by Sienna Ciles
“Oh, she has a sense of humor,” Pete chuckled. “I like it. Does she have a sister?”
I laughed. “Yeah. The last thing you need to worry about is that. You might be feeling better, but you still need to rest and recover.”
“I know, I know,” said Pete.
I looked at Lanie, silently asking her whether she thought now was the time to tell Pete the truth about what had happened. She nodded.
“Pete, do you remember a guy at the bar who bought you a beer? Kinda short, very stocky, long black hair and a goatee?” We’d learned what the Samuel guy looked like because he was an ex-con, and the cops had a file on him.
He nodded. “Yeah, I remember him. I think he said his name was Ricardo or something. He . . . he wanted to race me. He had a souped-up Mustang.”
“Ricardo wasn't his real name. His real name is Samuel Estevez, and he's a former gang member with a long list of prior offenses. He was hired by Chad Burton and my Aunt Cara.”
“Chad Burton, that jerk from Burton, Inc. . . . and your Aunt Cara? But, I don’t understand. Why would they hire him to buy me drinks?” he asked just before the realization dawned over his face.
I sighed and shook my head. “To severely damage our company's reputation—a strategy that worked. Investor confidence plummeted after the press splashed stories about your drunk driving crash all over the internet. Then my aunt's plan was to swoop in, buy a third of the company, and slowly muscle me out and bring in Burton to take over. They hired Estevez to slip a drug into your drink and get you to race him. The idea was to force you into a wreck to make it seem like you were irresponsible, which he succeeded in doing. But we got them, Pete, don't you worry. We got them. And they’ve all been arrested. We're going to have a long court battle ahead, but we've got the evidence we need to put them behind bars where they should be. I know my aunt is going to hire the best lawyers . . . but justice will prevail.”
Pete nodded, smiling sadly. “I was feeling so, so ashamed and guilty when the doctor told me how I ended up like this. It's just that, you know, with the news about my father's cancer, I just . . . I was falling apart, and I went out to have a drink to try forget about it, and . . .”
Lanie took his hand and squeezed it gently. “You know, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but this one, it really wasn't your fault. You were set up and manipulated. And they are going to be brought to justice, thankfully.”
Tears welled up in Pete's eyes and he squeezed her hand back. “Thank you, Lanie,” he said. “And thank you too, Jax. Thank you for everything. I mean that man . . . I mean that.”
* * * * *
“That was quite a long call,” I said to Lanie as we walked out of the hospital just over an hour later. She had just been talking on the phone for around fifteen minutes.
“There was a lot I had to say,” she admitted, and then she suddenly smiled mysteriously. “But I'm glad I was able to make the call.”
“Well, that was a little enigmatic? Who were you talking to?”
“You'll find out soon enough. Can you drive me somewhere?”
“Uh yeah, sure. Where?”
“I'll give you directions as we go.”
“Sounds like an adventure. I’m in. Come on, let's go.”
We got into my Maserati and headed off, with Lanie giving me directions as I drove and we chatted.
“You know, Jax, you've never really told me why you're Ernest J. Cooper IV. I mean, seriously, the fourth? You sound like royalty or something.”
I chuckled. “Well, I come from old wealth and a proud family name, to be honest.”
“But I thought you said that you and Pete came out to California with nothing?”
“We did—and I didn't grow up wealthy.”
“So . . . how does this old-wealth thing fit into the story?” she asked.
“Well, my great-grandfather, the first Ernest Cooper, he was an oil man in Texas in the first days of the oil boom. He made millions, and passed it on to my grandfather, Ernest J. Cooper II. He too worked in oil, and expanded our family's wealth. My father, Ernest J. Cooper III, inherited all of this. He didn't want to work in oil though, and he thought the future was in electric vehicles. Which we now know it is—except they won't really start becoming mainstream until maybe 2030. But he was trying to do this in the early ‘80s. He took all the wealth he’d inherited and invested it into an electric car company which he believed would revolutionize transportation. He thought he was going to be another Henry Ford. But America wasn't ready for electric cars in the ‘80s, and the company went bankrupt. And thus, all the wealth of my forebears was gone. So, I was left to start from scratch—and I did.”
“And you succeeded. You're a multi-millionaire at age thirty-two, which is pretty damn impressive,” she said with a smile.
“Yes. I succeeded. Despite everything. And all those years my family was going through rough times, not once did my Aunt Cara offer to help. And now, after this whole thing, after finding out what kind of person she really is, I'm not surprised she didn't offer us a cent when times were tough. I just wish I’d seen her true colors sooner.”
We arrived at the destination Lanie had been directing me to—a nice enough suburban house.
“Whose place is this?” I asked.
“Come on,” she said. “You'll find out in a moment. Let's knock on the door.”
We walked up onto the porch and knocked. I was very, very surprised when Bill Wallace, of all people, opened the door.
“Mr. Cooper,” he said, shaking my hand, “it's a pleasure to meet you. I wanted to talk to you at my ball, but you had to leave early.”
