Caroline (The Hadley Series-Book 3)

By Kelly Mooney

She wanted a ride on the wild side.
He wanted to win a bet.
Neither expected to fall in love...
Or get hurt.

Six years ago, Tucker Reed left town for the military—never expecting to return, especially after the only woman he ever loved shattered his heart. After all, it was his own damn fault for falling in love. But now, he's back in Sugar Creek and seeing the fiery and selfless woman he left behind, reminds Tuck of one thing: she still has his heart.

He was a bad boy; she knew that from the start. Back then, sweet, wholesome Caroline Hadley couldn't resist his charm. She fell fast—and hard. But that was six years ago. A lot has changed since she was a young carefree girl. Now that he's back, Caroline can't help but feel the same pull and attraction all over again—even if she's with someone else. And this time, Tuck isn't giving up as he realizes that she's the only light in his dark, dismal world—a world that can't exist without Caroline.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Mooney
• Release date: Mar 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310675058

Kelly Mooney

Kelly grew up in Southern New Jersey. She currently resides in Pitssford, NY with her husband and two kids. She developed a love for writing teen romances over the last few years. She has now completed three teen romances in hopes of getting them published. There really is nothing like falling in love for the first time, so this is what she writes. Her second book Never Say Never is the second book she wrote and is now available on Smashwords and Amazon.

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Prologue

Prologue :

TUCK

THE BET

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I was a walking Southern cliché.

Your typical heartbreak of a story; Daddy runs out on mom and kid, leaving mom broke and drunk with a mouth to feed in a run down trailer park. Daddy was gone and never coming back, she told me. He had always been in and out of jail. Then he was just out of our lives, leaving us with barely enough to scrape by and pay the bills. She also told me that I was the man of the house and I was to take care of her and the debt that came with it.

I was eleven.

I could barely wrap my head around why he up and split, let alone having to man up, and be someone not only that I didn’t want to be, but who I wasn’t ready to be. She, no fuck that, HE, left me with no choice. Because she checked out the minute she decided vodka and dope were better friends to her than actual living, breathing people. Or even me. Although, the only way she got her two favorite things were allowing strange men to come and go since we couldn’t afford those luxuries. I wish I could say I never saw anything, but what’s the point of wishing when you can’t unsee the shit that you had?

Most of my early childhood I had no idea that I was different. I went to the same school as every one else, my mama shopped at the same market as the rest, hell she even pushed me on the same swing in the small park in town, side by side on play dates with my best friend, Walt Taylor and his mama. Until one day, years later, it all stopped. There had been three of us and then there were two when dad left. And if I was being completely honest most days it felt like only one.

Me.

I took on a small job at our local auto shop, learning every little thing I could from Old Man Willy. He’d pay me in food and sometimes if I did a real good job, he’d hand off fifty bucks, telling me to hide it. I never did. I either paid for the lights to stay on, or went and bought something for us to eat. Mama? She took boyfriends in faster than I was growing to help feed her habit.

In my mind I already had Walt, his mama, Trudy and Willy and they were all I needed. If Trudy wasn’t insisting on feeding and sheltering me, Willy was. Those two had been better parents to me than my own blood. She took care of me when she knew I had needed it. Most days I was fine, others not so much. She always had this weird sense when a hot meal or a long hug was needed. Hell, if I were lucky enough she’d realized I needed both. It bothered me for years, but around the time when puberty kicked in full force I stopped thinking about all the hurt and turned it into a slow burning anger instead. Sure, I had lived in that hellhole until about fifteen, but once Willy took me in permanently, I only went back to make sure she was alive and her bills were up to date. She never even asked where I was when I checked in on her, which hurt, so after some time, Willy took over making sure she was good, to spare me from all that pain. I loved him more than anyone else back then.

It wasn’t an instant bonding, but slow and steady over the years. I had been helping him tinker in his shop starting around the age of thirteen; by fifteen he’d practically moved me in, playing caregiver. He made me dinners, kept my clothes clean and fitted properly and did his damnedest to keep my ass out of trouble. Because that was something that was easy to find in Sugar Creek. And it always managed to find me.

