Guilty as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 1)

by Rosalind James

  “They’re bad for you,” Jace said. “You’ve convinced me.”

  “I don’t have to have bees anymore,” Lily said. “I’ll give them away. If any are left after their hive got smashed.”

  “You’re not s-s-sad?” Paige asked. “I’ll bet you loved your bees. And the chickens are out again, too. There are coyotes.”

  “I told you,” Lily said. “I only cry for mammals.” Her eyes were filled with tears, and Paige wanted to tell her not to cry, but she couldn’t manage it. Lily told Jace, “Give me your keys. I need to take Tobias to the vet.”

  “Oh,” Jace said. “Right. I needed to make sure Paige was OK first.”

  Paige said, “What? You didn’t take him yet? Jace. You have to.” Lily had ridden with her in the ambulance, even though an ambulance had been over the top, and she’d tried to say so. Jace had driven in, but he hadn’t taken care of Tobias?

  “Never mind,” Lily said. All her serenity was somehow back again, even though she’d run for her life tonight, had hidden in a closet from a murderous stalker and slashed her with a razor. “I’m doing it. I can leave Jace with you. Besides, I think Tobias may have saved my life tonight. I thought he was doing that at my house, but I guess not. It turns out he needed to do it at Jace’s house. He gave me the chance to get away and hide. I also think we all saved Jace’s life, because that woman is crazy. But never mind. We got her.” She told Paige, “I never got it before, why you’d want to be a cop. But we got her, and Jace is safe, and you’re safe. And now Tobias needs to go to the vet.” She held out her hand to Jace. “Keys.”

  Jace handed them over and said, “Thanks,” and Lily gave Paige a kiss on the forehead, smoothed her hair back from her face, and said, “Rest, sweetie.”

  Paige told Jace again, when Lily had left, “You should have taken him.” The shaking had eased some, and now, what she mostly felt was tired.

  “No,” he said. “I had to check on you first. Tobias’s leg is injured. You almost had your throat cut. Lily is taking him.”

  “I don’t want Lily to have to… go home alone. Later.” Her eyes were trying to close. “She’s not acting scared now, but she’ll be so scared later, when she thinks about it, when she lies in bed. She’s not used to this. When she came out of the closet… when I think of her hiding in the closet, being so afraid…” She was trying not to cry. It was hard.

  “How would it be,” Jace said, “if I got her a room at the Sinful Inn, so she’d have you close, and you’d have her?”

  “Since the Super 8 is… booked up.”

  This time, he was the one kissing her forehead. “Yeah.”

  “I look ugly,” she said.

  He laughed out loud. “Yeah, baby. You do. No worries. You’ll be beautiful again tomorrow.”

  “You’re a very nice man. You know that?”

  “No,” he said. “Just a man who loves you.”

  She gripped the hand that was holding hers more tightly, swallowed against the fear, and said it. “Last night. Tonight. When we were making love. I thought… I thought…”

  “Yeah?” When she didn’t go on, he said, “You can tell me. Only the two of us here. Your secret’s safe, hey.”

  “That I need you.” She opened her eyes. He was sitting on the edge of her bed, her hand in his, and his eyes had never looked bluer. “That I love you. That I’m going to miss you too much. And it hurts.”

  She made it to Lily’s boards-off unveiling the next day. She had to, after all the three of them had gone through to make it happen. When she walked past the sidewalk sign announcing “Announcement @ 2:00 Today!” and into the store with Jace at her side, her floaty, pale-blue dress coordinated once more with Lily’s, her hair and makeup perfect, with a strip of white gauze wrapped all the way around her neck, her index finger in a splint, and a few extra bumps on her face—you could say she caused a sensation.

  Lily stepped onto a stool, then up onto the counter, and clapped her hands overhead. “May I have your attention, please,” she told the gathering from amongst the pink and white helium balloons that floated near the ceiling. “First, I’d like to introduce my sister Paige, who you could say has been taking my lumps for me over this past week. In case you can’t tell over the bee stings, she’s my identical twin.”

