Wild Card
(Alaska Wild Nights Book 4)
Tiffinie Helmer
Copyright © 2018 by Tiffinie Helmer
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 Adam Mclain of amclain.com
Cover design by Kelli Ann Morgan of Inspire Creative Services
Created with Vellum
My baby is having a baby!
When I started this series, I had no idea that I would be most like my character, Jack Wilde. Art, it seems, really does imitate life. Surprise, surprise, my youngest child, Tess Helmer-Reid, announced that she is going to make me a grandmother by the end of the year.
I’ll be a grandparent before Jack will!
Just like Zoe in Wild Card, Tess was a huge surprise for me and her dad. We thought we were finished having children, but she snuck in there and our lives wouldn’t be the same without this beautiful, brilliant, and spirited daughter. She’s going to make the best mother.
Tess, this book is for you. There is nothing like the love between a mother and a child, which you are about to experience for yourself, and I couldn’t be happier for you (and me). I love you more than you will ever know.
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt thanks goes out to my Facebook Street Team, Tiff’s Wild Readers, for their continuing support in suggesting business names for my fictional town of Heartbreak, Alaska.
And thanks to Barb Blanc and Kathy Evans for putting up with me. I know I’m a handful.
Special mention goes to the following: Charles Allen for suggesting the Justice of the Peace of Heartbreak be called Amore the Merrier. I sure had a chuckle over that and how it came to you after a few glasses of wine. Nisa James, Kami Reyes, Heather Horrocks, Roberta Finkbonner, DawnRay Ammon, Tamye Davis Whitener, and Teresa Schmitt Beam thanks for answering my questions on how to design your own fabrics.
This group is such an amazing collection of creative and fun people. You guys ROCK!
Contents
Prologue
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
Preview of Wild Ride (Alaska Wild Nights Book 5)
Chapter 1
About the Author
Also by Tiffinie Helmer
Prologue
“This can’t be good,” Avery Dawson said, setting down two beers in front of Jack Wilde, Heartbreak’s notorious matchmaking father, and Vance Hunter, retired state trooper and celebrated true crime author. “What are you two up to?”
“Now, why is it, Dawson, every time you see me in the Pump House these days, you think I’m up to something?” Jack asked, his tone innocent enough, but he couldn’t do anything about the crafty twinkle in his eyes that he knew gave him away.
“Because you’re always up to something.” Avery glanced from Jack to Vance. “You aren’t seriously thinking of setting up Zoe with Trip, are you?”
Vance shifted on his seat, looking guilty, the leather of the booth squeaking under him. “You have to admit. Those kids would make a great pair.”
“Zoe’s only nineteen,” Dawson said, giving him an incredulous stare.
“She’s almost twenty,” Jack tried to justify. “I was nineteen when I married my lovely Nicola and she’d just turned eighteen. Love isn’t constrained by age. And besides, my Wild Card has always been older than her years.” His expression darkened, remembering why. Losing her mother at the young age of nine forced her to grow up way too soon. His children had seen such heartache, watching their mother fade away day by day, suffering each and every one of those days, until it was more a relief when her spirit had flown into the ether. He missed her every minute since she’d been forced to leave him.
“This might be your hardest challenge yet,” Avery said. “Trip looks at Zoe like a little sister. Then there’s the fact that he’s best friends with Ryder and Dare. No man worth his salt would dare poach on the younger sister of his best friends.”
Luke Waterman swiveled around in the neighboring booth. “Wait a doggone minute. You can’t hook Zoe up with Trip, she’s dating my boy.” Luke slid his considerable frame from the booth and planted himself next to Avery, towering over Avery’s height of six-two. “If you’re playing matchmaker—and I have to commend you, Jack, with what you’ve pulled off with Sorene, Cat, and Kennadee is the stuff of legends—who ever thought Kennadee would settle down, am I right?” He elbowed Avery. “But I have hope Derek will drag that little girl of yours to the altar. He’s completely smitten with her.”
Jack frowned. “Zoe and Derek are dating?” This was the first he’d heard of it. He thought they were just friends.
“On and off. I don’t want to say anything bad about your girl, there, but she does tend to string men along.”
“That she does,” Jack agreed. Another reason he needed to find a man worthy of her. Hopefully, if she fell in love, love would help her focus on what was really important to her, rather than giving into her impulsiveness at every turn.
“Hey,” Vance broke in. “Trip is the ideal man for Zoe, not Derek. Derek’s still a boy.”
“You did not just say that,” Luke said, narrowing his eyes.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Vance said quickly. Luke had a reputation of bashing heads to get his point across. “Just that, haven’t Zoe and Derek been more like friends most of their lives?”
