Once Bitten Twice Shy

SOMMER MARSDEN

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

Mischief

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

The News Building

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.mischiefbooks.com

An eBook Original 2015

1

Copyright © Sommer Marsden

Sommer Marsden asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008168803

Version: 2015-11-20

For Jim. You never felt the need to rescue me, but were always there when I was ready to rescue myself. I love you. For ever and ever. Amen.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

More from Mischief

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

August glanced out of the front window just in time to see him fall in. The new lawn man was tall and walking briskly one moment, his right knee deep in a hole the next. She unlocked the door, swearing softly, her heart beating a rapid rabbit kick in her chest.

‘Jesus!’ She knew she sounded terrified and somewhat crazy, but she couldn’t help it. Her first thought was to wonder, had he hurt himself? The next, a truly terrifying thought, would he sue her? She pushed it all out of her head as she dropped to her haunches and held out her hand to him. ‘Are you OK? Are you hurt?’

He took the offered hand, his much bigger and cooler than hers thanks to the chilly October temperature. She had a moment of near hysterical amusement when she saw her fingers smear yellow ochre paint over his wrist as he clasped them. She bit her lip and began to tug as he struggled to get himself on an even keel.

Then she froze. ‘Wait! Should we move you? Should you…um –’ she blew out a breath to try and get her mind to focus ‘– stay in the hole?’

His eyebrows shot up. Thick and dark-brown above even browner eyes. It made her laugh. All her hysterical worry, fear and bizarre amusement came bubbling up at once.

‘Why in the world would I stay in the hole?’ With that, he got his foot on the grass and stooped, hands on knees, to catch his breath. He looked up at her, his eyes bright in the stark autumn sunlight. ‘I think you’re thinking of a head injury. When you drop into a hole, protocol is to usually get out as soon as possible.’

More crazy laughter tried to escape and she pressed her hand against her lips to tame the urge to release it. ‘Sorry. I was just…worried. Are you OK?’

He nodded and finally stood up straight. He popped his back and she winced at the sound. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That’s from years of football, not the hole in the middle of your yard.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Jack Murphy. Your new lawn guy.’

She took it and shook, noticing the way his fingers felt pressed against her wrist. She noted nicks and scars on his flesh and thought they’d be wonderful to paint, those beat-up hands.

‘August. Adams. August Adams,’ she repeated, blinking against a sudden gust of wind. ‘I’m sorry about the hole. As you can see, I really do need a lawn guy. Or a hole guy.’

When the words registered she felt her embarrassment flame in her face. She was certain that two big swatches of red stood out on her cheeks as if she’d been slapped.

He chuckled at that, took off his cap and ran a hand through his unruly brown hair. ‘I’ll say. You must have had a tree here at one point.’

August nodded. ‘Pear tree.’

‘Ah, and let me guess, the wood went soft, it started dropping limbs and then you had to have it removed.’

‘We have a winner,’ she said. ‘It actually dropped a limb on my Jeep. So that’s when I had to bite the bullet and get someone to take it down. Before it killed someone. Or my Jeep.’

He smiled and it caught her off-guard. When he smiled the skin around his eyes crinkled and made his rugged face a bit softer, more boyish. The smile itself was broad and friendly and, as odd as the thought seemed, welcoming. ‘Well, you have to protect a good Jeep. I –’ He glanced down and August followed suit.

‘Oh, crap, you’re –’

He levelled that intense gaze at her and something sleepy and slow rolled over in her chest. It was an unusual but peaceful feeling. She refused to acknowledge it. It helped when he said, ‘I know it’s very unprofessional of me to ask to use your bathroom but I appear to be –’

‘Bleeding!’ she said. Then she turned on her heels before she could admire that warm smile any longer. ‘Come with me. I have peroxide and bandages and I’ll even make you a coffee since you fell into my pit of despair on the very first day.’

She found it easier to talk to him over her shoulder. That way she didn’t have to notice how handsome he was. And she didn’t have to notice herself noticing.

He sat on her paint stool, his trouser leg rolled up so it was above his knee. There was a small tear, minimal blood, and the reason her hands were shaking was because of him. Not his wound. Being close to him had made her jittery like she’d had too much caffeine or too little sleep. It had been a long time since any man had given her a jolt. At first she figured it was the shock of seeing him fall, but now, close up, she saw it had more to do with him and the faint endearing energy that seemed to radiate off him. She’d never had someone make her feel nervous and calm all at the same time.

She tried to keep her focus by slowly removing the tabs from the bandages and then carefully put them in a crisscross, forming an X, over his wound.

