Discovering Harmony (Wishing Well, Texas #3) Read online

  Discovering Harmony

  by

  Melanie Shawn

  ‡

  Copyright © 2016 Melanie Shawn

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.

  This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.

  Cover Design by Wildcat Dezigns

  Copy edit by Cassie Mae (CookieLynn Publishing Services) and Deanna McDonald

  Book Design by BB eBooks

  Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing

  Rev. 1

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Coming Spring 2017

  Other Titles by Melanie Shawn

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Harmony

  “She’s whiskey in a teacup.”

  ~ Loretta Reed

  Hello, Karma. Your reputation precedes you, and I see it is well earned.

  Although I have been accused, more than once, of leaning towards the dramatic—usually by one of my eight older brothers—I think even they would admit that this was bad. Really bad.

  What was that saying? No good deed goes unpunished. Yep. That’s definitely the case here.

  I tend to use the scale method to mentally gauge and catalogue my experiences: one means it was horrifically awful, ten means it was out-of-this world amazing.

  I once won front row seats and backstage passes to the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill Soul2Soul tour. That turned out to be one of the best nights of my life and I would say was a solid nine on the scale.

  My first real kiss at age eleven with Brady Calhoun was a five. Not great, not bad.

  Getting my wisdom teeth extracted and ending up with dry socket was a two. So painful, to this day, I still flinch every time I think about it.

  In about a month I would be twenty-three years old. And in all those years, I’d yet to assign either a one or a ten to any occasion in my life. I’d reserved them, because where can you go from there? How do you top the worst or the best moment of your life? But today, it seems, I may have experienced a life event so horrifically awful, that one would be the only way to accurately describe it.

  “Stay!” I instructed Romeo, the black Labrador retriever I had just liberated from doggie jail to remain in the backseat. He also happened to be the party responsible for me potentially heading to human jail.

  He whined as he whipped his tail back and forth in the backseat. I decided to take his behavior as a declaration of obedience. Grabbing the flannel blanket I stored in my car so I wouldn’t get grass stains on my jeans during Movies in the Park, I tossed it over his head in an attempt to hide the evidence and hopefully make him feel safe from the thunder cracking and lightning flashing outside.

  Today was Texas weather at its best. Hotter than Hades and so humid my thighs were sticking to my leather seats like they’d been superglued. The cherry on top of the bad weather sundae was a thunderstorm the likes of which I’d never seen. All day the sky had lit up with lightning and crashed with thunder. I’d never been a fan of storms, and so ever since I was a kid I’d always counted the seconds between the spark and the boom and divided it by five, in order to determine how many miles away it was.

  After this last strike had flared against the dark clouds, I’d only gotten to four before the boom of a thundering crack sounded, causing a terrified one-hundred-pound Romeo to jump onto my lap. In the domino effect from hell, I lost control of my car and slid off the road before coming to an abrupt stop…which was how I found myself in my current predicament.

  “Okay, everything’s going to be fine,” I mumbled under my breath as adrenaline flooded my nervous system.

  I turned so that I faced the windshield. My fingers wrapped and tightened around the steering wheel as I stared straight ahead at the law enforcement SUV that I’d just rear-ended while it was parked (yes, parked!) on the side of the highway.

  The driver’s side door opened, and a large boot was the first thing to exit the vehicle. It landed on the asphalt with a heavy thud. Or maybe the thumping sound was my heart pounding, since it would be nearly impossible for me to hear anything inside my car with the windows rolled up and the AC blasting.

  In an almost cartoon-like fashion, wavy lines surrounded the black leather footwear. On this uncharacteristically sweltering hot, stormy spring day, steam rose from the pavement. It caused the entire scene to have a dream-like appearance. Although in this case the “dream” was a nightmare—one I wished I could wake up from.

  Following the boot, an all-too familiar profile appeared, and my breath caught in my throat.

  No! Please, please, please God, no! Anyone but…

  As the imposing figure stood to his full height, there was no question in my mind that my prayers were not going to be answered today. They had fallen on deaf ears, since the one person that I did not want to face in my current predicament was the man I was staring at.

  Hudson Reed.

  Seriously?

  Clover County was the second largest county in Texas, covering over five thousand square miles. Brewster County beat us, clocking in at six thousand one hundred and ninety two. So my question was, why? Why did he have to be on the side of this road when I had my unfortunate accident? There were five thousand other miles he could’ve been patrolling.

  My pulse sped like I’d been mainlining coffee as he began walking back towards my vehicle. I couldn’t read the expression on his chiseled-to-perfection face. His eyes were really the only thing that ever gave a hint as to what was going on beneath his calm all-alpha-all-the-time demeanor. And since the windows to his soul were currently concealed behind dark aviator glasses…I was screwed.

