A Fighting Chance Read online

  A Fighting Chance

  Book 4 in the

  Running Into Love Series

  by

  Annalisa Nicole

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2014 by Annalisa Nicole

  This book is a written act of fiction. Any and all names, places, or similarities are coincidental. No part of this book may be used without written permission except for brief quotations for reviews or blogs. This book may only be distributed by Annalisa Nicole, the owner and Author of this series.

  To my bff

  Julie Mahloch

  Ich Liebe Dich

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  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

  A little about Annalisa Nicole

  Other Books by Annalisa Nicole

  Where you can find Annalisa Nicole

  Acknowledgements

  Character Glossary

  Chapter 1

  Chloe

  To say my life has been ripped out of a prime time television drama would be an understatement. Growing up, my twin brother, Kyle and I had always wanted to be obstetricians and gynecologists. I know that sounds crazy, but we did. We stuck together all through school and we both attended the same college and medical school. The day we graduated from medical school was one of the happiest days of my life. We even got into the same internship program at the same hospital, and we got to work with each other every day. It was a dream come true. I was so excited!

  Then one day, one instant, in the blink of an eye everything changed. It not only marked mine, but my brother’s life, forever. It was only our second delivery we had performed together. The mother had progressed so rapidly there wasn’t enough time to locate the supervising doctors on duty. Kyle and I had to deliver the baby on our own. We were perfectly capable of doing it but little did we know that the mother had a life threatening underlying condition. Everything that could go wrong did and it all happened so fast. Not only did we lose the mother, but we lost the baby, too.

  Of course, I always knew death was a possibility in my career; I’m not naive. But, I never imagined it would happen so soon after medical school and that it would be a mother and her baby at the same time on the same day. It was a heartbreaking day, and one I will never forget.

  Those next few days, I questioned whether or not I could even do this job. I knew my brother felt the same way too. I saw the guilt and pain in his eyes and I felt it as if it were my own. I always told Kyle we had wonder twin powers and that I could always feel everything he felt. He could never hide anything from me. It took a few days, but I had finally sorted through my feelings and came to the conclusion that in my line of work, the good outweighs the bad by tenfold. I decided to put on my big girl panties and be the best doctor I could be.

  I had just gotten home from work with my fresh new attitude, and decided to order a pizza, open up a bottle of wine, and dance around my small apartment in my underwear - after the deliveryman left of course. I was pleasantly shocked when the delivery man knocked on my door in only twenty minutes and not the hour and a half they said over the phone. Good, because I was itching to strip down and dance. I opened the door with my money in hand ready to give him or her a very generous tip for coming so soon. When I opened the door, my good mood fell so fast that I couldn’t even prepare myself for what happened next. I wish I could say that I don’t remember, or that my brain has blocked it out because it was so traumatic. But the haunting truth of it is I can’t. I remember every second, and I remember every last detail. I can still smell how he smelled, I still hear every word he said, and I still feel everywhere he touched me.

  At my door was the man who lost his wife and baby three days earlier. How he knew where I lived, I didn’t know. He reeked of alcohol, but what I remember most clearly was the look in his eyes. I’ll never forget his eyes. I see them when I close my own. They haunt me in my dreams, but worst of all, they haunt me when I’m awake, too. If I don’t pay enough attention, they creep their way into my conscious thoughts and destroy everything good in my life. They pollute everything that I have worked so hard for, everything I’ve done to get me to where I am today.

  I tried to close the door, but he was too strong and way too fast, even in his inebriated state. He pushed himself inside my apartment and held me around my throat while he closed the door with his foot. He held my throat so tight. I struggled for my next breath, and gasped for air. With his hand around my throat, he pushed me against the wall and slowly lifted me off the ground like I weighed nothing. I desperately tried to hold myself up by my tip toes to breathe. He put his face next to mine, his lips brushed my ear as he whispered, “Eye for an eye, you stole what I loved most in this world, I’m going to steal you from the brother who loves you the most.” The stench of stale beer on his breath brought up lunch, but with his hand so tight around my throat it had nowhere to go but back down. He reached in his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a syringe. I tried to pry his hands from my throat as I desperately shook my head no. He stabbed me in my upper thigh and almost instantly the world turned distorted and swirled around in my head. My whole body went numb. The last thing I remembered was the feeling of finally being able to breathe as he let go of my throat and I slid lifelessly down the wall.

  That was over three years ago and I still remember every single last detail. I was held by that crazy man for three years in a dark basement in the middle of nowhere. What I have come to realize is that he was so devastated by his grief that he really just didn’t know how to deal with the loss of his wife and baby. He did something that otherwise would have been completely unimaginable to him. Near the end is when he kidnapped Amelia Wellington, who Kyle had recently started dating. The man kidnapped me to punish not only me but to leave Kyle out there wondering where I was and what happened to me. When Kyle started dating Amelia, he couldn’t allow Kyle to be happy again, resulting in Amelia’s kidnapping. That is when he made his grave mistake. Messing with the Wellington family was the worst thing he could have done. Asher, who is Amelia’s brother, contacted his friend, “Slick” who at the time was a man who got things done and didn’t care which side of the law his actions were on.

