Shame on Him

“Good. Tomorrow we’re going to the shooting range. You’re going to learn how to really shoot a gun,” he tells me.

He’s been saying this to me ever since I got out of the hospital. I officially quit my job with the law firm and I’m now a full-time investigator. Dallas knows that eventually he won’t be able to shadow me everywhere, and he told me he’d feel much better about that if he knew I could protect myself even better.

I haven’t told him yet that I’m probably a better shot than he is. My father was an award-winning skeet shooter. He took me shooting every weekend for almost my entire life. Thinking about my father makes me a little sad. I haven’t spoken to him since that night at dinner. He sent flowers to the hospital, and when my mother sees him in passing in the driveway, she says he asks about me. I know he’s disappointed with the choices I’ve made and I hope that in time he’ll come around. My mother though—she’s a completely different person since she kicked my father out.

“Lorelei, I think I finally settled on a tattoo,” she tells me, walking up to Dallas and me.

I feel the rumble of Dallas’s laughter against my back and I elbow him in the ribs.

She holds out a piece of paper and I take it from her hand. “I like the idea of getting song lyrics like you did, but I couldn’t find any I liked. I saw this neat little slogan and I thought it was perfect. I don’t know if it’s got anything to do with me, but I don’t care; I still want it.”

Glancing down at the paper in my hands, I laugh so hard that my sides hurt and tears start to roll down my cheeks. Kennedy and Paige walk over to see what’s going on. I silently hand them the piece of paper.

“My mom’s new tattoo, what do you guys think?” I ask them through my laughter.

“Oh, my God. This is fucking epic! I think we should all get this tattooed on our asses,” Kennedy laughs, handing the paper to Paige.

She reads it over quickly and giggles. “Oh, this is perfect. Mrs. Warner, you are a genius. We’re definitely going with you.”

Dallas holds his hand out for the paper and Paige gives it to him. He reads it out loud. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . . I don’t fucking think so.”

This just makes us all dissolve into laughter again.

“I think this should be our slogan. I’m going to get a new sign made for the front of the building,” Kennedy says.

“We were fools once, but never again,” Paige announces.

“Shame on you two for thinking that opening this business would never work,” Kennedy tells us with a shake of her head.

Paige nods in agreement. “Shame on me for not believing we could do this.”

They both look at me and smile. “And shame on all the fucking ‘hims’ in our lives for screwing us over!”

The three of us cheer and clink our glasses together.

We were all fooled at one point in our lives, but I guess we should be thankful for that. Without those idiot men in our lives, we’d never be where we are today—with a successful business and blissfully in love all over again.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS




To the team at Amazon, especially JoVon and Krista. Thank you for all of your support and hard work to make this series everything I imagined it to be. I enjoyed every moment of working with you!

To Donna, my rock and my reason for not going completely insane on a daily basis. Thank you for always answering my crazy texts at all hours of the day and for talking me down from the ledge on more than one occasion.

To Tina, thank you for Long Island Ice Tea nights and for letting me be “just Tara” with you. I will be forever grateful for your support and girl time. I love you!

To Tara’s Tramps for being the best group of crazies I’ve ever known! Thank you for your unwavering support and inappropriateness that makes me feel less insane than I really am.

For all the blogs, fellow authors and fans who share my work with others – you are the reason I’ve been able to follow my dream. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your love and support.





ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tara Sivec is a USA Today bestselling author, wife, mother, chauffeur, maid, short-order cook, babysitter, and sarcasm expert. She lives in Ohio with her husband and two children and looks forward to the day when all three of them become adults and move out.

After working in the brokerage business for fourteen years, Tara decided to pick up a pen and write instead of shoving it in her eye out of boredom. She is the author of the Playing with Fire series and the Chocolate Lovers series. Her novel Seduction and Snacks won first place in the Indie Romance Convention Readers Choice Awards 2013 for Best Indie First Book.

In her spare time, Tara loves to dream about all of the baking she’ll do and naps she’ll take when she ever gets spare time.

For information on Tara Sivec’s work, visit www.tarasivec.com.