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  The Bust

  Jamie Bennett

  Copyright © 2021 Jamie Bennett

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in a book review. Please contact the author at [email protected].

  This is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Book cover by Angela Haddon Book Cover Designs.

  Kayden Matthews messed up.

  Again.

  But this time, it’s huge. He’s out of professional football. He’s out of his family. He’s out of money.

  The party’s over. He’s a bust.

  The only thing he has going for him is that he still has his arm. In other words, he can still play—if any team would have him. But if they look at his past behavior, the wild times that got him into this current situation? Chances are nil that he’ll ever get back on a field.

  Yeah, done. And what else is there in life besides football and the party that went along with it?

  Well, he does have one other thing. That girl he met—Karol? Kristina? No, Kylie! That weird woman who lives with her old dog and treats it like another human. Somehow, and before he really knows it, they do get to be friends. Somehow, she seems to like him, no matter if he is finished in football, washed up, alone. Lonely.

  Well, maybe Kylie is, too. Of course, she has her dog, and she doesn’t really need anyone else—that’s what she keeps saying, anyway. She’s looking for adventure and she’s never going to stay long in one place, no matter how good it is. Circumstances are pulling her onwards, and she has to go, no matter what she’s leaving behind.

  Kayden and Kylie are nothing alike. In fact, they’re so opposite, they shouldn’t get along at all. But there is something between them—and that something is leading to love and an ending neither of them expected!

  Prologue

  Kylie

  “What was that?”

  I sat straight up in the total blackness of the room, forgetting where I was. Meaning, I forgot that I was in a child-size bunk bed, and my forehead cracked against the metal slat just above me.

  “Ow!” I fell back onto the pillow with a moan and temporarily ignored what had woken me from my sleep of the (practically) dead. Waitressing until closing time in a dive bar on a Saturday night could put you pretty much out cold.

  But another crash sounded in the living room and I sat up again, much more slowly and carefully, and now a little dizzy from the knot growing on my forehead. I strained my eyes into the darkness, as if I could see through the wall. Someone was in there. Someone had broken into the house!

  “Emma! Emma, wake up!” I hissed across the bed. Every muscle in my body tensed and my ears practically stood up from my head as I tried to hear what he was doing in the other room. He? I assumed it was a man—had someone followed me home from the bar? Maybe the regular who always told me that he loved me and generally had to be pushed out into the parking lot by Roy, the owner? Maybe that new guy who had tried to keep me at his table tonight by pulling on the edge of my t-shirt, slurring that he liked my look and was lonely? My own fingers gripped along the edge of my blanket, nails digging through it and into my palms. Who was he? Was he lurking in my living room, or would he come back here to the bedroom to find us? What if he had a weapon? What would he try to do? My breath caught in fear.

  Emma snored.

  “Hey!” I whispered again, and poked her with my foot. “Wake up!”

  All I got from her direction was another snore, but louder and more annoyed. And then there was a crash, a loud one, like a stack of dishes breaking. It shocked me into action and my hand shot over to the nightstand where I scrabbled for my phone.

  “911, what’s your emergency?”

  “There’s an intruder!” I whispered. “Ninety-three Rose—”

  A loud squawk, and then a huge thud. It sounded like someone had dragged and then turned over something heavy. What was he doing out there?

  “Can you speak up? I’m not able to hear you,” the operator told me.

  I cupped my other hand around the phone and managed to get across that I was being robbed at 93 Rosewood Trail and was also in danger of being attacked and murdered. Help was on the way, but the noises in the front were only getting louder! Several small thumps and little explosions of glass, then a huge crash that shook the floor as wood splintered and metal clattered.

  “Is he just wrecking the house?” I whispered to Emma. My eyes burned as I tried to look through the inky shadows of the room. Were the sounds getting closer or was I so freaked out that I was just imagining footsteps? “Is he coming in here?” Oh, lordy. I held the phone so tightly that it hurt my hand. How much longer would it take for the police to get here? I checked the time. Seriously? Only one minute had passed since I’d called them?

  There was nowhere to hide in this tiny, hot room, since the closet was stuffed and every inch of space under the bunks was likewise crammed full. I couldn’t squeeze myself through the single, tiny window, high on the wall. The only exit was the door, which led to the hallway, which led to the living room. Another crash sounded, and it definitely did seem…closer.

  “Emma, he’s coming!” I told her, but she huffed and turned on her side. Great! My best friend was going to sleep through the most dangerous moment of our lives, including when we’d gotten stranded in the Great Salt Desert and that time in Arkansas…no, there was no time for a walk down memory lane. I had to figure out what to do about the problem facing us right now, as we hid in a bunk in my great-aunt’s house in northern Michigan, a place I had thought was safe.

  If he came into the bedroom, I would have to fight the guy and hold him off until the police could get here and arrest him. In the dim light of my phone, I looked for a weapon. I slid myself off the blow-up mattress and crawled a foot to the right to grab the handle of an old umbrella. I could poke him with it. I could open it in his face and startle him and run! Ok, yes, my defense wasn’t much, but I wasn’t going to sit in here and do nothing when he crashed through the door like Cristin’s evil stepbrother in The Lord and the Waylaid Lady. Of course, an earl had jumped in to save her, but there probably wouldn’t be one of those around to do the same thing for me.

