RealLife Rum

By Mickey J. Corrigan

Who determines your destiny? The gods or the gods of money? After she's invited to Dusky Beach, Florida, Marina Winston believes she'll finally meet her mysterious benefactor. But sometimes fate is a twisted bitch. One minute she's flirting with the security guard, the next he's been shot. RealLife Shares, a spy who loves her, a pink pistol, and Mr. X, the mysterious multimillionaire who lives on his own private island... All this has something to do with Marina, but she has no idea what. She only knows Officer Handsome, the detective interrogating her, has clear blue eyes like an Alaskan dog, and boy, does he turn her on. He really doesn't want to go there. Yet to her, the cool cop represents the chance to demonstrate her freedom of choice. And Marina is determined to choose her own destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Jan 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781628307207

Mickey J. Corrigan

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan hides out in the lush ruins of South Florida to write pulp fiction, literary crime, and psychological thrillers. Her stories have been called “delightful pulp,” “oh so compulsive,” “dark and gritty,” and “bizarre but believable.” Songs of the Maniacs was published by Salt in 2014.

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this

RealLife Rum

by

Mickey J. Corrigan

The Hard Stuff, Book Four

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

RealLife Rum

COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Mickey J. Corrigan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by Diana Carlile

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Mainstream Mystery Edition, 2015

Parts of RealLife Rum were originally published in an altered version in BabyShares (Secret Cravings Publishing, 2013)

Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-720-7

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

Here's to my talented editor Diana Carlile,

who has guided me through The Hard Stuff series.

PRAISE FOR AUTHOR

Mickey J. Corrigan

I’ve only read three of her books and she is HILARIOUS! I know I will be highly entertained by her shenanigans.

~Smardy Pants Book Blog

There is nothing more thrilling to me than finding a writer whose work I can instantly fall in love with. Mickey J. Corrigan is one of those authors for me.

~Romance Junkies

I’ll read anything by Ms. Corrigan. All her short pieces I have read were vastly different, but no less entertaining.

~Hearts on Fire Reviews

Mickey J. Corrigan has a fabulous writing style that keeps the reader wanting more...

~Turner’s Antics

(Her book) reminded me a lot of Jackie Collin’s earlier works, which I found quite enjoyable.

~Primrose Musings

Mickey J. Corrigan’s work isn’t so much a contemporary romance as a sexy thriller…her characters tend to walk on the wild side and on the darker side of romance. But her stories are oh-so-compulsive all the same. Judging by her name, the author seems to be Irish American…she’s definitely inherited the Irish trait for telling a rattling good yarn.

~Contemporary Romance Reviews

Mickey is one of my favourite authors and I can’t wait to read more of her books.

~Geeky Girl Reviews

Chapter One

The police officer was really good looking. Tall and beefy, prematurely gray. Sexy, stern, quietly in charge. My kind of hero. Especially when I was in the kind of trouble it appeared I was in.

I gave him a sweet little smile. I tried tossing my head so my long blonde hair would catch his eye. I hummed softly, shifted around in my seat. Yawned and stretched like a sleek cat.

He didn’t respond. He didn’t even glance my way. Instead, he kept studying whatever he had up on his computer screen. Frowning at it, clicking through it. Not looking at me. In fact, he’d been ignoring me for like fifteen minutes.

Well.

Maybe the green-tint fluorescent light coming from the saggy plastic strips over our heads was unflattering. You think? One of them was buzzing. So annoying.

I hummed a tiny bit louder. No reaction from the cop. Maybe I looked hideous, all pale and wishy-washy. Drained of sex appeal. That would suck.

Or maybe he thought I was a mental wreck. Totally freaked out. Which I was. But I had good reason to be. Watching a man get killed was not something I was used to doing. Even though I was from Los Angeles. Home of the everyday gore murder.

So yes, I was shaken up. Plus, I was bored, tired, and not sure what was coming my way next. This particular brand of craziness had not been on my agenda for this two-day trip, my first to the east coast. No wonder I felt like going straight to a dive bar and ordering a big slushy daiquiri. But I couldn’t. I had no choice. I had to sit there, in the joke of a police station, in a boxy office, directly across a cluttery desk from Mr. Serious Law Officer. So that’s what I was doing.

The least he could do was look at me.

Nope. Hot Cop kept his head down, studying his paperwork. And was he ever hot! Tanned face, strong features, great cheekbones. Wow, I could just eat this man hunk right up, was what I was thinking. A strawberry daiquiri and this guy in a bouncy hotel bed? Dream concoction. Lusty images filled my head.

When I wasn’t obsessing about what had just gone down only a few hours earlier, that is.

I crossed and uncrossed my legs. It was totally uncomfortable, being stuck in a metal chair in a windowless room. The shabby little office reeked of old French fries and cigar smoke. A crappy paddle fan pushed the humidity into my face, and I could feel the sweat gathering under my arms and on the backs of my thighs. We didn’t have this kind of humidity in L.A. But we didn’t have this kind of cop, either.

I’d come to Florida to meet the man who was paying for my education, but I’d ended up walking into a mess. A security guard had gone and got himself shot to death by some insane bitch with a pink gun. Right in front of my eyes. I mean, jeezus. I had no idea what was going on.

Harry, the security guard at the place where I was supposed to have my first meeting with this