Fool’s Errand
Cartwright Brothers, Book 4
Lilliana Anderson
Print Edition
Copyright © 2018 by Lilliana Anderson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Ember Designs
Editing by Making Manuscripts
Created with Vellum
Contents
Foreword
1. Cartwright Property Management
2. One Of The Boys
3. Buds
4. Just Sloane
5. Drop Bears
6. Pop a Mint
7. Challenge Accepted
8. Battle Of Wills
9. Think of the Money
10. The Devil’s Doorbell
11. Wrong Brother
12. Cat and Mouse
13. Rogue
14. No Girly Friends Shit
15. Ace of Fucking Spades
16. Just Friends
17. Heads or Tails
18. On The Clock
19. Yahtzee
20. Level The Playing Field
21. Highly Inappropriate
22. A Fucking Mess
23. Mummy Issues
24. Stick Around
25. A Little Too Much
26. A Twenty-First Century Woman
27. Consequences
28. The Last Word
29. Something Worth Making It Back For
30. Fucked-Up Shit
31. Drowned In Secrets
32. Perfection
33. Fool Me Twice
34. What If
35. Security
36. Promise
37. Step One
38. Red Towels
39. Happily Ever After Goddammit
40. Positive
41. You Said To Call
42. The Shit Hit the Fan
43. War is Coming
44. Willow
Also by Lilliana Anderson
About the Author
Acknowledgments
All the single ladies
Foreword
Yikes. Book four. You know what that mean, right? Only one to go. I’m both excited and sad for the end of this series, but boy, it’s been fun getting here.
Sloane is probably my most relatable heroine to date. She’s a little world weary, tells it like it is, and she loves a good game. That competitive streak is probably lifted straight from my own personality, but she was a great lady to write, possibly because she’s closer to my own age than most of my heroines are.
Abbot is exactly as you expect if you’ve been following this series from the beginning. He’s cheeky, he’s a rule breaker, and he’s loyal while also wanting to walk his own path. He’s sweet. I love the things that come out of his mouth—even when they’re dirty!
The family saga also continues in the following pages. If you’re just jumping into the series now, all will be explained as Sloane learns the family’s secrets. But if you’ve been here all along, you’ll see things developing and setting up for our finale where we find out if the Cartwrights find their happiness as a group, or go their seperate ways. Only time will tell…
Chapter One
Cartwright Property Management
Grind. Grind. Grind.
Blow.
Holding the tiny brass key in front of me, I inspected the cuts and compared it to the original.
This was what my life had been reduced to. Copying keys and engraving pet collars to make ends meet. It was the twenty-first century, so why was it still difficult to make it in a male-dominated industry?
Things were so much easier when my grandfather was alive.
You know, I really hated making my business woes about gender, but what else explained it? As locksmiths, our business had thrived with Pop at the helm. Now that he was gone, I barely got a call out, and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing wrong. I was good at my job. I could re-key a lock in minutes, break into your locked car when you lost your keys and even get a safe open that you couldn’t remember the combination for. I had skills, dammit. I just needed some decent work.
Picking up another blank key, I inserted it into the vice and reset the grinder, ready to make a second copy. I hated that my phone—which rang all the time when Pop was alive—barely rang anymore. Was it so hard to believe that I was as capable as the man who trained me? It seriously did my head in. But I’d prove I could do this. A savvy advertising campaign would get things back on track…when I found some work to pay for one.
Just as I gripped the handle and started the grinder, the bell above the door jingled happily, contrasting my frustrated thoughts.
“Won’t be a minute,” I said, glancing up from my work before finding myself frozen in place, my mouth hanging open.
I may have started drooling. Hell, my eyes might have bugged out of my head and made that hubba-hubba sound like a cartoon character.
If I was a gif, I’d be Adam Sandler going ‘So. Hot.’
Standing at the counter was this ridiculously sexy, all-of-my-erotic-dreams-come-true man. Dark hair, blue eyes, skin so golden brown it made my mouth water and my fingers tingle. Easily in his thirties, based on the laughter lines around his eyes, he was tall—crazy tall, which was awesome when I was over six foot myself—with broad shoulders and a slim waist. Bulges in all the right places, and just enough mischief in his expression to keep a girl on her toes. This man was grade-A eye candy. And he looked a little familiar.
As I mentally undressed the sun-kissed god at my counter, I also tried to place where I’d seen that face before. Being in a small country town, we didn’t get a lot of models or TV personalities around here, so I didn’t think that was it. I didn’t go to school with him, there had never been anyone as drop-dead gorgeous as him at Rochester High, and he was too built to be someone I’d met via triathlons. The answer was tapping at my mind if I could just—my grip slipped in my distraction, the key jamming hard against the grinder. “Shit!” Sparks flew up in the air with an accompanying eeeee-owww sound. “Fuck!”
