Bullet (2 page)

But then…

All it takes is a spark. I kept thinking about that old book, because it had a special place in my heart. I pulled it out of the trunk (yes, I really keep all my old writing in a trunk!) but I still didn’t read it. Not yet. But I kept thinking about it, and inspiration hit. I knew
Bottom of My Heart
was more a young girl’s fantasy, but I realized there was a great way I could make it a really good book with just a few plot changes.

And that’s when I started writing
Bullet
.  I knew it was going to be one of my longer books, and when I first started writing it, I even said on Facebook that I thought it would wind up being between 90,000 and 100,000 words…definitely one of my longer books. Well, I bypassed that amount sometime in January, and it kept growing.  I know what publishers say—more than 90 and you’ll lose your audience. But I’m calling bullshit. This story is epic, and it deserves to be told in a big way.

Out of all the books I’ve ever written, this is the one I’m most excited to share with my fans. Most of the characters in my books do some growing up, but we get to see Valerie begin life as a college freshman and end up…well, much further down the road. We see Valerie mature from naïve youngster to a woman who discovers her sexuality and finds love in the end. And, because this is an epic book, following her story for several years, it’s not a typical romance. We see Valerie in some serious relationships, and the question ultimately is whom does she end up with? Is he the right guy?

I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I have.

Jade, February 2013

Chapter One

Present

ETHAN STUMBLED IN through the front door, a three-fourths empty bottle of Jack Daniels in hand.  I awoke from my light sleep on the couch.  I didn’t even feel like cursing anymore.  But the facts were hard to deny.  Drunk again.

This had become our nightly ritual.  I would doze on the couch waiting for Ethan to come home drunk.  Only tonight was different.  I had to break the news to him.

He clomped across the room and I said, “Ethan, would you sit down for a minute, please?”

Usually, I would just stare at him, my eyes full of hope, but he would just go to the bedroom and pass out on the bed with his clothes still on.  Things had changed, though…and he had to know.

With a look of confusion (or irritation—I wasn’t sure which), he trod across the floor and fell into the chair next to the couch.  His words were slurred.  Big surprise.  “Are you mad at me, Val?”  He set the bottle on the coffee table with a little more force than he’d intended.  It was loud, but he just blinked.

No, I wasn’t mad at him.  I had grown used to Ethan coming home in this condition.  For months now, he’d been coming home this way.  Only occasionally would he come home early (and sober) as the Ethan I’d grown to love.  Those few precious nights were the nights when he’d hold me in his arms all night long and remind me that he really
did
love me.

“No, Ethan, but I want you to listen to me carefully.”  His glazed, bloodshot eyes narrowed as he leaned forward.  He slowly lifted his shaky hand to run through his long, tousled reddis
h-brown hair.  I’d spent hours earlier thinking of exactly what to say, but now it felt like a struggle to force the words out of my mouth.  “I really don’t know how to say this, so I’m just gonna spit it out.”  I inhaled a deep breath and forced myself to look him in the eyes.  “I’m pregnant.”

He looked confused again and then sat back in the chair.  His eyes had changed from the slits they’d been to wide open; they looked full of disbelief.  “You’re
what
?  But how?”

Hmm…well, how could I explain it to him?  It wasn’t his fault, but I didn’t feel like it was mine either.  No sense lying about it.  I swallowed and found the courage to just say it.  “Well, since we hardly…have sex anymore, I stopped taking the pill.”  I really couldn’t call it
making love
, since love hardly seemed involved lately.  Anymore, when we bothered, it was simply out of need.  The love, the passion…it was gone, and I didn’t know if we could ever get it back.

He just stared forward for what seemed like hours.  He didn’t look at me, just looked ahead.  I could hear the clock in the hall tick-
tocking and Ethan’s heavy, erratic breathing.  I had feared he would react this way—angry—but I wouldn’t give up my child.  I had always wanted to be a mother.  But
was
he angry?  I couldn’t tell.  In all the years I’d known Ethan, I still had problems telling what he was thinking.  In fact, it was that mystery that used to intrigue me, keep me excited, on my toes.  Now it just made me nervous as hell.

The minutes ticked away.  Was he taking so long because of his drunken stupor (and was he on the verge of falling asleep), or was he searching for how to put his thoughts into words?  And would his words make me angry too?

How much simpler my life would be if I had never met Ethan Richards.  I wouldn’t have to worry about my husband’s response to when I had to confess I was pregnant, if he would come home sober, if he had been faithful…but that was all wishful thinking.  I couldn’t have married another man.  I loved my Ethan way too much, even though he’d been fucked up beyond recognition for quite some time.  I loved his heart, his soul.  I loved the way his full lips turned up in a smile when I caught his hard green eyes.  I loved the way he’d grown out his hair, how it flowed past his neck, his rock hard arms—I loved it all.  No matter what had happened between us, I knew I would always love him.

And now, I guessed, was the time I’d find out how much he loved me.  I’d lost a lot of sleep the past few nights wondering when I should break the news.  Even now I wondered if I’d chosen the right time.  But it was too late to wonder.  It was already done, and I just had to wait for him to respond.

Finally, he broke the silence.  I was happy to see a twinkle penetrate his eye, his mouth crack open in a smile.  “That’s fucking fantastic, Val.”  His response, much to my surprise, was positive.  Of all reactions, this was the one I had hoped for the most but expected the least.  After I recovered from my initial shock, he continued.  “You know I’ve always wanted to be a father.  I’ll be a great dad.”  He sucked in a deep breath, but his smile hadn’t faded.  I could tell he wanted to believe what he was saying.  “I’ll quit drinking, smoking, partying.  I’ll act like a real father should.”  He stood up.  “I can’t believe we’re having a baby.”  With that, he fell back into the chair.

