Her Halloween Treat

1 (#ulink_9c8ed63e-5287-5d4c-bdd3-9b3e1ce4e0d7)

SHE WANTED TO blame her parents for naming her Jolene. Who did that? Who named their daughter after the most notorious other woman in country music? Once she’d learned who she was named after, Jolene became Joey and there was no going back. And yet just two days ago she’d learned the ugliest truth of her life—she’d been sleeping with a married man.

For two years.

Joey sighed and reached under her sunglasses to wipe a tear from her eyes.

“Jo?”

“Sorry,” Joey said.

“You don’t have to be sorry, babe.” Kira reached over and squeezed her knee. “We’re almost to LAX. You need to stop somewhere?”

Joey shook her head. “Keep driving. The sooner I’m out of here, the better. Thanks for getting me.”

“I can kill Ben for you, too. I’m willing to kill Ben. In fact, I might do it even if you don’t want me to.”

When Joey laughed it felt odd, and she realized it was the first time she’d laughed in over thirty-six hours.

“Isn’t murder maybe overdoing it?” Joey asked.

“Overdoing it? That piece of shit slept with you in Honolulu and with his wife in LA, and at no point in two years did he tell her about you or you about her? That is what happened, right? I didn’t make that up?”

“No, that’s right.”

“Then it’s not murder. It’s justifiable homicide. And don’t argue with me when I’m right. You know I am.”

Joey didn’t argue. She couldn’t because it was all true. For two years Ben had been her boyfriend. They worked together. They played together. They slept together. She believed him when he told her how much he hated living in LA. That he treasured his time with her in Hawaii. He’d move there permanently if he could, but work wouldn’t let him. Blah blah blah. Lies, all of it. Lies she’d believed, which is why she routed her flight through LA so she could surprise him. And surprise him she did. She knocked on his door and his wife answered. Quite a surprise for them all.

“So...murder?” Kira asked.

“No murder. Not yet, anyway.” She needed to fall out of love with Ben first. Hating him was easy. Not loving him was the hard part.

“Okay. But you just say the word, and I’m there. At the very least you should let me cut his balls off.” Kira grinned devilishly at her as she merged onto the I-105 ramp.

Joey swallowed hard, nodded. “Okay,” she said. “But just the balls.”

Kira dropped her at the terminal and helped her with her bags. Joey slammed the trunk shut and felt better. Slamming things, hitting things—she wanted to destroy all the things. Instead, she just rested her head against Kira’s shoulder.

“I wanted to marry him,” Joey said.

“I know.” Kira roughly patted her back. “I know you did.”

“I should have known. I mean, two whole years without him inviting me to LA?”

“I live in LA and I don’t even want to be invited to LA. This isn’t your fault.”

“What do I do?” Joey looked up at Kira. They’d worked together in the Honolulu office of Oahu Air, Oahu’s premier business-and first-class airline, before Kira had transferred back to the California office. They’d become fast friends and still were, even with half an ocean between them.

“Look. Here’s what you do. You go home to Oregon, you hang out with your family, you have the best time ever at your brother’s wedding and you bang the first hot guy you see the second your plane lands.”

“What if he’s the baggage handler? He might be a little busy.”

“Get your bag first. Then bang him.”

“I knew I could count on you for good bad advice.”

“I’m serious. Find a new guy. No guilt. No shame. No remorse. This isn’t about love. This is about you taking care of you. Sexually. It would piss Ben off, right? You jumping into bed with someone else right away?”

“If I burned his house down and threw his dad’s signed Gil Hodges home run ball in the ocean, it wouldn’t piss him off as much as me sleeping with somebody else right away.”

“Then go get it and get it good.”

“I don’t want to get it. The last thing I can think about right now is dating somebody else.”

“Whoa there. Nobody said anything about dating. This is sex. No strings attached. Speaking to you as a twice-divorced woman, you are not allowed to date somebody new for six months. Sex is fine. Sex is good. Dating’ll get you into trouble. Also don’t buy a car, a house, a Birkin bag, or go to Vegas with five thousand dollars in your underwear.”

“Did you do all of those after your divorce?”

“Everything but the Birkin bag. Those bitches are pricey. So no bags. Unless you get one for me, too. But sex, yes.” Kira pointed her well-manicured finger right at Joey’s nose. “Have insane, hot, totally meaningless sex until you remember what a goddess you are and you’ve forgotten Ben’s name because you’ve been too busy screaming some other guy’s.”

Joey took Kira’s finger in her hand and squeezed it.

“You’re a good friend. Thank you for enabling my bad behavior.”

“It’s what friends are for.”

The drop-off lane was clogged with cars. As much as Joey hated to be alone, she couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Thanks again. I’ll text you when I land.”

“Do it. And text me when you find a new guy.”

Joey grinned. “I will. If I find a new guy.”

“You will. I know it. Just remember—it’s Oregon. That’s hipster and lumberjack territory.”

“So?”

Kira pointed at her inner thighs. “Watch out for beard rash downstairs. I speak from experience.”

* * *

JOEY BOARDED HER FLIGHT—a nonstop, thank God, which meant she’d land in Portland in under two hours. Being alone on a plane, cut off from the world with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company, was not what a woman who discovered she’d been inadvertently in love with a married man for two years needed. With no internet to distract her, all Joey could do was think about the signs she missed. Ben had been the seemingly ideal boyfriend—always attentive, always thoughtful. If he had to miss her birthday one week because he had to be in LA, he’d give her the belated birthday celebration of a lifetime the next week when he came back to Honolulu. Two nights at a five-star hotel. Room service. Wine. A helicopter tour the next day. And sex, so much sex, all night long. But no matter how much she tried to reciprocate, he wouldn’t let her. She’d offered to do her part, come visit him, even get a transfer to California. He’d have nothing of it. She was his “sanctuary,” he’d said. He couldn’t imagine Hawaii without her, he’d said. Someday he’d take over as president of the company and live in Honolulu with her, he’d said. She just had to hold on a few more years, and then they’d be set for life.

Wait a few more years? Yeah, she had to wait a few more years until he had the money or the guts to leave his wife. If that even was his plan. Maybe he’d been stringing her along. She would never forget that moment Saturday morning when she’d hopped a cab from LAX to his house in West LA. She had his address, of course. She’d seen it on his checks, on work forms, on his California driver’s license. She’d expected him to be home. And he was home. He was home and so was his wife, Shannon. Shannon answered the door with a confused smile and a “Yes? Can I help you?” Joey, equally confused, said, “I’m looking for my boyfriend. Is Ben home?”

That was the moment Ben stepped into the hallway, his Nikes squeaking slightly on the ocean-blue tile flooring. He was a handsome man, almost six feet tall, dark hair, dark eyes, a devilish grin but with a dimple that made a girl forgive the devil in him.