A Deal is a Deal | Carter's Story | Colton's Story

A Deal is a Deal

     Rand Alexander should have a warning sign.
     Danger.
     Radioactive material.
     Beware.
     Because he impacted Phoebe’s senses like a nuclear power plant going meltdown.
     She sucked in air, trying to regulate breathing that had gone haywire the moment his to-die-for body had filled the doorway of the swank hotel’s reception room.
     Heart racing, she fought the painful intensity of desires that would shock Rand silly. Like she always did. Every time the man walked into the room, she lost control of her body’s reactions.
     And he didn’t even notice.
     It wasn’t that he ignored her. They were friends, after all, but if she danced naked on the hood of his car, he would politely ask her if she needed a hand down. All the while his real focus would be on something, or someone, else.
     Like the blonde whose dress looked like it was made of shimmering silver spangles glued to her body. The one that had just caught his arm and his attention.
     "He looks wonderful, doesn’t he, Phoebe dear? So mature now." Aunt Emmaline’s voice buzzed at the edge of Phoebe’s consciousness like a bee trying to alight.
     Wonderful? He looked edible, six feet, four inches of solid sex-appeal with glossy black hair and eyes the color of molten steel.
     "Fancy him coming back after all these years and still unattached."
     Of course he was unattached. He had buried his heart with his wife and son six years ago.
     "Oh, look he and his mother are coming this way."
     It was only as her aunt’s last words registered that Phoebe realized the old woman was not discussing Rand, but rather his half-brother, Carter Sloane. Her ex-fiancé.
     While Rand turned aside to talk to the blonde, Carter was indeed headed their way. Walking beside his elegant mother, he looked more like a California golden boy than an East Coast executive.

     "Carter, how well you look." Aunt Emmaline beamed at him.
     "Thank you and may I return the compliment?"
     The old woman’s paper thin cheeks pinkened under the warmth of      Carter’s smile. It was the same smile that four years ago had made Phoebe’s heart race, but it did not have the slightest impact now. Rand, on the other hand, only had to look at her and her brain stopped working.
     The older women greeted each other.
     "Phoebe, how are you?" Carter’s attention was fixed wholly on her now and she tried to return the favor.
     Only Rand and the other woman were laughing together and the sight of red fingernails against a white dinner jacket had Phoebe fighting green demons she hated almost as much as her status as a twenty-five year old virgin.
     "I’m fine, Carter." She forced her eyes away from the couple on the other side of the room. "It’s been a long time."
     "Yes, it has."
     "How long will you be staying?"
     He shrugged. "I may be back for good."
     His mother looked unmoved by the prospect, but not so Aunt Emmaline. "How wonderful!" She smiled with a definite gleam in her eye. "You and Phoebe will have to catch up on old times."
     A sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach told Phoebe she had to divert this conversational by-way but fast. "The past is over and I’m sure Carter has no more interest in it than I do."
     Aunt Emmaline frowned. "You don’t mean that, dear."
     "I do." Phoebe smiled at Carter to show no offense was intended by her blunt declaration, but blunt was all that worked with her great-aunt.
     "Standing on four-year old pride makes for a lonely existence." The acerbity of her aunt’s tone didn’t bother Phoebe nearly as much as the implication she’d spent four years pining for a man who’d dumped her.
     "I’m not being proud, just practical. It’s only fair to tell you that if you’re considering Carter as a candidate for great-nephew-in-law, then don’t bother. We’ve been there, done that and it didn’t work. Right, Carter?"
     She turned to Carter and willed him to agree with her.
     His expression was regretful, but he said nothing, which did nothing to help the situation or settle her temper.
     "I suppose you think Rand Alexander is a better prospect?" Aunt Emmaline demanded, warming to an old argument. She glared in disapproval toward the couple on the other side of the ballroom, now blatantly flirting.
     "That could hardly be the case." Mrs. Sloane’s well-bred sneer grated on Phoebe’s nerves.
     She had her reasons for resenting Rand, but Phoebe would not stand silently by while she and Aunt Emmaline criticized him.
     "You’re interested in my half-brother?" The incredulity in Carter’s voice was almost enough for her answer in the affirmative, putting her feelings for Rand on public display.
     Almost, but her pride was still stronger than her indignation so she remained silent and let Carter draw his own conclusions.
     "He’s not really your type, Phoebe." Carter sounded like he almost pitied her.
