Down & Dirty 3_A Shameless Southern Nights Novel

by J. H. Croix

  Down & Dirty #3

  A Shameless Southern Nights Novel

  J.H. Croix

  Ali Parker

  Contents

  1. Jeremy

  2. Marie

  3. Jeremy

  4. Marie

  5. Jeremy

  6. Marie

  7. Jeremy

  8. Marie

  9. Jeremy

  10. Marie

  11. Jeremy

  12. Marie

  13. Jeremy

  14. Marie

  15. Jeremy

  16. Marie

  17. Jeremy

  18. Marie

  19. Jeremy

  20. Marie

  21. Jeremy

  22. Marie

  23. Jeremy

  24. Marie

  25. Jeremy

  Want More??

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Jeremy

  The numbers in front of me blurred. Rubbing my eyes, I tried to refocus, but it was useless. Every time I closed my eyes, even for a blink, I saw Marie’s face flash behind my eyelids.

  Arcadian lay in the corner of my office behind my desk, lifting his head to whimper as if he could read my thoughts and was missing her too.

  Scratching his head, I mumbled. “I feel you, boy. I wish she was here too.”

  The administrative tasks awaiting me this morning weren't interesting. They weren’t nearly enough to keep me from thinking about Marie every other second. Given a choice between sorting out our billing, or thinking about the way her eyes lit up when she was happy, Marie would always win.

  The same could be said for just about everything on my to-do list. I got the work done, but my head wasn't entirely in the game.

  The overhead fan in my office did a little more than move hot air around and sweat dotted my forehead. Combined with my brain's failure to focus on anything other than Marie, if I stayed sitting here, I was going to go mad.

  I had to move. I had to do something.

  "Come on," I called to Arcadian with a whistle. "Let's go see what the boys are getting up to on the Patterson project."

  Arcadian’s nails clicked on the makeshift floor of my site office as he pulled himself up to his full height. Looking like a black beast with his shoulders standing over two feet tall and his head almost to my hip, his appearance was deceptive.

  Arcadian was as docile as they came, trotting over with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Stroking his head, I stepped aside so he could descend the stairs ahead of me. I was locking up when my phone buzzed in the pocket of my shorts.

  Digging it out, I slid my sunglasses over my eyes and whistled to Arcadian to follow me to the truck. I was expecting a message from a guy who was delivering wood for the salon renovation, but I stopped in my tracks when I saw that it wasn't.

  Marie's name blinked at me from the screen, the mere sight of it a kick to the heart. Punching in my passcode with my thumb, I opened the message.

  Marie: Just wanted to pop in to say I miss you.

  I blinked at the words, so simple, yet so effective and so honest. I was still working on the logistics and I'd had half a mind to surprise her but fuck it, she needed something to look forward to as much as I did.

  Me: Miss you too. Planning a visit to Savannah this weekend, how does that sound?

  Bubbles appeared at the top of my screen immediately. Her message popped up a second later.

  Marie: Sounds great. Promise?

  Me: Promise

  "You gonna stand there in this blistering heat texting all day, or are you going somewhere?" my brother Sonny's voice piped up from beside me.

  Lifting my eyes from the screen and pocketing my phone, I found him grinning as he approached. "Actually, I thought this was as good a place as any to get a tan on the back of my neck. What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at work?"

  "Nah, it's my day off. Thought I'd stop by to tell you that Tyson wants you to stop by his office when you find time."

  "Yeah?"

  Tyson, the oldest of our band of five Lovett brothers, was also the District Attorney and was planning on filing charges against Marie's ex for stalking, threatening, and intimidation. As far as I was concerned, he could go ahead and add every other possible crime to that list. "Why didn't he call me directly?"

  Sonny shrugged. "He said he tried and couldn't get through to you. He’s in the process of filing, but he wanted to talk to you first."

  Reaching for my phone again, I scrolled through the calls I'd missed that morning and sure enough, there were two from Tyson. "Shit. Don't know how that happened, I've had my phone near me all morning."

  Sonny raised his eyebrows, giving a pointed look at my phone and then to my office. "Too busy to answer the phone for your brothers now that you own the company?"

  His tone was light and teasing. Pretending to push my sunglasses back into place with my middle finger, I grinned. "It's not only now, it's been that way for years. I'll always be too busy for your gossip."

  Sonny chuckled, shaking his head. "Yeah, because a cop and the District Attorney have nothing better to do with their time than to gossip to and about their brother."

  "You said it, not me," I shot back at him, smirking as my thumb hovered over Tyson's number. "Kidding aside, do you know what he needs? Has there been any more news from the DA in Savannah?"

  Sonny lifted his shoulders in a shrug, pressing his lips together. "No idea. He called me when he couldn't get a hold of you, and I said I'd stop by because I was going to be in the area."

  "Thanks." Apprehension churned in my stomach. Marie’s ex was a tricky fucker to deal with, a scumbag who had zero problems with lying and manipulating the system to get what he wanted and had experienced enough run-ins with the law to know just how to skirt it. "I need to check on the progress at a jobsite, but I’ll stop by his office later this morning. Thanks for dropping by."

