Forever Kind of Guy

Forever Kind of Guy

By

Khelsey Jackson

Published by
Hot Ink Press

An Imprint of

Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing

This Book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

©Text Copyright 2013 Khelsey Jackson

Cover By: Khelsey Jackson for Jackson Hardy

Edited by: Elizabeth A. Lance

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.

Forever Kind of Guy is dedicated to my readers, thank you for supporting me! Xoxo

Chapter One

Gretchen
was sitting across the light wood table from the man she once loved with all of her heart. Robert was her high school boyfriend, and the loved of her life. She felt them drifting apart and there was nothing she could have done to pull them back together. She had never thought she could live without him, he was all she knew. That was until Christmas, and her one night with Claus.

Claus taught her that she could feel passion, and she could be without Rob. That was why
Gretchen was sitting in a conference room with two lawyers and her soon to be ex-husband; she wanted a fresh start. Rob didn’t want to let her go, so her lawyer and she were meeting him and his lawyer. He wanted everything, the house, and both cars, but mostly he still wanted her.

“
Gretchen doesn’t want anything but her car and her personal items,” her lawyer said as she smiled across the room at my soon to be ex and his lawyer.

“Hell no, I want you back. This is dumb
, Gretchen, we have been together since high school. We always work through our problems.” Robert's spring green eyes begged hers.

Gretchen
smiled, for ten years he was all she wanted and needed; now she didn’t. “Rob we haven’t been happy in a long time.”

Robert slammed
his fists on the table, both her lawyer and she jumped. “We said we would love each other until our last breaths,” he said part of their wedding vows.

She
looked away from his penetrating bright green eyes. “I don’t love you anymore, and I know you don’t love me. You can say you do, but you would only be lying to yourself.” Gretchen brought her blue eyes to his. “You know I will get this divorce if we go in front of the judge.” She took a deep breath; she really thought she was being reasonable with her demands, which was only one thing. She stared blankly across at him and his overpriced lawyer.

“And all you want is your car?”
his lawyer asked.

S
lowly she nodded.

Robert came from money, and was
in line to take over his father's company in the next few years. “I believe you are getting off easy, Mr. Elliott,” his lawyer said.

Robert glanced
away from her and to his lawyer. He nodded reluctantly.

“Great we will draw up the papers, and on Monda
y morning we will sign them.”

Gretchen
nodded at her lawyer and they stood up. Outside of the law office, she smiled at her lawyer. Laura had been her best friend since high school. Her soon to be ex, hated her. He’d always told her that she was a bad influence. “Gretchen you are too nice, half of everything he owns is yours. You would be taken care of forever with that kind of money,” Laura said as she pulled out a cigarette, and lit it.

Gretchen
hated when she smoked around her, it always made her eyes burn. She shrugged. She wasn’t ever with Rob for his money. Sure it had made things easy for them when they’d bought a house, but she didn’t need it. “I don’t want his money, Laura, and I don’t want to be taken care of. I am doing great on my own. I don’t need him to take care of me,” she said and moved out of Laura’s smoke range.

Laura
rolled her dark green eyes. “Whatever, this is the first divorce I’ve had that the wife didn’t want anything besides her crappy car,” she said and took another puff from her cancer stick.

“Hey! It's not crappy, jus
t old and loved,” Gretchen said with a laugh. Her car and she had both been through the ringer. “Okay it's a little old and crappy, but it's mine.”

Laura rolled her eyes again and shook her head.
Gretchen knew she would fight tooth and nail for her when needed. “I still think you deserve more.”

She grinned. “No I don’t, it’
s his company and his family’s money. I have never been a part of it and as of Monday, I won’t be part of his family.”

Laura shrugged as she put
out her cigarette. “I get it, I do, but I just want you to be happy. Are you still emailing that guy from Christmas?”

Gretchen
closed her eyes, and let the memory from Christmas run through her head like a movie. One she had watched over and over again. Laura was the only person she’d told about Claus. And just the thought of him made her smile.

“Claus
, right?”

Gretchen
shook her head and sighed. That was the rules of their arrangement. They hadn’t wanted anything more than one night together. And he was now the star of her dreams. “No I haven’t emailed him since before we met. We had rules about what would happen and what wouldn’t.” And contact afterward was her rule, not his. She hadn’t wanted anything more, and before she’d had her one night with Claus, she’d been fine with that. Now she wished she could see if he was interested in her, but since he hadn’t been in contact, she suspected he wasn’t.

“Well that is dumb, you had
one an amazing night with him and you don’t even know his real name,” Laura said.

