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“Hey, she could use the help. Besides, trust me when I tell you that she’s the last person to know who you are,” White says.
“Doubtful, since my face seems to be everywhere.”
“I doubt Hope has ever seen a movie, especially your movies,” White responds.
“Wouldn’t matter my face is on every news show coming or going,” Aden answers.
“Your Hollywood face is, but honey without the makeup to hide those lines, or the hair dye that covers your gray…” Casey says.
“You’re a cheerful basket of love today aren’t you, Casey?” Aden questions cynically.
“I’m only stating the truth. Your beard already has more salt than pepper, darling,” Casey says dramatically, blinking her eyes.
“You need to spank her more often,” Aden grumbles at me, but he’s smiling. For my part, I take that as my cue. I stand up, Casey still in my arms.
“Where you going?”
“Hey, you’re right. I need to punish my woman’s sassy mouth,” I tell Aden, with all the others laughing in the background. I turn to leave the small table we’re at.
“I believe I said ass,” he says dryly.
“He has a fixation with my mouth,” Casey grins up at me.
“That I do, Moth-girl. That I do,” I agree.
“I love you Gavin O’Leary,” she whispers as our elevator door closes.
“And I love you Casey Langley O’Leary.”
“I’m not an O’Leary, yet,” she answers.
“No. But you will be,” I promise her.
And she was.
in too deep
By:
Jordan Marie
I did a bad thing.
I did a really bad thing.
I’m not a bad person, I swear. I just made a few mistakes.
Mistake number one was agreeing to rent my motel out to an insufferable asshole named Aden Smith.
Mistake number two was ignoring his threats to sue me when he handed over a list of items he deemed “unacceptable”.
Mistake number three was diving into the pool to save his life when he fell. It would have been less complicated to hide his body.
When the hospital refuses to let me know how he is, I panic.
Claiming to be his wife might be my biggest mistake yet—especially when he believes me!
He might have been the one drowning, but I’m sinking in a bed of lies, going down fast—and there’s not a rescue in sight.
prologue one
Hope
“What do you mean, I have to have a new air conditioning unit? Each room has its own unit. This is crazy! I don’t have the money for this!”
“I’m just telling you like it is lady. You have to have this place brought up to code and to do that each room has to have all new units. The ones you have now are a damned fire hazard for the load your wiring is designed to carry. It’s a wonder the inspector hasn’t shut the place down before now,” the foreman growls back.
He doesn’t realize that his words are killing me, or that I’m on a razor’s edge and about to go over the deep end. I’m close to a freaking panic attack. I’ve sunk everything in this motel.
Everything.
When I got the letter from my Aunt Edna’s attorney, I’d just been laid off from my dead end job at the factory in Indiana. I hated that job. I basically spent my day putting together parts for porta-potties. You didn’t read that wrong. I literally got laid off of a job where I spent the day working on places for people to shit. The letter informed me I’d just inherited a motel in Clancy, Idaho. I didn’t know anything about Idaho, but I wasn’t exactly happy in Indiana either. It seemed like fate—a sign from heaven above.
I loaded up everything I owned—which, quite honestly, fit in the back seat of my run-down, more-rust-than-metal, gray, 1990’s Volkswagen Beetle. I cleaned out my savings, which wasn’t that much, and I headed out, my son in tow.
I don’t know what I expected. When I thought of this place, I guess I pictured a bigger hotel, kind of like a Holiday Inn. The Hard Acre Motel in Clancy was nowhere close to a Holiday Inn. The place looks more like the Bates Motel from the Alfred Hitchcock movie. It also hadn’t been opened in close to ten years. Flash forward six months and I’ve sunk every bit of money Aunt Edna left me, plus my meager savings into this dump. I wanted to make a go of it, so that my son and I had a steady income. It was due to open this week and that’s obviously not going to happen now. I sit back down in my new office chair, behind the newly varnished desk of the reception area, and let the reality of the situation hit me. I feel sick to my stomach.
“What do I tell them?” the contractor asks, bringing my attention back to him. Stress is churning inside of me so intensely I feel like I might pass out.