“Sure have,” Luke said. “They’re the same age, have a ton of things in common. Why, I heard that Derek is even helping Zoe on her little project.”
That little project had been a bone of contention with Jack. Zoe had taken over Sorene’s and Cat’s bedrooms, even going so far as installing locks on the doors to keep the curious members of the Wilde Clan out, which meant most of them, until she was ready to reveal what she was up to.
“Jack, here, just said that love isn’t constrained by age,” Luke continued, “which I totally agree with. Been married to the missus since we were twenty-one, and still going strong with thirty years under our belt. I’ve got a brood of five kids to prove it. How many do you have, Vance?”
“Hey, that’s not fair. The amount of kids a man has doesn’t have any bearing on his marriage. Right, Jack?”
“Well…” Jack began, hoping to smooth over the conversation, but then he was the father of seven, beating Luke’s five, and Vance had been married twice and divorced twice with only Trip to show for the unions.
“Jack,” Avery said. “You, my future father-in-law, have a problem.”
Didn’t he know it. Two suitors vying for Zoe. Oh, boy. He knew she’d be a challenge, but he’d never considered this.
“There’s no problem here,” Vance blustered. “Trip is the right man for Zoe.”
Luke puffed his chest out like a penguin. “We’ll just have to see about that. My money is on my boy beating out yours.”
“I’ll take that bet,” Vance said.
Jack brought his beer up to his mouth and drank deeply. Figuring out the right suitor for his Wild Card’s heart was go
ing to be the trickiest poker hand he’d ever played.
Chapter 1
“Trip Hunter, you’re going to marry me someday.”
The words Zoe Wilde whispered to him when she was fourteen played over and over in his mind as he watched, shocked down to his soul, as she stripped on the seedy stage of Ticker Tavern, where he currently sat in the shadows on a mission to ferret out a pair of low-level drug dealers.
What the hell was she doing working here?
There was no way her family knew what she was up to. Ryder and Dare—his best friends since grade school—would drag her home by her hair if they had a clue she was currently clad in a fire-engine-red halter top and Harley Quinn boy shorts, strapped in high heels that would surely break her neck. Even with her face heavily painted, the Texas beauty pageant blond wig, and gold glitter covering her skin, he’d recognize that siren’s body anywhere.
He had to get her down from there before she revealed any more of her centerfold attributes. Attributes that he’d tried to deny she had after they seemed to develop overnight when she’d turned sixteen.
He had a bro code he had to uphold with her brothers—no matter how much she tempted him to toss it into the recycle bin.
She gyrated seductively across the stage, her hips undulating to the beat of Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def Leppard.
How does she move like that?
His mouth dry, he struggled to swallow, wishing for a fleeting second that he could pour some sugar on her and lick each granule off her golden body.
He had to get her off that stage before she uncovered any more skin.
Her fingers teased the knot of her halter top, and he shot to his feet. Hoots and hollers encouraged her to, “Take it off, baby! Show Daddy some skin!”
Pushing through the thickening wall of bodies crowding the tiny platform, he vaulted onto the stage and grabbed Zoe by the arm.
“What the hell are you doing?” Zoe struggled in his grasp, surprised, yet, instead of being ashamed at being caught stripping, she seemed pissed.
Pissed at him.
“Whatcha doin’, man?” someone in the crowd yelled. “She’s about to show us her sweet titties.”
“She just retired,” Trip fired back, taking Zoe’s arm with the intention of getting her backstage as fast as he could. He didn’t want a riot to break out, and with the discontent getting louder and louder as he tried dragging her off stage, he knew it would only take a match to ignite them.
Zoe resisted and planted her high heels. “So, help me, Trip, if you don’t let me go, I’ll—”
He didn’t give her a chance to finish her threat. Bending down, he tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. The force of his action caused the air to whoosh out of her, but it didn’t take her long to start beating at his back with her fists. He wrapped his arm around her calves to keep her from using those wicked heels against him.
He hurried with her backstage, through a dressing room with a couple of other girls in various phases of undress. A bruiser of a bouncer tried to intercept him. Trip reached into his pocket and produced his badge, and the bouncer stepped aside, opening the backdoor of the tavern for him.
Ignoring Zoe’s heightening threats, Trip didn’t stop until he reached his truck. Unlocking it, he opened the door and dumped her onto the bench seat. Anticipating her kicking out at him, he planted his hands on her legs to keep her knife-like stilettos from connecting with anything important, mainly his groin which she’d obviously marked as her immediate target.
“Don’t try it, Zoe,” he growled. “Not unless you want me to arrest you for assaulting an officer.”
“Wouldn’t you have to identify yourself as such when you restrained me? You’re not in uniform, and what the hell are you doing sulking in a strip joint? Having trouble getting your jollies off?”
