The Favor Read online

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Discover more Entangled Select Contemporary titles… Without Words

  The Negotiator

  Love on Tap

  Grounds for Seduction

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Blaire Edens. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Select Contemporary is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Heidi Shoham

  Cover design by Anna Crosswell

  Cover art from iStock and DepositPhotos

  ISBN 978-1-63375-960-2

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition May 2017

  Chapter One

  Anna Bishop checked the clock.

  Ten forty. The guests would start arriving any minute.

  Paper plates and cups, both with the red and black logo of her son’s favorite superhero, Redhawk, filled one side of the dining room table. Black and red streamers hung from the ceiling, and party-favor bags, stuffed with pencils, candy, and erasers, were stacked on the hall table. She took a deep breath. Everything was perfect. She’d pulled it all together.

  It was hard to believe her son, Louie, was already seven and nearly finished with first grade.

  She missed the days of Thomas & Friends and Go, Diego, Go! Now, everything was about Redhawk, superhero.

  And the only thing missing from this party was Redhawk himself.

  Where the hell was he? He’d promised to arrive at least thirty minutes before the party started. Maybe he was on superhero business. Saving mankind. Vanquishing villains.

  Yeah, right. The man she’d hired to play Redhawk was more likely nursing a hangover than fighting the bad guys. She should’ve known better than to pay him up front. Ronnie Queensly made his living dressing as superheroes, clowns, cowboys, and even the occasional princess if the money was right. He wasn’t known for his reliability or his sobriety, but he was the only person Anna could afford.

  Now, he was late.

  It was going to take every single penny in her meager checking account to make it through the rest of the month. If Redhawk didn’t show, Anna had neither the money nor the time to replace him.

  Damn. My kid only has one seventh birthday, and the superhero is MIA.

  No Redhawk meant a disappointed kid and a ruined party. Just one more failure her ex-husband would take pleasure in pointing out.

  Can this day get any worse?

  She slid her cell phone from the back pocket of her denim skirt and pulled up her best friend Taylor’s number. They’d planned the party together, and now with Louie’s father on his way, Anna couldn’t bear the idea of facing him alone.

  Just as she was about to text Taylor, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. That could only mean one thing.

  George.

  When she turned around, her ex-husband was looming in the kitchen doorway.

  “George,” she said in greeting. His muddy-brown eyes silently accused her. She had no idea what it might be this time, but it was always something with her ex-husband. Anna stepped to the right, placing her body squarely in front of the small patch of mold just under the cabinets. She knew she needed to call the landlord and have him look at it, but if it was something serious, she had no idea where she’d go. The house was the only place she could afford, and she didn’t want George to see the grayish-green patch and use it against her. He had a way of making her feel like she was just waiting for the other shoe to fall.

  “Louie had nail polish on his fingers when I picked him up from school yesterday.”

  Oh, shit. Louie had painted his nails black to be more like Redhawk, who favored glossy black, and she’d forgotten to take it off before he went to school. “He was playing. It was just a game.”

  “If you think I’m going to let my boy stay in this shitty rental house with a woman who’s teaching him to be a sissy, well, you’ve got another think coming.” George took a step closer and put his hands on his hips. “Nail polish is for girls. Only. You should look into for yourself.”

  She closed her hands, hiding her own chipped polish. It was hard to maintain a manicure when you cleaned houses for living, but she wasn’t going to take the bait. “He’s just a kid.”

  “You’re making it easy for me when I decide to sue you for custody.”

  Every time Anna did something George didn’t agree with, he threatened to take her son. So far, he hadn’t pursued legal action, but she feared that he would. Like the proverbial ax hanging over her head, the threat was always in the back of her mind. “I’ll fight with everything I have to keep him with me. I won’t let him grow up to be a bully like you.”

  George laughed. It was threatening and sinister, and she recalled the fear she’d lived in when she’d been married to him. Even though he’d never hit her, the threat had always bubbled just below the surface. Her scalp tingled, and she resisted the all-too-familiar urge to run away from him. This was her house, and she wasn’t going to back down. “You ain’t got much fight. You live paycheck to paycheck. Hell, I’m surprised you didn’t have to beg me for the money to throw this party.”

  “Not everything is about money, George.”

  He moved closer until the smell of the cheap, acidic drugstore aftershave he favored burned the back of her throat. It still turned her stomach. He used his size to urge her backward until her ass hit the counter. She swallowed the fear. “Back up. This is your child’s birthday party. We can discuss the nail polish later.”

  “We’ll discuss it any time I want to discuss it.”

  She hated that George still had the ability to scare her, but, this time, she was going to stand her ground. “I said that we’d discuss this later.”

  “Don’t fucking tell me when we’ll discuss it.” He grabbed both of her wrists and pulled her toward him until her breasts brushed against his T-shirt.

