Mr. Unlucky
Table of Contents
Title Page
Mr. Unlucky
Mr. Unlucky Copyright © 2013 BA Tortuga Edited by Darlena Cunha and Simone Anderson Cover art by Adrian Nicholas
For Sonya, who always makes me smile. These two are for you, lady.
Author’s note: As y’all know, I’m a deep East Texas girl, balls to bones, and so are Addie, Maddie, Bodie and the rest of ‘em. Well, except for Jim. He’s not from here. I portray these folks as I know them, with all their sayings and rough ways. All errors are mine, and I own them, proudly.
Prologue
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Also Available from Resplendence Publishing
www.resplendencepublishing.com
Mr. Unlucky
A One Horse Town Story
By BA Tortuga
Resplendence Publishing, LLC
http://www.resplendencepublishing.com
Mr. Unlucky
Copyright © 2013 BA Tortuga
Edited by Darlena Cunha and Simone Anderson
Cover art by Adrian Nicholas
Published by Resplendence Publishing, LLC
2665 N Atlantic Avenue, #349
Daytona Beach, FL 32118
Electronic format ISBN: 978-1-60735-621-9
Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Electronic Release: January 2013
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.
For Sonya, who always makes me smile. These two are for you, lady.
BA
Author’s note: As y’all know, I’m a deep East Texas girl, balls to bones, and so are Addie, Maddie, Bodie and the rest of ‘em. Well, except for Jim. He’s not from here. I portray these folks as I know them, with all their sayings and rough ways. All errors are mine, and I own them, proudly.
Much love, y’all.
BA
Prologue
“Maddie?” Addie sat out on the front steps of the Boston Library, phone to her ear, her heavy hoodie pulled up, letting the big column hide her from the rising sun, from people walking by. It was mostly joggers, this early, but the first of the blue-collar workers were heading into the city and soon the business people would be click-clacking by—all of them dressed in black or gray or navy blue, the women in pumps, the men in shiny duck-tailed shoes. It was bitter cold—too cold for October, it seemed like. She’d been in with Jim for a little over a year and it just…wasn’t home.
It wasn’t what she’d wanted when she left her position at the paper, given up her slot as photojournalist for the Morning News, walked away from and bombs and dying babies and Marines with blown-off legs and arms. She’d wanted home and peace and quiet and…. Not here. Not this cold, huge city on the harbor.
Hell, she’d wanted to move back to Hughes Springs, but Jim had found himself a good job at a firm in Boston, had been willing to give up his contract in the Middle East for her, and they’d been together for long enough that she’d felt honor-bound to give the city a chance. Give them a chance. She was beginning to think she was an idiot.
“Sister? Addie? What’s wrong? I know something’s wrong.” Of course Maddie knew. She always knew when something was up. Addie’s twin sister had texted twelve times in two hours, which was crazy. Maddie wasn’t a night owl, at all, and it was what? Six thirty here? So Five thirty at home? That meant Maddie had been texting since damn near three, and she’d have to be up in an hour to feed and work the horses. Addie guessed she was lucky Maddie was home at all. Rodeo finals would be starting soon and her twin would be on the road a lot. Maddie’d had a damn good year on the barrels; she’d be looking for the big purse in Vegas.
“I-I don’t know what to do.” Addie swallowed hard, hand on her cheek against the brisk autumn winds.
“What did that slimy motherfucker do? I swear to God, I’m going to get Daddy Chris, and I’ll be on a plane in an hour.”
“No!” She sat up, shook her head. “No, Maddie. Please. I just…I thought I was pregnant. I’m not. I wasn’t ever, but Jim saw the pregnancy test and freaked out. Called me a slut, threw me out. Accused me of cheating on him.” Put all her shit on the stoop.
She was never, ever living anywhere that had a stoop ever again.
“Did he hurt you?”
“I don’t know what to do,” she repeated.
“Oh, fuck a duck sideways. That smarmy little pussy-shoe-wearing fucktard hit you.” Maddie’s voice was like cold steel. Icy. Hard.
“He had a vasectomy. He never said. I just…the rubber broke and I was worried.”
“You’ll start tomorrow. I started today.” Addie was always—always—the day behind. Dad said it was because Maddie was born at eleven forty nine on a Friday and she came at twelve oh three on a Saturday. The only twins on earth with two dads, different birthdays, and a surrogate mom. “Wait, he didn’t tell you he was fixed?”
“No.”
“Christ, Addie, y’all are engaged!”
“Were.” The finger where he’d ripped the ring off was swollen, bruised, and she was scared it might be broken.
“Where are you?”
“Steps of the library.”
“In ?” Maddie still thought was the biggest, most violent city on earth and couldn’t be convinced that it had its lovely spots. It just wasn’t small town .
“No, Mads, in .”
“They have libraries there?”
They laughed together, sharing the moment. It faded though, just like the night was fading. “Do you think…I mean, my car has what he let me take.”