  Sonny tipped an imaginary hat at me, his perpetual knowing grin curling his lips. "No worries, man. Marie was good for you. She kept this,"—he waved his hand vaguely toward me—“grumpy, tense asshole at bay. The sooner we get her back for you, the better."

  "What grumpy, tense asshole?" I lifted my brows innocently. "I'm a regular delight."

  Rolling his eyes, he gave me a quick wave as he headed back towards his truck and called, "I think you misunderstood the meaning of the word delight. Invest in a dictionary. See you around."

  "I have a dictionary," I called back, but Sonny didn't turn around. He gave me the finger with his hand lifted above his head and slid into his vehicle. I let it go, looking around for Arcadian. He was lying under a tree nearby, dozing again. "Let's get out of here lazybones. Maybe Uncle Tyson can see about getting Marie and Austin back to us."

  Sonny wasn't wrong, I'd reverted back to my prickly pre-Marie self in the short time since she and her son, Austin, had been forced to move back to Savannah thanks to a court order Wesley had obtained based solely on his malicious lies.

  Marie’s lawyer, Savannah Steele, and Tyson were both convinced Marie would prevail in court. Cranking up the air conditioning and the radio in my truck once Arcadian and I were loaded up, I could only hope that Tyson had good news for me. God knew I was over this waiting game we seemed to be playing with courts.

  Curling my hands around the steering wheel, I headed over to the jobsite to check on the team there. Next stop, Tyson’s office. And then, hopefully, Savannah to bring Marie and Austin home.

  It wasn’t likely to happen today, I knew that. But hey, a guy could
dream, right? I had to hang onto hope. Without it, I’d be chasing down Marie’s ex and making things uglier than necessary.

  Chapter Two

  Marie

  "How was your day, sweetheart?" I asked Austin, meeting his green eyes in the rear view mirror after picking him up from daycare. Since we’d moved back to Savannah a few weeks ago, I could all too easily see the see the difference in him.

  Gone were the days that his eyes were alight with excitement and his heart bubbling over with love for his teacher, his school, or his friends. He was trying to be a good sport about it, but I wasn't fooled.

  “It was okay." His voice was flat, but his lips tipped up into a forced smile. "I miss my preschool though."

  "I know. I'm sorry we had to leave, baby."

  Austin didn't know precisely why we had to leave Cypress Creek, since I didn't want him to worry about the possibility of custody being awarded to Wesley. Seeing Austin so sad over having to leave Cypress and hearing the dejection in his voice broke my heart and sent a rush of anger through me. I was so sick and tired of Wesley doing whatever he could to upend our lives. I could’ve handled it if it were just me, but now he’d pulled Austin smack in the middle by filing for custody. It made me sick.

  I had to uproot our son because of Wesley's need to control me and make sure he called the shots on where I lived and what I did. It was beyond unfair, but it was what it was. For now. He’d done this because he couldn't deal with the fact I'd moved away from Savannah. That and the fact I’d actually met someone who mattered to me. A lot.

  It was still hard for me to believe I’d met someone. I’d let go of the idea of romance years ago. Though I’d struggled to accept how much Jeremy appeared to care about me, even I couldn't deny anymore that whatever was between us was more than a moment of heat. The chemistry we had was so real, it nearly set me aflame. The more time we’d spent together, the tighter the intimacy wove between us. Even though it had only been a few months since we’d connected, I couldn't imagine my life, or my future, without him in it now.

  It wasn't something I'd ever expected to feel. With Jeremy, everything just felt right. Like he was it for me.

  I used to think the idea of love was a bunch of bullshit. My own parents hadn’t exactly been a stellar example for me. My father had mostly raised me on his own and was steady as a rock. Yet, my mother had bounced in and out of our lives as she struggled with the demons of addiction. I’d gone on to get snowed by Wesley when I was too young to know better. It wasn’t as if Wesley started out as a controlling, abusive boyfriend. No, rather, he’d been charming and endearing at first. It was only after I was in too deep, pregnant and scrambling to keep my head above water with the business of life that I came to see who he truly was behind the nice guy façade. Once it dropped, he never bothered to charm me again.

  My hopes that the distance between Wesley and me would get his focus off of me had gone up in smoke. He’d followed us to Cypress Creek and then gotten crazy with his threats again once I started seeing Jeremy.

  Yet, despite all of that, Jeremy had stood by me. He was so there for me, I hardly knew what to do with it. All of that made it even harder to be away from him.

  Austin missed Jeremy too. I wondered what he was thinking about as he stared out of his window watching the trees roll by on our way home. "Are you thinking about all the new things you learned today?"

  Austin shrugged and slid his eyes to mine in the rear view mirror for just a second before training them on the trees again. "Not really. A lot of the stuff we're doing now is stuff I already learned in Cypress."

  Dammit. I felt like pounding my steering wheel in frustration. Austin had been in preschool in Cypress Creek, but where he was now was only a straight up daycare. The places that offered preschool in Savannah were a lot more expensive, and I couldn't afford them.

