“Who are they?” I pointed to them as discreetly as possible.
She peered over my shoulder, took one quick look, and whispered, “I think those are members of the Order. I recognize a few of their faces from when they came by the hospital to visit Max.”
“Wait a second, I was there the whole time. How come they don’t look familiar to me?”
Sam shook her head. “Maybe because you were totally out of it, consumed by grief?”
She must be right, I thought, because not one of them—except for Tex—registered on my memory card.
“They came by to give updates. I still can’t believe how fast that all went down. At least we can walk into today knowing we’re all truly safe.”
I learned later the Order had amped up efforts to dissolve the human trafficking ring behind my man’s hit and, in cooperation with law enforcement and other smaller vigilante groups, they had accomplished their mission.
Most of the ring was now behind bars, a couple had “disappeared”, and I had slept like a baby every night since then.
I must’ve still had a perplexed expression because my sister reached over to squeeze my hand.
“Jess, it’s understandable. Max was hit almost at point-blank range.”
I placed my hand on top of hers. “Stop, please,” I implored. “Not today, of all days, do I want to recount the brutality of what happened to Max. Okay?”
She nodded. “Of course, you’re right. That was insensitive. Forgive me?”
“Sam-Sam, there’s nothing to forgive. I wouldn’t have been able to make it to this day if it wasn’t for you and Kyle.”
Just then, I felt a strong, warm hand on my shoulder. It was familiar and comforting and I knew who it was in an instant.
I turned around to find Max’s dad standing there, a sweet smile on his face. “You ready for them, sweetheart?”
Ever since the hit, Jack and Vicky had stuck to Piper and me like glue—becoming like second parents to me in many ways. Jack was strong, gruff, and a man of few words, but he had a soothing quality about him, even during times I swore I was going down a dark spiral with no way out. And Vicky was somehow able to make me laugh, even while I thought just one more breath would break me.
“Yes, I’m ready.” I returned his smile, feeling blessed he was by my side today.
“Then let’s do this.” He gave me a wink, offering his arm for me to hold.
I threaded my arm through his. “Thank you for doing this.”
“Oh, um…” He stumbled, looking embarrassed. “It ain’t nothing. Proud to do it.”
I took a deep breath and gazed at Samantha over my shoulder, wearing that gorgeous Lazaro dress we’d picked out together seven months before.
“You look beautiful, Sam-Sam,” I rasped, feeling tears caught in my throat.
“So, do you, sweetie,” she answered while smoothing the skirt of her dress.
“Stop fidgeting! You both look divine,” Sam’s best friend, Patrick, chimed in. He was the one walking my sister down the aisle. “But you two are the most self-centered brides, like, ever. Not one of you said anything about how I look in my suit.”
“You’re beyond handsome,” I assured him, which made him beam like a little boy.
“At least you’re smiling while acting like a li’l bitch,” Samantha teased while playfully bumping him with her shoulder. “Otherwise I would almost believe your little tantrum.”
Max’s stepmom came over to us. “Y’all, it’s time. Stop gabbing and go and get married already!”
Mine wasn’t a Lazaro, but I adored it nonetheless. It was my mother’s wedding dress—well, for the most part. One of my friends at the school was also a master with a sewing machine and turned the rather stodgy, empire-waisted frock into a creation she coined “Regency period meets twenty-first-century glam”.
I didn’t know what the phrase meant either, but I loved my dress…perfect for me, worn on a day straight out of all my fantasies…dreams I was once teased for harboring.
The music started and I held onto Jack’s arm, both of us automatically matching our walk to the beat. The church was packed with people, but once we started moving, they were all a blur. I knew most of the staff from my school was there, including Natalie in the front, serving as my maid of honor. I couldn’t see him, but I imagined Rhen, in a smart-looking suit, sitting nearby, unable to keep his eyes off of her.
She finally admitted they were madly in love and moving in together this summer, as soon as the school year was over. She had told me during her last bridesmaid dress fitting and I couldn’t have been more excited for her. Of course, the only piece of news to make me even happier for my jaded best friend was one I overheard when she whispered to the seamstress to let out the waist. No one else had noticed, but I did: the slightest sign of a rounded tummy. But she was holding off making the big announcement, so I would wait as well.
As we strolled down the aisle, I couldn’t help but focus on everything that was Max—my soul mate, my protector, my survivor. Standing in the same dove-gray morning suit I had envisioned months earlier. It was a miracle he was alive, standing so tall, with the help of a cane for now.
Twelve gunshot wounds—two missing major arteries by centimeters.
Fourteen hours of surgery—flat lining once on the table for almost a minute.
Sixteen days—the amount of time he was in a medically induced coma. When he finally started coming back to us, it wasn’t at all like it was in the movies. The person doesn’t suddenly open their eyes, all-lucid, sharing some kernel of wisdom from the other side of the light.
He came back to me in stages. His lids fluttered. He breathed on his own. Then his eyes stayed opened long enough to see me. I looked like a wreck: hair a mess, not a stitch of makeup on, down ten pounds I didn’t need to lose in the first place because I’d barely eaten since that awful day.
He saw his little girl with eyes looking too old for her age. Piper had been through a lifetime of hurt before her eleventh birthday; this last crisis took a toll. The school had recommended a trauma-informed therapist, someone trained to work with children, and she went to sessions twice a week. She was getting better every day. And now she was my flower girl, beaming with the promise this day held for all of us.
