Honor: A Humorous & Heartwarming Romance: Copperwood, #3

By Reese Patton

A humorous and heartwarming small town romance. Reese Patton tells the story of a woman on the run with a secret that could destroy the town of Copperwood, and the broody cop tasked with keeping the woman and his town safe.

Jake Leighton had a plan: graduate high school, serve his country, and marry his high school sweetheart. Eight years later, Army vet Jake comes home divorced to take up work as a police officer.

No relationships. Never again. That's the rule until he's thrown together with a woman who's everything he needs and wants.

Kera Fontaine escaped from her controlling father to Copperwood, but driving across half the country wasn't far enough. Taking over her father's company seems like the ultimate declaration of independence. Then she falls for him. Her unwilling protector who's determined to spend his life alone. Her unexpected hero with a badge and the most stubborn heart ever. Her forever she can't have.

Some decisions are worth the consequences and some futures are worth the unspoken promises.

Will Kera find her small town paradise with Jake?

• Language: English
• Publisher: VoxAmoris Books
• Release date: Jul 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781948603195

Book preview

CW-HONOR2-LOW.jpg

Thank you for downloading this ebook from my Copperwood series

Get a FREE ebook when you join my mailing list. You’ll also get updates on new releases, special deals, exclusive content, and more. Click below to sign up.

SIGN UP HERE

Also By Reese Patton

Copperwood

Dirt

Pick

Honor

Keystone - Coming Soon

The Barnes Family

The Rebound

Immaculate Reception

The One with All the Christmas Trees

Ian & Merideth Investigations

The Girl in the River

Deadly Proposal - Book One

Deadly Services - Book Two

Deadly Protection - Book Three

Deadly Retreat - Book Four

Deadly Confession - Book Five

Stand Alone Novels

Ties that Bind

Risky Acquisition

VAB Small Town Romance

An Imprint of VoxAmoris Books

www.VoxAmorisBooks.com

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

Copyright © 2019 by Reese Patton

All rights reserved.

Cover Design by R Patton,

Images from Deposit Photos

0819

ISBN 978-1-948603-19-5 (ebook)

Contents

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

One Month Later

Keystone

About the Author

This book took a village.

This is for them

Chapter One

Kera

I’ll start in the mailroom. Even if it will be a complete waste of my education."

You won’t start anywhere. End of discussion. My father hadn’t looked up once during our conversation that was fast turning into an argument.

The posters printed with infographics for every division sat unseen on the easels around his office. The reports filled with statistics I labored over remained unopened. Not that my father’s reaction surprised me. I knew it would be an uphill battle. I just hadn’t realized how steep the hill was.

I graduated top in my class and interned at the Valley Falls Company. I learned early on that when all else fails, go with indisputable facts. My father would get frustrated with not having a counter-argument and walk away before conceding defeat. My MBA is from Wharton, the best business school in the country.

I should have insisted you attended Harvard. You would have had a better chance of finding a husband.

Words failed me. It happened more often than I cared for when dealing with my father. He had backwards ideas on what he expected of his daughters. His beliefs had bypassed chauvinism and were staring down the throat of misogyny. My older sister, Kirstin, had already failed him by running off to the middle of America and walking away from our father’s wealth. Fortunately her trust fund established by my grandfather was out of my father’s reach.

I took a different approach. Credentials I thought my father couldn’t ignore. If anyone else with my credentials walked into this building, you’d offer them a job in five minutes.

Anyone else isn’t my daughter. The answer is no. My father looked up, but stared out the window, ignoring both me and my carefully crafted presentation.

This is what my father always did. Placed a goal in front of me and as soon as I achieved it, he moved the goal. Nothing I did was ever good enough. I swung my arm out and swept the posters to the floor with enough force that one or two might have hit some papers on his desk, including my reports, on the posters’ flight to the floor.

Father still didn’t look at me. I didn’t mean for my outburst to happen, but he barely noticed me, much less my tantrum. My answer’s final, Kera. My daughter will not work for the company. Perhaps if you marry someone more worthy than the man your sister is engaged to, your husband might take over the helm. But. My. Daughter. Will. Never. Work. Here.

