by Ann Denton
Copyright © 2019 Ann Denton
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Le Rue Publishing
320 South Boston Avenue, Suite 1030
Tulsa, OK 74103
www.LeRuePublishing.com
ISBN: 978-1-7335960-3-9
To Mary Jo. Hope you enjoy.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Lotto Trouble: Lotto Love Book 2 - Preorder Now!
Afterword
Acknowledgments
More Books
Connect and Get Sneak Peeks
About Me
Chapter One
Heather bursts into the exam room just as Doc Stife is about to pull a tooth. His pliers are literally poised over old Mrs. Jones’s mouth and I’m wetting her tongue with the water syringe and suctioning the spit out with my trusty saliva ejector.
“Holy motherfucking shit!” Heather yells. Really loud.
I jump and accidentally spray the old woman with the water syringe and simultaneously choke her with the suction tube. “Crap, sorry, Mrs. Jones! Sorry, sorry,”
I yank the saliva ejector tube back and grab a paper towel from the stack on the instrument table so that I can mop up the old woman’s face. I pat her down as I whisper more apologies. She’s gonna hate me. Doc Stife probably already hates me.
Dammit Heather!
Heather grabs my hand with her manicured claw and yanks me away from Mrs. Jones before I can swipe the water puddled in the hollow of the poor woman’s neck. Heather stares right at my boss and says—in her Okie accent, “Sorry, Stife, family emergency. Katie’s gotta go now!”
My stomach turns to jelly. What is she doing? She’s gonna get me fired! My eyes flit to my grey-haired boss, pleading with him not to take this out on me.
Stife shakes his head at Heather, not even glancing my way. His deep voice grumbles, “She can’t—”
Heather does not listen to the good doctor. She yanks my hand harder and that accidentally pulls the water tube out of the machine because it was still in my hand. Water splatters from the tube to the floor, puddling near Doc’s leather shoes.
Dammit.
I’m gonna be the one that has to clean that up.
“Heather—” I try to keep my tone from whining. Or screeching. But I kinda want to shake her and say, ‘Save the drama for afterhours!’ Of course, she wouldn’t. She’s Heather. She does what she wants. Including interrupting us mid-dental procedure for the fourth “family emergency” in six months.
This better not be like the last family emergency Heather had, where her cat Zeebo was lost for four hours and showed up the same frickin’ night, looking all self-satisfied and well-sexed. I spent hours crawling under bushes at Zinc Park that day. Zeebo’s a dick.
But then again, so is his mom.
I had to lie about that one. I wrack my brain to remember what I said, in case this is another crap emergency. I eye Doc Stife as I think.
My boss is in shock, his wrinkled forehead folded up with double the lines he normally has. He’s experienced Heather’s emergencies before—obviously, because she’d never have an emergency without running to get me—but never mid-surgery.
Doc Stife looks torn between yelling at her to get out and just sighing and letting me go. Heather’s not an easy one to convince to back down. Besides being 5’8” and too pretty for most people to ever be honest with her, she’s got the mouth of a shark. As in, she rips people to bits. She once told off an entire boys’ soccer team on my behalf in high school. But that’s why she’s my main gal. My ride or die. I’d rather face a shark than tell Stife to give me a raise. Heather’s gotten my last two raises for me via public shaming. Once in the lobby. Once online. (Stife hated that one.)
Stife looks to me for confirmation that this is actually an emergency-emergency and not just a Heather-emergency. I stare at Heather. Because I have no clue. Since her divorce finalized last month, it’s getting harder to tell.
Her mermaid hair is in disarray. (Heather’s hair is never in disarray. Her hair is her art piece. She can literally make those crazy-ass roses out of hair.) Her blue eyes are wild and the liner on them is smudged. Something bad must have happened if my supermodel-wannabe hairstylist bestie is looking this unkempt in public. Something super bad. Fuck.
I think this is a real emergency.
I bite my lip, worry starting to gather in my stomach, like a rising tide, ready to wash over me as soon as she drops the news. “Is it my mom?”
“Nope.”
“My dad?” My parents are the closest thing to parents she has, so I ask about them first.
“Nope.”
“Ms. Michaels, is this an actual emergency? Involving humans?” Stife loses his patience as he dabs angrily at the water splashed all over our patient’s neck. Mrs. Jones gags a bit when he presses too hard, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
My heart thumps faster as I realize the implications of what Stife just said. My eyes widen. I definitely did not tell him about the lost cat. Which means one of the girls at work did.
Mrs. Jones (whose mouth is currently stretched with a dental lip retractor so that she looks like a porn-star caught in freeze frame in that moment after a blow job) gargles frantically and pulls at the doc’s sleeve.
Stife pats the woman’s arm absently, but his eyes stay on Heather.
“Katie’s about to help with a procedure.”