     And that hurt because although he was dead wrong that his half-brother wasn’t her type, there was no denying she wasn’t in a league to entice Rand and that amounted to the same depressing thing.
     Aunt Emmaline bristled as only very correct old ladies could do. "Of course he’s not."
     Phoebe turned on her aunt. "What’s wrong with Rand?"
     A tinkling laugh sounded from the other side of the room, snagging her attention in time to see the blonde rub up against Rand like a horny cat, eroding Phoebe’s temper one more notch.
     "He’s unsuitable."
     "That’s ridiculous. He’s an incredible man. His charitable contributions last year were twice that of any other businessman in New Hope. You know he is one of tonight’s major supporters."
     Aunt Emmaline went to speak, but Phoebe plowed on, her fury overcoming her good sense. "He’s only thirty years old and the business he started without any help from his family is already a Fortune 500 company. His father may have been an unfaithful rat, but Rand never even flirted with another woman during his marriage."
     Her hand flew to her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that and she belatedly looked at Carter and his mother to see how they’d taken her reference to Hoyt Sloane. Carter’s expression looked carved from granite and his mother was doing her best to pretend not to have heard. Filled with remorse, Phoebe opened her mouth to apologize.
     "He may have been faithful during his marriage," Aunt Emmaline said, forestalling the apology and completely ignoring Phoebe’s reference to Rand and Carter’s father, "but he’s certainly made up for it since his wife’s death. The man’s a womanizer, plain and simple."
     "Rand is not a womanizer!" Phoebe slotted in.
     Carter shrugged. "Oh, I’m not offended. Rand’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.  Sweetheart, you’ve got to admit that you’re not up to Rand’s speed." Carter’s tone was conciliatory, but Phoebe didn’t feel like being soothed.
     "And why would she want to be?" Mrs. Sloane asked.
     Regret for her hasty words dissolved and Phoebe’s slow burn rose to a boil.
     "My niece can do much better," Aunt Emmaline added with a significant look at Carter.
     The thread holding Phoebe’s temper in check snapped.
     "I’d give up my trust fund to have Rand Alexander notice I’m female." Ignoring the inner voice that warned her to stop while she was ahead, she added, "And I’d give everything I own for just one week in his bed as his woman."
     Aunt Emmaline’s lips moved, her mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out. Her eyes focused over Phoebe’s shoulder and she waved her hand in front of her face like a fan. Carter looked like he’d swallowed a fish whole. Mrs. Sloane’s lips pursed like she’d just sucked on a lemon, but they remained closed. Good. That had finally shut them up.
     "I know you’re a woman."
     She heard the voice, and everything inside her rebelled at the knowledge of who it belonged to. But even if the sexy timber wasn’t undeniably familiar, she could not mistake the feel of Rand’s presence.
     It took all of her courage to turn around and face him. He was alone. Relief whooshed through her. It was bad enough that he had heard her, but to have the spangle clad blonde privy to Phoebe’s stupidity would have been the limit.
     She went hot, then cold with embarrassment as she forced herself to meet his eyes. "Good evening, Rand."
     He didn’t so much as crack a social smile. "I don’t need the inducement of your trust fund to recognize you are a woman."
     Another man would have pretended not to hear, but Rand lived by his own rules and none of them included polite social lies.
     "Of course not. I mean it’s obvious I’m not male." Then mentally considering her curves that could better be described as bumps, she amended, "Fairly obvious anyway."
     He raised his brow, his gaze sweeping over her with tactile intensity. Things happened to her insides that had no business happening in the current situation.
     He took her wrist in his hand. "Are you ready to go?"
     The feel of his skin against hers had her staring at him stupidly. For all the time they’d spent together since Carter’s desertion, he’d never touched her before. "What?"
     "You said you’d give everything you own for a week in my bed. I’ll settle for the deed to Luna Island."

Carter's Story

     Anticipation thrummed through Carter Sloane’s body.
     Soon he would know the answer to a very important question, a question that had been plaguing him for over four years.
     Would Daisy Jackson’s lips taste as good as they looked?
     Impatiently, he increased his pace as he approached her office. The building was pretty much deserted and he’d made sure it was so. He’d even sent security off the floor. He didn’t want any witnesses for what he was hoping would take place. A kiss that would prove the desire went both ways.
