by Elyse Riggs
My Second Chance Player
Beaky Tiki Series Book Two
Elyse Riggs
Contents
Description
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
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2020 by Elyse Riggs
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Edited by: Zoe’s Author Services
Created with Vellum
Description
My Second Chance Player is a hilarious, standalone romantic comedy featuring a booty call on a pirate parade float, a bad monkey named Shark, a hot-as-sin NFL tight end, and lots of chips and salsa at the Beaky Tiki.
Angie
Things I'd rather do than spend time with Jake: slather myself with peanut butter and fight an angry badger, swim shark infested waters with a paper cut, and pet a rabid porcupine.
I'd do anything to keep my vet practice above water. Anything except deal with Jake. He left town without a word years ago after a night of fiery passion. And now he's back. And if he thinks I'm going to drool all over him like every other woman in this town, then he's got another thing coming.
Jake
I may be the one who left years ago, but Angie's definitely the one that got away. I just didn't know it at the time. Getting cut from the NFL forces me back to my hometown and a last-ditch effort to save my career. Now that I'm back, the one woman in this town who I want more than anything is the one who won't even give me a chance.
Chapter 1
Angie
I pull my beat-up VW into the packed strip mall parking lot and then grab a parking space far from my usual front row spot in front of the vet clinic.
Normally I would park in my spot, the one at the front that’s reserved for the owner. That’s me. I’m the owner of St. Tropic Veterinary Clinic. The business that is about to go down in flames unless tonight goes perfectly.
I get out of my car. There’s a nice evening breeze rustling the nearby trees as I look around. The crowds, the television crew, the excitement.
When I bought this place, it was nothing but a converted warehouse with too much square footage in all the wrong places. A fixer upper for sure, and I knew that going in. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
And I have the best vet team in the city, no matter what Animal Universe Incorporated says in their advertisements.
What I didn't know back when I bought this place was that a few years into this venture I'd have to host my own telethon just to keep from being run out of business by a soul-less vet conglomerate that decided to add two locations here in the past year alone.
Even worse, their instant name recognition paired with an unlimited marketing budget has left me on the verge of bankruptcy.
Now that it’s come to this, I'm grateful for the extra space in my office building. Or Puppy-thon would not be happening.
And Puppy-thon has to happen. In fact, if tonight isn't the best damn Puppy-thon in the history of thons, then my whole practice might go down in history. Bankruptcy history.
Ha, “Thon” sounds a lot like thong. I chuckle to myself, but only because the only area of my life going down in flames faster than my finances is my love life.
Because there’s obviously no time for dating when I’m fighting for my future.
C'mon, citizens of St. Tropic, let's prove that for the next few hours you care more about the well-being of a dedicated, personal hometown vet than, well, everything else.
A television truck is parked at the front of the building. It has the Channel Fourteen logo on the side, a stylized blue number fourteen with a swoosh style circle around it.
And it’s taking up three parking spots. Of course. I know only one reporter in town who would pull such a dick move: Gavin McCloud.
Gavin is Channel Fourteen’s number one on-location reporter. He’s not a fan of mine and vice-versa. His presence here is not a good sign. I can close my eyes and make a wish that it’ll be someone else, anybody else reporting on Puppy-Thon tonight, but I know it would be a wasted wish.
Puppy-Thon is the hopefully brilliant idea of my new publicist, Cara Carrera. She’s smart, savvy, expensive, and either a great last-ditch effort to save my practice or a go-broke-faster guarantee. It’s the game of financial chicken that is currently my life.
With a deep breath, I open the door and go in. Cara’s people did a great job getting everything ready. On the right is a table set up with snacks for the volunteers and camera crew.
Of course, Gavin is over there hoovering up all the good stuff. The good stuff being the stacks of Scrumptious Chocolates that my bestie, Kaylee, donated for tonight.
With a snort of derision I cross the room, a woman on a mission. It’s one thing to come here tonight just to rain on my parade, it’s another to hog all of the good snacks out of pure spite.
“Gavin.” I say his name and raise both eyebrows at him as judgingly as I can manage.
“What? You set out food, I’m eating food.” I watch his bottom lip curl into a snarl.
Oh my God. He’s never, ever going to let it go. I grit my teeth and wait for it.
“Those were my prize Azaleas, you know,” I hear him mutter under his breath.
