Text copyright ©2020 Lani Lynn Vale
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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
To my betas. I couldn’t do this without you.
Acknowledgments
Golden Czermak- Photographer
Ellie McLove - My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing
Cover Me Darling, LLC
My mom- Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred times.
Kendra, Lisa, Laura, Kathy, Penney, Mindy, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.
Table of 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
Epilogue
What’s Next?
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:
The Freebirds
Boomtown
Highway Don’t Care
Another One Bites the Dust
Last Day of My Life
Texas Tornado
I Don’t Dance
The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC
Lights To My Siren
Halligan To My Axe
Kevlar To My Vest
Keys To My Cuffs
Life To My Flight
Charge To My Line
Counter To My Intelligence
Right To My Wrong
Code 11- KPD SWAT
Center Mass
Double Tap
Bang Switch
Execution Style
Charlie Foxtrot
Kill Shot
Coup De Grace
The Uncertain Saints
Whiskey Neat
Jack & Coke
Vodka On The Rocks
Bad Apple
Dirty Mother
Rusty Nail
The Kilgore Fire Series
Shock Advised
Flash Point
Oxygen Deprived
Controlled Burn
Put Out
I Like Big Dragons Series
I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie
Dragons Need Love, Too
Oh, My Dragon
The Dixie Warden Rejects
Beard Mode
Fear the Beard
Son of a Beard
I’m Only Here for the Beard
The Beard Made Me Do It
Beard Up
For the Love of Beard
Law & Beard
There’s No Crying in Baseball
Pitch Please
Quit Your Pitchin’
Listen, Pitch
The Hail Raisers
Hail No
Go to Hail
Burn in Hail
What the Hail
The Hail You Say
Hail Mary
The Simple Man Series
Kinda Don’t Care
Maybe Don’t Wanna
Get You Some
Ain’t Doin’ It
Too Bad So Sad
Bear Bottom Guardians MC
Mess Me Up
Talkin’ Trash
How About No
My Bad
One Chance, Fancy
It Happens
Keep It Classy
Snitches Get Stitches
F-Bomb
The Southern Gentleman Series
Hissy Fit
Lord Have Mercy
KPD Motorcycle Patrol
Hide Your Crazy
It Wasn’t Me
I’d Rather Not
Make Me
Sinners are Winners
If You Say So
SWAT 2.0
Just Kidding
Fries Before Guys
Maybe Swearing Will Help (3-10-20)
Ask Me If I Care (4-14-20)
May Contain Wine (5-12-20)
Jokes on You (6-9-20)
Join the Club (7-14-20)
Any Day Now (8-11-20)
Say it Ain’t So (9-8-20)
Officially Over It (10-13-20)
Nobody Knows (11-3-20)
Depends Who’s Asking (12-8-20)
Valentine Boys
Herd That
Crazy Heifer
Chute Yeah
Get Bucked
Blurb:
I fell in love with his rope skills. I stayed because somehow, he took hold of my heart and made it his.
Callum Valentine didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Then again? When a man is calling a woman fat right in front of your table, it’s kind of hard not to intervene. Especially when the town’s most beautiful creature ever is the one being called fat.
Desi just wants to be left alone. After an ugly divorce, she thinks she’s in the clear. Then her ex takes it upon himself to continue to make her life miserable, giving Desi no choice but to take it or leave.
In fact, her bags were nearly all the way packed when Callum poked his nose into the most embarrassing spectacle the town of Kilgore has ever witnessed. The moment he declares her his and off limits, everything changes—and definitely not for the better.
As if things couldn’t get worse than being called a pitiful, fat heifer in front of the hottest man she’s ever seen, Callum has to go and say that she’s his, and they have to play a game that she’s not quite sure she wants to be playing.
But before her eyes, things change. And suddenly the rules of the game aren’t clear. And they’re crossing boundaries neither one of them see coming.
Chapter 1
Why does chocolate have to make you fat? Why can’t celery make you fat?
-Desi’s secret thoughts
Desidara
Divorces sucked.
What sucked even more was seeing your ex-husband out with the woman that he cheated on you with, but there it was. Or, more accurately, there he was.
Though he hadn’t seen me, thank God.
I looked down at my lap, hoping beyond hope that by not maintaining eye-contact, it would mean he wouldn’t stop… but I should’ve known better.
Mal Stevens and Marjorie Christmas were assholes.