You misogynistic ass! Archie Bunker looks liberal compared to you! Something kicked down the filter in my brain and years of frustration and anger boiled over. You want to know why Kirstin left? She left because of you. Not me. Not Grandfather. Not Mother. But you. And want to know why she stayed away? That’s on you too. You’ve got one daughter left, and you’re losing that one too! Anyone sitting outside my father’s office would have heard my shouts.

It was bad enough that I dared get my MBA and wanted to work for the family business. But I committed the worst of all the sins. I embarrassed my father. At work. He couldn’t come up with an excuse why Kirstin hadn’t been home in over a year and was planning on marrying a man who used to live in a double-wide before our grandfather moved them to a house. Grandfather claimed it was because the tornadoes having an unnatural attachment to trailer homes. My outburst revealed the great Fontaine secret of the 21st century. Kirstin left home and dropped the Fontaine name.

Father picked up the phone on his desk, still not looking at me. My daughter requires an escort from the premises.

Don’t bother. I bent down and grabbed my posters. No way I would leave them for him to pass on to a department. In the same motion, I also swept up the reports. You’ve made your feelings clear.

Once I had everything haphazardly shoved back into the bag I used to carry the items, I hurried from his office and raced passed his admin and her looks of pity to the elevator. As the doors slid open, two of the overly musclebound men my father hired for reasons beyond mere security greeted me.

Stand down boys. I’m leaving. I stepped into the elevator. Instead of turning around to face the door, as convention dictated, I glared up at the behemoths. You know racing to do his dirty work isn’t exactly a good look.

The men ignored me. One of them pressed the lobby button. I wondered if my father even knew their names. Probably not. Why would he know the names of a mere underling who obeyed his every command? He’s a tyrant, you know? And all tyrants fall.

The men looked over my head, ignoring me much the same way my father ignored me. They even ignored me as they sandwiched me between them and walked me out of the elevator and into the parking garage then to my convertible. I left the top down and could have dumped my things in the back seat, but I wasn’t ready for my hard work to fly out of the car and onto the street for other cars to run over. Instead, I popped the trunk and threw in the bag and my purse before slamming the trunk back down with a satisfying thud that echoed around the garage.

Thanks for the help, boys. I pushed past both of them, but their bulk hampered my huffy exit and I had to walk around them instead of between them. By the time I sat down behind the steering wheel, they had moved enough so I wouldn’t run them over with my car unless it was deliberate. I raised my arm and waved to them with one finger as I sped out of the building.

Traffic hampered my dramatic exit and I had to sit in the driveway before a kind soul waved me ahead of them onto the street.

You’ve reached Kirstin and Mike. No one can come to the phone right now, but please leave a message after the beep.

Gah! Kirstin, where are you?

Beeeeeeep

Fuckinshitdamnit, stupid beep. Kirstin, where are you? Why am I even asking that question? It’s not like you can answer it. Or the one after it. Hey buddy, blinkers aren’t optional, use them! I lost it with Dad. Completely lost it. I can’t do this anymore. Since you left, things have gotten worse. I used to ignore some of his shit, but no more-

Beeeeeeep

Damn it! My shout garnered a few looks from the drivers in nearby cars, but I ignored them and shouted at my phone instead. Call Kirstin!

Calling Pierces.

No. Call. Kirstin.

Calling The Tens.

No. No. No. Fuck. I’ll just do it myself!

Calling Tuck.

Oh for the love of… Before my phone could dial a random person I didn’t want to talk to, I mashed my thumb against the screen. Thank God for stop lights. With the minute granted to me by the red light, I redialed my sister’s number and listened to her voice telling me to leave a message. The beep sounded just as the light turned green. It’s me. Again. I’m done trying to work with Dad. If he isn’t going to play fair, then I’m not either. Call me back when you can. Love ya.

I ended the call before I turned into a version of a super villain in one of those cheesy movies Kirstin loved to watch. This wasn’t about getting back at my father. It was so much more. I would prove all of his stupid opinions about me were wrong, and I wanted him to regret the moment he kicked me out of his office.

He kicked me out of his office. The act still hadn’t registered in my brain yet. What kind of father would kick their own daughter out of his office? Mine. How pathetic was that? And I couldn’t say what was worse, that he kicked me out or that I expected him not to when I showed up. Yeah. Part of it was on me, expecting a leopard to change its spots. But he was the asshole who called security to escort me out.