And there it is. “Oh my God, Gavin. It’s been thirteen years, can you just let it go?” I know he won’t.
But tonight is not about Gavin, it’s about saving my clinic. So I plaster on my best fake smile and turn on my heel to greet my wonderful and appreciated volunteers.
But not before I mutter something of my own as I leave. “From what I hear, I’m not the only one who’s been accused of weed-whacking under the influence.”
Then I stride off toward the makeshift stage.
“What did you say?”
That got his attention. I hear Gavin’s voice behind me in between coughs, sputters, and choking noises. I don’t feel bad, he doesn’t deserve Kaylee’s chocolate anyway.
I fake-cough gently i
nto my hand as I turn back to reply, “you heard me, Gavin.”
Is pissing him off smart? Probably not. Will he screw me any chance he gets no matter what I say? Ding, ding, ding. Therefore I regret nothing.
As I turn around and survey the stage, I feel like I’ve fallen into a time warp and it’s twenty years ago. Long, fake wood tables line the back of the room with lime green resin chairs set up behind them. On the tables, there are throwback landline phones. I stare at them for a moment, sure that I’m hallucinating. “Seriously?”
Mia sidles up next to me. She’s my front desk clerk. “What are you freaking out about, boss? Gavin the hoarder, ancient telephones, or the little notepads we’re supposed to take the pledges on?”
“All of the above,” I answer. “The nineteen-eighties called and they want their stuff back.”
“Is there any chance this is going to work?” Mia asks.
“Well, as Cara tells it, this is the elderly cherry on top of the rest of the telethon. She says everybody under the age of sixty-five has already donated online, but the publicity push from this time warp will keep us in the news a little bit longer.”
I’m not lying. Cara said the online donations were making a difference, but we need more.
Gwen, my other Veterinarian, appears at my side. “We ready for this or what?”
I catch her smirk as she joins Mia and I staring at the stage setup.
“Oh, I’ve been ready for this for a decade or two,” I answer as the three of us take our places among the other volunteers at the table.
I scoot myself in feeling like a third grader in science class and then stare at the cameras that are setting up across the room. Gavin is directing them.
It doesn’t take long before Gavin points in our general direction and then mouths a countdown. “Three, two, one,” and then he goes silent and points forward.
I see a green light begin to glow as the cameras go live. The important segments of the telethon such as my Welcome and Thank You messages were pre-recorded and are being added-in remotely by Channel Fourteen.
This is mostly a dog and pony show for an exceedingly small live public television audience. And also, to get a bunch of live shots of us answering land-line phones to entertain people who have either never seen this sort of thing before, or people for whom it is nostalgic.
Either way, I’ll do it if it’ll save my clinic.
Doing my best to ignore Gavin, I fiddle with my notepad and pencil. The notepad has my St. Tropic Vet logo on top. Cool. I make a mental note to take it home with me.
That’s when a very loud noise startles me. The phone in front of me rings. The noise is seriously jarring, and the vibration rattles my insides.
Okay, so these old phones are going take some getting used to. "Hello," I answer, picking up the receiver, "welcome to Puppy-Thon. This is Angie, how can I help you?"
"I want my money to go to cats,” says the older lady on the other end of the line.
I take a deep breath. "Well, I like cats too, but the money goes to animals in need. Cats, dogs, ferrets. It's really a small animal medical care drive."
I’m the only clinic in town that provides free and low-cost emergency care to animals in need. Otherwise I wouldn’t be in this financial jam. In theory I could solve my problems by refusing to do small animal charity, but it’s not going to happen. Since I won’t give it up, funding the charity will go a long way toward saving my practice.
"Then why is it called Puppy-thon?” I hear the voice on the other line continue, “it's a dumb name."
I’m not really sure what to say here. I love all small animals, but Puppy-Thon is an adorable name. Seriously, who complains about a name that cute? I decide to try to bring the conversation back to a sane and rational place. "Um, would you like to make a donation?"
"Now you're demanding money? What kind of scam is this?"
As I listen to the voice crackle across my earpiece, I frown. "Whoa, hold on. You called me. It's a telethon. For the animals, remember?"
"Oh yes, can we get back to the cats?"
I sigh and close my eyes. "Sure, I'll do my best to make sure that your donation amount will only go to cats if it matters that much to you. How much would you like your donation to be?"
"Five dollars."
Five dollars. Swallowing, I worry even more about the future of St. Tropic Veterinary Practice.
