Drawn to Vail Mountain

  Drawn to

  Vail Mountain

  Vail Mountain Trilogy #3

  Desiree L. Scott

  Lavish Publishing, LLC ~ Midland

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DRAWN TO VAIL MOUNTAIN Copyright 2018 ©

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Lavish Publishing, LLC.

  First Edition

  Vail Mountain Trilogy #3

  All Rights Reserved

  Published in the United States by Lavish Publishing, LLC, Midland, Texas

  Paperback edition

  ISBN-13: 978-1-944985-47-9

  ISBN-10: 1-944985-47-6

  Cover Design by: Wycked Ink

  Cover Images: Adobe Stock

  www.LavishPublishing.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Author Bio

  Chapter 1

  "I can't talk you out of it?"

  Jacob Tanner shook his head, his right arm in a sling, complements of the last drug raid he had been on. He was still technically on leave with two weeks to go, but he was done. Ever since returning from the mountain a little over a year ago, the thoughts of a quieter and slow-paced life had stuck with him. He was thirty-four years old and tired of the city life, the scum that littered the streets. It was never ending, full of cockroaches coming out of the concrete slabs of the decaying darkness. He now knew how his friend Nina had felt before she had moved to the mountains, and like her, he wanted something different. It was about time he made it happen.

  "This is a bad time, Tanner. The case isn't over."

  Jacob sighed, hating to leave his chief in the lurch, but he couldn't take anymore. He couldn't take the helpless feeling of not being able to save everyone, to get the bastards off the street. When he put one away, three more took its place, and it was beyond frustrating. The case wasn't over. The chief had that right. The bastards behind the drug ring, the drug lords, had evaded the police for over a year, ever since Nina’s father had been murdered and the two bastards who had killed him died trying to kill Nina and her daughter, the only witnesses. It had all started with Nina's father, and yet he didn't seem to be any closer to finding out the connection and pulling the plug on the assholes.

  They are going to have to find a way to work the case without me, Jacob thought.

  He was getting out while he could still walk out with pride of a career well done. Ten years in was enough for him. With some of the stunts he had pulled in his early years, he was lucky to be alive, and he didn’t take that blessing lightly.

  He didn't answer his chief, but his eyes spoke volumes, and the other man sighed, running a hand through his gray hair as he leaned back in his squeaky chair.

  "Can't say I blame you," he muttered, glaring down at his scarred desk.

  Jacob looked over at his chief, a man who had been on the force for over thirty years, and saw the exhaustion, the weariness that created the dark bags beneath his brown eyes. He spied the slumped shoulders and vowed that the other man wouldn't be him in twenty years. Jacob was determined to change the outcome now before it was too late.

  They heard a knock on the door, and it couldn’t have come soon enough. He was having a hard time turning his chief down. Not many went against the older man and came out unscathed.

  "Come in," the chief barked, still glaring over at Jacob.

  Yup, right on time.

  The chief had already spent hours trying to talk Jacob out of throwing in his hat and had finally concluded that he couldn't. And that just pissed the older man off worse.

  Pete Danvers entered, a cup of coffee in his hand, the steam billowing forth giving the illusion that it was good. The coffee was one of the many things Jacob wouldn't miss. It was black sludge on good days and cement on bad days, and from the grimace on Pete's face, it was a bad day. Jacob took a sip from his Starbucks cup and grinned.

  Pete rolled his eyes and chuckled. "Asshole."

  "Always."

  "So, from the looks of the chief, he couldn't change your mind," Pete said with a raised eyebrow.

  It wasn't a question, but the chief growled, answering him anyway. "Don't get smart, Danvers. Your workload just doubled," he snapped.

  Pete didn't answer him but just stared at Jacob with that eyebrow still raised, a silent question that Jacob didn't know yet.

  He shrugged. "I don't know what's next, man. I'm just done. Thinking about visiting Vail Mountain again but I’m not sure."

  He turned to his chief. "It was a pleasure working for you, sir," he said quietly.

  The chief stared at him, his eyes hard, but Jacob noticed the softening in the brown depths.

  "Get out of here," he growled, his deep voice harsh, but Jacob wasn’t fooled. The gruffness hid the emotion, but that was just how the old man dealt with life.

  Jacob nodded and within thirty minutes, had his desk cleaned out and any personal items within a small box. The job had been his whole life. After so many years of breathing his career, he was shocked he didn’t have more shit to lug home. He was going to miss the place if he was honest with himself. Jacob hadn't thought of doing anything else but working in the police force and would never have thought he would have been burnt out, but that's exactly what he was. It was more than getting injured on the raid. It was facing his mortality with nothing to show for it. It was facing that bullet and wondering if what he had done with his life was enough. The answer had been swift as he had stared down the barrel of the gun.

  Hell no.

