This Sweet Escape Page 15

  I hold her eyes. “You’re serious?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.

  “As long as you can do it without exchanging one thing that will eat you alive for another.” She takes my hand again, making me aware of how cold her skin is. “And don’t let it change you. You’re a good man, Danny. I wouldn’t want you to lose that, or stop believing that you deserve happiness.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I deserve,” I whisper. “We don’t get what we deserve.”

  “And thank goodness sometimes for that.” Caitlin smiles sadly. “I’m so sorry for all of this Danny, but I believe in you and Sam. You will get through this together, I really believe you will.”

  They say time heals all wounds and it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

  But when I finally fly into L.A.—getting to the courthouse hours after the not guilty verdict has been announced, thanks to a delay in Chicago—I know I will never be healed. I will never stop wanting vengeance for the girl I love.

  I search for Sam at her apartment and at the extended stay hotel where her roommate says Sam and her parents were staying during the trial. But the Collinses checked out this morning and Sam is nowhere to be found. I call Mr. Collins, but all he’ll tell me is that Sam drove off while he and his ex-wife were checking out of the hotel and hasn’t been answering her phone. The terse tone in his voice infers that somehow that’s my fault. He hangs up before I can tell him how sorry I am that things ended up the way they did and refuses to answer my calls for the next few days.

  I stay in Los Angeles for almost two weeks, haunting the campus, her apartment, the test prep place where she used to tutor kids after school, looking for any sign of her, but she’s vanished into thin air. I put an ad on Los Angeles Craig’s List asking Sam to call me, then cross-post it to every major city on the west coast. The next night I expand the search to the heartland and the east coast. I keep the ads rotating every forty-eight hours until my inbox is full of weird messages from creepy guys and a few desperate-sounding women and I finally realize it’s pointless.

  I’m not going to be able to find Sam unless she wants to be found.

  Finally, after two weeks of crashing at a hostel in Hollywood, sleeping in a weird pod bed that makes me feel like I’m waking up in a coffin every morning, Pete calls saying Tevia is quitting at the end of the week and he can’t get another guide trained on such short notice. If I don’t come back to step in, he’s going to have to cancel fifteen tours and the chances of staying in the black this month will be slim to none.

  I don’t want to go back or give up on Sam, but deep down I know I’m not accomplishing anything here except driving myself crazy.

  I fly home. I go back to work. I crash at Caitlin and Gabe’s and spend the summer teaching Emmie how to surf and doing my research on Todd, Jeremy, J.D. and Scott. In the fall, Ray and Sean go back to the American school in the city, Emmie starts home school with Caitlin, and Gabe returns to work doing whatever rich guy thing he does with properties and investments. I spend the mornings with Juliet strapped onto my chest in her sling, walking the picturesque ancient roman streets of Porec while Caitlin and Emmie study, plotting how I’ll make the monsters who hurt Sam pay. In the afternoons, I lead rock climbing expeditions up the face of the cliffs outside town, and at night, I continue my research alone in my room.

  Caitlin doesn’t talk to me about hurting people again, but she doesn’t try to draw me into family dinners or evening sails on Gabe’s boat more than once or twice a week. She gives me my space and lets me obsess, almost as if she knows planning how I’m going to get my revenge is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. Without Sam, without being able to love her, without even knowing if she’s okay, it’s like the best part of me has gone missing. Hate helps numb the pain of losing her, keeping me moving around and functioning instead of walking into the ocean across the street and letting the water carry me away.

  The holidays come and go and Juliet starts to crawl all over the house, but Sam’s dad still refuses to answer my calls. Spring rains flood the streets of Porec, and Caitlin and Gabe start talking about getting on a list to adopt another baby when Juliet is two. And then, it’s almost summer again and Ray is graduating from high school and planning a European tour with his crazy girlfriend, Sean is convincing me to hire him as a guide even though he won’t be seventeen for a few more weeks, and the summer trip I’ve been preparing for all year long is suddenly only a few days away.

  They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and of all the platitudes I’ve heard in the year since I lost the girl I love, it’s the only one that makes sense.