     Sweat broke out at his temples and he tugged at the collar of his custom-tailored shirt that suddenly felt too tight. Thinking about Daisy made his blood so hot, it boiled in his veins.
     His torment had been working for Sloane Electronics since she was eighteen. Not that he’d met her that early on. If he had, he wondered if he would ever have ended up engaged to Phoebe. Starting in clerical, Daisy had worked her way to an important behind the scenes position in marketing.
     She was much too shy to thrive on the sales team, or even in a position where she had to present her ideas to upper management.      He found that endearing.
     He’d met her over four years ago when she’d first moved into the marketing department and he had fallen in instant lust. She was the main reason he’d left Phoebe practically standing at the altar. If he could feel such strong sexual attraction to another woman, he had no business marrying Phoebe. He had been convinced he carried his father’s curse when it came to relationships and women.
     But four long years of wanting the same woman, dreaming about her and finally getting to the point where he wasn’t even interested in sex with other women, had taught him something about himself. 
He had a helluva a lot more staying power than his father. He might not be any more capable of real love, but he could do the fidelity thing.
     Now he just had to convince Daisy she wanted to do it with him.
He was almost positive that her hormones were as affected as his. She blushed when their eyes met and whenever he came close, her breathing got erratic. All definite signs the attraction was mutual, but he had to find out for sure.
     Right now. He couldn’t wait any longer.
     It was after six p.m., but he knew she’d still be in her office. She had no social life. He’d asked around and discovered she never dated. Which shocked the hell out of him. Were the men around her blind or just stupid? His little Daisy was ripe for the plucking and he was the lucky guy that was going to savor her sweet fruit.
     He stepped into her office and sure enough she was busy typing away at the computer. His nostrils flared just like an animal in heat scenting his mate as her vanilla perfume reached out and surrounded him.
     "Don’t you ever go home?"
     She jumped and spun her chair around to face him.
     Her black hair flew like a silk cloud around her face and her almond shaped brown eyes went wide like a Japanese anime cartoon. "Mr. Sloane."
     He took a step further into the room and noticed with interest how she scooted back in her chair even though the desk was an effective barrier between them. "Call me Carter."
     He couldn’t picture himself coming inside her as she screamed Mr. Sloane in his ear.
     "I-I don’t feel comfortable calling the owner of the company by his first name."
     He watched her luscious lips move and form the words. Their natural raspberry fullness just begged to be kissed. Why didn’t other men react to the sensuality she exuded? Her lack of a social life was inexplicable to him, even taking into account her shyness. But he’d been in the room when she was exuding subtle mating signals, of which he was sure she was oblivious, and so were the men working with her.
     He’d noticed though and they made him nuts.
     She made a nervous movement with her hands as his silence stretched and his libido went into attack and conquer mode. It had been way too long. If his experiment failed, he didn’t know what he was going to do.
     It could not fail.
     She had to want him too.
     No way could this much desire be one-sided.
     "I’m the owner aren’t I?"
     She nodded, her pink tongue darting out to lick her lips and then retreating in a game of erotic peek-a-boo he was positive she did not intend and he had to stifle a groan.
     "I don’t mind you calling me Carter. In fact, I prefer it."
     "But..."
     "Daisy, even your admin calls me Carter. I think you’re the only person in the company besides old Mrs. Berger in the cafeteria that calls me Mr. Sloane."
     She sighed, as if it really mattered. "All right...Carter."
     He didn’t know why, but he felt like he’d won a major concession.      "Good. Now, I have a question for you."
     She sat up straighter, scooting her chair forward and clasped her hands on top of her desk. "Yes?"
     "Have you ever felt sexually harassed here?"
     Her dark brown eyes opened wide and her lips parted, but nothing came out, not even a huff of air.
     She was taking so long to answer, he was beginning to wonder if there was some guy working for him that he was going to have to fire. "Have you?"
     Finally, she shook her head. "Uh...no."
     "Good."
     She knocked some papers off her desk and bent to pick them up, sending a CD-Rom in its case flying to the floor as well. She gathered the papers and dropped them in an untidy heap on her desk with the CD-Rom on top. Her cheeks were now as berry-pink as her lips.
     "Mr. Slo-- I mean, Carter, why did you ask me that?"
     He moved around her desk, stalking her and hoping like hell her nerves were due to reciprocal attraction to the boss and not fear. "It’s important."
     She leaned back in her chair, away from him. "But why?"
