Happy Trail (Lucas Brothers Book 3) Read online

  Happy Trail

  Lucas Brothers Book 3

  Jordan Marie

  Contents

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Blurb

  1. Petal

  2. Luka

  3. Petal

  4. Luka

  5. Petal

  6. Petal

  7. Luka

  8. Petal

  9. Luka

  10. Petal

  11. Luka

  12. Luka

  13. Petal

  14. Luka

  15. Petal

  16. Luka

  17. Petal

  18. Luka

  19. Petal

  20. Luka

  21. Petal

  22. Luka

  23. Petal

  24. Luka

  25. Petal

  26. Luka

  27. Petal

  28. Petal

  29. Luka

  30. Petal

  31. Luka

  32. Petal

  33. Petal

  34. Luka

  35. Petal

  36. Luka

  37. Petal

  38. Luka

  39. Petal

  40. Luka

  41. Petal

  42. Luka

  43. Petal

  44. Luka

  45. Ida Sue

  46. Ida Sue

  47. Luka

  48. Petal

  49. Luka

  50. Petal

  51. Luka

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  Deep Cover

  In Too Deep Excerpt

  Read More Jordan

  Links:

  Copyright © 2017 by Jordan Marie

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to being stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Art by Robin with Wicked By Design

  Model: Mat Wolf

  Photographer: Sara Eirew

  Editor: Daryl Banner

  WARNING: This book contains sexual situations, violence and other adult themes. Recommended for 18 and above.

  By:

  Jordan Marie

  The Path to True Love Can Get A Little Hairy.

  Petal

  I’ve loved Luka Parish my entire life.

  He was my first crush, my first kiss, my first time, and my first heartbreak.

  Love isn’t like in the movies or the books you read.

  It’s hard, and sometimes it’s just plain doomed.

  Have you ever been forced to make a choice that you hate?

  One you regret the minute you make it and wish you could take back?

  I have. My biggest regret is not fighting for Luka.

  But when I see him with another woman, one thing becomes clear:

  I have to get him back – and I’ll do anything I can to make that happen.

  Luka

  Petal was the love of my life.

  Losing her gutted me.

  I’ve tried to make her see that we needed to work things out.

  Ignore everyone and put our family first.

  It hasn’t worked, and as much as I love her, a man gets tired of being alone.

  It’s time to move on.

  Except now I keep running into Petal everywhere—especially my bed.

  Do I trust that this time she’ll put me first? Do I give us a second chance?

  It’s hard to say no when she’s making every fantasy I ever had come true.

  A woman in love, determined to win back her man.

  A man, determined to forget the woman who broke his heart.

  Who will win?

  With any luck, maybe they both will.

  Dedication

  Some days I would give up and stop writing if not for you guys—the readers. This one is completely for you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for reaching out to me, but most of all thank you for reviewing and encouraging me to keep going.

  Xoxo

  Jordan

  1

  Petal

  Sweet sixteen and never been kissed. That’s me, but only because I got one look at Luka Parish when I was sixteen and knew he was all I would ever want. I was at family bowling night celebrating my brothers Blue and Black’s birthdays. Luka was in police academy training at the time and had met my brother Black through his work. He came over with some buddies to wish Black a Happy Birthday. He never saw me. Why would he? A man like that looking at me would be laughable. But I saw him. I saw him, and I’m going to make sure I see him again—and soon. I just have to make sure I’m wearing makeup, dressed really nice, and that I definitely don’t look like I’m just sixteen. A man like Luka Parish wouldn’t kiss a sixteen-year-old girl. I want him to see me as a woman, and I definitely want him to kiss me.

  Present:

  “Petal, it’s your turn!”

  “I’m coming,” I tell Mom. The last thing I want to do is be here at family bowling night. I tried everything short of telling her I was dying of the bubonic plague to get out of it. Even that wouldn’t have helped. When Ida Sue wants something, you either fall in line or run away. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to run away.

  Don’t get me wrong; I have an amazing mother. She’s funny, talented, fiercely loyal, and a loving parent. She’s strong as hell, too. She’s had to be because she raised nine children completely on her own. I admire and love her as much as I resent her.

  “What’s wrong with you, Petal?”

  “Nothing, Mom! I just had other things to do tonight. Things I canceled so I could make family night.”

  “Well, if you were going to be a grouch and try and ruin the whole night for everyone, maybe you should have just not shown up.”

  “It’s Black’s and Blue’s birthday, Mom. Of course I’m going to be here. I just wish you had given me a little more warning, that’s all. I thought we were all going to wait until Blue was back in town.”