  I board the plane for Costa Rica in board shorts and a weathered blue tee shirt, looking like I don’t have a care in the world. I’m a laid back surfer on my way to catch some waves, not a cold son of a bitch with a block of ice and hate where my heart used to be. I haven’t decided whether to kill Todd, Jeremy, J.D., and Scott while they’re living it up in Costa Rica for their senior trip, or just make them wish they were dead, but I know one thing—whatever I decide, no one is going to suspect I’m the one responsible.

  Even though I have every detail memorized, I go through the plan again during the flight. It’s become a ritual more comforting than any rosary I was forced to say back when my mom still got around to dragging my ass to church. Soon, this will be over, and I’m not sure what I’ll cling to for comfort then, but I suppose it won’t really matter. I will have done what was right by Sam. Maybe I’ll be able to move on with my life after, maybe not, but I hope I’ll at least have put some of the regrets that haunt me to rest.

  I get off the plane at six o’clock in the morning Costa Rica time, after a red-eye flight during which I slept less than twenty minutes total. All I’m thinking about is getting to a cab and getting a full day’s sleep before I start building my alibi. I’m not thinking about love or loss or beautiful girls with big blue eyes, but the moment I see the efficient sway of the woman’s hips, I know it’s Sam walking through the airport in front of me.

  Her hair is bleached a dark shade of gold and hangs in a single braid down her back. She’s heavier than she was last summer, with powerful muscles evident beneath her black tank top and more strong, toned flesh emerging from her khaki shorts, but I know it’s her.

  I know it like I know my own name and the constellations of freckles on her tanned arms.

  They say great minds think alike, and as I tail Sam through customs, paying my cab driver extra to stay at the curb until her cab pulls out, and then to follow the other car through the busy streets, I wonder if it might be true.

  Maybe Sam has come here for the same reason I have, and maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance we’ll be heading into hell—and back out again—together.

  To be continued…

  ONE BEAUTIFUL REVENGE, the conclusion to Danny and Sam’s story will release in February 2015.

  Sign up for Jessie’s newsletter to keep up to date with all new releases: http://bit.ly/1swaXYv

  A Letter From the Author

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoyed THIS SWEET ESCAPE. The response to the Wild Rush series has blown my mind and I treasure every email I receive from readers who have fallen in love with the Cooney family the way I have.

  If you’d like to chat about your reading experience please drop me a line at Jessie.d.evans@gmail.com. You can also catch me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JessieEvansRomance, or sign up for my newsletter so you’ll never miss out on a new release or giveaway http://bit.ly/1swaXYv.

  I also want to give a special shout out of thanks to everyone who has taken the time to review my books. Reviews can make or break an author and I appreciate your feedback so much. If you have a moment to leave a review for this box set at the retailer where you purchased the book, I would really appreciate it.

  Wishing you many good reads, and thank you for the chance to tell you stories,

  Jessie Evans


  More Sexy Contemporary Romances from Jessie Evans

  Lonesome Point, Texas Series

  LEATHER AND LACE (Book One)

  SADDLES AND SIN (Book Two)

  DIAMONDS AND DUST (Book Three) Nov 2014

  GLITTER AND GRIT (Book Four) Dec 2014

  Always a Bridesmaid Series

  BETTING ON YOU (Book One)

  KEEPING YOU (Book Two)

  WILD FOR YOU (Book Three)

  TAKING YOU (Four-series ending novella)

  Fire and Icing Series

  MELT WITH YOU (Book One)

  HOT FOR YOU (Book Two)

  SWEET TO YOU (Book Three)

  SAVING YOU (Four-series ending novella)

  Edgy, New Adult Reads

  ONE WILD NIGHT-Wild Rush 1

  THIS WICKED RUSH-Wild Rush 2

  ONE PERFECT LOVE- Wild Rush 3

  THIS SWEET ESCAPE-Wild Rush 4 (Danny and Sam part 1)

  ONE BEAUTIFUL REVENGE-Wild Rush 5 (Danny and Sam conclusion)-Feb 15

  About the Author

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Jessie Evans, gave up a career as an international woman of mystery to write the sexy, contemporary Southern romances she loves to read.

