Tangled Hearts (Passion in Paradise)
Read Tangled Hearts (Passion in Paradise) Online
Authors: Sarah O'Rourke
Tangled
Hearts
By
Sarah O’Rourke
Tangled Hearts by Sarah O’Rourke
Copyright
©
2016
by Sarah O’Rourke
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication or cover design artwork may be reproduced, distributed, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or
other electronic or mechanical methods in current use or to be developed in the
future,
without the prior express
written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by
copyright law (US. Copyright Act of 1976).
This is a work of fiction. All names,
characters, and settings are fictitious, and are the sole property of Sarah
O’Rourke. Any resemblance to actual events, names, locales, organizations, or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any real setting, person, or
situation is used in a fictitious manner with literary license.
This work of fiction is intended for
mature audiences.
It’s a crying shame that we have to be a
bit witchy right now, but alas, we’re gonna. Please know that we’re sure
you’re a fine, upstanding member of society and that we really like you (more
than our shoes, even!), but we like our good name even more. So here’s the
deal: If you steal our work, we’ll be forced to pull out the big guns and we’ll
sic our Mommas on you. Crazy One’s Momma will hunt you down and make you
pay in blood. Crazy Two’s Momma will pray “for” you. And trust
us...you won’t win when she goes to the Almighty. And if that doesn’t
scare you, please be advised that we have an attorney on retainer who will sue
you within an inch of your life. He’s a barracuda and a real pain in the
ass (and he’s Crazy Two’s brother-in-law, too...isn’t he just the luckiest
person ever??) Don’t copy. Don’t pirate. Don’t steal. Don’t risk it.
This is us, being there for you.
Reach out and touch Sarah! (She loves it...she
really, really does!)
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www.sarahorourke.info
Twitter: @SarahORourke99
Email:
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Chapter
One: Sanity is a Fragile Thing
Chapter Two: Sassy, Sweet and
Stubborn is not the Sexy Combination I Thought It Would Be
Chapter Three: Coincidence is Not a
Word in Her Vocabulary
Chapter Four: Two Stalkers, One
Bullet
Chapter Five: Stalkers, Surprises,
and Other Hideous Revelations
Chapter Six: The Belly of a Very
Pissed Off Beast
Chapter Seven: Not a
Hearts-and-Flowers-Kind-of-Guy
Chapter Eight: Inside Voices Are
for Parents and Pussies
Chapter Ten: Down and Dirty is the
Only Way to Roll
Chapter Eleven: When Fantasy and
Reality Collide
Chapter Twelve: Naughty or Nice and
Other Difficult Decisions
Chapter Thirteen: Holy Holiday Crap
and Other Christmas Calamities
Chapter Fourteen: Hospitals and
Hangovers Make Crappy Gifts
Chapter Fifteen: The Great Slut vs.
Whore Debate
Chapter Sixteen: Naked and Naughty
in Nashville
Chapter Seventeen: When God Gives
With BOTH Hands
Chapter Eighteen: When Cupid Draws
Back His Bow… Stop. Drop! And Roll the Hell AWAY!
Chapter Nineteen: Your Honor, Is It
Really Murder If She Had it Coming?
Chapter Twenty: How to Manage the
Macho Masculine Moron
Chapter Twenty-One: Even
Loud-Mouthed Lunatics Need Lovin’ Sometimes
Chapter Twenty-Two: Everything
She Ever Wanted and More
Chapter Twenty-Three: Hound Dogs,
Hillbillies, Hookers, and Hostages
Chapter Twenty-Four: Bullets and
Bombshells
Chapter Twenty-Five: What a Day!
What a Day! What a Dastardly Damn Day!
One: Sanity is a Fragile Thing
Sanity was a really
funny thing; nobody truly misses it until it’s gone.
Unfortunately for her,
Melody Song Reardon comprehended this simple truth a little too late for it to
do her any real good. Live and learn and all that tripe, she thought to
herself with an audible sigh.
Melody couldn’t afford
to waste her valuable time being bitter about her delayed insight, though.
Nope. That wasn’t her style. She had more important things to do with her
energy.
Like bemoaning the
current state of her affairs.
Sitting in the crowded
parking lot of one of the new businesses that seemed to have popped up in the
town of Paradise, Tennessee overnight, she stared at the glass door to The
Coffee Klatch. Leaning her head against her seat, Melody smiled faintly as
she watched another patron slide through the door into the tiny upscale shop.
This was exactly the kind of establishment her dearly departed granny would
have hated. She would have thought gourmet coffee was a pretentious waste of
money, and Melody would have agreed with her. If she wasn’t so desperate to
avoid any of the familiar faces of her late granny’s friends this morning, she
would have simply gone to the I Don’t Care Café. Sadly, she just couldn’t cope
with anyone seeing her this out of sorts.
Melody gripped her
leather steering wheel of her new-to-her silver Nissan Versa with anxious hands
while she took a few deep breaths and slowly came to the conclusion that her life
had somehow devolved into a chaotic mix of hasty decisions and poor judgments.
