Phoebe: Book One of Broken Girls Series

  Phoebe

  Book One of the Broken Girls Series

  By

  J. A. Hornbuckle

  ~and~

  D. P. Fletcher

  Copyright © 2016 by J.A. Hornbuckle

  License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this novel with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please buy an additional copy for each recipient.

  No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information story and retrieval system, in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical now known or hereinafter invented, with the express written permission of J.A. Hornbuckle or her authorized representatives.

  Thank yu for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction and is not a reflection or representation of any person living or dead. Any similarity is of pure coincidence.

  Although, if you recognize yourself in any character represented, maybe we need to talk…

  ePub Edition June 2016

  ISBN: 9780996510714

  Dedications

  J.A. Hornbuckle

  This book is dedicated to D.P. Fletcher, without whom it would never have been written. Because the plain truth of it is, I lost my mojo somewhere in late 2015. But it was receiving an email from a bubbly lady in Colorado telling me how much she enjoyed my stories, who brought the spark back. And while we’ve never met face-to-face, she has been my rock, my idea partner and co-writer as I’ve rediscovered my love for creating stories. You are a treasure, darling girl.

  I’m grateful (as ever) to Brandi Doan McCann, for yet another great cover. You rock, pretty mama.

  And to our Beta Readers who were willing to read our raw manuscript and tenderly give feedback, helping to make Phoebe’s story richer and more fulfilling. A big shout out to Felicia, Penny, Judy and Nejla—owe you HUGE, ladies!

  For those that have been with me on this journey, thanks for the memories!

  And to those who are still on their way, where’ve you been? My heart’s been waiting for you!

  D. P. Fletcher

  To my husband Bob. I so appreciate you cooking dinner on those days I just wanted to write. Your encouragement, webmaster skills and love always propel me forward and make me a better person. You are my HEA.

  Alex, my beautiful son, thanks for urging me to go for my dreams.

  And to my sister Penny who sat with me over coffee while we strategized and came up with ideas. Thanks for having my back, sticking by my side and making me laugh with hot guy name suggestions that, of course, I couldn’t use.

  Crissy, I’m grateful for all those mornings at Panera where you’ve been my cheerleader. Every bit of laughter we shared is precious to me.

  To my gang in Virginia: Cyndi, Sandy, Kim, Dara and Becca. And to my gang in Colorado: Peggy, Mary, Judy and LeeAnn. Thanks for being excited for me and cheering me on. I’m humbled.

  To J. A. Hornbuckle. Thanks for believing in me and inspiring me to be a better writer. You’re an amazing woman who I’m honored to call friend.

  Thanks to the readers who go on this journey with us. We couldn’t do it without you.

  “Every woman carries pieces of a broken girl inside. It is how she puts those fractured and mangled portions of her younger self back together that’s important. Making her different than she was before, but in such a way she is stronger somehow.” ~Diana Polson

  Chapter One

  “All of them?” The couple who comprised the husband and wife landlord team stared at me across the empty expanse of the living room in my new apartment. And their combined look of shared incredulity made me want to do a quick back-pedal.

  I swallowed heavily, attempting to find enough moisture to reply even as I mentally ordered my heart to slow down and my tremors, the ones which would shortly be visible in the trembling index card between my fingers, to go away. “Yes, please.”

  Mrs. Verde glanced to her husband before looking back at me. “Most people don’t like having the contents of their closets on display.”

  “And even though the washer/dryer combo is new it’s gonna make noise when you use it, you know, like, if the folding doors ain’t shut,” her husband added. “A lotta folks don’t like the sound, you know?”

  In other words, it was a weird request, a possible red flag about the kind of tenant I might be. So I hurried to assure them without having to provide an explanation. “I have a different decorating scheme in mind. And the doors to the closets and the laundry area don’t fit it.”

  Liar, liar pants on fire, my mind whispered.

  The Verdes traded one of those marital, silent-but-we’re-communicating gazes. After more than a few seconds, he shrugged and moved to the front door. “I’ll get my toolbox.”

  As he left, Mrs. Verde turned back to me with a measuring look. “You signed a full year lease, so we’ll cut you some slack. But this fancy scheme you’ve got going better not include putting any strange holes in the walls.”

  I nodded to show I understood her concern before answering. “It doesn’t.”

  “Then, welcome to your new place. Jose and I hope you will be very happy here.” Handing me the keys Mrs. Verde turned to the doorway. “You need anything, our number is on the lease papers. Day or night, you call if you have a problem.”

  “I will and thank you.” Truthfully, I just wanted her to leave and have her husband do the door removals as fast as humanly possible so I could be alone.

  Alone in my new apartment.

  As I moved through the empty rooms, my boots making no sound in the thick carpet, I allowed my imagination to take over—mentally arranging the furniture I’d collected over the years, deciding where to place each piece in order to fill the space. Although the space wasn’t large, my cache of furnishings was smaller and it might be a while before I could add more.

  In fact, the whole of the apartment and it’s complex met almost every item on my Life-In-Progress checklist and I was big (maybe even overly so) on checklists.