He smelled like fresh air and green grass with just a hint of something else she couldn’t place.

‘Painter?’ he said. His gaze ticked slowly around the studio as she attended to his battle scars.

She stood, stretched her back and kept her eyes off him. She looked at everything but him. The irises she was working on. A series of hyper-coloured flowers, the current ones being done in the yellow ochre she’d smeared all over him.

‘Yep. Painter. What gave me away?’

When he grinned at her, she glanced back at her work. Better to look at the work than at his handsome face.

Jack rolled his trouser leg back down and fingered the hole in the knee.

‘Sorry, I’ll get you new ones,’ she said, finally.

‘No worries.’

‘No, really. My fault, I insist.’

He stood and walked over to a finished painting. The only one in the entire studio she considered truly finished. It showed the ocean during the day but the water was coloured the true reds and oranges of a sunset. The body of water reflecting a horizon that wasn’t there.

Her heart stuttered. He reached out as if to touch it and she flinched. In his peripheral vision he must have caught the reaction because he stopped before actually placing a finger on the canvas. ‘Sorry,’ he said, drawing his hand back.

‘It might be wet is all,’ she lied. The painting had been dry for a decade. ‘Let me walk you out,’ she said. She had to get him out. Now. Fast.

At the door she stopped him. ‘Seriously, let me write you a cheque for the trousers. And if you need to go to the doctor –’

He shook his head before she could finish. ‘You have a pole with a red flag in the hole,’ he said.

August blinked. ‘Yeah? And?’

Jack grinned again and she felt that electric feeling once more in her gut. It unnerved her more than seeing him take a spill.

‘And I was too distracted to pay attention. That’s not your fault, Ms Adams. It’s mine.’

She’d forgotten he knew her name. For some damn stupid reason, it threw her for a second and she said, ‘August, please.’

He inclined his head. ‘August.’ With a smile he went on. ‘This is nothing I haven’t done to my own trousers with a weed whacker or on a fence.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do say so.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. ‘Look, I know this is weird. I fell into a hole in your yard, I had my trousers rolled up in your studio…’ A chuckle that seemed to shiver right through the centre of her came from his lips. ‘But I have a friend – Alice. She’s an artist, too. She has a showing at that teeny-tiny gallery by the coffee shop on Bradford Avenue. I think you’d like her stuff. If you have any interest in going, it’s next week.’

Then he looked at her. Those brown eyes seemed bottomless. And kind. So very kind.

A cool sweat broke out on her forehead and she exhaled loudly. August was attracted to him, there was no denying that now. Not just physically either. He was a nice person. A seemingly kind and open person. And it scared the shit out of her.

She shook her head quickly. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’

‘Plans?’ he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

‘Yeah.’

‘I didn’t tell you what day it was,’ he countered. But it was a kind jab. Not rude, just amused. Another endearing quality.

‘I’m just busy. Really busy getting ready for a big job. An attorney’s office downtown. I promised several canvases and…’

Jack held up a hand. ‘Ms Adams – August – you don’t owe me an explanation. I took a shot. No harm, no foul.’

Her heart sank. Because he understood or because he wasn’t pushing? She wasn’t sure.

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I’ll be back in the morning. That hole’s fairly deep.’ He glanced down at his mangled trousers and laughed. ‘As you know. So I’ll have to do more than just fill in with dirt. Probably gravel, filler dirt, topsoil. So…yeah.’ He studied her face for a moment and then pulled his cap off again and ran his hand through his hair. A nervous tic maybe. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Bye,’ she said, weakly, watching him walk out of the door and down to his truck.

Damn.

Jack Murphy climbed into his white pickup, punched something into his cellphone, sat there for a moment and finally pulled off. She kept herself to the side of the curtain so he couldn’t see her there. ‘Me, here, being creepy,’ she whispered.

Six years was a long, long time to go without. The men she interacted with by accident couldn’t tempt her out of her celibacy. Occasionally, she’d feel some nameless ache for a connection. Or just to be around someone who could hug her when she was sad. Someone to catch a movie with or go to brunch with on a Sunday morning. For the most part, she was just fine by herself. Absolutely OK with being alone. It was better this way. Much, much better for everyone.

August realised she’d been holding her breath and exhaled. She pushed the curtain back into place and surveyed the silent living room. Restlessness crawled through her centre, making it hard to breathe and even harder to feel calm on any level.

‘Right. Get back to work. Stop daydreaming,’ she scolded herself, moving through the room and switching on the lights. The afternoon was waning. Soon it would be getting dark.