He growled again. “Do you have any idea how much danger you put yourself in? Someone needs to teach you a lesson.”
“Right, like you’re going to do it? You’re not man enough to even try.”
Oh, how he wanted to show her he was definitely man enough for the job.
Good hell, how did she do it? She’d always known how to push his buttons. Ever since they were kids, and he’d be off with her brothers, she would trail them everywhere they went. When she’d come into her feminine wiles—she seemed to be a master at wrapping men in knots from day one—she’d made it her business to torment him at every turn.
They stared at each other for a pregnant minute before he broke eye contact.
She scoffed at him. “I knew it.”
“I’m taking you home.” Let Jack Wilde deal with her, or Ryder and Dare. That would teach her.
“No, you’re not. I still have three hours of my shift to finish.”
“Consider yourself finished. You no longer work here. Shit, I can’t believe you ever worked here. How long have you been taking your clothes off for money?” The thought sickened him. More so because he really wanted to see her without her clothes. What kind of hypocrite did that make him?
“My life, and what I do with it, is none of your business.”
“The hell it isn’t. You’re my best friends’ baby sister.”
“I am not a baby. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m all grown up.”
He’d been trying not to realize that for years now. His eyes dipped to her impressive cleavage pushed up by the halter top. The red color of the halter seemed to tempt him the way a bull fighter’s cape teased a bull. His nostrils flared. “You might be grown up, but you aren’t making wise decisions. Do you have any idea the statistics for women working in places like this?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Not from where I’m standing.” Trip slid her legs over and got into the driver’s seat.
“What are you doing?”
“I said, I’m taking you home.”
“I can’t go home like this. My clothes and purse are inside, you dimwit. And my car is here.”
He struggled with what to do.
If he left her alone in his truck while he retrieved her items, she’d bolt. He knew it by the challenging cock of her eyebrow. He reached into his back pocket, grabbed her wrist, and had her cuffed to his steering wheel before she had a clue what he was about.
She gaped open-mouthed at him. “Seriously?”
“I don’t trust you to stay put while I grab your stuff.” He had to admit, he was enjoying the moment. Having her cuffed thrilled him more than he wanted to investigate.
He got out of the truck and slammed the door behind him, laughing at her threats and curses.
He had to give it to her, she had a colorful vocabulary. Let her stew. Maybe a few minutes alone would do her good. He knew it would help him because any more time in her company, dressed in that getup, he was afraid of what he might do.
Something stupid like kiss that pouty mouth of hers.
Chapter 2
Zoe rattled the cuff bracketing her to Trip’s steering wheel.
Oh, he was going to pay, and pay big.
How dare he?
She had every right to strip at Ticker Tavern if she wanted to. The injustice of Trip grabbing and carrying her out of there the way he did, grated. Even though part of her thrilled over how he’d easily picked her up, thrown her over his shoulder, and hadn’t even been winded when he’d tossed her onto the seat of his truck.
Somehow, she needed to talk him out of taking her home like some wayward teenager. Her dad and brothers couldn’t be informed of what she was doing. Trip’s reaction would be nothing compared to theirs.
She worried her bottom lip.
If she could only get out of the cuffs before he returned…
She fished under her wig for a bobby pin. Finding one, she went to work. They made picking cuffs look easy in the movies. Surely, she could figure it out. It wasn’t like she hadn’t picked a lock before. She bit the little plastic nubs off the ends of the bobby pin and spit them out onto the
floorboards.
Luckily, summer had arrived, and even though it was close to midnight, the sun shone bright enough to illuminate the cab of the truck. In the dark, she didn’t know if she would be able to do it. Thank heavens for the midnight sun.
Straightening the bobby pin, she maneuvered one of the ends into the lock. Within a few minutes, the lock released.
Wow, that was easier than it should be.
Smirking, she fished her wrist free and went to open the passenger door, then she stopped, thinking.
If she left, where would she go? Return to work and have Trip come after her again? Her father liked to repeat that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. So, obviously not that.
She didn’t have the keys to her car, and by now Trip would have her bag. It was taking him longer to return than it should have. She wondered briefly if the crowd inside had turned on him.
Should she go back in there and rescue his sorry ass?
The decision to do anything was taken out of her hands when the back door of the tavern banged open and Trip strode purposely toward the truck parked in the back corner by the trees.
He looked good. Better than good. The fluttering in her belly started up again like it always did when in his vicinity. Blessed with imposing height, taller than her brothers’ six feet two inches by a few inches, packed with muscle that didn’t bulk enough to slow down his wicked reflexes, he moved confidently with a hip-rolling stride that had women of all ages sighing with appreciation whenever he walked by.
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