By eighteen I had had enough of the bullshit. I quit school my senior year and got my GED because I knew I was never, ever going to need or use Geometry or Physics, or any other shit they were choking down our throats. I was good with my hands and good with girls. Those were my two hobbies. I favored one over the other most of the time, but I always made sure my dick was getting wet off the clock, and far out of reach for Willy to ever hear any shit. At least I tried.

He was the only guy other than Walt that I refused to let down. Hell, he understood my thirst for the ladies, he just didn’t agree with the ample amount of women I paraded around town. Most weren’t from Sugar Creek. I’d find them a town or two over, in some dump bar with my fake I.D.

Looking older than my real age had its advantages. No one ever really questioned me seeing as I was 6’1 and closing in on 180. Not many eighteen year olds looked like that. Walt still looked twelve sometimes. He was smart and stayed in school because he wanted to make something of himself. His words not mine. Hell, I did too, but I didn’t need a fucking teacher to guide me in the right direction. I knew what I wanted to do. What I wanted to be. And I was going to be the best fucking mechanic in Georgia because I already had the best teacher in the world.

Willy Price.

He wasn’t thrilled with my decision to drop out, but he understood it. We were cut from the same cloth and instead of lecturing me, he taught me what he could and laid a solid foundation down without ever asking me for anything but my loyalty and honesty. Two qualities that I did not take lightly. Two qualities that I was not well known for in Sugar Creek since I had only granted them to the people that I loved and showed them back in ten fold.

Walt’s senior year he came to me with a fast cash offer knowing I needed it. A bet that was placed down at my old school. A bet that said once again that Tuck was a redneck, white trash piece of shit and could never land a girl from our side of town and not just any girl.

The girl!

The one girl who no one had touched.

At least no one admitted if they had. Most guys would want to shout that shit out and claim her, but if anyone was stupid enough to do so, they knew there would be a good chance they’d get their balls blown off by Colt or Cade. She was off limits to pretty much every cock in town. No one, and I mean no one, would fuck with one of her brothers, let alone her asshole of a daddy, who had the whole state in his pockets.

Those two were over protective bastards when it came to her. Maybe that was why the bet was so enticing. I stopped caring what they thought of me. It never escaped me how people treated me, looked at me when they saw me. Even though I grew up here just like the rest of them, I was always considered as some wolf trying to raid the hen house. I knew who I was and I might’ve seemed like the eternal bad boy, but somehow my heart still had light in it, even though with each passing day it seemed to grow darker and darker.

When the bet was offered, I couldn’t stop thinking about how she seemed to light up whenever she saw me and flashed me a smile. I even thought about her hair that hung down her back that always had me wanting to touch it to see if it felt as soft as it had looked. I didn’t want to take the bet because it felt wrong. Any other girl would’ve been no problem, but Caroline was one of the only people in town that never made me feel like white trash like the rest of them had. There was so much more to her than the make-up and her clothes, her beauty ran much deeper than that.

I hadn’t seen her in a while before the bet, but I knew those eyes, her long golden brown hair that she always wore loose, dangling over her shoulders, cresting right below her tits. Sometimes, back in high school, I thought she was using that shit to hide them, but then one day as luck would have it, I caught her at a swimming hole with one of her stupid, stuck up friends. She was a freshman and I was junior.

They never saw me, and my need to see what she had, kept my ass pasted to the ground quiet as a mouse, hiding under the brush of the trees. She had her hair up, that was the first thing I noticed. The second thing my eyes landed on was her ample, and I mean ample, tits for someone her age. My head shook thinking of why anyone would want to cover up something as beautiful as those, but then I thought about her family and how it must be pretty stifling living in that house on the hill. Right then though, she wasn’t being judged or looked at by her family. She was free out there in the water and she was nothing short of spectacular. And then the image of what it would be like to plant my face in between them and hunker down for several hours or days even. And damn if it didn’t get my brain flying in all different directions of imagining where no man has gone before.

