Forbidden Fruit: Volume 1
Read Forbidden Fruit: Volume 1 Online
Authors: Lisa M. Harley,Missy Johnson,Stacey Lynn,Lexi Buchanan,Rebecca Brooke,Olivia Linden,Jessica Hawkins,R. S. Grey,Morgan Jane Mitchell,Janice Baker
Volume One
A collection of 10 forbidden love novellas
Forbidden Fruit Volume One Copyright © 2014
All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.
Cover Design: Amy Queau
Published by
Bolero Books Publishing LLC
This book is a written act of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
One Hot Summer by Lisa M Harley
Inadmissible Attraction by Rebecca Brooke
Secret Obsession by Olivia Linden
Strictly Off Limits by Jessica Hawkins
The Naughty Au Pair by Janice Baker
“I do.”
It seemed like only yesterday that I was standing at the altar saying those words to the man of my dreams. And that he was. Jefferson Michael Mason was the man I’d waited my entire life to meet. He was the one. He was my future and I was his. We were going to grow old together. Live the rest of our lives as husband and wife.
Why did it have to take so long for us to find one another? When my future husband walked into my life he was sixty-one years old. He’d already been married and divorced and he was the father of a thirteen year old son. And what was I? I was a thirty-five year old woman, who had never been married and had no children. To say that caused a bit of an uproar in the tiny town of Duncan, Missouri, was an understatement. The people here weren’t super fond of me or the fact that a fine upstanding man like Jefferson Mason could fall head over heels in love with someone young enough to be his daughter. Actually, I was old enough to be his son, Jason’s, mother, but nobody seemed to care about that little tidbit. It was funny to me how that double standard worked here in small town Missouri.
I’m sure it didn’t help matters that I was blonde and had, in my younger days, been a runner-up finalist for Miss Texas. Did I have a nice body? Yeah, I did. But so what? That didn’t have anything to do with Jeff’s feelings for me. We were in love and that was all that mattered.
Well that was what I thought at least. I honestly believed that love could get us through anything. It took five years for the realization to hit me. It took that long for me to realize how completely wrong I had been.
The music was making its way down the hall. Yet another song would be making its way onto the soundtrack of my life. At an early age I came to the conclusion that our lives are set to music. You can tell by what music is playing what stage of our lives we are in. A song can come on and take you back to that moment in time when you first heard the melody. Or make you remember something that maybe you really just wanted to forget. Music has a way of lifting you up and making you feel like you’re soaring one minute, then toppling your happy ass to the ground the next. The music playing at this moment was low and somber. I knew what the music meant and where it fit into my soundtrack, but that didn’t mean I was ready to face it. There was no way it was time yet. It couldn’t be time yet. Was this really happening? Was this day actually here?
“Are you ready, AnaBelle?” Jason asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.
Biting my lip and holding back a tear, I nodded my head and let Jason lead me through the doorway.
The huge wood paneled room was filled beyond capacity. People were packed in like sardines. All the seats were taken and people were now standing along the walls, crowding into the room.
Squinting, I thought to myself
“I don’t remember this room being so damn bright.”
It was way too bright. It was taking everything in me not to pass out as we made our way to our seats in the front row. As I sat down on the plush baby blue velour seat, my back hit the hard wooden pew and pain shot through me. The soreness hadn’t alleviated at all. I couldn’t stop the pain in any aspect of my life. The pain pills weren’t cutting it. It had been over a week since the accident. The hospital released me three days ago. Jefferson hadn’t been so lucky.
The whole thing happened so damn quickly. It was like watching a movie in slow motion. Rain had been falling in sheets for days. Several of the local roads were washed out, but when you run a farm that doesn’t matter. The animals still had to be taken care of. They were the priority. Since the day I moved to Mason Farms, Jefferson taught me the hierarchy. The animals were the livelihood and they came first.
We took the old truck out to the back acreage, like we had done so many times before, to check on things and feed the cattle.
Accidents happen. What happened was an accident. It was not under my control. There was nothing I could do to stop it. There was nothing anyone could’ve done to stop it.
