Love Loyal and True Read online

  Love Loyal and True

  Must Love Diamonds Series, Book 2

  Stacey Joy Netzel

  A by-the-books accountant who’s sworn off love meets the irresistible psychic who’s dreamed about him since she was a little girl.

  A one-night stand? Sure.

  A no-strings fling? No problem.

  Love and marriage? Hell no.

  Loyal Diamond has gotten down on one knee twice. He’s had his heart broken twice. He’s not risking it ever again—and most certainly not for a psychic fraud like his brother’s best friend.

  * * *

  Roxanna Kent had a vision of a loyal and true soul mate when she was nine. She didn’t expect him to be named Loyal, or that he would be bitter and jaded and completely closed off to love.

  * * *

  One unexpected night has them seeing each other in a different light, and suddenly Loyal finds himself coming up with all kinds of reasons to get up close and personal. Will his heart survive a third blow when it comes to light she might be the con-woman he first thought?

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Love You, Baby (Book 3, Chapter 1)

  Recommended Read

  About the Author

  Other Titles By Stacey Joy Netzel

  Dedication

  To those for whom the hope for love springs eternal. May you find the one who brings your heart joy.

  Chapter 1

  Roxanna Kent shivered as a passing firefighter swirled the air up past the hem of her thin, satin nightgown. An EMS worker had given her a blanket, and a two-sizes-too-large pair of slippers for her bare feet, but they were no match for the chilly Colorado October night—even with the blaze raging through her apartment building across the street.

  Strangely, she didn’t feel the cold, even though she was aware of her body shivering and the occasional chatter of her teeth. Numbness had set in once the last of her neighbors escaped the smoke-filled halls. If she hadn’t woken from her dream, heart pounding in terror, the phantom smell of smoke choking her despite the crystal clear air in her bedroom, would she have still made it out alive? Who would’ve been there to make sure?

  No one.

  Surrounded by firefighters, police, EMS workers, fellow homeless apartment residents, and a multitude of onlookers, she’d never felt more alone in her life.

  “Excuse me?” A hand on her blanket-wrapped shoulder drew her around to see a blond woman wearing a Red Cross jacket. “Do you have someone to call? Or can I call for you?”

  “Um…” The one person—well, make that both persons—she would’ve called were out of town. Her best friend, Asher, and his fiancé, Honor, were in Hawaii on a photo shoot-slash-engagement trip. She turned her head back toward the fire. “My phone is still in there. I don’t know the numbers.”

  She hadn’t even thought of it when she woke from her dream. Premonition, she now realized. Even though she hadn’t had one that strong since she was nine, it was a good thing she’d listened to her gut and gone out into the hall. She’d only wanted to reassure herself the phantom smoke was a figment of her imagination so she could get back to sleep. Instead, she’d discovered it was all too real and hurried to pull the fire alarm.

  After that, everyone worked together to make sure no one was left behind as flames spread frighteningly quick. There had been no time to go back for anything, which meant her phone was likely melted on her nightstand by now.

  The hand on her shoulder gave a gentle squeeze. “We’re setting up a shelter at the community center for anyone who needs it. Volunteers are giving rides right over there.”

  Roxanna blinked and looked in the direction the woman pointed. She saw a few of the neighbors from her floor getting into cars. Some of them had managed to grab personal items, but she’d have to go see what she could find from her shop before she—

  Ooh, the second floor apartment. Asher owned her retail building, and he’d always told her she could use it if she needed to. She’d never needed to—until now.

  She managed a weak smile of something close to relief. “Thank you, but I have a place to stay.”

  The blond pressed a card into her hand. “Call if you need anything.”

  At her nod, the woman moved on to a family huddled together in blankets. Roxanna roused herself out of her stupor to take stock of what she needed to do. Get over to Lift Your Spirit, pick out some clothes from her inventory, then head upstairs for a hot shower. The smoke smell infused into her hair was strong enough to tighten her throat and make her eyes sting.

  She searched for a way to get through the chaos to the back of the building where her Jeep was parked until she realized she didn’t have her keys, either. A couple of shaky inhales kept her from bawling right there on the sidewalk and got her mind thinking. She kept a spare set at her shop, but she couldn’t walk the two and a half miles in slippers and a satin nightgown, so she’d need to call a—

  Nope. She had no money.

  Damn. Now the sting in her eyes wasn’t only from the smoke.

  Swiping the tears from her face with one hand, she walked over to the volunteer staging area. A few minutes later, a black man named Leonard in his fifties, maybe early sixties, opened his passenger door for her.

  “Thank you so much. I’m Roxanna.” She slid in with a grateful smile, and once he was in his seat, she directed him to Lift Your Spirit.

  About halfway into the ride, he said, “I think that’s the psychic shop my granddaughter brings me cupcakes from every so often. Is that your place?”

