Monkey Wrench (Cheap Thrills Series Book 8), page 1
CONTENTS
Monkey Wrench
Prologue
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Mary B. Moore
Copyright © 2021 Mary B Moore
All rights reserved
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No part of this book may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written expressed permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, places, events and incident are products of the authors imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.
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Cover Model: Kevin Eudy
Cover Photographer: Reginald Deanching, RplusM Photo
Cover design: Jay Aheer, Simply Defined Art
Editor: BCO
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This book is intended for mature adults only and contains consensual sexual content and language that may offend some. Suggested reading audience is 18 years or older. I consider this book as Adult Romance.
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MONKEY WRENCH
Carter
Years ago, Naomi was the girl who’d saved my life without knowing it. All it took was a handful of innocent words from her to change the decision I was about to make.
Ending up in the same town hundreds of miles away from our hometown wasn’t exactly a fluke, but what if I was her monkey wrench? I knew what loss was. I’d felt the pain and knew how easy it was to suffocate under it, but what if I was the wrench that fit all the pieces of her life and held them in place, so she could put it back together again for her and her niece.
And what if she was mine?
Naomi
Raising my niece by myself wasn’t easy but moving to Piersville from Fernandina Beach was the best decision I could have made for us.
I just didn't count on Carter Lane being here, too. He’d always been quiet, but around me, that changed. I just don't know what anything the guy does means, though. Carter’s helpful, he's great with Shanti, makes me laugh, and it blew my mind when he gave me the Blow Pop I'd given him all those years ago in a frame.
Changing life paths isn't easy, but it's a damn sight simpler than trying to figure out a man’s mind.
Especially his.
To the people who felt 2021 was like the Squid Game, you made it.
* * *
I hope you all have an amazing Christmas/Holiday Season, and here’s to 2022. I’m not going to jinx it by saying anything about how it should go, though, just that I hope you have a happy new year.
* * *
With gin.
* * *
And Cinnabon.
* * *
Maybe some Funfetti?
* * *
Just don’t let there be any glitter.
* * *
M xox
PROLOGUE
Adapted from Nice Buns
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Carter
I hated thinking back to when I’d lost my parents, and admitting how low I’d sunk after it was so hard to do.
“When I was twelve, my parents were killed in a house fire. At their funeral, everyone kept coming up to me and saying they’d be there for me, but I’d already decided I didn’t want to live that life. I loved both of them, and, sure, I loved my aunt and grandmother—who were my guardians—but I hated what I thought life was going to be like and decided just not to live it.”
“Does that mean you were going to run away or kill yourself?” Alex asked me cautiously.
“I was sitting on the side of the road while the wake was going on in the house.”
I stopped talking, struggling over what I was about to reveal. We all had secrets, and this was one of my biggest. With the silence in the car, the rasp of my nail on my vest as I picked at the seam was unnecessarily loud.
Knowing me well by now, Alex let me finish the story in my own time.
“It was a busy road, and vehicles drove over the speed limit down it all the time. I was waiting for a truck or van to come down it fast enough so I could jump in front of it.” The words were practically forced out of my throat.
“Jesus, Carter. Man, I—”
“It’s cool,” I interrupted him, not needing to hear the platitudes people usually offered when they heard things like this. “I don’t feel like it now and haven’t since that day.”
“How does this tie into Naomi?”
“On the opposite side of the road was a trailer park. At the front of it were the nice trailers, with vines growing on them and roses and shit. Behind them were the rougher ones, where the parents drank and did drugs, hidden by the beauty at the front. My plan was that, if a truck didn’t come along, I’d run through the trailer park to the railway track behind it and jump in front of the train due forty minutes later.”
I could still see the road and trailer park clearly from the viewpoint of a grieving twelve-year-old kid.
“I was looking to the left, waiting for the truck, when a little girl with long red hair sat down beside me. She was skinny and covered in dirt, but she had a sucker in her mouth. I didn’t say anything, just glared at her because she was fucking up my plan, when she reached into her pocket and pulled out a watermelon Blow Pop and handed it to me.”
“Was that Naomi?”
