Always on My Mind Read online

  “Oh no you don’t,” he said, tightening his grip on her. “Not now, not when I finally have you where I want you.”

  “And where is that?”

  “With me.” He stepped back into the front room, and everyone clapped until he held up a hand for silence, letting Leah slide down his body. “We have an announcement.”

  “We do?” Leah said, her world spinning out of control, like a dream. The best dream she’d ever had.

  “We do.” He brought their entwined hands up and brushed his mouth across her knuckles as everyone in the room leaned forward in unison, straining to catch his next words.

  “What?” Lucille finally demanded. “What’s the announcement?”

  Jack smiled at Leah. “We’re taking this relationship off the radar.”

  “Well dammit,” Lucille said as the rest of the room groaned.

  Ignoring all of them, Jack tugged Leah into his side, kissed her softly, and smiled into her eyes. “Class dismissed,” he said.

  And then kissed her again.

  And again…

  Aubrey is setting out to right old wrongs. But Ben doesn’t even know he’s on her list.

  Despite their troubled past, Lucky Harbor could be a hot, new beginning.

  Please turn this page for a preview of

  Once in a Lifetime.

  Chapter 1

  There was one universal truth in Lucky Harbor, Washington—you could hide a pot of gold in broad daylight and no one would steal it, but you couldn’t hide a secret.

  Throughout the twenty-eight years of her unarguably colorful life, Aubrey Wellington had had lots of secrets, and almost every single one of them had been uncovered and gleefully discussed ad nauseam.

  And yet here she was, still in this small, Pacific, West Coast town she’d grown up in. She didn’t quite know what that said about her other than she was stubborn as hell. In any case, she was fairly used to bad days by the time she walked into Lucky Harbor’s only bar and grill, but today had probably taken the cake. Ted Marshall, ex–town clerk, ex-boss, and also, embarrassingly enough, her ex-boyfriend, had just self-published his own tell-all, thoughtfully informing the entire world that she was a money-hungry man-eater.

  She’d give him the money-hungry part since she was sinking her savings into a used bookstore, a silly, sentimental attempt at bringing back the one happy childhood memory she had.

  But man-eater? Just because she didn’t believe in happily-ever-afters, or even a happy-for-now, didn’t mean she was a man-eater. She simply didn’t see the need to invite a man all the way into her life when he wouldn’t be staying.

  Because they never stayed.

  She sighed. Okay, so maybe she was a bit of a man-eater. Shrugging that off, she walked through the Old West–style bar and grill. It was like taking a step back a hundred years, in a good way. The walls were a deep, sinful, bordello red and lined with old mining tools. The ceiling was all exposed beams, and lanterns hung over the scarred bench-style tables filled with the late-dinner crowd. The air hummed with busy chattering, loud laughter, and the music blaring out of the jukebox against the far wall.

  Aubrey headed straight to the bar. “Something that will make my day go away,” she said to the bartender.

  Ford Walker smiled and reached for a tumbler. He’d been five years ahead of Aubrey in school, and he was one of the nice ones. He’d gone off and had his fame and fortune racing sailboats around the world, and yet he’d chosen to come back to Lucky Harbor to settle down. He ran the Love Shack Bar and Grill.

  She decided to take heart in that.

  He slid her a vodka cranberry. “Satisfaction guaranteed,” he promised.

  Aubrey wrapped her fingers around the glass, but before she could bring it to her lips, someone nudged her shoulder.

  Ted.

  “Excuse me,” her ex started, and then his handsome features went still as he realized it was her. He immediately started to move away, but she grabbed his arm.

  “Wait,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Yeah, I got your messages. All twenty-five of them.” Ted had been born with an innate charm that did a really good job of hiding the snake beneath. He kept his face schooled into an expression of easy amusement, exuding charisma like a movie star. With a wry smile for anyone watching, he leaned in close. “I didn’t know there were that many different words for asshole,” he murmured.

  “And you still wouldn’t,” she hissed, “if you’d have called me back even once. What were you thinking? Why did you have to say those things about me in your book?”

  Ted shrugged and leaned back. “I needed money. So I wrote a book. What’s the big deal? Everyone writes a book nowadays. And besides, it’s not like you’re known for being an angel.”

  Aubrey knew exactly who she was. She even knew why. She didn’t need for him to tell her a damn thing about herself. “The big deal is that you’re the one who wronged people,” she said, keeping her voice down with effort. She wasn’t as good at charm and charisma as he. “You’re the one who two-timed me,” she said, “along with just about every woman in town, including the mayor’s wife. You even let her steal fifty grand of town funds that you were in charge of, and yet somehow you made me out to be the bad guy.”

  “Hey, you were the town clerk’s admin,” he said. “If anyone should have known what had happened to that money, it was you, babe.”

  How had she ever worked for this guy? How had she ever slept with him? Her fingers were gripping her tumbler so tightly that she was surprised it didn’t shatter. “You said things about me that had nothing to do with the money.”

  He smiled and gave her another shrug. “The book needed a little titillation.”

  Of all the humiliations Aubrey had suffered—and there had been many—having everyone know she’d dated this tool took the cake. It was the last straw on a no-good, very bad day, and as she’d been doing for most of her life, she acted without thinking. Almost before she knew it, her arm swung out, splashing her vodka cranberry at Ted’s smug, far-too-good-looking face.

  But though Ted was indeed at least twenty-five kinds of an asshole, he was also fast as a whip. He ducked, and her drink hit the man on the other side of him square in the face.

  Straightening, Ted chortled in delight. “Nice.”

  Aubrey got a look at the man she’d nailed and stopped breathing. Oh God. Had she really thought her day couldn’t get any worse? Why would she tempt fate by even thinking that? Because of course things could always get worse. They could always get worse.

  Dripping her vodka drink, Ben McDaniel slowly stood up from his barstool, six feet plus of hard muscles and brute strength on a body that didn’t carry a single extra ounce of fat on him. For the past five years, he’d been in and out of a variety of third-world countries designing and building water systems with the Army Corps of Engineers. His last venture had been for the Department of Defense in Iraq, which Aubrey only knew because Lucky Harbor’s Facebook page was as good as gospel.

  Ted was already gone, of course, out the door like a thief in the night, the weasel.

  But not Ben. He swiped his face with his arm, deceptively chill and laid-back. In truth, he was about as badass as they came.

  Aubrey should know; she’d seen him in action. But she managed to meet his gaze. Cool, casual even. One had to be with Ben; the man could spot a weakness a mile away. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Are you?”

  She felt herself flush. He’d always seemed to see right through her. And he’d never liked her. He had good reason not to; he just didn’t know it. “I wasn’t aiming for you,” she said, her heart pounding so loudly she was surprised she could hear herself speak. “Are you okay?”

  He ran his fingers through his sun-streaked brown hair. His eyes were the same color, milk chocolate streaked with gold caramel. It was hard to make such a warm-colored gaze seem hard, but Ben managed it with no effort at all. “Need to work on your aim,” he said.

&nbs