  She nodded as country music played softly on the radio. After barely two minutes of sitting, emotional and physical exhaustion were taking over.

  “She brings me those chocolate covered cake balls, too,” Leonard added. “They’re very good.”

  “The cupcakes and the cake balls are Honor Hartman specialties.” Her best friend’s fiancé had started making the cake balls to use up her cake scraps, and customers had gone crazy for them. “Her cake shop next door to me will be opening in a few months.”

  “I’ll make sure to watch for it.” He turned off Aspen Street to drive around to the back of the building. It was almost three a.m. when he braked outside the back door of her shop.

  “Thank you so much for the ride, Leonard,” she said as she opened the passenger door.

  “Are you sure it’s okay for me to leave you here?” He ducked his head to look at the alley as a slight frown drew his gray eyebrows together. Other than a black SUV and an older, white, four-door car, the back parking lot was deserted at this time of night.

  “There’s an apartment upstairs. I promise, I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll wait until you’re safely inside,” he advised.

  Her heart warmed at his concern. “Thank you. You and your granddaughter are welcome to come by anytime for a free treat. Or even a reading.”

  “I don’t do this to get paid back,” he protested.

 
; Her senses were way out of whack with everything that had happened, but a moment of focus revealed the orange tones of his aura, confirming his generosity and kindness was genuine. “I know. And I’m offering simply because I want to. Get home safely yourself.”

  They shared a brief smile before she turned to punch in the key code to unlock the back door. Thankfully, Asher had installed them on all the entrances when he first bought the building six years ago, so she didn’t need a key.

  The light blinked red, and she leaned her forehead against the cold metal of the door for a moment. She’d changed the code after a break-in attempt a few weeks ago, and it took a moment for her tired brain to recall the numbers.

  47835

  The light switched to solid green and the lock clicked. Energy saving motion lights came on in the outer hall as she stepped inside. With a final wave for Leonard, she shut the door and used the same code for the lockbox into her shop. From here in the back, she could see the soft, comforting illumination from the Himalayan salt lamps in her front windows and throughout the floor displays.

  From one heartbeat to the next, the orange glow flashed her back to the fire, and her heart leapt into her throat with her sharp inhale. Smoke clung to her hair and clothes, filling her lungs as she tossed the blanket on a chair by the door of her reading room. Habit had her reaching out to graze her fingers over the stings of beads across the doorway when she spun around, and the comforting musical tinkle of sound followed her into her office-slash-storage room.

  Thinking of her car keys, she frowned at the unorganized chaos on her desk and surrounding surfaces, not quite sure where to start looking. Folders and papers were piled all over the place, with one precarious stack reaching almost two feet high to the left of the computer monitor. After her accountant got married and moved out of state last month, she kept meaning to clean and organize, but with so many other things to get done, it was hard to find the time.

  You don’t make the time.

  No, she didn’t. The bills were depressing, she couldn’t balance her profit and loss reports to save her life, and doing hours of paperwork in the back room was lonely. She was so damn tired of being lonely.

  More tears burned her eyes, but a few determined blinks held them at bay.

  “Now’s not the time to clean the desk or have a pity party,” she muttered. Since she didn’t need the keys right at this moment, she turned away from her disaster area, toward the storage part of the room.

  Her part-time employees, Tessa and Darcy, kept everything ship-shape over here. Once Roxanna verified new orders and made sure the inventory was correct, they didn’t let her near their organized shelves.

  Thankfully, though, she didn’t have to dig through any boxes since there was a clothes rack off to one side with older clearance items that hadn’t sold. A few select items she might try to cycle through the shop one last time, but most she planned to donate to a local women’s shelter and take the tax write off.

  She found a brown T-shirt, and a brown, gold, and black gauzy skirt, and then took a second, extra-large, orange tie-dyed T-shirt to sleep in. It would be a toss-up between lying awake the rest of the night or going comatose the moment her head hit the pillow.

  Essential oils would help with the latter, so she made a quick trip out front for bottles of lavender and ylang-ylang, then grabbed socks and a pair of the fashionable new mid-calf, lace-up military boots she’d stocked for winter. With everything gathered in her arms, she made her way back out to the door in the hallway that led to the second floor.

  After keying in the apartment code, she moved inside on auto-pilot. Light through the window from the outside street lamps guided her straight to the bathroom, where she shut the door and stripped down for a shower. A quick wash of her underwear in the sink ensured they’d be clean and dry when she woke up, then she stepped beneath the steamy spray.

  After she scrubbed her hair and her body, she was in the middle of rinsing the suds away when the horror of the night replayed in her mind, and the tears she’d been fighting resurfaced yet again. She didn’t need her psychic intuition to tell her releasing the emotion was the best thing to do right now. She turned her face up and let them flow as the water washed them down the drain.

