by Mia Ford
“No.”
“Then you do not have all the facts, Miss Walsh,” she said with a slow nod. “You know what you think you saw, but is what you saw really what was going on?”
I smiled. “Jesus, you sound like Sam now with your Yoda bullshit.”
“Hey, don’t knock Yoda,” she said, holding up the bottle and giving me her version of a wise look. “That little motherfucker knows his shit. He would have made one hell of a lawyer.”
“So, what’s your point?” I asked with a heavy sigh, already knowing the answer.
“My point is, don’t be pissed at Sam until you’ve had a chance to talk to him. Phyllis Goode is a conniving bitch. And it sounds to me like she had this all worked out in advance. She tells you he’s gonna come crawling back to her and then you catch her naked in his office grabbing his cock? Seriously? Can you say setup?”
“Maybe.”
“There are no maybe’s in law,” she said. “But there is reasonable doubt and this reeks of it.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe my ass. Listen, I’m meeting some folks downtown for drinks. You wanna join?”
“I think I’ll just stay in and…”
Before I could officially start my pity party, the doorbell clanged. Tiff and I looked at each other, then she said, “I’m pretty sure that’s for you.”
I went to the door and peeped through the hole. Sam was standing there with his hands in his pockets. When I didn’t open the door, he knocked and called out.
“Abbie, I know you’re in there. Come on, open the door and let me explain.”
I was about to tell him to go away when Tiffany pushed me out of the way and opened the door. Sam blinked at her in surprise, then glanced at me.
“Well, come on in,” she said, holding the door open for him. Sam didn’t move until I gave him the nod. Tiff pulled her purse strap over her shoulder and gave us both the eye. “You two work this shit out before I get back in the morning.”
“You’re not coming home tonight?” I asked.
She gave me a smile. “No, I have a date with an underwear model, if you know what I mean.”
I covered my smile with my hand and closed the door, then walked into the living room with Sam close behind. I glared at him. “What do you want, Sam?”
“Look, I know what you think you saw today,” he said, sitting on one end of the couch while I sat on the other. “But I had nothing to do with that.”
“It looked like you had lots to do with it,” I said.
“She came into my office and took off her dress,” he said helplessly. “I was trying to get her to put it back on and get the fuck out.”
“Before I caught you fucking,” I said, giving him the eye.
“What? Yes, no, I mean, goddammit, how can you have me so flustered?”
That made me smile. “Because I’ve had a good teacher,” I said. “Okay, tell me what happened and I’ll render my verdict.”
“She came into my office and took off her dress,” he said, hands cutting through the air. “She wanted to have sex and I told her no.”
“Why did you tell her no?” I asked.
He blinked at the question. “What?”
“You told her no. Had you ever told her no before?”
“No…”
“So why did you tell her no this time?”
“Because I want to be with you,” he said quietly, as if the answer was a revelation coming to him. “I’m… I mean…” He gazed into my eyes. “I don’t want her. I only want you.”
“Are you sure?” I softened my eyes to let him know that the fight was over, but there were still words that needed to be said. “You two have been together a long time, not as a couple, but in other ways. I think she sees me as a threat to that relationship. She wants you when she wants you, and I think she sees me as someone who might fuck that up.”
He pondered the thought for a moment, then blew out a long breath and rubbed his eyes. “Phyllis and I have always had a complicated relationship, based mostly on the fact that we were there for one another when our love lives hit the rocks. Or more accurately, her love life. I waited for her and always welcomed her back, even though I knew it wouldn’t last long. Now, that doesn’t interest me anymore. I want no part of her games.”
“What’s changed?” I asked.
“I met you,” he said quietly, glancing up to meet my eyes. “I only want to be there for you, Abbie, not for anyone else, at least not in that way.”
“It sounds like the teacher has learned a lesson,” I said, reaching for his hand. He took my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“How about that,” he said, bringing my fingers to his lips and kissing them gently. “The student becomes the teacher.”
“Come on, Mr. Collins,” I said, getting up and tugging him off the couch. “Let’s see what else we can teach each other.”
THE END
Hey,
Don’t miss the bonus stories which are included in this book including “GLOVES OFF” which is a never before published Bad Boy Romance Novella and exclusive to this book.
Also included is the extended epilogue for Train Me.
Just look what you want to read next via the Table of Contents (TOC) and make yourself SO SO HORNY!!!
2
Torn
Blurb
The day my fiancé was brutally gunned down before my eyes, my entire life changed forever. Gone was the sweet and innocent bride-to-be who wanted nothing more than to get married and have babies. She was replaced by a tattooed biker bitch hell bent on revenge. I’m going to make The Wright Brothers pay for what they’ve done. I’ll see them all dead if it’s the last thing I do…
I strolled into that dive bar with the intention of killing Rick Wright, the gang leader responsible for the death of my fiancé. He might not have pulled the trigger, but he was the man in charge, so I was holding him personally responsible. I had it all planned. I would seduce him, get him alone, then put a bullet in his head.
The one thing I hadn’t counted on was him being so charming, not to mention smoking hot. He had a smile that he used like a weapon. All he had to do was point it my way and I melted in my panties.
