Hitch
Page 18
“Next week.”
“Let’s do something. It’s Sunday, I don’t have work today. Let’s go sightseeing.”
“Really? Like tourists?” Amber raised an eyebrow at him, clearly not liking the idea.
“Or like newbies who have just moved into town and need to know where all the good hiking places are.” Her face softened. Dex hardened as he puffed up his chest and stepped between her legs, unable to shake the idea of going back to bed with her.
Amber rubbed against him as she clasped her legs behind his. “Feels like you may have other ideas in mind for what we could do today,” she smirked at him.
“Well,” he brought his arms around her, “there are twenty-four usable hours in every day.”
Her breath hitched in that way he loved as he bent down and captured her mouth with his.
Epilogue
Simon loved the Pierce Securities office on Sunday nights. Nobody was here, and it gave him the quiet time he needed to focus on the week. This place had become his home, whether he’d initially intended it to or not, and now he found himself dreading going to his actual place of residence.
Because it wasn’t really his. He needed to do something about that. It wasn’t fair to Bonnie and Q for him to continue living in the house their parents had left them just because he always had. It was time for him to get his shit together. The company was running smoother, clients and income weren’t an issue, and it was time for him to grow a pair of balls and buy his own fucking house.
He made himself a note to call a realtor this week. No sense in putting it off.
Opening the bottom drawer of his desk, Simon withdrew the bottle of scotch, ignoring the framed picture in the back. He thought about Dex and Amber, who seemed ridiculously happy. And he was happy for his friend; Dex seemed to finally be settling into something he could live with. Ryan and Krista, Jake and Miriam, Evan and Paige, Quinten and Valerie, Deena Rae and Slade, Bonnie and Zack, Jordan and Mia …
They’d all found their happily ever afters and seemed to be doing the together thing better than he had. He spun his chair around after pouring a couple fingers of scotch into his glass and looked at the framed picture behind his desk. It had been taken a couple of months ago, at Ryan’s cabin during one of his regular barbecues, where he roasted God only knew what and everyone brought side dishes and beer. It was a time to get together outside of the office, and it seemed like each time someone made some dramatic announcement. He looked at all the smiling faces—minus Zack and Bonnie, who were still in Pamona Gulch—and remembered what had taken place at that one. He’d offered Slade a job, part-time, while he finished school.
He’d thought the son of a bitch was going to cry.
Simon spun back around to face his desk, feeling suddenly maudlin. He’d had all that lovey-dovey couple shit. And it had backfired in the worst possible way.
Giving in, to remind himself more than anything else, he pulled the picture out of the bottom drawer—the picture he had shoved into the back of the drawer but couldn’t bring himself to throw away. It was his reminder of everything.
He traced the edge of the frame, him and Tanya. A much younger him and a dead Tanya. He’d killed her, slipped the blade between the ribs of her back in a silent but mortal wound, while she’d held a gun to his chin. Simon closed his eyes, the photo imprinted on his brain, as well as the day it was taken.
They were on the coast of Corpus Christi, a distraction he’d planned because she had given them the information they’d needed to take down the biggest drug ring in San Antonio. She’d been living with him for protection while she gave him the information she could about Marcos Rivera, the lead buyer and distributor of heroin from Mexico. He’d been a slippery fucker up until Tanya had somehow landed in Simon’s interrogation room. The attraction had been instant, and he’d felt an undeniable pull to her, a desire to protect her from the mad man she’d become involved with.
She’d told stories of trafficking—drugs, guns, and girls—and Simon had bought every word of it. He’d brought Tanya home with him, for protection only, and they’d fallen in love. When she came to him with information about a major shipment coming in on the interstate, he’d set up the bust and took her to Corpus for a romantic weekend to get her mind off things.
It had been perfect. Walks on the beach, chartered boat rides to watch the dolphins, some of the best seafood he’d ever eaten, and lots and lots of laughter. He’d loved her so much he’d proposed, right there on one knee with their feet in the waves.
And she’d said yes.
