Moon Over Manhattan: Book 2 of the Moon Series Read online

  Moon Over Manhattan

  Book 2 of the Moon Series

  Jane Graves

  Contents

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Prologue

  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

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  * * *

  ABOUT MOON OVER MANHATTAN

  Book Two of the Moon Series

  A delightfully witty romantic comedy about a sexy, charismatic man who makes a jaded, plain-Jane New York cop believe in true love for the first time in her life.

  For New York cop Kelsey Morrison, life is serious business, so she's had just about enough of her neighbor across the hall, Brett Hollister. He's too cheerful, too optimistic, too impulsive—and too sexy for his own good. She's watched him tending bar and flirting with every woman in sight, picking them up like most men pick up six-packs. No way is she going to become just one more notch on his already overcrowded bedpost!

  Brett Hollister is looking for love, and he thinks Kelsey might be the woman for him in spite of her cop-like skepticism and her insistence that the glass is always half empty. But when his usual charming banter fails to convince her that he's the man of her dreams, he gets a little help from his crazy family, his Godzilla-sized dog, a wicked pair of water guns, a Thermos full of wine, and enough hot sex to set the sheets on fire. If Brett has his way, he'll convince Kelsey that love is forever, and she's the one he wants to spend forever with.

  * * *

  Copyright © 2017 by Jane Graves

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction. The events, places, names and characters in this book are derived from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to events, locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Kelsey Morrison wanted to say it was just her competitive nature that had driven her to go after that bridal bouquet, but that would be a lie. The truth was that she was tired of watching other people paired up two‑by‑two as if they were heading to Noah's ark. She’d hoped to catch that bouquet so a little luck might come her way for a switch. But no. She had a black belt in karate, and she’d been beaten out by a woman with nothing physical going for her but one extremely sharp elbow.

  Pitiful. Just pitiful.

  Now, hours later, Kelsey sat on a beach chair at the ocean's edge, watching a full moon rise over the Caribbean Sea and holding yet another ice pack over her eye. And for what? She'd flown from New York to Jamaica, put on a stupid girly bridesmaid's dress, walked up the aisle, and then…nothing.

  Well, okay. Not exactly nothing. Sarah came to her senses approximately five seconds before saying "I do," dumped her jerk of a fiance at the altar, and ran off with his brother.

  What a spectacle that had been.

  Not that Kelsey objected to Sarah dumping Randall. But jumping out of his arms and right into Nick’s? Just like that? Kelsey wished them all the happiness in the world, but it still felt to her as if Sarah was rolling the dice. In all the years Kelsey had known her, Sarah had always been the kind of woman who looked before she leaped, but this time she’d sailed right off that cliff without a net in sight.

  On the beach chair next to Kelsey sat Liz Prescott, the other bridesmaid in the wedding that wasn’t. She took another sip of her pina colada and sighed blissfully. ”Sarah’s so lucky. Nick is crazy about her. I’d kill to have a man fly thousands of miles to stop my wedding and get me back."

  "Please," Kelsey said. "She barely knows him. Wait till she finds out he watches TV in his underwear and clips his toenails in bed. There goes the romance."

  Liz frowned. ”Well, that's heartwarming."

  “It’s realistic.”

  “When they met a year ago it was love at first sight. Don’t you think that means something?

  “So why didn’t she stay with him then instead of getting engaged to Randall?”

  “It took her a while to come to her senses. I’m just glad she did.”

  It was all Kelsey could do to keep from rolling her eyes. Love at first sight? Did she also believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy? Then again, she was Sarah's cousin, which meant they shared the same gene pool. Believing in nonexistent things was clearly hereditary.

  Kelsey pulled the nearly-melted ice pack away from her face, cursing that awful woman and her sharp elbow.

  “Yep,” Liz said. “There it is. You definitely have a black eye.”

  “Of course I do," Kelsey muttered. “That woman was lethal.”

  “You're a cop, and she was lethal?”

  “You have to watch out for the crazy ones. Sometimes they have superhuman strength.”

  A black eye. Damn it. That meant when she returned to work, she got to show up at roll call looking as if she’d gone three rounds with a heavyweight champ. That would be good for at least a dozen snide comments from the male cops she worked with. And the gossip. God. They’d never believe what really happened. Speculating on what they thought might have happened was so much more fun.

  ”I can't believe Sarah threw her bouquet in the first place,” Kelsey said. “Don't you have to say 'I do' before it counts?”

  Liz grinned. "She thinks you should get married, so she figured it was worth a shot. If only you'd caught it—"

  “That’s nothing but superstition. Why does every woman on earth believe that stuff?"

  "Because most women want to get married.”

  "I don't. Half of all marriages end in divorce."

  "And half don't."

  "Is it really worth all that trouble for a fifty-fifty shot?"

  "That's kinda cynical, isn’t it?”