  Hailey had a hand on her ample chest and looked like she was about to keel over. Raeleigh Franklin, the owner of the Timberline Motel, had her mouth open, and the guy from the Gas & Go, whose name Paige still didn’t know, looked stunned for a change, instead of giving off a holy-hell-I’m-surrounded-by-girly-lingerie discomfort-vibe the way he had a minute earlier. Lily waited for the murmurs to die down, then said, “And secondly—I’m in the process of working out a deal with Brett Hunter. If you want to pressure somebody, pressure him to make the deal a good one, so I sign it.”

  Hunter was there, too, standing by the nightgowns talking to the older guy from the County Commissioners’ meeting. He smiled at Lily’s comment, held up a hand, and said, “Have some pity. Talk about a hard negotiator. I’m likely to lose my shirt here.”

  “Right,” Lily said. “That’s what you say when you’re trying to convince me that this is really your best offer. I’ve bought a car before. I know how this game works.”

  Hunter laughed. “Fair enough.”

  Lily said, “One more announcement, and I’m going to climb down off this thing and sell some lingerie. We’ll be having a big event for Memorial Day weekend, introducing the most beautiful new line you’ve ever seen. I hope you’ll come check it out. For the husbands and boyfriends in the room—trust me, you’ll be glad she did.” With that, she accepted Jace’s hand, stepped daintily down onto the chair and then the floor, gave Jace a smile and Paige a hug, and said, “Thanks for coming, sweetie. How are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” Paige said. “Close enough,” she amended at Lily’s narrow-eyed look. She turned to Hailey, who still looked shell-shocked, and said, “I’m sorry to have to fool you. I want you to know how much you helped me, even when you didn’t know it. You’re very good at your job.”

  “Well, I wondered,” Hailey said. “I did. But my goodness. Twins. I’d never have guessed, but I should have guessed. I knew none of that was like Lily.”

  “The bad hot dog?” Paige suggested. “My clumsiness with the stock?”

  Hailey laughed. “Go stand with your sister, hon. The newspaper wants to take pictures.”

  So that was all very satisfying. Telling her lieutenant that she’d injured her index finger hadn’t been so much fun, but you couldn’t have everything. He’d sighed and said, “Light duty. Right. There’s such a thing as accident-prone, you know. I guess we’ll have to get you back on the streets to keep you out of danger.”

  It had all been fine, in fact, except that she had a ticket to fly back to San Francisco, and it was for tomorrow morning. Last night, she’d finally asked Jace, “Will you come visit me?” and he’d said, “Yes.” Which made it easier. But not much.

  Jace dropped Paige at Lily’s at seven the next morning. He hauled her suitcase—Lily’s suitcase—out of the bed of the ute, heard Tobias’s welcoming bark from the comfy bed inside the house where he was meant to be resting his broken leg, and said, “Goodbye, then.”

  He’d offered to take her to the airport. She’d said, “Lily will do it. We need a little time,” and it had felt like a slap to the face.

  She climbed down. “You’re coming to visit me, though.”

  “Yeah. I am.” He tried to smile, because she looked so sad. “Today, though, I need to bite the bullet and shop. If Tobias and I are ever going to live at home again, I need a bed. Not to mention crockery. I foresee a long walk through a big store. And two trolleys.”

  “Flour, too,” she said. “And sugar for your tea.”

  “Yeah. Everything.” He put a hand on her face. “No worries, baby. She’ll be right.”

  “No. I’m fine.” He gave her a kiss, and she kissed him back, but there was too much finality i
n it. Like she couldn’t even pretend to believe.

  She reached for her suitcase, but he got it first, carried it up the stairs, and set it in front of Lily’s door. “Last time I get to carry something for you,” he said. “I should make it a good one.”

  She nodded, opened the door, and went inside without saying anything else, and he climbed back into the ute, breathed in, breathed out, then put it into gear and drove away.

  Two hours until her plane left. If he drove to Kalispell now, he’d be filling up that cart when she was boarding. It would be better to be busy.

  His phone rang while he was choosing a pillow. Two pillows, actually. He was trying to be optimistic.

