All Mine: The Complete Series Box Set

by Lauren Wood

  “You said that you don’t take back promises.”

  “I don’t, so when I say that, you will know that I am telling the truth. I am going to figure this out and I will be back here in a couple of hours.”

  I didn’t want him to leave. He was the only light I had seen in this particular tunnel in some time and I wanted him to stay and talk to me. I felt like I was missing that human connection. Not just that, but there was something about the man that appealed to me. Even in the midst of all of this, surrounding by such complicated circumstances, I had wanted him to stay just because I wanted to be around him. Sad, strange and even more confusing than all of the rest of the emotions running through me.

  But he left and I was left to ponder all of what he had said. I didn’t know what the charges were that kept me here, but even in my worst nightmare it wouldn’t have anything to do with killing my best friend. I didn’t even want to think about something happening to Carol. I knew that it was obvious something had happened, but I have no idea what. I knew that she was not there when I woke up, but my heart told me that Rico knew where she was and what happened to her.

  I tried to remember all that I could, but each thought left me quickly. I swear that it was because I hadn’t eaten in so long. I was just going to have to wait for my lawyer to come back. I was more worried at the minute about if I was going to get some dinner, far more than I was worried about what my legal strategy was going to be. I could only think of the short term at the moment because the long term was just too impossible to fathom.

  It felt like hours before Sam came back, but he came back. He didn’t have much good news to bring me, no easy fix as it were, but he did bring me food and at the moment I was far more interested in that, then anything else.

  The sweet talking man with the sexy smile was just going to have to wait.

  Chapter 4

  Sam

  She was starving. I could tell by the way she was only interested in food. So I let her eat while I talked to her jailers about her accommodations and maybe bringing some more things in there with her. The poor young woman was lying on a bed that was mainly dirt with a little bit of straw mixed in. I had a feeling that it was there to soak up the moisture as half of the ceiling was spider-webbed with cracks that I was sure would leak. It was appalling to me and it made me realize how insane it was for people back home to complain. This was no place for any human to be, let alone such a beautiful young girl.

  I wanted to know how Meri and Ashlyn knew each other. There was obviously an age difference, but I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know much about Meri, but she was now my client and information was power. The more I knew about Meri Ellin, the better I would be able to defend her when it came time to go to court.

  When I got back, she had tidied up the plates and wrappers. Everything was gone and I was surprised such a small woman could eat all of that so quickly.

  “Are you ready to talk to me Meri? We don’t have a lot of time. I need you to tell me everything that you remember, no matter how unrelated it may appear, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t significant in the long run, so I need it all, unedited.”

  She shrugged and told me that it wasn’t a problem. Meri was so sure of herself, but it didn’t take long into questioning to get that she wasn’t as calm and cool as she would have liked to have been. She was so focused on the guy name Rico that had popped up out of nowhere and I was inclined to think that way as well. But there was no proof on either count. It was all speculative and I was hoping that the lack of proof was what was going to get us out of this mess.

  “So what did you do after you left the club?”

  “I don’t know. I just remember dancing at the club and having a few drinks. The next thing I know, I am waking up in my bed at the hotel alone. Carol was nowhere around and I went outside to see if she was getting a morning swim before we left and there were cops everywhere. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, so I just went with them. What else was I supposed to do?”

  “This is a problem, this not remembering. You were most likely given something when you were drinking at the club. There are many things that can be slipped into a drink undetected that can put a woman of your size out quite easily.”

  She didn’t like what I was saying to her, like she had never even considered it, but that was the truth. I had seen it before and in this scenario it was really bad because there was no telling what happened to her. I had to ask, but I didn’t know how to in a delicate way.

  “Are you sure that nothing was done to your person that night?”

  “What do you mean?” Meri really didn’t understand and I almost dropped it. If something had happened though, there was a way that DNA would still be present. It didn’t look like they had let her take a shower or wash up in any way, her skin and hair visibly dirty. I had to see if there was some proof that way.

  “Well I mean you are a beautiful woman Meri and men like that would sometimes use those kinds of drugs to take advantage of you.”

  Still she was drawing a blank.

  “In a sexual way.”

  “Oh, no that isn’t possible.”

  “You may not know. We should have you tested.”

  “I would know, trust me.”

  Meri was so adamant and obviously uncomfortable about it that I dropped it. If she was sure, who was I to make it worse? “So what else can I do?”

  “Get me out of here?”

  “I am going to talk to the judge in the morning, see if we can get you released. I can’t promise anything, but I am going to do my best to let him see things my way. The fact that you have a job waiting for you and a respectable one at that, I am hoping that we can grease some wheels and get this moving along.”

  I was about to turn away when she called out my name. I don’t know why the sound pulled at my heart strings so much.

  “Thank you Sam. I know that you didn’t have to come here.”

  “I promised your friend that I would.”