  Kelsey just shrugged and drained her glass. She couldn’t remember a time when cynicism hadn’t oozed into every part of her life. If somebody so much as said, Hey, Kelsey! The sun's coming up in the east! she'd think twice about believing it. That was what happened when you grew up the way she had and then spent six years as a New York cop.

  But for a moment, Kelsey wondered what it would be like to be as optimistic as Liz about finding the right man. But no matter how hard she tried to put herself in her place, she just couldn't do it.

  “Will you ladies be needin' anything else?”

  Kelsey turned to see a waitress walking through the sand toward them. She wore a tropical print shirt and a black skirt, the uniform of the resort staff. She wasn't the petite waitress who'd taken their original order. This woman was tall and statuesque with heavy black dreadlocks spilling down her back. According to the tag she wore, her name was “Kiki.”

  “Nothing more for me,” Kelsey said. She’d already hit her two-drink-per-day maximum, not to mention the fact that she still had a plane to catch that night and she needed to be sober enough to navigate a tight connection in Atlan
ta.

  Liz declined, too, but instead of walking away, Kiki said, “You ladies looked lovely at the wedding today."

  "You mean the wedding that never happened?” Kelsey said.

  Kiki gave them a knowing smile. "There'll be one soon enough.”It's just a shame you ladies are alone in this romantic place without your own men to share it with.”

  “I don't have a man,” Liz said. “I haven't had much luck in the relationship department lately.”

  “I can do without a relationship altogether,” Kelsey said. “Men are just too much trouble.”

  “Oh, no!” Kiki said. “You should never give up on love! Wonderful men are out there just waitin’ for you.”

  Kelsey gave her a suspicious look. “Yeah? So where are we supposed to meet these wonderful men?”

  Kiki laughed softly, those long dreadlocks swaying in the Caribbean breeze. “Oh, there's no meetin' anybody, sweetness. You know 'em already.”

  “Well, that does it,” Kelsey said. “If it has to be a man I already know, I’m going to be alone forever.”

  Liz tilted her head. “Men we already know? How would you know that?”

  Kiki gave her a sly smile. “I know a lot of things, milady.”

  "I'm a bartender, so I do know a lot of men. But most of them aren't my type." She considered that for a moment. "Actually, none of them are my type."

  “The only single men I know are cops,” Kelsey said, “and I'm not going there.”

  “Are you sure it’s going to be a man I already know?” Liz asked. “That’s kinda depressing.”

  Kiki gave her that sly smile again. “Whatever Fate decides.”

  Fate? Kelsey thought. Yeah, right. Fate was that horrible bitch who'd stuck her with a mother who made her believe more in divorce than in marriage. Was that same Fate in charge of her love life, too? No wonder it sucked.

  “Keep your eyes open, ladies,” Kiki said, looking up at the sky. “You see the full moon tonight? By the time the next one rises, you'll be in the arms of those wonderful men who’ll love you with all their hearts.”

  Okay. Now it was official. This woman was nuts.“That’s right,” Kiki said. “The next full moon belongs to both of you. This one,” she said, nodding toward the sky, “is Sarah’s.”

  That made unexpected shivers run down Kelsey’s spine. After all, she had to admit Kiki was right. Sarah was in the arms of the man who really loved her, and it wasn’t her jerk of a fiance. And it was happening tonight of all nights, with a full moon—

  No! Wait a minute! Was she actually buying all this? She’s nuts, remember? This woman is nuts!

  “Walk good, sweeties,” Kiki said as she swished away, her dreadlocks swaying in the night breeze. “Walk good, now.”

  Walk good. Jamaican slang for Take care. Be happy. Have a nice life.

  “Okay, she was kinda weird,” Liz said.

  Kelsey made a scoffing noise. “No kidding.”

  “But what if she's right? What if our soul mates are right under our noses?”

  “Not a chance.” Kelsey turned to watch Kiki take the long walk back to the beach bar, only to get a shock.

  She was nowhere in sight.

  Kelsey blinked with surprise, a little woo-woo tremor sizzling between her shoulders. Where did she go?

  Then she looked down at the sand on the beach. Kiki had been heading straight for the beach bar. But if that were true…

  Where were her footprints?

  Kelsey felt that woo-woo sensation all over again. But with her vision a little blurry from the rum she'd consumed, she finally decided she'd been mistaken about the whole thing.

  “I have an idea,” Liz said brightly. “The night of the next full moon, we’ll text each other. Just one word. If Kiki was right and you found the love of your life, text YES. If she was wrong, text NO.”

  Kelsey wanted to say, Can I just send NO now and get it over with?

  Instead she dutifully exchanged phone numbers with Liz, even though she knew it was an exercise in futility. She eyed her empty glass, wishing she could have another drink to keep the pain away a little while longer, and not just the pain from taking an elbow to the eye.

