Nightingale (41 page)

“Piper helped me set this up, with Chloe’s help,” Wesley said. “There was no girls’ night out. That was just a story we made up to get you here. I didn’t know if you’d come otherwise.”

I didn’t know if I would have either.

He put his hands over mine. “I lured you here tonight because I wanted to say I’m sorry for being such a jackass. You were right. I was expecting something different from Nightingale.”
 

I nodded, hoping he would hurry up and finish his apology so I could go cry in private. I was right. He’d been disappointed in me—was still disappointed in me.

Wesley’s golden eyes locked with mine. “But I found you instead, and you’re wonderful, Abby. Better than a fantasy, better than Nightingale could ever be. Because you’re the real thing. You’re the one I want. Not her. You’re the one I fell in love with.”
 

He put my hand on his chest, right over his heart. I felt it thump through the fabric of his shirt. “You’re the one I fell in love with, Abby. I feel the lightning with you. The passion, the everything. It took me a while to realize it, but I fell in love with you that first night in your apartment. And then again that night I saved you from Bandit. And again that day behind the waterfall. And again that night at the convention center.”

“Shut up,” I snapped.

“What?”
 

“Shut up,” I repeated. “Shut up and kiss me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Wesley murmured.

He lowered his lips to mine—and it was
perfect
.

Better than before. Because this time, I knew he was kissing me. Abby Appleby. Wren, Nightingale, they were gone now. I was the only one left—the only one he wanted. Wesley had come to me, not them. He’d done all this for me. He wanted
me
, supersenses, anal retentiveness, freakish tendencies, warts, and all. I couldn’t quite believe it, but I wasn’t going to ignore destiny’s call, as Piper would say. Not this time.

Wesley ended the kiss and leaned his forehead against mine. He stroked my cheek.

“So, does this mean …” his voice trailed off.

“It means I love you too. I have for a long time now.” I smiled. “Even if you do like John Denver.”

We both laughed.

Epilogue

Two weeks later

I stood on the balcony at the Bigtime Convention Center. Below me, about a hundred workers strung up balloons shaped like hearts, various superheroes and ubervillains, and certain body parts best left to the imagination. It was time for the big Valentine’s Day dance put on by the
Slaves for Superhero Sex
club, and I was overseeing the show, freakish balloons and all.

The doors at the bottom of the stairway opened, and footsteps squeaked on the stairs. A moment later, mint filled the air.

“Did you bring Rascal with you?” I asked without turning around. “Piper had a date or something tonight and couldn’t keep him.”

A bark answered my question. I turned around to find Wesley standing behind me. Rascal sat at his feet, waiting for one of us to pet him. I leaned down and obliged the puppy.

“I’m still getting used to you having supersenses,” he said. “I’m never going to be able to sneak up on you, am I?”

“Probably not,” I said, scratching Rascal’s ears. “But I can’t sail over the rooftops without you, can I?”

“It’s not quite as romantic as sailing when your beloved screams her head off,” Wesley quipped.

“I don’t scream—anymore. Well, not that much.”

He raised his eyebrow. He came over and put his arms around me. “Can you get away yet?”
 

I leaned into him. The past few weeks had gone by in a rosy blur. I wasn’t sure where Wesley and I were headed, but I was enjoying the ride so far—and going to do everything I could to keep sailing across the sky with him.

“Give me a few more minutes.”

“Well, hurry up. I think there’s a broom closet down the hall we haven’t explored yet,” he murmured in my ear.

I smiled back. “And I just happen to have the master key to all the doors in the building. Imagine that.”

“Why use my imagination when the real thing’s right here?” Wesley asked, pressing a kiss to the side of my neck.

“Why walk all that way to the broom closet?” I whispered back.

I tied Rascal’s leash to the balcony railing and pulled Wesley into the shadows. The puppy barked in protest, wanting to follow us. He strained against his leash and whined and barked.
 

But it was a very, very long time before we got around to untying him.

