Getting Lucky Page 19
As soon as he was standing, Jake said, “I’ve had lots of practice stitching up my old man. I can fix that wound right up. Let’s get you back to my place.”
Together they slipped from the backyard, walking fast. They kept up the pace until they’d reached Main Street. When they were standing in front of Two Moons, Sean stopped suddenly.
“What is it?” she asked, her heart pounding fast and unsteady. Had she really just done all of that? Had she really just stood up to her father, a mobster—and gained Sean’s freedom?
Yes, yes she had.
It was unsettling. Scary. Liberating.
And, although it was going to take some time to sort through all of the feelings running through her at the moment, she knew deep down that she’d done the right thing. Standing there in the sunshine with Sean, alive and together, was proof of that.
He pulled her close. She loved the feel of his arms around her. In fact, she could get used to it for, oh, she didn’t know—the rest of her life. God, she loved this man. Truly. Deeply.
“Shannon?”
She snuggled closer. “Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“I love you.” It was that simple.
“Me too,” he said soft and sweet against her ear.
Butterflies launched in her tummy, but she couldn’t help teasing because she wanted to hear the words. “That’s not proper reciprocity, Sean.”
He pulled back and took her head in his hands, his expression suddenly very serious. “I love you, Shannon. You are my first and only. For the rest of my life, if you want me.”
She’d take that.
Yeah, she’d definitely take that. Rising on her toes, she kissed him tenderly and then pulled back to look him in the eyes because what she was about to say was huge. It was life-altering.
“Sean?”
“Yes, love?”
She broke out in a huge smile. She couldn’t help it. It just felt so darn good to say it.
“I choose you.”
Epilogue
TWO MOONS WAS bursting at the seams. It was Saturday night, and karaoke was in full swing as Shannon made her way to the bar where she’d spotted Sean. It had been three months since the showdown with the Bad Men, as she now referred to them. Three glorious months of a life that was all hers. Well, and Sean’s. Since that day they’d been inseparable.
Love was awesome.
“Hey,” she said in greeting and plopped onto a stool next to him, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry I’m late. Did I miss anything?”
Jake was pulling a pint from tap and said gruffly, “Apple. You missed Apple.”
“Really? Did she sing again?” She spun on her stool looking between both men. “Was she drunk?”
Sean nodded and laughed. Jake nodded and scowled.
She was hit with a pang of disappointment. “Was it as good as last time?”
Her man laughed. “Yep.”
Jake swore and tossed his towel on the bar. “Cold-hearted snake, my ass.”
Shannon burst into laughter. “Is that was she sang?”
Her cell phone rang, and she reached into her purse, pulling it out. Seeing that it was Colleen, she covered one ear with her hand and answered. “Hey, Leenie.”
“Shannon?” her sister said in a voice that was shaking terribly and unusually high-pitched. “Shannon, what am I going to do?”
Worry gripped her. Colleen never sounded like this. She never sounded scared. “What’s going on? What happened?”
“Y-you don’t know?”
“What don’t I know?” Shannon felt anxiety start to rear its head. Shit. She hadn’t had a single episode in three months. “What’s going on, Colleen?”
Her sister hiccupped into the phone and sniffled loudly. “Turn on the TV. It’s all over the news.”
What was all over the news? “Hold on,” she said into the phone before turning to Jake. “Can you turn on the TV please?”
Jake gave her a questioning look, but complied, and when Shannon got a good look at the breaking news report plastered across the screen, she nearly dropped the phone. “Holy shit,” she whispered.
There on the television were her father and Mickey O’Banion. It was showing them on screen, each being hauled from the stables at the Saratoga Springs racetrack in handcuffs. The headline flashing across the screen read, AMERICAN HORSERACING LEGEND CALLUM CHARLEMAGNE ARRESTED IN SUSPECTED CONNECTION TO MOB LAUNDERING SCHEME.
“Do you see?” Colleen demanded.
Though it was hard to speak, Shannon managed, “I do. But I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“The police found some incriminating evidence against Dad, Shannon. It’s bad. First they discovered a trail of money transfers and deposits from overseas bank accounts that linked him to O’Banion. Then they obtained a warrant for the house and found hidden in a safe all of Dad’s falsified books that expose the whole dirty scheme they were in on together. The company has been seized and all of the family assets frozen. It’s a nightmare. He’s looking at jail, Shan. I want to feel bad about it, but it’s hard, knowing everything he did, all the ways he lied and cheated us for years. The way he used you. It makes it hard to be too sympathetic, you know? And Mom’s freaking out and has already packed her bags. She says she’s going to Cancún and isn’t coming back until this is all over. And I’m so screwed. I just got a call from administration at Harvard and there’s no money to pay for med school. They’ve suspended me. What am I going to do?”