  No matter what she told Liz, watching Sarah get swept away by her own Prince Charming, along with all this talk of Mr. Rights and soul mates, had made her more than a little depressed. Out there in the world people were loving each other with all their hearts, and she wasn't one of them. So she looked up at the moon, closed her eyes, and made a wish. Let it be true, let it be true, let it be true…

  She knew it was dumb. She didn’t even believe in love. But some small part of her still held out hope that maybe—just maybe—the right man was out there waiting for her.

  1

  Twenty-four hours later, Kelsey Morrison kicked off her sandals and slid down the wall to sit on the floor outside her apartment, wondering how long it would be before the super came to let her in. As usual, she'd jammed her key in the hundred-year-old lock of her apartment door and given it a few hard twists, praying it would open. This time she heard a clinkity-snap, and when she pulled the key back, half of it remained in the lock.

  A perfectly awful finish to a perfectly awful trip.

  Her tight Atlanta connection had turned out to be a nonissue. A wicked thunderstorm had shut down hundreds of flights. She'd been stuck in the airport overnight with only her carry-on because the airline lost her checked bag. Unfortunately, she’d stayed so long on the beach in Jamaica that when her shuttle showed up, she didn't have time to change out of the summery halter dress she’d worn on the beach, so that was what she had to wear the entire trip home.

  She finally got a flight at noon, only to deplane when they discovered mechanical problems. On the flight she'd finally taken off on, she'd ended up in a middle seat. On one side was a man with shoulders the size of a linebacker's. He'd squashed her over to the other side, where a woman sat with a baby who screamed the entire trip. All Kelsey wanted to do now was get inside her apartment, hit the sack, and go comatose.

  Then she heard the whistling.

  Oh, God. Not him. No, no, no!

  She'd prayed he was out of town, or he'd already gotten home from work and was in his apartment for the evening. Anything but coming down the hall right now. Whistling. Zippidy Doo Dah? That song would make even a rainbow-hopping unicorn barf. Kelsey hated a lot of things about Brett Hollister, but his whistling topped the list.

  He tended bar at Gianelli’s, where she and her cop partner Angi went at least once a week. He was a gin-slinging, joke-a-minute, shameless flirt of a bartender who irritated the crap out of her. When he was looking for a place to live, she'd made the mistake of telling him a few units were available in her building. The jerk had taken the apartment right across the hall, and he’d annoyed her ever since.

  “Well, hey there, Morrison!” he said as he came up the hall. “Did the carbon monoxide alarm go off in your apartment again?”

  Go away, Hollister. Just go the hell away!

  “No,” she muttered. “I'm locked out.”

  He stopped and stared down at her. “That dress is hot. Why don't you wear stuff like that more often?”

  Kelsey cursed her out-of-character decision to wear this damned dress. If she'd worn something more conservative, Brett Hollister wouldn't be staring at her as if she was slithering around a pole at a strip club.

  “Because I don’t go to the beach every day of the week,” she told him.

  “Isn’t it a little cold for the beach?”

  “Not in Montego Bay. I went there for a wedding.”

  “Nice to see you brought a little of the Caribbean home with you." As he said that, his gaze slid down the V-shaped neckline of the dress to lodge right between her breasts.

  “Oh, for God's sake, Hollister. Will you stop staring at me? What are you? Some kind of Pavlovian dog?”

  He pulled his gaze back up again. “Sorry. I can't seem to help myself. Maybe if you'd wear dresses like this one more
often, I'd get desensitized and wouldn't notice anymore.”

  “No chance of that.”

  “Of me getting desensitized?”

  “Of me wearing a dress like this again.”

  “So why are you still wearing it?”

  “I stayed too long on the beach at the resort, and my shuttle showed up before I had time to change. So I wore the dress home, but I got stuck in Atlanta and didn't get a flight out until today. Now I'm locked out of my apartment.”

  “Oops. That's what happens when you don't pay your rent.”

  “If you must know, my key broke off in the lock. These doors and keys are a hundred years old. I'm waiting for the super. He said he'd be here soon.”

  Brett laughed and reached for his own key.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “The Yankees are playing the Cardinals. Trust me--Edwin won't be leaving his apartment until the last out.”

  Kelsey closed her eyes. Crap. Brett was right. Edwin was a bigger La-Z-Boy than the chair he sat in. A meteor could be hurtling toward earth, and as long as the Yankees were still on the field, Edwin would still be watching.

  Brett unlocked his door. “Get in here, Morrison.”

  “What?”

  “Wait in my apartment. Beats sitting in the hall. And I'll get you drunk. Then at least you'll forget about the awful things that happened.”

  He held his hand out to her. She hesitated only a moment before accepting his help, but only because she was too tired to stand on her own. He pulled her to her feet. Brett was at least six two, and the top of her head barely reached his chin. It was the first time she'd ever actually touched him. His hand felt warm. Big. Strong. And for some reason, it wasn't letting go of hers.