  For one unguarded moment, his heart leaped, and then he saw the name.

  “Mate,” he said to Rafe. “How you goin’?”

  “All right,” his brother said. “Other than that last time I heard from you, you were being threatened, and you haven’t answered my last three calls, you wanker. I wasn’t sure if I should call you, call the morgue, or catch the next flight out.”

  “Could’ve been the morgue,” Jace said, “but it wasn’t. I’m all good. Some mad woman was after me, yeah, but she’s—well, dunno where she’ll end up. Mental hospital for a few days, anyway. Then we’ll see.”

  He heard the sigh. “Mate. When these things happen, we ring our brother.”

  “Didn’t ring you every time I went into combat,” Jace pointed out. “And I came back every time, you’ll notice. You don’t actually provide a protective shield outside of the movies, you know.”

  “That’s told me,” Rafe said. “So if you’re so all good, why am I hearing that?”

  “Hearing what?”

  “That’s what I’m asking myself.”

  “You know,” Jace said, “I’ve been seeing this twin. She and her sister have what anybody would call an eerie connection. But damned if you’re not nearly as bad.”

  “A twin,” Rafe said slowly. “Identical twin?”

  “Yeah. And not what you’re thinking, so get your mind back.”

  “Mate. I didn’t say anything. That was all you. Where are you? There’s an echo.”

  “Some big-box store. There’s an echo because it’s the bowels of Hell. Too many decisions.”

  “Moving in with somebody? Some twin?”

  “Just exactly not.”

  Rafe sighed. “This would be easier if you’d just tell me instead of my having to dig it out of you. Easier on me as well. I’ve been on location six bloody weeks. I’m tired.”

  “Right. There’s somebody I like a lot. She’s leaving in an hour or so. Flying back to San Francisco. I’m going to miss her. There you are. My inner life revealed.”

  “Flying back this morning, you’ll miss her, and you’re not taking her to the airport? Because you already broke up, as that’s more efficient?”

  “You think it’s me,” Jace said. “It’s not me.”

  “Suppose you tell me, then.”

  “I don’t want to tell you. It feels like shit.” There. He’d said it.

  “Then,” Rafe said, “maybe you should do something about it.”

  Paige tried to talk on the way to Kalispell, but she couldn’t manage it. She looked out the window instead, at foothills covered with evergreens, at the creek that ran briskly beside the highway, the water high now with the snowmelt, tumbling over granite boulders. A deer bounded away from the side of the road as they passed, and Lily slowed the car.

  “Where there’s one,” she said, “there’s more than one. They like to stick together. There she goes. Right across the road.”

  “Deer don’t like being alone?” Paige asked.

  “No. But then, who does?”

  “You. Me.”

  Lily hesitated a moment, then said, “I don’t think so. When you left after high school, I missed you so much. And you missed me. I miss you every day, if you want to know.”

  “That’s us, though. I mean, missing each other. That’s not missing other people.”

  “Oh,” Lily said. “Then maybe it’s just me. There’s nothing lonelier than being with the wrong person. But I think, maybe… there’s nothing more comforting than being with the right one.”

  “I thought you weren’t romantic.”

  Lily glanced at her, then turned her attention back to the road. “I’m not. I’m realistic. Just because I don’t have it, just because I won’t settle for ‘close enough’ anymore, let alone ‘nowhere close,’ just because I’ve more or less given up, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take it if I found it.”

  “So you think I should… what? Stay here? Lily. He’s never asked me. He wouldn’t ask me. That would be crazy. And anyway, I like my job. Being a country cop, a small-town cop? Not the same. I’m not a small-town girl. I never have been. It wouldn’t work.”

  “All right,” Lily said. “It’s just that it hurts my heart to see you hurting so much. I want to make it better for you, and I can’t.”

  “Don’t worry,” Paige said. “I’ll get over it.” Maybe. Right now, her face still burned and itched, and her broken finger throbbed. All that was nothing, though, to the ache in her heart.

  “But will Jace?” Lily asked quietly.

  “What? Jace? He’s… yes, of course he will. He’s tough.”

  “He’s in love.”