More animals than ever need help, and I'm running on emergency funds as it is. If things don't turn around soon, I don't even want to think about what's going to happen. The heartless, faceless, corporate entity known as Animal Universe Incorporated, who is trying to put me out of business, doesn’t contribute a single penny to the emergency fund.
Five dollars? I'll be paying a large portion of that just in credit card fees.
I make a last-ditch effort to salvage the call. "A ten-dollar donation gets you a handmade holiday ornament," I remind her.
"Five dollars. And don't try to give me the hard sell, or I'll tell that nice blond lady in charge."
I blink twice. If she's watching the telethon, then she should see me. I'm the blond one in charge. This whole conversation has been odd, and it leaves me wondering if she's even watching.
"And don't think I won't check my bank statements either, I know exactly how to do it,” she continues.
"I'm sure you do," I answer, grabbing the paperwork to fill out. Right now, I can’t afford to say no to any donations.
I grab the pen and paper and start the ten-minute process of filling out the form. "Name?"
"What?"
"Can I get your name, please, ma'am? For the donation?" Somehow, I'm fairly sure this is going to take more than ten minutes. That's when I hear a commotion near the entrance. I glance over there.
"My name is Mindie. M-i-n-d-i-e."
I'm half writing the name and half trying to see what it is that the crowd at the front of the room is reacting to.
"Did you get that, dear? That’s Mindie with an i-e, not a y. If you spell it with a y then that hateful shrew down the hall in 7B will take all the credit for saving the animals. I'm the one saving the kitties.”
My pen is poised over the paper, but I haven't started writing yet.
Gavin and his crew have crossed the room to confront somebody who has entered the building. And whoever he is, he’s tall, and he has something wrapped up in a blanket.
And whatever it is that he's carrying in the blanket is yowling in pain. I'm the vet on call tonight. Everybody else are just volunteers and television crew.
I rise from my seat to get a better look.
"Mindie! You got it?"
I still hear the woman’s voice on the other line and realize I forgot to hang up. That means that I can still hear her voice on the other line screeching across my soul. She's shouting now. I wince in pain and pull the phone away from my ear. "Hang on," I say.
When I see the person with the injured animal in the center of the crowd take a step forward, the phone falls out of my hands.
It hits the floor with a loud clattering sound.
Mia gives me a concerned side-eye before reaching down to grab the phone. She hangs it up. “You okay, boss?”
I don’t answer. I'm too busy staring at the guy with the blanket who just walked in. There’s something awfully familiar about his tall, muscled frame. And he’s strong enough to have no problem holding what looks to be at least a thirty-pound squirming dog in his arms.
I hear murmurs of surprise and recognition wash across the room.
I stand and stare more intently at the familiar face that looks a little older now, but somehow still the same. Holy shit. It's Jake.
That's when I hear yelling again at the front door as more people burst in.
What in the hell is going on here? I feel like I’ve entered an alternate dimension, only I know the new voices all too well. They belong to Kaylee and Fi, my two best friends in the whole world. And they don't usually make a habit of barging in unannounced
at my work functions.
"Angie!" Kaylee says, spotting me first and then sprinting across the room. Fi is right behind her. Kaylee’s a whir of dark curly hair and flashing eyes right now. Something is definitely up.
"I'm so sorry to bother you here, but…” in mid-sentence, Kaylee’s head whips around to the snack table. “Hey, are those the little red raspberry rose cookies from Smith's downtown?"
I nod, grateful for the easy question since there are so many difficult ones swirling around my head right now.
"Kaylee!" Fi punches her in the arm. Fi has fierce blue eyes and long dark hair pulled into a ponytail. "Angie, we really didn't come here to eat your snacks," she says as she shoots Kaylee a black stare. "We came here to warn you."
"Oh yeah. Angie, it’s Jake. He's back in town," Kaylee finishes with a worried flourish.
I simply point behind my friends to the tall blond guy who is now surrounded by camera and crew people. He’s still holding a blanket with a howling animal. An animal I have to go save.
Which means I have to confront my past. Right now. I will my feet to move, but they stay cemented to the floor.
All I can do is stare, like he’s a mirage. But I’m not that lucky. He really is right here in front of me, in the flesh. Jake Mann. Football God. St. Tropic High School Homecoming King. And the man who broke my heart. When I finally look directly at him, his baby blues are locked onto mine.