Shout-Outs: littleweb, Jane Doe51, Chymom, ngocquevt, Marcia Santos, and Nerwen Aldarion for reviewing chapter 3.

Author's Note:

My family has company coming in this weekend and my dad/brother is going to Presbytery tomorrow. So, I wanted to give you guys something even though I just updated a story yesterday. Today's quote is brought to you by "the House of the Rising Sun" performed by the Animals.

Disclaimer: I don't own a thing. This is probably a good thing, because things would be crazy if I owned the show. I also don't have any rights to "the House of The Rising Sun" either.

Rated: T

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Chapter 4

"Well, there is a house in New Orleans/they call the Rising Sun/and it's been the ruin of many a poor boy/and God, I know I'm one."

House of the Rising Sun, the Animals_

Lorelei Martins - Las Vegas, Nevada

Eighteen years later

She twisted the cheap promise ring on her left ring finger and waited for the results from the pregnancy test she had taken to show up.

She couldn't be pregnant. She just couldn't be; it would ruin everything. She looked down at the plastic object and her breath caught in her throat as two thin blue lines appeared.

Positive.

Her life was officially over.

Especially since the baby probably wasn't his. It had been ages since he'd called her. He'd been opting to spend most of his nights with the beautiful and talented Rosalind Harker.

Lonely and bored she had turned to one of his top "disciples" for some much needed fulfillment and entertainment.

They'd spent half-a-dozen nights together before she'd gotten guilty conscious and ended things with him.

Well, not really.

Because every time he would reject her for another girl, she would go running back to his friend. And amid a symphony of passionate kisses, city traffic, Lana Del Rey songs and plaid flannel sheets that smelled of spicy cologne and fabric softener she would fall into his arms again. She was a slave to anything and everybody that would make her feel good if only for an hour or two.

And in the moments between waking and sleeping, Lorelei was almost certain she would have fallen in love with Kane Reynolds, had they met in another time and place.

She grabbed the pregnancy test box and crushed it, frantically; she couldn't let him see it. She pushed it to the bottom of the trash barrel and quickly washed her hands before turning up her music as a way to drown out her thoughts as she concentrated on finishing packing for her trip to Sacramento.

She would deal with the rest of her life later on.

A few minutes later, her front door opened and a tall figure appeared in her doorway. Lorelei startled, practically throwing her lingerie up in the air like it was birthday confetti, cursing herself for being so jumpy. When she realized who it was, she laughed at herself ruefully and motioned for him to come in.

"Nervous about tomorrow?" He asked as he perched on the edge of her bed, watching her as she gathered up her underwear and fold them carelessly.

"No," Lorelei answered, tucking a lacy, silk camisole between a pair of skinny jeans and a leather skirt. "Why would I be? Your brother is just a man, and I've had lots of men."

"But you're jumpy about something," Kane yelled over the Nirvana song blasting from her speakers as he throwing her a sweater that was hanging haphazardly on a bed post. "What is it?"

She forced herself to smirk as she caught the sweater before it landed on the floor. "Nothing that concerns you," she lied.

He slid off her bed, went over to her CD player and turned down the music. "Tell me," he demanded, coming over to her and prying the clothes she was holding from her hands.

"No!" Lorelei answered. "I'm not your girlfriend, Kane. You don't have any right to nose around in my personal business."

Kane held up his hands in surrender. "Fine. I retract the question. I'm sorry that I even asked."

She sighed and zipped up her suitcase. "Why do you care about me so much anyways? Word on the street is you don't really care about anybody but yourself. And maybe him."

"I don't care about you," Kane lied to her, his face completely straight as he looked directly at her.

Lorelei raised an eyebrow. "I told you Kane, I've had lots of men. So, that pretty much makes me an expert on their thoughts and feelings. I can tell when they're fibbing. Why do you care about me so much? I belong to your boss, I'm his girl. You know that caring for me can only get you into trouble. Don't you?"