I shook my head clear of my thoughts and focused on driving home. Sadly, I still lived with my parents. I had plans to move out, but after Kirstin ran off, my parents put an end to that plan. At least they had compromised and allowed me to move into the carriage house. I wasn’t in their house, but it was still part of the property.

Whatever I decided, it needed to happen away from my parents. My mother didn’t cared one way or the other, but she’d say something to my father. Once he found out, he’d put an end to anything I came up with.

The landscape shifted from office buildings and sky rises to trees and houses as I drove closer to home. After a forty-five minute commute, I wasn’t any closer to figuring out what I would do as I pulled up to the gated driveway of my parents’ home.

I could always call my grandfather. He helped Kirstin, he would help me too. But he was a last resort. If I had to go to him, it meant I hadn’t explored all of my options.

I could try Kirstin again. Maybe she would answer this time.

I smashed the button that opened my phone contacts then dialed Kirstin.

What was it they said about insanity? Something about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? They might have to put my picture next to the definition.

You’ve reached Kirstin and Mike. No one can come…

Nope. Still not picking up. But it didn’t matter. I pulled my car next to the stairs I had to climb to get to what wasn’t much bigger than a studio apartment in the city and jumped out while Kirstin’s recorded voice invited me to leave a message. In the sixty seconds it took me to drive from the front gate to the carriage house, I made a decision.

It’s me again. I’m leaving Mother and Father’s. It’s time to cut the strings, right? Between Grandfather’s trust and my savings, I have more than enough to buy my own place if it comes to that. Not that they’ll realize I’m gone for a few days. Father will think I’m hiding and licking my wounds, and mom, well, let’s face it, Mom hasn’t cared about anything we’ve done in forever. Anyway, I’ll call you later when I figure it out.

I didn’t stop to pass go. I didn’t stop to collect $200. I didn’t even stop to get my presentation out of the trunk. Instead, I ran up the stairs, thinking about everything I would need to fit in my car and making a mental list of the items I wouldn’t mind leaving behind and the things I couldn’t live without.

Three hours would have to be enough time to pack up my belongings and stick them in my car. If I was lucky, I’d be on the road before my father left work. He was just as likely to stay over in the city as he was to come home for the night, but my mother had one of her fundraisers tonight. Somehow, I avoided having to attend, but my father hadn’t been as lucky.

As I stood in the middle of my bedroom, I surveyed my belongings. Why did I have this much stuff and what was I going to do with it all?

I was gonna need a bigger car.

Chapter Two

Jake

April, the start of spring on the calendar, but they should rename the month, be as stupid as possible if you’re a teenager. The high school seniors always got antsy in April and May as graduation closed in on them. The soon-to-be liberated students would either find themselves stuck in town or, if they were lucky, headed off to college or the military. In ten years, they’d come back and reminisce about their antics, then raise a beer to surviving their adolescence. If they were one of the few who left town, that reunion would be one of the few times they came home. If they left, they only came back for short visits. Or not at all.

I came back. But I was one of the outliers and had other reasons for coming home. Not that any of them were good. Once someone broke free from Copperwood, they stayed free. Not me. I wasn’t just an outlier. I was an idiot. Someone who got out, but returned to Copperwood because they hadn’t grown out of the be as stupid as possible phase.

Since it was spring break, I wasn’t spending my days at the school, or babysitting with a gun as Mike, one of the few friends from high school I remained close with when I left the Army and came home, liked to call my job as the school’s resource officer. Instead, the chief pulled me into regular rotation for the week, and that meant sitting in a squad car and waiting for a non-local to speed by my post. Non-locals paid the fine, locals fought every ticket, even the ones they deserved.

A truck rolled down the street past the post just before the bridge into town. The radar gun’s screen reported a speed only a few miles per hour over the limit. It wasn’t worth my time or the driver’s righteous indignation to pull him over.

Code two at 4352 Shorewood Lane. Louise’s voice broke through the radio.

Responding to the call at Shorewood Lane would take me away from my current post and give me a nice break from not pulling over almost speeding vehicles. But responding to the call would also take me to Warren Flemming. He was polite, but he called daily with the same complaint. If I took the call, I’d end up sitting at Judge Flemming’s kitchen table for an hour and taking a detailed report pertaining to a vandal. The species of said vandal being a raccoon was immaterial to Judge Flemming’s concerns.

