Embracing Reckless Read online

  Embracing Reckless

  by

  Melanie Shawn

  Melanie Shawn © 2019

  Kobo 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

  Copyedit by CookieLynn Publishing

  Book Design by BB eBooks

  Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing

  Rev. 1.0

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  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

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Epilogue

  Chasing Perfect

  The Someday Series

  Other Series by Melanie Shawn

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Brandy

  My knuckles turned a blinding shade of white as I held the steering wheel in a death grip. God. How had I found myself here?

  More to the point—how had I found myself here again?

  I sat in the parking lot of The Redwood Roadhouse and stared up at the blinking neon sign advertising the name of the bar.

  Correction—the name of the dive.

  I’d been sitting there staring at that flashing neon for a good fifteen minutes already, but I just couldn’t seem to bring myself to get out of the damn car and head in.

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t done it before. Hell, it wasn’t like I hadn’t done it a hundred times before.

  So, why was I finding it so impossible now?

  I might’ve only been nineteen and a freshman in college, but sometimes I felt like a bedraggled old lady, completely spent and exhausted. A lifetime of taking care of an unruly alcoholic tends to do that to a person.

  My phone’s ringtone went off in my purse, making me jump.

  “Dammit,” I mumbled, doing my best to still my trembling fingers as I unzipped my bag and pulled out the ringing phone.

  I looked at the face to see who was calling. No surprise. The screen read “Redwood Roadhouse” in stark white letters against the black background, reminding me of my cowardice.

  I took a deep breath. When you were the one your entire family depended on, cowardice was simply not an option. I swiped my finger across the screen and put the phone to my ear, every movement laced with reluctance.

  “Hello,” I said, my voice heavy with despair and dread.

  “Brandy, how close are you? She’s getting out of control.”

  “Wasn’t she already out of control when you called me the first time? Wasn’t that why you called?” My voice was flat. All the feeling had been beaten out of me by years of having to go out on these late-night mercy runs. That’s what I called them. ‘Mercy’ because that’s what the bartenders were showing my mother—by calling her dutiful daughter to come pick her up as opposed to the police—and ‘mercy’ because I had the grace (most of the time) not to berate my mother for the things she said and did that led to those phone calls.

  But, even for a dutiful daughter, my patience was wearing thin.

  “Well then, she’s getting beyond out of control,” he snapped. “You know, I could just call the cops.”

  “I know,” I said, aiming for a conciliatory tone but only achieving tired. “And I am grateful. I am, I promise. But, Joe, you know…you could just refuse to serve her. Every other bar in town does. Hell, even Elijah at the Plaza Pub won’t serve her, and he’s one of my best friends.”

  “It might be coming to that, but for now, just get here.”

  I heard the empty electronic silence that let me know I’d been hung up on.

  My eyes filled with tears.

  Why did these people always blame me for her actions? The bartenders who called me in, the cops when I had to pick her up from the police station… Why did they always scold me like I was a naughty little girl when they related her actions to me? Did they think I didn’t know how she was? Did they think I had it in my power to control her behavior and chose not to?

  My patience with them was wearing really thin, as well.

  But, there was nothing to be done about any of that right now, so I wiped my tears, steeled myself for the ordeal I knew I was about to face, climbed out of the car, and marched into The Roadhouse.

  Who was I going to see? Violent Mom? Maudlin Mom? Hitting-on-Non-Willing-Sexual-Targets Mom? Inappropriately Boisterous Mom? It was always a crapshoot, and there was no good result. Only levels of shitty.

  I pushed open the heavy door and stepped into a different world. Leaving behind the clean, crisp smell of the redwood trees that surrounded our Northern California town of Arcata, I breathed in a lungful of stale beer and even staler cigarette smoke. The foul air hung heavily, a visible cloud of haze that caused me to shield my eyes as they adjusted to the grimy dimness.

  Wolf whistles greeted me and my skin crawled. With my thin frame, tan skin and bright blonde hair and deep aqua blue eyes, I wasn’t the usual patron of places like this—and the catcalls let me know it every time I walked in the door.

  It was something that I always thought that I’d someday get used to, but I never did. All I could do was try as hard as possible to ignore it.

  My levels of success with that endeavor varied.

  “Over here, Brandy,” came Joe’s gruff voice. I looked over to the corner of the bar and saw that he was bent over a huddled figure, curled up on the floor.

  I sighed. I could see by the hair and outfit that the collapsed figure was my mother.