  So…the umbrella. “It’s on,” I whispered, and I held my weapon at the ready position, my body in a fighting stance. Then I rethought that. Even with the umbrella, we were sitting ducks in this tiny room full of furniture and piles of stuff. I wouldn’t be able to fight, not really, and an escape would be almost impossible once he got in. I was going to have to come out. I would have to make a run for it.

  I looked down at the mattress. “Emma! I’m going for help!”

  She turned over again and burped.

  “I’ll be back,” I promised her. I tucked my phone into the elastic of my boxer shorts and crept out of the bedroom door in the darkness, clutching the umbrella and trying to breathe quietly. I could hear him talking, muttering—and it was a him for sure, because even though the voice was muffled, I could hear that it was deep. More glass broke and the voice said something else, something that sounded like an exclamation of surprise.

  I held up the umbrella and tried to prepare myself. It was a few steps to the end of the hallway, and then only four or five paces across the living room to the door, dodging the furniture, boxes, and piles of stuff that my great-aunt had left behind. My plan was to startle him and race outside, then down the street to the neighbor who had made me pot brownies when I’d
moved in. She probably had real weapons due to her grow operation.

  I could do it. I could make it.

  I took a big, silent breath in, readying myself, and then I leaped into the living room and let out a scream that rattled the glass in the windows. And as I did, the man standing in front of me dropped the armful of pans he was holding and yelled right back. It was so loud for a moment that my ears rang and I was so shocked myself that by mistake, I stopped and stared instead of bolting for the front door. It wasn’t just the noise that had surprised me, though—I recognized this person! He wasn’t a bar regular or some drunk who’d followed me home from my shift at Roy’s Tavern. He was famous!

  “I know you!” I said, and raised my hand to point at him. “I know who you are!”

  He stared at me, his dark hair messy, his face pale and sweaty. Even so, he was still so good looking that my own eyes got big. He looked like he stepped right off the cover of one of my books, with his strong jaw and his tall, muscled frame. His bloodshot, bleary, brown eyes…no, that was bad. What was wrong with him?

  “What are you doing here?” he asked me.

  “Me? I live here. What are you doing here?”

  He shook his head back and forth, like he was clearing it, but he made himself wobble so much that he lurched to the side and knocked over an armchair with another crash. “I came home,” he slurred.

  “What?”

  “Home,” he told me, and righted himself.

  “No, you don’t live here, I do! You broke in!” I waggled my umbrella threateningly. “And now you have to go. Get out!”

  “Where’s Ben?” he asked, turning his head and blinking slowly.

  “Huh? Who?” I had let my guard down and lowered my weapon but then he took a step toward me and I brought it right back up. “Stop! Don’t move. I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest!”

  “Gaby?” he questioned, squinting at me.

  Gaby? “Who?” I asked again.

  He took another step and got close enough that I poked him in the chest. “Stop,” I warned him. “Don’t even think about it!” I realized that my back was now almost at the wall. He was way, way bigger than me, a lot taller and obviously a lot stronger, so if he was thinking about something bad, it was going to be a problem. Like an African wild dog meets a dik-dik kind of a problem.

  But he stopped his approach. “Ow,” he grunted, and rubbed the spot where the metal tip of the umbrella had met its target. “I’m not going to hurt you, Gaby,” he assured me. “I would never, never hurt you. I’m really sorry. Did you get my letter? Did I send it?” He rubbed his eyes with his hand. “I’m so tired. I need to go to bed.” Now he covered his face and his voice muffled. “Why did I do that? Why?” He swayed and jerked up his head. “What are you doing here?”

  Lordy, he was drunk off his ass. “You have to sleep this off. You should go to bed, in your own bedroom, at your own house,” I told him. “Now, get out.” I batted at him with the umbrella, trying to herd him toward the front door. “Go on. Get! Get out of here.”

  He withstood my weak hits like he didn’t even feel them. “Why are you doing that?” he asked, and he sounded hurt. Emotionally, not due to my weapon.

  “You’re in my house! You broke into my house!” I tried to explain again. “Why are you here?” I looked around at the chaos of the room: broken furniture, broken glass, broken everything. The huge china cabinet was turned on its side, boxes were tumbled everywhere, the couch was shoved into the tiny kitchen. It looked like every dish from that room was piled on one of the many end tables or shattered on the floor. “Why did you trash the place?” I asked him, momentarily hopeless. It was even worse than before, which required a real effort.

  “I was trying to fix it,” he mumbled, his words running together. “It’s all wrong. Everything, it’s all wrong.”

  “Well, it wasn’t the nicest, sure, but you were a human tornado! It’s completely destroyed. What am I going to do about this?” I demanded. “Why did you act like that?”

  “I came home,” he said again, and at that moment, a wet nose pushed into my hand. My dog, my best friend, had joined the party.