Closing her eyes, Shannon inhaled long and deep and reached for Sean’s hand, gripping it tightly and taking great comfort in the solid warmth she found there. When she opened her eyes to discover him watching her with concern and love in his beautiful eyes, it helped center her enough to say, “We’ll figure it out. We’ll look into financial aid programs, personal loans—whatever we need to do to get you the money. You’re going to be a doctor like you’ve always dreamed, Colleen. I promise.”
And she meant it. Colleen’s future wasn’t ruined. Not if she had anything to say about it.
“I miss you, Shannon. Maybe I should just forget about being a doctor and move out to Fortune, too.”
And give up on her childhood dream? Umm, no. “Med school first, Leenie. You’re going to make it through.”
Big, shaky sigh. “Okay, fine.”
“I’ll call you later and we’ll get it sorted out.”
“Thanks, sis.”
“It’s what I’m here for,” Shannon said, grinning fondly. “Love you, talk soon.”
And the only thing she could think as she hung up on her sister to continue watching the news report was that she was really glad she’d had the nerve to make her own choices. That she’d chosen her own life, even when it hadn’t been easy. For the rest of her life she was going to be proud of herself for finding her path. One that included opening up her riding school on Pine Creek Ranch and spending every night snuggled into the arms of the man she loved. The man who loved and accepted her unequivocally—regardless of her issues and struggles.
It was a blessing.
She watched the news play out on screen, and it hit her how calm she felt about it, about watching her father’s karma come back to him. Why was she so unemotional about it?
Because they were his choices, his mistakes. He’d made his world what it was.
Life was about choices.
And she’d made the choice to find the courage to face her fears. Because of it she was finally free. Free from the past, and free to build the future she’d always dreamed. Most importantly, she was free to just be herself, imperfect as she was, knowing she was fully, truly loved.
“Hey, Sean?” she said.
“Yes, a mhuirnin?” he replied, bringing their joined hands to his lips and kissing her knuckles tenderly.
A big, huge smile spread slowly across her face. “I’m really glad I chose you.”
And that statement couldn’t have been truer.
Jennifer Seasons’s steam
y new series continues!
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next book in her Fortune, Colorado series:
TALKING DIRTY
Coming July 2015 from Avon Impulse.
An Excerpt From
TALKING DIRTY
Jake Stone has always been an outsider, even in his hometown. So when the town’s shy librarian, Apple Woodman, comes trying to sniff out his family history for a book she’s writing, he decides he’s had enough. He’ll give her the answers she seeks—at a price: one piece of clothing for every question she wants to ask. Apple’s willing to play his game. After all, it’s only clothes . . . It’s not like they’re really baring their hearts—right?
APPLE SHIFTED AND walked into the pub, her vintage sundress swishing around her knees flirtatiously. Barely noticing the brewpub’s patrons or the live band that was playing on the patio, she went straight to the bar without waiting for Jake. She wanted a few seconds to plot and get it straight in her head before blurting out her new proposition.
She was pretty darn sure she was on to something.
Jake joined her at the bar and she took a deep, steadying breath. And then she placed her elbows onto the bar, leaned forward, and let her cleavage do the talking.
He scowled.
Of course he did. He was always scowling around her. Earlier had merely been his five-minute reprieve. “Put those away before you hurt someone.”
Now he was sounding downright grumpy too. Huh. Funny thing. “Why would I do that?” she asked and gave her girls a little squeeze with her elbows. He muttered under his breath and scowled some more. Good. “I don’t see anyone here complaining.”
Not that anyone could, really. Her back was to the tables. Jake was the only one who got the full display, exactly as she’d intended.
“I’m complaining.” He practically growled and yanked a white bar towel off its holder and began polishing the bar top.
He sounded surly, but Apple knew a secret about Jake, one that she was not at all ashamed to take advantage of now. “Why? Because you’ve been trying to scam a peek at my boobs since I started growing them in sixth grade and haven’t been successful?” She tipped her head to the side and blinked all big and innocent behind her oversized reading glasses. “Are you jealous?”
He scoffed at that—after he glanced at her chest. She totally had him. “Of what? All the cases of blue balls your rack gave me when I was fifteen?”
More or less, yes.
“What if I offered to make up for all those missed opportunities? All those Spin the Bottles and Sixty Seconds in Heaven that didn’t pan out?”