"I don't care about you," he repeated firmly, crossing his arms and stepping backwards.

She shrugged and lifted her suitcase off her bed. "Okay. Fine then, you don't care about me. I'm sorry that I even asked. Anyways, what brings you to my apartment tonight?"

"He sent me to check on you," Kane answered. "He wanted to make sure you were one hundred percent ready before sending us all the way over to Sacramento."

Lorelei rolled her eyes. "I know that man so well that I could probably marry him before we even went on a first date. The real question is if you're ready for the trip or not. When was the last time you saw your brother anyways?"

"At their funeral," Kane replied, looking at his feet, not daring to even speak their names aloud. "I had never seen him look so lost before. And when he tried to kill himself, I had never felt so guilty in my whole entire life. I couldn't even bring myself to go visit him even though his doctor kept telling me that it would be good for him to see somebody that he loved."

"Kane, it wasn't your fault. You're not the one who killed Angela and Charlotte—"

"But I might as well have been," he interjected harshly. "I knew about it and I didn't say anything to him. I hated him so much that I wanted to see him suffer. I didn't care how it happened just so long as it happened."

"Do you still hate him?" Lorelei asked, knowing what the answer would be before he even opened his mouth.

"Yes," Kane said.

She shrugged, not feeling a shred of remorse as she approached him, brushed a curl away from his forehead and pressed a kiss to his lips. "Well, then let's see what we can do about that."

.

Lorelei woke up early the next morning; Kane was curled up beside her, his fingers intertwined with her's She smiled down at him and just for a moment, she pretended that they were normal couple as she indulged in a series of daydreams where they were both in love with each other and happy. The baby growing in her womb was the perfect blend of both of them, and they were both ecstatic over the fact that they were going to be parents.

The sharp beep from her alarm clock jarred her out of the perfect world she was creating. With a sigh, she leaned over and shook Kane awake, before throwing back the covers and getting out of bed to start getting ready for her day.

"Ready to go?" She asked as she came out of the bathroom two hours later.

Kane's eyes widened when he saw her. "Wow. You don't look like yourself anymore."

Lorelei smiled and touched the necklace she was wearing. "Yeah, well. . . I thought if I was going to catch your brother's attention, I needed to look a little bit like the woman who has it right now. What do you think? Could I pass for Agent Teresa Lisbon?"

"You're not exactly her twin," Kane answered. "But I can definitely see some resemblance between the two of you from what I've seen of pictures and video feed. Very good work, Lorelei."

"I told you last night, I know what men want. If your brother wants feisty brunettes in work clothes then that's exactly what your brother is going to get," Lorelei said as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail and gave him a self-satisfied kind of smile. "Now, you're absolutely sure that this is going to work?"

"As far as I know, yes. Patrick doesn't even know that he's in love with Agent Lisbon. By the time you're finished with him and he realizes that he loves her, she won't want anything to do with him."

"Would that make you happy?" Lorelei asked. "If she doesn't want anything to do with him once I'm finished with him?"

"It'll make him happy and that's all that really matters," Kane answered, grabbing her suitcase. "Come on, we have to swing by my apartment and pick up my things before we have to hit the road."

Lorelei chided herself for caring too much about Kane's feelings, and then she followed him out to his sleek Mercedes-Benz and prayed that he hadn't seen straight through her. He couldn't ever know that she was on the edge of falling in love with him.

It would only spell disaster for the both of them in the end.

TBC. . .

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Author's Note II:

I tried to continue on from where I ended, but I couldn't keep it going. I am anxious about this chapter because I introduced Lorelei as a key player and because of the major time jump. I'm going to promise you now, Jane and Lorelei NEVER do anything. I came up with this story last year before we really knew anything about her. Their spending the night together never factored into my plot at all. Lorelei does try though and she fails epically. Hope you guys are on board for the remainder of the story. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Holly, 4/25/2013_