Fate Interrupted
Just Married
by
Kaitlyn Cross
Copyright © 2018 by Kaitlyn Cross
Cover design by The Cover Collection
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents:
Chapter One: Honeymoon In Progress
Chapter Two: HGTV Dream Home
Chapter Three: Sarah
Chapter Four: The Picture On The Mantel
Chapter Five: Cold Patio Tiles
Chapter Six: Just One More Time
Chapter Seven: White Widow
Chapter Eight: Hangman's Hollow
Chapter Nine: Scrabble
Chapter Ten: Now You Know How Women Feel
Chapter Eleven: Property Brothers
Chapter Twelve: First Kill
Chapter Thirteen: No Pink
Chapter Fourteen: Baloney-Pony
Other books by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Kaitlyn Cross:
Chapter Fifteen: Megan
Chapter One
HONEYMOON IN PROGRESS
Pushing against the wheel, Dean tried letting up on the accelerator but each spellbinding stroke of Evy’s lips constricted every muscle in his body. The Grand Cherokee sailed down a lonely two-lane highway, dirt and leaves swirling in its wake, a green blur clawing at the sides. Looking down, he stared past his pumping chest and watched Evy circle his tip with her tortuous tongue before sliding back down and swallowing him whole. His breath caught in the back of his throat, hair rising along his arms and legs. Looking up, his adrenaline spiked. He jerked the wheel to the left, swerving around a deer standing in the middle of the road.
Straightening it back out, he released the stuck breath and pushed a pair of aviators up the bridge of his nose. Evy went faster and so did the Jeep. A dilapidated gas station blew past in a rundown streak, a bass boat with a for sale sign the sole customer.
“Evy,” Dean panted, white-knuckling the steering wheel.
Sliding up and down his rigid shaft, she pulled her long, dark hair back so he could see the side of her face.
He tried focusing on the road. “Slow down.”
Sunshine glinted off an exit sign up ahead. Jerking into the oncoming lane, he passed a lazy camper with Minnesota Vikings flags fluttering in the wind. A balding man behind the wheel gave him a quick doubletake as the SUV roared past and reclaimed the lane.
Evy pumped him in her hand, lips knowing just how to steal his breath. He forced his foot off the gas, catching up to a shuttle van crammed with adventure seeking senior citizens. Evy’s hand met her lips in the middle before reversing course and doing it all over again. Clenching his teeth, Dean jumped into the passing lane. His eyes bulged. The big rig coming right at them laid on its airhorn, scaring a flock of turkey vultures into flight from a nearby spruce.
“Oh shit,” he cried, yanking the wheel to the right and ducking in behind the white shuttle again. Elderly sight-seers peered through the large rear window, studying Dean through oversized sunglasses.
Hitting the brakes, he cleared his throat. “Evy.”
Her warm hand slid up and down his glistening pipe in long, lazy strokes, threatening to push him over the edge. “You like that?” she said, flicking her tongue against him.
“Evy,” he panted, staring back at three gray-haired ladies in floppy sunhats.
Rising from his lap, he pushed her back down, making her gag.
The three women traded laughs while a portly man with a white shock of hair gave Dean an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
“You don’t have to choke me,” Evy told him, going back to work.
“Sorry.” Face flushing, Dean passed the shuttle with everything the V8 had to offer. Puzzled faces pressed against the windows, jaws falling down the rows like dominoes.
“Oh Jesus,” he muttered, giving them a weak wave and blazing into the open road. Signaling to get over, he gritted his teeth against a hot wave crashing against the door. He tried to hold it shut but it was no use. Evy’s lips were too soft. Too warm. Her tongue a wicked seductress no man could deny. Grunting, ecstasy broke down the door and washed over him. Everything turned warm and bright, the leather wheel soft in his hand as Evy bled him of every last drop. Slowing, the trees and bushes came back into focus and the excited shuttle van faded to a white dot in the mirrors. Rising from his lap, Evy zipped his jeans and gave him a devilish smile.
He stared at her with a classic white tee rising and falling on his chest. “I think that might be illegal in this state,” he breathed out, looking back to the road.
She fastened her seatbelt and flipped the visor down. “Guess we’re outlaws then,” she replied, painting on some cherry lip-gloss.
Slowing for a winding curve, his eyes gravitated back to his wife. She was beautiful in the sunlight and he loved the thought of the word wife. It was surreal and as the cedars and pines grew denser with each passing mile, Dean Jacobs made a silent promise to make each day better than the one that came before because that’s what she deserved. After everything he put her through with Megan and Sugars, he certainly didn’t deserve a woman like her.
Evy flipped the visor up and slipped on a pair of big red sunglasses. “What’re you thinking about?”
He glanced at her again, star struck by her natural beauty. “You.”
Smiling, she leaned over the console and kissed his cheek, her sweet scent hitching a ride on the cool air rushing from the vents. A comfortable silence fell between them, broken only by the tires clicking against the cracks in the road. Dean blew out a low breath, watching dotted lines slip beneath them. There was nothing to stop them from being together now. Nothing to keep them from finally being happy. Megan was locked up in a psych ward and her evil daddy, Clay Crawford, was getting exactly what he deserved: three shitty squares a day and a metal toilet missing its lid. It was impossible to make up for the hardships Dean’s playboy life brought upon them – the ones that nearly cost them their lives – but this is where it all begins.
