Bittersweet Catastrophe (Second Chances #2.5) Read online

  Copyright © 2014 Maureen Mayer

  Cover Design © Robin Harper of Wicked By Design

  Cover Picture © Geoff Goldswain via Shutterstock.com

  Interior Design: Brenda Wright

  Literary Editor: Kendra Gaither

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  To Tabby, who begged and pleaded for more of Shayne’s story, and without whom, I never would have written this book.

  And to my grandmother…I never had the pleasure of meeting you, but I hope I’ve made you proud.

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Relinquishing Liberty

  Playlist

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Books by Maureen Mayer

  I awoke to the sound of waves crashing and gulls squawking, and the first thought that crossed my mind was…what the fuck happened last night? My head was pounding, gradually getting worse by the second, and when I rolled over to look at the clock and saw it was five in the fucking morning, there was no need to tell me I was already off to a bad start. I didn’t have to be up for work for another two hours, but I knew attempting to get any more sleep would be useless.

  Fuck it.

  I crawled out of bed, immediately regretting it. The echo of my feet slapping against the hardwood floors resonated through my head like a cannon, and I could feel the bile steadily rising up my throat. Christ, how much did I drink? I ran my hand sloppily over my face and tried to recall what had happened the night before. The only thing I could remember was heading to The Red Light District to grab a drink and… Shit, I guess that turned into a couple of drinks because now I now had the hangover from hell, and if those damn seagulls didn’t shut the fuck up, I was going to murder every last one of them!

  I had to stop doing this; beating myself up for something I had no control over. Thoughts of Wade had been weighing heavily on my mind over last few months, which in and of itself was never a good thing because I often found myself resorting to alcohol to numb the pain since my best friend’s suicide. The only other remedy was a good, quick fuck, but I guess I was still too sober when the opportunity presented itself halfway through the night. An image flashed through my mind of Vanessa on her knees in the men’s room, tugging on the zipper of my jeans and begging to take me in her mouth…and then I remembered I turned her down. A perfectly good blowjob wasted, and for what? God, what the hell is wrong with me? Did I suddenly grow a vagina overnight?

  Considering I still felt like shit, even more so than before I headed out to the bar last night, I knew my problems still went unresolved. Let’s see: Wade’s still gone, mom’s still gone, I’m still alone…yup, nothing’s changed. I had to clear my head of these dismal thoughts, so I grabbed my fishing gear and made my way down to the beach laid out behind my house; it was my only other safe haven…my personal refuge.

  An hour passed before any signs of life appeared out there on the beach. The fish weren’t biting, the bastard gulls had flown out, and I was left with nothing more than a few ripples of waves lapping around my ankles. I rolled my pants up, exposing my calves to the brisk morning air, and sunk my feet into the loose, wet sand. I loved it here. This was one of the few places I could find peace when it seemed like everything else was caving in around me. My father refused to step foot anywhere near the house since my mother died, but I found it was the one place I could still connect with her. It had been nearly sixteen years since she’d passed, and yet I could still feel her presence surrounding me as though she had never left.

  A few moments later, the gentle pounding of footsteps as they connected with the sand brought my attention to the most breathtaking sight my eyes have ever taken in. Fuck me. Where did she come from, and why am I just discovering her existence now? She didn’t notice that my gaze had remained glued to her as she quickly approached me. Her eyes were closed, and a hint of a smile turned up the corners of her mouth, lighting up her beautiful face. She had this peaceful tranquility emanating from her, and I wished that I could just share in one ounce of it, even just for a moment. The sun was just barely coming up, and the way it highlighted all of her gorgeous curves made her appear as though she were an angel flying straight toward me. Oh shit. She really is about to fly straight into me!

  I felt the full impact of her colliding against me, but it wasn’t enough to knock me down. Her eyes slowly rose up, and the second they connected with mine, it felt as though all of the air had been sucked straight out of my lungs.

  My hands landed on the warm, soft skin at the swell of her hips where her shirt had ridden up. I didn’t know if I was afraid to move or if I just wasn’t ready to let her go, but we both remained frozen in place until she stumbled a bit, causing my hands to slide higher up along her ribs. When she finally caught her balance, my hands were just at the edge of her sports bra, and I could feel the weight of her breasts as they grazed against my thumbs. This was dangerous territory. I was quickly getting hard, the scorching heat of her skin driving me absolutely insane, and I knew Shayne Jr. was about to make an unwelcomed appearance. I had to think of something else and fast! Cold showers, kittens, little baby Jesus, grandma naked…yup, that did the trick!

  When I was sure she was steady enough to stand on her own, I removed my hands and brushed away the few strands of hair that had fallen in front of my eyes. Her gorgeous brown eyes widened as she looked into mine, and she staggered back a bit before regaining her composure.