Not my finest moment.
The guy chuckled as I leapt back and shut the machine off, dusting my hands over the front of my work overalls to check for singes. None. Thank God.
“You know, I’ve heard of sparks flying when people meet, but I’ve never actually seen it before,” he said with a shit-eating grin. He’s funny too.
Based on the heat pumping out of my cheeks, it seemed my face was about as red as my hair. I was going to die from embarrassment.
“Yeah, well, now you have,” I replied, trying to sound cool as I removed my safety glasses and ran my hand over the length of my long braid to make sure my hair wasn’t on fire. “What can I do for you?”
His clear blue eyes gave me the once-over but showed little interest of a sexual nature, telling me his thoughts weren’t anywhere near the gutter like mine were. It was the unfortunate curse of the tomboy. In my thirty-eight years on this earth, I’d never done cute or pretty. I dressed more for comfort than for display purposes. And on top of that, I had a very athletic build, helped along by the fact I competed in triathlons for fun. There were times when I was mistaken for a teenage boy—but I blamed the man bun fashion trend for that one.
“I’m looking for Trevor,” Bronze god said when he’d finished mentally placing me in his friend zone.
“Trevor isn’t available, but I can help you.” Trevor was my grandad. Trev to those
who knew him.
Squinting with one eye, he somehow managed to scrunch only half of his face up while still maintaining his good looks. “I really need Trev. When he gets in, can you tell him Jasmine stopped by? He’ll know who you mean.”
“Jasmine? You don’t look like a Jasmine,” I teased.
Bronze god grinned and took a step backwards. “She’s an old friend of his. Family, really.”
Old friend? Family? “Wait. Are you talking about Jasmine Cartwright?” Oh my God. That’s how I knew him. “Are you one of her sons?” Growing up, I stayed at the Cartwright’s house during the summer holidays. Pop had to work, and since my mum was incapable of being a parent, he would take me to Torquay for six weeks of sun, surf and fun. I’d loved it there. It was a big house with a pool and a tennis court, and a bunch of boys running around like crazy and getting into trouble that I was more than happy to take part in. It was the first time I ever felt like I fit in, and I’d pretty much been ‘one of the boys’ in every social situation since. Summer with the Cartwrights had been my favourite time of every year until I turned seventeen. After that, well, it wasn’t fun anymore… I hadn’t seen them since.
“Holy shit. I know you, don’t I?” Without answering my question, he narrowed his eyes and took a second look at me as if he was trying to place me the way I’d been placing him.
“I’m Sloane. Trevor was my grandad?” I supplied. “You have, like four other brothers, right?” I wracked my brain for names I hadn’t said out loud in over twenty years. “There was Toby, Nate, um…Sam…and twins—Kris and ah…Adam, Aaron? It’s an A name…” I clicked my fingers as I tried to work it out.
“Abbot,” he corrected before I could rattle off anymore.
I stopped clicking and pointed at him. “Abbot. That’s right. I used to spend summer holidays with you guys until I finished school and started working here.”
His eyes went wide as recognition dawned. “Holy shit. I remember. You broke Toby’s tooth while we were playing footy one year. Blood everywhere.”
That’s what he remembers? Great.
“Yeah. I guess I elbowed a little too hard that day.”
“I remember the hair. You were crazy.”
The compliments were coming hard and fast.
“In a good way,” he said to quickly recover. “We all thought you were cool.”
Cool and crazy. That fact was now stuck in my head like a giant pin, deflating all the fantasies I’d had when he first walked through the door. Cool and crazy. So far removed from sexy and hot.
“What happened to you, anyway?” he asked when I didn’t say anything else. “You were there every summer then you just…stopped.”
The memory of humiliation and an argument between Pop and Jasmine surfaced, but I shook it off, pushing it back in the past where it belonged. “Got old enough to take care of myself,” I explained, telling a half-truth. “So, which one are you, anyway?” I reached out and nudged him on the arm. He was so rock hard, it was like tapping against a wall.
“Abbot.”
“Oh.” The one whose name I couldn’t remember. Excellent. “Sorry about forgetting your name.”
He shrugged. “Sorry about forgetting your face.” Ouch. OK, so I didn’t have the most memorable face in existence, and he did say it as a joking response to what I said, but still, ow. I’m forgettable. Cool, crazy and forgettable. This was why I was thirty-eight and single.
“It’s fine,” I said, looking around at nothing really, but needing to focus my eyes elsewhere. “Um, listen, you obviously haven’t heard—although I’m sure I notified your mum and she sent flowers—but Pop passed away a few months ago. Cancer. It’s just me running things now.”
