READY, WILLING AND ABEL
Sarah O’Rourke
Passion in Paradise Series
The Men of the McKinnon Sisters
Book Three
Table of Contents
Dedication
Sarah’s Links
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
The Homespun Holiday Sneak Peek
Dedication
Dedicated to Crazy One ... from Crazy Two. Thank you for writing this story that I lived when I was pregnant with Bunny. You captured the emotions and drama perfectly, and I love you dearly, sister! Thank you for living through that time with me and not locking me in the closet when I lost my mind (much like Patience, I believe.) Love, Crazy Two
Copyright © 2015 by Sarah O’Rourke
All rights reserved. No part of this publication or cover design artwork may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods in current use or to be developed in the future, without the prior express written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law (US. Copyright Act of 1976).
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and settings are fictitious, and are the sole property of Sarah O’Rourke. Any resemblance to actual events, names, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any real setting, person, or situation is used in a fictitious manner with literary license.
This work of fiction is intended for mature audiences.
If you steal our work, we’ll sic our Mommas on you. Crazy One’s Momma will hunt you down and make you pay in blood. Crazy Two’s Momma will pray “for” you. And trust us...you won’t win when she goes to the Almighty. And if that doesn’t scare you, please be advised that we have an attorney on retainer who will sue you. Don’t risk it. This is us, being there for you.
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Chapter One
Present
She was well aware that this was not her proudest moment.
Wedged between her toilet and tub, Patience McKinnon sat on the mosaic-tiled floor of her tiny bathroom and stared at the seemingly benign white stick she held pinched between her fingers. She prayed for the tiny display to remain unchanged and, therefore and forever after, harmless to her mental health.
She didn’t have much hope in the process, though.
After all, she’d just finally realized after four long weeks of feeling like death on a cracker every morning and missing that special time of the month that something might be horribly wrong. She’d tried to chalk it up to overwork, fatigue, stress, medication, a stomach virus, and even some strange form of food poisoning...but her sanity had finally prevailed over her denial and forced her to consider the truth. The truth that was apparently staring her straight in the face.
Biting her full lower lip as she squinted, she held her breath. Moaning piteously as the familiar faint, but unmistakable, pink “plus sign” appeared behind the plastic window, she thumped her head against the wall. “Nonononono,” she whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut as she clutched the stick in her hand. This could not be happening to her.
Finally cracking one eyelid and taking another wary look at the stick again, Patience’s moan turned into a full-on wail. The result of that stupid test had not changed despite the power of positive thinking! That was an inarguable pink “plus sign” again. And that could only mean one thing. “This is not happening! Fuck you, EPT! Fuck you!” she spat, dropping the most recent test next to the eleven others that lined the edge of the tub – every single one of them mocking her with their positive results.
Rifling through the empty plastic water bottles and pregnancy test directions littering the floor, she searched for the plastic bag that held the unused pregnancy tests. Finally gripping the blue and white Clearblue Easy box in her hand, she yanked it out of the sack, throwing the plastic aside. Staring down at the cardboard in her hand, she swallowed. Hard.
EPT had done her wrong. First Response had let her down. Answer had left her with only more questions. And AccuClear was obviously confused.
Clearblue Easy was her last hope. Her only hope.
Tearing at the box’s flaps, she dumped the white stick in her hand and stared at it. “Okay,” she whispered, taking some deep breaths as she stared down at the innocuous piece of plastic. “Here it is,” she continued, speaking to the stick like it was a sentient being. “I’m not mother material. Ask anybody. My sisters. My niece. My pastor. My ob-gyn, for cripes sake. He’ll tell you! He’ll shout it from the rooftop. I am not the type of human being that should breed. Ever!”
Taking another deep breath, she lifted the stick to eye level. “See, there are two teams facing off in this bathroom right now. Your compatriots,” she said, jerking her thumb toward the line of positive pregnancy tests, “They’re all on Team Baby. Don’t know why. Obviously they didn’t do their research about me and my minimal maternal instincts. And by minimal, I mean non-existent. I kill plants. Goldfish are goners in my care. When I was a kid, I had a cat. It put me up for adoption. My fault, too, I guess. I didn’t exactly share anything other than a golden shower with your friends over there,” Patience noted, nodding toward the tub. “My bad. I should have been more forthcoming. But you…you, I’m giving respect. I’m being upfront and forthright about all the pertinent facts. That’s why you need to be on Team Barren. Team Barren is all about population control and keeping women that should not be mothers in any universe from bringing small people into the world that will be dependent on them for every whim and whimper. In my world, an empty womb is a happy womb. So, I want you to ignore the peer pressure from your pregnancy pals over here,” she demanded, sweeping a hand toward the neat row of tests on the ceramic ledge of the tub as she pled her case with a passion that would make any judge proud. “Stand firm in the face of adversity. Sometimes being negative is a positive for all parties involved!”
