Sins of the Past (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

to see if he was being punked, because that was the only explanation he could come up with. If that wasn’t the case, then he had no idea what was going on. When he looked across the street, he though he saw Lorna’s curtains twitch, but when they didn’t move again, he shrugged it off as his mind playing tricks on him. He wished it had been her waking him up at an ungodly hour instead of the stranger who he could hear moving around in his kitchen.
    Sighing, Jacob moved back in the house and shut the door. He took a fortifying breath before making his way to the kitchen. He needed the patience to deal with the woman who according to Lorna was one of the main people in town that had made her life hell. There was no way he wanted her in his house any longer than necessary.
    “Oh, there you are. Come on in and sit down. You shouldn’t be on your feet.”
    I wouldn’t be on my feet. I would still be in my bed dreaming of my sexy neighbor if you hadn’t rudely barged in here. Jacob held back the nasty comment he was thinking, but just barely. The saccharine tone in the woman’s voice was starting to give him a headache. “Look,” he paused.
    “Ashley, silly.”
    “Look, Ashley,” he continued when she supplied her name. “Not to be rude or anything, but why are you here?”
    Ashley just waved off his comment and continued to move around his kitchen, opening his cabinets until she found what she was looking for. “After seeing you at the grocery store yesterday, I figured you could use a little help. Anyone desperate enough to take help from that skank definitely needs my help.”
    The last part was muttered under Ashley’s breath as she turned her back to him, but Jacob was a Navy SEAL. He was trained to be hyper alert at all times and that included his senses. He heard and saw what most civilians didn’t, which included her nasty comment. He felt his body heating as his anger rose. Just as he opened his mouth to give Ashley a piece of his mind, the doorbell rang again.
    “Oh don’t you worry honey, I’ll handle everything.” Ashley put a hand on his shoulder to still him. “You just sit right down here and enjoy your casserole.”
    She was gone before Jacob could even utter a word. Jacob stared around his kitchen wondering if he had somehow woken up in the twilight zone. Just the night before, he was having a nice dinner with Lorna and now, his kitchen was being taken over by her arch enemy and he had no idea how that had happened. The woman just barged into his life and that was something Jacob had no intentions of allowing.
    He raised an eyebrow at Ashley when she came back into the kitchen smiling with another glass dish in her hands. The woman just walked right past him and began humming as she started going through his cabinets again. When she found a storage container big enough, Jacob watched in silence as she transferred whatever was in the dish into it and put the lid on it. When Ashley opened his refrigerator, he had enough.
    “Okay, that’s it. You need to tell me what the hell is going on.”
    Ashley gasped at his tone before answering. “Well, like I was saying. I told a few of the women in town about your situation yesterday. There was no way we were going to allow the new guy in town to suffer, so we got together and decided to cook for you. Consider this your own personal welcoming committee.” She held up the storage container and smiled. “I hope you like casserole.”
    Before Jacob could say anything, the doorbell rang again. Once Ashley was out of the kitchen and headed for the door, he banged his head a few times against the table and groaned. He desperately wanted to get rid of the annoying woman, but it looked like he was in for a day in hell.
     
    * * * *
     
    Lorna flung the curtain closed and hoped Jacob hadn’t seen her. “What the hell is that bitch doing there,” she whispered to herself as if Jacob could hear her. When she heard the car come up the street and then banging as she was getting coffee, the last person Lorna expected to see when she looked out the window was Ashley practically beating down Jacob’s door. What shocked her even more was the fact he had let the evil bitch into his house then looked around as if he was making sure no one had seen them before he went inside and closed the door behind him.
    She stomped away from the window and ignored the way her heart ached as she changed into her work clothes. Lorna had thought Jacob was different. He