“Come home. It’s fall. It’s pretty. I’m fixin’ to be on the road for the push to finals and the dads could use company.” She could see Maddie’s smile in her mind’s eye, tired and fond and knowing. “I have two empty rooms here in my place.”
Daddy Chris had put a modular home on Bill Parker’s plot of land when the man passed, telling Maddie his girls needed a place to be, to stay.
“You sure you want a roommate?”
“Shit, sister, you’re not a roommate. I’ll expect you Thursday?”
She nodded. “Maybe Friday. I’m tired. I’ll wait until after rush hour, drive for a few hours and get some sleep.”
“Okay. I’ll tell the dads you’re coming and not to call.”
“Don’t tell them.”
“I won’t. I won’t have to.” Maddie sighed. “At least you weren’t married, huh? I mean, shit, this sucks, but there won’t need to be a lawyer or nothing.”
She nodded, but she was going to start crying again if she spoke. Maddie was right, she guessed. At least there wasn’t a marriage.
Or babies.
Or trust.
Just a screaming match, a slap, one broken finger and most of her shit in the back of a Dodge Charger.
She stood up, wiped her eyes and headed down the steps. Coffee first, then .
Chapter One
Addie sat, swinging her legs on the barstool in the most amazing dive bar she’d vi
sited in all her travels. It was also what passed for the only club in town. Good thing the town was her hometown. With old pleather stools, flickering neon beer signs and a black-and-white checkered dance floor the size of a postage stamp, it was perfect.
Almost as perfect as Mr. Unlucky sitting three stools down.
Her phone beeped, and the evil ex, Jim’s, name popped up, and she rolled her eyes and hit reject call. God, it had been damn near six months since she’d left . You’d think the nutty fucker would lose her number. She wasn’t interested in a single thing the asshat had to say.
He could be happy and cold in fucking .
She turned her attention back to Mr. Hot, Stoic and Drinking. He was in here every Wednesday night, just like clockwork. Maddie had informed her Wednesday was when the cowboy wandered into town, did his feed store shopping and his weekly beer run, then stopped to have two longnecks at the bar before heading back to his twelve-hundred-acre ranch to work some of the finest Beefmaster cattle in Morris county.
Did that make her obsessed?
Nah. Hell, she was a photographer and investigative reporter still, right? In the time she’d been back in town, she’d found out everything any girl could want to know about what Bodie Reaver had been doing since she’d left—that he would be thirty-two in January and was, as yet, unmarried and that he had become something of a local legend.
The poor guy had lost two fiancées in the last twelve years. The first one had died in some kind of car accident back when she was at the end of high school, and the other had succumbed to cancer some three years ago. The rumors swirled around him like smoke; he was a black widower, a witch, cursed, or just the unluckiest guy on earth.
She didn’t believe any of the above, and even if she did, Addie thought Bodie was hot as hell. She was also bored to tears hiding out at her sister’s house in this tiny town and looking for something to do while she took pictures, lived off her savings and helped exercise horses. Why not him? She stood up and sidled over to his stool.
“Did you know frowning that deep will give you wrinkles?”
Bodie started a little, then turned to glance behind him before looking back at her and raising one almost-black brow. “You talkin’ to me, honey?”
“I most definitely am.” He was long and lean, with leather-tanned skin and bright blue eyes. Hoo, yeah. She was so talking to him.
His frown shifted into a smile, which gave him even better lines. “Well, then, I got to tell you, no one has cared about my lines in years.” Those pretty blue eyes were checking her out, though, making her blood pump faster.
“Too bad. That sounds like an incredible waste of one hell of a mouth.” Why pretend to be shy? Addie knew being the retiring type was not one of her failings, so to force it now would be silly.
The smile lines got deeper, the expression reaching his eyes. Gracious. That was lethal.
“Thank you, ma’am. Whatcha drinkin’?”
“Shiner,” she said, and winked. “I’m back in Texas. Might as well have the good beer.”
From Guatemala to Ghana, Moscow to Mozambique. She’d been and done it all. Now she wanted home and spring and bluebonnets and hot cowboys in her bed.
“Cool. Another Shiner for the lady, Carl.”
Carl, a skinny old cowboy with a three-inch lift in his left boot, nodded, staring at her with wide eyes. Obviously, he expected her to drop dead on the spot from talking to Bodie. When she didn’t, he grinned, the look pure shit-dipped evil. “Lord, that ain’t no lady. That’s Chris and Brandt’s youngest girl, Addison.”
Oh, she hated to be called by that name. She rolled her eyes, rubbed the bridge of her nose with her middle finger, then turned back to Bodie.
“Addie. Thanks for the beer, cowboy.” She let herself look, obvious and slow, admiring all the way along.
“Not a problem. Have a sit.” He motioned at the stool next to him, and she wasted no time plopping down.
“So, tell me something odd about yourself. Something I couldn’t guess.”
“I like cotton candy.” He grinned again before taking a swallow of his beer, his tanned throat working in an addictive way. “What about you?”
