Bet in the Dark (44 page)

             
“To Pritzker? Really?” I yelped. “Fin, congratulations!”

             
“Thank you,” he said humbly.

             
Pritzker was a fantastic med school located in Chicago and only four hours away. He would get to go to a really good school and still be close to home. Declan was moving into his new home in three weeks and Fin would get to see him settled in and adjusted before he moved to Chicago in the middle of the summer.

             
I would be staying here, of course, at UW-LA, near my family and his. I even knew what I wanted to major in, starting next year. I decided I would like to pursue a career in family psychology.              

             
Go figure.

             
“So what do you think?” Fin asked carefully. “Are you Ok with long distance?”

             
“Are you kidding? I’ve been dying for long distance. I cannot wait to get away from you,” I smirked at him and then nuzzled my face into the crook of his neck.

             
“Is that so?” he asked in his deep, sexy voice.

             
“Mmm-hmmm” I kissed his neck and then his jaw. “I’m definitely going to miss all the kissing though. That I will for sure miss.”

             
“What are the chances I’m going to get a good head start on all that kissing we’re going to have to give up?”

             
“Depends,” I threw out sassily, “Are you a gambling man?”

Acknowledgments

God, always to you.
Always first.

Zach, thank you. That will never be enough, but for now it’s all I have. Thank you for all that you do, for the dinners you make and lunches you bring to me in my writing cave. Thank you for raising our children, for being an incredible father and a devoted husband. Thank you for encouraging me and for telling me when to just get over it. Thank you for your support. Thank you for making this cover. Really thank you for giving me fantastic material for every hot make out scene and sexy kiss. But most of all, thank you for your unending love.

Mom, thank you for all your support and hours upon hours of babysitting. You help make my stories possible. And I appreciate everything you do for me and the kids. But you weren’t supposed to read this one.

Jenn Nunez, the greatest editor, thank you for making this book and all my others readable. Thank you for making them make sense. Thank you for making me see when there needs to be more and when there needs to be less. Thank you for accepting the double dash. And most of all thank you for being such an amazing friend and support system!

Miriah and Candice thank you for being my beta readers!! I value your opinions and honesty so much. And Miriah I know I can trust you with every single thing fashion.

Lindsay, Bridget, Diana, Candice, Miriah, Brooke and Ashley, thank you for all your excitement, for your encouragement and for always wanting to read something I write. You girls are great friends and I am so blessed to know each of you!!!

Michelle Leighton, Lila Felix, Shelly Crane, Angeline Kace, Amy Bartol, Samantha Young, Quinn Loftis and Georgia Cates, you ladies are the cream of the crop. I am so blessed by our friendship and so blessed just to know you all! I am so thankful for your support and advice. You girls are rocking this world and I’m just lucky to be a part of it.

Finally, to my readers, thank you for taking a chance on something different from me. Contemporary was out of my comfort zone, but it was so much fun and I hope you enjoyed it! Thank you for sticking with me and supporting what I write! I do this for you!!! Thank you for being the coolest people in the world.

About the Author

Rachel Higginson was born and raised in Nebraska, but spent her college years traveling the world. She married her high school sweetheart and spends her days raising their growing family. She is obsessed with bad reality TV and any and all Young Adult Fiction.

Look for
more from Rachel in 2013.

Other books by Rachel to be released in 2013 are Sunburst, the second book in the Starbright Series, The Relentless Warrior, the sixth book The Star-Crossed Series and The Fall, the second book in the Siren Series.

Other Books Out Now by Rachel Higginson:

Reckless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 1)

Hopeless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 2)

Fearless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 3)

Endless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 4)

The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 5)

Starbright (The Starbright Series, Book 1)

The Rush (The Siren Series, Book 1)

Follow Rachel on her blog at:

www.rachelhigginson
.com

Or on Twitter:

@
mywritesdntbite

Or on her Facebook pages:

Rachel Higginson

Or

Reckless Magic

Keep Reading for an Excerpt from Rachel’s new
est paranormal romance The Rush, and a chapter from her best-selling book Reckless Magic. Plus, a chapter from Lila Felix’s newest contemporary NA Anguish.

Please enjoy a
n excerpt from The Rush, out now.

“Ah, Ms. Pierce, I wish I could say I was happy to see you,” Mrs. Tanner, the evil witch of a secretary, acknowledged me with a smug smirk that seemed to confirm the fact that yes, in case you were wondering, high school is the ninth ring of hell.

“Oh, Mrs. Tanner, I wish I could say the same thing,” I replied as sweetly as I could. I met her halfway with a long counter in between us.

She was not amused with me.

“You can’t miss anymore school Ivy,” Mrs. Tanner warned and I realized it was practically painful for her to give me advice to heed. This must be coming from the principal, the male principal Mr. Costas.
“At least not this semester, unless you have a written note from your doctor. Mr. Costas would like to remind you that you are going to have to work hard enough to catch up this late in the quarter and that skipping, ditching or taking unnecessary sick days will not benefit you toward your goal of graduation.”

“Tell Mr. Costas, I appreciate that he’s looking out for me,” I answered in that same sickly sweet voice I used to annoy the hell out of her.