I hadn’t expected him to say anything that good.  I had thought he’d be angry, frustrated, and upset at the thought of a baby.  We had talked about children in the vaguest way, as a future far-off, someday dream, and we had agreed we wouldn’t have children until we’d both felt we were ready.  So the fact that he not only accepted the idea but even liked it was hard for me to believe. 
Ethan had never wanted to be
tied down
…and here he was with a wife and soon-to-be-born baby.  His happiness was incredible.

“Ethan…are you serious?”

He didn’t blink.  “Valerie, I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

I guessed I would soon find out just how serious he was.

Chapter Two

Past

THE STORY OF Ethan and me is a long one.  We met when we were both eighteen, much too young to make decisions about love or marriage.  It was hard enough deciding about college.

As a teenager, I guess I was what you might consider
cute
.  I had shoulder-length brown hair, sparkly blue-green eyes, slightly overweight (I’m talking ten pounds—just enough to give me cushion, you know?).  I was also what my mother had called a
social butterfly
—I found it easy to make new friends, and I wasn’t shy.

I’d decided to attend college at…well, maybe I shouldn’t say.  I was moving from my hometown of Winchester, Colorado, to one of the smaller universities located in a small, sleepy college town
far away from home.  If you’ve ever visited Colorado schools like Adams State, Fort Lewis, or Western State, then you know the kind of town and the kind of college I’m talking about.  But…well, this story has needed to be written for a while, and I’m changing some of the names and the places to protect the innocent…and the guilty too.  And, bottom line, I suppose it doesn’t really matter
where
I went to college, only that I did, and that’s where Ethan and I met.  The town where I went to college really wasn’t much different from Winchester, but it was my first time living away from home, over two hundred miles away.  I was homesick at first but soon got swept up in the pace of college life.

I lived in the dorms and got stuck with a roommate who thought she was God’s gift to teenage boys.  Charlotte Edwards’s only gift to men was her free favors.  And, lucky me, I got to experience them all.  I was
a young, naïve virgin, raised in a strict Christian atmosphere, sheltered from a lot of real life, so Charlotte was hard for me to take at first.

I was sure she was trouble the minute I moved in.  Above her bed hung a poster of a close-to-nude man, something that—at the time—had made me blush.  The guy was clean shaven but with a little bit of stubble, dark brown bedroom eyes, huge muscles, no shirt on, his jeans unzipped, his hand snaking down into his underwear, suggesting that he was all hot and bothered for whatever woman walked into his gaze.  Yeah, that poster made me uncomfortable…even if I had to admit later that the guy was hot as hell.

Worse, though, was her blatant advertising of who she was and what she wanted, now that she was out from under her parents’ roof.  On the desk lay a compact of birth control pills.  And she danced around the room in a lacy red teddy with some kind of
mood music
on her boom box, some R&B tune I hadn’t heard before.

I was grateful that my mother, father, and brother were waiting outside in the truck for me.  They’d sent me inside to find
the resident advisor, affectionately known as our RA, who in turn gave me a map of campus and a key to my room.  I wanted to locate the room first and then get my family so we could start hauling in all my things.

I hid my initial horror and became the always polite girl I tended to be.  “Hi.  I’m your roommate, Valerie Quinn.”

“Hi.  I’m Charlotte Edwards.  Where you from?”

“Winchester.  What about you?”
             

She gave me a funny
look and tossed her long black hair behind her shoulder.  “Where the fuck is that?”

Well,
that
was rude.  “Do you know where Colorado Springs is?”

“
Duh.”

“Winchester’s about an hour away, to the west.”  I still wanted to play nice.  “Where are you from?”

“Denver.”

“So why’d you decide to come here to college?”  I knew there were already some good schools in and around Denver, so I was curious why she wanted to go so far away from home.  Maybe she’d earned a scholarship or something.

But, in a matter-of-fact voice, she said, “Change of scenery.”  And she decided to leave it at that.

“Well, this is definitely a change of scenery.  Anyway, my parents and brother are going to help me drag all my stuff in here.  You don’t mind, do you?”  I was hoping she’d take the hint and change into something a little less comfortable.

“It’s your room, too.”  Luckily for me, she reached in one of her dresser drawers for a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and pulled them on.

“Be right back.”  As I walked down the hall, I thought,
Everything’s going to be all right.  She seems nice.  First impressions aren’t
always
right.
  I guess I was too young to know I should follow my intuition.

My parents, brother, and I started taking boxes out of the back of the truck and placing them on my side of the dorm room.  When everyone had set down the first load, I said, “Mom, dad, Danny, this is my roommate, Charlotte Edwards.  Charlotte, this is my family.”

Danny, a good-looking junior in high school, could hardly keep from drooling on his shirt.  Charlotte’s long, shiny black hair draped over her t-shirt, the little piercing in her nose flashing every time she tilted her head in that way she thought made her look cute, and her brown eyes smoldered with continual lust…
for my little brother?

My graying parents seemed neutral—they showed nothing positive or negative toward my new roommate, but they did notice the poster above her bed and seemed dismayed.  Did I already mention my parents were deeply religious?

“Hello, Charlotte.”  My father put out his hand to shake hers.  Maybe that’s where I got my politeness—from my dad.

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Quinn, right?”  She accepted my father’s handshake and then shook my mother’s hand.  “Danny.”  She extended her hand to his, a smirk on her face. 
Well
, I thought,
this is
one
boy she won’t get.