  “It didn’t seem right not celebrating while Black was here at least. We’ll have dinner for Blue when he gets back in.”

  “You still could have told me,” I grouch knowing I’m being a bitch. My mother has a special way of bringing that out in me.

  “I might have if you’d been home much the last few weeks.”

  “I’ve been home every night!”

  “Yeah, but I’m usually in bed by the time you roll in. Honestly, Petal, little River needs more structure than what you’re giving him.”

  “Everything I do is for River. Don’t start.”

  “Is he the reason you’ve been talking to that man again?”

  “That man is River’s father, and he has a name. It’s Luka.”

  “You say Luka, I say Puke-a,” she says with a shrug.

  “Now who’s acting like a child?” I sigh. It’s an old argument. Mom has never approved of Luka, and he hates her. The friction between them is just one of the many reasons my marriage imploded. Well, that and the fact that I should have never gotten married at seventeen. I was a child playing an adult, and as a result, I made all the wrong choices. Hell, I’m twenty-two, and I’m still making all the wrong choices.

  “If you had listened to me to begin with, you would have never had him in your life.”

  “Mom, I was pregnant—”


  “Big-freakin’-deal! You were sixteen and pregnant. That happens to a lot of girls. It’s not a reason to get married. He should have been arrested for messing with you in the first place, and yet somehow here he is, the sheriff … if that isn’t the biggest joke in years.”

  “Mom, he didn’t know I was sixteen when we met. If he had, he never would have talked to me.”

  “So you say. I haven’t seen one thing out of Luka Parish that tells me that’s true.”

  “I don’t want to argue about this anymore, Mom. Luka and I are working together to make sure our son is happy. That’s it. That’s all it is,” I tell her, and the slash of pain that hits me is real. I’m not lying, even though I wish I was. River has been diagnosed with ADHD and also has some other problems. We’ve been meeting in the evenings to figure out how best to tackle them. He was suspended for a day from kindergarten for biting and hitting other kids. River’s not a bad child. He’s sweet as he can be at home, but around other kids, he becomes different.

  We need a solution soon, not only for my child’s sake, but because I need to go back to work fulltime. I can’t keep living with my mom, and I can’t afford to live on my own if I’m just working part time. Yet, living with Mom is toxic. Every time she puts Luka down, I want to scream. Luka has done right by me and River, despite all the shit I’ve put him through. He tried so hard to make our marriage work. He doesn’t know why I divorced him, not really. I won’t tell him. There’s no point. He’s eight years older than me, he’s sheriff now, and the last thing he needs is the local hippy’s daughter being a stone around his neck.

  I figure if I say that enough times, I’ll finally believe it. The real problem is that Luka accepted our divorce easily. He never once tried to convince me that we had a future when I left. His father told me he wouldn’t, but I had hoped…

  I guess I’m still hoping, which is ridiculous. Even the dinners we have are spent purely talking about our son. There’s nothing else, and being that near to Luka almost every night and not being able to touch him, find out what’s going on in his life—or to just talk to him like we used to—is slowly and painfully destroying me. I miss him.

  With a sigh, I go to grab my bowling ball for my turn. The place is loud, but the main reason for that is that almost the entire Lucas clan is out and about tonight, including Gray, CC, and their two-month-old babies Violet and William.

  “There’s my girl! I thought you got lost,” Black shouts, wrapping his arm around my back as I straighten up, holding the ball in my hand.

  “Wrong, big brother. You were hoping I got lost because with this strike, you and your silly team are going down, down, down.”

  “You tell him, Petal!” CC calls out.

  We’re playing girls against boys tonight. It’s usually a lot of fun, but tonight, I just wish I was having dinner with Luka. Even though we’ve only discussed River, I live for those dinners with him lately—which admittedly is not a good thing.

  “Pride goeth before the fall, ladies. Tonight, it’s all about the boys!” White boasts.

  “That’s what you think, sweetheart. Boys drool and girls rule!” Kayla chirps up.

  I can’t help but smile. Since she and my brother White have been married, Kayla’s become a different person: confident, happy, and outspoken. Not to mention the fact that she’s sporting a pretty serious baby bump these days. As if my brother knows exactly what I’m thinking, he reaches down and rubs Kayla’s stomach and whispers in her ear. I’m not sure what he said to her, but the blush that blooms on her face makes me entirely envious of the two. They’re so much in love, it’s beautiful, but painful to watch.

  “Stand back and watch poetry in motion,” I joke, trying to shake off my thoughts. I take my favorite bowling pose, draw my arm back, and aim. I slowly bring it back, knowing I can make this strike and clinch the game. It’s all mine.