She ignored me. “Here is your class schedule.”

“Thank you.” I snatched it from her hand and turned on my heel before she offered anymore unsolicited advice.

“The faculty of this school would also like to ask that you not send any more of its students to the hospital,” she called out snidely to my back.

I tensed immediately, my back ramrod straight and my nerves shot to sudden hell. “I’ll do my best,” I ground out and picked up pace.

I just needed to get to the glass door, push it open and get to class.

Fifteen more seconds.

“If you have any extra cash on you, that canister by the door is for Sam’s recovery fund,” she finished on a high note.

I couldn’t help myself. I should have just bolted; and not just from the office, from school, from Omaha, from America…. I should have just gone.

But instead of listening to the sound voice of reason my inner conscience was screaming at me, I let the rotting guilt spread its ugly, vicious wings and glanced down at the canister. There he was. Sam. Smiling and happy in his senior picture that was not at all indicative of what he looked like now…..

The canister was covered with construction paper asking for donations to help with his physical therapy and explaining that he used to be a senior at this school, that he used to be a basketball star, and that he used to be able to walk…. The same life he never got the chance to live before a car accident changed his world forever. The plastic cover had a slit cut out of the top so you could drop money into it, long enough for coins and wide enough for folded up dollar bills.

I couldn’t do this.

I didn’t want to do this.

I felt my breakfast lurch in my very upset stomach. I lunged for the office door knowing even a second more spent trapped in the same room as that canister was going to send me into another breakdown.

Only this time there would be serious consequences to pay.

I threw the door open without seeing. I mean literally I couldn’t see anything. My mind had slipped into the horrific memories of the past and I was pretty sure I could make a solid plea for temporary insanity at this point.

So when I
shoved the door with as much force as I was capable of and met shouting resistance and then found myself tripping, toppling over something on the floor, I was completely taken off guard. The situation was made worse when in the middle of my fall I was drenched with severely hot liquid and landed painfully on my back, soaking wet.

I lay there for several moments sprawled out awkwardly on the hard tile before the clearest, deepest gray eyes I had ever seen hovered over me. His thick brow line and hard edges to his tanned face prove he was male, definitely male. Our gazes locked together and I felt uncomfortably immobilized as the liquid I could now identify as coffee started to cool on my shirt and against my skin.

And then those eyes narrowed on me. My eyes flickered to a face that was completely unreadable, in that I couldn’t identify his expression except that it wasn’t good. Like…. he was mad at me. Like, he was pissed at me.

“Let me up,” I growled, confused by his less than stellar reaction.

“Excuse me?” he asked politely, schooling his expression and realistically sounding polite, like he hadn’t heard me correctly.

“Let me up,” I slowed my speech down, thinking he just hadn’t heard me, probably because he was so disconcerted from staring into my eyes.

I’m not being stuck up here. That’s just usually what happened. I was speaking from experience.

“No problem.” He scooted back from me and I scrambled to my feet. He joined me seconds later with two empty coffee cups in his hand.

We both side stepped the spilled coffee puddled in the hallway and I thought for a second that I heard him huff an impatient sigh, but I knew that had to be wrong.

The halls were empty now, and we were left to stare each other down in front of the office. I prayed Mrs. Tanner had gone back to hiding in her hole of a break room; otherwise I needed to be concerned with her swooping down at any moment to haul my ass to the principal’s office. If I was lucky she would demand a detention, but more than likely she would be petitioning for a suspension. She would use this or any other thing she could find against me.

Like I assaulted gray eyes with his hot coffee in an attempt to end any promising future he might have. Like this would be related in some way to Sam.

             
Realizing that could be the case, I looked down at my shirt hoping to have evidence that I was actually the one assaulted. And then hope turned to irritation when I noticed that it was completely ruined, and uncomfortably sticky and cold. Not that it was a designer shirt…. but the tight fitting, scoop neck black long-sleeved tee looked great with my gray bubble skirt and knee high charcoal boots. And the only extra piece of clothing I even had with me was my favorite hoodie that I wasn’t supposed to wear.

             
“What am I going to do now?” I bit out, while mystery man watched me from a few feet away.

             
“Excuse me?” he asked politely again, only this time I heard the faint tones of aggression and confusion.

             
Not possible.

             
“You spilled coffee all over me; I don’t have a change of clothes, what am I supposed to do for the rest of the day?” I asked not at all politely.

             
“I spilled coffee on you?” he asked slowly, his patience growing thin.

             
I stopped then, in that moment and lifted my eyes to meet his again. He wasn’t looking at me though, his arms were crossed and he was looking around the hallway as if he couldn’t actually believe what was happening and he needed someone else to clue him in. I took his distracted second to look him over.

             
He was all bad boy with thick layered dark brown hair that was clearly not styled and left messy and sexy from sleep. He had the thick kind of eye lashes that made most girls go crazy, with tanned skin completely in contrast to his silver gray eyes. His gray t-shirt that was just a little too tight, stretched over his biceps deliciously. His low slung jeans completed what might as well have been the uniform for all things wicked.