Chapter One
Bleu MacAllister
Southaven, Mississippi
My favorite violin and piano duet plays as I attempt to work. It’s becoming more difficult to be productive without an office. Trying to do freelance investigation from my bedroom within our rental house? Challenging.
The song “Time Forgotten” plays. It’s a reminder that neither time nor Sinclair Breckenridge has been forgotten. Three months and more than four thousand miles separate us. It isn’t enough. I think of him all the time. And it’s a fucking problem.
I push the thoughts of Sin from my head and scroll through the photos from my latest PI job—a clear case of a bitter wife looking to nail her cheating husband’s ass to the wall. My aging computer’s trackpad sticks and races through my collection of incriminating photographs.
“Dammit!”
Images of my client’s husband and his lover flutter before me, each picture flashing like a scene from a stop-motion movie I don’t wish to watch for a second time. I tap furiously against the trackpad in an effort to make it cease.
“Stop. Stop. Stop, you son of a bitch.”
My laptop finally obeys after a bit of physical abuse, but not before coming to a standstill on the one and only image I have of Sinclair Breckenridge and me together.
Wow … talk about coincidence. I have thousands of pictures on this computer. What are the odds it would land on this one?
It’s karma. Or bad juju. I don’t know. Maybe the universe wants to torture me.
The photo in front of me is a shot of us dancing during my initiation ceremony at Thane and Isobel’s country estate. We’re surrounded by the soft glow of candlelight and Sin is cradling my face with his hands. I remember everything about that moment. He told me I was special and then leaned in to kiss my forehead. He had not told me he loved me but I think he was wrestling with saying those three words. I recognized the look in his eyes because I’d been seeing it in my own reflection for some time.
I avoid this picture. Looking at it breaks my stupid heart all over again. I should drag it to the trash and delete it for good. I want to but I can’t bring myself to pull the trigger. That seems to be a common problem with me these days.
I was on the plane home when I discovered the picture on my phone. I wish I hadn’t seen it until I was back on the ground again. The image of us together sent me into a full-blown panic attack midflight. I was forced into the tiny lavatory to talk myself down. I was lucky. The episode wasn’t one of the bad ones but an enclosed area lacking proper ventilation couldn’t be worse when you feel like you’re smothering to death.
I took thousands of photographs while I was in Edinburgh. I must have at least five hundred of Sin—most of which are candid since he was usually unaware. Those are my favorites. I was always behind the camera—and never in front of it—so none of my pictures are of us together. That’s why I treasure this one. Many thanks to whoever used my phone to capture this moment.
I touch the screen. I stroke my finger down his face but it feels nothing like the real thing. I close my eyes so I can imagine the way his scruff felt against my skin.
He rarely grew what I would call a beard. He always kept his facial hair short and scruffy. And I loved it, especially when he would drag his face down the center of my body just to hear me squeal. But the best was when he’d push the crotch of my panties aside and rub his chin up and down between my legs.
“Holy shit, Bleu. That’s him, isn’t it?” I jerk when I hear Ellison’s voice over my shoulder. “That’s the man you were with in Scotland.”
I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I’ve allowed her to sneak up and catch me looking at this photograph. I was preoccupied. That’s my only excuse.
Ellison has interrogated me nonstop about my relationship with Sin. I’ve been vague. She’s on a need-to-know-only basis. That means I haven’t told her shit. But I want to. I need someone to tell me this excruciating pain in my heart is going to ease.
“Yes.” That’s my Breck. My admission feels like a ton of bricks lifted from my shoulders.
“Damn. That is one hottie Scottie.”
“I know.” I sigh as I prop my chin in my hand. I look at the handsome face of the only man in this world besides my father who has been willing to take me the way I am.
Two men. Both know the darkness I carry inside. But they love me anyway.
I’ve lost one. I’m losing the other. And it’s killing me.
“My God, Bleu. Look at the way he’s holding you … like you’re his everything. I don’t know how you walked away from him.”
You’d be surprised by the things you can do when you’re staring death in the face.
“My job was over.”
“You haven’t told me anything about it. Or him. Was it good?”
I recall the words he used to describe what being together was like for him. “The best ever.”
“You don’t think you’ll see him again?”
“No.” I won’t if I want to continue to live.
I feel Ellison’s supportive hand on my shoulder. “That’s too bad, sis.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Ellison plops down on my bed. “At least now I understand why you’ve been brooding for the last three months. I would mourn the loss of that hottie too. But it’s time to get out and move on. You can’t sit in this house and never socialize again.”
Has she lost touch with reality? “Do I need to remind you that I’ve never socialized? This isn’t new for me.”
“But you didn’t know what you were missing before. You’ve had a taste of great sex. There’s no turning back.”
“I don’t want to have sex with anyone else.” No one will ever make me feel the way Sin did. I’m certain it would only be a disappointment so there’s no point trying.
“I get it. You don’t have to go out and find your next lay tonight but you do have to go out.”
Says who? “No, I don’t.”
“Please, Bleu. I’m going to Memphis with some work friends tonight. We’re going to Beale Street.”
Beale is Memphis’s version of Bourbon Street. I was assigned to patrol it when I was on the force. Nothing but trouble.
“We’re meeting at Coyote Ugly in a couple hours. You’ll have fun. I promise it’ll help take your mind off your Scottish hottie.”
I have some serious doubts about that but Ellison has dated a lot. She probably knows the remedy for this pain better than I do.