It was a harsh reality that her own sanity had clearly fled for higher ground
without so much as a backward glance or a wave goodbye. It was a hard blow for
her to take since she really,
really
needed to remain rational at this
critical juncture in her life. Because as it stood, sweet little Melody Song
Reardon was now officially crazier than a crabby cuckoo bird on crack!
And no, that wasn’t an
overly dramatic assessment of her character. It was simply the truth. Crazy
did
not
look good on Melody, and she knew it. That didn’t change the
fact that she felt as though she might well be certifiably insane at this
point. At the rate her bad luck was running, the men in white coats would be
coming with their straightjackets any time now.
It was okay, she
silently comforted herself. This was one of the many benefits of living in the
South, after all. Everybody knew that the residents down here put their crazy
folks on full front porch display for all the world to see. There was no shame
in being what her late granny had often called ‘a little tetched in the head’.
At least, this is what she kept telling herself over and over again because if
she didn’t tell herself something, it was a sure bet that she was going to go
searching for the nearest bridge and proceed to belly flop to an almost certain
death since she couldn’t swim a lick. Heaven knew she’d never manage to dive
off that metaphorical bridge with anything nearing grace or style. Heck, no.
It had been genetically predetermined that Melody would be a klutz for her
entire life – no matter how long that life turned out to be.
She was vaguely aware
that her mind was a jumbled mess, her thoughts growing more and more disjointed
the longer she sat behind the wheel of her car. Her mental discord was the
reason she was sitting in this parking lot; she didn’t trust herself to drive
any further until she pulled herself together.
Swallowing hard, she
shook her head as she considered the mess her life had become. She wasn’t
sure what demon had possessed her mind and body and convinced her to sink both
her inheritance from her granny’s estate
and
her hard earned, tediously
saved nest egg into opening a combination book and knitting supply store in one
of the vacant storefronts on the Paradise town square, but it had certainly
been one strong mother of a spirit. While nobody could deny that the location
she’d chosen had been a prime piece of real estate for any new business to nab,
Melody – now that she was in her right mind - also knew she was massively
unqualified for this kind of thing. She only wished that she’d realized sooner
that she was making an emotionally-fueled decision. But no, she’d been too
late. She’d done a perfectly convincing job of portraying a sane, sober woman
as she’d ignored that gnawing fear in her gut and that sense of doom hanging
over her head while she’d met with the her new landlord and his attorney this
morning to scribble her name to a year-long lease agreement. Yep, she’d
effectively signed her life away for 365 days.
“Just color me stupid,”
she proclaimed out loud as she shifted in her leather seat and thumped her head
against the headrest. Biting her lip, she took a shaky breath. “Oh, holy crap!
What have I done? I don’t make these kind of choices….take these kind of
risks. Brave people do this shit. I’m not brave. Hell, no! I’m boring. I
play it safe! I live by a clearly defined set of rules and parameters. I read
romances and work crossword puzzles for fun. I leave bungee jumping and
mountain climbing to the adrenaline junkies. I avoid risks like I avoid the
plague, so when the heck did I decide it’d be a good idea to start playin’ fast
and loose with my money and my life? Who am I? Bill Gates?” she whispered
shakily as her hands began to sweat and her panic mounted, the heavy weight of
what she’d done settling over her like a lead mantle.
Grabbing her pounding
head with one hand, Melody squeezed her eyes closed and willed the Earth to
quit spinning at such a breakneck speed. She needed a moment… just a moment to
catch up with the rest of the world, and then she’d be good. Or, as close to
good as she was likely to get at this critical crossroads in her life.
This was
not
supposed
to be what her life looked like at thirty years old. Nuh uh. And until
recently, she’d been what she considered a normal woman, both physically and
emotionally healthy. Melody would readily admit that she wasn’t a model by any
stretch of the imagination, but she hadn’t exactly fallen out of the ugly tree
either. She was simply a petite woman with looks that leaned toward the
ordinary. Standing 5’2” in her socked feet, she knew she was on the short side,
but it was rarely a problem for her since she almost never went without heels
on her feet. If somebody had asked one of the great poets – and that poet
stretched their imagination – they would have said that Melody had eyes the
color of rich coffee on a winter morn. Her brother, however, was less kind.
He said she had eyes the color of mud. Mel sincerely hoped the folks that
wrote her obituary talked to the poets rather than her sibling about her vital
statistics when she died.
Her hair, in her
opinion, was by far her most attractive feature, and she’d inherited it from
her momma, God rest her sweet soul. Long, curly, and chestnut brown, it fell
to mid-back when it was left down and unbound. Her shiny mane tended to be
unruly, however, so she often kept it swept up in a high ponytail or in a messy
bun on the top of her head. Glancing in her rearview mirror, Melody caught
sight of her reflection and was thankful that she’d opted for the ponytail
route today. The cold December breeze blowing outside the car would have
wreaked havoc on a bun otherwise.