Staring at the white stick a moment longer, Patience shook her head as she realized that she was, indeed, losing it. Hell, she’d lost it that night three months ago when she said, ‘Yes, please!’ rather than ‘Hell, no!”
Such was the influence that Abel Turner could wield when he set his devious mind to something.
The fact that
the attorney possessed a wickedly talented tongue not only inside the confines of the courtroom but also out of it hadn’t hurt where his seduction scheme had been concerned, either.
Oh, he’d gotten his “do-over” with her three months ago, proving without a doubt that his penis possessed magical powers – so much so that it appeared he’d impregnated her!
Unless a dozen tests were wrong. There was still a chance they could all be wrong, wasn’t there?
Of course there was!
Dropping her gaze back to the one untaken exam she had left, she squared her shoulders.
“Lucky number 13,” she muttered, climbing back to her feet and moving to the toilet. “Don’t fail me now.” Quickly, she did her business, setting the seemingly harmless stick on the sink to wait the mandatory three minutes for a result. Flushing the commode and rinsing her hands, she stared at her pale reflection in the mirror and wondered how this was happening to her. How could one tiny piece of plastic have the power to totally upend her entire world?
She was careful, dammit; she’d been on the all-powerful birth control pill since she was sixteen-years-old. Not that she’d needed it. Nope. Like any good Girl Scout, she’d just wanted to be prepared. Contrary to popular belief, she wasn’t easy. People just assumed that somebody as outspoken and opinionated about sex as she was would naturally be actually indulging in America’s favorite pastime.
Their mistake. She just never bothered correcting them. She had better things to do with her time than trying to convince the masses that she was living the life of a chaste nun. It wasn’t their business, anyway.
For her part, she’d always been so selective about who she invited into her vagina; it was infuriatingly mystifying how she had absolutely no input as to who came out of it. Hell, despite her diversified dating history, she’d only ever asked exactly one man to partake in a bite of her cookie.
One freaking man!
Sure, she’d extended the invitation two times. But in her defense, the first time had been a complete dud. She’d been a virgin and he’d been - for lack of a better word - disappointing. Her first sexual experience had been awkward, uncomfortable and yeah – you guessed it – a dud. He’d been drunk. She had been a novice. And things…. well, they just had gone downhill from there. Oh well, live and learn, right?
Wrong.
She hadn’t learned. Not even a little bit.
She’d stupidly allowed the man that had oh-so-poorly initiated her rockin’ body to sex to have a second chance between the sheets. And just look where that bright idea had landed her lush ass.
That’s right, folks! In the middle of pregnancy-infested waters!
Although, she had to admit that Abel Turner had made up in spades for that first lackluster intimate dance they had shared three years ago. A mere twelve-and-a-half weeks ago, thanks to indulging in a little too much Cuervo Gold on her part and Abel partaking in a shade too much Jack Daniels on his part, Patience had allowed him to convince her that giving him a do-over was the only fair thing to do. She was choosing to blame her idiocy on the tequila and her hormones. Meanwhile, the asshat she’d slept with thought it was his mad skills on the mattress that had changed her mind.
Either way, the second time they’d done the horizontal mambo had yielded her more than her fair share of orgasms. Seven of them to be exact. (The aforementioned asshat of the evening had kept close count.)
Unfortunately, that oh-so-freaking-special night together had also produced another more unforeseen result as well.
Unless Lucky #13 said differently, she reminded herself hopefully as she sank back to her spot between the toilet and the tub to wait out the result. She eyed the test stick nervously while tapping her fingers against the tiled floor. Leaning her head against the wall, she sighed and remembered the path she’d taken that had led her here.
Chapter Two
Three teeny, tiny months earlier
It was official. Abel Turner had arrived in hell.
And wasn’t he just the luckiest son of a bitch ever to have his own personal devil in a blue dress tormenting him upon his arrival?
As he leaned against the back wall closest to the door in the darkened bar and watched his own special little Satan undulating her unholy body to the thumping beat of the country song blasting from the sound system’s speakers, he pondered how he had reached this oh-so-low valley in his life. He was also wondering if anybody else knew that the Devil had gorgeous tits and a rocking ass, but that was beside the point.
The shittiest part of all was that he knew he was sitting in a hell of his own fucking making.
And didn’t that just suck monkey dick?
Abel’s jaw tightened automatically and his gaze narrowed dangerously as he watched Patience McKinnon’s current dance partner splay his hand across her flat belly and pull her closer, curling his body around her back in a maneuver that indicated he was interested in doing a hell of a lot more with her than sharing an innocent dance. “Fucker has a death wish,” Abel muttered under his breath as the hand not holding his beer curled into a fist while he watched the bastard rock his groin against Patience’s ass in time to the beat of the music.