     "If you don’t want to do anything, you don’t have to."
     "That’s good." She was looking at him like he’d gone nuts and the truth was, he had.
     His nuts were controlling his brain and it wasn’t doing his powers of conversation any good. While he could schmooze company presidents, man-woman communication was not his thing and right now he felt like a rookie manager giving his first presentation to the board of directors.
     He gave up on the subtle approach and decided on blunt honesty. "Daisy, I want to kiss you, but I don’t want you to feel pressured into letting me because I own the company you work for."
     She squeaked like a startled mouse, and then shook her head sending that gorgeous black silk cloud into motion again.
     Disappointment took his heart in its grip and squeezed. Had he been wrong about her reaction to him? Or was she afraid of it and how far could he push it without going into the realms of harassment. Not very damned far.
     She gaped at him. "What?"
     He took another step toward her, finding it more and more difficult to rein in the primitive urges she brought out in him. "I want to kiss you."
     "Now?"
     That was definitely better than no. "Yes."
     "I-I..."
     He forced down the desire to just pick her right up out of that small black office chair and devour her lips. "You don’t have to let me if you don’t want to. Your job is not on the line. I won’t hold it against you if you say no." But his balls were going to turn blue and fall off if that happened.
     "I promise," he said for good measure. This had to be absolutely voluntary on her part, or it wasn’t happening.
     She tucked her shiny black hair behind one ear in a nervous gesture. It rippled over her shoulder and he wanted to touch it. Bad.
     "You really want to kiss me?"
     "Yes."
     "Now?" she repeated and it was all he could do not to shout the affirmative.
     "Yes, now." His voice came out like some kind of animal growl and he hoped like Hades he hadn’t scared her.
     She stood up and closed all but two feet of the distance left between them.
     He had long arms and they were itching to reach out so he could grab her. It took more concentration than he felt he could spare to stop from doing it.
     "My job doesn’t depend on this?"
     "No." More growling. In a minute he was going to start howling like a wolf at a full moon.
     Moons made him think of backsides, naked backsides. Carter came closer to losing it than he had since he was fifteen and necking with his girlfriend when she let him cop a feel under her blouse for the first time.
     "Is that why you asked me about the um... the sexual harassment thing? Did you think I felt pressured sexually by you?"
     "Not yet." He hadn’t pressured her at all. He’d been extremely careful not to.
     "But now you want to kiss me." She seemed to be having a really hard time taking it in.
     He closed the distance between them and laid his hands on her shoulders. Her small bones felt fragile under his fingers. "I want to kiss you and I need you to either say yes or tell me to take a hike in something like two seconds."
     Her head tilted back so she could see him. She didn’t look scared. She didn’t look intimidated. She just looked confused and at that very moment that wasn’t a whole lot better than the other two. He needed to have his lips on hers in the worst way.
     "Do you want to use your tongue?" She asked it like she’d ask if he wanted a mint and it took him a second to grasp the meaning of the words. 
     When he did, his knees about buckled. "Yes. I’m going to want to use my tongue."
     She bit her lip and stared at him for a second. "Oh."
     "Is that a problem?"
     "I don’t like using tongues."
     It was his turn to stare. Not like tongues? No. She couldn’t possibly have said that. He wanted to use his tongue in a lot more places than her mouth.
     "I’ll make you like it."
     "If I don’t, will you stop?"
     "Stop kissing you?"
     "Stop putting your tongue in my mouth."
     His knees did buckle and he pivoted to fall back against her desk. He leaned on the edge and pulled her between his legs, so her body was one inch from rubbing up against the biggest, baddest erection he’d ever had.
     "I’ll stop if you don’t like it."
     "How will you know? I can’t talk with—"
     He couldn’t bear to hear her say it again. "Hit my shoulder. I’ll stop if you hit my shoulder."
     "Okay."
     His hands gripped convulsively on her shoulders. "Did you just say I could kiss you?"
     "Only if you stop using your tongue if I tap your shoulder."
     "I promise." But he was going to do everything in his power to make her like it.
     She clasped her hands in front of her, closed her eyes, lifted her face and pursed her lips like she’d just taken a bite out of a crab apple.

Colton's Story

     Somebody had stuck a vice on Colton Denning’s temples and it was so tight, he thought his head might explode.
Idiot.
     He never drank, but had that stopped him from finishing off an entire bottle of champagne by himself? No, it had not.