“Oh shit, my condolences. I had no clue.”
I waved his sympathies away because I didn’t want to start getting emotional. “It’s fine. It happened pretty fast. A few months from diagnosis to the end. I’ve kind of been reeling since then.”
“Understandable,” he said.
“And about your job, he left me the business, taught me everything he knew. So anything he could do, I can do too. Better even, because technology wasn’t his strong point. So…” Please give me the job so I don’t have to report a negative quarter to my accountant on my first business statement as owner.
“He taught you everything about his business?” He looked doubtful, which just got my feminist hackles up.
“Of course,” I snapped. “You think just because I’m a girl I can’t do what he could?”
He held up a hand, palm facing me. “This has nothing to do with you being a girl, or your ability. It has to do with what I heard.”
“What did you hear?”
“That Trev was retiring the business, only doing jobs for friends.”
I held up my hands and gestured around the shop. “Well, he obviously changed his mind.”
He looked at me for a long moment, the muscle in the side of his stubbled jaw ticking slightly. His hair was a little on the long side, the tips of it hanging into his eyes and catching on his eyelashes when he blinked. “I need to make a call,” he said, then he stepped outside, pressing his phone to his ear as the glass door swung shut behind him.
I couldn’t hear anything he was saying from inside the shop, so I spent my time trying to piece together any information I had in my head about the Cartwrights. I was seventeen the last summer I spent with them, my memories were of touch football games, failed surfing lessons and petty theft. Yes, theft. Those boys had sticky fingers from a very young age. Pop had always said it was because they didn’t have a positive male influence with their dad away in the big house. Armed robbery gone wrong, I think. Pop had always lectured me about staying out of their business and keeping my nose clean. I’d like to say I’d been a model citizen, but being ‘one of the boys’ had led to a lot of stupid decisions. It had been all fun and games until Nate had been caught stealing cars and went to juvie for a stint. He came out different, harder. Even when he was laughing, there was still a haunted look in his eyes. I was scared straight after that. I wondered if the Cartwright boys had gone straight as they’d grown as well.
The bell above the door jingled and the customer for the key cut walked back in, breaking into my walk down memory lane. When I finished serving her and cutting that second key I messed up, Abbot walked back into the shop.
“You’re all done,” I said to the woman. “Thanks for stopping by.”
I watched in amusement as she turned then did a double take at the gorgeous man standing not far behind her. She said a breathy hello to Abbot then gave me an absentminded goodbye and left, sneaking glances back as she took her sweet time walking away. I get it, lady. I totally get it.
“OK,” Abbot said, completely oblivious to the ogling as he slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “You’re in.”
I grinned. I’m in. “Wait. In what, exactly?” Nerves burst to life in my stomach. Does this mean they didn’t go straight after all? What exactly am I agreeing to?
Abbot laughed. “Very funny.” He placed a business card on the counter. “You really think you’re better than your grandad?”
“Depends on the job,” I replied, reaching for the card and hoping for answers. While I wasn’t completely opposed to breaking the law—I knew for a fact that Pop did the odd ‘questionable’ job over the years—I didn’t want to do anything so risky I could get caught. Orange is the New Black was a great show and all, but I didn’t want to be a cast member.
“One question,” Abbot said, placing his index finger on top of the card so I couldn’t take it.
“Dude. Are you giving it to me or not?”
He grinned. “Can you close up for the rest of the day?”
“I’m not exactly run off my feet here, so yeah.”
“OK,” he said, lifting his finger. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Sloane.”
Picking up the card, I read the front of it, ‘Cartwright Property Management’. Maybe this job was
on the up and up?
“What is this job, anyway?” I asked, turning the card over in my fingers. “You got a rental you need rekeyed or some—” I almost choked when I saw the handwritten figure on the back of it. “Holy…” Shit.
“That’s your cut.” My cut? Of what? “Be ready out front in half an hour and bring your safecracking kit. We’ve lost the code to ours.” He winked like I was in on the conspiracy then turned and exited the shop.
The echo of the jingling bell reverberated in my ears as I stared at the card. That was a lot of zeros for what might only be a few hours worth of work. There was no way this was legit.
“Jesus, Pop,” I whispered. “What the hell did you just get me into?”
Chapter Two
One Of The Boys
The first thing I did when Abbot left was google for any robberies that had occurred over the last few days that involved a safe. Since I couldn't find any, I had to assume that a) the job was above board and they just really needed that safe open today and didn’t trust anyone local to do it, or b) the robbery happened so recently that it hadn’t been reported yet. I was hoping for option A because, besides the business, Pop hadn’t left me any cash and I was struggling. I needed that money.
Fool’s Errand: Cartwright Brothers, Book 4 Page 1