He knew only one thing for certain. If the damn song blaring from the jukebox didn’t end soon and bring a halt to his current misery, he was going to kill a son of a bitch tonight. It was a bona fide guarantee.
Abel knew his flinty grey eyes burned with fever-bright intensity when Patience’s gaze swung in his direction, her eyes colliding with his own. Then, the little she-demon smiled at him, her hot-pink lips tilting up in a self-satisfied smirk that clearly conveyed to him that she knew exactly what she was doing to him…and that she was enjoying the results immensely.
This was entirely his own fault, he reminded himself again for the fortieth time as he stiffly nodded toward her, lifting his longneck bottle of beer toward her in silent salute.
He’d fucked up with her. Royally.
Multiple times. In many, many ways.
And the biggest of which was three years ago when he’d slept with Patience while he’d been too drunk to appreciate what he’d held in his arms.
But, if that wasn’t enough, he’d hugely screwed up again a few weeks ago when he hadn’t told her exactly how damn much she’d mattered to him after she’d been shot in the arm by her dickhead of an ex-brother-in-law, the now dead Tanner Suarez. Inwardly shuddering as he remembered how her warm, sticky blood had coated his shaking hands as he’d pressed them to the hole in her arm, he let his eyes linger on her, relishing the fact that she was whole and safe even if she was shaking her ass in another man’s arms. Just the memory of all Harmony’s ex-husband had done to not only Patience, but her sisters, too, was enough to make Abel wish the bastard was alive again so that he could kill him with his bare hands.
Abel knew he should be satisfied with the punishments that had already been meted out to the fucker, but it was hard when he still wanted to deliver his own kind of personal justice. As it was, not only had Honor stabbed Tanner twice before he died, but the bastard had been filled with bullet holes from no less than four different guns. The guy had it coming. Tanner was responsible for more McKinnon misery than Abel wanted to think about. Tanner had beaten Harmony throughout their marriage, been responsible for leading the gang rape of Patience’s youngest sister, Honor, six years ago, and put a bullet in Patience just a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah, nobody had exactly been crying over his worthless carcass. The only thing Abel was pissed over was the fact that he hadn’t gotten to plant a bullet in the bastard, too.
Abel let out a deep breath as he focused on the sway of Patience’s hips as she danced just a few feet away from him, calming as he watched her firm ass move to the beat.
And damn, what a fine ass it was. Attempting to adjust his jeans as inconspicuously as he could, his jaw clenched as she grinned slyly at him. The damn woman hadn’t missed a thing. She was aware of the exact effect she had on him and his rioting body.
It was a happy day, after all. Despite nearly being killed by her dirtbag of an ex-husband and facing down Diego Fuentes, undoubtedly one of the deadliest drug dealers of the decade, Harmony McKinnon – otherwise known as the eldest McKinnon sister- looked radiant. Now engaged to be married to former DEA badass Jake Stone, she stood in the corner talking to her wedding dress designer, Violet Houston. She looked happy, and Abel knew that she deserved it. After being married to an abusive asshole and surviving the trouble that he’d brought back to her life over the last few months, Harmony had finally found her little slice of bliss.
Watching as his sister-in-law and the second of the four McKinnon sisters, Faith, joined their conversation, Abel’s grin became an outright smile. With her hand resting on her still-flat stomach, Faith was the picture of a happily expectant mother. She and his twin brother, Cain, were gleefully anticipating the birth of their first child in seven months, and Abel knew the even-tempered woman would make a wonderful mother. He still wasn’t sure who was happier to hear the news...Cain or him. All he was certain of was that he couldn’t wait to spoil his niece or nephew. After what his brother had endured during his deployment to Afghanistan, Abel prayed that their coming child would chase the last of the shadows from Cain’s eyes. Cain would carry the scars he had on his body for the rest of his life, but with the love of his wife and child, Abel hoped that those marks on his soul would fade.
Sifting through the sea of faces gathered to celebrate Harmony’s happy occasion, Abel’s eyes finally found the youngest McKinnon wedged in a booth between Zeke Monroe, the town Sheriff, and Maggie Winstead, Abel’s own paralegal and quasi-sister. Of all the sisters, Honor most closely resembled Patience in physical appearance. Petite with delicate features that included a set of big, bottomless blue eyes that a guy could easily get lost in, it was obvious by her frown that she was barely tolerating the crowd. Or, maybe, it was her proximity to Zeke that was putting that frown on her pretty face. Either way, Abel sympathized with her current predicament – mostly because he shared in the agony. Being trapped around a bunch of gleeful partygoers when you’d really rather be anywhere else simply sucked. And Honor was the one person that almost everybody in the bar would die to protect.
Ready, Willing and Abel (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnon Sisters Book 3) Page 1