Officially Over It (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 10) Read online

  Text copyright ©2020 Lani Lynn Vale

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my loyal dog that snores outside my door for hours upon hours that just so happens to be the object of my attention as I’m writing this dedication. Love you big guy.

  Acknowledgments

  Golden Czermak - Photographer

  My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing- My editors

  Cover Me Darling - Cover Artist

  My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred and twelve times.

  Kendra, Diane, Sarah, Laura, Lisa, Kathy, Mindy, Penney, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  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

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  What’s Next?

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:

  The Freebirds

  Boomtown

  Highway Don’t Care

  Another One Bites the Dust

  Last Day of My Life

  Texas Tornado

  I Don’t Dance

  The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC

  Lights To My Siren

  Halligan To My Axe

  Kevlar To My Vest

  Keys To My Cuffs

  Life To My Flight

  Charge To My Line

  Counter To My Intelligence

  Right To My Wrong

  Code 11- KPD SWAT

  Center Mass

  Double Tap

  Bang Switch

  Execution Style

  Charlie Foxtrot

  Kill Shot

  Coup De Grace

  The Uncertain Saints

  Whiskey Neat

  Jack & Coke

  Vodka On The Rocks

  Bad Apple

  Dirty Mother

  Rusty Nail

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised

  Flash Point

  Oxygen Deprived

  Controlled Burn

  Put Out

  I Like Big Dragons Series

  I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie

  Dragons Need Love, Too

  Oh, My Dragon

  The Dixie Warden Rejects

  Beard Mode

  Fear the Beard

  Son of a Beard

  I’m Only Here for the Beard

  The Beard Made Me Do It

  Beard Up

  For the Love of Beard

  Law & Beard

  There’s No Crying in Baseball

  Pitch Please

  Quit Your Pitchin’

  Listen, Pitch

  The Hail Raisers

  Hail No

  Go to Hail

  Burn in Hail

  What the Hail

  The Hail You Say

  Hail Mary

  The Simple Man Series

  Kinda Don’t Care

  Maybe Don’t Wanna

  Get You Some

  Ain’t Doin’ It

  Too Bad So Sad

  Bear Bottom Guardians MC

  Mess Me Up

  Talkin’ Trash

  How About No

  My Bad

  One Chance, Fancy

  It Happens

  Keep It Classy

  Snitches Get Stitches

  F-Bomb

  The Southern Gentleman Series

  Hissy Fit

  Lord Have Mercy

  KPD Motorcycle Patrol

  Hide Your Crazy

  It Wasn’t Me

  I’d Rather Not

  Make Me

  Sinners are Winners

  If You Say So

  SWAT 2.0

  Just Kidding

  Fries Before Guys

  Maybe Swearing Will Help

  Ask Me If I Care

  May Contain Wine

  Joke’s on You

  Join the Club

  Any Day Now

  Say it Ain’t So

  Officially Over It

  Nobody Knows (11-3-20)

  Depends Who’s Asking (12-8-20)

  Valentine Boys

  Herd That

  Crazy Heifer

  Chute Yeah

  Get Bucked

  Souls Chapel Revenants MC

  Repeat Offender (1-12-21)

  Conjugal Visits (2-23-21)

  Jailbait (4-6-21)

  Doin’ A Dime (5-4-21)

  Inmate of the Month (6-29-21)

  Kitty Kitty (8-10-21)

  Gen Pop (9-21-21)

  Shakedown (11-2-21)

  Standalones:

  Somethin’ About That Boy

  Blurb

  Going from a professional baseball player to a SWAT officer should’ve been seamless. Should have been.

  But it wasn’t.

  All it took was one single calendar shoot for word to spread that Nathan Cox was not only no longer playing professional baseball, but he was also the man behind saving the life of Reggie Morton, the city of Kilgore’s princess.

  ***

  Reggie didn’t know that by agreeing to provide the expertise and the know-how for the Police Officer’s Ball that she would be required to actually attend the function.

  What she also didn’t expect was needing to be saved—again—by the same man that had saved her life a year ago when she hosted her debut event.

  This time in a not-nearly-as-spectacular way. The moment she falls into his arms like a modern-day Cinderella and takes him in, in all his three-piece-suited glory, she realizes that she’s been fighting the impossible.

  Nathan Cox owns her. Body and soul.

  Prologue

  Rise and shine, motherfucker.