     Now, he had to live with the consequences.
     A head that wanted somebody to shoot it and put it out of its misery. A mouth that tasted like it had been stuffed with sawdust used to soak up a wrestler’s sweat. Okay, that image had been a little too graphic. His stomach roiled and his throat convulsed.
     He forced one eyelid open. He was facedown on a bed. That was good. The last thing he remembered was watching the follies in the showroom at his Vegas hotel. At least he’d made it back to his room.      Now, if he could just make it to the bathroom before he lost whatever was in his stomach...
     With an unmanly groan he would never have let another person hear, he shoved one leg off the side of the bed. Then the other one.      Using his arms to leverage himself, he pushed upward. If he couldn’t make it off of his knees, at least he could crawl to the bathroom.
     Bleary eyes took in the details of his bed. The bedspread was hanging off the end of the mattress and the covers were a mess, really lumpy.
     Make that extremely lumpy.
     The shock of what he was seeing sent him staggering to his feet. He reeled backward then staggered forward again until his shins ran right into the side of the bed. He rubbed his hand over his eyes, but it didn’t erase what he saw.
     A woman.
     A naked, very voluptuous woman was in his bed.
     Long, chestnut hair covered her averted face, but he didn’t need to see her features to be absolutely certain he didn’t know her. Because the blankets did not cover her body. Perfectly formed breasts with wine rose tips peaked at him from amidst the white linen. Her arms were thrown above her head in sleepy abandon. The sheet and blanket that barely covered her belly were twisted around her shapely calves and did nothing to hide the feminine curls at the apex of her very toned thighs. 
     Aw, hell. With a body like that, she had to be a showgirl.
     He didn’t date showgirls. He wasn’t big on dating period, but when he did date, he took out women who thought flamboyant was wearing a read sweater set instead of brown. Nothing like his mother, Moonbeam, the original flower child who’d never grown out of her tie-die t-shirts and bangle bracelets. And definitely nothing like this gorgeous creature in his bed.
     Of course, she hadn’t been a date.
     She’d been a one-night stand. Another never for him.
     Even as his dick responded to the sight of her oh-so-perfect body, his stomach clenched at the idiocy of going to bed with a stranger. His initial reason for forcing his body from the bed made itself known again. He spun on his heel, which sent the vice on his temples into a pulsating mode, but he didn’t care. He had to get to the bathroom.
He made it, shutting the door with a jerky movement. Afterward, he brushed his teeth and drank several glasses of water from the tap, downing some aspirin with one of them.
     He leaned against the counter, refusing to even glance in the mirror at the fool who’d taken an unknown woman to bed and risked his life for a night of sex he couldn’t even remember. He felt like he’d been run over by one of his excavation units and what was he supposed to say to the woman lying in his bed? He didn’t even know her name.
     No doubt, she’d really get a kick out of learning that fact. It suddenly occurred to him that he had no desire to stick around for an awkward morning after.
     Had his bathroom ablutions woken the woman in his bed? He snuck a peak around the partially closed bathroom door.
     She’d turned onto her side, exposing luscious, round cheeks he wished he could remember touching because sure as certain, he wasn’t going to be touching them again. Her soft, slow breathing indicated she was still asleep.
     He quietly snuck back into the main room and started searching for the clothes he’d been wearing the night before. He found his slacks in a pile under some spangly white thing. Her costume. It didn’t look like it covered up much more than the sheet was doing this morning.
     He tossed it aside and grabbed the pants, his knees about buckling with relief as several opened condom packets scattered to the floor.      At least they’d practiced safe sex. Having no memory of the previous night after his third glass of champagne, he had to assume he owed the woman in his bed thanks for making sure they had used protection. 
     He grabbed the rest of his clothes off the floor and tossed them into his duffel bag with the others he’d packed yesterday. He’d planned to get an early start on his trip to Mexico this morning. He was supposed to meet his brothers on Luna Island in three days and he still had to confirm delivery of the exploratory mining equipment to Las Playas del Blanco and arrange its transport to the island.
     He dragged on a pair of tan Dockers and a t-shirt. He would have to forego a shower. No way was he risking waking the woman up with the sound of running water.
     He’d grabbed his shaving kit from the bathroom, slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and had his hand on the door handle when he stopped. Okay, so maybe it had been a one-night stand, but could he just leave her like that? Naked and in his bed. She deserved a note or something.