  Get good grades and earn a scholarship. Check.

  Move out of Diana’s house to share an apartment with Vonnie. Check.

  Earn my nursing degree. Check.

  Be hired by Grantham General and earn enough to live in my own place. Check and check.

  Find a suitable apartment I could afford and move in.

  My fingers ached to add a tick-mark to that particular line item!

  Call me driven or determined, because I’d been called worse by those closest to me (‘anal’, ‘too-focused’ and even ‘a single-minded bulldozer’) when it came to my goals. I couldn’t deny it. Once I had an objective to better myself or my circumstances, I would stop at nothing to get what I’d set in my sights.

  I was so caught up in my thoughts, I jumped a mile when Mr. Verde poked his head into the postage-stamp sized kitchen, the place I’d ended up after completing my solo-tour. “We’ll be leaving now. Let us know if you need anything else.”

  “Uhm…” I started, confused by his use of the word ‘we’. Didn’t Mrs. Verde leave earlier or was she only waiting outside? But I had a more pressing matter to get through before working to derive his meaning. “Have you had a chance to check the voltage in all the sockets?”

  He did a deep blink and glanced over his shoulder, to the same part of the living room where I heard someone moving as if stack
ing something. “Ryker? You checked the electrical shi…erm, stuff like I asked you to yesterday?”

  “Gimme a sec.”

  There was absolutely no reason behind my visceral reaction to the reply echoing around my empty living room. Maybe it was because I was already worked up, overly excited about moving or in finally reaching another one of my goals. But the other person’s answer, that gravelly-sounding, deep, masculine voice slid over me, coating my skin, sinking in deep until I could swear, absolutely hand-on-heart avow it became a part of my very soul.

  I closed my eyes in order to hold the deeply masculine voice close and lock it in my memory.

  “No, Tio. It was either check the sockets or fix Mrs. Byrd’s garbage disposal. Tia Angelina said the disposal was more important.” The thoroughly male mouth-sounds came closer as Mr. Verde shifted in the doorway to look behind him.

  It wasn’t a choice, a conscious decision but a driving need. I absolutely had to see him, the man who owned the beautiful, slightly-accented voice. One meant for radio or commercials when the script called for sultry, manly or sex-on-the-airwaves.

  I stepped to the side, my boot-heels clicking on the linoleum of the kitchen so I could see around Mr. Verde. And as I did, I realized I held my breath while telling myself no one and nothing could ever live up to promise of that voice. His voice.

  I. Was. Wrong.

  So wrong black spots impeded my initial view. Which soon faded as I reminded myself to breathe and to lock my knees against the weakness the sight of him caused.

  The man Mr. Verde called ‘Ryker’ was, at just a glance, much more than his deliciously seductive voice.

  So very much more.

  Especially when he again shifted, moving his eyes from me to Mr. Verde before coming back my way, freezing me in my tracks with only a hair to toe scan. “I can do it now, if you want.”

  I couldn’t speak, couldn’t respond in any way because I was cataloguing all that was him as much as he’d done with me. From his shaggy, glossy black, disheveled hair; down the tight, one-size, too-small navy t-shirt; to the well-worn, slightly hanging-off-his-hips jeans all the way down to his motorcycle boots, everything about him screamed ‘virile’, ‘delicious’ and very much ‘Latino’. The last of my summation was based on the light burnished gold of his skin, although his eyes weren’t brown but a shade of green that would make a pea envious, and he was tall, with a wealth of cut muscles causing me to wonder was he a gym rat or something.

  Honestly? The man was too gorgeous for me to take in all at once.

  And made Jose Verde, my new landlord and ruler of my roost, fade into non-existence.

  “Is it okay if I scan your sockets now?”

  Jesús.

  God.

  The owner of the voice from heaven was asking me a direct question. I knew it because his beautiful green eyes were fully focused on me. As well as those of his ‘tio’, which I knew meant ‘uncle’ in Spanish. Although each man’s study of me felt different somehow.

  You can scan my anything, both my mind and heart replied. Luckily I didn’t verbalize that little bit of thought, something I’d been known to do on occasion; to blurt out what I was thinking without realizing I’d done so until afterwards. “Sure. The movers won’t be here for another hour, hour and a half or so.”

  “Let me help my uncle with the doors and then I’ll start.”

  I didn’t think it was my imagination when my reply came out breathy and a little tremulous. “Okay. No problem.”

  Yeah.

  The look Mr. Jose Verde shot me, then his nephew, totally negated my words.

  Because I was sure even my landlord could sense my body’s visceral reaction his too-handsome-to-be-believed nephew.

  *.*.*.*.*

  While Ryker and Mr. Verde made a couple of trips to carry out all the different doors, I took a much-needed moment to find my composure. And I’d almost found it, almost been able to convince myself my landlord’s sick-kick was just another cute guy. That is until he reentered my place armed with some kind of weird meter while grinning my way.

  “I’m back.” And so he was, creating a sizzle that went from my mouth, to my nipples before zinging lower. Letting me know, in no uncertain terms, I may be able to lie to other people, but wasn’t so good at lying to myself.