“Yep. Back then, Naomi was tiny for her age, and she was wearing clothes that were stained, old, and looked like they were hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs.”
At the time, I remembered looking at the button-down and slacks I’d worn to my parents’ funeral and comparing our clothes. It wasn’t pity that’d hit me, but empathy for the kid whose parents couldn’t afford to buy her nice clothes.
“Scratch that, they were definitely hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs. Anyway, she said that she did some jobs for people in the trailer park to earn money so she and her brother could have candy and sometimes presents from Goodwill for their birthdays and Christmases. She’d just been to the store and bought her favorite lollipops with some of it.”
I shook my head, my heart hurting again for her. With those words, she’d interrupted my pity party, but what she did next restarted my life.
“Then she dropped one of them in my lap and said, ‘Life’s hard, you know. My parents leave us alone in the dark ‘cos they haven’t paid the electric in months. My favorite time of the day is when the sun rises because I’m afraid of the dark. I feel like I can’t breathe. Like everything’s crushing me.’”
Alex looked at me sharply. “Naomi’s claustrophobic?”
I couldn’t say for definite now because I’d noticed she had ways of avoiding things I’d assume would be a trigger for her, but still. “Yes, badly, and it’s because her parents used to lock her and her brother in a tiny cupboard, so the neighbors didn’t see them when they left them alone at night. I found that out from her brother.”
“Why’d that change your mind about killing yourself?”
“It made me open my eyes and see I wasn’t the only one suffering. I wasn’t the only one who felt like they couldn’t breathe. I mean, my family’s not rich, but we could afford clothes and candy, and we always had electricity. Even though they’re not my parents, my aunt and grandma never left me alone in the house or locked me away, so people didn’t know they had.
“And her saying, ‘You can have my spare lollipop. It always makes me feel better and stops the butterflies in my tummy,’ changed the way I was thinking. To her, that sucker was a huge deal, and here she was giv
ing it to me because she somehow knew I needed something to help me.”
Alex blew out a shaky breath. I felt guilty for dumping all of this on him, but it also felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders through sharing it.
“Fuck me, Carter. I’m so sorry you went through that. I’m sorry Naomi did, too.”
“She saved my life, Alex. Without her, I’d have gone through with my plan, and I know that for a fact.”
“So, what’s tearing you up inside now? Are you starting to feel the same way that you did back then?”
I snorted. “No, far from it. The anniversary of her brother and sister-in-law, Shanti’s parents, deaths are coming up, so I decided to do something for her. I just don’t know if it’s the right thing to do.”
Pulling up in front of the station, Alex cut the engine and turned to look at me. “You knew her brother?”
“Yeah. I’m two years older than Naomi, and I was two years younger than her brother, but we played on the same basketball team in high school. I knew the guy well because he tutored me in math to earn money to feed his sister. Callum was fucking awesome.”
“Wait, how does Shanti know you knew her dad?” He’d been there when I’d gone to Garrett and Tamsin’s house, shortly after I’d moved here. Shanti had recognized me, but we’d never explained to anyone how and why.
After it, I’d spent time with Naomi at work, doing my best to let her know I was here for her and Shanti, but it hadn’t been until I’d gone over to help them out and had seen Shanti’s room that I’d understood how the little girl had known I knew her dad.
“Naomi has photos of Callum and Chastity—Shanti’s mom—on her bedroom walls. A lot of them are ones from high school that she’s cropped, so it’s just Callum in them. Well, he’s the main focus. But I’m in quite a lot of them because they’re team photos of us, so she recognizes me from them.”
Rubbing my hand down his jaw, Alex huffed out a laugh. “Holy shit, what a small world.”
“Right?”
The humor dropped from his face as he asked the next question. “What’s your intentions when it comes to Naomi? You know she comes with a child and that her and Shanti are a package deal—”
“Oh, I know that, and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I snapped, glaring at him.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just speaking as someone who was and still is a single parent. DB might be all grown up, but he’s still part of the package that I bring to the table. Some people think they can handle it but raising a kid that’s not your own isn’t a small task to undertake, Carter. Naomi’s her aunt, but she’s the only living thing she has left of her brother, so it’s a no-brainer for her to raise Shanti.