     Considering the number of condoms they’d used, he had to figure she’d given him a heck of a night, even if he couldn’t remember it. He went back to the desk under the hotel window and pulled out a sheet of hotel stationary.
     It took him several minutes to decide what to write, but finally he had it down and was on his way out the door.
     He stopped at the front desk and paid the exorbitant fee Vegas hotels charged for keeping his room a night longer than his reservation. He didn’t want her being kicked out of bed by housekeeping later that afternoon.
     It was the best he could do for her.

     Fayre kicked the flat tire on her lime green Volkswagon Beetle.
     She was going to kill him. When she caught up with that too damn sexy, good-for-nothing, lying, leave a woman sleeping in bed while he snuck out, creep, she was going to murder him. Slowly. And she was going to enjoy doing it.
     But murder and mayhem had to wait while she changed the tire on her little car, the hot sun making her oversized t-shirt and crop pants feel like an Eskimo parka.
     Oh, she was going to make him pay.
     She really was.
     Right after he explained how he could just walk out like that after all the things he’d said.
     A crack of almost hysterical laughter echoed around her. Why even bother asking? Mr. Colton Denning had just been another frickin bad choice in men. The kind she excelled at.
     When was she going to learn?
     But, damn it, he’d seemed so sincere.
     She didn’t trust men, never, not anymore. So, how had she let herself fall for his line? He’d seemed so sincere. He’d seemed different than the other creeps who saw her body and nothing else.
     He hadn’t been and it had hurt more than she’d thought possible to hurt anymore. She should be inured to that kind of thing by now, the love her, leave her crap. So, how had he gotten under her skin and right into her heart?
     She’d believed his line about love at first sight because she’d felt the same thing.
     Only she hadn’t. Oh, what she’d felt had been real enough. Hence the pain in her heart that would not go away, but he hadn’t felt anything more than the twitching of his oversized dick in his custom tailored pants.
     The sound of another car coming on the deserted highway sent her thoughts scattering. She spun around to look, shielding her eyes from the sun even though she was wearing her Donna Karan sunglasses. It was an old rattle-trap truck, too many colors to distinguish which had been the original. Pulling to a stop behind her car, the engine shuddered to a halt.
     Fear coursed through her. She was a woman alone on a deserted road in Mexico and her Spanish was only marginally better than her grasp of nuclear physics. She read dictionaries for pleasure, but they were in English.
     The sun glared off the windshield, blocking her from seeing the driver and her body went tense in preparation for flight or fight. But it wasn’t the driver’s door that opened first. The passenger door banged open and two small children tumbled out of the truck cab. They were followed by an obviously pregnant woman who had Fayre’s immediate empathy.
     Finally, the driver’s door opened and a stocky Mexican man stepped out. He smiled at Fayre, said something to his wife which made her smile and something to his children which sent them rushing to the back of the truck. He walked over to his wife and took her arm, helping her walk with all the solicitude of gentle and obvious love.
     Fayre’s eyes smarted with tears for no good reason she could think of.
     The two came over to where she stood next to a half-jacked-up car and her spare tire. "I help you, señorita?"
     On a normal day, she would have refused his help, saying she could do it herself. But this wasn’t a normal day and she offered the tire jack to him without a single argument and a heartfelt, "Thank you."
     He nodded, smiled again and finished jacking up her little car. It looked like he knew what he was doing, so she left him to it.
     "You go to Puerto Vallarta?" the woman asked, naming a city popular with tourists further south on the coast.
     Fayre forced her normally mobile mouth into a smile. "No. I’m going to Luna Island."
     "Is pretty place."
     Fayre wouldn’t know. All she did know was that was where the owner of Denning Mining Operations had gone and she was determined to track the snake down.
     However, she smiled again and nodded.
     The children ran up, offering Fayre a piece of fruit. She knew to refuse would offend the small family, so she accepted, but then pulled some cokes and other snacks from her food store in the small trunk of her car to share with them. The kids were ecstatic and watching them brought the first real grin to her face in days.
     A half an hour later, she was again behind the wheel of her car and the Mexican family was on its way.
     Now, that was a man. He stopped to help a woman in distress, took care of his pregnant wife and was tender with his children. He was not some slimy toad who talked a woman into his bed and then dumped her in the morning with a note on the hotel stationary no less. Frickin cheap and uninspired, that’s what Colton Denning was.