“Yes, on account of—”
He held up a finger. “Hush, my boy. Lanie has told me all about it, all the details. And I want to help . . . I want to invest in your company, and I want to assist you in whatever ways I can in your upcoming legal battle. I'm in your corner, Mr. Cooper, I'm firmly in your corner. You don't have to worry about anything. Now, come on in and let's talk . . .”
I looked at Lanie and smiled. “You're the best,” I whispered to her. “You're just the best!”
EPILOGUE
Lanie
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER
“To jail time!” Jax exclaimed, as we raised our glasses.
“To jail time!” we all repeated in unison, clinking our glasses together and taking a drink.
“I wonder how that jerk Burton is going to enjoy prison?” Pete remarked with a smirk.
“He's got several years to figure it out,” Bill added with a wry smile. “And my old rival, Cara, she'll be under house arrest for the rest of her days. I still don't think the judge should have been so lenient with her just because of her age. But still, house arrest is better than nothing.”
Jax nodded. “It is. And once again, Bill, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for helping in the matter. Without the legal team you assembled, I'm sure Cara and Chad would have found a way to get by with what they did.”
“I’m just glad justice was served, my boy,” Bill replied. “Very glad. And with them out of the way, we'll watch your company skyrocket. I’d venture to say you're on the verge of making your first billion after the success you had when the company went public a few months ago, aren't you?”
Jax nodded proudly. “We're getting there, Bill, we're getting close.”
“Well, thank you so much for dinner, Jax, but I’m going to head out. I have an early morning since Dad and I are going fishing” Pete added.
Pete’s announcement started the dominoes falling and we all made our way to the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. After saying our farewells, everyone then went their separate ways, aside from Jax and myself.
Jax looked down at me, and I could feel the heat of his love radiating into me through his stare. It was the same intense love glowing in the core of my own being.
“I love you, Lanie,” he whispered, leaning down and pressing his warm lips over mine.
“And I love you,
Jax,” I replied.
He held his hand out. “Take my hand,” he offered, and I intertwined my fingers with his, squeezing. Something about the feeling of our fingers tangled together was exhilarating and comforting all at the same time. The excitement I felt when he held my hand hadn’t faded, it was almost overwhelming.
“I want you by my side, holding my hand, always. Let's step into the future,” he said, “a bright future together . . . from now until the end of our lives.”
“Let's do that,” I said. “Let's do that.”
Accidentally His
Sneak Preview
By
Sienna Ciles
www.siennaciles.com
Chapter 1
Eve
A month. Somehow, I had managed to survive a month in this tiny, one stoplight town and not drive myself crazy.
It’s exactly what I needed though.
I’ve kept to myself. Worked the job I’m incredibly overqualified for just to escape my past and the asshole I left behind.
It was a much slower pace, the people seemed genuine, and they didn’t want to know every aspect of my life. A life I was hoping to forget, or at least some of it.
I shook my head as I gripped the steering wheel of my beat up pickup truck and hummed along to the Beyoncé song. The dirt road shook the truck and rattled the windows but it was nothing like how my life had been rattled over the last six months.
I glanced down at my phone as service cut in and out. The map seemed to be stuck on thirty-seven miles until Heather’s Forge, the town over from where I had decided to temporarily build my new life. I’d been on the same road for what seemed like forever and I hoped I hadn’t missed a turn somewhere.
There was no way of actually telling until my phone picked up service again. There weren’t many, if any, street signs. Only farm names.
I should have known better then to take advice from someone I barely knew but I wanted to get out of that tiny town, if only for a day, and the old guy seemed nice enough, even though he was a little too friendly.
“Ugh, don’t be paranoid,” I muttered. Everyone in town had that country vibe. I just had to get used to it. This wasn’t the big city anymore, and not everyone had a secret agenda.
The wholesome folk here, man, that’d take more getting used to than the loneliness. All the more reason to get that cat, one of the other reasons I had decided to visit Heather’s Forge for the day.
The Beyoncé CD skipped, and I frowned at the player. I’d pretty much listened to it on repeat since the divorce.
I figured my life was a series of her songs.
I’d been fooled to let that asshole, my college sweetheart, put a ring on it. Then I’d spent years catering to him and finally caught him cheating. The difference here was I’d packed up all my boxes and left instead of throwing him out.
It’d felt wise at the time. After years in a relationship with Bryan, I’d lost myself. I’d lost the will to cook, and that was a big deal for a professional chef. Slumming it in a dirt town, hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Hope Creek was exactly what I needed.
An escape. A way for me to make that lemonade.
A female voice made my phone spring to life. “Recalculating route.”
“Finally,” I yelled as I glanced down at the phone, trying to get my bearings.
I quickly yanked the steering wheel to the right and turned the corner, tires kicking up dust. “To the left, to the left, mmmmm,” I sang as I thought about the cheating bastard I had left behind.
The CD skipped again, mid-line.
“Seriously?” I banged on the dashboard of the old truck, hoping it would help but it didn’t. “I need an upgrade…for my entire fucking life,” I shouted into the air.
Of course, that would mean I’d have to pay for it and cash was at an all-time low thanks to a lack of pre-nup and Bryan taking half of everything I’d had.
He knew he’d screwed up but I honestly didn’t even want to put up a fight for anything. I gave him what he wanted just so I could remove him from my life forever.