  Fatigue weighted her limbs when she finally shut off the water and dried from head to toe. She probably wouldn’t need it, but dabbed a couple drops of the ylang-ylang oil on her temples, wrists, and the back of her neck anyway, then pulled the orange T-shirt over her head. With her five foot nine height, the extra-large barely covered her bare butt cheeks, but right about now all she cared about was getting to the bed.

  She wrapped a towel around her wet hair, wishing she’d thought to look for a comb or brush in the shop. Now it would have to wait until morning, when she went down to open up. She grimaced as she remembered she was working alone tomorrow. At least it was Sunday, the one day she opened at eleven a.m. instead of nine.

  When she shut off the bathroom light, the dark quiet helped soothe her frayed nerves. There was only one bedroom, and the door swung open easily. Room darkening shades kept out the light from the street, but the faint outline of the bed was enough to guide her silent footsteps.

  She stripped back the corner of the comforter and slid between the cool sheets with exhausted relief. A deep inhale to ease the tension in her shoulders filled her nose with the faintest hint of distinctly male cologne. A tingle of unease raced down her spine at the same time the mattress suddenly rocked beneath her.

  Roxanna froze as her heart surged up into her throat. Something warm and hairy brushed against her leg at the same time a muscled forearm snaked around her waist.

  She screamed and swung wildly, kicking free of the sheets to scramble from the bed.

  Chapter 2

  Loyal Diamond’s dream went from sexy and promising to shockingly painful when a shriek nearly blew out his eardrums and a hand wacked him across the bridge of his nose.

  “Ow. God—what the fuck?”

  He jerked back against the pillow and wrestled his arms from the sheets as the bedside lamp clicked on. He blinked and shielded his eyes against the sudden brightness, then couldn’t quite comprehend the astonished brown eyes staring back at him from a pale face framed by long, wet, brunette hair.

  If he was still dreaming, it had become a nightmare. Pulse revving like a race car, he levered up on one elbow to face the woman standing beside the bed.

  “What the fuck?” he repeated at the same time Roxanna Kent demanded, “What are you doing here?”

  Wide awake now, he frowned at the accusation in her abnormally high voice and pushed up farther to lean against the headboard so she wasn’t towering over him like Godzilla. “My brother gave me the key code.”

  When he lifted a hand to rub at the dull ache in his cheek and nose, she suddenly gave a sharp gasp. “Are you naked?”

  He darted his gaze down as he grabbed for the covers. Heat climbed his neck when he saw lingering arousal from his dream. Pulling the sheet up over his hips to cover his exposed family jewels, he shot back, “Way to ask the obvious, psycho…I mean psychic.”

  Her jaw clenched, and she started to frown, but then her eyes went wide before she whipped her head toward the door. “Oh, my God. Is there someone here with you?”

  “Besides you?” he asked with derision. “No. And why is it that you are here?”

  She turned back, eyebrows drawn together over her glare, her wet, tangled hair streaming down alongside her face and over her shoulders. “You didn’t seem at all surprised when you grabbed me.” Her gaze darted down for a split second, then jerked back up.

  “I did not grab you—I was dreaming. Right now, I wish I still was.” No—that sounds bad. “And not because you climbed in the damn bed with me.”

  “I didn’t know you were here,” she snapped as she spun away.

  For the first time his brain actually processed what she was wearing. Or more accurately, what she wasn’t wearing. His heart started t
o pound faster when he saw bare ass cheeks peeking out from under the bottom of her orange tie-dyed T-shirt.

  “Are you naked?” he asked.

  Roxanna gasped and whirled back to face him, her hands going down to tug the hem of her shirt lower in both the front and the back while she stooped at the knees. He watched the neckline stretch down…and down some more.

  His breath hitched as the material pulled taut against her chest and her pebbled nipples poked against the multi-colored cotton. Her breasts were on the small side, but he’d bet they’d still fit his hands perfectly.

  Blood rushed to his groin, and his erection hardened once more.

  Fuck. He’d always hated his body’s reaction to his brother’s best friend. How the hell could he be so physically attracted to a woman he didn’t respect and couldn’t stand?

  “I just took a shower and didn’t have an extra pair of clean underwear,” she explained, her cheeks bright red.

  Explains the wet hair—and the bare ass. And whatever the hell smells like a spicy, tropical beach.

  “How did you not hear me?” she accused with a frown. As if he was the one to blame for not stopping her from getting into bed with him.

  “I was sleeping.” And clearly, thoroughly exhausted after his twelve hour drive from Texas if he slept through her showering.

  But he sure as hell was awake now. His traitorous mind conjured up an image of her tall, slim body all wet and soapy with those long, brunette curls of hers streaming down her spine to the dimples at the small of her back. Too bad he hadn’t woken up for that.