Black Swan Affair (3 page)

“Really? We’ve been trying to negotiate with them for decent prices for the last three months. They wouldn’t budge.”

“Well, turns out Larry’s boss’s sister, Patty O’Shea, is married to the owner’s girlfriend’s son, Burt Leeland. She didn’t take his last name, though, so we never connected the dots.”

I chuckle. That’s rural Iowa for you.

“Well then. Glad we got all that worked out. I’d love to buy more ingredients locally if we can. How are they?”

She stops filling the coffee filter with our flavor of the day, which smells like Snicker Roo, and stares at me. “I’ll tell you if you tell me how your honeymoon went. And no bullshit this time. Don’t think I didn’t know what the hell you were doing out there with your little diversion tactic.”

I let a curl turn a corner of my mouth. “I can just try it, you know. Answer my own question.”

“Mavs.” That’s all she needs to say. My name in that tone of hers.

I flip off the industrial KitchenAid and take a deep breath before I say, “It was…nice.”

“Nice?” Her voice positively drips with incredulity.

“Yeah. Nice.”

“Sex with the hottest guy on the planet was just…
nice
?”

I know why she’s acting like this. Kael Shepard is stunning. Tall. Lean but buff. Soulful eyes the color of well-aged Scotch, thick lashes, cut cheekbones. An ass you could bounce a quarter off of. Big hands and thick fingers, which I’m a total sucker for. But his devastatingly good looks don’t change the fact that he’s still my best friend and that my entire sexual appetite has been elsewhere. Namely his brother.

I shrug one shoulder. “It was strange, you know.” She blinks, so I elaborate. “I guess it’s what I imagined sex with my best friend would be like. It was pleasant, but I don’t know…”

…he’s not Killian
, I leave unsaid.

Her sigh says it all. She’s disappointed in me. Well, the fuckup club is accepting new members. One is an awfully lonely number. “So, pleasant and nice, huh?” she injects with sarcasm.

“I’m trying, ML,” I tell her quietly. “I’m just not sure how to fix this mess I’ve made.” My eyes sting. I blink the feeling away. If I let one tear go, a whole waterfall will gush. It might not stop.

“Maybe it doesn’t need
fixing
at all, Mavricky,” she replies just as softly. “Maybe it just needs nurturing.”

If only it were that easy.

I don’t respond and we both fall quiet, prepping for the day ahead. But I can’t seem to get her words out of my head.

It can’t be that easy…
can it
?

S
mall towns
. They’re incestuous, some say. Lives intertwined, pasts linked, destinies already determined.

In some regards “they” are right. Not the incestuous part, of course, but there is no such thing as anonymity, even if you want it. Everybody knows everybody. People are up in your business. They gossip. Judge. They formulate opinions of who they think you are simply because they sent flowers on the day of your birth and heard “rumors” of when you lost your virginity in Harbor Park (untrue, by the way).

You can’t drive a mile down the road without waving at a dozen people you know. You can’t make a quick run for milk or eggs without bumping into a distant cousin or someone from your graduating high school class you never even liked but who will talk your ear off for thirty minutes about shit you couldn’t care less about. Your Auntie Marge has a big-ass hemorrhoid? Nice. A visual I didn’t need, but thanks for sharing.

You learn secrets and shames about your friends, neighbors, and community you never wanted to know.

And
they
learn
yours
.

My first day back in a place that generally fills me with pleasure and accomplishment was anything but comfortable today. I felt like a bug being studied under a microscope. Spread apart. Pinned down. I was sure I was the topic of gossip on every single street corner and in Big Stan’s Diner two blocks over.

But the more I recited my lies, the easier it got. With each story I told about romantic moonlit dinners or the best rum cocktail I’ve ever tasted or even the spider bites I woke with one morning, the more I began to believe that I
had
had the honeymoon of my dreams. With the man I’d dreamed about having it with.

That is until Samantha Humphries strolled in.

Sam, or Hamhock as she’s known in certain circles due to the shape of her nose, has always had the hots for Kael. The feeling was not mutual, but that didn’t stop Hamhock from living pretty in her little delusional world.

I’ve known Hamhock, as well as most of my fifty-nine Catholic-school classmates, since before kindergarten. But we were the furthest thing from friends. Her envy of my family’s wealth has always been a sore subject. Grants, funded by people like my father, paid for her parochial education. Her family struggled to make ends meet while mine went on exotic vacations every summer. She shopped at the Pretty Nickel, a local thrift store; I had designer clothes (which I rarely wore, for the record). In fact, she was so poor that people in town renamed pennies “Humphries” and when they drove by her house, they’d throw the copper coins in her yard. I did it once. Couldn’t sleep that night, I felt so bad.

