Roses are Wrong Violets Taboo
Table of Contents
Epilogue
Prologue
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Copyright Page
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
About the Author
Other Books by Kris Calvert
A Note from the Author
Excerpt from Sex Lies & Sweet Tea
ROSES ARE WRONG,
VIOLETS TABOO
Kris Calvert
Acknowledgements
When I began writing this novella, it was part of a collection of love stories for an anthology with some great writers and a few of my good friends. I actually wrote the end of the book first, and then went back and created what was first published in Love Least Expected. This story was an exploration into what happens if you cross love at first sight with a one-night stand. Needless to say it was an adventure.
Thank you to Valerie, Kishan, Meredith, Bella, Michaela, Katie, Nessie and Aubrey for allowing me to be a part of the anthology where this all began.
Thank you to Donna for always urging me to write the book of my heart and for our long chats about life and books.
A BIG thank you To my ladies who lunch for your wisdom, guidance and friendship.
Thank you to Jim, my friend and colleague for over twenty years. You are the finest designer in the land, and I’ve never done anything truly amazing without you.
Thank you to Mary, Molly, Karen and Janet my grammar ninjas. You make me look good, even when I’ve tried my hardest not to.
Finally, thank you to my adoring husband, Rob and my two children who are no longer children, Luke and Haley. Thank you for your love and patience. We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.
For Cara
Who allowed me to use her namesake.
© Copyright 2015 Kris Calvert
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material form the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at www.calvertcomm.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Excerpt from Sex, Lies & Lipstick copyright © 2015 by Kris Calvert.
Cover by Calvert Communications
Edited by: Janet Hitchcock, Molly J. Kimbrell, Karen Lawson and Mary Yakovets
ISBN: 978-0-9911386-0-9
Calvert Communications, Lexington, KY 40515
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are 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.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Copyright Page
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books by Kris Calvert
A Note from the Author
Excerpt from Sex Lies & Sweet Tea
One
Alexander Chase Tabeau sat at the bar of the ramshackle Voodoo Lounge sipping a fresh pour of bourbon. The burning smoothness of the Maker’s Mark warmed him from the inside as it made its way past the lump that had taken up residence in his throat. Slumped on the stool next to him, his best friend and adopted brother, Michael, gave him a passing glance, while flipping the cardboard coaster that came with his longneck Bud. The repetition in Michael’s movement was no doubt mindless, but nonetheless, it was making Chase twitch. It had been a long day. One Chase wanted to make a distant memory as soon as possible.
Leaving the graveside of the only parent either of them had ever known, the boys headed to their grandfather’s favorite beachside bar to have a cold one in his name. It’s what they thought he would’ve wanted. But after the first beer, Chase switched to bourbon, trying to ease the pain a little faster.
“Dude, I was sorry to hear about Pops,” the barkeep said hanging his head.
“Yeah.” Chase responded without looking up. He couldn’t look anyone in the face and speak of his grandfather. Not today.
“He was salt, man. Salt of the earth.”
“Yeah.”
“What he means is thank you,” Michael added, kicking his brother’s foot.
“Yeah. Thank you,” Chase mumbled.
As the bartender walked away, Michael turned to his brother with reserved disgust. “Really?”
“Don’t start, Michael.”
“He was the only father I ever knew too,” Michael said. “He pulled me out of hell, for God’s sake. What kind of man takes a dirty fifteen-year-old off the streets and into his home?”
“Pops.”
“We’ve got to pull it together, Alex. We have to.”
Michael was the only one who ever called Chase by his given name—Alex. It was Pops’s name, and to eliminate confusion around the florist and greenhouse where they all lived and worked, it was just easier to not have two Alexes. Now that their grandfather was dead it cut to Chase’s very core when Michael called him by his given name. He had a lot to live up to.
Pulling the prayer card from his pocket with a labored sigh, Chase read it aloud before tossing it on the bar top. “Alexander Joseph Tabeau. 1925-2015. Beloved husband, father, and grandfather.”
Chase shook his head at the idea that Pops was really gone. The last six months had been brutal for everyone, and there were times when Chase thought it was harder to watch his grandfather slowly fade away than it was for Pops to actually die. Those thoughts made him feel selfish and guilty, but he had them all the same. In the end all he really wanted was to make his grandfather proud. Pops was pleased with the way Michael had pulled his life together, but Chase was unsure of how his grandfather felt about him at the end.
“He was really proud of you, Michael,” Chase said with admiration.
“He was proud of you, too. You bought your new house—he knew you were gonna get it all together.”