  With each step he took my fight or flight instinct intensified. My initial impulse was to just backup and drive away. But a voice in the back of my head piped up saying that fleeing the scene of the crime (no matter how harmless) would only make matters worse. With that option vetoed, I cut the engine and knew that I had to talk my way out of this. My mind began racing with plausible explanations…AKA excuses.

  “Stay.” I once again instructed the terrified bundle of evidence
to remain in my backseat and—fingers crossed—out of sight.

  The only hope I had of getting out of this unscathed was to put out this small “blaze” before figuring out how to extinguish the larger wildfire I’d set when I’d freed Romeo from behind bars.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to focus on the matter at hand—the fender bender. I could say that there was a turtle in the road that I swerved to miss and ended up barely tapping his bumper. No. He would just look to see if the turtle was still there. Those suckers didn’t move that fast. A deer, maybe? No, I didn’t think there was a large deer population in the flatlands of Clover County, Texas. What if I said I’d suffered a mini stroke and lost the feeling in my arm? No. I was pretty sure that medical conditions could be easily disproven.

  A knock on the glass beside my head startled me and I knew that my time was up. From the backseat, Romeo barked loudly, then jumped into the front.

  So much for hiding the evidence.

  I knew my canine companion was only trying to protect me from what he perceived as a threat, which was sweet. Unfortunately, the only physical threat that the man knocking on my window posed was to my heart, and there was nothing my four-legged defender could do to shield me from that.

  “Romeo, sit.”

  At my command, Romeo’s hind legs lowered and he sat obediently in the passenger seat.

  Why can’t men obey like that?

  “Good boy.” I praised him.

  The knock sounded again and, going against every self-protective instinct that was screaming at me not to do it, I placed my finger on the button that rolled down the window. Stiffening my back, I made sure all of my internal armor was secured before pressing it.

  Emotional walls up? Check.

  Swoon-guard in place? Check.

  Arousal blocker activated? Well…two outta three ain’t bad.

  Just the knowledge that Hud was standing on the other side of the steel and glass that separated us had tingles—that would make a nun blush if she felt them on the tip of her pinky—spreading through my entire body.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said, as I pushed my index finger down.

  Before the glass even reached the halfway mark, a deep, sexier-than-sin voice filled the small space in my sedan. “License and registration.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Irritation replaced the lovely sensation that had been rolling through me in pleasure-filled waves.

  Thank God!

  Anger, aggravation, frustration—all of those were much easier to deal with than the alternative. I shot a look up at him to let him know that he was crazier than a Betsy bug if he thought that I was going to hand over my license and registration.

  “License and registration,” he repeated, his jaw was set in a stone cold expression.

  “Hud, you were at the hospital when I was born. You know who I am. You’ve been to every single one of my birthday parties. Including my twenty-first, where I received this car from my parents as a gift. You know this is my car.”

  Was I grabbing at straws? Yep.

  Was I being ridiculous? Absolutely.

  Was it all I had? Unfortunately.

  If there was one thing I’d learned being the youngest of nine and the only girl, it was to be on the offensive rather than the defensive, even if you were the guilty party. Especially if you were the guilty party. After establishing your foothold, you could never back down. The longer and harder you stood your guilty ground, the better chance you had of wearing down the person that was firmly planted in the right.

  “Want to tell me what happened?” His no nonsense, all business tone should not have been a turn on…but dear Lord, it was.

  Hud had a special talent of reducing me to a puddle of lust with a look, a word, or a grin. No other man affected me the way he did.

  Clearing my throat, I tried to ignore my traitorous body. Since Romeo had already blown his cover, I opted for telling the truth. “Romeo is scared of thunder and that last one really got him. He jumped in my lap and next thing I knew I was kissing your bumper.”

  The corners of Hud’s mouth twitched and his right brow rose. “Kissing my bumper?”

  Oh…that was interesting.

  Normally he was a by-the-book, take-no-prisoners, strong silent type. But maybe, just maybe, there was a human heart beating beneath the muscled planes of his chest. In spite of the fact that the one time I’d attempted to charm his snake had been a colossal failure and the most humiliating night of my life, maybe he wasn’t quite as robotic and immune to me as I’d thought.

  A smile wider than a mile spread on my face as I dropped my chin in a nod. “Yep.”

  “Since when do you have a dog?” He folded his arms in front of his chest and the motion caused his bulging biceps to pull the material of his uniform taut.

  Oh, my…

  Of their own accord, my eyes traveled down his body and back up again. His stance reminded me of a gladiator ready to battle in the center of the Roman Colosseum. Feet shoulder-width apart, arms crossed. The badass, domineering authority he exuded was running over my arousal-blocker and swoon-guard like a sexy freight train.