I’d found my own counselor shortly after Piper. It wasn’t a matter of not being strong enough, the opposite actually. Best decision I ever made. Well, besides saying yes to Max’s proposal, which happened the day he checked out of the hospital.
The ring had been in his jeans pocket the whole time, the day he was shot. He had planned on proposing in front of our new Christmas tree, with almost everyone we loved present. Instead, he did it leaning on crutches, in front of the hospital.
“The next time we come back here, it’ll be for a happy occasion. We’re going to get married. We’re doing things right. And then, you’re going to give me a gorgeous, brilliant baby, this time with red hair. And I want you coming back here remembering this moment above the others. Got it?”
Leave it to Max to tell—not ask—me to marry him. Of course I’d say yes, but it would’ve been appropriate for him not to order me to do it. Appropriate, maybe, but not Max.
I was finally at the front of the church, with Max standing by me, taking my hand from Jack’s. He had brushed back his usual mop of hair and trimmed his beard. His suit fit him like a second skin. He looked civilized, but he was still my wild thing. His vigilante activities had ceased, but he hadn’t lost a hint of his edge.
Then I felt my sister coming up beside me, with Patrick handing her over to Kyle. Once Max and I had announced our engagement, my sister had insisted on a double wedding. I had been unsure, not wanting to take away a moment of her spotlight, but she blew off my concerns, saying she had always dreamt of having a double wedding, Bennett-sister style like in Pride and Prejudice.
; Me too.
“This, right here,” Max said, keeping his voice low.
I waited for him to continue, but Max just stared at me.
“What is it? Are you okay?”
He swallowed hard. “You standing here, in that dress…you’re all I’m ever gonna need and more than I ever deserved.”
“No, Max, I’m the lucky one.”
My sister leaned over, not even bothering to keep her voice down. “You’re lucky, he’s lucky…we’re all lucky. Can we get married now?”
The congregation laughed—that much I remembered. Afterward, everything was a blur.
Except for his vows. For some reason, I can still recall every word:
“In the name of God, I, Maximillian Theodore Reinquist, take you, Jessica Margaret Lockhart, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish all the days of my life.
“This is my solemn vow. I promise you everything, because you and Piper mean everything to me. Now, get over here and kiss me, woman. I’ve waited long enough.”
I was never so glad to do exactly as I was told.
The End
About the Author
Born in California and raised in south Florida, Harper Kincaid has moved around like a gypsy with a bounty over her head ever since. Along the way, she’s collected some stories, earned her share of battle scars, and is unofficially banned from entering a few countries. Actually, her jam is writing sexy stories at home, listening to lo-fi complaint rock played on vinyl, going to the theater, having well-informed optimism, and making those close to her laugh ’til they snort. She is a self-admitted change junkie, loving new experiences and places, but has now happily settled in the cutest li’l town of Vienna, Virginia. Oh, and she loves hearing from readers:
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Look for these titles by Harper Kincaid
Now Available:
Break on Through
Rule Breaker
Heart Breaker
Just one more can’t hurt…right?
Break on Through, Book 1
Re-belle-ious, free-spirited Lauren Renwick has decided it’s time to trade her wings for roots. That means no more bad boys, no more foolish choices. Yet when she’s stood up on New Year’s Eve, her resolution to stick to her Mama’s Rules for Dating weakens. Especially when she spots sex-in-leather-and-tattoos, Jackson Sullivan.
One look at Lauren, and Jackson is hell-bent on getting her on the back of his Harley and riding straight for his bed. Their night together is an erotic rush that has a new word popping up on his horizon—forever.
Lauren tries to convince herself he’s just one last fling to get bad boys out of her system, yet she finds herself falling hard and fast for a man with a stalker ex and a meddling Irish family. Plus, he has zero chance of passing her uptight parents’ inspection.
Jackson has Lauren’s back, but if she wants all of his heart, she’ll have to meet him halfway—by ditching rules that hold her prisoner, and learning to stand up for what she really wants.
Warning: Contains several highly practical rules for dating—all of which will be broken in the most wicked ways possible, thanks to a domineering alpha male who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to go after it...rules be damned.
Love wasn’t in the script…
Break on Through, Book 2
Former man-eater Samantha Lockhart has been an actress long enough to be able to spot a smooth-talking player a mile away. Dark-haired, bourbon-eyed, a wicked smile…Kyle Masterson is one of the best.
From his bad-boy motorcycle boots to his good-ole-boy Southern drawl, everything about Kyle screams sex appeal. But after a tragedy hits close to home, Sam tries to convince herself she’s done with players on and off the stage.
Kyle, a V-twin-riding divorce attorney, has witnessed enough horror stories of love gone wrong to know that while women are welcome in his bed, they’re definitely not in his future. But once the petite, mercurial redhead catches his eye, he can’t think of anything—or anyone—else.
Sam’s trust doesn’t come easy, but the more time they spend together, the deeper they both fall. Yet just as they’re breaking through each other’s barriers, someone who doesn’t like being upstaged makes a deadly play of his own. And if Sam refuses, she may not be able to breathe a word to anyone…ever.
Warning: Contains a small-town thespian who isn’t easily fooled and a lawyer with a weakness for V-twin engines and sassy redheads.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Girl Breaker
Copyright © 2017 by Harper Kincaid
ISBN: 978-1-61923-459-8
Edited by Jennifer Miller
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: January 2017
www.samhainpublishing.com
Girl Breaker Page 17
