CrissCross (Crossroads Book 1)

  CrissCross

  For the most part, the souls that live in the Crosswinds Apartments building in Carrefour—a small town located on the Missouri bank of the Mississippi River—form a tight knit diverse community . . . some living transparent lives while others have secrets to hide. And then there are those who have found themselves at a crossroads.

  Chance “Lucky” Loughlin is a retired Navy SEAL working as an operative for a private military contractor when he finds himself at his crossroads. Should he continue on the same path, or veer off toward new horizons? A couple of years after resettling in his hometown, he meets his quirky new neighbor.

  Jimi Alexander has the distinction of being the “white sheep” of her rough-and-tumble biker clan. She’s content with a life filled with family, friends and creating her art . . . never having a thought of taking it in a new direction. But after meeting Chance, that could change.

  Working their way through family drama and a crime spree that seems to be focused on their apartment building, will Chance and Jimi find a fork in the road leading to destinations they can embark on together?

  • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

  Reviews for the NEW BEGINNINGS Series

  “ I just could NOT stop reading at the first one.

  The story line to each book was captivating.”

  “This series was great . . . loving this author.”

  “I decided to read this on a whim and I was not disappointed.

  Once I started reading, I simply could not put the book down.”

  “I love the way Mandie writes with her characters having such

  positive connections with each other. I enjoyed every one of these books.”

  CrissCross

  Copyright  2019 by Amanda M. Tepe

  ISBN: 9781793801562

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the author.

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

  There’s a popular meme that says,

  “When something goes wrong in your life just yell, ‘Plot twist!’ and move on.

  Well, sometimes things don’t have to go wrong for you

  to find yourself caught in a plot twist . . . or at a crossroads.

  When you do, it’s nice to have good people in your corner for support.

  These are my people . . .

  My husband, Jay, who is my loving encourager

  My parents who modeled the love of reading to me . . .

  especially my mother, Ruth, who is a great support and encouragement

  My sisters, Sandy and Jill; my son and daughter-in-law, Logan and Chelsea;

  my mother-in-law, Marian; and countless friends and relations (you know who you are)

  that continue to cheer me on and are great sounding boards

  You have all been such a blessing to me in all things (not only in my writing).

  I could never fully express how much your support has always meant to me.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  EPILOGUE

  CROSSWISE Excerpt

  Books by Mandie Tepe

  CHAPTER 1

  Chance “Lucky” Loughlin stumbled to the front door of his small apartment and stooped to peer out the peephole underneath the small rectangle window of frosted glass. He saw exactly what he’d expected to see. He stooped because he was a big man—huge in both height and bulk. He grinned because he hadn’t been home in two months and he knew the first neighbor he’d see would be Mrs. Wilson, and there she stood.

  His grin widened because he’d also predicted she’d be bearing something she’d cooked for him and she was cradling an ancient round aluminum cake pan. Mrs. Wilson was always cooking things for him. What made it amusing was that she was not a cook. At all. So she brought him pot pies of the small Banquet frozen variety (that would never in million years be able to satisfy his healthy appetite), Kraft box macaroni and cheese with whatever hotdogs were on sale that week at the grocery cut up in it, or heated up canned spaghetti with grated cheese melted on white sandwich bread if she was feeling in an exotic mood. He noticed this time her offering was over-baked canned cinnamon rolls—the kind with orange-flavored glaze.

  Chance swung the door open and stood still while she looked him over. It was routine by now. He’d been sent out of the country on a deployment through Sparta Corp, the private military contractor he’d worked for since he left the Navy SEAL teams. The job was pretty similar to what he’d done for almost a decade for the U.S. government, but not quite. This time he’d been working security for a small group of CIA operatives. He hadn’t liked them much. He generally didn’t. CIA agents were cocky and never seemed to want to listen to what their security had to say if it got in the way of their main mission—which, as far as could tell, was to dig up something big in order to make a name for themselves. After those two months, Chance was glad to be home.

  He’d gotten in after two that morning but knew that the grapevine of Crosswinds Apartments would have kicked in by dawn and that Mrs. Wilson—one of the building’s honorary grandmothers—would be by to check up on him. So, he’d gotten up early and pulled on enough clothing to be prepared for her. He’d found a jug of orange juice in the ‘fridge and poured a glass of that. His brother must have brought it by with a few other grocery items and his mail after he received Chance’s text saying he was on his way home. Coffee could wait until Mrs. Wilson left and he hit the sack for another couple of hours.