  “No, Emma, get back into the bedroom!” I ordered, but as usual, she ignored my command. Instead, she stepped forward and leaned her big body against my leg. “There’s broken glass on the floor,” I explained. “You could cut your paws.”

  She ignored that, too. She looked up at the intruder—yes, the guy who’d broken in!—and wagged her tail hopefully. She was making friends with him, the turncoat.

  “Hey there,” he said, and he tried to squat down to pet her. But he was so drunk, or high, or something, that he tumbled right over onto the floor. Emma tilted her head and strolled over. She sat down next to him and placed her big, black paw on his stomach, signaling that she wanted a chest rub. “You’re a good dog,” he mumbled, and she huffed and lay down across him. I watched as both of them closed their eyes.

  “Seriously?” I asked. “Emma, he’s a burglar!” They snored.

  I heard the faint noise of sirens from outside. “I called the cops,” I explained. Emma’s hind leg twitched. “They’re here, so you should wake up.” I nudged him with my foot, and he grunted. He looked very peaceful in his sleep, and definitely harmless, and I felt a pang of guilt.

  “Look, I’m sorry about this,” I announced. “I don’t want you to get arrested, because you don’t seem like a bad guy! But you really can’t go around breaking into other people’s houses.” Blue lights flashed through the windows and I rolled my lower lip in my teeth. “You know what? I’ll go out first and explain the situation. I’ll tell them that this was more like a mistake than a robbery, that you’re just confuddled.”

  He didn’t wake up to agree, but I quickly hopped around him and Emma and walked out through the front, calling, “It’s ok! It’s ok, he’s just drunk and lost or something.” I pointed to my house. “He’s in there, passed out on the floor.”

  The officers put away their weapons. “You’re all right?” the man asked, and the woman questioned, “What happened to your face?”

  I gently felt my forehead with my fingertips. “I hurt myself on my bunk bed. He really didn’t do anything to me,” I assured them. “I don’t think he meant any harm, but he did cause a lot of property damage. And he scared me to death.” I paused. “He kept saying that he was home.”

  One of the cops walked cautiously through the front door but only a moment later, he stuck his head back through it. “You’re not going to believe this,” he called to his partner. “It’s Kayden Matthews!”

  She stared at him. “The football player? The quarterback? That Kayden Matthews?”

  Yes, that Kayden Matthews. He was still on the floor of my living room, asleep and hugging my dog when I peeked back in. That was the Kayden Matthews that the officers were taking to jail.

  Chapter 1

  Kayden

  “Do you understand what you’re pleading to today, Mr. Matthews? Have your attorneys explained the consequences to you?”

  I nodded at the judge and one of my lawyers nudged me. “Out loud,” she mouthed.

  “I do understand, your honor.” My voice cracked like I was a teenager again, but I felt like an old man. “They’ve explained. I understand.”

  The judge looked through her glasses at some papers on her podium. “I see that you checked into in-patient substance abuse treatment for sixty days and successfully completed the program. Your attorneys have submitted numerous statements about your recovery and your progress in staying sober. How would you say it’s going for you?”

  “I’m doing my best,” I told her. Not well, that was the real answer. Every day was a struggle to get up, to eat, to breathe. “I’m doing much better.” Maybe that was true; I was out of my bed, dressed, and talking. I was clean, both showered and drug-free.

  “I’m glad to hear that.” She shuffled her papers again and then started to say stuff about my sentence. My lawyers had already gone
over it, at least five times to make sure I understood, because my brain didn’t seem to be clicking too fast these days. I wasn’t going to serve any time, but there were things I had to do. Restitution, like I had to pay for the damage to the house on Rosewood Trail. Not Rosemont Court, Rosewood Trail. Community service, a lot of hours of that. They had already signed me up to be a mentor, which was great. What was I going to teach some kid, how to find the best dealer? What “proof” meant on a bottle?

  The judge mentioned probation, which I also knew about. If I fucked up again, I was going to jail. They were giving me another break, which was generous. I’d already had the public intoxication charge, open containers a few times, one near miss with an assault case that got dismissed. That one hadn’t been my fault, really hadn’t, but it didn’t matter. This was it, the lead attorney had repeated a bunch of times until she was pretty sure that I understood it. This was my final chance.

  “If that’s all…” the judge said, eyebrows raised in the direction of the prosecutor.

  “Uh, your honor?” I asked, and she looked over the top of her glasses at me.

  “Yes, Mr. Matthews? You’d like to address the court?”

  “No,” my lawyer mouthed at me. “Don’t speak.”

  “Yeah. Yes, please, I’d like to address the court,” I said. “I want to tell everyone that I’m really sorry. I’m sorry I broke into that house and I’m sorry I scared that girl. Woman. I’d like to make it up to her, if I could.”

  “You’re paying a significant amount of restitution,” the judge pointed out.

  “I’d like to say sorry in person, if that’s possible.”

  She shuffled papers. “That might be arranged through Victim Services,” she told me, and I felt my jaw go slack. I had a victim. That was what I had done to that woman, I’d made her my victim. I felt like I might get sick so I shut my mouth hard and ground my teeth together. I didn’t say anything else, just nodded and then shook hands with the lawyers when the gavel came down.