“But it’s far different for someone to want Naomi in their life and to join in on raising a kid that’s not theirs. Do you see what I mean?”
Copying how he was sitting, I shifted to face my friend and colleague.
“Let me ask you this, then. Do you understand the same when it comes to Evita Edwards and Cody Walters? I saw you with the boy yesterday and how you were with her when she got to the ER.
“There’s something there you’re not sure of, and as a single parent yourself, do you understand the impact even the slightest bit of attention from you has on both of them? I don’t know the history with the kid’s dad, but he soaks up everything you give him. Do you see what I mean?”
Maybe turning the focus onto his situation would help him understand how seriously I was taking my own with Naomi and Shanti. They both trusted me now, and I cared about them deeply, so there was no way I’d mess around with either of their feelings.
“I do. I’ve no intentions of making promises I can’t keep and fucking with their hearts and minds.”
Seeing that he understood where I was coming from, I nodded and replied, “Then you’ll understand when I say—same here. Naomi and Shanti are very serious topics for me.”
There was silence while we both stewed over our situations.
“So, what have you done for Naomi to help her through the anniversary?”
It took me a moment to understand what he was asking, but then I remembered telling him the anniversary was coming up. Having lost his wife, Alex would understand the weight the day would put on Naomi’s shoulders.
“I never ate the Blow Pop. I put it in a box with my parents’ wedding rings and some other stuff in it, and I’ve kept it safe ever since. Last week I took it to the framing store in Palmerstown, and the guy’s mounting it and putting it one of those box frames.”
An innocent piece of candy had changed my life seventeen years ago, and I was hoping it would have the power to help her through the anniversary.
Seeing Alex was struggling now, I huffed, “If you’re going to start crying, maybe go inside and see if Naomi’s around? I don’t do well with that shit,” and got out of the cruiser, leaving Alex still staring at my seat.
Finally shaking it off, Alex got out and called, “I wasn’t going to cry, asshole. All I was doing was thinking how beautiful and perfect that was.”
“Thanks. The guy says he’s finished framing it, so I need to go and collect it.”
It turned out perfectly, but the most challenging part was ahead of me… and I was going to need Jacinda and Heidi’s help.
ONE
Naomi
Three weeks later…
Sometimes we just needed to be on our own—no talking, no movement, no thinking… just alone.
Today was one of those days, and for the hundredth time since I’d moved here, I counted my blessings for the people in my life now.
Gone were the parents who didn’t give a shit about me and Callum, who never paid the electricity bill or bought us food. Who didn’t care if we were sick or needed the bathroom. They’d kept us locked in a small closet when it suited them, starved us, and then had left us alone—which hadn’t been a bad thing. The indifference and disappearing were always better than when they were actually there.
If it hadn’t been for my brother, I probably wouldn’t be here right now, and that’s not an understatement.
For years, I’d suffered through night after night of darkness and cramped space, and it’d triggered severe claustrophobia to the point I couldn’t sleep at night. For a long while, I’d even broken into a sweat when I had to go into the pantry. Then I’d developed coping mechanisms because I had a baby to look after and couldn’t afford to have hang-ups like that.
When we’d moved into this house, I’d asked my landlord if I could remove the door from the pantry in the kitchen, on the proviso, I’d put it back when we moved out. He’d agreed and told me not to worry about it. Slowly but surely, I’d learned to cope, and the dark and enclosed space issues lessened with time. Other people called it healing, I called it growth and freedom.
I hadn’t been able to afford much when I’d moved here with Shanti. Hell, I’d had been careful with every penny, including buying the gas to get us here, so that I could afford a deposit on a place for us. Any spare change I had went toward making sure Shanti had food, something to drink, diapers, and anything else she needed.
It was my best friend, Heidi, who’d found me the place we lived in now. I had no idea when I’d moved in here that the landlord was Jack Townsend, the now mayor’s son. He’d taken one look at me and my niece, who’d been fast asleep in my arms, and had given me the key and told me if I even tried to pay him, he’d lose his mind.