The song resumed but Beyoncé’s voice was garbled and hiccupped again.
“Come on,” I said and smacked the dashboard again.
The woman’s voice on my phone interrupted my protest, and I quickly looked down at the map to see my next turn.
I looked up at the road, a quick glance, and my eyes widened.
“Shit!”
I pulled the wheel to the left as I slammed on the brakes but not before seeing a flash of blue and flannel, tanned arms waving, and then a man diving to the side of the road.
My beat-up truck swiped the rear bumper of his truck and then, finally, stopped about forty feet away.
“No, no, no, not happening,” I yelled. A cloud of dust and grit spat up behind me and drifted across my field of view. “Come on, please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.”
I placed my hand on the door handle and glared at the rearview mirror.
The dusty brown cloud cleared and all I saw was an empty dirt road.
“Hello? Are you okay?” I edged out of the truck and slowly walked toward the back of the truck. “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,” I whispered to myself as I walked closer. Each step put me further on edge. “Hello?”
“What the hell? Is this your first day driving?” A half-naked man appeared from behind the truck. He wore tight, dusty jeans with a flannel shirt tied around his waist.
“Oh, my God, thank you, you’re not dead.”
“No, I’m not dead but only because I was paying attention. Obviously, something you weren’t.” He took a deep breath, looked at the bumper of his truck and then back at me. “Are you all right?”
I couldn’t help but stare, half amazed I hadn’t killed him and half amazed at the incredibly fine cowboy I had almost run over.
If Calvin Klein sold flannel shirts, he would have definitely been one of their models, even though he was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and dirt.
The fear of having actually killed someone dissipated slowly, replaced by relief.
“I’m good, I was just… I looked down for a second and…”
“Playing on your phone? A text from the boyfriend?”
“What? Um, no. Hell, no!” I reached over and fixed the strap of my summer dress that had slipped off my shoulder. “I thought I was lost, I was looking at…” I followed his glance from me to the back of his truck and then back to me. Shit. “I’m sorry. But you’re parked in the middle of the road. I… I’ll pay to get it fixed.” I walked closer to him to assess the damage I had caused as my boots crunched in the gravel of the dirt road. The sound was quickly drowned out by the thumping of my heart in my chest. “I just got this job, and it’s probably going to take me a bit to save up to repay you…” I could feel myself rambling.
The hot guy blinked and stared at me. He didn’t say a word.
I finally reached him and, oh, shit, this guy was much hotter up close. Hot enough that I completely forgot I had sworn off men for good. Bryan, my asshole ex-husband, had wiped my desire for romance off the table. How could I care for someone if I didn’t even know how to care for myself?
Or who I was for that matter?
“I don’t care about the money,” the guy said. His voice was melted chocolate on a fudge nut sundae.
“Yeah, right,” I quipped back. “What is it with all of you people in this little town? Everyone is so easy going, like nothing matters...” I lost myself a little as I stared at him, almost willing myself to somehow get mad and blame him for my not paying attention but I couldn’t. I let out a quiet exhale in relief, hoping he was serious about not caring about the money.
“Nope. I don’t care about the money. First, I just wanted to make sure you were okay, which I can see you are… Second, maybe slow down and pay attention, little miss.”
“Wait… did you just… did you just call me little miss?”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “I guess every now and
then the country comes out in me and you haven’t given me your name, yet.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I was kind of in the middle of almost having killed you!” I snapped back.
“Calm down… and as you can see, I’m fine.”
I sucked in deep breaths and looked past him at the massive, old, glinting truck. “What are you doing out here parked in the middle of the road anyway? It’s like 120 degrees out here.”
“Trust me, I know,” he said, and gave a half-smile. “I ran out of gas.” He rolled his eyes. “I guess I fixed everything in that truck except for the gas gauge.”
“I guess so.” I said, my natural sarcastic tone coming out.
“I’ve got to bring a kid to its new owner.”
“I – what? A kid?”
“Yeah, a kid. A baby goat. Not an actual child.” A line of sweat trickled down his oh-so defined abs.
I looked back toward the truck and noticed the small white goat standing in the front seat and then couldn’t help my eyes from darting back to his washboard stomach.
“You probably gave him quite a scare when you hit the back of my truck.”
“Huh?” I gasped and then looked up at his eyes. “Oh, the goat. Yeah, sorry.” I kept drifting back and forth from a bad nightmare to an amazing dream. I wondered when I was going to wake up laughing.
“I need to get Billy down the road.”
“The goat’s name is Billy?”
“Yeah, Billy the Kid.”
I snorted, then blocked it with the back of my hand.
“A smile’s better than all that yelling,” the handsome farmer said.
“I – what’s your name?” I asked.
“Joshua,” he said, and stuck out a hand.
I took it and he dwarfed me. His palm was calloused, too, and nothing like Bryan’s. Ugh, why was I even comparing them?
“I’m Eve,” I said. “I’d say it’s nice to meet you but under the circumstances –”
“It’s a pleasure for me,” he said, and tipped an invisible cowboy hat. He let go of me and jerked his thumb back to the truck. “Think I can borrow that phone of yours?”