  I strode across the bar floor, an acrid odor stinging my nostrils more and more intensely the closer I got.

  Wait. Was that…?


  “She pissed all over herself,” Joe confirmed as I stepped up, casting a disgusted look in my direction.

  Angry bile rose in my throat, and I shook with the effort not to spit back, “Fuck you and your judgments, asshole. It’s not like I’m the one who pissed myself!”

  But, that didn’t fit with my “dutiful daughter” persona, and moreover, it would be counterproductive, so I did what I always did—swallowed it, shoved it down, and buried it under layers of politeness and responsibility.

  “Thanks for calling,” I replied, ignoring the piss comment altogether.

  “You took your sweet time getting here. You know, missy, I’m getting real tired of dealing with her episodes.”

  I smiled sweetly. “Imagine how I must feel, then.”

  My mother looked up at the sound of my voice, her eyes bleary. “There’s the little ingrate,” she slurred. “I told you she’d get her ass here, Joe. You just have to wait.”

  “The next time she breaks something, Brandy, I’m charging you. I’ve told you again and again to get her under control.”

  I smiled again, infusing even more saccharine sweetness into my voice. “Joe, I feel like you’d have a hard time collecting that debt. I’ve told you more than once that you should stop serving her. And as for getting her under control, well…when you find a reliable method for controlling the behavior of alcoholics, you should definitely publish it. You’d make a fortune.”

  “Let’s see how much of a smartass you are the next time she acts up and I just call the cops.”

  I abandoned my efforts to lift my mother’s slack form up off the floor and straightened. In that moment, I was filled with a sense of clarity that I couldn’t remember having felt since…well, ever.

  I looked Joe square in his bearded, grizzled face and said, “You’re right. This is really a job for the cops.”

  With that, I turned and started toward the door.

  “Come back here, you ungrateful little bitch,” my mother yelled after me, the level of slurring in her words making them almost unintelligible. I could only understand them because of years-long familiarity with her favorite names to call me, “ingrate” and “ungrateful little bitch” being two that were in frequent rotation.

  I stopped in my tracks and turned, but didn’t retrace the four or five steps I’d taken. I wouldn’t give her that satisfaction.

  “No,” I said, my voice quiet but firm. “I’m not coming back over there. And I’m not taking you home tonight. Joe’s going to call the police, and they’re going to deal with you. I’ve had enough.”

  “I’ll tell your father what a little bitch you are. We’ll see what he says about that.”

  I shook my head. “Nice try, Mom. But he committed suicide when Sandy and I were babies, remember? The responsibility of twins was too much. You throw it in our faces all the time. So, no dice with that one.”

  She doubled over, cracking up like I’d told a real knee-slapper. “You’re so stupid!” she cackled. “So dumb! He never killed himself. I just told you dumb little bitches that because I didn’t want to deal with you whining at me about wanting to visit him when you were little. And then it stuck, and you believed it!”

  I heard a buzzing in my ears that had nothing to do with the sounds in the bar.

  Could this… Fuck! Could what she was saying really be true?

  I figured I’d use the one tactic that always worked with her. Juvenile, yes. But effective.

  “Bullshit. Prove it,” I said defiantly.

  Just as she always did, she snapped up the bait immediately. With clumsy fingers, she fished a slip of paper out of her wallet and held it aloft, like a trophy. “I’ve had his address and phone number all this time. I kept track of him,” she crowed.

  My eyes burned, and so did my stomach. I couldn’t believe this was true, but I also didn’t believe she had the mental capacity in this state to make something like this up. Her revenge schemes at this level of inebriation usually topped out at screaming some variation of “bitch” at me, complexity-wise.

  I stormed over to her and snatched the paper, then turned and stomped toward the door.

  “Brandy!” Joe thundered after me.

  “Call the cops,” I told him, my voice steadier and steelier than I would’ve imagined possible. “I’m done.”

  Chapter 2

  Brandy

  I felt sick to my stomach sitting in our childhood bedroom with my twin sister Sandy as she packed. We were supposed to be packing together, but that wasn’t happening. Oh, she was packing, all right. And chattering. But all I was doing was miserably folding and unfolding clothes and feeling guilty about the huge secret I knew that I hadn’t shared with her yet.

  The thing was, I couldn’t tell her. It was out of the question.

  I had to find out if it was true first. I couldn’t send her world into a tailspin before I even knew if it was true.

