A Knot Tied: Summer's Romance, #2

By L. A. Zoe

Summer's enemies don't rest. 

Clayton's second ex-wife steals the loyalty of Clayton's closest employee. Franci, a furry Clayton met online, flies in from Nashville. Clayton's friends look down on Summer. And now Clayton hints he wants to make her wife number 4. But how can she trust him? Especially with the hot, just out of college Filipino webmaster he hired to start up his online business?

At the end of Lion Heart, Summer succeeds in getting both families together to celebrate Father's Day, so Clayton can spend it with his children and grandchildren.

That just begins her struggle with the world -- and both their families --  to win acceptance for loving a man twice her age.

And just begins Clayton's struggle to get Summer to accept both his love and his kinky furry sexual desires.

Summer learns to enjoy playing Clayton's 'lioness' sometimes, and Clayton realizes his greatest sexual satisfaction comes from making love to the woman he adores -- even without fur suits.

Summer must also struggle with the fear -- based on his behavior during his three marriages -- he cheats on her. 

She gives him an ultimatum. One foul, out for life.

He swears he won't, but can Summer believe him? 

Clayton's family, excluding Clayton's jealous second ex-wife, adores Summer -- but they all want her to marry Clayton's son, Calwood.

Summer's best friend and roommate, calls Clayton a dangerous pervert.

Summer still struggles to accept a man loving her. Especially a rich, successful man such as Clayton. 

Clayton keeps asking Summer to marry him, but she fears taking her place as Wife Number 4 will lead to a slot as Ex-Wife Number 4.

Clayton's vindictive second ex-wife plays a "home video" that could destroy both Clayton and Summer personally and professionally . . . if she carries out her threat to upload it to YouTube.

And what's in the package Clayton hides from Summer? Ana, the hot Filipino who works with him everyday in his new home business, knows.

With so much against them, the world outside and their own inner demons, can Summer and Clayton's love triumph? 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Love Conquers All Press
• Release date: Mar 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386797043

Book preview

A Knot Tied

The Watsons

Summer's Romance: 2

L.A. Zoe

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter One

Outracing the Speed of Light

The Tuesday after Father’s Day, Summer slathered sunshine-yellow acrylic paint onto the side of a block of Styrofoam. Nearby, two ten-year-old girls sprayed green paint onto Styrofoam packing material cut in the shape of big leaves.

A drill whined through the Den, where Veiled Prophet Parade volunteers made the floats. The air of the warehouse in midtown St. Louis was thick with the odors of paint, glue, and rubber latex.

She wiped sweat off her forehead, then felt thick smooth paint on her face. Great. She already ruined these clothes with it. Would she need turpentine to feel clean again? Oh for a drink of cold water.

Yet she couldn’t imagine having more fun on her day off.

All around her loomed giant fantasy cartoon figures. Stretching, running, reaching. Trees and animals in three-dimensional Styrofoam glory.

A week from Saturday, small tractors would tow the floats along the downtown parade route.

Clayton was off somewhere talking to Bill Griffin the Artistic Director.

You can’t run faster than light, slow as you’re moving, a man said in a gruff voice.

Summer spun. Cal. Faster than light?

Cal nodded at the half-yellow Styrofoam. You don’t know the story?

I know this float’s about a St. Louis Negro League baseball star.

James ‘Cool Papa’ Bell. Cal pointed to the figure of the star running with grotesquely long legs toward a bed. His friend Satchel Paige said he ran so fast he could switch on a hotel lamp and be in bed before the light hit the mattress.

Wishing she brought a shower cap to protect her hair, Summer went back to painting the Styrofoam. I think he’d want to turn the light off before going to bed. Not on.

Supposedly he could round the bases in eleven, twelve seconds, Cal said. It’s sad.

What?

He couldn’t outrun everything. When the major leagues started integrating, he was too old.

He’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Father met him once at some kind of dinner. He could barely see, his wife helped him do everything. He pre-signed his autograph onto little slips of paper he kept in a plastic food storage bag.

He has a street named after him.

Where he lived, in a small, blue plaster hut that wouldn’t pass a building inspection in Peru.

Summer shivered, and not from the air conditioning. It’s a shame.

But if he were playing today he’d make millions.

Cal wore ordinary bluejeans and a blue chambray work shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing an ordinary Timex wrist watch.

As well as a muscular brown forearm with tiny black hairs. Summer stifled the urge to pull open his shirt, popping off the buttons so she could see the hairs across his muscular chest. And down to his flat belly.

