Luscious (Topped #1)(4)

How could it all be gone? How could they be here? Had those years of happiness been a momentary respite? Would her life be about misery again?

“She was angry after Ronnie died.” Somehow she felt the need to defend her foster mother. She touched the arch of the gravestone, feeling the cool of the stone beneath her palm. She prayed there was peace there for Carla and that she was with her son again.

Sweet, goofy Ronnie, her brother. He’d been kind and smart and at times she’d had to protect him from bullies when they were in school. After high school, they’d both worked around town, trying to save money for college. Even then her mother’s health had been failing. She couldn’t leave their small town, worried something would happen to Carla Rowe. Finally, eighteen months before, Ronnie had made the decision to go into the Army. He’d been twenty-four with no real prospects in sight. It had been hard to imagine him in the Army, but then he’d come home and he’d been a soldier. He’d put on muscle and gained confidence. He’d gone in because he didn’t have the money for college and now he was dead.

Reverend Alton put a hand on Ronnie’s stone. “He was a good son. A good man. I can’t tell you why the lord chose to call him home so soon.”

She didn’t need platitudes. “I don’t think God did this.”

Unfortunately, she was fairly certain it hadn’t gone down the way the Army claimed it did either. They were evasive. The reports on her brother’s death were lacking in detail and the one person who had been there wouldn’t speak to her.

“Sarah, your mother wouldn’t want to hear the bitterness in your voice.”

Sarah stood up. “My mother was the one who asked me to find out what happened. It was her dying wish.”

“You want to give up everything you have? You’ve already spent your savings on private investigators and lawyers.”

She’d spent everything. She’d already had to sell the house to pay the bills attached to her mom’s long fight. The money the Army insurance had paid out went to the same place. She didn’t have anything left. “I have to honor her wish.”

The reverend sighed. “No, you don’t.”

“Seriously? A reverend is telling me to deny a woman her dying wish? That doesn’t sound very godly.”

“God is kinder than we make him out to be, Sarah. Your mother wasn’t thinking straight. She was in pain and on drugs to manage it. She wouldn’t want you to endanger your whole future.”

She had no future. Her chance to go to college was blown. She was almost twenty-six and she’d spent much of the last five years nursing her mother and working dead-end jobs to try to help pay the never-ending medical bills. It was the very lack of opportunity in their tiny town that had sent Ronnie into the Army. He’d sent back every bit of pay he could spare. Not that it had mattered. It was all over now and she’d thought she’d feel some semblance of relief. Instead, she was left with this aching hole that nothing could fill.

Maybe if she found the truth, her mother could rest easier.

“Sarah?” the reverend said. “Sarah, you’re too emotional to make a decision like this. Come back to the parish house. You can stay with us for a while. Come back and sit in the nursery and hold some of the babies. It will make you feel better. In a few months, you’ll be in a better place to make a decision about your life.”

She’d already made her decision. The money had run out so now it was up to her to do her own investigating.

She was going to find Macon Miles and when she did, she would find out how her brother had died. And if he had anything to do with it…well, she would take care of that, too.





CHAPTER ONE





Dallas, TX

Two months later



Macon watched the new girl. He couldn’t help himself. She was luscious. Like a chocolate soufflé. She would require very careful handling in order to bring her to fruition. One wrong move and a woman like that would fold, wilting or falling away, or simply telling him to f*ck off.

He really didn’t want her to tell him to f*ck off.

Ally. Allyson Jones. She had dark hair and a curvy figure that filled out her black slacks and white dress shirt in a way no one else on the waitstaff managed. She bent over, collecting the menus. That was the singular juiciest backside he’d ever seen. It was f*cking spectacular, and he could feel his cock hardening.

It was not helpful to his current work situation, but he still couldn’t force his eyes to move. It was like they were laser focused on that lush ass.

He moved the pastry blender over and over, forcing the ingredients to mix into something new. Butter, flour, sugar, shortening, salt, and ice water. His perfect piecrust. Simple and yet so complex since he’d learned it required something beyond merely following the recipe. There was a harmony required most people never figured out, a certain Zen that came with giving over to the dish, allowing it to be what it would.

“Don’t let that sit too long.” Timothy Gage looked down his patrician nose at the bowl. “We have reservations for a hundred tonight. If that crust isn’t perfect, I’ll see you go back to washing dishes.”

Macon took a deep breath and forced himself not to correct his obnoxiously pretentious boss. He’d never washed dishes. When he’d been hired at Top, he’d been brought in as a garde-manger, prepping salads and helping with small plates. That had lasted two weeks. Then one day the chef’s brother had walked in. Ian Taggart was a massive slab of muscle with a taste for lemons. Timothy didn’t do requests. He was an artiste, or at least that’s what he called himself. He was mostly an * who took himself way too seriously. Sean Taggart, the man who owned Top, had tried to talk his brother into being reasonable. Macon had quickly made a lemon pudding.