In the studio she turned on two extra floor lamps and found her palette. She eyed the iris she’d abandoned when she’d gone to investigate the sound of his truck. Its delicate petal was only half painted, curled down like a rumpled collar on a flouncy shirt. She smiled. Better to focus on something productive like painting and not something frivolous like wondering what those nicked-up hands would look like travelling up her bare thigh.

When August finally glanced up from the nearly finished painting, her neck ached and she was tired. No wonder. It was fully dark and well past dinner.

‘Food,’ she said and headed to the kitchen. A simple meal of grilled cheese, tomato soup, a glass of Cabernet. And then a long hot shower. A long hot shower where she pushed every stray thought of a strapping kind man named Jack from her mind’s eye.

She tumbled into bed with a glass of wine and a mystery novel and prayed to sleep like the dead. No dreams. No waking up to think about something she couldn’t have. Or, more accurately, refused to give herself.

He was on his belly. His back tan, his blue eyes staring out at the ocean.

‘The beginning of our lives,’ he said, knowing she was listening.

August stroked her hand along his strong back, liking the feel of the muscles jumping at her touch. A pre-honeymoon he’d called it. A kickoff to their lives together.

‘Are your parents still freaking out about us getting married now? Right out of high school? Before we even do the college thing?’ While she waited for an answer, she dropped a kiss on his sun-browned shoulder.

Aaron rolled on to his back and tugged her down to him. He kissed her once, and, when she pushed her body close to his, soaking up his heat, he kissed her again.

‘Yeah, but it really doesn’t matter now, does it?’ He pulled back to look her in the eye. His eyes were the same colour as the water outside their tiny, but nice, Virgin Island hotel room.

They’d saved all through high school for this trip. And their parents said they weren’t responsible enough to get married.

‘Nope,’ August said.

‘What matters is we have a plan and we stick to the plan.’ His hands came up to grip her hips, pulling her down even as he thrust up beneath her. He was hard and, though she thought she’d already been ready, she found herself overwhelmingly so. Just beyond ready to be with him again. She never tired of having him inside her.

‘We do and we did.’ She kissed him.

‘What about your parents? Still freaking out? Still convinced we’re ruining our lives?’

She laughed, her lips pressed against his strong jaw. Stubble bit at her lips and she moved them softly to feel the sting of it again. ‘Yep. Of course.’

This time when he rolled, she ended up beneath him. He looked down at her, a length of overgrown sand-brown hair falling in his eyes. His beach-bum hair, he’d called it, skipping his normal cut at the barber.

‘Let’s forget about them, then, OK? We’re here. We’ve waited the three years we’ve been together to be here. So let’s…’ He rotated his hips, grinding his cock against the wet gusset of her bikini bottom.

‘Let’s…?’ She trailed her fingers up his back, feeling how smooth his skin was. Welcoming the heat that baked off him.

‘Let’s do one of the things we do best.’ Aaron rested on his elbows and untied her bikini top. He pulled the cups down and bent to suck one ocean-cooled nipple into his mouth. Heat flooded her. Heat that had nothing to do with the bright sun or the tropical temperatures. It had everything to do with the man she loved. Had loved for three years and counting.

And counting…

The thought left her head when his mouth closed over her other nipple, a line of fire on her skin from where he’d dragged his lips across her chest. She wriggled beneath him, hooking her fingers in the sides of her bikini bottom and tugging it down. August was only successful when he raised his hips to give her room. Then they were tangled, each of them trying to disrobe the other until they were laughing and naked and everything was perfect. Just as it should be.

Eighteen, out of school, future ahead. Everything perfect.

Aaron slid into her and she wrapped her legs around his waist, moving up to take him, brushing her lips over his when he kissed her. She tugged his hair lightly so he grunted but then he laughed. Then he was rocking into her, taking his time, playing her body perfectly with every motion of his. He looked into her eyes and said, ‘And this, August, is only the beginning…’

Then the sky caught fire.

Chapter 2

The sheets were wet. Tears or sweat, she wasn’t sure. August stayed there, sprawled on her back, heart pounding. Sunlight, meagre and new, which meant it was just now dawn, slipped between the slats of the Venetian blind.

‘Fuck,’ she said. Wishing for the millionth time she’d bite the bullet and get a pet. Someone to hear the random words she spilled into the empty air every day.

She rolled towards the clock, towards the left side of the bed she always thought of as empty. Aaron slept on the left. She slept on the right. At least that was how it had been.

Three minutes after six. She should still be asleep. She should still be blissfully unconscious. Instead she was awake, in damp bed linen, with her heart doing a sickening little jig in her chest.

