Finding Forever (Colorado Veterans Book 6) Read online

  Finding Forever

  Colorado Veterans Book 6

  Tiffani Lynn

  Copyright

  Finding Forever

  Copyright © 2020 by Tiffani Lynn

  This book is a work of fiction .The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living, or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For information contact Tiffani Lynn at www.tiffanilynn.com

  Cover Design by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

  Cover Photograph by JW Photography

  Cover models: Darrin James Dedmon & Michelle Lynn McLeod

  Created with Vellum

  Dedication

  For Mykenzie, Tristen & Cassidy. My hope is that you each find your own forever at the perfect time in your lives.

  Contents

  1. Jess

  2. Wes

  3. Jess

  4. Wes

  5. Jess

  6. Wes

  7. Jess

  8. Wes

  9. Jess

  10. Wes

  11. Jess

  12. Wes

  13. Jess

  14. Wes

  15. Jess

  16. Wes

  17. Jess

  18. Wes

  19. Jess

  20. Wes

  21. Jess

  Epilogue: Wes

  Also by Tiffani Lynn

  One

  Jess

  Checking my hair to make sure my ponytail is secure, I give myself one last glimpse in the bathroom mirror. Maybe hiking isn’t the best idea for a second date. Won’t we be too busy huffing and puffing to talk and get to know each other? What if I have to go to the bathroom while we are out there? I obviously didn’t think this through when Simon—my date—asked. I guess I was just thinking that it beats trying to make small talk on the way to and from the movie theater, and sitting silent for two hours. I was a little relieved when Simon wanted to stop at this sporting goods warehouse to grab a few things because it meant I could use the restroom one more time.

  When I leave the bathroom to find him, I’m not even four steps through the door before a store security guard rushes at me like we’re on some cop show, yelling, “Hands up! Don’t move!”

  I put my hands out in front of me to show I have nothing in them. My heavy purse is hanging from my arm, so I can’t lift both of them.

  “I said hands up!” he yells unnecessarily.

  “What is going on? You can’t be talking to me,” I stammer as I glance around and realize there isn’t anyone else around except the person at the layaway counter whose eyes reflect the shock I’m feeling.

  “Drop the purse!” the guard yells.

  I stare at him, more out of shock than anything, still not understanding what’s going on and growing a little angry at this horribly embarrassing display of overkill. “You need to explain before I drop my Coach purse on this nasty floor.”

  “Just drop it! You don’t call the shots!”

  What in the world is this about? His supervisor will pay for this purse if it gets messed up by Barney Fife. “Fine,” I grumble, seriously pissed. This purse is the only name-brand thing I own and was a gift from my best friend two years ago.

  “Turn to face the wall!” he barks at me. I slowly turn toward the wall, a little afraid to turn my back on this deranged security guard with a gun.

  “Hands behind your back!”

  I do as I’m told, ready for whoever is playing this joke on me to jump out and laugh. I’m on a date. We only stopped here for a few minutes. I slipped to the back, after spending way too long in the flashlight section, to use the ladies’ room and I come out to this. What if Simon sees all of this before I get things cleared up? My blood pressure rises as embarrassment sets in fully.

  Without warning, my wrists are jerked hard as the guard contains them with something plastic, a zip tie maybe? Then he grabs my purse and one of my arms. “Come on, we’re heading to the office. The police should be here any minute.”

  The police? My feet stop moving and the guard stumbles a little, obviously not expecting it. My voice is a little shrill as panic sets in. “What are the police coming here for and why am I zip-tied and being pulled through the store like a criminal? I haven’t even been in here for fifteen minutes. I was looking around and then went to the ladies’ room. You have the wrong person!”

  “No, I don’t. Save your discussion for the police. Move!” He yanks hard on my arm to get me moving again and I shuffle forward, completely baffled. Right before he pushes me inside the room, a handful of police officers enter the store. Two break off and head for customer service on the other side of the door I’m about to enter, and the others stride our way.

  The security guard pushes me through the door and yells over his shoulder, “I’ve got her here. Come on in.”

  “You’ve got who here?” My voice, still high and now shaky, echoes off the linoleum floor in the mostly empty room.

  “Sit,” he barks, and points at the small table that has three chairs pushed up to it. I do as I’m told. I’m trying to keep calm because I know as soon as they tell me what I’m in here for I can explain that they have the wrong person and this will be over. Or it will be after the asshole security guy gives me an apology.

  He passes my purse over to the policeman on his left, who starts going through it, emptying it out in front of me. Now is the time I want to kick myself for having a Mary Poppins purse where everything I own seems to reside in there.

  “Why are you going through my purse and why am I restrained? What is going on?”

