Table of Contents
Quit Bein’ Ugly
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Other Titles by Lani Lynn Vale
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
Epilogue
A Note From the Author
Catch up on the rest of the series
Copyright © 2020 Lani Lynn Vale
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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Sometimes you eat the cookie. Sometimes you don’t. Today I ate the cookie.
Acknowledgments
Golden Czermak- Photographer
My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing
Cover Me Darling- Cover Artist
My mom- Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred twenty-one times.
Kendra, Laura, Kathy, Mindy, Lisa, Penney, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale
The Freebirds
Boomtown
Highway Don’t Care
Another One Bites the Dust
Last Day of My Life
Texas Tornado
I Don’t Dance
The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC
Lights To My Siren
Halligan To My Axe
Kevlar To My Vest
Keys To My Cuffs
Life To My Flight
Charge To My Line
Counter To My Intelligence
Right To My Wrong
Code 11- KPD SWAT
Center Mass
Double Tap
Bang Switch
Execution Style
Charlie Foxtrot
Kill Shot
Coup De Grace
The Uncertain Saints
Whiskey Neat
Jack & Coke
Vodka On The Rocks
Bad Apple
Dirty Mother
Rusty Nail
The Kilgore Fire Series
Shock Advised
Flash Point
Oxygen Deprived
Controlled Burn
Put Out
I Like Big Dragons Series
I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie
Dragons Need Love, Too
Oh, My Dragon
The Dixie Warden Rejects
Beard Mode
Fear the Beard
Son of a Beard
I’m Only Here for the Beard
The Beard Made Me Do It
Beard Up
For the Love of Beard
Law & Beard
There’s No Crying in Baseball
Pitch Please
Quit Your Pitchin’
Listen, Pitch
The Hail Raisers
Hail No
Go to Hail
Burn in Hail
What the Hail
The Hail You Say
Hail Mary
The Simple Man Series
Kinda Don’t Care
Maybe Don’t Wanna
Get You Some
Ain’t Doin’ It
Too Bad So Sad
Bear Bottom Guardians MC
Mess Me Up
Talkin’ Trash
How About No
My Bad
One Chance, Fancy
It Happens
Keep It Classy
Snitches Get Stitches
F-Bomb
The Southern Gentleman Series
Hissy Fit
Lord Have Mercy
Quit Bein’ Ugly
KPD Motorcycle Patrol
Hide Your Crazy
It Wasn’t Me
I’d Rather Not
Make Me
Sinners are Winners
If You Say So
SWAT 2.0
Just Kidding
Fries Before Guys
Maybe Swearing Will Help
Ask Me If I Care
May Contain Wine
Joke’s on You
Join the Club
Any Day Now
Say It Ain’t So
Officially Over It
Nobody Knows
Depends Who’s Asking
Valentine Boys
Herd That
Crazy Heifer
Chute Yeah
Get Bucked
Souls Chapel Revenants MC
Repeat Offender
Conjugal Visits
Jailbait
Doin’ a Dime
Inmate of the Month
Kitty Kitty
Gen Pop
Shakedown
Standalones:
Somethin’ About That Boy
About the Book
There’s a crush, and then there are the type of feelings that Croft Cruisie evokes from a person.
He’s everything that any straight woman would want: tall, handsome, charismatic, muscular, and sweet.
At least, Carmichael thought he was sweet, until he brings another woman to the gym she owns with her brother, on the night that’s to be their first date, and lets her know in a quick and painful, non-verbal way that her feelings are not reciprocated.
Fast forward six months, and she’s still trying to move on from the rejection.
It doesn’t help that the jerk moves in next door to her, and that she has to see him workout shirtless every single day.
How can a woman get over a silly crush when that silly crush won’t so much as give her room to breathe?
• • •
Croft doesn’t know what happened.
One day he was supposed to go on a date with the girl that wouldn’t leave his thoughts for even a second, and the next she’s avoiding him like the plague.
No matter how hard he tries—and admittedly, it isn’t all that hard due to the biggest case of his career taking over his life—he can’t get her to tell him what he did wrong. She refuses to give him a second chance.
At least, not until he’s nearly killed in front of the courthouse, that is.
The moment he sees his chance, he pounces. Or, more literally, he limps.
But the limping is what draws Carmichael in. The Southern charm that was instilled in him since birth will be what gets her to stay.
That’s his plan, anyway.
Funny thing about plans… they never seem to work out how you expect them to.
PROLOGUE
The path to inner peace begins with four words: not my fuckin’ problem.
-Carmichael’s secret thoughts
CARMICHAEL
I was really fucking giddy.
Like, so much so that I was practically bouncing my way through my day.
Tonight, I would be going out on a date with Croft, and I literally could not contain my excitement.
“What’s with that look on your face, girl?” Raleigh, my good friend and a fellow teacher, asked.
I looked over at her.
Not even the shitty kids that I’d just had to deal with could ruin my high.
“I have a date.” I paused. “With your brother.”
Raleigh made a disgusted face. “Gross.”
I rolled my eyes and picked up the stack of tests that I would need to take home and grade tonight.
“I’m excited,” I said and looked at her. “This isn’t going to make things weird between us, is it?”
She snorted. “No. Not unless you decide to kick him to the curb because of who his sister is.”
I scoffed. “I like you more than him. If he made me choose between the two of you, you’d win hands down.”
Raleigh fist-pumped the air. “Score!”
We laughed as we walked out to the parking lot together. “Are you going to the gym tonight?”
She was already shaking her head. “No, tonight Ezra and I have a date for the first time since two-a-days started. We are going out to eat and grabbing some drinks one final time before practice and school officially starts. That means that I have to go get my toes done and my lady parts waxed before I go.”
I wished