As for her other
physical attributes, she supposed she was okay. Average, she silently amended
as her eyes went from the mirror to glance down at the rest of her body. She
wasn’t fat, nor was she a bone, and she wasn’t one bit sorry for that. Hunger
wasn’t her friend, and she enjoyed eating way too much to worry about a measly
few extra pounds hanging around her body. The few additional calories that she
regularly indulged in did leave a mark, however. Mainly, they appeared in her chest
area. It was a sad, but oddly empowering fact that men’s gazes frequently
found their way to her boobs. Between her love of all things edible and the
legacy of her late mom’s genes, Melody possessed a set of overly healthy C cups
(and by overly healthy, she meant that she should have probably bought the bra
she wore in a D cup) that never failed to draw considerable attention. She
had a waist that was on the narrow side, but the size of her butt more than
made up for that in spades. That hip hop song, ‘Baby Got Back’…some days she
was sure it was written with girls like her in mind. Yeah, Melody had suffered
through more than one cat call in her younger years (and her not so younger
years if yesterday’s trip to the lumber section of the Home Depot was any
indication). In her experience, it seemed like both boys and men alike shared
the stupid gene that said it was okay to holler at helplessly stacked women
carrying around a little extra weight in their boobs and tail.
All in all, Melody knew
she was a whole lot of woman stuffed into a very compact package, but that was
okay with her. Good things come in small packages and all that crap, right?
She couldn’t complain about her body much because whatever flaws the Lord might
or might not have bestowed on her, he gave her one key ingredient that you
couldn’t beat.
Brains.
Yep, in addition to a
shapely rack and a mostly sunny disposition, God in all His infinite wisdom
smiled upon her the day she was born and gifted her with the valuable trait of
intelligence. In her professional life, she’d exceled, becoming a successful
bookkeeper that ran her own accounting service while patiently waiting to say
her ‘I do’s’ to the man with whom she thought she’d grow old and die. Now, she
just hoped
he’d
die. A slow, agonizing death, please.
Oh, yes, she’d toiled
away her days working with other people’s money, but she’d been dreaming of the
day she’d walk down the aisle to the man she thought would do anything for her.
Turns out, though, her fiancé was less concerned about doing for her, and
more interested in doing
anybody,
anytime in any place he and his ho of
the moment wanted and in any and every position imaginable. Melody could
testify to that. The position in which she’d found her ex-fiancé screwing her
matron of honor while desecrating her flawless polished antique mahogany dining
room table wasn’t even listed in the Kama Sutra.
She’d checked. Twice.
She supposed it wasn’t
all bad news. Melody had managed to escape the relationship without any horrible
diseases. She was a lucky, lucky girl indeed since she’d spent the better part
of five years being fooled by a man she’d never really known at all. So, while
she
was
intelligent, she was also gullible as hell – which could be a
deadly combination when a person thought about it. It was sad; while she’d
assumed she was living the dream with the man she loved, he had been out and
about, nailing any woman with a working woo woo. Like a moron, she’d allowed
herself to be completely blinded by his charm and charisma.
But the blinders were
off now, and she was seeing things all too clearly these days.
She’d been undeniably
played for a fool, but never again. Oh, hell to the NO! Never ever a-freaking-gain,
dammit. She wasn’t blameless, though. She could see where part of this whole
ordeal had been her own fault. She’d allowed herself to fall in a rut, getting
entirely too comfortable with her humdrum day to day existence of her life with
the man she’d thought she loved. For five years, she’d worked, taking care of
her bookkeeping clients with a skilled hand and looking after her fiancé just
the way she’d imagined a dutiful girlfriend and fiancée should. While Melody
had never been what she’d call ‘over-the-moon-happy’ with her life, she’d been
content with the way things had gone for herself in the last few years. She
would probably have gone on being obliviously content with the life she’d built
with her fiancé until they lowered her casket into the ground if she hadn’t
fortuitously walked in on her man banging her best friend (and matron of honor)
into their dining room two days before she was supposed to take that long
journey down the aisle to her future. In his normal overachieving fashion, the
rat bastard she’d been going to marry had managed to effectively screw two
women that long ago afternoon – one with his dick and the other one with his
deeds.
The good news was that
she’d finally woken up to what an unfaithful letch of a man her ex really was.
Seeing him burying his cock in another woman had convinced her of one thing.
It was time for her to shake the sugar tree and mix things up a whole lot. No
one – including her – could deny that it was long past time for her to make
some radical changes to her stale, uninteresting life. And that began with
cutting the cheating bastard out of her life and getting the hell out of Dodge.
So, off the heroine of
this tale had gone, launching herself into the wild blue yonder… or in her
particular case, she’d aimed her car toward Paradise and stepped on the
accelerator.
Lifting her hand off
the steering wheel, Melody chuckled at her whimsical thoughts before she began
to chew nervously on her thumb nail. Oh, she was aware that it was a nasty
habit that she needed to break, but then there were a whole lot of things in
her life that needed changing. Nail biting would need to take a number and go
to the end of the line. She had a whole host of other things she needed to
change first - like getting better taste in men and learning how to attract a
quality man. Those were top priorities in her mind.
