by Cecy Robson
Epilogue
Luci
The sun sets along a horizon painted in swirls of lavender and orange. I huddle closer to Landon as he pulls me tighter. Even from this distance, I can hear the band Becca hired blasting away.
It’s New Year’s Eve. I can’t believe it. And what a year it’s been.
For my birthday at the end of May, Landon gave me an envelope with a check and an opportunity to start a foundation. I hesitated for only a day or so, like he knew I would. Then together, we started a foundation that caters to the homeless scattered along the streets of Charlotte.
It’s still in the bare bones planning phase, and there’s a great deal left to do. But if we receive the permits and licenses we need, a mobile unit staffed with drug counselors will start its first route late summer.
I look down the long stretch of beach. “Is that the same band she hired last year?” I ask.
Landon shrugs. “Sounds it.”
I grin as we walk along the sand, shoving him toward the shore when he tries to lead my feet into the water. “Behave,” I tell him.
“I am,” he says. “You still have your clothes on, don’t you?”
My cheeks warm despite the cold. We’ve had our share of sex on the beach, and if Landon has his way, we’ll have a little more before the night ends. I won’t complain. I welcome his touch as easily as I welcome waking up to him in the morning.
“You sure you want to go to this thing?” he says, motioning ahead when what sounds like Shape of You begins to play.
“It was nice of her to invite us. I don’t want to be rude.”
“I guess,” he mumbles. “I’d just rather spend it with you.”
I feel the same way, but it’s nice to relive the night we met, and how that chance meeting completely changed my life. With Landon, life doesn’t simply pass me by, it pauses, allowing me to live and love it in return.
“One drink,” I say, thinking back to how those few words change my world. “Just one and we can leave if you’d like.”
“Fine,” he says, snatching me into his arms.
“Landon,” I say, laughing when he palms my butt. “Be good.”
“E.T. and Elliot good. Or naughty good?” He gives me a squeeze. “I’m going to go with naughty good.”
“You’re impossible,” I say, my voice trailing when he frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“What the hell is that?”
I follow behind him, slowing my steps when I see where he’s headed. Between a thick row of trees, a long white blanket has been placed on the sand, white votive candles encasing the perimeter in and arc.
“You coming?” he asks when I stop. “Looks like there’s free booze.”
I walk carefully toward him, cupping my mouth when he points to the champagne bottle sticking out of the sand and the two flutes placed on a silver platter beside it.
“Landon,” I gush. “You’re so romantic.”
“You think this is romantic?” he asks.
I clutch my heart. “Of course I do.”
“Humph.” He crosses his arms. “More romantic than our trip to Scotland?”
I scan the beautiful display and how the candles dance in the breeze. “Yes,” I agree, barely managing the word.
He quiets, his warm brown eyes glistening as he takes me in. “Well, in that case . . .”
I gasp when he takes my hand and falls to one knee. From the break in the trees a small group of people with acoustic guitars appear. My tears start to fall as the first cords of Love on the Brain begin to play.
“By the way,” he says. “This here are the Three Amigos. All five of them,” he adds with a wink.
My jaw falls open. “It’s the first song we danced to,” he reminds me. “But it wasn’t the last. For that, and everything you’ve given me, I’m thankful.”
He bows his head, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. When he lifts his chin, all traces of humor are gone, his warm gaze cementing where I stand.
“I think I have a hero complex,” he begins. “But I’ve never wanted to be a hero more than the moment I met you. I love you, Luci . . . Will you marry me?”
Just like the first night we met, and he asked me to go home with him, there’s no hesitation. There never will be when it comes to Landon.
“Yes,” I whisper.
I watch him slide the ring across my finger, squealing when he lifts me in the air for a kiss. He lowers me, holding me close as we dance to the rest of the song.
I catch sight of Becca as the music fades, leading the musicians down the beach, her eyes glistening with what I hope are happy tears.
Landon and I continue to hold each other as she turns in the direction of her house. I want to thank her, and maybe Landon does, too, but then she abruptly stops.
I don’t know why until I see Hale step forward, a bottle of champagne clutched tight in his hand.
I smile, wiping my eyes. I’m getting my chance at forever. But I also believe, Becca is getting hers . . .
This book contains excerpts from Inseverable, from the Carolina Beach Series as well as excerpts from Let Me, Feel Me, and Crave Me from the O’Brien Family novels by Cecy Robson. The excerpts have been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the final novels.
Read on for an excerpt from
Inseverable
A Carolina Beach Novel
by Cecy Robson
Prologue
Callahan
Three days.
That’s all I have left until this shit ends.
Three days shouldn’t feel like forever, not compared to the eight years I’ve bled to the Army. Thing is, good men have been killed in less time. In as quick as a blink, a squeeze of a trigger, or a small breath right before a grenade blows is all the time it takes to shove someone right out of life and well into death.
That’s what makes three days as long as it is. Three days is plenty of time to die.
My eyes tear when the wind picks up and shoots grime through the small hole of my lookout point. This blown out piece of cinderblock is only big enough to allow me a view of the street below, but not so small I don’t get smacked in the face with more filth. The tarp flaps above me as I spit out another layer of the dirt-sand mix spackling my teeth. Christ Almighty, I need a swig of the water resting near my elbow. But my thirst, like everything else has to wait.