  Paige’s chest tightened so much, she’d swear it actually hurt. “He’s…” She tried to say something, and couldn’t.

  “I think,” Lily went on, “that a man like that doesn’t love often. I think that when he does, he loves deep. I think his love might be worth having. And I wonder if hurting him this much is worth it.”

  The control tower was visible now. In another two minutes, they’d be at the airport. “So what do you think I should do?” Paige asked. “And anyway—whose side are you on?” Lily had always stuck up for her, had always told her she was the best. Always. If she didn’t have Lily’s love, Lily’s approval, she truly was alone.

  “I’m on your side, sweetie.” Lily followed the signs to Departures and eased to the curb. “Always. I want you to be happy. But you know… sometimes happiness takes risk. Like moving to Montana all alone, when you’ve never been alone, and opening a store with the last credit you have. Or like being a cop.”

  “I do take risks. You just said it.”

  “You take them for me. You took them for your partner. You take them for strangers. You’ll put your life on the line. How about your heart?”

  Paige was trying not to choke up. It wasn’t working. “I don’t… I can’t…”

  Lily said, “Oh, sweetie,” reached across the seat, and gave her a hug. “I love you so much. You’re so special. You deserve everything. I wish you could believe it. I wish you could reach out and take it.”

  “OK.” It made no sense to say, but it was what Paige had. She got out of the car and pulled her suitcase out of the back. Black. Small. Holding about ten garments and a pair of running shoes. A Paige suitcase, not a Lily one. All she could be was who she was.

  Lily came around the car and hugged her again. “I love you. You know that. You want me to park and come in?”

  “No.” She needed to be alone. She needed to shut down for a while. She’d process when she could, but not now. Now, all she was feeling was panic. “Love you.”

  “Call me when you get there,” Lily said.

  “Yeah.” Paige was already moving. “I will.”

  Thirty minutes in the terminal. A cup of coffee, thinking about a muffin, and not buying it. Taking an apple out of her purse instead and eating that. Fitness. Discipline.

  She waited at the gate, standing because she was too impatient to sit, and scrolled through the messages and notifications on her phone. She and Lily had finally switched phones again this morning, but there was nothing on her phone that Paige cared about enough to captivate her. After that, she stood and stared into the distance, waiting for it to be time.

  Everything ended eventually, and t
his wait did, too. She was in a long, slow boarding line, and then she was shoving her suitcase into the overhead bin and taking her aisle seat. No eager businessman this time. A young kid, maybe seventeen, with curly hair, a prominent Adam’s apple, and a ball cap, who looked at her, swallowed nervously, and stared down at his phone again.

  Time to dye her hair back to brown, she guessed, now that her face wasn’t bruised and swollen. She’d kind of liked being blonde again, but it didn’t fit her life. Her real life. She didn’t want to look at her phone, but she did anyway, because there was nothing else to do.

  The voice came from above her. “I’ll give you… seventy-three dollars to switch seats with me.”

  She looked up fast. Jace. Standing over her with no suitcase, no laptop bag. Nothing but his wallet and a fistful of bills.

  The kid next to Paige said, “Really? Sure,” and tried to stand up.

  What could Paige do? She stood up and let him out. The flight attendant came down the aisle and said, “Take your seats, please.” Paige moved over one, next to a grandmotherly lady in the window seat, and let Jace sit down. Her head was whirling. Her heart was trying to do a dance, then trying to stop itself. She was in no way cool.

  Jace said, “Buckle your seatbelt,” and did it himself.

  She said, “What are you… what…”

  He said, “I had a thought.” The engines were revving, and the flight attendant’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Which will have to wait,” Jace said, “until we’re airborne.”

  He was so calm, and she was nothing like it. The wait was endless. Talking, talking. Life jackets and oxygen masks, when Paige was flailing in the water without any kind of support, and she couldn’t get her breath.

  Finally, the big engines were hurtling them forward, the ground dropped away, and the green and gray and white of the Rocky Mountains showed out the window. And Jace said, “Life’s too short not to have every minute count. Who said that? Oh, yeah. You.”