  “Whoa, are you okay there?” I looked down as she stared up at my lips. God, she was so fucking beautiful. I just wanted to pick her up and carry her off into my house so I could fuck her senseless.

  “I-I’m good,” she said, brushing off some of the sand that coated her skin-tight yoga pants. I loved yoga pants. Fucking loved them. They left nothing to the imagination and made me want to tear them clean away from that sweet ass of hers.

  I could tell she seemed a little embarrassed, but she had no reason to be. She just made my goddamned morning! “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you standing there. I swear I only closed my eyes for a second.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Was she serious? “It was a little more than a second there, sweetheart. You had your eyes closed for a good minute before you plowed into me. Must’ve really been in the zone, huh?”

  She turned away, but there was no hiding that ambrosial blush that spread across her cheeks. “Yeah, I guess I was. Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “Nope, not a scratch, babe. Don’t worry. I’m like a brick house…can’t blow me down.” I shot her a smug grin and threw in a wink for good measure. Okay, so that might have been a bit cocky on my part,
but the bashful smile that reddened her cheeks even more made it well worth it.

  Her eyes roamed over me, leisurely taking me in as I towered over her tiny frame, but something about the way her eyes drank me in was different. It’s like she wasn’t just seeing me as a hard body to have her dirty way with, but rather she saw straight through to the core of me. It wasn’t until she finally blinked a few times that she peeled her eyes away from me and spoke.

  “Well I-I’ll let you get back to fishing. Sorry again.”

  I reached my arm out and tried to stop her, but before I had the chance to get any words out, she spun on her heel and sprinted back down the beach in the opposite direction. I couldn’t do anything other than watch as this beautiful stranger quickly bolted away from me. Fuck, I didn’t even know her name, but I prayed that I would find her again. I had to find her.

  Her auburn hair whipped around as she turned her head for just a mere second, and I bore my eyes into her, silently begging her to come back. Her gaze slipped away from me, and she continued to run alongside the waves bubbling up onto the sand until her slender figure faded into the distance and out of my life. Some way, somehow, I knew I’d be seeing her again, and I’d make damn sure of that.

  I might’ve given up on a lot of things in my life, but of one thing I was sure…

  I wasn’t ready to give up on her.

  “Babe, are you ready to go? Your appointment is in ten minutes.” I leaned against the frame of our bedroom door and couldn’t help laughing as I watched her scurry around the room, looking for God knows what.

  “Almost! I just need one more thing,” she huffed out breathlessly, bending down on her hands and knees to peek under the bed. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, knowing how much she’d hate it if I wound up and spanked her right then and there. Although, she wasn’t complaining last night. My girl had a wild side, one that I soon discovered after we first got together, and with the way she was waving that sexy ass around, she seriously was asking for it.

  As I stood there waiting for her, I thought back to how different things had been before we met. To say that I never envisioned my life going in the direction that it had was the biggest fucking understatement of the century. Before, I’d made it my goal to live every day as if it were my last because, let’s face it, tomorrow was never guaranteed, and if I were to die tomorrow, I wanted to be able to say that I spent the last few minutes of my existence doing what I did best: drinking to numb the pain and screwing to alleviate the ache…both in my heart and in my pants. I wasn’t proud of who I’d become, and my mother would be rolling over in her grave if she knew half of the shit I had gotten myself into, but I was done with all of that. I was ready to bury the reputation I’d earned for the careless choices I’d made.

  It didn’t take long to open my eyes and see that the world would continue to revolve around the sun and people would carry on with their lives, regardless of the fuck-ups I made. Who was I to them? No one. Just another walking hard-on willing to get my dick wet for a moment’s reprieve. I wasn’t anything to anyone, other than my father, who continued to turn his cheek the other way every time I got caught up in my own shit. I wanted to be a man my mother would be proud to call her son, and the day I called it quits on my fucked up ways, I cut ties with nearly every person who continued to drag me down further.

  From that point on, I devoted all of my time and energy to working on my father’s deep sea fishing boat, learning the ropes – literally – and getting my act together. But just because I had put forth the effort to change my ways, didn’t mean I went full on celibate. Fuck, I wasn’t about to let my dick shrivel up and fall off! Luckily, Vanessa, my on-again off-again hookup, was the perfect distraction, and she knew I wasn’t looking for anything more. I just…needed the release, and she gave me exactly that.

  That all changed, though, the moment Liberty fell into my life. She was the missing piece to a puzzle I never thought could be made whole again…until her. I’d never forget the way she pegged me with her beautiful brown eyes as she came crashing into my arms with a mind-awakening blow that hammered its way straight through my heart. Love was never something I was looking for; in fact, it was usually the furthest thing from my mind, but somehow it had snuck up and found me in the form of this gorgeous woman. Just her smile alone jolted me back to life, and I knew from that moment on my life would never be the same. It was only a little over a year later that I made her a permanent part of my life, and I now had the pleasure of calling this incredible woman my wife.