  “Ashlyn is the best for sending you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was afraid in some ways that I wouldn’t be able to succeed. What if this poor woman was going to be stuck here? I couldn’t think of it. It seemed like a horrible fate for such a woman, any woman, but Meri in particular. There was something about her that made me want her free so that I could really get to know her. After hearing her story, I knew that she did not belong here. Most of them didn’t surely, but Meri certainly did not belong in such a place. She was too delicate for it.

  Leaving was harder than I would have imagined. When I got back outside, I got my phone back from the guard and walked to the car I had rented. It was compact and hard to fit in with my height, but I made the best of it. I drove to the hotel in a daze, my mind reeling with questions and less answers than I was comfortable with. I wanted to know what was going to happen tomorrow, but I really wasn’t sure.

  The phone rang in my hand and I saw that this was the twelfth missed call from Ashlyn. I didn’t know what to tell her, but I knew leaving her in the dark was no way to deal with such a woman. She was like me. She wanted answers, even though I didn’t have many to give.

  “Ashlyn, I was just about to call you.”

  “I have been calling you for hours! What is going on Sam? It is like the two of you just dropped off the face of the earth.”

  “Nothing like that Ashlyn. They won’t let me have my phone inside the jail. So the guard had it. I just left a few minutes ago. Had to power up my phone. Calm down mama bear.”

  She didn’t like my little nickname for her and I thought for a minute, I can almost guarantee that she wanted to come through the phone and slap me.

  “How is she?”

  “She is no worse for wear. A little hungry and thirsty, but we took care of it.”

  “So she is okay?” The relief was evident in her voice and I was more intrigued than ever, my mind coming up with all kinds of scenarios that would bring the two together. They se
emed like polar opposites.

  “Yeah she is good. She has your spirit.”

  “Trust me. Meri has more spirit than I do.”

  “She looks rather young.”

  “I met her years ago when she was still a teenager. I became very fond of her after she helped me out of a jam when I first moved here. I don’t know what I would have done without her and even then Meri had far more moxie than I had seen in anyone else.”

  Again I wasn’t quite getting what I wanted, but like all lawyers should know, information took time and finesse. It was all that I could do to hold my questions in. It just gave me far more curiosity than I had before.

  “Well I am going to talk to the judge in the morning. I am sure we can get her some kind of release, even if it is only temporary until the trial. The charges are subpar at best, no evidence. I am hoping to have this all said and done in the next few days.” I was talking far more confidently than I was, but clients didn’t want to hear that it all rested on the whims of a couple of people. They could have fought with their spouse, had a bad dream or morning, it all depended on so many factors. That was the truth of the justice system that no one ever talked about. I needed the stars to all align tomorrow so that I could do what I said I was going to do.

  “Really Sam! You don’t know how happy that makes me!”

  I was hoping that I was not getting her hopes up for nothing. I answered a few more questions for her and I got off the phone with her by the time I got to the hotel. I was greeted by several lovely women that I would have usually tried to seduce, but not tonight. I was exhausted and I had my mind on someone else.

  Instead of taking the slight woman up on her offer of some company, I made my way upstairs to mull over the day. It had been excited and different, not at all what I had expected. Meri was not at all what I had expected. I had always lived in the city and I had never met someone like her before in my whole life. She was far too open, yet guarded on other aspects. Even when she was explaining her night, the way she wrinkled her nose about certain things made me wonder how innocent she really was. I did know that after talking to her for a little while, I was about as sure of her innocence that she was charged with as Ashlyn. There was no way that Meri could do such a thing.

  The more I thought about it, the more none of it made sense. When I got up the next morning, I hit the ground running. I got some breakfast and planned to take it to Meri as soon as I had talked to the judge. I got enough for him as well, knowing that food played as much of a part of greasing a wheel as money did. I wanted to make it clear that I was willing to brown nose the right people if need be. It killed my pride, the ego that had grown with my bank account, but then again it was probably good for me to be humbled a little.

  The judge wouldn’t see me until I showed him the food bag and coffee. That seemed to get him going, but it was quickly clear that I was not going to be able to talk Meri out of jail. They were convinced that she had something to do with her friend’s disappearance and it appeared to me that the testimony that was given by Rico had a lot to do with the fact that Meri was in jail. The man’s name kept coming up and I had to wonder why that was. Maybe Meri was right about him.

  “Well at least let me get her out on bond. We will stay here if that is what is required of us. It would look good for our countries if we did this in a better way. The treatment she has gotten since she has been here goes against several human rights.”

  “It is the jail for everyone. Americans are no better when they come here and do crimes on our soil. This is our country, not America.”

  The old judge had a hard look on his face and I was trying to figure out an angle. I am used to reading people, it’s what I did for a living, convincing people to see things my way. I just had to figure out how I was going to get this judge here in front of me to see things my way.