  He was alone and often worked sixteen-hour days. He had money saved on his low salary because he never spent it. He wasn't a tightwad; he just never had the time to go shopping or splurge, not that there was much he needed beyond the essentials. His fridge was often bare, and he was lucky if he remembered to pay his rent and utilities. He never even had time for a dog, and he had always wanted one.

  Sighing, he juggled the box in his one good arm and unlocked his front door just as his cell rang.

  Cursing, he dropped the box on the floor and heard porcelain shatter, his favorite coffee mug toast, which brought more curses.

  He answered the call on the fourth ring without glancing at the caller ID.

  "What?" he barked.

  He rolled his eyes at the lack of politeness, sounding like his chief, and that made him chuckle. He was going to miss the bastard, that was for sure. And if his mother would've been alive, she would've washed his mouth out with soap after a slap in the face, causing him to chuckle again.

  "Is that any way to greet someone calling? And why are you laughing?”

  At the brisk demand from his friend, Jacob chuckled again, loving that the peace of his deci
sion was slowly working its way through him. He was going to be okay, and that fact made him sigh again, this time with a smile.

  "Hey, Nina. How are you?"

  "I'm calling to ask you that! I’m not the one who was shot!”

  Jacob laughed again and sat down on his sagging couch, one of the few pieces of furniture he owned, and he wasn’t going to miss the uncomfortable piece of shit either.

  Tingles of pain erupted from his left arm, and he bit down on the curse that threatened to explode, tasting the iron flavor of blood from his tongue. "I'm fine, Nina." He had only been out of the hospital for a few weeks, but his arm still hurt like hell. The damn shot had nicked his collarbone, and the second shot had sliced through the muscle of his left arm. Thankfully, he had missed his bone, but it still hurt like a bitch, and Nina called him out on it.

  "Liar."

  Jacob smiled. He missed his friend. Nina had moved to the mountain after falling in love with the resort owner on Vail Mountain. Her father’s murder a year ago had opened the can of worms concerning the drug ring plaguing New York.

  Granted, crime rings had always littered New York, but this one was different. It was more sophisticated and organized, and more bodies were starting to appear.

  "Well, I quit, so stop worrying." He jerked his phone off his ear when she squealed. He heard a deep voice in the background, no doubt Rob, her husband, and Nina explained in a rush before coming back to the phone.

  "Seriously? You did it? You resigned?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "So, what are you going to do now? Any plans?"

  Something in her voice had his eyes narrowing as he stared out the large window across from the position of the couch. Horns honked, and he would hear screaming from the houses across the street. It wasn’t a quiet neighborhood, but for being New York, it was more peaceful than most. The houses were old but still had life in them, so that was something. He wasn’t going to miss the city, that was for sure, but if not the city, then where? What plans did he have? The answer was depressing.

  None. Yet.

  "I don't know yet," he answered her slowly, echoing his own thoughts out loud. Another comment from her husband in the background and Nina squealed again, causing Jacob to flinch at the high pitch sound coming across the airwaves.

  "The sheriff here is retiring in a month or so. You can come in and apply for the job!"

  Ah, there it is. The motivation.

  He shook his head, a reluctant smile tugging his lips at his friend’s demanding tone.

  "I just left the force for a reason, Nina."

  "I know, but it's nothing like it is in New York! It's slow here. The most crime we have is a some kids vandalizing a few properties and maybe an occasional domestic dispute. It would give you your slow pace and the mountains all rolled into one! And Emily misses you.”

  At the mention of her daughter, the little girl he considered family, Jacob sighed, but before he could say anything, she cut him off.

  "Just think about it, okay?"

  He nodded. "Okay, I'll think about it, but I’m not making any promises, Nina," he warned sternly.

  The growl failed as she laughed, ignoring his warning. They soon hung up, but now that the blasted woman had put the seed into his head, he thought of nothing else. And what made it worse was that the damn woman had known exactly what she was doing.

  The brat.

  Grunting in annoyance, he stood up and started to pace as his thoughts raced. He didn't know what he wanted to do. The only thing he was sure of was that he was done with the city.

  I guess it couldn't hurt going back and seeing about the position, he thought.

  The spontaneous decision made, he started to pack, all the while cursing his friend out but, in a weird way, also thanking her. It wasn't much of a direction yet, but it was a start, and the more he thought about it, the more it settled his mind and heart.

  Deep down, he knew it was the right decision for him.

  She was back.

  Connie Meyer debated on whether to answer the door, but she knew the woman wouldn't leave without the last word. The pounding would continue, and then the woman would air out their dirty laundry on the front porch for the world to hear. Connie was tired of being the center of attention in her quiet neighborhood in the suburbs of Boston, and she was sick of the woman on her doorstep. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.

  She pasted on a fake smile and opened the door, almost getting punched in the face by the raised fist of the large woman.