When she started going out of her way to talk to me or touch my arm to gain my attention when we passed at the diner, a party or at the market, I thought maybe I was the one being played. That one thought drove me crazy for weeks because I was afraid my intuition was right, and I was all wrong about her.

She was too young for me. I knew this. She was also too inexperienced for me. I knew this as well, from the town gossip. Most of the girls who I spent time with were either just like me, or were using me to piss off their parents or boyfriends. Caroline never seemed like the type to use somebody and I knew I had to tread lightly with a girl like her to save myself from any additional pain, even though I started dreaming about kissing those lips day in and day out.

I’ll never forget the moment that bet became real. I hadn’t made my mind up if was willing to risk my dick getting shot at for a piece of ass that was never tapped, and most likely wouldn’t be anytime soon. But then I walked inside the local shop, not knowing she was there. I was out grabbing some coffee for Willy since his pot had broken that morning. She was sitting in the corner booth, a stack of books almost piled up to her chin, sipping on coffee. Her upper teeth were jutted out, biting down on her bottom lip, which was sexy as hell, and her finger twirled her hair over and over as she read.

I stopped.

I stared, unable to take my eyes from her.

She was so lost in that book.

I was so lost in her.

I’d known Caroline for years. She was below me by two grades and since we lived in a small town we went to the same schools. I had always thought that she was pretty growing up, but most boys did. She was a Hadley, so that meant she was popular without trying, she was rich, which meant she was off-limits. But, she was different from the rest of her clones or wannabes. She had a load of friends all vying for her attention, but she still made sure people like me never felt brushed off or left out. No matter where or when I saw her she always had a bright smile for me and a quick hello, and for some reason I found myself treasuring those little gestures from her.

I’d never thought anyone—especially Caroline Hadley would ever be important to me.

I stumbled as I made my way toward her a minute or two later. Scared. And I had no fucking idea why I felt that way. Why I wanted to be in her world even if it were just for a minute or two.

Her eyes lifted and met mine. She looked back down seemingly unsure of what I was doing as I stepped closer.

You mind if I sit?

She smiled.

It wasn’t just any smile. It was a smile that lit up not only the room, but my almost blackened heart. It lit up like fireworks were going off and it was the grand finale and there was nothing I could do to stop myself from smiling back. It was like that one smile was the glue to keep me from falling apart.

Well, Tucker Reed, I haven’t seen you in quite some time.

Yeah, I answered back, nervous not sure what my next play would be.

She placed her book down and pushed the others to the side.

Did you need something? Some help? I hear your mama isn’t doing well these days.

Figured. SHE had to come up. My mama was the same. If drunk, high, and comatose were able to define the word for her these last few years.

Nah, she’s same old, same old. Just grabbing some coffee. I coughed trying to come up with something to talk about. Either that or leave. I took in her books and her eyes followed me. How’s school?

It’s great. One more year, and then I’m off to college: Georgetown. How ‘bout you, are you planning on going to college?

I wasn’t sure why she was asking a question every single resident of Sugar Creek already knew the answer to, but I thought it was sweet she wasn’t jumping to conclusions and ruling it out.

I sat back, placed my booted heels on the table, resting my hands behind my head. Me and school didn’t go well in high school, so why the hell would you think I had college in mind? I asked, a little harsher than I meant knowing she didn’t have a mean bone in her body. I don’t know why it pissed me off when people questioned my choices, my life, but it did. Maybe it was because it was one of the things I did have control over. And I liked control.

I was just being polite is all. I’m sorry if I offended you.

Caroline Hadley, you couldn’t offend a goddamn living goldfish you were flushing down the toilet.

I would never do that.

I know. She loved animals. Everyone in town knew her dream was to run a shelter for neglected animals. Everyone in town assumed she’d never get it since her daddy’s business was strictly family, and they all needed to participate to earn that fat trust fund. It was also no secret that Caroline would babysit to make her own money and then hand it over to whatever animal charity she could find that needed help.

