No News is Good News

By Jade C. Jamison

Nancy Drew she ain’t.

Since leaving school years earlier, Nicki Sosebee long ago gave up on the notion of The American Dream. She realizes early on that her college degree isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, but she also knows that she doesn’t want to work for minimum wage the rest of her life.

Her dream now? Learn the ropes as a novice reporter.

The job’s been boring...until now. One of Winchester’s bad boys has been locked up for arson, but Nicki soon finds there’s a whole lot more to the story. Her naïveté gets her in hot water at every turn, but her gorgeous best friend Sean Ramsey, self-employed motorcycle mechanic, helps keep her in check.

Unfortunately, he’s also distracting. And Nicki really needs to pay attention so she can write that story...before her name ends up in the obituary section.

PLEASE NOTE: This book was previously published in 2011 as Got the Life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jade C. Jamison
• Release date: Jul 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005219451

Jade C. Jamison

1. Imagine 2. Play some music 3. Write 4. Blow readers away 5. RepeatJade C. Jamison is a steamy romance author, heavy metal fangirl, wife and mom, coffee connoisseur, cat lover, and vegan foodie--not necessarily in that order. She loves life and believes we learn our wisest lessons when reading, especially if it's fiction. Her heroines are fierce, her heroes all but broken, both seeking redemption together. Whether in a small Colorado town or big city, she strives to take her readers' breath away...one story at a time.Find out more at www.jadecjamison.com ORhttp://www.subscribepage.com/JadeCJamison (newsletter)

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PREFACE

As I sat down to write the final Nicki Sosebee novel (#13), I knew I had a monumental task on my shoulders. In spite of knowing where the series has been headed for years now, each book has been harder and harder to write. Was it because I knew what would happen in book number twelve? Was it because I dreaded the series ending? Or was it because Nicki’s story grew darker and darker as it went along?

I have my own theories that actually encompass each of those suppositions to a degree. But my goal was to get this book written this summer. I owe my long-time readers a conclusion to Nicki’s story, especially because the last book published (#12) ended not only on a cliffhanger but the story itself was emotionally heavy. And, just as Nicki snapped out of her funk, it ended—and, man, was she in danger at that point.

One of the things I had been planning to do all along was go through all the books one last time, just to make sure I didn’t leave any loose ends—but, as I started skimming through them, I realized a few things:

If I do say so myself, I’m a much better writer now than I was then.

Nicki’s story hasn’t aged well. From her cell phone woes to Colorado legalizing marijuana after the first several books were composed, some of her story might not make sense to newer readers.

I caught a very tiny continuity error in one of the books. It’s so small that no one, including yours truly, ever caught it before. A throwaway character at the beginning of the book has a different first name than she has at the end of the book when she’s mentioned again. That bothered me!

So I was at a crossroads. Do I write the last book and then publish it, closing the chapter on this portion of my writing life? Or do I do the right thing, rewriting the books, re-releasing them with a preface explaining all this stuff, and then send Nicki off with a bang?

(Unless, of course, I do the spinoff series. That possibility will be evident when you read #13—but I’m getting ahead of myself.)

I decided to ask my faithful Nicki readers because, after all, they’d be the ones most affected by whatever decision I made. And I was pleasantly surprised. An overwhelming majority (close to 85%) went with option two—rewrite, rerelease, and then give us book #13.

So here we are. A rewritten Nicki book. I promise you there are no major changes in the books. I’m not rewriting history. But I am fixing tiny continuity booboos like the one I mentioned in #3 above. I’m also making the story more readable (see #1), smoother, less choppy (one of those writing techniques I’ve improved over the years). The stories, however, are the same.

Now…if you’re still with me, a tiny bit of history. The first Nicki book was written in the summer of 2011. In some ways, it’s as if hardly any time has passed; in other ways, it seems like so long ago, but it was early in my indie writing career. Although back then I’d attracted a lot of readers to my rock star romance books, I steadily gained a hardcore following of Nicki readers, so the first two years, I threw a lot of effort into that series. The first five books were published in 2011. Books 6 through 8 came out in 2012—and that’s also when the stories started getting longer, the plots more complex. In the eighth book, I interviewed a local band and even they have changed (for instance, they have a different lead singer from the one I reference in the story). The other books—9 through 12—trickled out over the space of several years, mainly because Bullet came out in 2013 and hit the bestseller charts…meaning it dominated my time and energy for several years. But, interesting fact, book #9 (formerly known as Fake) was my first book available for pre-order on the ‘Zon. I’m sure it makes sense now, though, how specific cultural references in addition to the story itself grounded this series in the time it was written. Even though my intention had been to write Nicki as an evergreen series, too much has changed over the years for that notion to pan out (there are far too many things to mention here, but they include things like Colorado’s minimum wage increasing steadily since writing the first books and even the fact that print newspapers are slowly dying). So now I am firmly placing the story in the era in which it was composed, rather than doing some wholesale rewrites that would completely change parts of the plots and possibly remove some of the most fun elements of the stories (like at the end of this one!). And, if I didn’t acknowledge the time period, new readers might find the stories anachronistic.