  “Let me go,” she demanded. While the threat of violence had always been there, he’d never been quite this forceful. Her heart pounded as she fought to control her breathing.

  “You should listen to her, George.” She looked over her ex-husband’s shoulder to see Redhawk standing in the doorway.

  The muscles in his jaw twitched.

  That’s not Ronnie Queensly. Not by a longshot.

  His clear-green eyes shone through the feathery mask. Judging by the way the spandex hugged his body, he was slender but fit. She tried not to notice the way the tight costume showed off the firm muscles of his thighs, but it wasn’t easy to ignore.

  Maybe a real superhero is going to save me this time.

 
; If she weren’t so nervous and scared, she might be a little interested in meeting the man behind the mask. Peeling back the shimmery black and red spandex. Her gaze traveled along his muscular shoulders, down the length of his chest, over the flat of his stomach. Her eyes got stuck at the bulge in his tiny red underpants.

  It wasn’t small.

  Anna hoped superheroes didn’t use the old potato trick. It would be a major disappointment. She’d had a crush on Redhawk for years, way before Louie discovered him, and the man in front of her was the perfect incarnation of the superhero. It wouldn’t take more than one glass of wine for her to believe this man was the real article.

  “Who the fuck are you to tell me shit?” George asked. He dropped Anna’s wrists, and she slumped back against the counter. He turned to face Redhawk. “Is that sissy costume making you brave?” A sneer lifted the corner of his mouth. “You probably like nail polish, too.”

  The superhero’s fist connected with George’s nose in the blink of an eye. Anna winced at the crack of bone on bone. Like an action movie in slow motion, she watched as George stumbled backward, tried to get his balance, and then doubled over, clutching his nose.

  I’ve just been saved by the world’s hottest superhero.

  Chapter Two

  Blood poured from George’s nose. Anna grabbed a dishcloth and handed it to him. “Maybe it isn’t broken.”

  Clark half hoped it was. The son of bitch surely had it coming. Even though he hadn’t been in a real fight since he’d clocked Billy West on the playground in fourth grade, he couldn’t stand by and let that bullshit continue. In the heat of the moment, a punch had seemed like the logical way to stop it.

  “Oh,” George moaned.

  “I hope to hell it’s not broken. It’s the last thing I need,” Anna murmured, half under her breath. She ran her hands through her hair then tugged at one tangled curl. “The only superhero in the universe who makes things worse ends up in my kitchen. Figures.” Anna looked at Clark. “Why did you have to hit him?”

  “You should ask him that.” He pointed to the man on the floor.

  She narrowed her eyes. “It’s none of your business. I hired you for a birthday party. Not to vanquish villains.”

  Redhawk shrugged. “He shouldn’t have crossed the line.”

  “I hope the kids didn’t hear any of that.” Anna bit her lower lip. “Our relationship is complicated.”

  “It’s not complicated. At all. He had no right to talk to you that way. Period.”

  “Is anyone going to help me?” George, nearly forgotten in the corner of the kitchen, asked, his voice muffled through the blood-soaked dishrag.

  “I appreciate you sticking up for me, but it’s just that—”

  “Will you shut up and help me? Damn. I’m bleeding,” he snapped.

  Taylor walked into the kitchen. “What in the fresh hell?” She surveyed the damage and looked at Anna. “Why is the jackass on the floor?” She pointed to George.

  “I hit him, and he fell,” Clark said.

  Taylor looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “You what? That’s not like my brother at all. This Redhawk thing may be what you’ve needed to break out of your shell. Anna’s needed someone to punch that bastard for a long time.”

  “Brother?” Anna asked. Her eyes went wide with shock. “But I thought—”

  Their eyes met, and a sizzle of attraction pulsed between them.

  It had been so long since he’d felt it, he’d forgotten how nice it was. He wasn’t going to get used to it, though.

  Instead of answering the question, Taylor laughed. And laughed. Until tears ran down her cheeks.

  Damn it. This favor was quickly moving into the disaster category.

  “The kids are demanding to see a superhero. I don’t know what happened here, but I need a Redhawk stat.” Taylor wiped a tear from her eye and immediately started giggling again. “This is not how I envisioned this would turn out.” The door swung closed behind her, leaving Clark and Anna alone, except for George, who was still on the floor moaning.

  “I never imagined we’d meet this way,” Clark said.

  “Never rescued a damsel in distress before?” Anna smiled, and he realized how beautiful she was.

  He shook his head. “Maybe it’s the costume.”

  “I can’t believe a man named Clark dressed in spandex just clocked my ex-husband.”

  “And just when I thought there was no more irony in the world.”

  He wasn’t usually a superhero. As a thirty-year-old architect, he was more comfortable in jeans and a polo than metallic spandex, but when Taylor had told him that the man Anna had hired had bailed, he couldn’t refuse.