Still… spending an hour with Warren Flemming might be more exciting than an hour of staring at numbers flashing across a radar screen. I reached for the radio when Dean Turner’s voice came through.

Adam Three in route, go ahead.

Adam Three confirm. It’s both vandalism and robbery this time. Garbage cans.

Copy. Confirm waste receptacles are subject of investigation. Any suspects?

Affirmative. Showing physical as male, one and a half foot, 30, gray and black, and black mask.

Copy. Confirm description of trash panda.

God help the Copperwood PD if transcripts of our radio communications ever got out. Technically, someone could request access to them. However, until the department did something egregious enough for the media to come flying into town, Louise and Dean’s discussion about the wayward raccoon and Warren’s prejudice against the animal would stay hidden from the public. Thank God.

Ten minutes later a second call broke through the silence of the radio and the boredom of watching the numbers flash across the screen of the radar gun.

Code four at 3670 Sycamore Road.

Four numbers permanently etched to my brain. I knew them better than I knew my phone number. From middle school on, I spent most my time there if I wasn’t at home or playing some sport my mom signed me up for to keep me out of trouble. Since coming back to Copperwood, I had done my best to avoid that specific address, going so far as to trade shifts for someone else to take the call.

Beth’s mom didn’t blame me for the divorce, but she asked me questions as though I was still married to her daughter. Questions I didn’t want to answer from anyone, least of all my ex-mother-in-law. What made it so much worse was how nice the woman was. I was the asshole for avoiding her because I didn’t want to answer questions like how I was doing because those questions led to more questions. It was easier to just ignore the people who asked questions I didn’t want to answer.

I ignored the call. Someone else would pick it up and it wasn’t as though a code four was an emergency in Copperwood, just someone locked out of their car.

Chapter Three

Kera

Declaration of independence.

Declaration of war.

What was the difference? Didn’t all declarations of independence lead to war? Even divorces, the ultimate declaration of independence, were rarely amicable.

Everything I intended to do wasn’t any different from the actions of other young adults wanting to move out from their parents’ shadow. Most young adults didn’t run away in the middle of the day before their parents got home, but then most young adults didn’t have my mother and father. They also didn’t have a grandfather and an accompanying legal team to help orchestrate the separation, so my father wouldn’t be able to pull me back home.

The one silver lining was that I could lay responsibility for everything at my sister’s feet.

If Kirstin had never defied Father.

If Kirstin had never run away.

If Kirstin had never convinced Grandfather to help her.

If Kirstin had never fallen in love.

Had just one of those ifs not happened, I never would have declared my independence.

I, Kera Fontaine, was following in my sister’s footsteps and running away from home to Copperwood. Once I got there, I’d figure out what I would do next.

As I drove along the Interstate, closing in on the small town my father almost destroyed when he bought the mine and refused to renew any of the experienced employees contracts, my thoughts wandered back to the conversation with my grandfather before I left. His attorneys drew up the documents that separated my life from my father’s.

There is no going back, Kera. Are you absolutely sure?" Grandfather’s regal voice reminded me of the seriousness of my actions.

I lifted the vintage Montblanc 149 Meisterstuck off the desk and signed the final paper. Screwing the pen cap back in place, I handed it back to Grandfather. I’m sure.

Gabriel Prescott, my beloved — even if he was a bit of a curmudgeon — grandfather, looked at the pen and smiled. His gnarled fingers, knuckles swollen with arthritis, wrapped around my hand. Keep it. You will need a proper pen to sign documents with now.

Grandfather… The words wouldn’t come together in the right order. Ever since I was a little girl, playing around Grandfather’s desk, his fountain pen had fascinated me. Grandfather never allowed me to play with it as a child, but it didn’t stop me from sneaking into the office and playing pretend to sign papers with it — just the way I’d seen Grandfather do. For him to give it to me now, well, he didn’t have to say he was proud of me with words for me to know it. He gave me his approval, and I hadn’t realized I wanted it.

I have other pens, Kera. Now, get in your car and drive and don’t look back. His dry lips brushed against my cheek as he gave my hand a final squeeze. Do not forget to call your sister when you arrive. She will be upset if she believes you did not share your plans with her.