  -Coffee Cup

  Nathan

  The day before college graduation

  “I need you to make a pact with me,” I said as I stared at the woman that was hell-bent on ruining me.

  The same woman that I never could quite pull myself away from. Could never quite pull all the claws out of my skin before she sank yet another one in deeper.

  “What?” Reggie asked, just as drunk as I was.

  She was also not the woman that was hell-bent on ruining me.

 
That woman happened to be the one that was crying about her life on Facebook. About how she had cancer and was about to go through multiple rounds of chemo and radiation that might or might not help her.

  “Don’t let her fuck me over. I will fall for those big tears just like I always do and I know that I’ll lose,” I murmured, glancing one more time at the text message that I’d received from Eerie, my own personal hell, and shoved it into my pocket.

  I looked around at the bright sparkling lights that Las Vegas had to offer.

  “And how do you propose that I do that?” Reggie snorted. “You have a toxic relationship with her. Just walk away.”

  I looked down at the paperwork in my hand that the toxic woman had given me the night before and shook my head. “It’s not that easy, Reg.”

  Reggie rolled her eyes. “Listen, I have a solution. But you’re not going to like it.”

  Reggie and I had never gotten along. But, despite the fact that we hadn’t, I knew one thing forever and always—she would have my back. No matter what.

  Which was the entire point of having this conversation.

  Though, maybe if I’d known what she was going to offer, I would’ve maybe suggested she think of something else.

  My drunk brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, though, and I’d never really been able to tell Reggie no.

  ***

  Two years later

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  “We get a lawyer,” my father suggested. “And you fight her.”

  I groaned and rubbed my hands against my face as I tried to make sense of all of this.

  “Start over.” My mom pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why did you do this?”

  I looked over at Reggie who’d been remarkably quiet through all of this.

  “I didn’t know what to say,” I admitted. “She had these fucking tears. You know how I am with the tears.”

  When Eerie had come to me two years ago and asked me to fertilize her eggs because she had cancer and had to undergo chemo, I’d done it.

  Thinking back, I probably should’ve stayed far, far away. Because I knew that that wasn’t the end for Eerie. She could’ve just as easily done the same thing with a sperm bank.

  Yet, I’d done it anyway.

  At the time, Eerie hadn’t done me wrong time after time as she had over the years. At the time, I was a lovesick fool.

  I loved Eerie, and I’d do anything for her. Even fertilize her eggs and freeze them for when the time came that she wanted to have babies.

  The chemo and radiation that she was required to have due to the cancer was sure to harm all of the eggs that were in her body. The eggs that the company harvested for her said that the eggs would do better if they were fertilized, and at the time, Eerie and I had been going strong. I’d loved her and I’d thought that she loved me.

  “Mark my words, kid. This is going to come back and bite you in the ass.”

  I was already shaking my head.

  “It’s not,” I said. “When her lawyer called me today, I already told them that there was an ironclad agreement with the cryo-bank that we did this with. She can’t use them. It’s against the law.”

  Reggie snorted. “Since when has that ever stopped Eerie Foster?”

  Since when was right.

  But Eerie had some morals. She wouldn’t do this without making sure it was okay with me.

  Right?

  Chapter 1

  The difference between your opinion and coffee is that I asked for coffee.

  -Reggie’s secret thoughts

  Reggie

  One year later—present day

  “You’re an event planner?”

  I looked over at the woman that was standing next to her daughter’s bedside and smiled.

  “I am,” I confirmed. “Well, kind of? I do it as a hobby on the side. This.” I gestured to the room around us. The NICU. “This is my passion. The other gig is just a thing that I like to do in my spare time. A way to, I don’t know, have fun without actually having to go out and attend the functions?”

  The woman smiled at my explanation.

  “When did you start doing this?”

  That was a question from the man standing beside the woman.

  He was intense.

  I wasn’t sure why every time I looked at him I felt the need to confess all my sins, but I guess that was common when faced with who I was facing.

  Dracon and Flo Green were a beautiful couple. Dracon, the city of Longview’s police commissioner, was an intense man that always made me stand up to attention.

  His wife, Flo, looked nothing like I would’ve expected someone to look who could handle such a forceful personality like Dracon. But she didn’t seem too overwhelmed when it came to his presence like I did.

  He was staring at me intently as I spoke, making my heart pound. God, he was a beautiful man.

  “Umm,” I hesitated. “I just started, actually. I started by planning birthdays for friends. Things like that. Then I moved into larger-scaled things like reunions and anniversary dinners. I know East Texas like the back of my hand now. It’s pretty great.”