Once I got him naked and in my bed, would I be able to put a bullet in his head, or would the site of his naked body and the surge of my own desires wash away my need for revenge forever?
PROLOG: SANDY DUVAL
I met the love of my life on Tuesday, January 26th.
He asked me to marry him on Saturday, May 3rd.
The wedding was scheduled for Saturday, October 15th.
He died in my arms on Sunday, July 24th.
I decided to kill the man responsible for his death at the exact moment the last breath slipped from my lover’s body.
Now, it’s all I think about.
Killing Rick Wright.
A man I’ve never even met, but can’t wait to kill.
SANDY
I missed those long nights when I’d lie awake thinking about my wedding day. I thought about how best to wear my hair, how I’d do my makeup, who would help me get ready, what song we’d dance to for our first dance and a thousand other things.
I already had my dress, which, as wedding dresses go, was a pretty simple design.
On a hairdresser’s pay, I couldn’t afford anything fancy with a long train and a veil, not that I wanted anything like that. I was a simple girl with simple tastes, and I was marrying a simple man.
Brent worked in the service department at the local Ford dealership. I cut hair at Cost Clippers. Together, we’d make enough to have a nice, simple life, like our parents.
Funny, how I keep using that word: simple.
Sad, because nothing is simple anymore.
I bought my wedding dress off Craig’s List for two hundred dollars from a bride whose marriage had lasted less than a year. It was a lacy white dress that was bought off the discount rack at David’s Bridal; floor length, with a high neckline and long sleeve
s. The girl kept calling it “antique looking”, which I think meant that is was purposefully made to look old.
I remembered trying it on in the girl’s bedroom, staring at myself in the full-length mirror she had mounted to the back of the closet door. It fit like it was made especially for me. I’m tall for a girl, like 5’8 in bare feet, but I’m also curvy. My sister, April, always said that I got my big boobs and wide hips from my mom and my short temper from my dad.
I bought the dress and rushed home to show it to April and my mom. I was so proud of that dress. I couldn’t wait to try it on and show it off to them. I couldn’t wait for Brent to see me in it as I walked down the aisle. I thought he was just gonna die when he saw me.
Fuck.
What did I say that…?
I rolled over and balled up the covers in my hands and tucked them under my chin.
I tried to sob quietly, so April didn’t hear me.
I’d moved back home, out of the apartment Brent and I had rented less than a month before he was killed. I couldn’t afford to live there on my own.
I was back in the same room April and I shared growing up. April was just eighteen, six years younger than me, and just starting junior college. She needed her space and her sleep, but she welcomed me home with open arms. They all did; April, mom, dad. They tried to make me feel like it was all going to be all right, that one day I’d wake up to find that I hadn’t cried myself to sleep the night before.
“Time heals all wounds,” my mom kept saying as if it was a mantra for driving away the spirit and memory of my dead lover.
That was bullshit.
For me, time makes all wounds grow deeper.
Time makes them fester and grow, like cancer that eats at your heart and soul, until it consumes you, leaving nothing but an empty shell and the desire to simply lay down and die.
April rolled over and sighed. I buried my face in the pillow to stifle my tears. After a moment, I could hear her snoring softly. I found some comfort in the sound of my sister’s breathing. It was so calm, so peaceful. It was the breathing of a girl whose greatest worry in the world was which pair of cute jeans she should wear to the mall on Friday night to make the boys notice her.
I remembered those days.
For me, they were gone for good.
I wiped my eyes on the blanket and forced the tears away.
I used to lie awake nights thinking about my wedding.
Now I lie awake and wonder how many good people are killed every year just because they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I knew of at least one.
And he died before he could see me in my wedding dress.
For some reason, that was the saddest thing of all.
RICK WRIGHT
I pulled the black Lincoln Navigator into a spot in the parking lot in front of Crown Jewelers and slid the gear into park. I parked far enough away so no one would notice us watching the place.
I left the motor running so the cool air would keep pumping out of the vents in the dash. It was the middle of September and hot as fuck in the city.
The black t-shirt I wore clung to my sweaty back like a second skin. My next truck would have those built-in seat coolers like I saw advertised on TV. After this job, I’d go check out the new Navigators. If everything went as planned I’d be able to buy a fucking fleet of them in a couple of weeks.
I was a Lincoln man way before that fuck Matthew McConoughey started doing their commercials. I was still a Lincoln man despite him. Fuck their commercials and Matthew McConoughey. I just loved Lincolns; always had, always will.
Eddie, my little brother, best friend, and second in command, was slumped in the passenger seat with a black baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. I shook my head at him. He didn’t seem to comprehend that the heavily-tinted windows prevented anyone from seeing inside the truck. Even the upper part of the windshield had a heavy tent, obstructing our faces from traffic cams.
Funny, during a job, Eddie was the one I always worried about not being careful enough or flying off the handle and doing something stupid, but when we were casing our next job, like the hit on Crown Jewelers, he was a paranoid bundle of nerves.
“That’s it,” I said, nodding at the strip of stores in front of us. “Crown Jewelers, next to the Men’s Warehouse.”