EXCERPTS

Read on for excerpts from KARMA GIRL, HOT MAMA, JINX, and A KARMA GIRL CHRISTMAS
 

in the
 

Bigtime paranormal romance series
 

by
Jennifer Estep

Excerpt from KARMA GIRL,
 

Book One in the
Bigtime paranormal romance series

PART ONE—BEGINNINGS

Chapter One

My wedding day.
 

It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. A time of joy and celebration and new beginnings. The day every girl dreams of from the time she’s old enough to play dress-up in her mother’s clothes.

It wasn’t that sort of day at all.

I stalked up and down the narrow hotel room. My hellish high-heeled shoes poked holes in the thick carpet and rubbed hot blisters on my aching feet. My white tulle dress rustled with every step I took.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.
 

I’d had the feeling for weeks now that something just wasn’t quite right between me and my fiancé, Matt Marion. He’d been distant lately, distracted. We’d been together more than two years now, and I loved Matt with all my heart. But his odd behavior was enough to make the most trusting woman suspicious. I’d asked Matt many times if anything was wrong, if he had cold feet and wanted to postpone the wedding, but he’d repeatedly assured me that everything was fine.

Matt had been working lots of overtime at his construction job and had all sorts of unexplained bruises and scratches on his body. He’d blamed his frequent absences and injuries on work, but I couldn’t quite shake this cold sense of dread deep down in my stomach. Doubts whispered in my mind. I’d learned long ago to listen to my inner voice. Following my instincts was the reason I’d become the top investigative reporter at the
Beginnings Bugle
, the town newspaper.
 

I wasn’t about to ignore my instincts now. I couldn’t get married with this doubt hanging over me. I had to ask Matt one more time what was bothering him.
 

I grabbed my cell phone, slipped out of my hotel room, and made my way to the elevator. It had been Matt’s idea to get married at Forever Inn, the most romantic hotel in all of Beginnings, Tennessee. Weddings took place on a daily basis at the four-star hotel, so no one batted an eye when I crowded into the elevator in my billowing dress and sparkling diamond tiara.

I rode up to the next floor and walked to Matt’s room. It was bad luck—bad
karma
—for the bride and groom to see each other before the wedding, but I had to talk to Matt. My inner voice wouldn’t shut up until I did.
 

I raised my hand to knock. A low, muffled moan escaped through the thick wooden door. Was Matt hurt? I frowned and inserted my key card, the one I had in case of an emergency. The door opened, and I stepped inside.
 

“Yes, Yes, YES!!!!” a woman screamed out from deeper in the room.

Oh
. That’s what that sound was. Someone was having a little afternoon delight. Good for them. I turned to give the enthusiastic couple their privacy when reality hit me.
 

Why was someone having sex in Matt’s room? He should have been in there, getting ready for his wedding, which was only thirty minutes away. His wedding to
me
.

I froze. A ball of ice formed in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t going to like what I was about to see, I just knew it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I tiptoed to the doorframe, so that I remained hidden from view, and peeked into the bedroom.

Karen Crush, my best friend since the fourth grade, was straddling Matt, my oh-so-faithful fiancé, who was perched on the edge of the bed. Karen’s pale-blue bridesmaid’s dress was bunched around her waist, exposing her lean legs. Matt’s pants pooled around his ankles. A lacy thong sat crumpled beside the bed, along with some other pieces of blue and red fabric.
 

Karen flipped her black curls over her shoulder and threw her head back in pure bliss. The ecstatic look on Matt’s face told me he was thoroughly enjoying himself as well. The bastard.

My world spun. Sharp pains pierced my chest, as though someone had stabbed me with a butcher knife. Twice. Hot tears welled up in my eyes and trickled down my face. My knees shook. My legs threatened to buckle. Now, I knew what had been so wrong. Why Matt had been so distant. This one moment, this horrible sight, made it all so clear. So painfully clear. Love, friendship, humanity in general. My faith in those was gone. Obliterated by the two people I loved most in the world.