  Until…

  “Luka!” I hear a woman cry.

  My face jerks away from the lane, and I search for the voice. There, standing across from me two lanes down, is Luka with the secretary from his office. He’s laughing with her, and that would be painful enough, but he’s got his arm around her as she leans over to give him a kiss.

  It’s in that moment that my world ends. I don’t even realize that I drop the ball until I turn to watch it roll down into the gutter.

  Just like my life.

  2

  Luka

  “Hi,” she says, and I know she’s caught me staring. I can’t help it. She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. She’s got eyes so blue, they look almost violet, and soft caramel hair that shines and falls in waves around her face. Her lips are plump and covered in a gloss that makes me ache to know what they taste like. My gaze is drawn to them as I watch her smile. It feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach, and all the air has been forced out of my body.

  “Hi,” I tell her, leaning on the fender of my old truck, trying to act cool because right now I’m anything but. “You waiting on someone?” I ask like an idiot, but needing to know if she’s alone.

  “I was waiting on you,” she admits, her smile deepening. Her words answer dreams I didn’t know I had, and yet they confuse me at the same time.

  “On me?” I ask as she takes a step closer to me. My heartbeat quickens.

  “You were watching me instead of the football game,” she says boldly. She’s not wrong. We’re outside in the parking lot. Night is beginning to fall, and back out on the field the action is still going on. I walked out here to smoke a cigarette and get away from my buddies. They’re all looking to get laid, and while that would be fucking great, I have to report in at five in the morning to start my police training, so getting laid and staying out all night isn’t on the table.

  “And if I was?” I ask her as she gets even closer and brings her hands up to my chest. The instant she touches me it feels as if fire is under her hands. It feels like she’s branding me—and maybe she is.

  Present:

  Tani leans in to kiss me. I see it. I see her body leaning into me, and I fight the urge to turn away. She’s a good woman, and this is what I’m supposed to be doing: moving on. She’s a good woman, I repeat in my head. She’d give me exactly what I want—a home, a woman I can be proud to have by my side, and someone I could trust with my son. She’s perfect except for one thing: she’s not Petal. Tani’s lips touch mine. I take them, I taste them, I drink from them, and they leave me… full of regret.

  What the hell is wrong with me? Petal left me. No. She divorced me. Fuck, if I’m being honest, she destroyed me. She lied, she kept secrets, and still I forgave her. I fought to keep her with me, and in the end, even that wasn’t enough. I was her fool. I’ve always been her fool from the moment she walked into my life.

  Tani pulls away, and I can tell from the look on her face that she realizes I wasn’t there in the kiss with her. I give her a tight smile because shit, I don’t know what to say to her.

  “Sorry,” she whispers, her face tinting with embarrassment.

  “Tani. It’s just—”

  “I know. The whole office knows. I was just hoping since you asked me out that it might have changed.”

  Shit, isn’t that spectacular? Just what every man wants to hear. His entire office knows he’s hung up on his ex-wife.

  “I’m going to go freshen up while it’s your turn,” she says with a fake smile.

  This was a mistake. It’s all a mistake. My father keeps on to me about leaving Mason. He’s pushing that damn letter the FBI sent to me down my throat. Maybe I should agree. At one time, all I wanted was to be accepted into them. That was my goal in life. Then, Petal got pregnant and I had River in my life and everything changed—my thought process, my wants, my whole way of life stood on its rear. But without Petal, I’ve been slowly dying inside, and it doesn’t seem to be getting better. I thought time might heal, but a year later, here I am still pining over a woman who lied to me and walked away from me. I can’t ever
seem to do anything but wish my family was whole. I need to accept that it never will be that way again. It’s past time I give up and move on.

  I’ve been so lost in thought since Tani left for the restroom, I didn’t hear anyone come up to me. That’s not a good thing for a sheriff. Not paying attention can get you killed, even in the small town of Mason where the largest ongoing crime has been Shaster Johnson’s illegal homebrew. I don’t know what the hell he puts in that stuff, but it could strip the hair off your back.

  “I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Our sheriff is out pissing the night away while criminals are running the streets of Mason causing nothing but trouble.”

  I jerk my head up to see Black standing over me. He was my brother-in-law, and though I liked all of the family—with the exception of Ida Sue, the mother-in-law from hell—Black was probably the one I was closest to.

  “Jesus, when did they start stinking up the joint by letting assholes like you in?” I joke, standing up. His hand comes out, and we slap them together roughly in a handshake that feels more like two brothers coming together.