“Don’t look like much,” Eddie said, pushing the cap back from his forehead with his thumb. He leaned in toward the windshield and took off the dark sunglasses he was wearing.
“Looks can be deceiving,” I said.
He slid the sunglasses back on his nose and pulled the cap low again. Sitting back, he asked, “So, what’s the setup? What do they have in the way of security?”
“The setup is one small showroom lined with jewelry cases,” I said, describing the place from memory. I’d gone into Crown’s two weeks earlier to buy the vintage Rolex Mariner that was strapped to my left wrist. I loved old Rolex’s about as much as I loved Lincolns. I’d paid cash for the watch, nearly nine-thousand dollars, part of my cut from selling a semi-truck load of stolen cigarettes to a gang of goons from upstate somewhere.
Buying the watch was just part of the reason I was there. The main reason was to case the place to determine if it should be the target of my gang’s next hit.
I rested a hand on the steering wheel and aimed a finger at the storefront. “There is a fat fuck of a security guard who sits right inside the door. He has a pistol in a holster that he’s probably never even fired. He can be taken out before he knows what hit him. When I was there, he had his nose stuck in a newspaper and wasn’t paying too much attention to what was going on around him. There is one door at the back of the showroom that leads to an office, and a room where they do jewelry repair.”
Eddie nodded as he listened. “So, you’re thinking smash and grab?”
Eddie and I had been doing smash and grabs since we were kids. Basically, you run into a place, smash the fuck out of the glass display cases with a hammer or the butt of a gun, and grab whatever the fuck you can and get the fuck out. Smash and grabs worked fine if you didn’t care what you got away with. The Crown hit would not be a smash and grab because I didn’t care about the shit in the display cases. I wanted what was kept in the safe in the office.
“Not a smash and grab,” I said.
Eddie dug a cigarette pack from his shirt pocket and held it out to me. I shook my head and said I was trying to quit. I rolled his window down a couple of inches. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward the window, then gave me a sideways frown. “Not a smash and grab. Okay, what then?”
“There is a safe in the office,” I said. “A source I have on the inside tells me that Mr. Crown stores a couple of million dollars’ worth of loose diamonds there at any given time. That’s our target.”
Eddie grinned and poked me with his elbow. “Who’s your inside source? Let me guess, that fat girl you’ve been banging? What’s her name? Doris, Doreen…”
“Dottie,” I said. “And she’s not fat. She’s pleasantly plump.”
“What you call pleasantly plump I call fat, my brother,” Eddie said. “I knew there had to be a reason you were dipping your stick into that one. Not exactly your usual type. So, what’s her connection to the jewelry store?”
“She’s the one who sold me the watch,” I said, wiggling my wrist at him. “Turns out, Dottie is a very lonely, very horny lady. After a couple of hours of banging the shit out of her at the No Tell Motel, she was more than happy to answer all my questions about her place of employment.”
Eddie scratched his chin, which was covered with a scraggly beard he’d been trying to grow since high school. “What’s gonna happen when the cops question Dottie after we hit the store?”
“Won’t be a problem,” I said, shaking my head.
He gave me a sideways glance, then a smirk. “You gonna kill her?”
“I don’t kill people, Eddie,” I said, giving him a hard look that made him turn away. I was a criminal
, but I wasn’t a killer. Eddie had killed people. Sometimes, people who didn’t deserve to die, like that poor schmuck at the convenience store a couple of months back. Eddie’s temper got away from him sometimes and people got hurt. Sometimes, I thought he might even like it; hurting people. But he’s my little brother. I love him. I try not to think about it too much.
“So, what’s your plan for her then?”
“I wore a disguise whenever I was with her,” I said. “Dottie knows me as a traveling salesman from Reno named Carl Douglass who wears glasses and a bad toupee. Carl is going to take Dottie on a little trip a couple of days before the job. She’ll be heavily sedated in a motel while we do the job. I have a guy who is going to babysit her for me. When I give him the all-clear, he’ll let her wake up the next day to find a note from dear old Carl telling her he’s gone back to his wife and she should take the bus home.”
“I hope you at least have the decency to give her one more good fucking before you give her a good fucking over,” Eddie said, chuckling at himself. That was another flaw Eddie had: he wasn’t nearly as funny as he thought he was, but I didn’t need Eddie to be funny. I needed him to watch my back, which he’d been doing his entire life.
SANDY
I met Brent Griffin on a chilly January day when I came into the Ford dealership to have my car serviced. My fifteen-year-old Taurus was a total piece of shit, but it was all I could afford, so I had to keep it running.
I’d gotten a coupon in the mail a few days before letting me know that Tuesday was Ladies’ Day at the dealership. I could have my oil changed, fluids topped off, tires pumped up, and filters checked for just $29. I scraped together my spare change and used the tips I’d made from cutting hair all weekend to have the work done.
I pulled up to the large bay door around the side of the dealership. I was number three in line at the service center. I sat in my car with the heater going and watched as a cute service advisor with shaggy brown hair and clipboard in hand leaned in to chat with the drivers seated inside their nice warm cars. When he got to me, he asked my name and did a double take when he glanced into my eyes. It was so cute.
