Paradise for a Sinner
Read Paradise for a Sinner Online
Authors: Lynn Shurr
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Sports, #Contemporary
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Paradise
for a
Sinner
by
Lynn Shurr
The Sinners Series, Book Four
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Paradise for a Sinner
COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Lynn Shurr
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by
Diana Carlile
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Champagne Rose Edition, 2014
Print ISBN 978-1-62830-219-6
Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-220-2
The Sinners Series, Book Four
Published in the United States of America
Praise for Lynn Shurr
“Shurr is a wonderful storyteller.”
~The Romance Studio
“Very easy reads, well written, combined with conflict, believable plots and secondary characters that make the story come alive.”
~Jane Lange, Romance, Reads, and Reviews
“Lynn Shurr's stories have that distinctive flavor…and make you eager for another taste.”
~J. L. Salter, author
Dedication
For Fiona and Kelly Jacoby,
who shared their knowledge of spina bifida with me.
Chapter One
Joe Dean Billodeaux, star quarterback of the New Orleans Sinners, finished rubbing down his quarter horse, Lazy Boy. He and the big stud had a lot in common: getting older, being as good as ever, and having a whole bunch of offspring. Glad last winter’s surgery had healed well and loosened up nicely, Joe flexed his shoulder. His arm remained great enough to get the Sinners as far as the last game of the playoffs, lost by single point on the scoreboard. Right after his triplets came into the world and he saw how hard they fought to survive, he’d been inspired to win his fourth Super Bowl. Now he wanted a ring for his thumb, but this would not be the year.
Exercising his horse on a long ride was not exactly how he planned to spend the first day of his off-season. Nell knew that. Still, his wife had gone running off to the clinic where she volunteered her services as a psychologist to keep an early morning appointment. Giving L.B. an affectionate swat on the rump, Joe put away the curry comb and brushes and headed for the house, a recently expanded mansion really.
He wanted to spend the whole day in bed with Nell right after all eight of their kids left for school. Dean, twelve, Tommy, eleven, the twin girls and Xochi, aged ten, pretty much got ready themselves, but the triplets, only five, still needed help to get out the door. With their housekeeper, Corazon, shoving breakfast down little gullets, and her husband, the ranch manager, Knox Polk, doing a uniform inspection and backpack check before driving the brood and his own son to school in the van, they did have plenty of help. But as the old TV show claimed, eight is enough.
Still, the ancient
traiteur
, Madame Leleux, predicted he and Nell would have twelve children, this way, that way, all ways. In that she had been correct with Dean being his natural son, Tommy and Xochi adopted though related to his family, and the rest conceived by in vitro. Joe did not consider himself superstitious—much, no more than other athletes. Sure, he wore lucky number seven on his uniform and never played a game without his holy medal around his neck. It just seemed wise to add four more bedrooms and two baths to the house, he told Nell. Putting a small movie theater beneath the extra rooms made sense, too, as anyone attempting to take a tribe of eight to a show must realize. Saying it would get hot inside during a Louisiana summer and just tempt paparazzi, Nell vetoed an exterior glass elevator to the second floor. They compromised on a regular lift. After twelve years of marriage, Joe thought he’d gotten pretty good at compromising, but Nell didn’t agree with that either.
She knew how he liked to spend his first day off entirely alone with her. He’d given Corazon and Knox a free day,
mais
yeah, but she’d gone to that appointment anyhow. Nell said kind of sassy, “Well, I expected you to be in training for the Super Bowl, so don’t blame me. This woman is in crisis and needs my help more than you need me in bed.”
She softened that statement with a deep kiss and a promise to hurry home. Maybe during his long ride and time in the barn, she’d come back and waited naked upstairs right now. He smelled like horse and needed a shower. Shower sex or tub sex, her choice. See, he could compromise. The very thought of Nell and lots of lather made his jeans feel tight.
Good, her little red car, the one she zipped around in when the children weren’t along, sat in the driveway. Unfortunately, a huge black Escalade filled the space next to it. Not the one belonging to his old teammate, Revelation Bullock, either. Since becoming an ordained minister, the Rev had ordered his latest vehicle with a gold cross on the back, not the team’s red devil logo. A red imp winked on the rear of this one. Which team member possessed the nerve to violate Joe’s first day off ritual? A little steamed and very frustrated, he entered by the kitchen door and slammed it shut.
Two pairs of eyes turned toward him. The large, brown ones in the broad mocha face belonged to his terrific Samoan cornerback, Adam Malala, the man who replaced the Rev on the Sinners’ defense. The other pair, wide and baby blue, resided in the face of a small boy with a shock of pale corn silk hair hanging down to his blond brows. The child hunched forward in a scratched and dented red wheelchair. Joe’s guests appeared to be sharing a gallon jug of milk and a stack of peanut butter and banana sandwiches with a side of oatmeal cookies.
“Hey, Adam. I thought you were on your way to the islands. Aren’t you getting married in May?”
The big shoulders of the Samoan heaved. “Change of plans. I thought I’d hang out with you for a while.”