Yup. That’s true. I was. But now my foot is sliding toward the door. I’d never take on the boss directly. But I’m feeling the panic. The anxiety. I really do believe Heather this time. That something’s wrong. But if I leave, Stife’s gonna be pissed at me. I hate when anyone’s mad at me. Fuck.
Heather tosses her green and blue mermaid locks proudly. “You’ll have to get someone else. Katie has to leave.”
My knees start to shake a little. Heather’s tone is so firm it brooks no argument. Aw, shit. It’s one of my sisters. I just know it. I’m the oldest of four. “Is it—”
Heather cuts me off, knowing what I’m gonna ask. “Nope. Not your sisters.”
“What is this emergency?” Stife asks, ignoring Mrs. Jones, who’s sat up and is tugging at the retractor, trying to pry it off her mouth.
Heather’s eyes narrow, “I already said it’s a family emergency. And I don’t think HIPPA would like to know you were buttin’ in to—”
“HIPPA is only for medical issues—”
“Did I say it wasn’t medical?” Heather leans forward and her eyes get wide and aggressi
ve.
Stife’s jaw ticks. Shit’s about to go down. They both look pissed as all get out and all I want to do is hide under the instrument table. Why can’t everybody just act like grown ups?
At that very moment, Mrs. Jones heaves and an involuntary spit projectile smacks Stife’s face. Most of it splatters across his glasses, but some of it lands on his cheek and slides down his face, a thick yellow glob.
It’s the final straw. The pulse in his neck throbs.
Panic shoots through me. I can’t stand the tension. It feels like I’m burning, shoved into a fire. I have to try to put out the flames. I speak slowly and quietly—like I’m talking to an injured animal, “Doc Stife, I’ll just help her for a sec and be right back. I’ll get all this cleaned up and then we can finish …” I nod encouragingly at him.
Heather stops my attempt at peacemaking with one line. “She won’t be back.” She grabs my hand and yanks me toward the door. “Sorry. You’re gonna need a new assistant.” Heather rips off my lab coat and tosses it at Stife.
Fuck! I frantically shake my head at Doctor Stife. “She’s kidding!” I call over my shoulder as I’m dragged down the hallway past co-workers and small children who cry as they are led toward the teeth-brushing station.
Heather grits out, “Oh, I’m not joking, Katie. You’re done here.”
She pulls me into the parking lot. It’s mid-afternoon and it’s bright as fuck. At least today is somewhat warm. Spring in Oklahoma has Heather’s temperament: unpredictable. I squint in the light and pull my brown hair out of its standard low ponytail.
“What the hell, Feather?” I only call her that when I’m pissed, because she hates it. But she just tried to make me quit my fucking job. J-O-B. The one thing I’ve been able to hold together since high school. “You don’t get to decide what I quit.”
Heather raises her eyebrows. “Smoking.”
“That was bad for me.”
“Jeremy.”
“He was bad for me.”
“Those god-awful purple pants with the flowers on them.”
I clench my fists. “Those had nothing to do with you. They got a stain on them.”
“I spilled red jam on them on purpose.”
Those were my favorite pants! “Are you trying to get me to punch you?”
Heather laughs. She scoops me into the biggest hug in the world, ignoring my spit-stained scrubs. “You’re quittin’, Katie. And you’re never going back again.”
I shake my head and pull out of the hug. “Are you crazy? Did you take something?”
Heather throws her head back and laughs. She digs through her purse.
Instantly, I grow suspicious. “Are you on cold medicine?” Last time she took cold medicine, she went fucking psycho. Hilariously psycho. She babbled about all kinds of shit. Called her ex’s dick a sweet pickle. But that time, she wasn’t walking into my office and quitting my job for me.
“No, I’m not on cold medicine, loser,” she scoffs.
“Then what the fuck?”
She grabs something out of her purse and starts waving it in the air. Whatever it is, a crumpled napkin or something, flies out of her hand and onto the asphalt.
“Fucking fuck!” she dives after the piece of trash like it’s some damned priceless diamond or something.
The wind rolls the little paper under her car and I watch Heather lay full out on the black top and grunt and squeeze herself as far under the car as she can, ruining her manicure scraping at the ground. Finally, she grabs hold of the post-it and wiggles out. She stands and holds up her treasure triumphantly. “Yes,” she breathes, like she’s some freaking killer in a horror movie.
I take a step back. My mom has always called Heather crazy. I’ve never agreed. But right in this moment, I’m questioning my own judgment.
“What is wrong with you?” I ask.
Heather unwrinkles her little orange paper square and holds it up. She walks slowly toward me, both hands holding the it securely. “You are never gonna go back to that crap job again, Katie. Cuz’ I just won the motherfuckin’ lotto.”
“No.”
“Yup. Read it and weep, biotch!”
I grab the little sheet of paper and look over the numbers.