If they could find a way to make my life harder than it needed to be, they’d do it.
Even worse, they’d embarrass the crap out of me if they could.
Meaning, when they walked up, they tortured me relentlessly.
“Well, hello there, Desi-Dough,” I heard my recently divorced from me ex-husband practically jeer.
Desi-Dough.
God, if there was a way to delete a word from the human language, it would be the word ‘dough.’
About a year and a half into our marriage, when I started putting on weight, Mal had started using creative and inv
entive words to remind me that I was no longer a size six.
Even worse, he shared those words with his now-girlfriend, who also became delighted each time she got to use the word and I’d flinch.
I slowly looked up, knowing what I’d find when I did.
Mal’s cruel gaze centered solely on me.
“Hi, Mal,” I said softly. “What can I help you with?”
His lips tipped up in a sneer. “You can help me by telling my father that you no longer need money.”
My brows rose.
“I can’t,” I said. “If I don’t have money from you, I can’t make the house payment, and you know that.”
A house payment that he’d forced me to acquire.
A house payment that, if I could, I’d give up in a heartbeat.
The only problem was that nobody in their right goddamn mind wanted to buy two thousand acres and a ten-thousand-square-foot house.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure why the hell I’d agreed to buy it, yet there I sat, in debt up to my eyeballs, with a snowball’s chance in hell to unload a house that I didn’t want nor need.
“Yeah,” he sneered. “You just keep telling yourself that. And I’ll just keep writing you checks every single month for your ridiculous reasons.” He paused. “I hope you like next month’s check.”
I frowned, unsure what to say to that.
“You want to know why?” Marjorie practically cackled.
No, I didn’t.
I had a feeling that they were going to share the information with me, whether I agreed or not.
So, I continued to sit there, waiting patiently for them to ruin my day even more.
“Oh, she doesn’t look happy, Mal.” Marjorie giggled.
I wanted to punch her in the throat—with the hand that still bore the tan from my wedding ring. Too bad I still didn’t have said wedding ring, otherwise I would’ve made sure to rub it in her face.
At this point, I was well and truly over Mal.
The only problem was that Mal thought I was still hung up over him.
Honestly, I wasn’t.
I was pissed.
Pissed that I’d wasted a year of my life dating him, and two years of my life married to him.
Even more, I wished that I hadn’t thought he’d make a good father when I’d first seen him with his nephew.
If I were being honest, it was Mal’s nephew who had first caught my eye.
He’d been two and wearing boots, a cowboy hat, and spurs. He’d been riding a horse and he’d fallen. Me, being a nurturing person by nature, had gone to help the little cowboy up.
And that little cowboy had stolen my heart, right along with his uncle about ten seconds later.
Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t realized that his uncle was the player that he was.
I also hadn’t realized what kind of spoiled little brat he was, either.
I baked cakes.
I was sheltered.
And even more, was socially awkward and shy.
When I was growing up, I’d always been overweight. All through my childhood and teenage years, I’d looked like a fat blob. However, when I’d turned eighteen, I’d tried hard to get the body that I’d always wanted. And in doing so, I’d created an unfair image of myself.
I’d starved myself, worked out hard, and been an utterly unhappy person.
Then I’d met Mal, and I’d had to continue to force myself to eat well, or not eat at all, to please my husband.
Then I’d gotten an injury, and I’d been forced to take it easy, and I’d gained weight.
Not able to work out, I’d ballooned, and my husband had lost interest in me since I was no longer his perfect little wife anymore.
It’d taken me six weeks to get healthy enough to work out again, and two weeks after that to realize that my husband was cheating on me.
Within a week, I’d filed for divorce, and if it wasn’t for Mal’s father, Malloy, I would’ve drowned.
Sadly, for Mal, when the divorce happened, Malloy took my side. Meaning I’d taken Mal’s entire family away from him in one fell swoop.
Not that I’d been trying to do that or anything.
I would’ve gladly given that to Mal if he would’ve just worked with me on the house payment, but he’d turned into a raving lunatic, and a man I no longer recognized.
“You look like you’re enjoying yourself,” Mal sneered. “I can’t wait for you to see the checks. Oh, and before I forget. My dad said something funny today.” He continued as if he couldn’t tell he was making me uncomfortable. “He said that you were running that Spartan Texas Race. What is this fool plan you have?”
He was right.
But what he didn’t know was that I’d made a vow last night.
