Welcome to Temptation: A Romantic Comedy (18 page)

Although Charlotte is widely known for her laugh-out-loud romantic comedies, she went on to pen three Maggie Award-winning thrillers for Avon Books in the late nineties, before resuming her first love, funny stories about people falling in love. She thrilled readers with her hilarious books,
A New Attitude
and
Hot Shot,
the latter of which won the Waldenbooks Greatest Sales Growth Achievement in 2003.

Her books received so many accolades that she was invited to co-author the very popular Full House series with mega-star author Janet Evanovich.

With that series behind her, Charlotte began her own, starring psychologist Kate Holly;
What Looks Like Crazy, Nutcase, and High Anxiety,
creating a cast of somewhat kooky but always loveable and funny ensemble characters.

To keep current with Charlotte and her projects, please
sign up
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You can also visit her website at
http://readcharlottehughes.com
and follow her on Twitter @charlottehughes.

If you enjoyed
Welcome to Temptation
we think you will also enjoy
See Bride Run!
(
click here
) and
Tall, Dark, and Bad
(
click here
), both released by Charlotte in 2014-2015, as well as her backlist. Her next book,
The Devil and Miss Goody-Two-Shoes,
tentatively scheduled for mid-August, promises to be another fun read! The following is an excerpt from that book:

Kane Stoddard cut the engine on his battered Harley, shoved the kickstand in place with the heel of his boot, and read the address on the rustic frame building once more. As he climbed off his bike, he could still feel the vibrations from the powerful engine rumbling through his body. His right hand ached from having gripped the throttle for so many hours. His shoulder muscles were sore. He didn’t care. It felt good to use all the parts of his body again.

Prison had taught him to appreciate the simple things.

He sucked his breath in deeply and tasted the crisp Mississippi air. It was fresh and clean with no lingering scents of urine and disinfectant. Spring. How fitting to be given a new start in life when everything around him was coming alive as well.

He smiled, then realized it was the first time he’d smiled in months. Not that he’d had a whole lot to smile about these past three years. But, out of the blue, everything had changed. The warden had called him into his office to apologize for the terrible mistake they’d made,
they
being the judicial system that Kane had long ago lost respect for—the
same
system that put bank robbers behind bars for forty-five years and gave child molesters four.

“I’ve wonderful news for you, Mr. Stoddard,” the warden of Leavenworth Prison had said, as if addressing inmates respectfully took the sting out of all the other humiliations they were forced to endure. “A man fitting your description robbed a Memphis convenience store a couple of months ago. The clerk shot him in the chest. The man eventually died but not before he confessed to several crimes, including the one for which you were convicted.” The warden paused. “His story checked out, and his DNA was at the crime scene. He was able to give details.

The warden paused and took a deep breath. “So … It appears you were wrongfully convicted.”

Now, three days after his release from the Hot House—the name everyone gave to that notorious federal prison—Kane stood before Abercrombie Grocery. He thought of the bundle of letters in his duffel bag that had led him from Leavenworth to Hardeeville, Mississippi.

Melanie Abercrombie had begun writing to him a year earlier when she’d received his name from her pastor. Kane suspected the preacher hoped his congregation would bring a few criminals to salvation. Well, Miss Abercrombie hadn’t saved his soul, but she’d certainly made the small Mississippi town and its occupants sound interesting. Through her letters, Kane knew the good Reverend Potts had a weakness for rhubarb pie, and his wife a fondness for gossip. He’d also read about the Babcock’s, who owned the local bakery and often left their loaf bread and rolls on the shelves too long instead of moving them to the “thrift” section and marking them half-price.
This,
Miss Abercrombie declared, was probably due to the fact that their teenage daughter, Desiree, refused to buy her clothes at the moderately priced Aaronson’s Department Store like everyone else, preferring the Neiman Marcus (Melanie had called it Needless Markup) in the new mall in the next town instead. It was no wonder folks in Hardeeville were being forced to pay top dollar for stale bread.

Kane had read each and every letter, sometimes three or four times before tucking them into the shoe box beneath his cot. He’d never answered them, of course, not only because he couldn’t think of a damn thing to say to the woman but because he didn’t want anyone to think the letters were important. The minute someone found out something mattered at Leavenworth they took it away.

Nevertheless, he had found himself wondering about Melanie Abercrombie: what she looked like, the sound of her voice. She had to have a pretty voice, because she’d mentioned singing in the church choir. As for looks, she was probably as plain as a dust mop, he’d convinced himself. Otherwise, she wouldn’t spend all her free time writing to him.

Kane pulled his duffel bag from the bike and approached the store, trying to decide if it looked as Melanie Abercrombie had described it. The building had to be at least a hundred years old, the wood faded and warped in places from the weather. A vintage soda-pop machine shared space with two long benches on the front porch, where a faded green awning offered relief from the elements. Double screen doors marked the entrance, both of which sagged and looked as though they’d come completely unhinged in the next strong wind. Beside one door a small sign listed the hours of operation. A sign on the other side of the doors listed the rules.
No loitering, profanity, or alcoholic beverages allowed.
Kane didn’t have to be psychic to know who’d put up the sign. Even in her letters, Miss Melanie Abercrombie had come across as a real Southern lady.

He paused before the door, suddenly nervous at the thought of meeting the woman who’d written to him faithfully the past year. How would she react when she saw him for the first time? His release had come about so quickly, he hadn’t had a chance to notify her of his whim to visit.

Melanie Abercrombie was in a sour mood, brought on by hunger pangs, her younger sister’s desperate, incessant phone calls, and a feeling of being overwhelmed. She peered through clunky square-framed glass at the mess before her.