  Sandy wasn’t strong like me. She wasn’t solid. If she started spinning out, there was a chance this could destroy her whole life. I could see her falling into a bad depression. Or, something that could be even more dangerous—a string of manic behaviors, skipping class, partying, driving too fast, driving drunk…

  Who knew what might be on the table if that happened? Certainly not me. One thing I did know, though? I’d be cleaning up the mess.

  Nope. There was no way that I could fly across the country and spend a week lying in the sun and partying with Sandy while I kept this giant secret. Shit, it was tearing me up to just spend these few minutes in our room together.

  I knew what I had to do—bow out of the trip, travel to Missoula, knock on this man’s door, and find out the truth.

  Yep. That was what I had to do. That was what I knew I had to do.

  Now I just had to tell Sandy.

  I tuned in to her chatter.

  “Holy shit!” she said. “I can’t believe we’re really taking our asses all the way across the country. Can you? And we’re going on a plane. This is going to be insane!”

  I couldn’t keep the worried expression down. God, I’d always had a terrible poker face.

  It was so bad, in fact, that even Sandy, absorbed in her own thoughts as she was, noticed the concern splashed across my features.

  “And, yes, before you ask, I went online and read all the regulations and stuff. I know that my beauty products are going to have to be carefully measured out. Because, apparently, the FAA thinks I wake up like this. Uh…no. This takes work, Government Types. But I’m not even trippin’ about that. I’ll follow the rules. No six-ounce shampoo shoved in my bra. I promise. I will take a page out of your book and follow all of the rules.”

  Her voice was firm and solid, trying to convince me that she’d thought of everything.

  Fuck. If she only knew.

  I took a deep breath. No other way to say something difficult than to just say it.

  So say it then, coward!

  My inner voice was a real bitch when she wanted to be. But it was exactly the kick in the ass I needed. Before Sandy could start in on another monologue, I blurted, “I have to tell you something.”

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head. I have the tickets. I have the hotel confirmation. I have our traveling cash. I have my packing under control. Everything is all set. It’s going to be epic! And the main thing is, we’re doing this together. As excited as I am to get out of this shitty little nothing town and have a real adventure, it would so not be as fun without you. Go, go twin power!”

  I couldn’t do anything but stare miserably. It was like she knew something was up and was trying to head it off at the pass.

  “I mean, think about it, Bran. The first time either one of us has been on a plane. The first time either one of us has been out of California. The first time either one of us has been to the beach—”

  “We live by the beach,” I interjected.

  “We live by the ocean. It’s not the beach.”

  “We went to Cat�
�s house in Malibu that time.”

  God, I was stalling, too.

  Sandy snorted. “We barely even got out of the car.”

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t think of anything to add to that particular line of conversation.

  Sandy threw the blouse she was folding down on the bed. “Okay, Eeyore. That’s it. I’ve had enough. Spill.”

  I sighed. Well, there was an opening if there was ever going to be one.

  “I can’t go, San.” My voice wasn’t as firm and solid as I would’ve liked, but it also wasn’t a whisper, so I figured I’d have to be satisfied with that.

  Sandy was silent. That made me more nervous than if she’d screamed and yelled at me.

  “I’m so sorry.” It was all I could think of to say.

  “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’m not sick. There’s nothing wrong. I just…can’t go.”

  That was such a lame, shitty excuse. Hell, not even an excuse at all. But, again…it was all I could think of to say.

  “Why?” Sandy’s voice and eyes were getting steely. It broke my heart, but it was too late to turn back now.

  “I just can’t. I can’t tell you why. I’m so sorry.”

  “You. Just. Can’t? You’re sorry?”

  Now she was getting pissed. Damn, she was racing through the five stages of grief at the speed of light.

  “Yes. You have no idea.” I said, misery seeping into my bones.

  “No, I don’t have any idea.” Sandy laughed, but the sound was manic and forced. “You’re right about that. But there’s no need to be sorry. I mean, what would you even be sorry for? Because you’re not backing out of this trip. That would be crazy.”

  Okay, backward from anger to denial. Either Sandy was regressing through the stages, or she was just flitting through them in random order, the way she did most things.

  “San, please. Just try to understand—”

  Sandy interrupted me, yelling, and it was just as well because I had virtually no idea what I was going to say after try to understand.

  “Understand what? You just said that you can’t tell me why you’re blowing off a trip we’ve spent months and months planning and saving up for. Why? Why can’t you tell me?”