One night standards, p.1
One Night Standards, page 1
Copyright © 2022 Heather M. Orgeron
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products 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.
Cover design by: Y’all. That Graphic.
Photographer: David Wagner
Model Jason John
Formatting: Champagne Book Design
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
Preview of Pour Judgment
Prologue
Chapter One
Novels by Heather M. Orgeron
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For Gabby.
The love you and your daddy shared touched me deeply.
To witness him walking you down that aisle was an honor—
and a moment I will never forget.
Thank you for allowing me to pay tribute to your story with this book.
And for Sammi, for whom the heroine was named.
Thank you for your unwavering love and support. But most of all,
thank you for being the most amazing friend a girl could ask for.
I love you!
(Five years ago)
“Sammi?” I whisper-shout into the dark night as I approach our secret hideaway, a little alcove hidden in the rocks beneath her parents’ fishing dock.
The wind is really whipping tonight, making the trek down a challenge.
Her sullen voice sounds as my feet slip and slide on the wet rocks near the shallow opening. “I’m here.”
“Why’d you run away from my party, Jailbait?” I bend at the waist, resting my hands on my knees to catch my breath from the jog over.
Her ocean blue eyes roll up and she sniffs, rubbing the end of her sleeve beneath her dripping nose. A humorless chuckle pushes through her pouty lips, and she shrugs.
“Tired of pretending.”
I exaggerate a gasp as I collapse beside her, nudging an elbow into her ribs. “Thought you’d be happy for me. Getting signed with The Rhett Taylor Band, and at 19, no less, is a huge deal.” And that’s putting it mildly. In recent months, they’ve taken country music by storm. I knew she’d be upset that I’d have to leave, but she must see what an incredible opportunity this is for me.
“Yeah? Well, you thought wrong.” Not only is she not excited—she’s pissed.
I snort, tilting her face up so her eyes meet mine. “That’s a childish thing to say, Li’l Bit.”
Her throat bobs on a hard swallow. “Well, at sixteen, you love to remind me I’m nothing more than a child.” She clears a bit of emotion from her throat and rasps the nickname I coined for her four years ago, “Jailbait.”
“Don’t put words into my mouth, Sam. And never assume where we’re concerned. You’re so much more to me than just a kid, and you know it.”
“Do I?”
I give her a hard look. “You damn well better. Every minute I’ve spent beneath this dock with you, I’ve risked everything. My reputation. My best friend. And a fucking felony charge.”
Teeth clenched, her jaw warbles. “I just…I don’t want you to go.”
Without thought, I kiss away the plump tear that spills from her right eye. “Los Angeles isn’t more than an hour’s drive from here. It’ll be like I never even left.”
She stares up at me, eyes wide with shock. “You…you kissed me.” Sammi brings the fingers of one hand to rest on her cheek.
“I shouldn’t have done that. It was nothing,” I lie, actively denying the tingle I still feel in my lips. The heat coursing through my veins. The aching mass of dread forming in my throat.
“Why do you always do this?” she says with a sob.
“Don’t cry, Li’l Bit.” I scrub a hand over my face. “Not because of me. I can’t bear it.”
“Stop pushing me away.”
The moonlight makes her appear ethereal. She’s so damned beautiful it hurts to look at her. Because I know, no matter how badly I want to run my tongue over every inch of her creamy skin… To taste her lips… To drown in her scent… To give in to the temptation that’s plagued me for far longer than is decent… I can’t. Not yet.
“Only a few more years…”
She pulls her lower lip between her teeth and nods in defeat.
“Hey,” I say, moving to crouch in front of her. “Maybe with me out of the way, you might actually be ready to date a few boys your own age.”
The thought churns in my gut. But it’s something I really want for her. I hate that she’s wasting her high-school years pining away for me. She should be out with her friends, experimenting and experiencing life. And, selfishly, it’d make me feel a hell of a lot less guilty for the girls I hook up with.
“Maybe,” she agrees, shocking me to silence when she doesn’t put up her usual argument. “Okay,” Sammi says, scrubbing her palms over the front of her jeans, “I’ll date… On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“I want you to be my first—”
“Goddamn it, Jailbait! You can’t ask that of me.”
“Kiss,” she amends with a devilish smirk. “My first kiss.” Her hand darts out to cup my cheek, the pad of her thumb gently running back and forth over my days-old stubble.
“You’re playing with fire, Li’l Bit.”
She winks up at me. “Damn sure trying.”
“Come here.” I grip her around the waist and pull her into my lap as I plop down in the wet rocks. It’s the first time I’ve held her. Really held her. I don’t ever want to let this girl go. “I’ll come back for you, you know.” I swoop an errant tuft of long blonde hair behind her shoulder. “You’ll always be my girl.”