Abercrombie Grocery was as disorganized and cluttered as a child’s playroom, proof that her father preferred visiting with his customers and listening to gospel music to sweeping and restocking shelves. Mel ran a finger across the lid of a jar of pickled beets where a layer of dust covered the price.

She knew she was partially responsible for the mess. Her flower shop had been in an uproar for a solid month, what with three weddings and two high school proms. It was so bad her assistant, Eunice Jenkins, claimed she was getting varicose veins from standing on her feet so long, and prickly heat rash from sweating and handling pompoms. Mel simply hadn’t had time to come by her father’s store and clean the way she usually did. It was no wonder folks were driving into town to shop at the new Thrifty Sack.

Nevertheless, Mel had had no idea how bad business had been until she looked through her father’s financial records. Only then did she realize they would have to take desperate measures. The store
must
be cleaned up once and for all. They’d have to pull up all that scarred linoleum and tear down the warped shelves. They’d have to patch the roof over the meat cooler and repair the faucet on the bathroom sink, and have someone look at the old heating and air conditioning unit that never quite kept the place warm enough in winter or cool enough in the summer.

Mel sighed heavily. It was going to take so much time and money, neither of which she had very much of these days.

That brought her to the next problem: Where the heck was the carpenter she’d hired to
do
the work? She groaned inwardly as she wondered about him. She’d hired the man sight unseen from a Craig’s List ad stating he was unemployed and would work cheap as a handyman. She’d later learned, through the grapevine at church, that the fellow was unemployed due to a tendency to drink and forget about work altogether.

Mel was interrupted from her thoughts by the sound of a motorcycle pulling in front of the store. Less than a minute later, one of the screen doors was thrown open and a man stepped through.

“Melanie Abercrombie?” he asked, trying to make himself heard above a modern rendition of “Jesus Loves Me” coming from a radio at the back of the store.

At first all Mel could do was stare at him.

She felt her jaw drop clear to her collar as she regarded the man before her. His head and face were covered with snarled blue-black hair. His eyes were just as black; his look hard, flat, and emotionless. It was the sort of face one expected to find on Wanted posters, the sort of face that prompted decent folks to lock their doors at night before they went to bed.

So
this
was her carpenter. No wonder he couldn’t keep a job.

“Well, it’s about time you got here,” she said, her voice as crisp as fried salt pork. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be put off by that beard. She took in his clothes, the blue sweat-stained work shirt and shamefully tight jeans. He looked tough, lean, and sinewy, and probably could do the work if he stayed sober. “I’ve been waiting for you all day.”

“You have?” Kane was clearly surprised. He couldn’t imagine how she’d learned he was getting out.

“Yes,” she replied, noting he didn’t look the least bit remorseful for being so late. Didn’t he
want
the job, for heaven’s sake? “I suppose an apology is out of the question,” she said.

Kane’s mind went blank. “You can apologize if you want, but I certainly don’t expect it.”

Her irritation flared. “I wasn’t talking about
me
apologizing to
you,”
she said tightly.

His bafflement quickly turned to annoyance. She had obviously called the prison, although he couldn’t imagine why. She had never once tried to contact him by phone. “Why should
I
apologize?” he asked. “I came as quickly as I could. Hell, I don’t even have to be here.”

“Oh, is that right?” she quipped, staring straight into his lethal black eyes. She paused. “You think I’m desperate, don’t you?”

He was growing more confused. “Come again?”

“That’s it, isn’t it?” She fidgeted with the buttons on her blouse. “You think I need you so badly that I’ll put up with this sort of behavior.”

Kane was truly at a loss as he studied the woman before him and wondered where in the hell the conversation was going. “I don’t think you’re desperate,” he said, at the same time wondering if she expected him to court her in return for all those letters. She was clearly not his type. Her skirt and blouse were too prim and proper; her hairstyle—slicked back into a bun—too severe. Her glasses were downright ugly and made her face appear misshapen. “I don’t want to appear rude, Miss Abercrombie, but I’m not looking to get romantically involved with
anyone
right now. I’m just looking to make a fresh start.”

“What?” Mel’s head spun. What in blazes was he talking about? Did he think she was making a pass at him? Was he insane? She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off.

“Look, I don’t want us to get off to a bad beginning. I’m not sure I would have made it this past year without your letters.” It wasn’t easy for him to be so honest, but she had done much for his morale these twelve months; he owed her.

Mel was at a loss. He wasn’t making sense. “Letters? What letters? Who
are
you?”

“Kane Stoddard.”

She froze as realization swept through her with the force of a tidal wave. “Kane Stoddard? From Leavenworth Prison?” He nodded, and she thought she detected a small smile, but it was hard to tell with the beard.

“But how can that be?” she asked herself out loud. The Kane Stoddard she knew was a convicted killer, serving life without parole. How had he gotten out? The answer came to her with lightning-quick clarity. She knew of only one way a prisoner could get out that fast.

Kane watched the color drain from her face. He had expected her to be surprised, but she looked as if she’d just received the scare of her life. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She knew she ought to do something, but what? Dial 911? Race outside and flag down the first motorist who came along? She tried to move, but her feet felt as though they’d been set in cement.

An escaped convict in Hardeeville? Was it possible?

Kane watched, transfixed, as Melanie Abercrombie’s eyes glazed over, and then rolled back in her head like dice in a card game. She swayed, and he reached for her. He wasn’t fast enough. She collapsed and fell against a box of drain cleaner with the grace and finesse of a hundred-pound gunny sack of Vidalia onions.

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