Today would be my last day of eating like crap. It would be the last day that I put anything in my body that wasn’t healthy for me for at least the next few months while I trained my ass off for the Spartan Texas Race that I’d signed up for as a spur of the moment decision last night.
I’d been lying in my bed, feeling sorry for myself, and had seen the ad for it on my timeline on my social media page as I’d been scrolling through all of my friends’ happy lives.
Since I baked cakes for a living and made my living practically by word of mouth through social media, I spent a lot of time on there looking for ideas as well as promoting the hell out of myself.
And when I’d seen that in my timeline, I’d remembered when I’d gone to the race with Mal last year.
We’d already been having troubles by that point, so when I’d expressed interest in wanting to go to that, he’d practically laughed in my face and told me that I couldn’t do it.
Therefore, when I saw it again last night, I’d made a rash decision and signed up even though I knew that it would likely take everything I had to give to even finish the race, let alone rock at it.
Which was also why, when I saw the boot camp right underneath it, which happened to have a couple of ex-military guys helping run it that would ‘get me ready for the race,’ I’d signed both me and my best friend up for it.
Though, she didn’t know that fun fact just yet.
I had a plan to meet her after lunch to discuss it with her.
However, she’d been applying for a job and was running late.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I did mention it to him.”
I knew what his next words would be without even having to think outside the box. He was so predictable.
Which he told me and confirmed my guess of what would come out of his mouth moments later.
“You do know, right, that you won’t do well at it?” he asked bluntly.
I wanted to punch him in the dick.
“I know that I signed up for a boot camp that would help me accomplish my goal of finishing,” I said patiently, not wanting to create a scene.
This was my favorite restaurant, and I wanted to be able to come back to this place after everything was all said and done with the man and the bitch standing in front of me.
“Well, good luck with that,” Marjorie sneered. “Me and Mal are running it together this year. I can’t wait.”
Wonderful.
On one of the biggest days of my life, I’d have to see them.
Yay.
“That’s cool.” I picked up my chip and shoved it into my mouth.
“You’re not going to get anywhere eating like that, though.” He shook his head. “I thought you told Dad that you didn’t have any money? If you don’t have any money, how exactly are you able to come out to eat and buy shit like that?”
I sighed. “I was given a gift card.”
By his father, sure, but it was a gift card nonetheless.
He’d been given it by one of his clients and had then given it to me because a little hole in the wall wasn’t Malloy’s cup of tea. Malloy’s tastes were more refined… and they leaned toward two-hundred-dollar steaks and no
t ten-dollar hamburgers.
“Show her the checks,” Marjorie whispered.
I gritted my teeth at her obnoxious voice.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “She’ll really like them.”
There he went with the checks again.
Little motherfucker.
God, what did I ever see in him?
Seriously, I couldn’t see an ounce of the man that I thought I’d fallen in love with.
I sighed. “How about you just show me them now and give the anticipation a rest.”
He took great pride in pulling out his pocketbook, flipping it open, and showing me the new checks he’d be sending me each month.
They were a picture of Mal and Marjorie, kissing, with Marjorie holding her hand up to the camera with my ring on her finger.
My. Ring.
My.
Motherfucking.
Cocksucking.
Ring.
A family heirloom.
I was literally going to kill him.
Right then and there.
Followed shortly by her.
I eyed the steak knife that’d been rolled up in my napkin with my fork, then Marjorie’s finger.
The sad thing was, I seriously considered it.
Seriously.
If I didn’t need my job, I’d seriously consider chopping her finger off just to get it.
“You do realize, correct,” I said softly, “that that was my grandmother’s ring. That was worn by every single female in my family for the last four hundred and twenty years.”
I’d lost the wedding ring in the shuffle.
Though, I knew I didn’t lose it.
I had suspected Mal had done something with it when he’d moved out, and apparently, he had.
Apparently, he’d given it to his new woman.
I wanted to seriously kill them both.
My hand curled around the steak knife in my hand, and I had to have a constant ‘don’t kill him’ mantra in my head as he smiled as if he’d pulled one over on me.
Someone slipped into the seat beside me, but I was so freakin’ mad that I didn’t even register who it was.
I was too busy telling myself that the color orange wasn’t a good look on redheads.
Chapter 2
According to Google, I can eat seven donuts a day if I don’t drink a Coke.
-Maybe you shouldn’t always trust what you read on the internet.
Crazy Heifer Page 1