  My wife. God, I would never get sick of saying those two words. I had officially made her mine, and I couldn’t remember a single time in my life where I had been happier than when I heard her say the words “I do.”

  Until now.

  Even before I slipped my mother’s ring on Liberty’s finger, we had openly discussed starting a family of our own one day, and the second she became Mrs. Thompson, I swept her up in my arms and carried her straight to our bedroom to get right down to it!

  We had spent nearly a year trying to get pregnant with no success, and I knew how frustrating it was, especially for Liberty. She wanted so badly to have a baby of her own, and seeing her best friend Maddie, happily married with her own newborn, didn’t help the situation any. It killed me in the worst way imaginable to see her upset over it. I had promised her the world, and here I couldn’t even give her the one thing she wanted most…to be a mother.

  After several doctor visits and fertility drug trials, it seemed all of our prayers had gone unanswered, but just when we were about ready to give up, my beautiful wife said the two words I’d been waiting so patiently to hear her say. “We’re pregnant.” God, I’d never felt so happy and so scared in my entire life, and I knew hearing those words would change everything.

  Now, here we were, running late for Liberty’s first Ob/Gyn appointment, and as much as I tried to keep it hidden beneath all of my excitement, I was a nervous wreck.

  “Got it!” She jumped up, dangling a ratty, old rabbit’s foot from a key ring around her finger.

  “What do you need that for?” I eyed her curiously. She’d had that mangy looking thing since she was a little girl, and it was missing patches of fur all over. I tried to get her to throw it out, but she refused to, claiming it brought her this far and its luck hadn’t run out yet.

  She smiled up at me sweetly and pressed her lips against my cheek. “For good luck, silly.”

  “Sweetheart, we already know you’re pregnant. I don’t think we need any more luck.”

  “You never know. What if they were all false-positives?”

  “All ten of them?!” I cocked a brow, laughing at the thought of her not being pregnant. Impossible. It might’ve taken us longer than we had anticipated, but I knew without a doubt that she was carrying my child. Call it father-to-be intuition. “You have nothing to worry about.” I kissed her nose and spun her around, swatting her behind.

  “Well, regardless, I’m bringing it with me. I could use all of the luck I can get.” She clutched it against her chest and made her way into the living room, where her purse was perched on the end table.

  “We don’t need luck, baby. We make our own luck.” I wrapped my arms around her waist, splaying my hands over her flat, toned stomach. “And this right here is one lucky baby because he or she is going to have some kickass parents.”

  “I won’t disagree with you there,” Liberty chuckled and swung her purse over her shoulder as we headed out to my Jeep. We made it to the doctor’s office with a minute to spare, and I plopped down in the nearest empty chair while Liberty signed in at the front desk.

  Sweat beaded my brow as I watched women enter and leave the waiting room; some alone and some with their men by their sides. Something in me must’ve snapped because the reality of what was happening and why we were here had finally kicked in. A woman who looked to be in her early thirties sat across from us with a newborn wrapped up in her arms, and I envisioned myself in just a few
months sitting in that very same spot with our child. Our child. Was I even ready to be a father? Shit, was it too late to change my mind?

  I shook the thought away as Liberty sat down beside me, beaming with happiness, and began filling out page after page of paperwork. That beautiful smile got to me every time, and I knew there was no way in hell I’d ever change my mind. I only hoped that our baby was born with that same gorgeous grin, soft auburn hair, and those big brown eyes, or maybe my brown hair and green eyes. Either way, I’d be happy as long as our kid was healthy.

  I continued drumming my fingers against my bouncing knee until Liberty reached across and slipped her fingers between mine, bringing my hand over to her lap.

  “You doing all right over there?” Her sweet voice broke through my racing mind.

  I leaned over and pressed my lips to her forehead. “Never better, sweetheart. I just wish the doctor would hurry the fuck up. Do they always take this long?”

  “Shayne, it’s only been ten minutes. It shouldn’t be too much longer. Why don’t you grab a magazine to pass the time?”

  I looked over at the magazine rack beside us and cringed when I saw there wasn’t a single issue of Sports Illustrated or Men’s Fitness. What kind of doctor’s office was this? I grabbed the first magazine I could without looking, and the first page I opened up to was an article about stretchmark creams. I turned the page, only to find an article showing what babies really looked like right after they were born, and… What the fuck?! I slammed the magazine back in the rack and went back to drumming my fingers rapidly against my knee. Seriously, how much longer was this going to take? I was beginning to wear a hole through my jeans.

  “Liberty Thompson, we can take you back now. Will your husband be accompanying you?”

  “Damn right I will be!” I flew up from my seat, heedless of the other people around me.

  “Shayne…”