Without calling first, without an invitation? Joe held in his thoughts because he liked the easygoing guy and sure could not fault his ability on the playing field. Malala tended to be kind of casual about his visits. Most times that didn’t matter, but today…
Joe turned to the boy. “Who might you be, young man? Don’t your parents know Camp Love Letter isn’t starting for a few more months?” He referred to his charity for sick and crippled children.
Far from being intimidated in the presence of the famous quarterback, the kid beamed at him. His small voice twanged like a tightly tuned country banjo as he held up a folded piece of notebook paper. “I’m your son, Teddy. My mama says so in her letter.”
“Nell! Nell, where are you?” Joe shouted.
Adam inclined his head on its thick neck toward the hall. “She’s on the phone. Your wife said to make ourselves at home so I put together some lunch. You want a sandwich?”
“No, no, I do not.” He strode to the base of the staircase in the high vaulted foyer and shouted strong enough to be calling a desperate audible play in a noisy stadium, “Nell, where are you?”
“Upstairs,” she yelled back.
Amazing how loud such a small woman could be when necessary. Ordinarily, Nell did not approve of yelling, but when you had eight children to command, that rule sometimes went by the wayside. Joe suggested she wear a whistle, but she said she refused to be like the father in
The
Sound of Music
. Taking the stairs two at a time, he tried to decipher if that one shouted word held any anger directed at him. He would know in a minute.
There she sat out of her psychologist clothes and wearing exercise attire on their king-sized bed with her legs and bare feet curled under her and the phone in her hand. Not exactly sexy, but cute. She still wore her dark brown hair in a practical pixie cut and her face remained gamine despite her thirty-five years. Her breasts and hips were fuller now, and she bore a C-section scar on her belly, his fault for wanting her to have the triplets. Despite that, she was still his Tinker Bell, his Tink. At the moment, her beautiful and usually understanding brown eyes held a peculiar expression. She did not smile when he entered the room.
Only one thing to do. Joe fell to his knees by the bed, took her hand, and swore, “Cross my heart and hope to die, that boy is not mine, Nell.”
He dropped her hand and made the sign of the cross for emphasis. “I made a vow to be faithful to you, and I have been for true. What age is that boy? Around eight judging by the size of those big front teeth. Sounds like he’s from Tennessee or somewhere in the mountains. We played the Titans at home that year, and I came directly to you after the game. My mama had the boys, and your parents were taking care of the girls. We had our own very special victory party. Remember? A night on the town in the French Quarter, that hotel suite with room service, and sex all night long with our cell phones turned off, no interruptions. We skipped church and had his and her massages.”
He flashed that sure-to-get-you-laid smile of his, especially effective from his position of supplication. Nell nodded against the phone. “Yes, that’s Joe. I understand you have a problem of your own, Mintay. We’ll deal with it. Just wanted to let you know what happened. Bye.” Nell disconnected from Dr. Arminta Green Bullock, the Rev’s wife and her partner at the clinic, but her soft, generous mouth stayed strangely puckered.
Joe tried again. “By Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that boy is not my son.”
His little wife burst out laughing. “Of course he isn’t. Every child you father has the mark of the Billodeauxs on them in one way or another. Seeing you on your knees like that reminds me of the first time you said ‘I love you’ and wanted to marry me the very next day so Dean would have a mother. Too irresistible not to want to see that again.”
Nell patted the space next to her on the bed. Joe vaulted into it and wrapped his arms around her. Only took a few seconds to coax that smiling mouth open and insert enough tongue to imitate the act of love. Nell cooperated for a minute or two, but when he reached for his fly, she held him off by placing her dainty hand on his crotch—as if that helped to put out the fire.
“We have two people sitting in the kitchen who need our attention, Joe.”
“Sorta forgot that. What’s the story on the boy?” Joe rolled back on a pillow with a groan.
“Teddy’s mother abandoned him at the clinic today. She hands him a letter to show me and says she is going out to get him a breakfast sandwich. Never comes back. The child isn’t stupid, and he reads very well. I gather that is his favorite pastime. Naturally, he read the note before I got there. I think the only thing holding him together right now is the belief he is the son of the second most famous man in Chapelle, Louisiana.”
“Second most?” His vanity pricked, Joe frowned.
“I do think billionaire techno-geek Jonathan Hartz might top you.”
“In some circles, maybe. What a rotten thing to do to a kid, any kid, not just one in a wheelchair. She deserts him and piles a big, fat lie on top of that. Why did she pick on me?”
“I’ve been seeing Maydell Wilkes for several months. You pegged the Tennessee accent. She came to Louisiana two years ago with a boyfriend looking for work—not the boy’s father. She never said who that was. I sensed incest, an uncle, a cousin, might have been the case since she had Teddy at fifteen in some backwoods town. Her father died a few years before that in a hunting accident. The child comes into the world with a handicap, spina bifida, his spinal cord exposed between his vertebrae. Several churches and charities see the baby gets the surgeries he needs to survive. For a while, Maydell and her mother cope. The grandmother dies, and she takes off with a man who will support her and the child—she believes. The boyfriend can’t handle a handicapped child and threatens to leave her. Afraid of being alone, she skips and leaves her burden behind in the clinic’s waiting room.”