Welcome back to Tuesday Tales!  This weeks prompt is to be inspired by the word Right. This is our last week before a month’s hiatus. I suppose the hiatus is for the best – in the coming weeks I’ll be editing 3 books, releasing 1, preparing 2 for Indie release, writing at least 2 stories, and getting started on the editing for the story this weeks prompt is part of. I have a lot coming up between now and February of next year, and hope to have even more in 2015. So, in short, I’m a busy busy writer. Now, onto this weeks prompt.

This week’s prompt fell into my current WIP for the Holidays in Lake Point series, Witch Way.  Of course, I can’t leave you in the happy end of things…you get stuck in the midst of Felicity’s hell – which she brought on herself.

Felicity thought she was going to throw up. Unable to see Craig in the dark, and with the monotone he’d used, she couldn’t gauge where this was going to lead. No matter what, it sounded bad. She swallowed against the rising bile and wrapped her arms around her belly.

At the moment she wanted nothing more than to wallow in her misery, but instead she chose to push it aside like she’d learned years ago. Unfortunately, she didn’t expect it to be so difficult this time. She had no idea the prospect of losing Craig would hurt so much.

She nodded weakly. “I know it’s not.”

“Was this your plan all along?” He went from standing still to pacing around her in a heartbeat. She couldn’t decide if it was more lion stalking its prey, or caged animal working off nerves while looking for an escape.

“What? No!” The strangled shriek shocked her, and if the way he stopped his pacing was any indication, it had surprised him as well. She took a shaky breath and tried to ground herself, but all sense of calm was long gone. “It was a series of bad coincidences and worse decisions.”

“You used me, to get in that office.”

“No. It wasn’t like that. I swear it.”

“How can I believe you?”

The cold air sank into her bones and left her numb. She hadn’t felt this helpless in years, and she didn’t like it. “I guess you can’t.”

“I want to.”

Damn him. Damn him to hell. Just when she’d almost resolved herself to returning to her former stance on men, he offers a sliver of hope. One she found herself clinging to like a life line. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I made a bad choice.”

“Go on.”

“Will you come out of the shadows, please?”

“I can’t. Not right now. I don’t know what to think, Feli. What to feel.”

“Neither do I! I’m standing here in the open, though. Exposed.” Raw. Her insides were raw and pained. “I went to visit you, I didn’t go to try to get in that office. I really did go to visit you. I left the room with you, remember? When the call went out, I left the room. You locked it.”

“I locked it.” His voice held a mix of relief and wonder, like a confirmation to more than just her. “I did lock it. So what, you broke in?”

The anger was back, and she unwillingly flinched under it. “No. I stood there, I waved goodbye to you. I was going to leave, but when I went for my keys I realized I didn’t have my purse. I only went back to the office to check, but when I tried to contemplate what to do next, I hit the door in frustration. It just clicked open. I don’t think it closed all the way.”

Only his elbow sat in the light, and his fingers tapped on his elbow in a rapid cadence. “And?”

“And I should have left. I knew it then, and I know it now. I was stupid, but I had this story, I’d noticed the discrepancies in my research but I was having trouble getting the confirmation. The opportunity was handed to me on a silver platter.”

“And you just gobbled it up.”

She wrinkled her nose at his snide tone and lowered her gaze to the ground. “I did. Ambition won over common sense, over my heart.”

“Was it worth the cost?”

“I…”

“You got your dream job, everything you wanted.”

“Not everything, and no—”

His cell phones ringtone pealed across the empty ceremony, loud enough to wake the dead. She jumped back, then spun to turn her back on him in an attempt to rid herself of the pesky tears. He sighed and the ringer cut off, and his warm voice took over. “Yeah?”

Felicity rubbed her arms and tried to brace for the worst.

“I figured. I’ll be back in a few.”

She turned around to face his shadowed countenance. “Work.”

“Cops are there to search the office. Didn’t take them any time to get warrants.”

“You’d better go. We’re done.”

“Guess we are.”

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