Chapter One

Laurel

Present day… Four days until school begins,

“Son of a bitch!” I shouted, banging my head on the steering wheel. It had been a long ass day, and all I wanted was to pick up the pain in the ass and his brother, go home and soak in a hot bath.

But was that in the cards for me today?

Fuck no!

Because when I saw the flashing lights behind me and heard the sirens go off, I knew my day wasn’t going to get any better.

I mean, technically it could, if Ryan Reynolds dressed as Deadpool showed up out of nowhere, needing me to help him save the world.

That ass in that red suit… Oh hell yes !

Because let’s face it, who doesn’t need a middle-aged, crochet knitting, underpaid, overworked mom who hasn’t slept in ten years to help fight off the bad guys while jamming to some of the best seventies and eighties music on the planet. If that happened, then hell yeah, my day could technically get better.

But Ryan Reynolds wasn’t here, and the police officer was.

Damn it. Maybe I should have asked for Captain America instead.

Nah… he doesn’t curse.

Doesn’t it just fucking figure?

What could have made this shitty day any worse?

Of course, a speeding ticket!

I didn’t think I was going all that fast.

Okay, so going sixty in a thirty-five was a tad fast, but in my defense, I was in a rush and no one was around. Well, except for the fucking cop chasing after me with his lights and sirens blaring.

God, I didn’t have time for this… or another fucking ticket.

One more mark on my driving record and the judge was going to take my license for sure!

I’d already sweet-talked myself out of four tickets and thirty days of community service. I didn’t see Judge Tomlinson letting this one go.

Nope. My ass was toast!

When my parole officer found out about this, he was going to shove my ass back in jail and throw away the fucking key!

Yes, I had a parole officer.

What sex-deprived, thirty-six-year-old single mom of two boys didn’t?

I wasn’t fucking Mary Poppins.

Looking around at the vast hillside, stuck in the middle of nowhere, I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the boys anytime soon. Hell, at this rate, I’d be lucky to make it home in time before my youngest graduated high school.

More importantly, Martha was never going to help me out again.

I was sure of it this time.

Cutting my engine, I banged my head on the steering wheel, cursing my bad luck to hell and back. If I had half a brain, I would have insisted my mother hire a damn wedding planner instead of thinking that four Southern women could pull together a wedding with no problems.

Damn, I must have been drunk when I agreed to that crap.

In fact, I know I was.

Every honest, forthright Southern woman knew it took more than four women to pull together something as big as a true Southern wedding.

But did I listen to my conscience? Nope.

Instead, I let a bottle of Southern Comfort do the talking for me.

Which is why instead of chilling at home, I found myself arguing with a florist, cake decorators, and my favorite… a self-righteous preacher who firmly believed that five marriages was enough.

Stupid prick… who was he to judge anyone?

He was on his third wife.

So, my mother enjoyed getting married.

Nothing wrong with that.

Her problem was staying married.

Yeah. She wasn’t very good at that part.

Of course, it didn’t help that my mother had exhausted most of the men in Rickett Creek, Alabama and decided a venue change was in order, which was how she came to be in Rosewood, Virginia.

As far as I was concerned, no one had the right to pass judgement on my mother… unless they were blood-kin or God.

And even God walked away from her three husbands ago.

Looking back, I knew that no man would ever measure up to my mother’s expectations. Even my birth father had his limit.

It took an act of God to rescue him. The good Lord took mercy on my daddy and scooped him up when I was eight.

Nope, no man could satisfy my mother. Per my mom, men were plentiful and why should she stay married to one, when there were so many to choose from?

To make matters worse, my sisters were of the same mind.

My little sis, Leigha, was on fiancé number two, and with her good looks, she was bound to set the record for marriages in our family. Little sis was stunningly beautiful and stupid as a box of rocks.

No offense to rocks.

Now, if I listened to gossip, my sister was amazing in the bedroom. But that was just gossip, and I didn’t listen to gossip.

Well, not when it came from my older sister, Lilly, who was currently divorcing husband number three. Now, she was a piece of work. Beautiful like Leigha, Lilly was determined to bag herself some highfalutin moneybags sucker that owned a shiny red Camaro with the name Edward. Yeah… apparently Lilly believed any man with the name Edward was richer than God and good in the sack.