“Evy Jacobs,” she muttered again, kicking her red-painted toes up onto the dash.
Following the narrow highway snaking through the woodlands, Dean couldn’t stop a grin from sneaking into his unshaven cheeks. Even after drinking and dancing well into the night, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on. Sunshine kissed the legs spilling from her denim shorts in smooth rivers, stirring his jealousy. That was his job and his alone.
“Rolls right off the lips, doesn’t it?”
The presidential suite’s flowery shampoo floated from her hair. “I guess it’ll do,” she said, kissing the back of his hand. “How’s your shoulder?”
He looked down at the black sling holding his left arm to his chest, wishing he could switch hands on the steering wheel. His good shoulder was starting to cramp up. “Better,” he said, fighting a grimace when he shifted in the seat.
Evy shook her head at him. “I still can’t believe that crazy bitch shot you. Who does that?” This was the other thing she kept repeating and he wished she’d stop. It reminded him of his reckless past, the one that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. He played with Megan and got burned. Plain and simple. Inhaling a deep breath, he blew the thought from his head. What was the old saying?
Inhale the future, exhale the past.
Dean relaxed into the se
at and let the past fade in the rearview mirror with Milwaukee and everything else. The front windshield was now. The beginning of something new. Something magical. “What do you think she’s doing right now?” Evy asked, jerking him from his thoughts.
“Who?”
“Megan.”
He grunted. “Probably making a paper Mache piggy bank.” A smile settled in his lips. “Or strapped in a straitjacket screaming so loud the lights flicker.”
Evy watched the world rush by in a woodsy blur. “I feel bad for her little boy.”
“Don’t. He’ll be better off with his grandma,” Dean told her, searching for a more comfortable position to appease the pins and needles attacking his rear end. They’d been driving all morning and he couldn’t wait to get out of this damn car. “She’s the only sane one of the bunch.”
Evy set a hand on his leg. “Your shoulder hurts again, doesn’t it?”
“Not with the pills they gave me.”
Tipping her chin down, she peered at him over the top of her sunglasses. “Should you be driving right now?”
“I’m fine. The vodka takes the edge right off.”
“You’re not funny.” She sat back in the seat, eyes rising with a rocky hillside on the right, toying with the rock on her finger. “Where in the world are you taking me?”
Using a knee to steer, Dean took his hand from the wheel and ran it through his slicked back hair. “There,” he said, nodding at a barn-red sign growing closer on the right.
Evy leaned forward and squinted against the sunshine. “Welcome to Cottage Grove. Home of 1,534 people and one old grouch,” she read aloud, turning to him with a frown. “This might be the weirdest honeymoon I’ve ever been on.”
Laughing, he took a sharp right onto a gravel road, spraying the powdery ditches with rocks. “We could still do Hawaii.”
She pressed her lips into a thin, grim line. “You could also sleep on the couch.”
Dean bounced with the washboards in the road. He still felt dirty after marrying Megan on that Maui beach and a part of him would never get clean. At the time, it seemed like the only way to save Sugars from the hands of a corrupt councilman with an axe to grind. Clay Crawford had him by the balls…until he didn’t. Looking over at Evy glowing in the sunshine, Dean’s insides warmed because, in the end, he got the last laugh. He won.
Evy leaned her head back and released a tired breath, watching the gravel road cut through a swath of tall pines. “There is a couch, right?”
“There’s a couch,” he answered, glancing in the rearview mirror at the luggage stuffed in the back. After Clay and his geriatric henchman, Mr. Ryder, put their boots to his neck, Dean would never stop looking over his shoulder again. He was damaged goods. And now that he was married, had so much more to lose. That’s what frightened him the most. “How’s your headache?”
“Better,” she lied, adjusting the red tank top that kept tugging at his gaze.
When they arrived, the first thing he was going to do was rip that thing off and show her that last night was just the tip of the iceberg. That this wouldn’t be one of those run-of-the-mill marriages running in reverse. No, this would be different.
Splaying her fingers, she admired the back of her hand. “I’m so happy for Brooke and Ben,” she said, catching a wink from the diamond on her finger. The one Dean paid a scuba diver to retrieve from Lake Michigan. The one she cried over as soon as it broke the surface.
“Me too.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to be an uncle!” She laughed. “That sounds so weird. Hi, I’m Uncle Dean.”
Dean snorted, bouncing in the seat. “That does sound weird.”
The woods began crowding the road, igniting flashes of the past. His parents would love Evy and they were the only thing missing from last night. Watching her dance with her father was a double-edged sword. But the way her smile made the ballroom glow, filled the hole in his heart with something he didn’t think could exist.
The trees opened up into a circular driveway and Evy took off her sunglasses. Rolling to a stop, he put it in park and surveyed the A-frame cabin with cold air rushing from the vents, traveling back to a time when wall phones and board games still reigned supreme. A time when his parents still called his name.