Dizzy with the yearning gushing up into her stomach, Summer took a deep breath and steadied herself.

Old age caught up with him, Summer said.

I’m no physicist, but they say if you go faster than light, you also go backward in time. Something like that.

But you can’t go faster than light.

Exactly. No matter how hard you run.

No matter how hard Clayton ran. That’s what Cal meant. His father could not remain age 25 no matter how hard he tried.

Cool Papa was born twenty years too early to join Jackie Robinson in the major leagues. Not the only person we know born too early.

Times are still changing.

Cal used a large metal file to scrape the rough edges of a piece of Styrofoam. Some big shindig your grandmother threw Sunday.

Thanks for coming, and for the dandelion wine. Your father was so happy.

What about your promise?

All the chemicals in the air congealed in Summer’s throat. She tasted prussic acid.

I told you, I couldn’t promise what you asked.

So what—?

Clay—your father—made me angry.

That other woman, right? Where does she live? Nashville? Oklahoma City?

I don’t know. He’s so stubborn. I was afraid he’d love his freedom more than me. But he broke his date with her. I saw him send the email.

I wish I didn’t take you to that stupid goddamned birthday party. If you didn’t know him, you’d be my girlfriend now.

He must look a lot like Clayton did at his age, with all-black hair covering his entire scalp, before worry and stress etched in those extra lines at the corners of his eyes.

A hunk of blazing hot, bright sex appeal. A babe-magnet pulling her heart from within her chest.

A slim, unassuming figure that somehow drew her like a Hollywood star.

The drill stopped. Suddenly the surrounding conversations combined into a collage of sound threatening to overwhelm Summer. The two little girls giggled until Summer wanted to slap them.

Summer sighed. What do you want from me, Cal?

I want to get over you.

That’s up to you.

See the light, Summer. Right in front of you, you’re painting it.

It’s a piece of Styrofoam.

We’re meant for each other. I know it. The rest of my family knows it. Deep down inside, you know it too.

Your family all came Sunday.

For him. Don’t get me wrong. They love you, Summer. They think a lot of you. They liked your grandmother and your sister. They want you in the family. But as my woman, not his.

He didn’t kidnap me or my heart.

You’re half his age, goddamnit!

Yes, Summer wanted Cal too, although it could never be. Not now, not after the last two nights she spent with Clayton.

Bad enough she spent several weeks bouncing from one to the other, from father to son and back to father. But it was the father who took her to bed.

The father who demonstrated she could enjoy receiving love and pleasure—and giving it—as well as taking it.

The father who showed her she could trust a man again, the first since Bobby betrayed her.

This man in front of her was a boy compared to his father. An exciting boy. A handsome and sexy boy.

But not the man his father was. Maybe he never would be.

It wasn’t fair to him for her to keep comparing them. Why didn’t he just leave her alone? Find the good woman he needed and deserved, and let her and Clayton alone?

Let me go, Cal. Find a good woman.

Admit it. Come on. You want me. If you didn’t know him, you’d be with me.

Forgetting she might be smearing yellow paint onto his shirt, Summer put her hand on Cal’s shoulder.

But I do know him, Cal. You’re both good men. And you’re a lot like him. What’s so wrong?

Cal spun, then slapped her hand off so fast Summer stumbled back before the pain registered in her brain. The back of that hand glowed red, and stung.

Bitch!

Chapter Two

A Proposal

Everybody around Summer and Cal stopped their work and looked over at them. In the large warehouse space, bright green tropical palm trees swayed in the air conditioning breeze.

Big-eyed animals stared at she and Cal.

Summer bit her lip, tasted blood.

Summer hated being embarrassed in public. As a TV news announcer she overpracticed and overprepared all her stories, so she could reel them off in a convincing voice, and accurately. She dreaded the haunting thought someday a video of her stumbling, stuttering, making a funny factual error, or mispronouncing words or somebody’s name would be uploaded to YouTube so anybody in the world could see it, and laugh at her.

So with this angry man yelling at her in front of the other VP Parade volunteers, she could not speak, could not move.

What would calm him down? She didn’t know.

Summer, Cal said, pointing his finger at her. This means war. You understand? Father is no longer my boss, so I don’t have to keep him happy. You two are my enemies now.

Cal, you don’t mean —

Shut up. Cal turned and walked away, out the Den’s door.

Out of her life?

That seemed so impossible, so terrible.

As Clayton’s son, as a good man in his own right she felt attracted to, Summer wanted him to stay.