What’s that supposed to mean?

It means I gotta go. Even though I knew I had the key that could unlock those knees, I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t be the one to damage her.

Well, wait. She stood. Her hand reached out and her fingers grazed the bare skin of my arm. Stay and have your coffee with me.

Trust me. You don’t want to have coffee with me, let alone be seen with a Reed.

She shook her head and when she did the soft golden brown waves danced across her chest. That’s not true. I don’t care what your last name is. After all this time, I’m just wondering why you came and sat beside me today.

Shit, did I want to stay, but now that bet was brewing in the back of my mind, and for the life of me three hundred dollars didn’t seem like enough to take her for a walk on the Tuck side. I rapped my knuckles on the table. I can’t, but maybe another time, Princess.

Okay, she said, and I heard the defeat in her voice as she fell back onto her seat. That was the thing about her. Even though most of her family was a bunch of uppity rich assholes, she wasn’t. She was everything they weren’t. She was sweet, smart, pure, innocent, but sexy and a girl most guys would trade their left nut for. Only my left and right nuts were both too important for a measly couple hundred bucks. And, something about those eyes, light brown with a hint of gold and green, the warmest pair I’d ever laid eyes on made me stop and walk away. Deep down it were those Bambi browns that I knew were going to raid my dreams for quite some time. Deep down, I also knew those eyes and those pink, pouty lips would be the death of me if I let them.

And I knew in that moment I couldn’t take that bet, because if I did, she was going to rock my world and I was going to let her.

Part of me couldn’t believe that I had really walked away from not only her, but the money. The other part, a part I hadn’t seen in a long ass time was proud of myself for doing the right thing.

Until I went to check on things and realized my mama needed the money more than my pride needed to be stroked. That was one of the reasons why I ended up taking the stupid bet in the end. I needed the money to take care of my mama’s unpaid stack of bills and to prove to my asshole peers that I was more than what the good folk of Sugar Creek labeled me to be. And if I were being honest, I just wanted the chance to know what holding something so pure and innocent felt like. She would be my last so-called meal ticket out of the constant mind fuck this little town gave me on a daily basis. Not to mention the couple hundred bucks those assholes were going to have to pay up once I proved looks can get you a lot further than being a Richie Rich, at least for one night.

Tomorrow all bets were a go.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

CAROLINE

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I had a rule.

I lived and slept by it. It seemed so long ago that I had lived by the seat of my pants, but then, he turned my world upside down and taught me a very good lesson.

My one rule—don’t trust men.

I had learned early on that being a Hadley had its perks. My brothers were a daily lesson growing up. They had gotten away with murder and then some. My parents were full, hard core as you could get, believers in gender bias. Being the dutiful daughter, I never complained because they had no idea what I got away with. I wasn’t a bad girl, but I liked to have my fun just like everyone else. I abided by most of the rules since I could remember, but once I got a little older, more reckless, I craved walking on the wild side to see what it was like. To see if my friends were right. Seeing if letting loose and hoping not to go to jail while doing said recklessness was all it was cracked up to be.

It was.

At least that one hot, long year Tucker Reed proved to me that loving a bad boy was the best thing I’d ever experience.

My whole life had been planned out for me. Growing up in the Hadley house was hard. My parents were so overbearing and judgmental that it was sometimes painful. And, then there was Colt and Cade. Even worse. My brothers, who I loved and cherished, could be a major pain in the ass every once in a while chasing away any boys who showed interest. Maybe that was why when temptation called, I answered it back, jumping in with no life vest and waded through those waters without question. When in all honesty, I knew better than to get involved with the likes of Tuck, but figured whom better to kick two birds with one stone.

Tuck was the epitome of a bad boy and had the reputation to go right along with it. He was the typical kid from the wrong side of town, had a daddy who was in prison more than he was home, one who had run out on them when he was still a boy, leaving his drunk of a mother as his sole caregiver. He was everything I had been taught and warned to stay far, far away from. Not to mention he was a few years older, and in Georgia,