  “Harmony…the dog?”

  I blinked up at him and told him a version of the truth. “I’m dog sitting.”

  He didn’t speak, which was typical for Hud. He was a man of few, if any, words. Sadly, my body was reading his silence as foreplay. But in fairness, my hormones read anything Hud did around me as foreplay. My throat constricted as I tried to ignore the lust that was rushing through me.

  Focus. I needed to focus. All I had to do was get him to forget about this fender bender and let me go on my way. Otherwise I was in trouble. Real trouble.

  “If there’s any damage, just let me know what I owe you.”

  His head tilted slightly to the right, and I could hear the amusement in his voice as he asked, “You in a hurry?”

  “Yeah, actually I am. I need to get over to Destiny’s.”

  Okay, using my pregnant best friend/sister-in-law as a get-out-of-jail-free card was definitely not my proudest moment, but I was sure that she would forgive me.

  “Is she in labor?” His voice deepened, the way it did whenever he was worried or concerned about something or someone.

  The baritone rumble sent a shiver dancing down my spine. I’d always wondered if there were times that his voice grew even deeper. Like say…intimate times. That thought immediately pushed play on one of my most frequent fantasies. Hud and I were in bed. Naked, of course. He was hovering over me, my legs wrapped around his hips, and his lips brush my ear as he tells me how bad he wants me. How bad he’s always wanted me…

  “Harmony.” Hud’s harsh tone hit the stop button on my erotic daydream. “Is she in labor?”

  Oh right. My get-out-of-jail-free card.

  “No. She’s just miserable and she needs me to distract her from the fact that she’s two weeks overdue.”

  JJ, my brother and Destiny’s husband, was best friends with Hud. I knew that he was aware of her uncomfortable condition. Last Tuesday at the boys’ weekly poker game JJ hosted, Destiny broke down in tears because she could no longer see her feet. She’d told Cara—the third in our best friend trio and, my brother Trace’s fiancée—about the horrified looks on the guy’s faces when the waterworks had started, and then Cara told me.

  I sat, semi-patiently, tapping my fingers as I waited for him to decide my fate.

  His nostrils flared and he inhaled deeply before he leaned down, resting his forearms on the frame of my driver’s side window. “You need to pay attention when you’re driving. Someone could’ve gotten hurt…”

  He paused, but I was already doing my internal happy dance, because it looked like I would be getting off with a warning.

  Maybe karma wasn’t so bad after all.

  Then, in what felt like slow motion, Hud reached up and took his glasses off. When his eyes met mine I sucked in a startled breath. The look in his dark gaze was TNT to my carefully constructed emotiona
l walls. He demolished them with a single stare.

  “You could’ve gotten hurt,” he gritted out in a gravelly tone.

  It took me several seconds to absorb the gravity of the words he’d spoken because I was so busy reeling from the aftermath of his explosive gaze. When the initial stun wore off, the combination of the intensity in his golden brown eyes and the emphasis he’d put on you had goosebumps breaking out on my skin as the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up. If the man staring at me was anyone but Hud, I would bet my family farm that he was about to kiss me, and that he was genuinely concerned about my driving habits. But…it was Hud, and he’d always treated me like an annoyance. Someone he had to put up with, and ignored whenever possible.

  So why was he looking at me like the thought of something happening to me was too much to bear?

  Did he care if something happened to me?

  I mean really care?

  Did he want to kiss me?

  Or more than kiss me?

  When I opened my mouth to speak, nothing came out. Me. Speechless? No, that wasn’t possible. I had to say something. I needed to find out if I was crazy. If what I was feeling was real or just a figment of my overactive imagination.

  “Hud…” I said hoarsely.

  Before I had a chance to form a coherent thought, the small black radio that was clipped to his shoulder crackled and a voice came over it.

  In spite of the static I was able to make out some numbers, but out of context I couldn’t understand their meaning. Then, I heard key words and sentences that were pretty self-explanatory. Break in. Parrish Creek Animal Shelter. Female suspect. Brown hair. Approximately five-foot-four. Black Labrador retriever. Suspect driving two-door Mazda 3. Red. Partial license plate Bravo. Tango. Four.

  Shit.

  Without breaking his piercing stare or looking particularly surprised at the information he’d just received, Hud reached across his chest and touched the radio. “Copy that.”

  We remained locked in a staring contest as he lowered his sculpted arm and rested his hand on my door. I was almost positive that he was waiting for me to speak, but that wasn’t going to happen until I had some idea of what to say. Tapping the back of his cruiser was one thing. Breaking and entering to kidnap a canine may not be as easy for him to overlook.