“I’m a wildcat in bed.” She winked, flirting outrageously. “Oh, wait. That’s not something you couldn’t guess, right?”
He laughed out loud when Carl choked behind the bar, sputtering hard. “I could figure that, yeah.”
Addie grinned. “Excellent powers of observation. Spectacular.”
“Well, I try, honey. It’s been awhile since anyone was so honest about it, I reckon.”
“Honesty is the best policy.” She waited for a heartbeat. “Like for instance, I think you’re incredibly hot. Are you as good with your hands as you seem?”
He didn’t even blink. “I’m pretty handy. In fact, I make my living with them.”
“Yeah? I’m a photographer. What do you do?” She knew that, of course, but a man sure liked to be asked. Stroking wasn’t only for below the buckle. Everyone knew Running Water Ranch, because having a profitable outfit made a man small-town famous. Hell, her dads sold hay to him.
“Ranching. Cattle and horses. Had goats for a bit, but they were too smart.” He winked. “Always climbing and getting out of fences.”
“I grew up on a ranch. Live on one now, as a matter of fact. What’s your position on dancing?”
“I rub belt buckles pretty well. Two-step. Waltz. I ain’t so good at the modern flail.”
God, he was adorable. Unflappable. Edible.
Addie couldn’t help her grin. “The modern flail. I like that.”
There was a fine line between slut and eager, hopefully she was still straddling it.
“Well, that’s what I look like when I try it.” Laughing, he flapped his hands like wings. “You want to try me out before buying in, we can throw a dollar in the jukebox before you ante up, play some George.”
“Oh, cowboy, I can totally try you out.” She dug a dollar out of her purse. “It’s so much nicer than just starting out with nice boots, wanna fuck?”
He took her hand and walked them across the dance floor to the jukebox, which still gave you three songs for a dollar. “Sure it is. You haven’t seen my boots yet, you know? What if they’re nasty?”
“Exactly. You’ll note I didn’t start out there.”
“And you. I mean, you got pretty painted toes, but how do I know how well you keep up your boots?”
All My Exes Live in Texas started up, and Bodie pulled her on the dance floor.
“Absolutely. You never know with a girl. I might just have pink Ropers.” Which, okay, she owned a pair, for the winter. They made Daddy Chris smile.
“I like those on a girl.” He swung her into a two-step, and he’d been absolutely right. He was pretty good. So was she, and found herself smiling wider as he moved her. So what if he was the most unlucky man on Earth? No one who danced like this was clumsy in bed.
That was lucky, right?
He hummed a little, and when the song changed to a waltz, he shifted right into it.
Oh, hello nurse.
Really, hello nicely packed blue jeans, but still, he liked her. She could tell. Like, physically. That was perfect. He tripped her triggers. She let herself press close, all the way down.
He drew in a sharp breath, his rhythm breaking a bit. He opened his mouth just about the time the sound of rain on the old tin roof reached them. Bodie laughed. “Raining out there. How do you feel about muddin’?”
“I love it. I have a ponytail holder and a pair of tennies in my car. Wanna?”
“Hell, yes.” His hand slid down her arm, and he tugged her outside, the rain pattering down on them, cool and good.
She hooted and headed for her big red Charger, grabbing her shoes and purse from the back, making sure her camera bag was well hidden under her hoodie.
His truck was big, high, and already mud-splattered. It was perfect. She put her hair up and slipped on her shoes, looking up to find him w
atching her.
“You ready to play, cowboy?”
God love white tank tops.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am. I know just the place.”
She swung up into his truck. “Let’s go, stud. I’m ready.”
She’d just text her dads on the way.
* * * *
Bodie glanced sideways at the girl sitting next to him on the bench seat of his truck, and he was torn between wondering what the hell a damned pretty girl like that was doing there, and being grateful she was. That and being grateful that he’d brought his older truck with the bench seat.
Tiny, curvy and pale, with huge blue eyes and a mass of red hair the likes he’d never seen, she made his mouth water. She was in a pair of painted-on jeans and a white tank top that was plastered to her curves. Her hair was up in a ponytail now, but when she’d plopped down next to him in the bar, it had been wild and loose.
She did it for him.
One of her hands slid over, curled around his thigh, testing his muscles. Forward girl.
He liked it. God knew he’d never met anyone like her. He cranked the radio up and turned off on the road that led to his back forty. He had a separate gate back there and no cattle running on that piece until the wind changed.
Time to tear it up.
She was fearless, too, clapping and hooting, bouncing on the seat. “Let’s go, cowboy! Show me what you got!”
“I got this.” He winked at her sideways, then tore off into the pasture, sending mud flying.
They spun out around the pond, covering the windshield with mud, and she applauded. “Nicely done!”
“Thank you.” He laughed out loud for pure joy when they topped the rise and flew for a moment.
They landed in a rush of grass and goo and water, the skies opening up around them like God had turned a big old spigot.
“Better head for high ground, honey.” He went for the nearest hill, not willing to be in a ditch and get swept away.