“Dean?”
He turned to face her, butterflies launching in his stomach. “We’re here.”
Chapter Two
HGTV DREAM HOME
Evy’s heart beat faster in her chest. It was beautiful, like something straight out of a Thomas Kinkade painting. Brilliant colors bled into her eyes, pushing the dust-covered trees they just passed far from her mind. Two old rockers sat waiting to greet them on the cabin’s front porch, red roses and white carnations icing the ornate banister in between. She watched a tire swing dance with the breeze, spinning over a blanket of green grass in the front yard. A red picnic table sat off to the side soaking up the shade and Evy could only imagine the wonderful stories it had to tell. Darkened woods bordered both sides of the property with Clearwater Lake setting the perfect backdrop beyond. A sword of sunlight cut across the sparkly surface, urging them to cool their feet.
“Oh, my God.” She turned to Dean. “You won the HGTV Dream Home?”
He turned off the engine, plunging them into a country silence you could never find in the city. “Not exactly, but it has its charm.”
“Is someone else here?” she asked, gaze snagging on a dusty pickup with the tailgate down.
“Just the caretaker putting the final touches on the place. Kirby’s been servicing the cabins on this lake since Truman was in office.”
She kissed Dean on the lips and ran her fingers down the scruff on his cheeks. “I can’t wait to see it,” she said, slipping into a pair of sandals. Hopping out, Evy filled her lungs with a deep pull of fresh air, stretching her back and soaking up the warm sunshine. “You rented this place for the whole week?”
Dean got out and hit a button on the key fob, sending the hatch gently rising into the air. “The whole week,” he confirmed, stretching his shoulder out.
“It’s beautiful.”
He took her hand and pulled her against him. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered back, kissing her as if she were made of glass.
“There he is!” They tuned to see a gray-haired man glide down the cabin’s front steps like a portly ballerina. “My main man!”
Grinning, Dean towed Evy onto a path of pavers, the sweet scent of lavender hanging in the air.
“Good to see you, son,” Kirby exclaimed, wrapping Dean in a careful bear hug. “Been a long time.”
Drawing apart, Dean took off his sunglasses. “You’ve lost weight.”
Kirby patted his belly, a toothpick wiggling in the corner of his mouth. “This is what happens when your cooking sucks.”
Dean traded a pensive look with Evy. “How are you getting on, Kirby?”
“Oh,” he blew out, gaze drifting to some cattails swaying with the breeze. “Some days are better than others.”
“I’m sorry.”
He fanned a hand through the air at him. “Thank you again for the flowers and the catering. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wish I could’ve been there,” he replied, glancing at Evy. “Kirby, this is my wife, Evy Jacobs.” The words wife and Evy Jacobs in the same sentence sent an electric buzz through her. It was the first time he’d introduced her to anyone under her new moniker and she loved it.
Smiling warmly, Kirby extended a calloused hand. “Very nice to meet you, Evy. You’re just as pretty as ole Deano said.”
Blushing, she removed her sunglasses, a fond look softening her green eyes. “Thank you; it’s nice to meet you, Kirby.”
Taking a step back to look them over, he whistled. “What a handsome couple! Congratulations on the wedding; hope y’all had a wonderful time last night.”
“We did,” she said. “A little too wonderful.”
His eyes fell to Dean’s sling. “Next time take
it easy on him, Evy,” he muttered, giving her a coy wink and making her smile.
Dean gestured with the arm. “Bit off a little more than I can chew on my mountain bike out by the Dells.”
Evy rolled her eyes and slid her sunglasses back on. This morning, he told their waitress it was from a skydiving accident.
“Not what I read online,” Kirby snickered, toothpick wiggling in the corner of his mouth. “Boy, you sure are the spittin image of your father.”
Redness crept up Dean’s neck and found his cheeks. “Thanks, Kirb.”
Kirby slapped his right arm. “Just like old times!” he barked, turning to the cabin behind him. “Well! She’s all ready for ya. Clean sheets, towels, groceries, and enough booze to keep the Kennedys happy,” he said, giving Evy another playful wink.
Dean examined the cabin with a sparkle in his eyes that reminded Evy of a sunlit ocean. “I haven’t been here in so long.”
Kirby undid the top button of a flannel shirt, beads of sweat rolling down his temples. “Like I told ya on the phone, we put a new roof on her last summer and attached an en suite to the master bedroom. Replaced the central air unit three years back, or was it four?”
“Two,” Dean answered, slipping his shades on.
“Right! Works great too. The water heater is less than five-years-old and the washer and dryer, as you know, are brand spanking new. Came in last week.”
“I should’ve come up to help, but…”
Kirby squeezed his good arm. “I’m glad you kept the place up, son. I really am.” Exhaling a melancholy breath, he admired the cabin alongside him. “You know how your daddy liked to take care of it.”
“Oh, I remember.”
He rubbed the silver gristle on his cheeks. “You remember the time he found a hornet’s nest in that old oak?”
Dean followed his nod to the mighty pin oak shading the cabin, a grin pulling into the lines of his mouth. “How could I forget?”
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