  The day Slick, Kyle, Adrian, and Asher came down those stairs and rescued me was a dream come true. The relief I felt was short lived. In the chaos, there was a struggle and that man somehow got a hold of Slick’s gun and held it to Amelia’s head. I didn’t think twice when I grabbed the gun and shot him myself. He died that day. I don’t feel bad that I shot him. I do however, regret killing him. I took a Hippocratic Oath, and I vowed to save lives, not take them. Taking another human beings life went against everything I believed in.

  The ride to the emergency room in the ambulance was something, I wondered at the time, if it was truly happening, or if I was just dreaming again about the possibility of escaping. That’s when I really met Max, or “Slick” as Asher used to call him. I don’t know the story behind the nickname. All I know is he was my knight in shining armor, and the man who rescued me. The look of concern in his eyes softened my hardened exterior just a little. There was something in his eyes, something that I could relate to.

  I had to teach myself to become dead inside to survive the seemingly endless time spent in that basement. I had to preserve what little I had left of myself by shutting off everything I knew about what made me, me. I had to pack
it away, wrap it in a pretty little box, and store it in a compartment in my brain and pad lock it closed, in hopes that someday I could open it back up and have back a resemblance of the person I used to be.

  Since meeting Max that day, we’ve been inseparable. Just like Kyle, Max and I became honorary members of the Wellington family. Between therapy, Max, Kyle, my own parents, and the Wellington family, I had just started to think that I really could have that neatly wrapped box that used to be me and move on with my life.

  As soon I was released from the hospital, Kyle moved me into his house. He had no intentions of ever letting me out of his sight. When Amelia was released from the hospital from her gunshot wound to the chest, Kyle moved her into his house as well. I really only had a head injury as far as physical injuries went. It was the emotional wounds that would take longer to heal. That’s when I got to know Ava. She’s the youngest of the Wellington siblings. She and I quickly became best friends. When she asked me to move into her condo with her, I said yes even before she finished the sentence.

  Kyle proposed to Amelia, and it was at their wedding that I told everyone that Max and I were dating. Both Kyle and Asher were not happy to say the least. Kyle didn’t think I should be dating at all. He really thought after everything I had been through that I needed to focus on healing those emotional scars. Not invest my time in cultivating a new relationship. At that point it was way too late. I was already in love with Max. Asher was furious with him because he’s the only one who knows who “Slick” Maxwell Jones really is. Max had declared his love for me on the spot and promised everyone that he loved me and would always be there to protect me. In the end, it ended with handshakes and a warning not to break my heart, or there would be hell to pay.

  Life was good. I had that mental box pretty much unwrapped. I had a place to live with the best roommate ever. I had my parents, who through my kidnapping ordeal had gotten divorced, but have since remarried. I have Kyle, who I get to work with everyday again at the same hospital. I reentered an internship, followed by a residency program, and I’m about to take my boards to become certified.

  Max is just amazing. He’s not someone I ever pictured myself falling in love with. On the outside he’s this tatted, rough and tough looking man, who drives a blacked out Explorer and a Harley. But the second he lays eyes on me he softens, and he has this peaceful, loving look on his face. I’ve never seen him look at another person or thing the way he looks at me. He’s one of those men that when you look at him, you think he’s in a perpetual state of a pissed off mood. People are scared to even look him in the eyes. He’s tatted almost from head to toe, muscular with dark brown hair, and sexy as hell stubble. The two of us together look as opposite as two people can be.

  Adrian, the oldest of the Wellington siblings, recently started dating his ex-wife, Shay, after being divorced for seventeen years. Things have been going so well that today Adrian is out horseback riding with Shay and he’s going to propose to her. It’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. We’re all waiting in the stables for them to get back, and we’re throwing them a surprise engagement party. I can’t help but let my mind wander and think about the possibility of one day marrying Max. I just know he’s the one.

  Max

  The day Chloe fell into my life was a day I had never imagined would happen to a man like me. I had come to accept that I wasn’t the dating kind. I was a self-proclaimed gumshoe. I did things for the good of the people, though not always legally; I got the job done.

  I’ve known Asher since we were kids. I don’t think the rest of his family remembers me, but that’s how I’d like it to stay. We weren’t from the same side of the tracks, but that never mattered to Asher. I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My dad was always drunk and passed out, and my mom skipped town when I was two days old. I pretty much raised myself. Having a stocked refrigerator or clean clothes was a luxury I never had. One day during my freshman year, I attempted to steal some food from a convenience store, and the shop owner caught me. I knew of Asher and had seen him around school. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but we didn’t talk much as I pretty much kept to myself. Being alone was easier than having to explain my family situation.

  When I got caught, Asher happened to be walking into the store. When he saw what was going on, he added what I had stolen to his purchase, looked at the clerk and said, “We’re good now, yeah?” He paid for it all, and then just left. Every day at school from that day on, Asher would walk by my lunch table and he’d drop a lunch bag filled with enough food for not only lunch, but dinner too in front of me. He never said a word. He just placed the food in front of me, and then he’d continue on to his table where all the popular kids sat.