I have a job to do.
I adjust my hips against the cracked cement of my bed, bathroom, and home all rolled into one, thankful that the agonizing ache stretching over the lower half of my body has settled into a now familiar numbness.
Out of all the points I’d scouted, and all the accumulated years spent in this position, I should be used to it. And in a strange way, it should almost be home. Yet nothing ever has been home.
But in three days, maybe something finally will be . . .
I shove my thoughts away and breathe as my fellow Rangers stalk along the street. It’s then I see them, a mother and daughter walking straight toward my team. Less than one city block separates them from the men counting on me to keep them alive.
The hell? How did they get past the other sniper unreported? Rogers is new on watch. But the quick paces these two are taking should have clued him in that something’s up. I train my scope on their faces; their expressions are blank, unreadable. ‘Cept that’s not what keeps my attention.
The little girl can’t be more than five. So why the fuck isn’t her mother holding her hand? I lift my radio and bark a warning, dropping it beside me as I lock my scope dead center on the woman’s head.
The radio crackles and Modreski chimes in, yelling at his team to hold their positions. He asks me what my plan is, knowing if something’s caused the short-hairs on my neck to rise, he and the boys damn well need to listen. But I don’t hear him, with a breath and a squeeze of the trigger, I leave a kid without a mother.
Just beneath the sle
eve of her abayah―the dress completely covering her body―I see it, a detonator that would trigger the explosives likely strapped to her chest. A few Rangers I know―Simons and Boreman, rush forward. I start to mutter a curse, pissed at her for making me shoot her in front of her kid. But the curse lodges in my throat when I see the kid isn’t looking at her mother lying next to her dead.
She’s watching my advancing team as she lifts the detonator clasped tight in her hand.
Read on for an excerpt from
Let Me
An O’Brien Family Novel
by Cecy Robson
CHAPTER 1
Finn
I see the strike coming at me a split second before it connects with my skull. My head snaps back from the force, the crowds’ hollers resonating like a muffled cry in the distance. It was a good punch―lightning quick with enough impact to knock most guys on their asses. But I’m not most guys.
You hit me, I’m only going to hit you harder.
My right hand shoots up, blocking and smacking away the kick gunning for my ribs. I pivot out of the way, again, and again, and again, avoiding Easton’s arms and legs as they come at me. He’s fast, strong, with a six inch reach advantage. But he’s too eager to take me out and not pacing himself like he should. Already he’s breathing hard and it’s just the start of the second round.
I take my time to figure him out, planning each move, searching for that opening I need. Do I take a few bashes because of it? Sure. It’s part of the job. But believe it or not, it’s part of the job I look forward to.
Those punches and kicks remind me that I still feel, that I’m still human. And that for now, I’m still alive.
“Oh!” some drunk behind me yells when my uppercut finds Easton’s chin.
He staggers back, swiping the blood oozing from his lip, yet he keeps his grin. He’s trying to make like it was a lucky shot. That it won’t happen again.
Like me, Easton needs to win this match. And if he does, he’ll move up to the top ten, making him a contender for the UFC Lightweight title.
Talent aside, the guy’s a raging asshole, and so are the idiots in his training camp. They’ve been trash-talking since the moment I agreed to this match. I didn’t really care and laughed most of it off until they got personal and took it a step too far.
Again he nails me in the head. It’s not as hard as it was last time which tells me he’s getting tired. Does it hurt? I guess.
But let’s say I’m a guy who’s used to pain.
Easton grins. He thinks I’m afraid of him. He thinks he has me where he wants me. But fear is an emotion I don’t allow myself to entertain. Fear gets you hurt and rips you apart till you think there’s nothing left.
I dodge out of reach. He scowls and takes another swing. This one gets close enough to my jaw to create a breeze that whips across my skin.
“Finn,” my brother Killian barks from the side. “Take him out now.”
He’s worried about me. So is my family. But now’s not the time to think about them. I keep my hands up as I edge away, letting Easton think I’m backing down, that I’m tired and need to catch my breath.
I sidestep when he lunges forward, avoiding his next swing and use the momentum to drop my head and nail him in the temple with a roundhouse kick.
Like I said, Easton’s fast.
Too bad for him I’m a little bit faster.
The kick is my signature move, as natural for me as the next breath. He goes down like I planned. But in the Octagon you don’t stop just because your opponent collapses like timber. You charge forward. You show him what you’re made of. And you prove just how tough you really are.
That muffled screaming, isn’t so muffled anymore. The crowd loses their shit as I pounce, my blows nailing Easton in the face until the ref’s arms hook beneath mine as he hauls me off. I back away, my fists up because I already know I won.
I should do a back flip or some crazy shit to incite the crowd. This is it. My time has come to own it. But the good things aren’t as great as they can be. Not with the memories that haunt me. And not with the anger they stir.
Killian rushes in as the medic wipes down my face. I’m bleeding from the punch Easton caught me with at the beginning of the round. I didn’t think it was that bad, but the way the ringside medic is pressing the towel against my head clues me in the gash isn’t closing like it should.
