Bonded by Accident Read online

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” A Blood Kindred doctor in a white coat came into the exam room as the nurse left. “Now then, it appears you’ve just come in with my colleague, Dr. Lathe, from BleakHall prison. Knowing the reputation of that place, I expect you’ll be physically run down—possibly even malnourished.” He was studying a tablet as he spoke but when he looked up at Slade’s massive, muscular bulk his eyes widened. “Well,” he murmured, making a note on the chart. “Perhaps not malnourished then.”

  “The only thing I’m starved for is sex, Doc,” Slade said bluntly. “I’ve been locked up for six years now with no female companionship, if you know what I mean. If you’ll just point me the way to the Pairing Puppets I’ll be healthy and happy both.”

  “Well…” The doctor’s pale blue eyes widened. “Direct, aren’t you, Brother?”

  Slade shrugged his broad shoulders.

  “It’s the only way I know to be. Now could you point me in the right direction, please? I’ve got a six-year itch that needs scratched.”

  “I’m afraid the Pairing Puppets’ House is closed for the evening,” the doctor said, frowning.

  “Fuck,” Slade growled in frustration.

  “Not until tomorrow, I’m afraid,” the Blood Kindred doctor said dryly. “I’ll tell you what—I’ll check you out of the med center and get you assigned to a guest suite for tonight. Why don’t you rest and shave and shower—get a good hot meal and a good night’s sleep. Then you can be at the Puppet House first thing in the morning when they open to, ah, scratch your itch.”

  It sounded like the best offer Slade was going to get.

  “All right.” He sighed. “I’ve waited six years—I guess I can wait another six hours.”

  “That’s the spirit.” The doctor clapped him on the shoulder. “Now let’s get on with this exam. I have to look you over before I can release you and have you assigned a suite.”

  With a resigned sigh, Slade submitted to the exam. He would take the doc’s advice. A hot meal of decent food, a shave and a shower—not to mention a good night’s sleep on something besides a mattress thinner than a bergrath’s shadow—would be welcome after so long in the hole at BleakHall.

  And tomorrow he would find her—the pretty little Pairing Puppet of his dreams. The one with wide hips and big brown eyes.

  She was waiting there for him—Slade just knew it.

  Chapter Two

  “Come on, Brandi—live a little! It’ll be fun!”

  Brandi frowned at her cousin and crossed her arms over her chest. How many times had Crystal gotten her into trouble with those exact words?

  Come on, it’ll be fun! Just try a drink—Peach schnapps is the best!

  Come on, Brandi—it’s only one little pill and I promise it’ll make you feel amazing!

  Come on, girl—nobody cares if we take one or two things. Everybody does it—just don’t let the clerk see..

  And probably the worst one of all…

  Come on, Brandi—you have to go with me on this date. Dwayne has this really cute friend called Earl and he wants to come too but we need a date for him. Come on, please?

  That last request had landed Brandi is more hot water than all the rest combined. The double date had included waaaay too much to drink and had turned into sex in the back seat of Earl Duckworth’s car which had led to an unplanned pregnancy, the loss of her college ambitions, an unhappy marriage and an even unhappier divorce, all before she hit her mid-twenties.

  The only good thing to come out of the whole sorry situation had been Brandi’s daughter—Emmaline.

  “What are you namin’ her such a fancy name for?” Brandi’s mother, Ivy-Mae Dixon had demanded when Emmaline was born. “You oughta call something normal like Daisy-Mae or Mary-Grace or Cindy-Lynn. Something pretty like that.”

  But Brandi had no intention of naming her daughter anything common. She’s always been a reader and a thinker. In fact, despite occasionally getting dragged into her cousin Crystal’s shenanigans, Brandi had gotten excellent grades at Plant City High School and had been on track to get a modest scholarship before her disastrous date with Earl.

  Of course, having Emmie changed all that. She’d had to drop out of school and get a job since Earl’s occasional stints of work at several of the local mechanics shops didn’t exactly make for a steady payday. Then later, after he got busted for dealing and went to jail, she’d had an even harder time making ends meet.

  Her dreams of full-time college were gone but she had managed to get her GED and take a few night courses here and there, after the baby was born and before Earl went away—mostly because her stepfather, Bud, was good with kids and willing to babysit. Her mother, Ivy-Mae, was more interested in being a barfly than a grandmother so she was out. And Crystal was too much of a party-girl to trust with Emmie.

  But Brandi was intent on bettering herself. She’d managed to land a job in Tampa as a secretary to the branch manager of the Bank of Tampa’s downtown location. True, she had a boss who tried to play grab-ass with her on a daily basis but at least it was better than waiting tables at a dive-bar, which was what Crystal did or working at the Dollar General like her mom.

  Despite her status as a single-mom who came from a low-income family, Brandi was determined she was going places—she just didn’t know where or how yet.

  But she didn’t always feel so hopeful.

  Who am I kidding saying I’m a single-mom from a low-income family? she asked herself grimly, on nights when she was feeling low. I might admit what the rest of the world sees—I come from trailer trash and without a degree it’s nearly impossible to get out of the damn trailer park!

  It was true and Brandi knew it. Call it what you wanted—trailer trash…white trash…redneck…Florida Cracker…any and all of those described her family and her lot in life. Sometimes a pessimistic little voice in her head whispered that she was never getting away from it—never getting out of Plant City whose only claim to fame was that they held the annual Strawberry Festival there every February.

  You’re stuck here forever, whispered that little voice, and you’re never getting out. And sometimes when it had been an especially bad day of trying to keep away from her groping boss and her mom was drunk and shouting at the neighbors and Crystal was calling to ask to borrow ten bucks for gas money and Emmie asked for the thousandth time what had happened to daddy and why he didn’t live with them anymore…sometimes Brandi almost believed it.

  Which was why it had been so surprising when Crystal of all people offered her a way out—at least temporarily.

  “I got these tickets to tour the Kindred Mother Ship,” she’d told Brandi excitedly, about a month before. “I won ‘em on an on-line poetry contest. You have to come with me.”

  “A poetry contest?” Brandi hadn’t even tried to keep the disbelief out of her voice. The only reason her cousin had passed remedial senior English had been because Brandi had tutored her and had practically written most of her papers. Crystal didn’t know grammar from a graham cracker and Brandi, who was a confirmed book lover herself, doubted her cousin had read so much as a comic book her whole life.

  In other words, Crystal was no Sylvia Path.

  “Yeah, a poetry contest. Think you’re the only one who can write?”

  Crystal arched an eyebrow and put one hand with its long, manicured fingernails on her bony hip. She always seemed to have money for fill-ins on her nails even when her gas tank was dry and there was nothing but month-old curdled milk in her fridge.

  “Well, you have to admit—” Brandi started but her cousin cut her off.

  “I saw a little flower

  Open to the sky

  The bloom was oh-so-pretty

  It almost made me cry,” she recited. “That was my poem. There’s more—I talked about the clouds and the sun some too—but anyway it won. It won, Brandi! And now I got these tickets and you gotta come with me!”

  Brandi had tried to put her off. She’d sworn to herself to s