It was ten to three and I didn’t even have the cake ready.

Damn.

This meant one of two things.

Man trouble or wardrobe malfunction.

Both of these did not bode good things for both of these meant Martha would be in more than the usual Martha tizzy. And the usual Martha tizzy which was set to spinning constantly in the crazy, out-of-control life Martha lived was bad enough.

Fuck.

“I’m elbow deep in icing, honey!” I shouted toward my front door, bending back over the cake with my pastry bag. “Let yourself in, it’s open!” I finished as I continued to dot every third fluffy, white, buttercream frosting star with a point of pale yellow icing.

The door opened and I spun the cake around to get to more stars.

I was standing at the island in my kitchen, my head bent to the cake when I felt her presence hit the room but stop in the doorway.

“I’m running a bit late,” I told the cake. “Get yourself a pop or something. In fact, get me one. Cherryade. Crushed ice,” I ordered, dotting more stars at the top border of the cake then moving down to the bottom.

Martha didn’t move.

My eyes lifted to her and my mouth opened to say something but the words and my breath got clogged in my throat when I saw Jake Knox, arms crossed over his wide chest, one broad shoulder resting against the doorjamb, lean hips hitched to the side, motorcycle boot clad feet crossed at the ankles.

I said not a word and didn’t move as I took in all that was him.

Ratty-assed, faded black t-shirt with the peeling words “Charlie Daniel’s Band” over an equally peeling American flag fitting just right over his torso, a pair of mirrored shades shoved in the collar by an arm and dangling down. Jeans so faded they were their own unique shade of blue with frayed bits around the pockets and delicious worn patches at his crotch, the length of them fitting loose or snug in all the right places on his slim hips and long legs.

Unruly, dark hair about an inch longer than I remembered so it was curling low on his neck and around his ears. Below his sharp cheekbones, along his strong jaw and chin and down the column of his corded throat was, from my experience, at least three days worth of stubble.

Silvery-gray eyes pointed right at me.

Fuck.

I straightened, filled pastry bag in my hands and stared at him.

He stared back.

He did it better.

So I blinked and when I was about to say something, do something, maybe even yell something, he got there before me.

“You ready to talk now?”

I blinked again.

Then I whispered, “Sorry?”

“Talk, Tess.” His deep voice rumbled across the kitchen at me. “You promised we’d talk. I wanna know if you’re ready to do it now.”

I dropped my pastry bag filled hands to the counter and kept staring at him.

Then I asked, “Have you lost your mind?”

He ignored my question and told me, “Name’s Brock Lucas.”

I closed my eyes and dropped my head as that knowledge filtered through me, knowledge I laid awake at night wondering about, knowledge that had been kept from me as I fell in love with an imposter.

“Tess, babe, eyes,” he growled. “Now.”

My eyes opened and my head came up as I felt a shaft of steel rip down my spine.

Then my eyes narrowed on his hard face as the electric feel of his mood in the room finally made it through the cocoon of surprise shrouding me and sparked against my skin.

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “Are you angry with me?”

“No,” he bit off. “I was angry with you, seein’ as I fucked my woman for the first fuckin’

time, she made me a promise when my cum was still inside her and then just hours later she reneged on that promise. Now I’m here ‘cause there’s a goddamned for sale sign planted in your front lawn and I walk in here and see you lookin’ like this so, gotta say, babe, I’m not angry. I’m fuckin’ pissed. ”

Did he…?

Did he…?

Did he just fucking say what I thought he just fucking said?

“Sorry?” I whispered again but this whisper was different.

He didn’t repeat himself. Instead he asked, “Where are your glasses?”

“What?”

“Your glasses, Tess. Where the fuck are your glasses? You never decorate a goddamned cake without your glasses.”

“I got contacts,” I snapped.

His head tipped back and he clipped to the ceiling, “Jesus,” before I saw his jaw get hard.

Why in the hell were we talking about my glasses?

I didn’t care. Nope. I didn’t.

I only cared about one thing.

“Get out,” I ordered, his chin tipped down and his eyes locked with mine.

“No.”

I felt my eyebrows go up. “No?”

“Yeah, Tess, no.”