Matt and Karen expressed more cries of pleasure, oblivious to me. To my pain.

The sounds shattered my heart into a thousand sharp, jagged pieces. Each one cut me like a razor. I wanted to run out the door, to cry my eyes out, to sob and scream until I was hoarse from both. But a flash of bright blue underneath Matt’s unbuttoned shirt caught my eye. I squinted through my cascading tears. It looked like ... spandex.

Spandex?

“Oooh, I love it when you kiss my neck like that.” A giggle escaped from Karen’s perfect, heart-shaped lips.
 

I loved it when Matt kissed my neck like that too. Anger bubbled up in my chest like a volcano about to explode. I swiped away my hot tears and straightened my spine. I wasn’t going to run. Not from the two of them. Not until I had some answers.

Karen ran her hands down Matt’s broad chest. Her long nails zipped along the fabric like scissors. She ripped his shirt open the rest of the way, revealing a blue spandex suit with a giant red
M
on the chest.

My mouth dropped open.

“Oh, baby. You drive me crazy!” Matt yanked Karen’s dress down to her waist, exposing a lingerie-like red bustier beneath. A yellow
C
stretched across her heaving chest.
      
 

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. But it was real—I would have known those costumes anywhere. Molten lava flowed through my veins, burning away everything but my all-consuming rage. My bubbling volcano of anger erupted with a scream of epic proportions. “Sonofabitch!”
 

Matt and Karen froze. Their heads snapped around to the doorway. Matt swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Karen’s eyes widened. For an instant, I wondered what they were more upset about—that someone had caught them cheating or discovered their other precious secret. I didn’t care either way. They’d both betrayed me.

My anger roared back, stronger than before, and I marched into the room. My hands balled into fists. My body rattled with rage. Even my wedding dress twitched with fury.

“Carmen! I … I can explain—”

I threw up my hand, cutting off Matt’s pitiful attempt. “You’re the Machinator?”

Matt sighed. He ran his fingers—the ones that weren’t latched on to my best friend’s exposed ass—through his blond hair. “I didn’t want you to find out this way, Carmen.”

“Oh no? When
were
you going to tell me you’re Beginnings’ own personal superhero? After we said
I do
? Maybe on our first anniversary? Or perhaps when our kids were in college? Or maybe right after you told me about sleeping with my best friend. On our
wedding day
.”

“It’s not his fault, Carmie,” Karen said, her brown eyes big and earnest. “He wanted to tell you. We both did. About everything.”

Carmie? I glared at my former best friend. She still had the nerve to call me that childish nickname even when she had her legs wrapped around my fiancé like he was a race horse and she was a jockey. The bitch. I wanted to rip her limb from limb. After I finished with Matt. “And you’re his archenemy, Crusher? The ubervillain of Beginnings?”

Karen nodded.

I rubbed my fingers over my throbbing temples. It was all too much to take in.
 

Sure, every town in the world had its own personal superhero, someone who showed up whenever the train ran off the tracks and wouldn’t stop. Or whenever there was a natural disaster that threatened to kill hundreds of people. Or even whenever little Timmy fell down a well and needed rescuing. Naturally, every town also had its own personal ubervillain, someone who wanted to rule supreme.
 

Beginnings was no different. We had the Machinator, a man who could control mechanical objects with his mind. The town’s ubervillain was Crusher, a woman of unbelievable strength who could break metal bars with her teeth and crush diamonds in her hand. The two were constantly at odds, with Crusher continually coming up with some wild scheme to either (a) take over Beginnings, (b) kill the Machinator, or (c) both. Usually, the Machinator would be put in grave danger before miraculously escaping to foil Crusher’s latest scheme. But Crusher always got away, or soon broke out of whatever high-security, supposedly inescapable ubervillain prison the authorities stuck her in. She’d come back to Beginnings, and the cycle would repeat itself, ad nauseam.