Fireball (Cheap Thrills #1)
Mary B. Moore
Tabitha
Moving to a new town isn’t easy, especially when it’s so you can bond with the half-sister you never knew existed until those ancestry DNA results came back. I took the leap and got a job at the school in Piersville as an art teacher and made an offer on the pretty little house that I’d seen online. What I never expected to find when I arrived was my sister catching her husband cheating on her, and then getting arrested for no reason by the Sheriff, Dave Bell.
I was a sucker for tattoos, I was also a sucker for a tall man built like a wall. And apparently I was a sucker for a guy with a badge and a big… truck.
Call me old-fashioned, but being arrested, interrogated, and tortured (well, maybe not quite) wasn’t exactly romance, but everyone makes mistakes so I gave him a second chance.
Until I found out the huge secret he was hiding – well, more to the point who he was related to.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you’re a twat. Fool me three times, no chance!
“DB”
The people in the town I worked in were relatively easygoing, well aside from the Townsends. That family was a law unto themselves.
Tabitha Newton, the new art teacher, breezed into town and into my life at the same time. I’d been called out to check on a house with a suspicious car in the drive by a concerned neighbor and had stumbled across the new woman sprawled across the living room floor. One accidental arrest, a trip to the station, and a friendly ‘getting to know you’ interrogation later, and I asked her out before she could find out who my stepsister was.
It was stupid, of course she’d find out, but something about the woman had intrigued me so much that common sense hadn’t even come into it.
There’s a way around that though because there’s a way around everything. If that fails, I’ll just arrest her again, because I can.
Dedication
I need to dedicate this to someone who has been a pillar of strength and support to me for a long time now – Emma Mack. Have you heard of her? If not, you’re missing out.
Emma is one of the most beautiful people you’ll ever meet. She loves fiercely and will have you looking online at what colors adult diapers come in. She’s also loyal AF, and if you need her she’s there regardless.
Emma – Brit to Brit, ta-ta to ta-ta, unicorn to unicorn, I love you hugely. Thank you for everything you do for me, and for keeping my crazy ass for as long as you have. Thank you for keeping me as close to sane as possible. Thank you for rubbing my back, calling me a princess, and telling me I’m pretty (missing the tacos but no one’s perfect). And thank you for holding me up when I want to nurse my snit and feel sorry for myself.
You are awesome, and as beautiful as a twinkly-twinkly diamond and glittery Converse.
Big booby hugs. xox
Chapter One
Tabby
It was a miracle that I managed to wait for the door to shut before sliding down it onto my ass on the floor.
I’d only been in Piersville for eighteen hours and already I was burned out. It wasn’t my sister Jose’s fault that she’d come home from her prenatal appointment and found her husband boinking some ho on the day I’d driven into town. It also wasn’t her fault that the ho in question, Rita, had turned psycho on her.
No, the fault lay with her soon to be ex-husband’s wandering penis, and the fact that, like the aforementioned penis, he was a dick. I was just glad that I’d been able to help her out when the deputy sheriff had arrived to haul their asses out of the house after Rita Slutita tried to attack her, and her soon-to-be-ex Larry tried to take anything of value after she’d told him to leave.
Few people would dream that the first time they met their half-sister – one which they’d only found out about a few months previously – it would go down like that. Regardless, I was relieved I’d been here to help out during and after it all.
Now though, I was in my new house. I absolutely loved the property and the town I’d moved to, but Texas was hot as balls and I had sweat gathering in places I didn’t know was possible. Oh, and I was more exhausted than I’d ever been in my life, and there was nothing to eat in the house. All I had was a case of water and some coffee in my car, but no furniture to get up and lie on because that wasn’t due to arrive until tomorrow. Awesome!
I would have given anything to be able to call my mom to sort out the riot of emotions inside me, but she’d lost her short battle with cancer five months ago. Everyone kept telling me that time was a great healer, but so far I felt as raw as I did the day we found out that she didn’t have long left – as in days left, not months. That news had prompted me to get one of the genealogy DNA kits I’d seen advertised online and send the swabs back to them to be tested which had led me to where I was today.
After her diagnosis, Mom and I had sat down and had many heart-to-hearts getting everything out and bearing our souls to each other. That might sound dramatically worded, but when you know you’re about to lose someone, you dig down to your soul and make sure you have no questions left when they’re gone. It was during one of these conversations that she’d finally explained why she’d never moved on after my dad. Apparently, they’d met, and she’d fallen in love quickly, completely taken by the handsome blond man. He’d said he was in love with her too, but then she’d found out that he was also in love with eight other women. Eight! Something which she’d found out when she was six months pregnant with me, and he’d followed it by telling her that had no intentions of ever being a one woman man.