“You’ve had plenty of girls, Lyle,” she huffs. “You claim to care about me…to—to want me. Yet, I’m the only one you won’t touch.” Her eyes shine with the pain she no longer tries to conceal. “Do you have any idea what that does to me?”
“But I love you.” The words rush out before I have the chance to overthink them. “Only you.”
Her head jerks back in shock. “You—you do?”
I nod, cupping her chin in my hand. “You’re the only girl I’ve ever had any real feelings for. And if the timing were better—if it wouldn’t land me in jail or six feet under at the hand of your father—I’d have laid claim to you so long ago.”
Her tongue slips out to lick the tears from her lips.
“It’s not our time yet, Li’l Bit… but it will be. Someday in the not-so-distant future when we finally have our moment… Fuck, babe. It’s gonna be explosive.”
“I’m going to explode now, if you don’t kiss me.”
I bury a hand into the back of her hair, pulling her close and pressing my lips to her forehead. Every cell of my body comes alive as I take a moment to breathe her in. It’s like I can actually hear the universe screaming at me to stand up and take notice. She’s the one. The only one.
“Lyle,” she whimpers, grinding into my lap. “I want…”
“Me too.” I cut her off, trailing kisses along her temple and cheek before finally landing on her lips. I rest there for a beat, absorbing her soft mewls and committing to memory the feel of her. The salty taste of her tears. The rapid beat of her heart.
Our breath mingles, and I feel the cosmos exploding. Cheering. Screaming that this is right.
It’s when my tongue darts out and licks the seam of her lips—when hers ever so hesitantly brushes mine—that I force myself to pull away.
“Please don’t go,” my love begs.
“I have to,” I say, backing toward the exit. “Fuck, Jailbait. Now more than ever. I—”
Her head shakes as tears blindly spill from her desolate eyes. “But I love you too.”
Fuck. I bring a hand to my chest. “I’m coming back for you, Li’l Bit.”
“Lyle, don’t go!” Her desperate cry hangs in the night air as I stumble back down to the shor
“Live your life, Sam. Just don’t give away my heart.”
What the fuck am I doing?
I ask myself for the umpteenth time as I damn near pace a hole into the brick floor of the corridor outside Sammi Deluca’s bridal suite.
My imagination runs wild with visions of her in a white satin dress, her long blonde locks piled atop her head. Her cheeks dusted pink, and those full lips that have begged for my attention since we were teens painted the perfect shade of just out of reach.
My chest draws tight at the thought of her walking down that aisle in a few short minutes…toward the wrong man.
I’m supposed to be the one waiting on that altar. In every version of this moment I’ve envisioned throughout the years, that’s how it’s ended—with me watching through dewy eyes as the girl who secretly captured my heart at the ripe age of fifteen finally became mine.
Instead, I’m here, lurking in the hall, actually considering shooting my shot with my best friend’s baby sister. And on the day she’s set to wed another man, no less.
“Fuck.” With a loud groan, I fist my hands into my hair and give the long ends a firm tug.
It’s now or never.
Nervous energy floods my veins; my pulse is a thundering stampede reverberating through my body. And I’m this close to pounding my fist on that massive mahogany wood door when I wrench my arm behind my back and stalk around the corner. Defeated, I sag against the wall and drop my head into my hand.
I can’t do it.
Not because I don’t love her.
Not because I don’t have the balls.
Not even the fear of my best friend’s reaction would be enough to stop me from going in there.
No. I won’t do it out of respect for her father. It’s Wayne Deluca’s dying wish to walk his baby girl down the aisle.
The rage I feel toward myself festers like an open wound, raw and angry and blistering for an outlet as I slam a fist back into the stone wall.
I knew Sammi was seeing someone. Even that it was getting pretty serious. But I did nothing because I thought I had time. Time to wait it out while she completed college. Time to finish sowing my own wild oats before settling down.
But time is a fucking thief, and I’m about to be left holding an empty hourglass, forced to stand by and watch as the last few granules—and the only girl I’ve ever loved—slip through my fingertips.
This all came out of nowhere: The cancer diagnosis. That big brawny man’s rapid decline. This wedding. I had to steel my reaction when I saw him at the rehearsal dinner last night, wasted away to skin and bones.
How could he be the same man that used to have me and Dane shitting our britches with a stern look?
Fucking Dane, man… This is tearing him apart. I’d give anything to fix this for him. For his mother, Trudy. And for Sammi.