  “You see Sir, it is not because she is better, in any way. If anything else, she is weaker than many of the women in there with her. She has a medical condition and the last thing either one of us wants is for something to happen while she is in jail. If she is out, I will make sure she doesn’t go anywhere, she will give up her passport until we have this all straightened out. I assure you that it will come to light that she had nothing to with the disappearance of her friend. There is no body, so there is no real proof of a crime.”

  “She will not get out for free.”

  “Naturally.”

  “There will be conditions, but if you agree to them, I will go ahead with a temporary release.”

  Relief flooded over me and I told him that I would agree to whatever I had to do to get her out of jail. She didn’t actually have a medical problem, but the fact that she was just so delicate should have been reason enough. A woman like Meri wouldn’t be able to survive in such a place for too long and I genuinely didn’t want to see her in that place another moment. It was no longer just about helping out Ashlyn. It was now about righting an injustice, the whole reason I became a lawyer in the first place.

  Did it matter that my client happened to be young and absolutely beautiful? Well it certainly didn’t hurt anything.

  END OF PREVIEW**

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  ***

  FALLING FOR MY EX: SNEAK PEAK

  PREVIEWS

  A Second Chance Romance

  BLURB:

  Old flames die hard.

  I’m the one that got away.

  Now he is determined and not taking no for an answer.

  It’s hard to ignore him.

  I know what he wants.

  He is a player, incapable of love.

  He’s flawed. I still want him again.

  I need the only man that can make me scream.

  ***

  Chapter 1

  Kendra

  I avoided the mud puddle that had been made in the last ten minutes since I started walking. The rain was really starting to come down, making me regret not taking my car. I was on my way to work just a few blocks away, but of course I had forgotten my umbrella, never once looking up at the sky to see what it was going to do. My hair was wet and I could feel it sticking to the sides of my face and I finally just went into an all-out sprint the last block and a half to the Harris County Youth Shelter, also known as Link. I was already soaked to the bone.

  When I got to the door, I had to push the intercom button to get buzzed in. The first person I saw was Craig with a grin on his face and a towel in his hand.

  “Come on Kendra. You are looking like a drowned rat. Get out of the rain. Didn’t you see the weather channel?”

  My eyes met Craig’s and I smiled at him. “Thanks. You always know how to make a girl feel good. Always got just the right thing to say. And no, I didn’t watch the weather channel. They are always wrong anyways”

  “You know that it is a compliment Kendra. You are the only one I know that can pull off the look of being drenched in a pop up thunderstorm. Every other girl would have melted with all of the makeup that they wear. Why didn’t you just drive in?”

  “It’s only a few blocks, but I would have if I would have known. I never do get used to these summer random showers. It seems like they come out of nowhere and I am never ready for them.”

  “You will get used to Miami. The weather just takes time and you will learn to always carry an umbrella because it is going to more than likely rain at some point most days.”

  “I’m learning.”

  He smiled at me and for a minute there was something else in his brown eyes that I had seen before, desires. I knew that Craig liked me, but I tried hard not to encourage it. He wasn’t my type, if I even had one. He was too needy, too nice, too much of all of the good things that you wanted in a man, but somehow it all became too much when culminated together in Craig. I liked him as a friend, but I don’t think that I w
as going to be able to like him in any capacity past that.

  The man wasn’t bad looking, not really. He was tall and muscular with a shock of longish red hair and a few freckles on his face. It was the intensity of everything that made Craig hard to even consider a romantic relationship with. He was a good friend though and great with the kids at work. I liked working with him and over the years working together, we had an easy relationship that I would miss if I didn’t have.

  “So how was your weekend?” I was trying to get his mind off of me and back on something that he could have. He was trying to worm his way into my life, a little more every day.

  I shrugged and started towards the employee’s locker room. I probably did look like a drowned rat, but I kept extra clothes in my locker just in case. Changing and drying my hair with another dry towel as best as I could, I clocked in and went into the facility. Craig was already doing a roll call and I walked in on the last of it.

  “So is everyone here?”

  He nodded and I started in on announcements that were posted. It was a big day for many of the twenty-four girls in the youth center because it was a field trip day. Every girl there was in their teenage years and had gotten in trouble for one thing or another. It didn’t mean they were bad, but it did mean that their movement was limited to say the least. This was a day that they got to go back out in the real world and see how they did.

  It was a good time and it was a stressful one for me and Craig because we had a lot of kids to be responsible for without the benefit of the center to help keep them contained. After the roll call was done, everyone was given some time to get their things together before we left. We planned a skating party at the nearby skating rink. We had tried to get it for the whole two hours exclusively, but there was another party going on, so there would be more than just the girls there. I was anxious how everything was going to turn out. These things would either be really good or really bad. Link was just that sort of place and I had learned to take the good with the bad and prepare for the worst.