  She's married to the man of her dreams, and together they're raising a few adorable, mischievous children in a cottage in the jungle. She grew up in rural Arkansas, spending summers running wild, being chewed by chiggers, and now appreciates her home in a chigger-free part of the world even more.

  When she's not writing, Jessie enjoys playing her dulcimer (badly), sewing the worlds ugliest quilts to give to her friends, going for bike rides with her house full of boys, and drifting in and out on the waves, feeling thankful for sun, surf, and lovely people to share them with.

  Learn more at www.jessieevansauthor.com.

  Sign up for Jessie’s new release newsletter: http://bit.ly/1swaXYv

  Enjoy this sample chapter of LEATHER AND LACE

  Book 1 in Jessie Evans’ Lonesome Point series

  CHAPTER ONE

  When you grew up in a place as small as Lonesome Point, Texas—a bend in the road, sustained by tourism to a ghost town, barely clinging to its dusty spot on the map—you learned to make your own fun.

  Mia Sherman had lived in Lonesome Point almost her entire life, and knew how to take a sleepy Saturday night, and turn it into the stuff legends were made of. As the only twenty-something in town who could trace her lineage back to the Wild West days when the town was settled, Mia felt practically obligated to cause trouble. Someone had to liven up Lonesome Point, and in addition to being related to half the town, her uncle was the chief of police, and her grandmother had been mayor for as long as anyone could remember. Mia was an old hat at wiggling her way out of trouble when she was unlucky enough to get caught filling the fountain in the square with bubble bath, or “borrowing” Becky Lynn Barrett’s new car for the night so Becky’s little sister could replace it with a toy Mustang and film Becky’s reaction the next morning.

  Getting caught wasn’t a deal breaker, but it was much preferable to escape unseen from the scene of the crime, and one couldn’t underestimate the importance of a solid pranking plan…

  “I’ll take the south side of Main Street, and the square,” Mia whispered, sinking down behind the shrubs at the edge of The Blue Saloon Hotel parking lot. Her two best drinking buddies, Bubba, and Ugly Ross—so nicknamed, not because he was ugly, but because he had the misfortune to be uglier than the only other Ross in town—squatted beside her. “You boys take the north, up around the bend headed toward Old Town.”

  “All right,” Bubba said in his well-deep voice, the one that made all the girls swoon when the burly, brown-eyed hottie sang “Would You Go with Me” at karaoke night at The Ticklish Iguana. “We’ll take the bin with the bras in it.”

  “No way.” Mia wagged a finger in front of his shadowed face. “I’m taking the bras, they’ll look better up the flag pole.”

  “Oh come on.” Ugly Ross gouged her in the side with his bony elbow. “At least give us a couple.”

  “Huh-uh. My sale bins, my rules.”

  Ross frowned. “What if I gave you five bucks?”

  Mia shook her head, sending her red curls flying and making the world spin…just a little. Maybe that third shot of whiskey as the hotel bar was closing hadn’t been such a great idea, after all.

  But hell, it was Saturday night. When she’d first moved back to town after grad school, Mia had kept Lavender and Lace open on Sundays, but after a few weeks, it had become clear that no one wanted to shop for panties on the Lord’s Day. She also sold homemade lotions, soaps, and an assortment of quirky, ghost town souvenirs for the out-of-towners who wandered into her shop. But panties were her stock-in-trade, and apparently not Sunday-friendly, which meant she got to sleep in tomorrow, and she intended to make the most of her small town Saturday night.

  “We’ll work with the panties,” Bubba said, nudging her shoulder with his much larger one. “But you take some too, Mia. Put ‘em on the garden gnomes in front of the tea shop.”

  “Brilliant,” Mia said, admiring Bubba’s pranking genius. “But I can’t. Lula would catch me.”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Bubba said. “She’s got to be sleeping.”