  Going to the first socket next to the large picture window, I took stock as I tried to determine what made him so special.

  True, he was good-looking in a brooding, Latino way.

  Strike that.

  He was stunning, handsome in any sort of universal, no-nationality-qualifier-needed way. And yeah, I felt a connection to him each and every time our eyes met.

  But just because our gazes collided and held every so often (something my best friend and foster-sister Vonnie would call an ‘eye-fuck’) did not equal any measure of a connection...nothing beyond my involuntary physical reaction of ‘I’d like to get you naked’ kind of deal. Did it?

  The good part was we carried a conversation of sorts as he, knee to floor, roamed around going from one socket to the next. Or rather he spoke and I managed to nod, shrug or offer breathy noises that weren’t quite full sentences. Was it bad I followed him, admiring the sheen of his thick dark hair, the breadth of his shoulders and the bare skin of his lower back, exposed when his t-shirt came away from his jeans each time he crouched down?

  Actually, I didn’t have any experience to speak of, not enough to know the way to take our conversation into the arena of ‘I’d like to get to know you better because you’re just the guy I’d like to fall in love with in three to five years.’ Much less, ‘I wanna jump you. Although I’ve never had a lover, but if anyone is gonna teach me how not to be a virgin, you’re definitely my choice.’

  In other words, I was screwed in trying to find a way to make Ryker find me attractive, fascinating or interesting enough to consider me something beyond his ‘job for the day’ and into his ‘I’d-like-to-see-you-outside-of-work, girl’.

  “So what’re you gonna do with all these live plugs?”

  Say what? Oh god! He asked me a question. One demanding more than a nod or a shake of the head which I’d been using for the last half-hour.

  Jay-sus.

  Did I tell him the truth or…

  God. I couldn’t tell him the truth! Not without explaining and everyone knew my explanations took forever. Isn’t that what Vonnie often complained about, saying she didn’t need to know the all the stupid reasons about why I decided to change shampoos, laundry detergent or my outfit for the day?

  I realized I hadn’t answered him when he glanced up at me and cocked an eyebrow in question. So I performed another one of my shrugs.

  “All these tests and you can’t tell me why?” His amazing green eyes, so incongruous against the gold of his skin, danced as they held mine a beat longer than necessary before I dropped my gaze. He rose to his feet and I couldn’t help it, I needed another look to determine if my lack of response was a big deal. His grin more than assured me it wasn’t—and made me wonder if he was teasing me.

  No, I wasn’t gonna confess my secret and not only because I wasn’t able to speak English or any other language known to man in his presence.

  He was simply too much of a good thing in every way imaginable.

  At least for someone whose checklist didn’t allow dating for another few years. And then, I’d need to work up to a guy like Ryker…gain some experience or dating savvy first. Maybe practice on other guys before setting my sights on someone in his league.

  Ryker not only invaded my head, but filled available every space in my new place with nothing more than his presence. Creating heavenly throbs in secret places by doing nothing more than hitching up his jeans with a thumb threaded through belt loops. Something he did every time he crouched, then stood.

  Call me weird, but I found everything he did amazing and memory worthy. As in the vein of nipples hardening and a rush of renewed wetness between my legs each and every time he m
oved, spoke or freaking breathed.

  And Ryker seemed to do all of that…a lot.

  “You better have some seriously expensive surround-sound shit to make me jump through these kind of hoops.” Why’d I continue to follow him around as he tested the sockets like some star-struck groupie? Was I seriously stalking the man in my own home?

  Yes, I was.

  And I couldn’t seem to stop.

  How sick was that?

  “Pheebs? You here?” Jay-sus. My moving team was early. To tell the truth though, since Ryker seemed determined to understand the why behind my request, they were right on time. Turning away from Ryker-hot-guy-handy-man, to the people I loved and talked into helping me move, was a boon.

  It was the perfect interruption to whatever connection I felt toward him.

  “Diana!” I exclaimed, immediately moving to the front door and saw my foster mother was the first to enter my new place. Which was as it should be since she was so much more than just a simple caregiver to me and the other girls. Through the years she’d become my confidante, my friend and my anchor as I traversed the white-water rapids of my younger years. As always when I was gathered into her arms for a hug, I closed my eyes and breathed in. Lily of the Valley was her favorite scent and one I could only call ‘home’.

  “Seriously, Pheebs?” A contralto voice derided from behind Diana. “You just saw her on Sunday! Not like you haven’t seen her in month. Geesh, get a grip!”

  “Vonnie!” My best friend, foster-sister and former roommate was holding a box close to her chest while leveling me with a grumpy expression. Which was just the norm for the redheaded Vonnie any time she was outside her comfort zone. Me moving to my own apartment and asking her to help bring my stuff not only took her out of the house, but away from what she called her ‘sphere of safety’. But she’d done it, so I could overlook the grumpy expression and the chiding about hugging Diana because I knew it was Vonnie’s way of coping with a new situation. “Thanks so much for helping. Love the new streaks.”