  Now he raised his arms to his sides and turned a slow circle while she studied him in his athletic shorts and tank—full sleeve tats, as well as the portion of the chest and back tattoos that peeked above the edges of his clothing in clear view. “See there, Willy?” he said. “All in one piece. The nickname is still working like a charm,” he cracked.

  She stepped into him, causing him to step back. “Hmph,” she grunted.

  She never called him by the nickname his SEAL teammates had given him back in BUD/S. They had all been skeeved out by his name—Chance. It seemed . . . well . . . too chancy. Chance could either go down in your favor, or against it. So, they’d dubbed him Lucky, and it appeared more than once that he’d brought them all good luck in some very risky situations. His fellow contractors—some of whom he’d known from working with various other military branches’ special forces teams—still called him by his nickname on the job. For luck.

  Mrs. Wilson knew he was a retired SEAL. She also knew he did similar work now that he couldn’t talk about. Not that she would ever ask, because she worried enough about him when
he was gone and she’d rather not know about any close calls he may have had out in the field.

  She held out the pan. “I made you cinnamon rolls,” she announced.

  His lips twitched. “Thank you. That was really nice of you,” he said. He took the pan and led her to the galley kitchen. “Do you want coffee?”

  “Do you have decaf?” she asked. He shot her an are-you-serious look. “Milk?” she inquired.

  “Don’t know.” He opened the refrigerator to find a never-been-opened half-gallon jug in the door with a two-weeks-away expiration date on it. From his brother he surmised. “Yep.” He pulled it out and poured her a glass. He brought that, along with a couple of saucers, over to the table. “You’re off caffeinated coffee?”

  “Blasted doctor cut me off,” she grumbled.

  “Everything okay?” he asked in concern.

  “Hmph. I’m fine. My pressure was a little high and he’s just a worry wart.” She shot Chance a look. “I think it was elevated because I was worried about you. You didn’t call the last two weeks.”

  Chance had known Mrs. Wilson since he was fifteen. Not this Mrs. Wilson, but the Mrs. Wilson that was his sophomore language arts teacher. He had met this Mrs. Wilson—or Willy—when he moved into this apartment back in his hometown after he left the Navy.

  “Sorry ‘bout that. African warlords are notoriously bad about keeping their wifi bills paid,” he teased.

  “African warlords have sat phones,” she shot back.

  Chance almost spewed orange juice across the table at her. “What do you know about African warlords?”

  “I saw a story on 60 Minutes.”

  He laughed. “Right. Well, African warlords are not inclined to lend someone like me their sat phones.”

  She gave him a shrewd look. “Your cohorts, I’m sure, have access to their own sat phones.”

  Shaking his head, he gave her a tender look. “The government has something to say about how their satellites are used, Willy. I can’t really ask if I can use their resources to call my honorary grandma. But, I’ll try to do better next time.”

  Willy stood up to tear a couple of paper towels off the roll hanging under the cabinet beside the sink. “You know,” she said casually as she took her seat again, “I hear the police department is hiring.”

  This comment surprised him. “I thought you didn’t want me to join the police department.”

  He’d considered it when he moved back, but had opted to take the contracting job while he was still young and in peak shape. It would allow him to build up a healthy nest egg because the pay was so good. Then he could figure out his next career incarnation later.

  “Well . . . I guess I’d rather you get shot here than out there somewhere alone.”

  “How ‘bout I don’t get shot at all,” he suggested.

  “Your luck can’t hold forever.”

  He recognized the worry in her faded blue eyes and decided to change the subject. “So, how’d you know I was back?”

  “I saw River come by yesterday with your mail and groceries, so I knew you’d be back.”

  River was his younger brother and he came by for the mail whenever Chance was gone. He used to have Willy do that, but she was flighty and had misplaced the paperwork he needed to renew his license plates once. It had taken him three trips to the license bureau in one day to get it all straightened out.

  She continued, “He had some girl with him,” she said disgustedly. She knew everything that went on in the building because her peephole and gossip hotline got more action than any other tenant’s in the place.

  “Yeah?”

  “You might want to look into that,” she said sternly.

  “You didn’t like the girl?”

  “Well, I didn’t actually meet her because they were in and out before I could change out of my robe and get over here.”

  Chance’s lips twitched. He suspected that River had hustled the two of them out of there quick to avoid just that. It must have chapped Willy’s hide. “Okay. What’s your issue, then?”

  “Her heels were too high.”

  “Her heels were too high,” he repeated.

  “Yes.” She paused as if waiting for him to comment. He didn’t have anything to say to that, so he didn’t. She continued. “They were so high, they had to add extra thick soles on the front,” she said as if that was the most outrageous shoe behavior ever.

