Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) Read Free Page A

they’d fall madly in love during his short visit?
    Not likely. Love took much longer to grow,
and even then, you couldn’t count on your partner to completely
accept everything about you. Nor to stick around when the going got
tough or your life imploded.
    There was no question that Simone would ever
leave Goldstone. Though she’d only lived here a little over three
years, this town had become her haven. She’d lived in a lot of
places, but Goldstone was the first she’d ever called home—much to
her mother’s complete and total horror when Simone told her about
Goldstone. “Oh my heavens, you’re trailer trash,” she’d gasped with
shock, followed by a weird little sound that might have been
retching.
    So, what about a short, casual fling? Simone
liked sex. Sometimes she was very noisy during it. Too noisy.
Andrew, her ex-fiancé, had found it a little off-putting. All
right, she’d embarrassed the heck out of him. Men didn’t like women
who lost control of themselves. She should have listened to all her
mother’s lectures about excess and exuberance. The breakup had been
a bit demoralizing. Okay, it had been devastating and had badly
shaken her confidence in the sex department. She’d learned that you
had to know a man before you exposed that much of yourself,
figuratively and literally. Short and casual was definitely
out.
    Still, she could fantasize. In fact,
fantasizing was what she did best. What was the old saying? “Those who can, do, those who can’t, teach.” For Simone, it
was “Those who can’t, write.” She made a darn good living
conjuring up fantasies in which her heroines enjoyed hot, noisy,
screaming sex and weren’t ashamed of it. And their men loved it.
Tyler Braxton provided excellent hero material. She could always
pretend he liked that sort of woman. Hmm, maybe she’d include him
in a short vignette she could post on the website as a teaser.
    A shadow shifted in the chair to her left as
she stepped onto her sunporch.
    “Hey there, pretty lady.”
    Simone jumped and dropped her armload of
books, the screen door banging her butt.
    “How did you get in here, Mr. Lafoote?” Darn.
She should have noticed his car parked across the road in front of
her neighbor’s trailer, but she’d been too preoccupied.
    “The door was unlocked,” Jason answered
reasonably.
    No one locked their doors in Goldstone. But
neither did anyone walk in uninvited. Not usually.
    Jason Lafoote fancied himself a big-time
developer, but in Simone’s opinion, anyone who dreamed of turning
the Goldstone Hotel into a gambling resort had to be small
potatoes. Some of those baby potatoes with the yellow skins. In
fact, Jason’s skin was sort of jaundiced, and he was thin as a
scarecrow. The comparison maligned scarecrows everywhere. Jason
might have a brain, but it was definitely slimed.
    “It’s late.” After nine o’clock. He’d killed
that pleasant, sensual buzz she’d gotten thinking about Brax. “I’m
ready to turn in for the night.” She didn’t mention the word bed . He might mistake it for an invitation.
    He rose from the chair and glided across the
green indoor-outdoor carpeting to stop directly in front of her.
Moonlight gleamed in his eyes. “I could tuck you in.”
    Yuk. He’d taken her words for an
invitation anyway. Simone gave him a proper setdown. “No
thanks.”
    She’d sidestepped him and put a hand on the
front doorknob before she remembered her books. They lay scattered
at his feet, but no way was she bending down to retrieve them, not
in her short skirt.
    “Have you spoken with the judge about pushing
those permits through for me?” he asked, half turning to face
her.
    That’s what he really wanted from her. The
awkward attempts at seduction were a disguise.
    “I told you I wouldn’t talk to Della about
it.”
    “I thought perhaps you’d reconsider when you
realized how much prosperity a renovated hotel could bring to this
town. All it would take is a few words from you