Sweet little Sammi has always been such a daddy’s girl. While he could be a bit of a boar to the rest of us, that man was putty in her hands. She can’t be handling it well. And it kills me that it’s another man’s place to comfort her.
When I heard the news, I offered to pay for the best doctors money could buy—not that the Delucas couldn’t have afforded it themselves. No one in our affluent town of San Robles Shores is hurting for cash. But having more of it than I know what to do with, my first response to any problem these days is to throw money at it. There isn’t much the right amount of the mighty dollar can’t fix. But the harsh reality is that apart from some medical trial he’s so far not responding to, there’s nothing to be done. He’s too far gone.
It’s for this reason alone I know I won’t knock on that door. That I’ll bear witness from a pew in the second row to the woman of my dreams pledging her love and loyalty to a man who could never love her the way I do—the way I always will.
I took for granted that she’d always be there. Truly believed promises whispered in secret from two doe-eyed kids would win out in the end. Because love’s supposed to conquer all, right?
I thought we had time…then fate intervened.
I’m rounding the corner to head back to my seat when the sound of footsteps drawing near has me retreating right back to the safety of the abandoned hall.
“Darci, the wedding should have started ten minutes ago. We don’t have time for whatever this is.”
I recognize the voice as that of the groom, Trent.
He sounds like a fucking douche—a mental assessment that I’m sure has everything to do with the fact that he’s about to marry my girl.
“She’s refusing to leave that bridal suite until she talks to you,” her friend clips. “So get in there and let’s get this show on the road, please.”
The door creaks open, and I find myself holding my breath until I hear it click shut.
I should use this opening to escape unseen. No one would ever know I was out here stalking the bride like a total creeper.
But of course, that’s not the road I choose.
Instead, I flatten my ear to the wall, straining to make out the hushed conversation on the other side. I catch something about a breakup a few months ago when Trent dumped her because things were getting too serious. As a result, Sammi and a few of her friends took off for a girls’ week in the Bahamas to drown her sorrows. Apparently, weeks went by before he came to his senses and went crawling back with his tail between his legs. They got back together on the day her father learned of his grim prognosis. It was then that she asked Trent to marry her, so Wayne would have the opportunity to walk her down the aisle before he passed.
“Why are we rehashing all this now? Baby,” he croons, “that’s all water under the bridge. We’re about to be married.”
“Just give me a minute to get this out, please.” The crack in her voice makes me want to rush in there and rescue her from whatever it is she’s trying to confess.
“Trent…I’m pregnant.”
Silence.
All I hear is the sound of my own heart clattering to the floor in a billion pieces. Because this settles it. There’s no way I’m coming between a child and its father.
“Pregnant?” Trent finally sputters. “We’re having a baby?”
“Well, yes and…and no. I mean, I’m having a baby.”
“You’re breaking up with me?” he snarls. “Oh, this is rich…and after I agreed to marry you? You can’t keep my child from me, Samantha.”
“It might not be yours!” she shouts.
Hope restored, my adrenaline soars.
“Come again?”
“I slept with someone.”
“Who?” he bellows. “I’ll kill him with my bare hands!”
“I don’t know. Just some guy in the Bahamas. I was so drunk, and so angry at you for breaking up with me. I just—I’m not proud of it…” There’s a brief pause before she continues. “We’ve always been so careful, and I assumed I’d missed my period because of the stress of everything with Daddy. But when I did the math last night, I realized I’ve missed more than one. So, I—I took a test…and it—it was positive. That’s the reason I couldn’t go out there. Trent, I couldn’t marry you without telling you this first.”
He barks out a humorless laugh. “You think we’re still getting married?”
“I would like to, yes,” she answers, resolute, like she’s simply securing a business arrangement and not planning to spend the rest of her life with this man. “If you’re willing to raise this baby as your own, no matter what. If you’ll still have me. Yes, Trent, I still want to marry you.”
There’s a loud crash, followed immediately by the girls’ shocked screams.
I’m halfway to the door when it comes flying open, nearly smacking me in the forehead.
“Sounds to me like I just dodged a major bullet. You can do the honors of calling this sham of a wedding off. We’re done. For good this time. Get rid of that kid,” he snarls. “I don’t want it. I don’t ever—and I mean ever—want to see your face again.”
It takes every ounce of restraint I possess not to slam my fist into his smug face when he turns on his heel to storm off and our eyes connect.
He garbles on a muffled laugh. “She’s all yours, man.”
“Always was,” I singsong, all smug. Like I wasn’t preparing seconds ago to accept defeat.
We’re locked in a stare down, his jaw ticking as he chews on his response before finally waving a dismissive hand through the air.