But all of that paled in comparison to what I had that she truly wanted.

The affection and attention of Kael Shepard.

Sam’s never gotten over her feelings for Kael, and the fact that I’m now married to him probably burns her like I imagine it burns me that Killian’s married to my sister. Except in my case, Killian really does love me. So when she saw the blinding jewelry adorning my left hand, it didn’t just bring out claws, it brought out the rabid. The second her eyes fell to my hand, they hardened and I knew shit was about to get ugly.

“I’d heard you’d gone through with it, but then I told my mom it must be one of those small-town rumors. There’s no way the Maverick DeSoto I know would marry a good, honest man like Kael Shepard when she’s still in love with her sister’s husband. But I guess you did.”

I hear a gasp behind me at the same time the chatter in the bakery dies. Instantly, like a needle being pulled from a record.

“Get the fuck out,” MaryLou growls angrily. After not so gently ushering Hamhock to the door, MaryLou yells after her, “And swines aren’t welcome unless you want to be on the menu.”

When she mumbles, “Pig-nosed fat ass,” under her breath, a snicker of laughter runs through the small bistro.

“She’s just a jealous cow,” Elda Hansen, an eighty-year-old regular announces. Several others join in agreement. Elda smiles sympathetically when my eyes swing her way. I muster a weak smile back, trying to hold my head up while shame threatens to drag me down.

MaryLou then insisted she take over in the front while I remained in the back until we closed at 2:00 p.m. She has a better eye in the kitchen and I’m better with customers, but after that run-in, I was so shaken up there was no way I could muster up any more happy lies.

All I kept thinking for the next several hours was how right Elda was. Sam was jealous. But sadly, Sam was right, too. I married a good, honest man while I’m still in love with another. She just had enough balls to call me out on it. As much as I don’t like her, I have a whole different respect for her now. And at least I know what half the town actually thinks.

After we closed for the day, MaryLou pulled out her emergency stash of Jim Beam, practically forcing two shots of that swill down my throat. Jim, Jack, or Johnny may not solve the world’s problems, but they do a fine fucking job burying the ugly truth for a while.

Two hours and a bottle of wine later, we now sit at my kitchen table, and MaryLou says the harshest, most candid words she’s said to me yet. Her bluntness is both what I adore and loathe about her.

“You’re a married woman now, Mavs. You made the choice to be Kael Shepard’s wife.”

“I know.”

“He’s crazy about you. That man has been by your side your entire life, not Killian. Killian is a dickless, gutless prick.”

“Once again, I know this,” I say, my tone holding a slight bite.
Could she make me feel any worse about myself?

She stares at me for a few beats. “If you didn’t think you could fall in love with Kael, you shouldn’t have married him. If you don’t think you have that ability now, you should do the right thing and end this before you do any more damage.”

“Ouch.”
Apparently so
.

“Truth hurts like a bedsore, doesn’t it?”

I nod my agreement because my throat is too clogged with emotion. My teeth dig into my cheek so hard I’ll probably have a canker sore tomorrow.

She reaches across the table, gripping my hand in hers. It’s hard to see her through the water now glassing over my pupils.

“It’s not such a bad thing to fall in love with your husband, Maverick.”

“How do you do that when you’re in love with someone else?” I whisper, desperately wanting someone—anyone—to give me that answer. If I was handed the key to falling out of love with a man who’s nothing but destruction, I’d use it. In a heartbeat. Then I’d throw that fucker in the Keg River so I wouldn’t be tempted to undo it.

“Simple. You have to let him go first.”

“It’s not that simple, ML. If it was, I would have done it already.” Only a woman who isn’t hopelessly pining away for a man she can’t have would think in such naïve terms.

“It
is
that simple, Mavricky. Know what I think?”

“No. But that won’t stop you from telling me anyway.”

My snarky comment doesn’t slow her stride in the slightest. “I think up until the second you walked down that aisle you were hoping for a miracle.”

I look away, embarrassed at my transparency.

“But what I think you’re failing to see is that you’ve got one. He’s right in front of your face and if you don’t pull your shit together and realize the gift God has handed you in Kael Shepard, you’ll end up losing him, too.”

I don’t respond. Once again, she’s right. Kael is an amazing man. He wanted me. He married me. He loves me.
Him
. Whatever Killian’s excuses are for giving up on us, they aren’t enough. He’s lost to me forever. The truth is he’s been lost to me for years now. It’s time I begin the grieving process and start accepting it. But the pain of that thought weighs me down until I feel I can’t take a full breath.

“I’m not sure there’s room for anyone else, MaryLou,” I say honestly.

