Page 32 of Falling For The Enemy (The Gilbert Curse)

She flushed. “Maybe later if you play your cards right.”

“Oh, I intend to,” he assured her. He helped her get her black leather jacket on and then noticed she reached for her cane.

“Everything okay?” he asked. She hadn’t used it earlier.

“Yeah, my thighs got a bit of a workout earlier and feel weak,” she said. “Does it mess with my look?”

“Did I hurt you when we had sex?” he asked hoarsely. Dammit, he should have been more careful with her.

“No. I just don’t use my legs that way usually,” she said with a tinkling laugh. “We can practice and get them stronger. That’s what my physical therapist always says when I try something new.”

“I don’t mind practicing. So where are we going?” he asked to distract himself of the images in his head of her naked underneath him.

“The speakeasy.”

“I don’t know what that is,” he admitted.

She told him that the Main Street businesses had all gotten together with the Chamber of Commerce and helped fund and promote a pop-up bar that had been themed as a speakeasy. They sent out clues that took residents of Gilbert Corners around town, leading them to the bar.

“Sounds fun. GC didn’t have anything like that when I lived here.”

“No, they didn’t. There’s sort of a new energy to the town lately. Part of it is Indy and Lulu bringing their TV show here. For a while I think people were waiting for my family to come back and make things happen, but then decided they should just do it for themselves, sort of.”

“Your family does have a lot of power here,” he remarked. “But what do you meansort of?”

“Well, Indy did break the curse when she got Conrad to come back and do his show, so it was like a combo of new ideas, new people and old superstitions.”

He liked what she was saying and how she saw the town. Rory clearly loved it here despite the difficulties her family had faced over the years. He almost let himself get distracted and start thinking of business and how he could bring Palmer Industries into it. But he wanted tonight as a date. Not as an opportunity.

And until he figured out more of what had happened the night his brother died, he didn’t want to push forward with anything involving either Rory or Dash.

“So the speakeasy is doing a Goth night?” he asked, not sure how it fit in with the previous theming.

“Yeah. I guess because it’s October and Halloween is just around the corner. Or maybe they wanted to try something new,” she said. “The tribute band is My Chemical Romance.”

“You like them?”

“Loved them. I mean as soon as I saw their name, ‘Helena’ started playing in my head. I hadn’t thought of them since I woke up but there the song was,” she said.

Kit took her hand in his as they talked about music and followed the clues.

He knew that he was going to have to face the past and figure out what to do next, but for tonight it was enough to be with Rory, singing “I’m Not Okay” at the top of his lungs on a semi-crowded dance floor.

Her body brushed against his and he held her close when she stumbled. He knew that no matter what he wanted, sooner or later he was going to have ask her more questions about the accident and tell her about his brother, but not tonight. Tonight was about letting go. Tonight was for them.

Ten

The Gilbert Corners Chili Cookoff wasn’t something that Kit thought he’d find himself participating in. Especially not in a booth with the Gilberts. But he had to stop thinking of them as Gilberts. So instead he focused on being here with Rory and her family. A few weeks had passed since their night at the speakeasy.

Indy and Conrad were doing a special that would run on the network where they both had television shows. It was combining her town makeover idea and his quintessential cooking challenge. The differences in this show were that the challenge was just locals all cooking their favorite chili recipe—normally Con’s show focused on a showdown between his professional persona “The Beast” and a solo challenger.

And then Indy and her makeover team, which included Lulu who ran the coffee shop, had undertaken the old Gilbert Civic Center space. Rory had worked with Indy’s team on redoing the interior of the convention space and, after some thought, Kit and Palmer Industries had partnered with them as well. The civic center was one of the run-down properties that he’d purchased.

Rory had come to him about the needed updates so he’d immediately offered to make a donation through his company.

Aunt Mal hadn’t been happy that he’d donated it back to the town but she’d liked the plaque on the side of the building that thanked them for the donation. She wanted more plaques around town that didn’t have the Gilbert name on them.

The town wasn’t beholden to the Gilbert family anymore. Which suited Kit. He still hadn’t had a chance to talk to Dash and Con about the night of the accident and he hadn’t brought up the man who’d attacked Rory. A part of him didn’t want to know if it had been his brother.

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