They’d gone to the hotel then, stripped carelessly on top of the bed, and fucked like bunnies.
That night, while they made love in the hotel, she’d been on top, riding him like there was no tomorrow, and for her there wouldn’t be. That’s when she’d pulled a tiny pistol from nowhere and held it to his chin, apologizing, begging him for forgiveness.
It had taken a while to process that the woman he had just proposed to was now begging him for redemption because she was about to take his life. Simon had managed to feel around in the sheets for the knife he kept in his leg sheath, still in the bed from their mad dash to strip themselves, and plunged it into her back.
His cock was still inside her as the life drained from Tanya’s eyes and her gun hand went limp against his chest.
Four cops had died in the bust that night because it was all a trap she’d set. Four of his brothers in arms, gone.
Simon blinked and shook his head, still staring at the picture. Her brown, wavy hair, drenched in saltwater and dried in the sun, her deep, dark eyes he pretended he saw her secrets in. He also pretended he saw the love there, but that was just for his own peace of mind. Simon knew she’d never loved him. Tanya had been more scared of Marcos than she had loved Simon. Because Marcos was the driving force behind her actions. He had ended up being killed that night as well—Simon’s only saving grace.
If he had lived, Simon didn’t know where he would be, undoubtedly drowning in waves of a vendetta that would eat his soul alive.
Not that he wasn’t already.
He threw the frame back into the drawer and refilled his glass.
Tomorrow was another day, another job, another chance at finding Jonas and getting Bonnie back home where she belonged, and he would find a new house.
Because life moved on, whether he was an active participant or not.
About Anne
Anne has written her entire life and has the boxes of angst-filled journals and poetry to prove it. She’s been writing for public consumption for the last four years. Currently she is writing two romance series. In Stories of Serendipity, she explores real people living real lives in small town Texas in a contemporary romance setting. In The Four Winds, she chronicles God’s four closest archangels, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael, falling in love and becoming human. She lives in rural East Texas with her husband and children in her own private oasis, where she prides herself in her complete lack of social skills, choosing instead to live with the people inside her head. Check out her blog, www.anneconley.com for updates, book blurbs, and more.
Contact Anne
Twitter @AnneConley10
or
Website www.anneconley.com/
or
Facebook www.facebook.com/anneconleyauthor
Make friends with her on Goodreads, Shelfari, Kindleboards, and Wattpad!
Check on her at Pinterest, to find visuals that inspire her work, as well as recipes, and more!
She loves comments and thoughts. You can email her at anneconleyauthor@gmail.com
Sign up for the mailing list
http://bit.ly/2mQmBie
Anne’s Series
Book B!tches
Welcome to Mystic, Texas, where the past stays alive in more ways than one. Vanessa, Tiffany, Kristie, Wren, Melanie, and Samantha are a motley crew of women who have formed an unlikely alliance. Under the guise of a book club, where they read only indie authors, they discu
ss men, relationships, and the current mystery surrounding the town. There’s a serial killer on the loose, and he’s targeted the Book B!tches.
Serendipity Series
Welcome to Serendipity, Texas, a town where real people deal with real problems. Meet characters in their thirties and forties struggling with day-to-day issues and managing to find love in the process. Visit Serendipity, where the days are hot, and the nights are steamy!
The Four Winds Series
The Four Winds series are Paranormal Romances dealing with the Archangels. They are the biblical archangels, so there are aspects of Christianity in them. But the conflict in the stories are about the archangels falling in love and turning human, so they are dealing with human emotions and feelings. Due to various reactions of shock and outrage, I feel the need to put the spoiler out there: These books have sex in them, but also Christianity. So if either of those bother you, please don’t buy these books. First book in the series, Falling for Heaven, is free!
Pierce Securities
A group of misfits come together to form Pierce Securities & Investigations; doing the best they can with their collective and individual strengths; becoming unlikely heroes in the process.
Stand Alone Novels
Best Laid Plans of Boys and Men
Fixer Upper
E-Book Layout and Design
Ebook conversion by EBookBuilders