  "Well, it's about time, Connie dear! I've been standing out here knocking for over ten minutes!"

  A slight exaggeration and Connie barely held in her sigh of irritation. Her parents had raised her with manners, but she was about to lose all her teachings in less than five minutes, with pleasure.

  Her mother-in-law, Karen Sanders, stormed inside, the warm breeze of early fall flowing in after her, and Connie nearly choked on the heavy perfume that followed in her wake. She could almost see the white cloud surrounding her and coughed as she closed the front door. If she hadn’t been leery of what the woman wanted—as if she didn't know—she would have left the door open to air out the living room of the nauseating fragrance.

  "What can I do for you, Karen?" she asked wearily, heading for the kitchen.

  It was nine in the morning on a Saturday, and she saw her chances of peace and quiet going up in smoke as the woman followed her, her brown eyes tracking her every move as if thinking Connie would disappear given the chance.

  And she would be right.

  Connie set about making some coffee. She always needed her wits about her to deal with the woman behind her, and that meant caffeine—lots and lots of caffeine.

  "I want you to stop this nonsense and get back with my son. He misses you, dear."

  Connie almost laughed with that bullshit—the hidden excuse of why she was there, as if Connie didn’t know. It was the same ol’ argument of the past eighteen months, and Connie choked on the insane notion of her estranged husband missing her. The only thing the bastard missed was using her as an emotional punching bag, and she would rather eat maggots than even consider going back to the asshole. It had been over a year since she had left, and yet the bastard still refused to give her a divorce. She was using her maiden name, but it wasn't legal until he signed those papers. If it hadn't been for her job and the fact that she couldn't afford to relocate, she would have moved to the Antarctic, anything to get away from the two of them. Why they couldn’t leave her alone was beyond her.

  Instead, she had been forced to live in an apartment thirty minutes from them. This was the third visit from his mother in the past two weeks, and it was a constant thing. A few months ago, it had been every month or so, but now the so-called visits had increased drastically. She didn’t know what was going on, and in the beginning, she had even made the mistake of ignoring her calls and knocks, but the woman never let up.

  If she didn't answer her, she showed up at her accounting job, and her boss had already warned her to keep her drama away from the office, as if she enjoyed the shit and it was her fault.

  "And I told you I'm done, Karen. I'm not going back. Please accept that and move on. I’m done. Finished.”

  The woman ignored her and stomped her foot, frustration and annoyance causing the heavy lines of her plump face to fall. Connie almost laughed again as she poured herself a cup of coffee. The woman acted like a three-year-old, a mere reflection of her son, who often acted the same. When Adam didn't get his way, he would stomp his feet and whine until she caved. She wasn't caving this time. Hell would freeze over first before she did. She wasn't going back to being constantly degraded and treated like a child. Besides, he had had more affairs than he had underwear. Let one of the other women keep him company. It wouldn’t be her.

  No fucking way in hell.

  "Connie, whatever he did, you two need to talk it out. Stop acting like a child!"

  Connie had just taken a drink and nearl
y choked, fighting to regain her breath as she turned to glare at the woman. There was no way the woman didn’t know, so what the fuck was her point in ignoring the obvious?

  "Whatever he did? You can’t be serious!" she said incredulously, hardly able to believe that the woman could be so cruel. She should have expected it. This was Karen, Adam’s mother. They were so alike that it was mind blowing. They were carbon copies of each other. Connie could almost believe that the woman didn’t know how she came across, how hurtful her words usually were.

  Almost. But it was the calculating gleam in her eyes that gave her away.

  "Karen, he blamed me for losing our child! And then had an affair, one after another for years!”

  Karen sighed in disappointment and looked at her with a strange light in her eyes that pissed Connie off even more.

  "Well, honey, it was—"

  "Leave. Now!" The shout erupted, shocking them both, but Connie was finally fed up with dealing with the two of them. Her manners could go to hell. She wouldn’t tolerate being made to believe that it was her fault that she had lost her child, that it was her fault that the bastard had cheated, and she had a feeling her parents would understand.

  Karen's eyes widened. "What—?"

  "Get out of my house. I'm done. I'm not going back, and tell your bastard son to sign the fucking papers!"

  For the first time in her life, Connie had reached her tolerance level, and her voice started to rise, not caring if anyone heard her or not.

  She. Was. So. Fucking. Done.

  "Just...leave."

  Karen looked stunned, and that gave Connie the perfect opportunity to push the woman through the small apartment and out the door.

  Without a thought to how it looked, she slammed the door in the stupefied face of her mother-in-law and prayed to God that it was the last time she would see her, but Connie knew better. They were like parasites, and they wanted something. Connie just couldn’t figure out what that was. It shouldn’t have been that hard to sign some fucking papers, but for some reason, Adam refused to. She had racked her brain trying to come up with an explanation, but she was coming up blank on that score.