“That’s because you haven’t tried making room for anyone else. You need to kick him out. He’s taking up space that’s not his to take anymore. Now, come on. Let’s try out that religieuse recipe you’ve been babbling about.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Two hours of baking and drinking fly by. Well, more drinking than baking. By the time MaryLou left shy of an hour ago, we’d managed to kill almost another entire bottle of wine. Larry came to pick her up while his brother followed behind with my car. One benefit to living in a small town, I guess. Folks think nothing of doing small favors like that for others.

Losing myself in whiskey, wine, and laughter, I’m now sufficiently tipsy and my rough day feels like a distant memory. Of course, it’s not. And come tomorrow, I’ll have yet another regret to add to my growing mound: a bitch of a hangover.

I’m just pulling out a fresh batch of choux from the oven when the garage door opens indicating Kael is home.

Home
.

Kael is home.

To
our
home: a modest two-story, shafty, old Victorian house that was once mine, which we now share together. As man and wife, not a couple of roomies.

Wow. It will take me a while to get used to that.

Growing up, Kael and I spent so much time together it was as if we practically lived with each other anyway.
This is no different, Mavs.
Except it is. He’s now sleeping in my bed,
naked
, not camped out on the floor in a pile of blankets and pillows, watching reruns on TV Land until we fall asleep.

When I hear his footsteps, I keep focused on the double cream I started to whip, calling over my shoulder, “Hey, how was your first day back at work?”

I feel the warmth of his body heat right before he molds his front to my back. Heavy hands land on my hips at the same time his lips land on my exposed throat. “Long. I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” I tell him softly, knowing it’s what I’m supposed to say.

“Whatcha making?” he breathes in my ear. “My mouth is watering.”

I try to forget how much he sounds like Killian when I answer, “Religieuse. I’m thinking of putting it on the menu, but I need to perfect the crème pâtissière first.”

I’m on my third batch of the custard. The first one curdled. The second one didn’t set quite right, but this time, I think I’ve finally perfected it. Too bad I did it half-cocked.

“God, I love it when you go all French on me, Mavs.”

I laugh, but it comes out more like a huff when he places another hot, openmouthed kiss on the very back of my neck. My stomach flutters a little when his teeth clamp my skin. When he runs his tongue along the line of my throat to my ear, I can’t suppress a light moan.

“You smell incredible. Like sugar and nutmeg. And maybe a little wine.”

“MaryLou came over.”

“Mmm. That explains everything.”

“Want a glass?” I sound breathy and needy and apparently it’s all the encouraging Kael needs.

“No. I want something else entirely.”

He reaches around and scoops up a finger full of custard. The gooeyness disappears out of view and I think he’s going to taste it, but I jump when he begins to paint the cool crème along the length of my shoulder.

It’s hot today. And so damn humid. August in Iowa can be intolerable. Temps are nearing a hundred degrees. The heat index just an hour ago was one hundred ten. It’s so hot the air conditioner is working round the clock and it’s still not keeping up.

So I have my frizzy hair thrown in a messy tangle on top of my head and a short, strapless sundress on trying my best to keep cool, but now my internal temp just shot up ten notches. Not only is Kael nibbling his way along my collarbone, his right hand snakes underneath my dress and tunnels into my panties.

“This is so fucking good,” he murmurs hungrily. I’m not sure if he’s talking about the filling or the finger he’s pushing north.

“Kael, what are you doing?” I squirm, responding to his touch. My mind may understand I’m sleeping with my best friend, but my body…she’s not confused in the slightest. She’s drunk. Thanks to said drunkness, now she’s horny. And she wants the devastating pleasure he’s offering. Even if it is weird, I’ll admit Kael is a very talented lover.

“You know…I know you so well, Maverick.” Hot breaths fan my cheek and fall down my neck, doing nothing to quell the goose bumps now blanketing me. “I know you can’t sit still longer than five minutes. You bite your nails when you’re bored. You’re a tomboy who’s strangely addicted to lip gloss and carries around thirty-two varieties in your oversized purse.”

“Oh, shit,” I gasp when he joins another finger with the first. I’m starting to get very wet and very pliable.

“But for as much as I know about you,” he husks, “I don’t know what makes you drip with desire. I don’t know what makes you so fucking hot you’ll combust in my hands.”

His fingers leisurely move in and out as he talks. It’s as if he’s trying to learn every bumpy ridge inside me. Or drive me wild. When his thumb starts lightly grazing my clit, my head falls back against his shoulder. Wild. Definitely wild.

I should stop this. Stop him. I shouldn’t want this…
should I
?

“I want those secrets, Maverick. And your body will tell me everything I need to know.”