Stay, for her sake, for his father’s sake.

Somebody used the hot wire, the tool for cutting shapes out of Styrofoam, on her heart, slicing out a Cal-shaped piece bigger and more important than she realized. The odor of the super-heated material scorched her nostrils.

Yet, forced to choose, she already accepted his father Clayton as the man she most cared about. The man filling her nights with tsunami-like passion.

The drill started back up, its high-pitched steady screech piercing her skull.

The other volunteers went back to work, turning their backs, embarrassed for her, pretending not to see or hear.

Slowly, Summer turned, dipped her paintbrush into the can of yellow paint, and began applying it to the piece of Styrofoam representing the light James ‘Cool Papa’ Bell could outrace, at least when still a young man.

The paint she already applied was already drying, so putting wet paint with it might make it look splotchy, but that couldn’t be helped, and the crowds of people watching from the sidewalks couldn’t see that closely anyway.

How’s it going? a man behind her said.

Clayton. Thank God.

Summer jammed her face into his fine knit, light-blue shirt. Fine. Everything’s fine.

His warm arm went around her back, she smelled the musk soap and his aftershave, and now everything was all right again. Her blood pressure collapsed back to normal. The earthquake stopped shaking, and the furniture returned to its proper place and the pictures on the wall hung straight.

Then her thoughts seemed silly and overdramatic. Not that she didn’t welcome Clayton. He projected an aura that always reassured her as much as it attracted her.

But to let Cal upset her...no, ridiculous. He wasn’t that important, couldn’t be.

She liked him, wanted him as a friend, wanted him to get along with his father for the sake of both of them, but he couldn’t get under her skin. Not since the afternoon—not even a month ago!—when, during Clayton’s fiftieth birthday party, he threw her into his stepmother’s swimming pool.

Talk about embarrassed!

But somehow Clayton calmed her down. Though she went out with Cal after that, he couldn’t measure up to his father. She never bedded him, let alone allowed him room in her heart.

Even Clayton did not arrive there easily.

He treated her like a princess, but refused to allow her to retain control in bed. He practically forced her to receive pleasure as well as take it. And even to give it.

The first man since Bobby who really cared about her.

And the first man she ever bedded to whom she made an effort to give pleasure.

Because he gave so much back to her.

Even though some of it was...twisted.

Where’d Cal go? Clayton asked.

I, I, don’t know.

Oh well, maybe he had to get back to the office. This VP parade is fun to support, but the business has to come first.

A soft sigh at the end.

Are you sorry you’re out of it? Summer asked.

It’ll take getting used to, but no, I’m glad the day to day chores aren’t my responsibility anymore. Solomon Real Estate has been active in the Veiled Prophet Organization for twenty years, and this is the first time I’ve had a full day free to volunteer to make these floats.

I thought —

Oh, the kids worked on them, and my wives, and employees and their families. But me personally? Not so much. Now I can do fun stuff like this. Thank goodness for big buy-outs and early retirement.

I wouldn’t know, Summer said, and gave him a quick smooch on the lips just to let everybody paying attention know that yes, she and Clayton Solomon were sleeping together even though he was twice her age.

Can you wear one of the parade costumes? Clayton asked.

Love to, Summer said. But I’m assigned to cover it. Serious journalism, you know. I’ll probably win the Pulitzer for best story on a local parade.

Is that really a category?

Idiot.

Sorry, I missed your sarcasm.

It’s frustration. I enjoy my job. And I love going to events like the VP Parade. But I wish they’d let me do something serious too, besides shove a microphone into the face of the mother of the latest drive-by shooting victim.

Clayton pretended he held a microphone and placed his hand in front of her mouth. And how do you feel about your only son being killed by a rival gang? Just great, I bet.

I’m surprised they don’t all tell me where to shove it. But they’ve all watched it before, so they know the drill. Today it’s their turn to express grief so our viewers can think, no matter how lousy their day went, they’re grateful they’re not that man or woman on their TV set.

That’s not serious enough for you?

Summer returned to painting the Styrofoam. Simple, easy. Her hand swished back and forth. I’d like to do some real news for a change. I’ve got a lead on a drug dealer who claims he used to pay money to one of the mayor’s advisors. David’s sitting on it.

He’s afraid of the mayor?

Ewing already hates me and the station. No, he’s afraid it’s too boring for viewers. Too many facts and figures, not enough blood or bodies burned to a crisp. Yet our viewership is going down, and nobody seems to have a clue why.