“I’m going to have to stitch you up, Fury,” he mumbles.
“I figured,” I tell him.
Kill pats my back. “Good job,” he says.
Maybe he believes it, but I don’t miss the concern in his voice. He thinks I took too many unnecessary hits. I can’t really argue, seeing how it’s true.
He doesn’t understand that I don’t feel those strikes the way I should. Hell, I don’t think I’ve felt anything the way I should in a long time. Not like I used to. I try to tell myself that maybe that’ a good thing. That numbness is better than pain. But I’m not so convinced anymore, and neither is my family. I try to shrug it off like I’m fine. Except given the way they’ve been eyeing me, I’m not fooling anyone.
I’m scaring everyone around me. And it sucks. Not only because I don’t want them scared, but mostly because I don’t know how to stop it.
“The referee has called a stop to this match at two-minutes and forty-nine seconds into the second round,” the announcer begins. “The winner by TKO, Finn ‘The Fury’ O’Brien.”
The crowd screams and pumps their fists in the air when my hand is raised. I take the few seconds I need to thank my sponsors, my camp, and my brother, because that’s what I’m supposed to do despite the fog clouding my senses. I wish that disconnect had something to do with all the hits I took, but deep down I know that it doesn’t.
I’m back in the locker room before I know it getting stitched up, too many people talking at once. God, I barely hear their questions or my responses. But they’re there and somehow I make it through.
“I’m worried about you, Finnie,” Kill says when everyone piles out.
“Don’t. I’m not drinking tonight. I’m headed home,” I assure him.
“That’s not what I mean,” he says. He’s sitting in a fold out chair, his arms resting against his muscular legs. “I think you need to talk to someone.”
I stretch out my arms. By now they’re so tight, they pull against the bones. “I am. I’m talking to you.”
I don’t have to see him to know he’s shaking his head, or that he’s looking sad, disappointed, and maybe something else, too. “I’m not who you should be speaking to,” he says. “Not for what’s going on in your head.”
“You’re enough,” I say, even though I know it’s no longer true.
“Finn,” he begins.
I don’t wait for him to finish, leaving the changing area and heading toward the showers. “Go find Sofia and Wren,” I call over my shoulder as I strip out my shirt. “See if they’re up for some dinner.”
I don’t remember peeling the rest of my clothes off. That numbness I’ve been feeling too much lately claiming me like a mist until it fully engulfs me. Fuck. It’s like I’ve stopped living even though for the most part I think I’m still alive.
I lean against the tile with my arms spread, allowing the water to beat against my back. It’s too hot. I should turn it down, but I don’t bother. Eventually, like everything else, the sensation fades.
I’m not sure how long I’m in that position. A few seconds? A few minutes? But then Easton and his trainer Yefim are suddenly there. “You got lucky, O’Brien,” Yefim calls out, taunting me with his thick eastern European accent.
Shit. Like all the trash talk before the fight wasn’t enough.
“Did you hear me, you pussy?” he fires back when I don’t answer. “Did you hear me, you goddamn coward?”
Coward? Fuck you. It’s what I think, but not what I say, focusing instead on the streams of water that gather along my feet
before they swirl into the drain.
It doesn’t help. The rage that’s building, the one I only manage to barely keep in? It stirs in my gut like a heavy pot filled with hate, sin, and all the curses my Ma would still beat my ass for saying.
“What’re you doing?” Yefim asks.
His voice is closer, he’s drawing near. It doesn’t matter that I’m standing here naked. He wants to be next to me. I shudder, that feeling I keep buried drilling its way up.
“I know about you,” Yefim says, not bothering to keep his voice low. “But everyone knows, don’t they? Even if you don’t want them to.”
My body shakes a little more, but it’s not from the cooling water. It’s from his words and all that anger they trigger. Don’t do it. Don’t go there.
“You like to keep it a secret. Don’t you, pussy?”
Yefim laughs when I keep my trap shut. He thinks I’m backing down, just like Easton did before his face met the mat. “He’s crying,” he calls out to Easton. “What? Not so tough now?”
That’s where he’s dead wrong. Every muscle I’ve conditioned serves a purpose―to take down those who fuck with me. And right now, Yefim is seriously fucking with me.
“You like to pretend that it’s girls you like, don’t you?” he says. “But that’s not true, is it? Oh, no, that’s not true at all . . .”
I raise my chin, knowing that someone’s not leaving without bleeding, and I’ve bled enough tonight.
Yefim kicks at my calf. “What? Nothing to say? Can’t speak without your boyfriend here?”
“Boyfriend?” Easton asks, laughing. “No fucking way.”
“Yes. Way,” Yefim insists. “Didn’t you know this little pussy takes it up the ass―”
I punch him so hard, I feel his teeth crack against my knuckles. For someone with decades of boxing experience he never saw me coming. But I see Easton flying at me out of the corner of my eye. I toss him over my shoulder, slamming him hard onto the ceramic tile floor. Like in the octagon, I throw myself on top of him, my fists colliding against his skin.