  Just another reminder of how selfish Wesley was, that he would mess with his own child's education only to get back at me. It was a living nightmare. Every time these thoughts ran laps in my mind, I had to remember it wasn’t worth it to let Wesley take up so much of my mental energy.

  Pulling up outside of the apartment where we were staying, I parked the car in the shade of one of the big trees. While the area we were staying was pretty with the canopy of trees arching over the street and old houses that looked straight out of a historical romance novel, our apartment itself was tiny and cramped. We lived on the second floor of an old historical home in a small two-bedroom apartment. My boss back in Cypress Creek had helped me scout it down.

  "Wash up before dinner, okay?" I asked as Austin and I trudged up the worn, wooden steps to our apartment. I hadn’t wanted to sign a long-term lease, so my options for rentals had been limited.

  "Sure thing, Mom." He nodded, letting his backpack slide down his arm and land with a thud on the floor once we stepped through our front door. "I'll be right back."

  Heading to the bigger of the two bedrooms, which I'd let him have so we'd be able to fit his toys, his little shoulders were slumped as he disappeared from view. I sighed, running my hands through my hair before turning to make sure the door was locked.

  Double and triple checking our door had become something of a habit for me. I was so on edge about Wesley. As he'd done before I'd moved away, he tried stopping by a few times since we'd been back.

  I could only assume he'd gotten our new address from the court papers. It was unsettling that despite the pending litigation between us, he was still so brazen about showing up whenever he wanted. The first time it happened, I'd phoned my attorney back in Cypress immediately.

  Savannah had advised me to file a protective order against him to stop it from happening. I did as she said, but it hadn't deterred him, and he'd violated it several times already. Also as she'd advised, I called the cops every time he violated it, but he was always gone by the time they got here. Apparently, my word wasn't enough evidence that the order had been violated. It was beyond frustrating to me we were still waiting for a court date to modify the order that had forced me to return to Savannah. My attorney had filed for an expedited hearing, but Wesley’s attorney had opposed it. The family court docket in Savannah stayed busy, which didn’t help matters with scheduling.

  Frustration and that irritating sense of helplessness that followed me around when it came to Wesley nagged at me. I huffed to my small bedroom, wishing there was a damn thing I could do about my situation.

  Throwing myself onto my bed, I closed my eyes to try and clear my mind. My silent temper tantrum wasn't going to change a thing, but it was the only outlet I had. The room was so small, my bed took up most of it, my dresser drawers only able to open half way.

  Austin and I always stayed in relatively small places since that was the best I could afford, but this was ridiculous. The apartment was hot and humid, and I had to fight back tears as once again the reality of my situation hit me.

  I'd lived in Savannah for over six years, but I didn’t have many friends here. I was essentially alone. Wesley had done a fine job of driving every friend I'd ever made away. While some were sympathetic, they also had no desire to get involved. If it hadn’t been for Sarah, my boss in Cypress Creek, hooking me up with a friend of hers here who needed temp work at her salon, I’d be flat broke.

  Moving back to Cypress Creek had been like injecting new life into Austin and me. We'd both made friends, new and old. For a while there, I'd stupidly let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, Wesley would let me move on. No such luck.

  Just like Austin, I missed Cypress and the life we were making there for ourselves. Most of all, I missed Jeremy. Missing him was a visceral ache in my heart. Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes, but then Austin called for me. It was time to quit my impromptu pity party and make dinner.

  "How about I make some spaghetti?" I asked, walking into our kitchenette. It was little more than a counter with space for a small fridge, a sink and a stove.

  Austin brightened up a little. "That's my fav
orite."

  "That's why I think we should have it." I smiled, wanting to do whatever small things I could to make this easier on him. "Do you want to get out our plates while I start cooking?"

  He nodded and carefully went about his task while I prepared our meal. Since we didn't have space for a dining room table, we ate our quiet dinner at the kitchen counter, both lost in thought.

  "Your show is about to start," I told him, referring to the comedy show he watched every night in the half an hour of TV time he had before bed. "You run along, I'll be right there."

  “Okay.” Scrambling from the kitchen, he skidded on his socks as he rounded the corner on the old wooden floors in our apartment and clicked the TV on, the happy voices of the characters floating to my ears soon after.

  Austin fell asleep on the couch before his show ended. I carried him to bed before returning to the couch, trying to find some kind of mindless entertainment that might lull me to sleep as well. I was flipping through channels when my phone started ringing and I grabbed it, silencing the ringer before it woke Austin.

  My heart melted at the picture of Jeremy that came up on my phone. It was one taken one day in the park back in Cypress when Jeremy had come to watch one of Austin's tee-ball practices. Jeremy had Austin on his back in the photo and they were both wearing wide smiles.

  Seeing that picture and having Jeremy call made my day. Sliding my thumb across the green prompt, I answered eagerly. "I was just thinking about you."

  "Yeah?" His voice was low, lazy. It sent shivers down my spine and I relaxed into the couch. "What were you thinking?"