So you want to be one of those guys broke the Watergate story? Clayton asked.

Woodward and Bernstein?

Whatever. I remember the big deal when Nixon quit, and I’ve seen the movie on cable.

I want to do something serious.

And David won’t let you because you’re a woman?

Because anything longer than a five-second sound bite, and we lose more viewers.

But a drug dealer talking...

If he had a video of him handing the money over, maybe it would play, but of course he can’t have that. He doesn’t even look like a dealer, more like a black Justin Bieber. We need a Samuel Jackson look-a-like or nobody will believe him.

Clayton picked up the file and piece of Styrofoam Cal worked on. I’d better get this finished. Cal just up and left it? Maybe he got an urgent call.

Clayton? Summer asked, ashamed of the quiver in her voice.

Uh huh?

You really did send that email, didn’t you?

He stopped working, and looked at her with a puzzled look on his face. I showed it to you, didn’t I?

Yes. Summer looked down, ashamed of how red and flushed her face must be, it felt so hot.

You saw me click the Send button, didn’t you? Besides, you’re going to be with me this weekend, aren’t you? His voice stern, with just a tiny edge of anger, but controlled.

That edge pricked a hidden nerve. For the first time, Summer wondered what Clayton would be like, angry.

She never saw that.

Calm. Patient. Loving. Laughing. Never angry. Never mad.

Yet Cal got angry easily, and just as easily gave in to his impulses to lash out and hurt whoever set off his temper him.

Did he get that from his father? Maybe Clayton was just as volatile in his youth, mellowing only after he matured.

She didn’t want to find out what it’d be like to face his anger.

Because if he ever did lose control...

When I’m not at work. I hope.

Then you’ll see me. And I can’t be in St. Louis and Nashville at the same time.

Summer smiled. I hope not. It’s bad enough you have that terrible super-charisma magic power that draws me to you even when I know it’s wrong. With teleportation on top of that, you ought to be joining the comic book superheroes.

Clayton grinned in response and, as always, Summer couldn’t help but glow inside, realizing he appreciated something she said. She couldn’t help it.

Although she knew him—in her own way—as well as anyone else, like even those who knew him a lot longer, she remained in awe of him.

That power she felt shining forth from deep within the center of his being, was real to her.

Yet she also couldn’t help feeling a lingering guilt about Cal.

Cal had a point. If she knew only Cal, and not Clayton, or if Clayton as well did not find her so attractive, she would be with Cal.

And it did make more sense. She was twenty-five, Cal twenty-six—not fifty.

Going out with him would be logical. It would start gossip, but ordinary, good gossip. Just keeping up with people gossip, not malicious speculation about why she hung on the arm of a man twice her age, though of course he was quite wealthy...

What’s more, there was a Cal-shaped piece to her heart empty until she met him last month.

If she didn’t know Clayton, she never would discover Clayton also seemed to fit that empty hole in her heart.

Maybe more so.

Because Cal would let her control him. Cal would let her take her pleasure, never dreaming, never suspecting, she was using him, because he would be getting his rocks off as well.

It was Clayton who forced her to change. Who made her open doors to parts of her soul she thought she closed for good—and then forgot—the night Bobby threw her onto the bed and ripped her pants off.

Clayton convinced her to try his...little games. His weird fantasy.

Cal attracted her with that same Svengali-like light gleaming from his pewter eyes.

But he didn’t know how to leverage it to even out the relationship so both enjoyed themselves in bed, without playing secret dominance and submissive games.

Or, rather, by bringing those games out into the open.

Making her trust him, then giving her pleasure she’d never known before. Giving before she could take. And then letting her give back to him.

Without Clayton, Summer might have Cal. But she’d just use and discard him, like every other man since Bobby.

Take her pleasure, milk him dry, then find a new man.

Only Clayton desired her so much he refused to accept her as a beggar bumming change, he wanted her to receive pleasure back, not take it like a thief.

And she desired Clayton so much she allowed him to open her heart, to get inside her mind and feelings.

That evening, after they finished working on the floats, Clayton took Summer and Charles to Burger King for a quick dinner.

Summer didn’t think Clayton would want to eat inside, with two babies crying at the same time, and another table full of screaming kids having a birthday party, but he didn’t seem to pay attention.

So much fat hung in the air she gained five pounds just by breathing it.

She watched with amazement as he spread the wax-paper wrapper out across the brown plastic tray, then removed the lower and upper sesame seed buns.

"Everybody claims fast