All right…so what preface would be complete without acknowledgements? None, I tell you, so here goes. And please forgive me, as I’m certain I’ve forgotten several folks along the way. I’d first like to acknowledge my original Street Team, many of them hardcore Nicki fans, who championed her at many a turn. Specifically, I’d like to say thank you to my remaining Street Team admins (Sarah and Keri) who have been with me since late 2012, promoting Nicki all along. Next, I’d like to thank Angie Stanton (Angie J on Twinsie Talk Book Blog), the first blogger to really cheerlead for Nicki, promoting the books on her blog, along with Melinda B, also of Twinsie Talk. I also need to thank Sue B., one of my beta readers and another person who backed Nicki from the get go. Jessica M., you pushed me continuously to hurry the heck up and put you and your fellow readers out of your misery. Thank you for reminding me that Nicki doesn’t just belong to me. Thanks also to my reader group Jade’s Bullet Babes—you always make me smile and offer quick input when I get a good (or bad) idea, including this one. And, last but not least, to all my faithful readers who’ve become friends thanks to Nicki, a person who feels real in my head, I offer my sincere gratitude. Thank you for your patience, your understanding, your reflections, your support, and—most of all—your friendship. When you get there, know that book #13 was written especially for you.

With all my love,

Jade C. Jamison

August 2020

CHAPTER 1

Why do all the bad boys have to be so fucking cute? Nicki Sosebee sat on a hard wooden pew in the Winchester County courthouse, shifting to relieve the pressure on her bottom. Lifting her pencil up off the stenographer’s notebook she’d been writing notes in, she tapped the eraser against the paper before shaking her head. He might’ve been a bad boy, but he was easy on the eyes.

The accused, a Mr. Jason Edwards, sat at the defendant’s table, a smirk etched on his flawless face. His dark brown eyes smoldered, and his light brown hair was spiked, but it was too short to seem extreme like a punk rocker’s might. What made Nicki feel warm all over, though, were his arms full of tattoos. For a reason she could never explain, she thought body modifications made guys look…well, hot. And Edwards? Well, he was of the four hundred degrees Fahrenheit variety.

It was the summer of 2013. Tattoos and piercings on everyday people weren’t all that new anymore, but Nicki’s family—not to mention her town—hadn’t been all that accepting of the new wave of counterculture turned mainstream. Nicki didn’t know if tattoos represented the rebellious streak in her or if they seemed like art, but there was something about them that drew her attention.

When Edwards first walked in the courtroom, the judge reprimanded him for not wearing proper courtroom attire because it indicated he wasn’t taking the proceedings seriously. Edwards had sneered but said nothing. Nicki knew the man had saved himself a contempt of court citation by biting his tongue—she’d sat in Judge Lewis’s courtroom before, and he didn’t let flippant remarks pass. One sarcastic statement and Edwards would have found his arraignment continued, his ass back in the same lame gray jail cell he’d been in just a few minutes ago. Instead, he’d likely walk out of the courtroom in mere minutes with only a date for a future hearing. But, hearing or not, he’d be a free man—temporarily, at least. His court-appointed attorney simply apologized for Edwards’s clothing, promising it wouldn’t happen again.

Nicki felt compelled to follow this case…and it wasn’t just because Edwards was nice to look at. It didn’t matter that a good many defendants she saw day in and day out in this courthouse were recovering meth addicts (some of them weren’t recovering and didn’t plan to anytime soon, however) who were nothing but bones and sunken cheeks or old alcoholics with lined foreheads and red noses. Their addictions were beside the point. Instead, what had Nicki intrigued was because Edwards’s case was something different. And different stories were the kind her editor would publish. He didn’t give a shit about the ordinary. Ordinary stuff found a small corner in the paper, if that, but the unusual stuff? Sometimes those stories could even wind up on the front page.

That hadn’t happened to Nicki.

Yet.

That was one of her short-term goals.

Nicki didn’t have many long-term goals, though. She didn’t like to think that far into the future. Talk about pressure—and utter disappointment. She liked the way a lot of her Zen-like friends approached life, living in the moment. She knew her own refusal to think too far ahead had nothing to do with Buddhism, but it was a good reason to give people when they asked. Really, though, she knew it was something else that kept her from looking too far, and if she wasn’t ready to face it, she certainly wasn’t ready to talk about it.

That her thirtieth birthday loomed ahead later in the summer had nothing to do with it. At least, that was what Nicki told herself.

She bit her lip as she caught herself staring at the half blank page on her lap. She had to pay attention to what was happening in the courtroom. You can’t have a front-page story if you don’t get the facts straight. Adjusting in the pew again, she focused so she could pay attention to the proceedings. She managed to catch the defendant pleading not guilty and scribbled it down on the pad in her lap. Then she heard the low rumble of her cell phone vibrating in the pew next to her, indicating that she had an incoming call. She picked it up so she could look at the tiny screen. It was Sean. She noted it before setting it back on the seat. He could wait.

The judge gave a date for the defendant’s next hearing, setting bail at $25,000. Edwards was taken into custody, handcuffs and all, and escorted out of the courtroom. Well, she’d been wrong that he would get to walk, but that just made his case all the more interesting. The judge must have viewed Edwards as a risk, meaning this case was important enough to cover in the paper. Nicki jotted the date and amount before looking back up to see an entire row of people—Edwards’s family, she assumed—making gestures and muttering amongst themselves. They didn’t get loud enough for the judge to reprimand them, but she looked them over and wrote a couple of details for herself. Just as she glanced up from the notepad again, she noticed her cell phone screen lighting up again. Sighing, she pressed a couple of buttons to read the text message. Call me, the screen beckoned her. Nicki’s right eyebrow curled because Sean never texted. What was up with that?

He was still going to have to wait.

After sitting through the next few arraignments of the morning, she looked over her notes one last time. Of the remaining cases she’d listened to, she concluded there was nothing big to report on, but those cases would probably be clumped together in a little paragraph all their own somewhere in the paper tomorrow. Those details weren’t her problem. Her problem was finding a bigger story good enough to make the front page. And she thought Jason Edwards’s tale of family loyalty,