  “So what’s the biggest thing you ever planned?” Flo asked.

  I moved Dracon and Flo’s baby onto her side where she mewled in protest.

  Dracon reached his big hand into the incubator and rubbed his blunt finger down the length of the baby’s arm. His finger and the baby’s arm were the same size.

  “I planned the mayor of Kilgore’s commencement ceremony not too long ago,” I said.

  “That was you?”

  I winced.

  Dracon’s words had me stilling.

  “It depends on what you heard,” I admitted.

  Flo’s laugh was infectious.

  The mayor of Kilgore had his commencement ceremony last fall. The only reason anybody had really heard about me at all was thanks in part to what had happened at that ceremony. And, I’d just like to point out, that it wasn’t my fault that I’d allowed a gunman into the event that was intent on murdering the mayor before his commencement.

  I did, however, make it all better by making sure that the man’s testicles were shoved up into his body so far that he would likely never have kids again.

  Now, sadly, I was known as the ‘Princess of Kilgore’ thanks to saving a man that didn’t need to be saved.

  “I heard what happened,” Dracon said. “I was actually there. And nothing that I ‘heard’ was anywhere close to the truth.”

  That was true.

  I swallowed hard thinking back to that day almost a year ago.

  ***

  “Everything set?”

  I looked up at the mayor and smiled, fiddling with the small kid’s McDonald’s toy keychain I’d found on the floor moments prior.

  Smoothing my hand down the length of my dress, I looked up into the beautiful eyes of the mayor and nodded once.

  “I think so,” I said. “We can open the doors when you’re ready.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll let the greeters know,” Lynn, the mayor, said.

  I gave him a thumbs up and he winked before disappearing into a side hallway that led to the offices.

  I looked around at the perfectly set tables and the beautifully decorated room and knew that I’d done a great job.

  I was so excited with how it’d turned out that I hadn’t realized that the doors had opened, and people were filing in until the room started to fill up around me.

  I nodded at each and every person that smiled at me, giving them what I hoped was a gracious smile.

  Feeling quite underdressed in my blue floor-length sleeveless gown that I’d gotten from a boutique in town for sixty bucks, I made my way to the outskirts of the room hoping that by doing so it would keep me out of the way.

  The only thing that it did was bring me closer to a person that I hadn’t seen in a year.

  A person that I’d have done s
o much better staying away from.

  Hell, it took me way too long to even realize that he was there.

  “Not even going to say hi?”

  I squeaked and whirled, surprised to see that the darkness on the other side of the pillar was actually a man and not a shadow like I’d thought it was.

  “Fuck,” I said, placing my hand over my heart and staring at the man that liked to make my life a living hell. “What are you doing here?”

  He grinned at me. “I was home for the weekend and Wolf was asked to go. I tagged along as his plus one.”

  My mouth twitched up into a grin. “As his plus one?”

  “You know how he gets when he’s forced to do shit he doesn’t want to do.” Nathan shrugged. “What are you doing here?”

  I gestured to the room at large with a sweep of my hand. “Paying off student loan debt.”

  If I only had about three more of these specific types of events that paid as well as this one for the mayor did, I’d have all my student loans paid for.

  I’d gone a little wild when I was in college. When I’d been offered a loan for my ‘extras’ I’d taken it. And now it was biting me on the ass.

  I should’ve just been happy with my mom and stepdad paying for my tuition and getting a job to pay for all the extra stuff that I would need. Instead, I fucked around for my entire college career, racked up student loans, and had barely passed any of my classes.

  Luckily, I’d wised up the last year I had there and had tugged my barely passing self out of the downward spiral I’d found myself in and gotten a job with the sweetest lady that planned events just like this one. Which had helped me get my act together, and prepare for my real-world job of being a nurse.

  And I’d learned a lot from her before she’d passed away and left me the knowledge of how to continue in this world as an event planner if I so wished.

  “As what? An escort?” he joked.

  I reached out and slugged him in the arm. “Not funny, Nathan.”

  His husky chuckle sent shivers of want down my spine.

  I threw the keychain at his face, and he caught it, pocketed it, and then winked at me.

  Him and his fast fucking hands.

  I stepped away from him and crossed my arms over my chest, holding myself as if I’d fall apart if I didn’t.

  “Sorry,” Nathan apologized, sounding like he somewhat meant it, too. “Easy to slip back into it.”