  They all look at me as they pull two cheap flashlights from my purse and set them on the table. I jerk back and my eyes grow wide. I didn’t put those in there. We didn’t even pick those up when we were looking at flashlights. Simon didn’t want to look at anything but expensive ones, which I didn’t understand because we aren’t even going hiking at night. We’re going now, when it’s a beautiful sunny day. However, he was insistent that we grab them as part of the necessary stuff we stopped for. “You never know what can happen; you have to be prepared,” he’d preached to me as we moved down that aisle. I figured it was easier to go along with his thoughts than to argue with him.

  “Those aren’t mine. I never even took them off the shelf. Why are they in my purse and why does it take this many police officers to come after an alleged shoplifter?”

  “This isn’t about shoplifting anymore. It’s about the robbery you’re an accomplice for.”

  “The what?” I shriek as I shoot out of my chair, knocking it over in the process.

  “Sit back down. We will transport you to the station, where we can discuss this further,” one of the cops replies mildly, like he has all the patience in the world and nowhere to be.

  “My date is in the store somewhere, waiting for me. We’re supposed to go hiking. Please call him and let him know what’s going on. My house keys are in his car; I’ll need them when I go home. Please,” I plead, seriously freaked out that I’m being taken to a police station for shoplifting when my fingers never touched the flashlights that came out of my purse. I can’t comprehend what they are talking about. Me? An accomplice for a robbery? What in the hell does that mean? What robbery?

  A tall, bra
wny police officer with very wide shoulders leans into the door. “Speck, come take a look at this.” The officer that was telling me I was going to the station, turns and follows him out the door. The other officer left in the room says to the security guard, “They’re going to need to take your statement. Go out and see one of the other officers. I’ll stay in here with her.”

  The overly ambitious security guard sneers at me one last time before he stomps out the door, clearly pissed he can’t stare daggers into my skull from across the room anymore.

  What feels like forever goes by and my arms are aching from being stuck in this position, but I wait, doing my best to hold still and be patient. Finally, a female officer and the brawny officer come back through the door. The woman takes one look at me and says, “I’m Officer Rivers and this is my partner, Officer Dexter. The store wants to charge you with accessory to robbery and shoplifting. I saw the video of the whole time you were in the store, minus your time spent in the bathroom. You’re not being arrested right now, so we will release your hands. We do, however, need to take you in for questioning because there are some very big holes and some things that need explaining before we decide how the rest of this will play out. Do you have any questions?”

  I stare up at her, trying to understand how all this happened and how it is that I’m not out hiking right now instead of being questioned about two things I know nothing about. “Did anyone find my date to let him know this was going on and get my keys? Should I call a lawyer? I… I… I…” I stammer, becoming more upset by this whole conversation.

  “First of all, your ‘date’ is gone and so are your keys, so we don’t need to tell him anything.”

  “What do you mean he’s gone? He wouldn’t just leave me here.” My voice is rising again, along with my panic.

  “We can’t go into any more details right now. Let’s head to the station. Stand up and turn around please.”

  I do as I’m told and then Officer Dexter cuts the thing off of my hands. I shake them out and stand there, unsure of what to do, and a familiar feeling of hopelessness and confusion rolls over me and I automatically shift into silent protection mode. I don’t tend to get loud or argue when bad situations come along. I clam up. It’s like a turtle pulling into its shell to hide.

  An hour later, I’m seated in a small interrogation room with the remnants of a cold cup of coffee sitting in front of me and my dating profile open on a laptop in front of the detective who has been questioning me. Luckily, all of my conversations, except one by phone, have been logged through this dating app.

  What I learned when I first arrived at the station was that while I was turned away, looking at one of the ridiculously expensive flashlights, Simon shoved the two cheap flashlights into my purse. That thing is already so heavy, I didn’t even notice the little bit of extra weight. A couple minutes later, I went to the bathroom with my purse, throwing up red flags to security for shoplifting. The on-duty security guard was so busy watching me and waiting for me to come out of the bathroom that he missed the armed robbery taking place at the front of the store by Simon.

  Yes, I said that right.

  My date… Simon.

  Simon Murphy used me as a diversion and held the customer service manager up at gunpoint. If you had asked me, of the men I’ve gone out on dates with these last several months, which would do something like this, I never would have said Simon. I might have said Dave or Salvatore, but not Simon. I’m obviously the worst at reading people. I thought Simon was mild-mannered, kind of boring even, and therefore normal, so I thought he would be a good choice. When he asked me to go hiking today, I thought, why not? I didn’t have anything better to do. I even went so far as to tell myself it could be fun. Maybe Simon would show me his adventurous side and would be worth dating longer. I should have known to just stay home and binge-watch one of my shows on Netflix on my day off. However, it never occurred to me this would be the scenario that would play out.