Lilly wasn’t smart either.

Then there was me.

The middle child.

The one with a functioning brain and, more importantly… morals!

Okay, my morals were a bit skewed, but I had them.

Yeah, I was the black sheep of the family.

The funny thing was, I grew up knowing that I would never be as beautiful, slender or as Southern as my other two sisters. Those genes and traits apparently skipped a sibling or two.

Nope, I was what most would call average. I wasn’t model thin, but I could fill out a pair of jeans nicely. I had thick long hair, but it wasn’t golden and silky like my sisters’ or my mom’s. The graceful gene had eluded me. Dubbed the family oddity and, as for added humor, being sarcastic was my way of breathing.

Only this time, the joke was on me.

Born and raised in Rickett Creek, Alabama, I had many fond memories of my hometown. One of those memories I had taken with me when I left for college, my two-year-old son Nash. I wanted something better, anything that wouldn’t remind me of what disappeared in the middle of the night.

Too bad for me, Nash looked exactly like my reminder.

I had just graduated from college when I met Kai’s father.

Kane Foster was everything I thought I wanted, until he found out I was pregnant and up and ran for the hills.

Fucking pansy ass, whiney douchebag.

Never married and a single mother with a sixteen-year-old pain in the ass and the sweetest seven-year-old boy, who, like his brother, looked nothing like me.

After college, I tried to stay around and make it work with Kai’s father, but when the fucker took a job out of state and didn’t ask us to go with him, I said fuck it and moved on.

I thought about moving back to Rickett Creek, but knew there was nothing there for me. So, I chose Rosewood, Virginia instead.

Mainly, I wanted to distance myself from my mother and sisters. Lot a good that did, because when my mom visited last Christmas, she met and fell in love with Mr. Munson.

Yep, you read that right.

My mom was marrying the trailer park owner of Rosewood. Not that she cared about that. What she did care about was that Mr. Munson recently sold the land and the trailer park and made a boatload of money. The second mom gave up the goods, Mr. Munson proposed, and now nothing, not even the snap of Thanos’ finger, would stop my mother from marrying the loveable, gullible man.

And because of that fact, love screwed me royally, and this time… it was going on my permanent record.

I watched as the sheriff’s car pulled in behind me. I prayed it was the deputy, anyone but the sheriff himself. I was not above asking for special treatment. With the day I was having, I would accept any gift the universe wanted to give me. However, with my record, asking for leniency was farfetched. The best outcome would be an additional fine, depending on who it was.

I watched in my rearview mirror as the officer got out of his car and when I saw who it was, I groaned.

“I’m dead.”

Of all the officers in Rosewood, I had to get pulled over by the man himself.

I wiped the smirk off my face when Mike Brewer walked over to my passenger side window. Kneeling down, he rested his arms on the window frame and smirked. “Hello, Laurel.”

Hanging my head, I sighed. “I’m going to jail. Aren’t I?”

“You do seem to have a problem following the speed limit, Laurel.”

“Mike, in my defense, it’s my mom’s fault.”

At this point, I would throw God himself under the bus if it got me out of this ticket.

“Your mom was driving sixty in a thirty-five?”

“Well no.” I smirked. “That was me, but I wouldn’t have been speeding if it wasn’t for her wedding nonsense. You wouldn’t believe the crap she has me doing.”

“Heard the wedding is going to be the biggest event this winter.”

I nodded. “If she has her way, it will be bigger than Christmas.”

“So, you want to tell me why you were driving like a bat out of hell?”

“I’m late picking up the boys from Mrs. Cohen.”

“I see.” Mike nodded. “And you didn’t think to call and give Mrs. Cohen a heads-up?”

Well shit. Why didn’t I think of that?

I gulped, shaking my head. “No sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because she also has Nash.”

“I see.” Mike grimaced, standing to his full height. “You best get going before Mrs. Cohen castrates him. And, Laurel, just remember these country roads are not the Daytona 500. Keep it under forty.”

“Sure thing, Mike!” I smiled, starting my vehicle before peeling back onto the road, leaving the man standing there in the wake of my dust.

Thank God for my unruly pain-in-the-ass kid!

