Wild Hearts

Wild Hearts

Enjoy Excerpt

Jump to Ordering Options ↓

Chapter 1

The scent of rotten fish drifted up from the seafood restaurant that neighbored Surf’s Inn on Westfield Street in the south district of Bedridge Beach, Florida. Rather, the smell drifted from behind the restaurant—more specifically their dumpster—where I had seen, not ten minutes ago, two homeless men amble around the building, heading towards it.

I shook my head and rechecked my camera to make sure everything was set. The cap was off, and the lens in position. I sighed and leaned back against the railing of the fire escape attached to the side of Surf’s Inn’s southernmost wall. For nearly six years I had been doing photography work for DL Magazine, a sleazy gossip rag. Tonight would be my last night doing skeevy work, following around minor celebrities and politicians, hoping to get a picture that would sell.

I didn’t care about these people’s lives. What they did was their own business, but I did need to eat, didn’t I? Six years as a crappy paparazzi knock-off and, finally, I had gotten my chance. I really couldn’t wait for my interview with Wilde Magazine tomorrow. I didn’t care if they sent me to Australia to hang out with the kangaroos and scorpions. At this point, anything would be better than waiting for former Florida Governor, Gerald Thomasson, to check in with his newest affair.

I checked my watch for what felt like the tenth time in the span of five minutes. Time was crawling by, and I wondered if the tip my boss had gotten would even follow through. Didn’t matter to me at this point. If he didn’t show, he didn’t show, and my boss could kiss my ass goodbye as soon as I got that much coveted position at Wilde.

The sound of something buzzing startled me. I reached down and quickly removed my phone from my back pocket, covering the upper part of the screen with my hand so that the brightness didn’t alert people walking on the sidewalk below. It was my sister. I groaned, knowing full well if I didn’t answer this now, then she’d keep calling or texting until I did. With great regret, I pressed the answer button and put the phone to my ear.

“I can’t talk right now. I’m working a job.”

“That’s fine,” she said quickly. “I’m just confirming that you’re coming to the cookout this weekend to meet Ryan.”

“Noelle…” I half moaned, half whined as she started talking again.

“Jen. Do not start this. You haven’t been on a date in six years. Six. Years. I don’t even know if I can go without sex for six days, let alone six years. It’s time you got over him or so help me—”

“We promised never to speak about him,” I interrupted with a sigh. If there was one thing I didn’t need in my life, it would be one more mention of Preston McConnell—the man who took my virginity along with my heart and smashed it all to pieces when he left the next morning for vet school, never to be heard from again. “You promised,” I said, hoping she’d drop it. “And I’ve been on dates,” I added.

“Promises like that have an expiration date,” she huffed. “I thought you’d be over it by now. I thought you’d move on. And the only dates you’ve been on are the ones I’ve set you up on.”

Back to Top ↑

Buy ↓

“I do try when I go on dates,” I said. “I don’t bomb every attempt on purpose, you know. I have moved on.”

“Then you have a date for Saturday?” she prompted.

“I, um, I was actually thinking I should stay home. I’ve got a lot of laundry to catch up on and that new book just came out on audio—” I broke off and glanced down at the street, squishing my eyes together when I saw a handsome, older gentleman leading a skinny blonde up the sidewalk. “Noelle, I gotta go. My target’s here.”

“We’re not done talking about this,” she barked as I pressed the end button and lifted my camera. Knowing her, there would be no more talking, only doing. Lots and lots of doing—blind dates, random set-ups with clients from her salon, and meetings with her husband’s work friends. I took a deep breath and lifted my camera, snapping several photos of ex-Governor Thomasson playing grab ass with the blonde bimbo cackling and swatting him away, her lips turned down in part disgust and part flirtation. Even I couldn’t tell if she was interested in him despite the clear close-up image that caught every nuance in her expression on my camera.

Snapping a few more photos as they got their key and went into one of the upper rooms, I waited until the door closed behind them before moving, grabbing my bag, and sliding down the rest of the fire escape. I just wanted to finish this job at DL and get over whatever Preston McConnell had done to me six years ago. Obviously, the latter was never going to happen, but at least I could help the job problem.

I walked two blocks down to O’Farey Street where I had parked my precious 1994 Mustang convertible. The red beauty awaited me in a pharmacy parking lot. I climbed in and cranked the air conditioning, blasting away the humidity from the heavy June heat.

Twenty minutes later, I climbed three sets of stairs up to my studio apartment on the third floor of an apartment complex that probably should’ve been condemned twenty years ago. Even though the electric bill was sky high, the rent was cheap, and the neighbors were quiet. The only real thing I regretted about the complex was that there were no animals allowed. I would have given anything to come home to a purring kitten or a yippy little dog like the one my sister, Noelle, had adopted four years ago. Even a Shih Tzu like Kenny would make this little apartment feel more like home and less like a prison cell.

I carefully set the camera back in its case after retrieving the SD card. I changed and hurried through the motions of loading the card onto my laptop to send the images I had captured tonight to my boss. With any luck, tomorrow would be more than a game-changer—it would be a life-changer.

end of excerpt