The explosion. She’d seen it in her dream. It wasn’t the first time, but even after all these years, that sound, that shock of orange and red glow, always seemed like the first time when she relived it. Awake or asleep.

She ran a shaking hand through her hair and found it, not surprisingly, plastered to her head. She needed a shower, coffee and to get into motion before the lethargy that renewed sadness often brought set in.

She pushed herself up, found her slippers and shoved her feet into them. Her cottage’s hardwood floors were lovely but viciously chilly this time of year. In the bathroom she stared herself down in the medicine cabinet mirror.

Dark circles under her eyes, dark blonde hair matted to her head, sallow. ‘It was just a dream,’ she said to her reflection. Almost surprised when the woman in the mirror’s mouth moved in time with her words. That didn’t look like her. That woman looked haunted.

‘After all this time,’ she muttered, slightly disgusted with herself. She refused to be a victim in life. It wasn’t fair to wallow. But sometimes, more than a decade after Aaron’s death, she still felt a hollow ache that threatened to buckle her knees. Today was one of those days, and she had no doubt at all it was a surging wave of guilt for finding one stumbling lawn guy attractive. Attractive enough to make her blood jump in her veins.

She stepped into the hot spray and did her best to push it all out of her head. There were canvases to plot and stationery orders to fill, and a day to move through – mechanically or not.

And Jack will be coming back…

The thought was as wispy as the steam that filled the small room. Yes, Jack was coming back. True. But Jack was coming back to do a job and nothing else. He’d asked her out, she’d said no as nicely as she could and that was that. Case closed.

She was towelling her hair dry when the phone rang. The landline, which only meant one thing.

‘Good morning, Carley.’

‘Good morning, sunshine! What are you doing up?’

Nosey as ever, August figured her best friend had earned the right. They’d been tighter than tight since grade school. It was Carley, above all others, who had gotten her through Aaron’s death. It was Carley who had forced her out of bed some days, brought food to her bed on the days she refused to get up, and it was Carley who had finally given her the kick in the ass to start shopping her paintings around and create her small indie stationery store online. Carley got to be nosey if she wanted to.

‘How did you know I was up?’

‘I saw light from your little window. I was on my way to pick up doughnuts for the office and shot down your street and there it was. The little glow of a little lamp. You up? Dressed? Alone?’ Carley snorted. ‘What I’m trying to say is I have an extra coffee – can I come in for a minute?’

‘Coffee?’

‘Yes, the lifeblood, August. Coffee. And if you’re up this early, with the hours I know you keep, then you must need it.’

‘Desperately. Use your key. I’ll be out in a moment.’

She pulled on her favourite paint-speckled black leggings, an Om tank-top – because she sure as shit needed some Om after that dream – and a big sweater that had once upon a time been Aaron’s. A marled grey knit, soft as sin. So big on her that she swam in it, and she liked it that way.

She was cuffing the sleeves as she wandered into the kitchen. A kitchen that blissfully smelled like coffee and doughnuts offered by a smiling face. She needed that smile as much as she needed the Om.

‘Uh-oh,’ Carley said, the smile caving somewhat.

‘What?’

‘What happened?’

‘What?’

‘You’re wearing –’ She pointed to the sweater as she handed August a large, hot cup of coffee. August quickly took a swig even though it burned. Perfect – cream, two sugars and hot as hell.

‘I’m wearing…? Clothes?’

‘Aaron’s clothes,’ Carley said, sitting on a kitchen stool. ‘And that only happens any more on anniversaries, birthdays, severe sadness or…bad dreams. Was it a dream?’

August bit her tongue to try and prevent the tears that wanted to come. She failed. Only a few slipped out, though, and she felt some victory at that. ‘Yeah, dream.’

‘Big boom dream?’ Carley said. August sighed. The only person who could get away with describing it that way was sitting across from her, her dark-brown hair twisted up into a knot, and no doubt late for work. Despite the bare-bones description, Carley’s big green eyes held a lot of empathy and worry.

‘Yep. The explosion. I woke up all gross but full-on awake, so I got up.’ August shrugged. ‘Took a shower then my house was inhabited by a jabbering alien lifeform known as an early riser.’ She attempted a smile.

‘Alien lifeform! I brought you lifeblood, girl.’ Carley pointed to the cup of coffee that August was using to warm her hands. ‘I brought you sugar, too.’ She pushed a cinnamon sugar doughnut toward her and August took a bite. But just one. Her stomach was still tight and hot from the dream.