  He remembered the year his dad had blown his birthday all too well. He’d promised Clark a weekend in Atlanta. They were going to watch the Braves play the Mets, eat at The Varsity, and swim in the hotel pool. Clark had spent the weeks leading up to the big day staring at the tickets. He could still remember the heavy cardstock and the silvery hologram stickers in the top corner. On the morning of his birthday, he woke up to find only the housekeeper downstairs. His parents had decided to go to the beach for the weekend instead.

  He’d burned his Braves T-shirt and cap in the fire pit on the back patio.

  Clark still had the unused tickets in the back of a dresser drawer. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to toss them into the fire that consumed had his shirt. He’d passionately hated the Braves ever since.

  Dressing up and playing Redhawk was the least he could do. Even if the superhero Speedo was likely to give him a diaper rash.

  The mom standing in front of him made it even more worthwhile.

  Petite, standing only five two or five three, her hair was so black her loose curls shone blue in the sunlight streaming through the bright-green spring leaves. She wore a short denim skirt that showed off her shapely legs. He tried not to wonder what color panties she was wearing.

  Her white shirt clung to the delicious curves of her body, and the deep V of the neck showed off the tops of her breasts.

  Finally, something tight I can appreciate. Later. When I’m not in spandex.

  Her eyes were a deep blue, the same color as ripe blueberries, and she smelled spicy, like cinnamon.

  Even though he wasn’t looking for long term, never would be, he could certainly imagine himself spending a night or two with her.

  Taylor talked about Anna all the time and had tried to set the two of them up on a date several times. He’d had no idea she looked like this or he would have jumped at the offer.

  This was one mom he’d like to—

  Too late now. I don’t deserve a second glance from someone like her.

  “I need a crash course on Redhawk,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m one of the few people who didn’t see the movie.”

  Her face fell. “But you read the comic books, right?”

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  Anna chewed on her bottom lip. “Fights for right. Stands up for those without a voice,” she stammered.

  “I figured that much. What makes him different?”

  “He’s a genius who can fly. He can see not only what we see, but also things in the ultraviolet spectrum. He was changed into Redhawk when he was a teenager. After he left the scene of his parents’ tragic death s, he got lost in a swamp and was saved by an actual black hawk. His archenemy is the Blot. He has a secret tattoo. It’s never been revealed.”

  “Where’s the tattoo?”

  “No one knows for sure, but in the movie, he hints it’s on the inside of his wrist. It’s just one of the many mysterious things about him,”

  “What’s the image?”

  “It’s not an image. At least, the movie leaves you believing it’s a date.”

  “What does it signify?” he asked.

  “Either the date of his parents’ deaths or the date he became Redhawk. But like I said, no one knows for sure. And since he became Redhawk the day after his—”


  He pulled back one of his sleeves and turned over his wrist and interrupted her rambling. “Will this work?”

  Her eyes went wide. “Is that a real tattoo?”

  “Of course it is.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no way. It’s just not possible.”

  “Why? Lots of people have real tattoos.”

  “It’s eerily similar to the one the real Redhawk has. Are you some kind of obsessed fan?”

  “Never read a single comic book.”

  “It’s perfect. Too perfect” She ran her index finger across the ink and an electric sizzle ran up the length of his arm. “The kids will love it.”

  “I’ll focus on it, then.” He tugged his sleeve back down and his gaze met hers. “Anything else?”

  She chewed on her bottom lip and he tried to ignore the building attraction. “The main thing is his voice. It’s deep, gravelly. Think Johnny Depp with extra bad boy.”

  He cleared his throat and lowered his voice an octave. “Like this?”

  With the way she was looking up at him, the bad boy part was going to come easily. They were only inches apart. He watched the rise and fall of her breasts with every breath. She smelled like warm vanilla mixed with cinnamon. Sexy and sweet. It wasn’t easy to resist the urge to reach out and touch her cheek. He wanted to brush a stray curl back from her face and see what his touch did to the rhythm of her breath.

  She nodded. “You’re more convincing that the real Redhawk.” Her voice had a flirty edge to it and he liked it.

  Don’t start anything. It would only be leading her on.

  “Take the gift. It’s supposed to be from you. I’ll take care of him.” Anna picked up a small box and pressed it into his hand. Wrapped in bright red and tied with a black bow, it matched the colors of his costume perfectly. Even through his black gloves, he felt the warmth of the woman’s tiny hand. He noticed her skin looked rough and cracked, but her fingers were beautifully shaped.

  “What’s your son’s name?”

  “Louie.”

  “Don’t worry about the kids. Redhawk is ready.” He held up the gift and winked at her on his way out of the kitchen.

  Chapter Three

  When Clark stepped into the living room, the noise stopped. Every kid in the room turned to look at him. Their eyes were large, filled with the excitement he’d expect to see on Christmas morning.