My fingers tightened around the pen, as though there was even a slight chance of losing it, and I grinned up at Grandfather. She could never keep a secret. Not even when sharing the information got her in trouble.

Gabriel brushed aside my explanation with a wave of his hand. Yes, yes. Now, drive safely.

Yes, Grandfather. The pile of signed documents sat on my grandfather’s desk. It was real. In less than three hours from deciding to leave, I officially separated myself from the Fontaine side of the family. I even planned to sell off all the shares of my father’s company that had been in my name. I was moments from running away to the same small town my sister had found sanctuary a few years earlier.

Are you sure you do not want to fly instead? There is a local airport that can handle smaller planes. Grandfather asked.

He’ll expect me to fly. And if I am driving, he won’t be sure where I am going.

You can always stay here. I doubt your father would cause you any direct harm, but he will not have a problem resorting to intimidation tactics to bring you back to the fold.

I bit my lip and tried not to smile.

When Kirstin and I were little, we used to try to catch Grandfather using a contraction. We hadn’t ever been successful, and from the sounds of it, I wouldn’t be able to claim that achievement today. I took a deep breath and double-checked the pen’s cap was secure. No. I need to be there.

Grandfather sat in the mammoth chair behind his desk and smiled at me. You will do fine in your new venture, Kera. He collected the documents I signed and placed them inside the courier envelope to be delivered to my father first thing tomorrow morning.

My feet stayed glued to the floor in the middle of the room for a few more seconds before turning and walking out of the office Grandfather worked from when at home. He wasn’t the most doting of grandfathers, but I never once doubted his love for my sister and me. Sadly, I couldn’t say the same thing about my father.

The green sign on the side of the highway announced Copperwood as being 105 miles away. Two days on the highway, one night in a questionable hotel that didn’t require a credit card, and in another hour and a half I would be at my destination.

Chapter Four

Jake

A red blur flashed in front of my windshield, and the numbers on the radar screen jumped out. Seventy-five in a thirty-five mile per hour zone. Local or not, forty miles over the limit earned anyone a ticket.

I grabbed the radio, flipped on my lights, and pulled out behind the speeder. Adam Two going code nine with a vehicle.

Adam Two confirm code nine.

The driver either didn’t notice or was ignoring my lights. I blasted the siren and the little red convertible pulled over. While sending the tags across the radio, I watched the driver alternate between looking over her shoulder at me and ducking. Probably to dig up the vehicle’s registration and insurance information. Not only was the driver out of state, but boxes and suitcases filled her little car. She had to lower the top of her convertible to accommodate the items. I wondered if she blasted the heat to keep warm in the 50-degree weather, even if it was spring.

Adam Two that vehicle is being reported as stolen.

Stolen?

Who would steal a vehicle and pack it to the gills? And who would drive a stolen vehicle from New York to the middle of the US without changing the tags? Either I was dealing with a criminal mastermind that most three-year-olds planning a cookie heist would put to shame, or there was some kind of mistake.

I really hated spring. Copy.

Hey, Jake? Louise broke from the code talk she insisted we maintain, even though most other departments had left it behind in favor of plain English. Her break from code meant one of two things. I was about to receive a lecture, or the blond driver in the little red convertible had a story. The vehicle is registered to one Samuel Fontaine. As in Fontaine Holdings and Fontaine Mining. Do you want me to call Kirstin?

Shit.

Yeah, shit summed everything up and stuck a nice bow on top.

Kirstin Prescott, nee Fontaine soon-to-be Kirstin Bishoff if the two of them ever set a date, came to Copperwood a few years back. Around the same time, I came back from Afghanistan with an injured shoulder from an IED and a dear John letter with divorce papers from my then wife. Before Kirstin’s father made it impossible for her to hide, no one in Copperwood knew Kirstin Prescott was the daughter of the man responsible for almost destroying Copperwood’s economy when he bought the mine and laid off the miners. The residents might have been wary of Kirstin, but between her getting Mike to sing at Pick’s, the local bar, and opening up a community center with a lot of free programs for the town’s children and teenagers, she became a local hero.

Although Kirstin’s maternal grandfather occasionally visited, the rest of the family stayed away. It was for the best. If Samuel Fontaine, or anyone with