Gretchen
shrugged. “That is what we wanted, not something complicated after we were done.” But she couldn’t forget him, how he made her feel, or his warm sweet peppermint lips.

Laura was looking at her like she knew what had been haunting her
, since that night. “Do you want to go out tonight to celebrate?”

She moved her eyes
away from Laura’s all too knowing gaze. “Sure, how about we meet at nine?” she said giving her enough time to go home and shower.

“Sure
Mickey’s?” Laura asked and Gretchen smiled, that had been their bar for the last four years. “You better show up this time, or I will drag your skinny ass out of your apartment.”

She
laughed, and Laura grinned. “I am far from being skinny, but I will be there.” Gretchen waved at her best friend as she drove away from the law offices of downtown, and toward her apartment.

About ten minutes later
a police car pulled behind her with red and blue lights alternating. Frowning, Gretchen pulled over to the side to let the cop pass, but it stayed behind her. She knew she hadn’t been speeding. When she pulled to the side of the road, she grabbed what she knew the officer would need.

A large man got
out of the police car, and strolled toward her. His hand was hovering over his gun.

Gretchen
manually rolled down her window.

“License, registrat
ion and proof of insurance.”

Her
heart soared when she heard a familiar deep voice. It was the same voice that had been unforgettable to her. She supplied him with what he’d asked for, and she observed her hands were shaking. Gretchen wondered if he would recognize her from her driver's license.

In her review mirror
, she watched him as he walked back to the police car. Slowly his head came up and stared at her and her car. He took off his hat, and she saw his short brown hair; she knew it was soft to the touch. He got out of his car and walked toward her.

“Ms. Elliott I need you to get out of the car, and put your hand
s on the hood of the car,” he said in a demanding voice.

Hesitantly,
she got out of the car, her legs trembling. She had never been pulled over before and now he was acting like she was going to be arrested.

“Whose car is this?” h
e asked her.

S
he looked over her shoulder at him and arched her eyebrows at him. “Mine,” she said. And then she recalled Rob liked everything to be in his name. Granted it had been a gift from him for her eighteenth birthday, but he’d put it in his name of course. “Well…no as of Monday it will be mine.” She noticed that he had handcuffs in his hands, and she felt the color drain from her face.

“This car is registered under the name
Robert Elliott and he just reported it stolen.”

Rage burned through her
and she turned around to face the man of her dreams. She should have known he would do this! He probably thought she would call him and begged him to help her. He knew she couldn’t afford bail. “Fucking Bastard,” she muttered and tightly closed her eyes. “My soon to be ex-husband is a dick. He is supposed to sign over the car to me on Monday along with my divorce papers.” When she opened her eyes, his hazel-green eyes were glaring at her.

“You’re married,
” he said, but she barely heard him. “Turn around. Do you have anything in your pockets that might harm me?”

S
he shook her head and did as he asked. Her only thought was his hands were on her as he gently glided down her sides and then down her legs. She closed her eyes, relishing the feel of him, until she felt the cold metal around her wrist and heard a clicking noise as he tightened the handcuffs.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say
, can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”

There was no trusting her voice, so she
nodded.

He
turned Gretchen around and her eyes went to the badge on his chest. It said Romano. At least the man of her dreams had a last name. “I'm sorry,” he said, and then led her to the police car. “I didn’t do your cuffs too tight, did I?” She heard the concern in his voice even as he was arresting her.

S
he shook her head to answer him, still unable to speak.

Gent
ly he guided her into the back of the police car, and then shut the door.

On TV and movies they allow
ed the person being arrested one phone call. A part of her wanted to call and scream at her ex-husband, but she knew that was what he wanted. Gretchen would call her best friend, Laura was her lawyer after all, and she would know what Gretchen needed to do to get out of jail.

“You know I wasn’t expecting to see you ag
ain…not like this at least,” he said, his voice as deep as she remembered from their time together.

S
he could still hear him telling her to come in her head. She grinned up into the review mirror. “Trust me, this isn’t what I imagined when I thought about seeing you again either.” She thought of the handcuffs around her wrist and how they bit into her skin just a little bit and realized she loved that little bit of pain. “Hmm…I will add the handcuffs to my list,” she laughed.

Officer Romano’
s hazel green eyes met hers for a second in the review mirror, and there was something heated in his gaze that made her look out of her own window to hide the flush of heat that she felt. She wondered to herself if he had thought about her like she had thought about him. It was his hands that she thought about when she was lonely at night, and it was his skilled tongue that drove her crazy.