The road was washed out. We got swept up into the current. All I can see when I close my eyes is the “movie” of what happened next. My movie - the movie of Jefferson’s death. Jeff uttered, “Go on Belle. Get safe.” Then he pushed me out of the truck. Everything after that is like a blur. The next thing I remember is waking up flat on my back in the middle of the road. My body covered in cuts and bruises and Jeff and the truck were nowhere to be seen.
Two days.
It took two days for his body to wash up.
I knew one thing for sure at that moment…my life was over. My husband was dead and to me that meant there was really no reason for me to go on.
“Get safe?”
Why? Why did it matter if Jeff was gone?
Everyone assumed it was my injuries keeping me in the hospital. That was definitely not the case. My need for strong antidepressants was the real reason that I stayed in the hospital a couple of days. When the doctor came in wearing his very professional looking white lab coat and asked me in his kindest yet most sincere voice if I had thoughts of harming myself, I was honest. You’re damn straight I did. Living without Jeff wasn’t an option for me. I’d found my other half and I couldn’t exist without it.
But one lesson that we all have to learn in this life is we don’t always get what we want. Life can fuck us over at any time.
I felt a squeeze at my shoulder and slowly turned my head toward Jason. Poor Jason. He’d aged ten years in the past week. Last week he was a boy who was about to turn eighteen years-old, getting ready to graduate and head off to college. Now suddenly he was a man sitting at his father’s funeral with his freaked out stepmom and the entire town there to pay their respects.
Jason had planned the entire funeral. He had to because I was in no condition to plan anything. Thank goodness he had enough sense about him to do it. He was such a stickler for details. He was just like his dad that way. Jeff would’ve been so proud of the way he was handling himself.
The mahogany casket was perfect for Jeff. It had an ivory lining and Jason picked out his favorite teal western shirt with pearlized buttons, and black Wranglers. I made sure he wore the platinum watch that I’d given him on our wedding day five years ago next month. His dark curls were styled perfectly, with just one curl kind of off center in the middle of his forehead. That was so Jefferson. He always had that one curl that was a little wonky. It drove him crazy, and it did me too, but for an entirely different reason. I was in love with that curl.
The music was still playing.
Amazing Grace
was his favorite hymn. Jason made sure it was played during the service. The service? The funeral. It was played during the funeral for my husband who died last week.
How fucking surreal was this?
“AnaBelle?” I felt a tug at my arm. “It’s time to go to the graveside. They’re waiting for us.” Jason muttered, wiping a tear from his eye.
I hadn’t realized it, but apparently the funeral was over. I stood up and wiped his eye with my handkerchief. “I’m not gonna go, Jason. Ya’ll go ahead. I’m gonna head back to the house and lie down. Try to get some rest. Calm down a little bit.”
“If that’s what you want to do, I understand. But I’m not going to send you home alone.” He walked a few rows back and came back with some young guy. “This is my friend, Tray. He’ll take ya home and stay with ya til I get back, k?”
Nodding, I let Tray lead me outside and help me get into Jason’s old jeep he kept at the farm for when he was home from school. As I climbed in, Tray helped me get my long skirt in the door. One of the scratches on my leg was really long and hurt pretty bad. He accidentally hit it when he shut the door to the jeep. I screamed out in pain and before I knew what was happening I was having a complete and utter mental breakdown. The tears started and there was no stopping them. Tray slowly opened the car door.
“Holy shit! Did I hurt you?”
Shaking my head rapidly side to side, I mumbled, “No. You didn’t hurt me. The world hurt me,” I sobbed. “The world took my Jefferson away. The only man I’ve ever loved.” I jumped down out of the jeep and felt the raindrops start to fall and mix in with the tears streaming down my face. “Why?” I screamed. I threw my hands up in the air and dropped to my knees sobbing, “Why would you do this to me? What have I ever done to you? What? What the fuck have I ever done?”
“Mrs. Mason?” Tray asked as he tried his damndest to pull me up off the cold, wet ground. “It’s raining and I really need to get you home.” Finally, I relented and let him pull me up to where I was facing him. He pulled me into a hug and I buried my face in his chest.
“I don’t understand, Tray. I’ll never understand,” I muttered.
“I know, Mrs. Mason. Believe me. I know exactly how you feel.”