is that.” Distracted, Simon nodded at her chest and read aloud, “‘Barbers have all the right tools.’” His gaze clashed with hers. “You sure this guy isn’t more than a friend?”
“Like you’d care.” Those words had no sooner left her mouth than she wanted to take them back. Her eyes widened and she bit her bottom lip. “Forget I said that.”
Simon didn’t change expression, he just waited.
Sighing, Dakota rubbed at her forehead. She didn’t understand him at all. “It really isn’t any of your business, but since you asked—again—he’s just a friend.”
“All right.” Simon crossed his arms over his chest. “Why are you still here?”
Hoping he wouldn’t send her packing again, Dakota measured her words. “Maybe we could talk about that over lunch?”
“I have other plans.”
Yeah, right. “Tomorrow, then?”
“No.” Resolute, he kept her gaze snared in his. “Not today and not tomorrow.”
Somehow, without her realizing it, he’d moved closer. Suddenly Dakota could smell the mingling scents of fresh soap and heated male.
She looked at his sternum. “But—”
“You’re wasting your time.”
If she believed that, her despair would be great. She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Suit yourself. But the answer will stay no.”
Before Simon could walk away, Dakota caught his arm above his elbow. At the feel of his rock-solid biceps and taut skin, a secret thrill coursed through her.
She licked lips that went dry and pleaded with him. “Could you at least tell me why?” And then maybe she could talk him around his reasons.
He looked first at her hand, then at her mouth. “I have a father, Dakota. I don’t need Barnaby…whatever his last name is.”
“I thought I told you. It’s Jailer.”
“Perfect.” He gave a short laugh lacking humor. “Barnaby Jailer. Now I’m doubly glad he decided to cut me out of his life, because Dad filled in and he’s the best. I wouldn’t insult him by associating with Barnaby, and even if he wouldn’t be insulted, I don’t have room in my life for another paternal figure.”
“Maybe—”
“No. Do us both a favor—go back to Barnaby, tell him thanks but no thanks, and move on to something more lucrative.” He pinched her chin. “Maybe you can sing a song somewhere or something.”
Dakota jerked her head away. “You don’t have to be so hateful.”
“And you didn’t have to be so conniving about what you wanted.”
She gasped at that accusation. “Conniving?”
“Damn right.” Simon towered over her, and she cringed back. He frowned over her reaction, and allowed her the small distance without comment. “You led me to believe you were here out of personal interest.”
“No.” Annoyed that she’d let her fear take hold for even a heartbeat, Dakota squared off with him. “That was your colossal ego that led you to that assumption. As I recall, you didn’t even give me a chance to tell you what I wanted.”