“You have,” I told him. “You have lost your mind.”

He ignored me again and asked, “What the fuck are you wearing?”

“What am I wearing?”


“Yeah, babe, what the fuck are you wearing?”

I looked down at my t-shirt and jeans then I looked back at him.

“T-shirt and jeans…” I hesitated then spat, “Brock. ”

“No one calls me Brock, they call me Slim.”

I blinked and something about that took me right out of our current scenario and into la-la land.

Therefore, I breathed, “What?”

He pushed away from the doorjamb while speaking. “No one calls me Brock. Mom, Dad, brother, sisters, friends, since I was a kid called me Slim.”

“You’re not slim,” I told him although he was lean he wasn’t what I’d call slim.

“No, I’m not and I wasn’t when I was a baby seein’ as I was over ten pounds when I was born. It was a joke ‘cause I was a big kid. My family’s screwy that way.”

Whoa. He was over ten pounds when he was born? That was one huge kid.

He was tall, at least six one, maybe six two. And muscled. He wasn’t slim at all, his body was built of lean, compacted muscle that had some bulk to it, sure, but I wouldn’t call him huge.

Since babies didn’t come out muscled, I wondered if he wasn’t a big baby but a long one.

It hit me then he’d rounded the island and was getting close and I stopped thinking about his weight as a baby and his current size and started retreating at the same time I came out of la-la land and back into our current scenario.

“I want you to leave,” I stated firmly.

“Yeah,” he replied, still coming at me and I hit the side counter as he kept coming and talking. “I get that but clue in, Tess, I ain’t leavin’.”

Then he was right there. So right there I could feel his heat and I had to tip my head way back to look up at him seeing as I was barefoot and not six foot one or two but five foot six.

“Please leave,” I stated a far bit less firmly.

He leaned in settling his hands on the counter on either side of me and I lifted my hands (and the pastry bag) between us.

He also again ignored me. “You didn’t call.”

I stared into his angry eyes. “I didn’t call?”

He glared at me with his angry eyes. “No, babe, you didn’t call.”

“I didn’t call,” I whispered, my heart, already beating fast, started to pound.

“Three months,” he declared but said no more.

I stared into his glittering, silver eyes.

Then I lost my ever lovin’ mind.

“Are you nuts? ” I shrieked.

“Tess –”

“Fuck you!” I shouted and pushed at him with my pastry bag filled hands, a thin stream of pale yellow icing shot out onto the floor beside us as well as on his Charlie Daniels tee and then I found the bag not in my hands and watched him twist his torso and toss it on the island next to the cake and twist back to me. That was when I put my hands on the hard wall of his chest, shoved and repeated on a shout, “Fuck you!”

He rocked back a couple of inches then moved right back in, his face got into my face and he growled, “Fuckin’ listen to me.”

“No!” I yelled. “No way. No fucking way. You used me.”

“It’s my job,” he ground out.

“Do you think I give a shit?” I asked.

“Maybe if you’d calm the fuck down and listen for a goddamned minute you’d understand why I do think you should fuckin’ give a shit.”


“I can assure you, Brock Lucas, that nothing you can say will make me understand why I should give a shit,” I informed him.

“Your ex, Tess, that motherfucker needed to be taken down. That motherfucker is serious bad news.”

My body went completely still at his words and I held his eyes as my next words trembled.

“I know that, Brock. I know.”

And it was then I watched with rapt attention as his eyes immediately melted quicksilver and his hands moved from the counter to my head, palms at the base of my neck, fingers in my hair and his face dipped an inch away from mine.

Then he whispered a ragged, tortured, “Baby,” and that one word cut through me like a jagged knife.

Oh God.

He knew.

Of course he knew.

Of course.

Of course, of course, of course.

That thing tight in my belly uncurled, filling me up, slinking up my throat and this time it wasn’t filled with the paralyzing poison of fear or despair. It was something else.

Panic.

I tried to tear away but Brock held on, one hand still at my head, the other arm sliced around my back, he shuffled me down the counter and pressed me into the corner.

With no way to escape, I held my body tight, hands pressed against his chest and kept my eyes glued to his throat as I whispered, “Let me go and get out.”