Chase shook his head and looked to the floor. “Jesus. He always thought way too much of me.”
“Bullshit. Just because I got married and settled down doesn’t mean I have it all figured out. Mary just helps me think straight. She helped me get my shit together. She helps me hold it together.”
Chase lifted his glass and sucked the last few drops of alcohol from the melting ice. With his head in his hand, he set the glass on the bar, tapping his fingers twice on the rim to let the bartender know he was ready for another.
He was happy Michael had found his future in Mary, but Chase thought it
was—at least for him—important not to get attached. If you cared about someone they would inevitably leave. Love was for people who couldn’t survive alone, and he was a survivor. At least that’s what he told himself. Secretly he wanted love and all the messy, complicated, priceless possibilities it could bring into his life.
“Where is Mary?” Chase asked as he watched Michael flip the coaster again.
“She wanted to lie down. Funerals aren’t her thing.”
Chase thought about the casket as it was lowered into the ground at Oaklawn while the few friends his grandfather had stood witness. He wondered, as the sandy soil was tossed on top, if the bad memories of life ever faded into the background leaving the best ones to shine center stage. So far for Chase, it hadn’t happened.
“I don’t know whose thing they could be,” Chase said with a smirk. “It’s damn hard putting someone you love in the ground.”
Chase felt the strong grip of his brother’s hand on his shoulder as Michael pulled himself from the barstool. “I’m gonna take off. You sure you’re okay here?”
Chase nodded. He was a man of few words—and even fewer today.
Michael sighed and held his hand in the air to get his check.
“Go home. I’ve got this.” Chase looked into the eyes of his brother and best friend. In that moment he knew. All they had now was each other.
“See you tomorrow?” Michael asked. “It’s gonna be a shit show, but it’s a big day.”
“Yes,” Chase replied. “You’ll see me tomorrow.”
They didn’t hug or even shake hands. That wasn’t the way they showed their love, but it was love just the same. Pops had taught them to respect each other and abide by the golden rule—treat your brother the way you want to be treated. It was how Pops had lived his life and how Michael and Chase would now live theirs. Before he passed away, their beloved grandfather had called them both to his side for a few last pearls of wisdom. “First,” he said, “take care of each other. Second, Michael, it takes a lot to keep a marriage going. Treat your wife like a queen, and she’ll always make you the king. And Chase, don’t ever make a woman fall for you if you have no intention of catching her.”
“I’m not cut out for marriage, Pops.”
“Nonsense. I can promise you this—you’ll know her when you see her. Don’t be an ass and let her go.”
Chase thought Pops would have important stuff to tell them about the business he’d grown over the years, instead he wanted them to know before he died that people, not things, were what mattered and family was number one. “When you have a family, you’re giving another soul a chance to get it right,” he’d said.
Chase watched Michael as he left the bar, shaking hands and accepting condolences from some of Pops’s acquaintances. When Michael finally made his exit, he held the door for the next patron. Chase looked away for only a moment before refocusing his eyes on who was walking through the door of the Voodoo Bar.
At first it was the form-fitting purple dress Rose Westwood wore that tempted Chase’s eye into lingering too long. Then it was the fiery red hair she tossed with a flip of her hand as the fresh smell of a beautiful woman wafted through the old joint. When she began her catwalk into the bar, Alexander Chase Tabeau was taken.
He didn’t realize he was staring until she caught his eye and raised one sexy brow in his direction. Embarrassed, he immediately turned back to his bourbon and drank it down in two swallows. Chase knew whomever belonged to the woman in purple was one lucky son of a bitch.
“Grey Goose martini, up with a twist, please.”
Her voice was polite and childlike, a welcome change to the gruff demands of most of the churlish patrons. Chase couldn’t help but sit up and take notice. Dropping his chin, he placed his empty glass on the bar, unable to keep himself from turning in her direction.
She gave him a smile, and Chase reciprocated with a single nod. The tension he’d felt throughout his body all day seemed to dissipate, if only for a split second. Somehow, in spite of the day he’d survived, his face relaxed into a casual smile.
“Hi.”
“Hello,” Chase replied, as he tapped the rim of his empty bourbon glass again.
“Grey Goose martini, up with a twist,” recounted the bartender as he tossed a cardboard coaster onto the bar top, carefully placing the full glass down without spilling a drop.
The barkeep pointed to Chase. “Another?”
“Yeah.”
“Rough day?” she asked as the bartender walked away.
“Something like that.” Chase checked out her stiff drink order and raised an eyebrow in her direction. A woman who drank vodka martinis wasn’t messing around.
“Yeah,” she replied, “me too.”
