Accidentally on Purpose Read online

  good front. Fake it until you make it and all that. But something about her worried him. If she’d been all attitude and bravado, he could have blown her off.

  But she was afraid, although of what he had no idea. With her, it could be anything. And if she brought the trouble to Elle . . . “Tell me what’s going on, Morgan.”

  Her smile faded. Her mouth trembled, although she put her fingers to her lips quickly as if to hide the weakness. “Oh, you know, just always trying to outrun my stupid past.”

  “How?”

  “You know I didn’t stop grifting after that night.”

  He nodded and she looked away. “It was harder for me to get out than it was for Elle.”

  Bullshit. But he said nothing.

  “I was all on my own,” she said.

  Elle too, he thought, but again he held his tongue.

  “I kept cutting things too close.”

  “You actually did cut things too close,” he said. “Twice.”

  She met his gaze. “You know?”

  “That you went to jail five years ago and again two years later?” he asked. “Yes.”

  She stared at him. “I know it’s hard to believe but I really have gotten my life together. I’m sober. I’m taking some general ed classes, working toward my AA degree. I told you my current living situation and I’m cleaning houses for cash.”

  “But?” he asked.

  “But I want something different, something on the books and legit.” She laughed shortly with little amusement. “I know this sounds ridiculous given who I’ve been, but I want to pay taxes. I want to save money to get my own apartment. But no one’s going to hire an ex-felon. I need a fair shot, and I won’t blow it. Not ever again.” She looked at him, eyes defensive and a little defiant, like she expected him to laugh at her.

  “You mean it?” he asked.

  “I’ve never meant anything more.”

  “So what is it you need?”

  “A job reference, for starters,” she said. “The coffee shop downstairs has a sign in the window that says they’re looking for a part-time barista for the early morning shift. There’s also a sign in the pub for a waitress.”

  No way in hell would he blindly trust her at one of his friends’ places of business but he’d figure something out for her. If she really meant it. “And that’s all you want from me, a job reference?”

  She looked away. “And a co-signer on a lease for that apartment, when I find it.”

  “And . . . ?” he asked. “Lay it all out, Morgan.”

  She gave a brief smile. “Upfront and brutally honest as ever, I see.”

  “Always,” he said.

  She looked at him again, right in the eyes. “I don’t want anyone from my past to be able to find me. I know you have ways to make people invisible.”

  “You want to be invisible?”

  “I want to be safe,” she said. “I want a fresh start. I want to be able to get those things for myself but apparently I’m unable to do that.” She looked very unhappy. “I need help, Archer. I don’t want to but I do.”

  He took a deep breath. “Everyone needs help sometimes. There’s no shame in that.”

  Some hope came into her eyes. “Does that mean you’ll do it? You’ll help me?”

  He’d never been able to turn away from a Wheaton, trouble or not, and he doubted he was going to start now. “I’m not going to keep this from Elle.”

  She arched a brow. “Interesting.”

  Yeah. Or terrifying.

  Elle sat on the counter of Willa’s shop, sipping her morning tea. The pet store was always fun and an adventure. Today there was a huge Siamese cat snoozing near the cash register, a cockatoo perched on a stack of bird feed, and Vinnie the teeny pup sprawled in the sole sunspot near the door, his manly bits on display to the world as he snored away.

  Elle, Willa, Pru, and Kylie were eating muffins from Tina’s coffee shop. Once upon a time Tina had been Tim. Tim had made good muffins but Tina was happier than Tim had ever been, and that happiness had spread to her muffins. People came from far and wide for her muffins, which as far as Elle was concerned were the best on the planet.

  Elle chowed down on a mini blueberry muffin while listening to Pru and Willa argue over the last lemon muffin in the bag.

  “I only had two,” Pru said.

  “I only had two too,” Willa said.

  “Me too on the two,” Kylie said.

  “But there were ten in the bag,” Pru said and added that up on her fingers. “Where’re the other three?”

  They all turned and looked at Elle. She unapologetically popped in the last bite of her third muffin. “Hey, there is the quick and then there’s the hungry,” she said, getting down from the counter. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  Willa held out a hand to stop her. “Not so fast, missy. You’ve been lying low all week. We haven’t seen or heard a peep from you.”

  “It’s been a busy one.”

  “Uh-huh,” Willa said. “We’d sure love hear about your interesting date last weekend.”

  Elle didn’t let her expression change because, much as she loved her friends, she didn’t intend to discuss what had happened between her and Archer.

  Not when she didn’t have a handle on it herself.

  Although you had quite a handle on him . . . And at that thought, images flooded her mind. Her on her knees. Archer wrapped around her like a glove, enclosing her in the heat and strength of his body. His hands holding her right where he wanted her, his fingers doing wicked things, his mouth at her ear urging her on.

  Just thinking about it had her breath quickening. Other reactions happened too, nothing that should be happening in public under the razor-sharp scrutiny of her friends who could spot a lie or misdirect a mile away. But mostly she remembered the stay the hell away from me that she’d uttered. The last words she’d spoken to him. “You heard wrong,” she said. “That wasn’t a date between Archer and me, it was . . .”

  Hell. A booty call. Exactly what she’d promised she wouldn’t be to him. But whatever, mistakes had been made and orgasms had happened. It was all just a singular momentary setback from her Archer-embargo.

  Pru went brows up. “Archer? I was talking about Caleb. But do tell about Archer.”

  Well crap. “He and I had a few things to discuss, is all. Business things. So we took it to my office. The end.”

  Willa grinned. “I once jumped Keane’s bones in my office while all of you sat right here, and I too used the excuse of”—she used air quotes—“‘things to discuss.’”

  Pru went wide-eyed. “Wait,” she said to Elle. “So you and Archer discussed things? Wow. We all knew it was only a matter of time before the tension between you two exploded but I thought we’d all hear the nuclear reaction, or at least smell the smoke.”

  “Ha-ha,” Elle said, and then she blinked. “Wait. What do you mean you all knew it was only a matter of time?”

  Everyone was suddenly very busy stirring her coffee or crumpling her napkin or anything other than answering that question.

  “Hello?” Elle asked but then Spence walked in and distracted everyone. Elle hadn’t had a chance to confront him about Archer getting him to hire her. She wasn’t sure she was ready to have that conversation.

  He had a large brown bag that smelled like more of Tina’s muffins and the conversation was momentarily put on hold while they practically jumped him.

  “Back off,” he said, lifting the brown bag above all of their heads. “Mine.”

  “Gimme,” Willa said.

  He put a large hand on her head and held her off. “Get a hold of yourself, woman.”

  “But they smell good!”

  “Then go get your own,” he said.

  “Did you know that Archer and Elle did the deed?” she asked, still eyeing his bag.

  Archer was a stone when he wanted to be, giving little of himself away, but Spence . . . Spence was a mile-high, mile-long brick wall. A fortress. B