  Our relationship stayed that way for months. We never spoke to each other. He never pried or asked for anything in return from me. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without him. The first time my dad laid his hands on me, which coincidently was his last time he ever laid his hands on me, was my senior year in high school. From that day on I’ve been on my own. I took what little money I had from doing odd jobs around town and moved into a pay-by-the-month run down motel room. I don’t know how Asher did it; I never had the nerve to ask, but every once in a while I’d come back to my room and find clothes and food on the bed. I knew it was from him, and I swore from that day on that one day, I’d repay him for everything he’d done for me.

  The day I got the phone call to help him find his sister, Amelia, who had been kidnapped, I dropped everything and made that case my priority. Asher saved my life. I owed him so much and finding his little sister wouldn’t even come close to paying off my debt to him. Chloe had been kidnapped by the same deranged man and held for three years before he kidnapped Amelia. When we rescued them both, I connected to Chloe instantly; we both shared an unspoken deep, dark pain. I’ll be the first to admit I wasn’t a good man. I didn’t care who I hurt to get the job done. I didn’t attach myself to any woman. I’d get a piece of tail here and there to satisfy my needs, but I still mostly kept to myself. It was still just easier that way. Besides Asher, I didn’t trust anyone.

  I don’t really know how I got into this line of work, it just sort of happened. People would contact me from all over the US and Canada and hire me to locate a lost loved one, or to get to the bottom of a cheating spouse, or to solve a murder that cops and detectives let run cold. I’d often leave town and dig deep in an investigation and be gone for months on end. Since meeting Chloe I haven’t left the county. She inspired me to get my PI license and to be a better man. My reputation for getting the job done followed me, and I’m a rather successful private investigator charging big bucks for my services.

  I’ll never forget the day I met Chloe and that ride in the ambulance. I don’t know what it was about her. She was so pale, and that lost, broken look in her eyes brought a chill, even to my hardened soul. I thought I was the most disheartened person until I looked into her chocolate brown eyes. The silent story those eyes told me was all I needed, and I think I fell in love with her right then and there. What she had to have gone through in that basement, held by a mad man for three fucking years, I could never imagine. All the years in my line of work, I have never taken another man’s life. I’ve beaten several within an inch of their life, but I always drew the line at murder. I have better ways and methods of getting what I need without resorting to murder. I watched her murder another man. Yes, it was self-defense and completely justified, but she still took a life with her own hands. She didn’t have an ounce of hesitation when she picked up that gun and shot her kidnapper. I watched the already dim light in her eyes completely burn out. She was broken in mind, body and spirit. I could relate to her like no one else, and I didn’t even know her. I suddenly had a need to put that light back into her eyes.

  I stayed with her and held her hand the entire way to the emergency room. I just knew that she was someone special, and I knew that I was nobody, period. I didn’t have anything to offer he
r. I was scared out of my fucking mind, and nothing ever scares me.

  We started dating in secrecy by her request. I didn’t like it, not one fucking bit. I didn’t want to hide anything from Asher; not after everything he’d done for me my whole life. I couldn’t care less if I disappointed anyone in this world, except Asher, and now, Chloe.

  I was relieved when she finally told everyone at Amelia and Kyle’s wedding. Things had been going along so smoothly, too. I had started investigating an accident at Adrian’s construction site. Adrian’s safety harness had failed when he fell from the scaffolding. Shay, Chloe, and I all watched helplessly as he fell to the ground. I took one look at that harness and I knew it had been tampered with. I owe Asher so much that I made his brother’s safety a priority and swore to Shay that I would get to the bottom of whoever did this.

  Over the next few weeks, I have my suspicions, and they are confirmed when I catch a woman tampering with Adrian’s car at his engagement party, in a horse stable. I confront the woman, who happens to be Adrian’s ex-assistant, Ireland. She starts to struggle and fight with me. I don’t want to fight a woman. I try to get her to go quietly so she doesn’t disturb the party. She takes a swing at me and connects with my jaw. That’s the last straw, all bets are off. I start wrestling with her and we crash into the stable doors. The entire engagement party comes out to investigate. Chloe takes one look at my bloody lip and starts to freak the fuck out.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Adrian barks.

  “I had my suspicions about who tampered with your safety equipment and they were just confirmed. I’ve been tailing her for weeks, and when my employee called me and said she was here, I knew she was going to try something again. I caught her messing around under the hood of your car, she had your brake lines in her hand,” I tell Adrian.

  Ireland sees her opportunity and squirms out of my grip and grabs the closest person to her who happens to be, Chloe by the hair. She pulls Chloe’s face toward the ground and punches her in the eye with an uppercut so strong it lifts her whole body off the ground. The only person at this point I can think about is Chloe. I want to go to her and comfort her and make sure she’s alright, but I realize in that split second that I took my eyes off my target.