Heather grabs her old phone from her purse and shoves it under my nose. She has the lotto site all pulled up.
My eyes flit from phone to paper. Phone to paper and back again. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” She freaks and snatches the phone and paper out of my hands to check them over again herself. “I checked like twenty times last night. Called your phone. You didn’t answer.”
I bite my lip. I don’t tell her I was with Jeremy last night. No need to argue about him.
She scans the numbers a third time. “They totally match!”
I clear my throat. I—unlike Heather—don’t like to stir the shit. But this is the most crazy/serious thing she’s every claimed. “But, like, did you make sure they’re from the same day? You know, sometimes that website is slow to update.” It would be the worst if she went into the lotto office and got all embarrassed because she looked at numbers from the wrong day. My cheeks heat up just thinking about it.
Heather scrolls on her phone and then shoves in under my nose. “There!”
The date is yesterday.
She holds up the ticket. The date matches.
My jaw unhinges, falls to the ground, and rolls away. Somehow, I still manage to talk. Maybe it’s a miracle. Because crazy-ass miracles are happening here. “Holy motherfucking shit, Heather!” My brown eyes meet her blue ones. Shock meets smug.
She tosses her mermaid hair with pride, as though this is some accomplishment and not stupid luck. “I know, right?”
I grab her phone and scroll through the site. “What was the pot?”
“Two-hundred fifty-two million. Cash value: the site says one-hundred fifty-three.”
I drop the phone. My scream sends people from my office pouring out into the parking lot. Even Doc Stife. Rubbernecking is an Olympic sport in Oklahoma.
A crowd starts approaching. I start panicking. “Crap. We can’t tell them. All those TV shows say you can’t tell anyone. They’ll all beg you for money.”
Heather holds up a hand to the crowd. “I’ve got chlamydia! Get back inside!”
When my office sees it’s just me screaming … and just Heather causing the screaming, and she’s claiming she has STDs, they actually listen. Probably because it’s better than confronting Heather head on. Doing that would be like running straight at a moving combine harvester. Or some death robot—the kind with rotating blades for hands. Basically, the same metaphor. She’s sharp and nasty and scary as fuck. And she just became a motherfucking millionaire
Chapter Two
I sit down at family dinner and keep my hands clasped in my lap. I learned a long time ago that avoiding eye contact with my mother is the easiest way to avoid confrontation.
I stare down at our chipped plates as mom brings out dishes from the kitchen for dinner. Carrots, cheesy cabbage, hot corn … she goes back and forth for each dish, long ago having refused to let any of us help. She might serve the food, but Mom runs our family. She's the alpha, the pant-wearer, the big kahoona. And I’m pretty sure she’s gonna want to bite my head off if she finds out I’ve quit my job.
I made it official with a margarita-brave email to Doc Stife this afternoon. I’d never loved working for him. But the recession had hit, and all the party-planning companies I’d applied for had shriveled up and blown away faster than you can say dandelion fuzz. So, I’d stayed.
Pretty sure Mom’ll go nuclear if she ever finds out I flat-out refused to take a cool mil off Heather, too. But I will not be some leech who just hangs around her for her money. She’d laughed when I said that earlier.
I’d simply shaken my head. “I’ve watched enough of those ‘The Lotto Ruined Me’ shows. Too many people only come or stick around for the cash. I won’t be one of those.”
“Fine, then take a loan. Start that party-planning company you’ve always wanted,” Heather had sniffed, offended that I wouldn’t let her trot off to the bank and get hundred-dollar bills to toss at me so I could roll around in them like some movie star.
“A loan?” I’d stared at her long and hard. Hope had filled me. Visions of weddings, of smiling people, of beautiful banquet tables had danced like sugarplums through my head. I’d helped my extended family with their events for years. Run at least a dozen weddings. I always loved seeing the smiles on people’s faces during the ceremony, knowing I’d helped. But a loan? The worried side of my mind had whispered that mixing money and friendship was a bad idea. Someone was bound to get hurt.
“I can see that look. You’re talking yourself out of it. Don’t. I’ll make this all official. A business transaction. We’ll get a lawyer to draw up the paperwork and everything.”
My voice had wavered as the two sides of me warred with each other. Dreams. Friendship. Dreams. Friendship. “What if I fail?”
She’d grabbed my hand, nearly knocking over our margaritas. “Then at least you tried.” Her blue eyes were calm and steady and sure. As always, Heather’s determination was like a blowtorch burning away my resistance. “Come on, now. It’s not like the money you need will make a dent in what I’m getting.”
I’d caved. I’d nodded. “I’ll try.”
Her self-satisfied smirk hadn’t done a damn thing to quell my excitement. Nope. This afternoon I’d been as excited as the day Bobby Lee asked me to the ninth-grade dance. Heather had pushed and bought me margaritas until I’d sent that tipsy resignation email.