  Platform spike-heeled shoes sounded sexy to him and he wanted to ask what color they were, but he refrained and schooled his features. “I see.”

  “She’s probably a dancer at one those strip clubs River’s band plays at.”

  River was a musician and made his living playing regional clubs and bars with his band—River’s Edge. On occasion they even toured as an opening act to better known groups. Once they played Warped Tour, filling in for a just-up-and-coming band whose lead guitarist had to cancel to enter court-ordered rehab.

  Chance opened his mouth to explain that strip clubs generally didn’t book live musical entertainment because their own entertainment—the dancers—provided it, requiring a deejay. But then he’d have to reveal how he knew that and he really did not want to go there with Willy.

  “I’ll be seeing him later and I’ll make sure he’s okay,” he assured her. He got them back on track. “Anyway, I know you weren’t up after two this morning, so . . .”

  “Axel was up because he had friends over and they heard you come in,” she informed him.

  Axel lived in the apartment next to Chance’s. Willy was in the one at the end of the hall on the other side of Axel’s. Her door faced all the way down the hallway so she had a clear view of every frosted-windowed and peepholed door.

  “I heard the party going on next door.” Their neighbor was a partier and Axel’s friends could be rambunctious. They never got too loud for Chance, but they sometimes annoyed her. “Did they keep you up?”

  “Oh, no. I drank my Sleepytime Tea and I was out like a light.”

  “That’s good, but I hope you’re not becoming dependent on Sleepytime,” he mock-warned her. “I’d hate to have to arrange an intervention. I’m not very good at party-planning.”

  “Hmph.” She studied him. “You look tired. Maybe you should go back to bed for awhile.”

  Gee, wonder why I didn’t think of that, he thought. “Yeah, I think I will. I appreciate you bringing me the rolls for breakfast, Willy.”

  She stood up to leave, pausing to give him a hug. “Glad you’re home safe,” she whispered.

  He squeezed her back. “Me too. Now maybe you can stop worrying and back off the Sleepytime,” he murmured.

  Willy pushed away and sent him a look. “Oh, you. Still so incorrigible.”

  Chance laughed. “Hey! That’s the first vocabulary word you ever taught me as my language arts teacher.”

  She chuckled and moved toward the door, saying, “And it wasn’t even on the vocabulary list.” She opened the door and he stood behind her in the opening while they said their goodbyes. A movement in the frosted window across the hall caught his attention. He saw a shadow of the top of a head through the frosted glass as if someone were peeking through the peephole below it at them. He flicked his hand out in greeting.

  “Did Marisol change jobs?” he asked. “I thought she worked the early shift on Mondays.”

  Willy looked over at the door and waved. “Marisol moved out. She and Hector got engaged and she moved downstairs into his place with him.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “That’s the new neighbor. Jimi. Just moved in a couple weeks ago. ”

  “New neighbor?”

  “That’s who told me there are job openings at the police station.”

  • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

  Chance sat on a stool with his back to the bar in a club on The Landing in downtown St. Louis. The slow driving beat of the music pounded through him. His brother’s band was popular and respected enoug
h in the region that they could get away with mostly playing their own original songs. But at that moment they were nailing their version of Staind’s It’s Been Awhile.

  It was good to be back home and close enough to see his brother in his element. When Chance had retired from the SEAL teams, he’d considered staying in San Diego. He had good friends who owned and ran a security company out there and had offered him a position. He liked San Diego. It had been home for years between deployments. He was ready for home, though. He missed his Missouri hometown of Carrefour, a river town about an hour’s drive northwest of the city of St. Louis. And he missed spending more time with his brother.

  The two of them had raised themselves and each other for the most part. Oh, sure their parents were around. They had split when Chance was eight and River was three. They had stayed with their mother, but she was enjoying her newfound freedom and spent a lot of time out and about. Two years after the divorce, she hooked up with her first new husband who didn’t much like the idea of a ready-made family. Mom justified it by saying the two boys needed time with their father, packed them up and moved them in with Dad. Dad also enjoyed the single life, but had the resources to hire a live-in nanny to watch over them while he did as he pleased. When Chance was in middle school, Dad decided to settle down with a new much-younger wife. She found the house too crowded with two growing boys and their nanny and, since Mom’s second marriage had recently cracked, shuffled the boys back under Mom’s roof. They lost the nanny, but didn’t miss her.

  This cycle kept up three more times. Marriages happened as the others’ marriage broke up. Whichever parent was between relationships got stuck with the kids. It was messed up and even two young boys could see that. On the positive side, it created a tight bond between the brothers. They maintained strained relationships with both their mother and father, although those relationships weren’t particularly tight.