“I’m Chase. Chase Tabeau.” He held out his hand in anticipation and waited.
“Rose Westwood,” she replied, finally giving him a firm shake.
Chase turned back to the fresh bourbon and took a sip. His body was beginning to relax. Whether it was from the alcohol or the company, he was unsure.
“How many is that?” she asked with a smile as she sipped the top of the martini glass, trying to avoid a spill.
“I beg your pardon?” Chase turned to look her in the eye and found her dazzling at the very least.
“How many bourbons? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”
Chase couldn’t tell if she thought he was drunk or if she was trying to save his soul. He answered her with no pretense. “Three.”
“Okay then,” she said as she nodded to herself and lifted the martini glass to her mouth.
Chase watched her every move and for a moment imagined her full red lips on his body. She placed her mouth on the frosted martini glass and took a sip. The clear vodka and vermouth washed against her lips as if in slow motion. It was the sexiest thing Chase Tabeau ever seen. Either that or the third bourbon had kicked in with a vengeance.
“Okay then, what?” Chase asked, lowering his voice and moving in closer to the sexy redhead.
Rose turned and looked Chase dead in the eye before playfully cocking her head to one side, causing the loose tendrils of her long hair to cascade across her bare arm. “I was just curious how many drinks it takes to have the courage to sit in a bar alone.”
“Alone?” he asked.
“Yes,” she murmured as she lifted the glass to her lips again. “You are alone, aren’t you?”
Chase softened his demeanor and, for a bit, forgot the long haul of the last six months caring for Pops. The hospice workers, the pain meds, and the bedpans all left his mind as he focused on one thing—Rose Westwood.
“Well?” she asked.
“I’m not alone if you’re here.”
Rose paused, and a slow, sexy grin graced her beautiful face. “Good answer.”
Two
The dingy bar began to fill as the local drunks and tourists from the beach made their way out of the setting sun and into the watering hole. The bar area in particular was becoming noisy and cramped. It wasn’t an environment for small talk. It wasn’t an environment for talk at all—most of the patrons were shouting over each other while the jukebox blared.
“Shall we move to a table?” Chase asked as Rose batted her lashes, making her bright blue eyes sparkle a little more with each blink.
Rose nodded and picked up her second martini, following Chase to the dark booth in the corner. The open window nearby allowed the fresh ocean air to flow easily and somehow it seemed to clear Chase’s mind of the day’s unpleasant events.
“Y’all want anything to eat?” the perky waitress asked as soon as they settled in. Chase checked his watch, realized it was dinnertime, and looked at Rose for a cue.
“Sure.”
He nodded. “Two Shipwrecks.”
“Coming right up.”
“What if I don’t like seafood? I mean, I could be deathly allergic to shellfish,” Rose said as she ran her finger around the rim of the martini glass, allowing her gaze to linger.
>
Chase was on to her flirtatious game but didn’t want to give in too easily. In his experience, strong women wanted a challenge, and he was going to do his best to deliver. “Do you like seafood?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you deathly allergic to shellfish?”
“No.”
Chase stared across the table, sexily raising his eyebrow. He was beguiled by the beautiful Rose Westwood and wondered where the night might take them. “Then I think we’re okay.”
Rose loved his take-charge nature, and yet he remained sweet and mannerly. His brown hair and brown eyes weren’t what usually made Rose take interest, and his rugged hands looked as if they might move mountains for a living. That very idea was supported by the huge biceps she couldn’t seem to take her eyes from. The white V-Neck T-shirt was stretched to its limit across his strong arms, and the dark jeans and cowboy boots only added to his bad boy demeanor. There wasn’t anything about Chase Tabeau that Rose didn’t find dangerously attractive.
As she inventoried the extent of his magnetism, Rose fidgeted in her seat and felt her anxiety level rise. “I’m ready for another martini.”
Chase motioned for the bartender and immediately gave his attention back to the beauty across the table. “So tell me about yourself, Rose Westwood.”
“Not much to tell. Who is Chase Tabeau?”
“Some guy who’s trying to get his life together,” Chase replied as he swirled the last of the bourbon against the side of the glass.
“That must be going around.”
Chase looked at his drink as if it held magical answers.
“Seriously,” Rose said, “why does a guy sit in a bar in the middle of a Thursday afternoon and drink bourbon?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I like long stories.”
Chase searched the room as if something or someone could save him. He took a deep breath and proceeded, “I buried my grandfather today.”
“I’m so sorry.” Rose gasped and cupped her hand to her mouth. “I shouldn’t have pried. I was trying to be funny or witty or something I’m not.”