  Mia peeked over the top of the shrubs, not surprised to see a light on in Lula’s second floor window. “I doubt it,” she mumbled.

  Both Mia, and Mrs. Tallulah Watson—Mia’s third cousin, on her mama’s side—lived in the apartments above their shops. But whereas Mia took advantage of her prime location to sleep until the last possible moment before rolling out of her bed to open Lavender and Lace, Tallulah used her proximity to Tea for Two as an excuse to work twenty-four seven. If she wasn’t actively serving customers, she was cooking cakes and scones, knitting lace doilies to sell in her retail store, or painting faces on the ceramic dolls she entered in craft fairs.

  Her cousin didn’t condone wasting time or cutting up—or have any discernible sense of humor, so far as Mia could tell—and Lula would not find waking up to discover lace panties on the heads of her thirty-seven garden gnomes amusing.

  Which made the temptation nearly irresistible…

  Mia wasn’t as wild as the mean-spirited soccer moms of Lonesome Point would have people believe. She didn’t have a single tattoo, had never smuggled horse tranquilizers across the border, and hadn’t so much as kissed Bubba or Ugly Ross, let alone gone to bed with both of them—at the same time, according to Regina Simpson. Sure, Mia drank a little too much on Saturday nights, and kept forgetting not to cuss in front of her grandmother, but overall, she led a relatively boring life. She worked hard and played hard, but she spent as much time babysitting her best friend Tulsi’s daughter, as she did getting into trouble.

  But when it came to pranks…

  Damn, if she didn’t have a hard time saying no.

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” she said, waving off the high five a well-lubricated Ross aimed at her shoulder. “Congratulate me after the mission is complete. Rendezvous in twenty minutes at my place for beer.”

  “Good luck, solider.” Bubba chucked her on the shoulder, before grabbing one large canvas bin full of sale panties and heading north, Ross hot on his heels.

  Mia snatched her own bin full of underpants and the few reduced price bras she hadn’t been able to sell—sale bras always did better than panties, especially panties that were the color of radioactive vomit—and hustled down the street in the opposite direction.

  She had purchased the hideous undies at a deep discount, thinking she could move lime green underpants as long as they were cheap enough, but when the lingerie had arrived, the color was even more obnoxious than it had looked on the website. The shipment was non-returnable, so she’d done her best hard sell—advertising the underpants as Shock ‘Em Dead Knickers, guaranteed to catch your man’s eye in the bedroom—but in six months she’d only sold two pairs.

  It was time fo
r the panties to go to a better place.

  Mia circled the square, draping underpants from the decorative metal curlicues at the base of the antique gas lamps the Lonesome Point Betterment Society had put in a few years back, before clipping all four bras to the flagpole in the middle of the square, and running them up to the top. The rope squeaked a bit as it slid through the pulleys, but Mia’s footsteps as she hurried out of the square and down the street, were completely silent.

  When she was in prank mode, Mia moved like a ninja warrior, at one with the sidewalk, the warm summer breeze, and the parking meters she graced with extra-small neon thongs as she swept by. She pantied the barbershop pole at Justin’s Cuts, the front porch of Harmon and Harmon, Attorneys at Law, and the swinging wooden plaque advertising ghost town walking tours before reaching the delicate white picket fence surrounding Tea for Two’s front garden.

  With catlike grace, Mia jumped the fence—the latch on the gate creaked when it opened—landing with only a slight crunch in the gravel, and tiptoed through the rose bed to the stone path that wound through the impeccably maintained yard. In just a few minutes, she had blessed each of Lula’s Takes One to Gnome One Collector’s Edition garden gnomes with a bright green panty hat, before emptying the rest of her bin into the bone-dry birdbath.

  She took a moment to admire the way the puddle of panties glowed in the moonlight like the mucus of a diseased alien before turning back toward the fence—

  And running right into Lula’s gardening stool, knocking it to the ground.

  Mia froze, silently praying that the falling stool hadn’t been as loud as she thought, but then she heard it—the scrape of chair legs against a hardwood floor, coming from the second floor of Tea for Two.