Confessions (2-for-1) by Lisa Jackson

Author:Lisa Jackson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2012-10-28T13:00:00+00:00

Prologue

Whitefire Lake, California

The Present

CARLIE SURRETT!

That woman had been the bane of Ben Powell’s existence for over eleven years and he’d thought...no, he’d vowed he would never lay eyes on her again.

“Yeah, and you’re a damned fool,” he said to himself as he brushed off the snow that had collected around his collar. Still cursing his luck, he yanked open the door of his secondhand pickup and reached inside. A six-pack of beer was on the worn seat, and he slipped one of the longnecks from the carton. With a frown, he opened the bottle by placing the edge of the cap on a rusted fender and snapping down hard—a trick he’d learned ages ago when he’d first enlisted. The cap spun off into a snowbank and foam spewed over the lip of the bottle to run down his fingers as he lifted the beer to his mouth and took a satisfying pull.

Why couldn’t he get Carlie out of his mind?

Muttering oaths under his breath, he kicked the door shut and stared at the rubble that had been his sister Nadine’s lakeside cabin. Once charming, the cottage was now only twisted black metal, charred beams and a sagging soot-covered chimney. Ash and debris. Nothing worth saving.

Nadine had asked him to rebuild it. His eyes narrowed on the snow drifting on the cold pile of ash. Did she really want to give him a job or was her offer merely a handout to her only surviving brother, a man who had to start over in this shabby little town? After her wedding today, Nadine would be able to build a damned palace on this side of the lake. She could hire a bevy of architects, builders, and yes-men who would bow and fawn over the new Mrs. Hayden Garreth Monroe IV.

Damn! He should be pleased, he told himself. Nadine had struggled for years. But was marrying Monroe, that class-A bastard born with a silver spoon wedged firmly between his teeth, the break she deserved? Why not just sell her soul to the devil?

And why invite Carlie to the ceremony?

“Son of a bitch.” Angry at himself and the world in general, Ben picked his way over the frozen path to the dock. His knee hurt like hell, compliments of embedded shrapnel from that skirmish in the Middle East, and his pride had been bruised and battered over the course of the past decade, starting over a decade ago in this very town. With Carlie Surrett. Beautiful, seductive, treacherous Carlie. She’d managed to destroy Ben’s brother as well as rip Ben’s world apart in the bargain.

And now he’d have to face her again. All because of his sister and her insistence that it was time to let bygones be bygones. “Thanks a lot, Nadine.”

Through the snow swirling to the ground, he shot a glance across the angry gray waters of Whitefire Lake where lights glowed warmly from the windows of Monroe Manor—Hayden’s mansion on the lake. Smoke curled lazily from the chimney and twinkling

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