Ten minutes later, I pulled into Mrs. Cohen’s driveway and slammed on the brakes when I spotted a grown-ass man sitting on my son. Now, I was all for disciplining my unruly son but suffocating him was a bit much.

“MOM! Mom, help me!”

Wondering what my pain-in-the-ass kid had done now, I got out of my car and marched my ass over to the big lout, who was having way too much fun at my son’s expense.

“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing to my son?”

“Teaching him some manners.”

When the hulking brute looked up at me, I stopped dead in my tracks.

Dear God, please tell me this was some sick cosmic joke. I went to church… sometimes. I tried to live by the good book.

Okay, so my good book was the bartender’s mixing guide, but it was a book!

However, when the fucker smiled, I knew God hated me.

Yep. It was the only thing that made sense.

God was punishing me and this proved it, because not five feet from me, sitting on my son was none other than Nash’s biological father, Nikoli Henric Dubrovsky.

Out of all the places on this godforsaken planet, how in the hell did he happen to find his way to my little piece of heaven? I mean, the fucker up and disappeared after I gave him my fucking virginity. Not one single thanks, babe, let’s talk later, or can we get together tomorrow?

Nothing!

All I knew was when he dropped me off at home that fateful night, he was never heard from again.

Poof!

Gone!

However, when he winked at me, I narrowed my eyes.

“That is not your job!”

When the fucker chuckled, slapping Nash’s ass a few times, rather hard, Nash cried out like the fucking entitled little shit he was.

Look, I knew Nash wasn’t an easy kid. He was a pain in the ass, borderline-narcissistic, with a big helping of entitlement, but he was mine. Even if I’d wanted to hit him upside the back of the head with my cast-iron skillet to knock some common sense into him on more than one occasion.

Good thing for him I didn’t believe in violence.

See, I believed in God.

“Stop hitting my son!”

“I will when he apologizes,” Nikoli challenged.

“I ain’t apologizing for shit!” Nash screamed when Nikoli’s friend threw flowers at my son.

I would have grabbed a few of those decorative gardening rocks, but that was just me.

“What did you do, Nash?” I sneered at my unapologetic, ungrateful son.

When Nash refused to say anything, Nikoli’s friend clearly said, “Your son thinks it’s fun to bully his brother. Banks and I were just showing him how we handle bullies. Weren’t we, Banks?”

Banks?

Who in the hell was Banks?

Well, that question was answered rather quickly when Nikoli grinned, licked his finger, making sure his saliva coated his finger really well, before sticking it in Nash’s ear, giving my son a wet willy! “Yep. Thought we’d give him a taste of his own medicine.”

OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD!

How old was Nikoli? Five!

Now I knew where Nash got his need for petty revenge from.

His father!

God help me!

“I told you to be nice to your brother, Nash McDonald.”

Nikoli rolled off my son, roughly helping him to his feet.

Yet nothing could have prepared me for what Nash did next, because the second my son was on his feet, the brat took a swing at his father. Before I could intervene, Nikoli had Nash up against a tree, and his hand around my son’s throat.

“Wrong move, shithead. I don’t know what the fuck you thought you’d accomplish with that move but rest assured, it wouldn’t have ended well for you. Now, I’m going to be crystal fucking clear. If I hear you’ve said anything derogatory, picked on or touched your little brother in any way, I will fucking finish what you just started. Just remember… jail is temporary and kicking your ass would be worth my time behind bars. So, try me, punk.”

“Henry James Owens, you let that young man go right now,” Mrs. Cohen said rather firmly, stepping out onto her front porch.

Henry James Owens? Banks?

What the fuck was going on here?

Nikoli took a step back and smiled.

“Was only talking to the boy, Mrs. Cohen. I swear.”

Nash rushed to the car, jumping in the front seat.

I sighed. “I’m sorry if Nash caused any problems, Mrs. Cohen. He wanted to hang out with his friends.”

“That’s no excuse for bad manners, Laurel. But no worries. Banks and Hawk handled it.”

“Of course.” I leered at Nikoli or Henry or Banks. Whoever the asshole really was, who was now leaning against the tree, looking at me intently. “Let’s go, Kai.”

Not wanting to give the man a better look, I hurried to my car.

Pulling out of the driveway, I saw Nikoli watching me drive away.

Shit.

This was not good.