  Effective today, I’m done dating. I mean, I’m the poster woman for the horror stories of dating and today was just the worst of my encounters, but the others ranged from a man who brought his mother to dinner with us, to a man who thought I’d sleep with him as soon as I put my dessert spoon down. I won’t even mention the guy who sent me a message with a picture of his waxed penis and testicles. I mean, really? Did he think I would take a look at that picture and drive right over to his house? That was never going to happen.

  So, it only makes sense for me to cancel my online dating profile. I have great friends and a competent vibrator; I don’t need the headaches that come with trying to find a man. I had one once—Wes—I thought he was the best of the best, but there is no such thing. Now I need to quit looking. If it couldn’t be Wes, it probably shouldn’t be anyone else.

  Two

  Wes

  Six Months Later…

  The music is playing in the background as I change the spark plugs on this 1967 Chevy Impala that one of our customers brought in earlier today. Most days, I can tune it out and focus on the clicking, clinking of metal as I work on the cars, but that’s hard to do when the song playing conjures memories of soft chestnut hair running through my fingers, throaty laughter in my ear, and crimson lips close to mine. Of course, I had to hear our song the week of our anniversary, when things are so close to the proverbial surface for me.

  My chest aches a little and the need to walk away overcomes me. I drop my wrench on the workbench and wipe my hands on a rag quickly, before heading out the back door of the building. There’s snow on the ground and a serious chill in the air that should have me shivering in a minute or two. I pull out the single cigarette I’ve had in the pocket of my coveralls for the last week, and light it up. The nicotine hits my system and does exactly what I hoped it would…relax me.

  “I thought you quit,” a soft voice says behind me, causing me to jump. I’m usually more observant than that. I can’t believe I didn’t notice my boss, Colby, sitting in one of the chairs off to the side. She’s wearing a turtleneck shirt that clings to her bulging pregnant belly while her puffy lime-green jacket lies on the table next to her elbow.

  After one more long drag on the cigarette, I drop it on the ground, off to the side, before I blow the smoke away from her and respond. “I’m sorry, Colby. I didn’t realize you were out here or I wouldn’t have lit up.”

  “You’re fine. Don’t worry about me. Maybe I should worry about you though. You said you quit over a year ago. What made you light up?”

  I turn my focus away from her, afraid she’ll see the pain I’m sure is written all over me, and answer, “Sometimes the memories get you when you least expect it.”

  “I understand,” she confesses quietly, and from what I hear of her breakup with Victor when they were first dating, I bet she does understand.

  I glance at the cigarette lying on the ground, still burning, disappointed that I gave in and lit up, but not enough to stub it out without contemplating a couple more pulls on it first.

  Colby is part owner of Averette’s Automotive, where I work part-time several days a week. She used to drive a monster truck for four months of the year and wasn’t around when I started, so it took me longer to get to know her than the others at the shop. When she came back full time, I realized quickly that not only is she a kick-ass mechanic but also an amazing person. I’m not big on sharing my feelings though, and she’s the type that will ask outright without hesitation. Today is not the day for me to explain anything though. I don’t want the questions that accompany a conversation about my demons, especially the Jess-variety ones.

  Colby’s brother and co-owner of the shop, Marshall, knows some of it. He happened to be with me one night when I dove a little too deep into the tequila. I don’t mind telling Colby, but here at work isn’t the right time or place.

  Attempting to switch the focus off of me, I ask, “What are you doing out here? You’re pregnant and it’s getting colder by the second. We have that front blowing
in. I figured Victor would have you home and swaddled in Bubble Wrap by now.”

  “He is quite protective with me being pregnant, but I wanted to finish adjusting the timing on that Mustang in there before I left. I got overheated, so I came out here to cool off. I should be done in the next half an hour and on my way home before Vic can come looking for me.”

  “Do you need some help?”

  “Nah, it’s simple. The worst part is bending over now that I’m getting so dang big. I think I’m going to have to give in and take some time off. I can’t get into some of the positions I need to be in to get the job done. It’s frustrating.”

  Colby’s stomach had expanded exponentially in what seemed like overnight, but I won’t mention that. “I can only imagine.”

  “Are you still seeing Dave?” she asks, her voice gentle. I focus on the trees in the distance, tamping down the urge to haul ass back inside. I should have known she wouldn’t give up trying to figure out what’s going on with me that fast.

  “Nah, not in a professional capacity. Now we just talk as friends.”

  “Do you need to take a couple of days off to get squared away before I take myself off the schedule?” Her voice is gentle when she inquires.

  “Nah, work helps keep my mind off of things.”

  “I don’t buy your everything’s-okay routine. You were working when something sent you out here to take up a habit you quit a year ago.”

  My shoulders relax as I draw in a big breath and exhale. “A song came on that had me thinking. It’s no big deal.”