Jake stopped wiping the bar and pegged her with a look, his dark eyes filled with barely reined-in skepticism. “And how would you do that, juicy fruit?” he asked, referencing her childhood nickname—the one he’d given her the year she came into her body.
When they were teenagers, he’d been borderline obsessed with her body. And she couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t the only one. When all the other girls in school had barely been filling A-cups, she’d been rocking her current double Ds by the time she was fifteen. It still made her laugh good-naturedly at all the ways Jake and some of the other boys used to try to “accidentally” catch her topless. Not all at the same time, mind you. Individually, and at different times throughout her youth. Her over-developed-for-her-age body had been the subject of a lot of attention back then, that was for sure.
Thank God some things do change.
And if letting Jake finally see her topless was going to get him to actually open up and tell her what she needed to know about that first settlement in Fortune, then by all means she’d take her shirt off. It was worth it to her.
More to the point, she was that desperate.
Being a published author had always been her dream. And she was this close. She’d be an idiot not to flash him her goods. Only this time he wasn’t offering to pay her his hard-earned summer lawn-mowing job money—and she was no longer such an innocent little good girl. Besides, it was just Jake. They’d known each other since she was three.
Her mind did a sudden flashback to the summer before Jake turned seventeen, instantly taking her back to that heat-drenched August when she was a curious and shy fifteen, and how his hungry gaze had followed her everywhere,
Apple took a deep breath. “I’m offering a trade. If you finally speak to me, I’ll show you my breasts like you’ve wanted me to for years.”
Jake laughed at that. “What makes you think I’m still interested?”
Apple gave him a level look, unfazed. “Because you’re a guy.”
He merely shrugged, his broad, defined shoulders moving under his faded green T-shirt. Then he slid her a cunning glance from the corner of his eye. “Maybe I am. But you’re going to have to do better than that weak attempt if you want me talking, sweet thing.”
Suddenly unsure, Apple replied cautiously, because one just never knew with Jake. “What else do you want?” And then she thought of everything she’d tried already and it had her exasperated all over again, so she added on a frustrated rush, “What’s it going to take to get you to finally spill your family’s story?”
The look he shot her had her slowly straightening from the bar, her pulse skittering. She’d never seen that particular gleam in his eye before. It was dark and intense and unreadable. Dangerous even.
She swallowed hard.
Then he placed his elbows on the bar and imitated her by leaning forward across the bar toward her. He didn’t stop until they were almost nose-to-nose and she could see amber flecks in his chocolate eyes. “Here’s the deal, all right? If you really want me to talk about my myself, my family—hell, about all my frigging secrets because I know you and you’re too damned nosy and won’t stop with just my ancestors—” He stopped suddenly and took a deep breath, his last words hanging suspended between them. But his gaze held steady on her as one uncomfortable heartbeat, then two, passed before he continued speaking more animatedly, seeming to be building up steam about something, “Shit, you won’t stop until you’ve taken up permanent residence inside my head and know things about me I don’t even care to understand. Why? Because you’re Apple Woodman and you can’t help yourself. It’s what you’ve always done. And you think caving in and fulfilling some outdated G-rated teenage fantasy is going to be all it’ll take to get me singing about stuff I’ve never told anybody?”
He straightened from the bar and crossed his arms, his face set in stern lines as he shook his head once—just once, with impact. “Nope. No good. There’s only one thing you can do.” He raised a hand, his long, thick index finger pointed straight in the air.
Apple eyed him warily now as she slowly inched from the bar, feminine fear skittering across her skin. Maybe this wasn’t her brightest idea, after all. “Oh yeah, what could that be?”
Jake leaned over the bar toward her again and crooked his index finger at her, urging her closer. His gaze held on hers rock steady as he smiled, slow and devastating, and said the words that sent her reeling. “If you want me to talk, juicy fruit, I get to see all of you naked.”
About the Author
JENNIFER SEASONS has been a lifelong writer and reader. She lives with her husband and four children in the mountains of rural New England. An enormous yet lovable dog and the world’s coolest cat keep them company. When she’s not writing, she loves spending time with her family outdoors exploring her beautiful new home state, learning the joys of organic gardening—and if she’s lucky, relaxing in her hammock under the trees with a really good book. You can find her online at www.facebook.com/jennifer.seasons.3.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Jennifer Seasons
The Diamonds and Dugouts Series
Stealing Home
Playing the Field
Throwing Heat
“Major League Crush” in Confessions of a Secret Admirer
Copyright
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from Talking Dirty copyright © 2015 by Candice Wakoff.
GETTING LUCKY. Copyright © 2015 by Candice Wakoff. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition APRIL 2015 ISBN: 9780062365033
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062365026
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