All or Nothing (bad boy romantic suspense) by PJ Adams

All or Nothing
1
    W as she really going to do this?
    From the first time she set eyes on him, Denny McGowan had Trouble written all over that gorgeous face. It coursed through his veins, was an integral part of every breath he took.
    He’d set Cassie up. Lied to her. Woven her into his twisted trail of half-truths and deceit until, looking back, she realized she’d completely lost track of what to believe about him and what had been a fabrication.
    One wild and stormy night he’d walked into her life, from nowhere. Close on his tail there had been armed gangsters and ghosts she’d thought long since buried in her past. She’d stared down the barrel of a gun more than once in the two days since first meeting Denny, and she’d lost everything she had, and then he’d run away, leaving her in the hands of his armed pursuers.
    You never knew where you stood with Denny McGowan, but one thing she had learned was that, more often than not, you would be in the firing line.
    On top of all this, he’d charmed his way into her bed and into her heart, too, and perhaps that was the most unforgiveable thing of all.
    So was she really going to do this?
    Was she going to pick up that telephone and dial the number he’d left on his hastily scrawled note?
    Life for Cassie Dane had been all about bad luck and worse choices, and now...
    Was Denny just a continuation of that cycle, or could he possibly be the way out?
    She’d come down here to Marshall and Sally’s front room to make that call. She’d decided she was going to see this thing through, and try to work out what part Denny was going to play in her life. But now...
    Now she sat there with her hand hovering over the phone, unable to pick it up but equally unable to pull away.
    §
    He’d left the note for her in the early hours of the morning, while she slept. Those few handwritten paragraphs were full of excuses for why he’d fled when the chips were down. For why it had made no sense to wade in there against three armed men to save a woman who had already been turned against him and wouldn’t have gone with him even if he had been able to rescue her.
    Worst thing was, it all made perfect sense. Brady Lowe, Denny’s ex-business partner who now wanted his blood, had given her the freedom to walk away from it all. He’d explained how Denny had lied to her and had only wanted to use her. Even though, earlier that evening, she had really thought she was falling in love with him, by the end of the night she would never have gone with him. So saving his own skin really had been his only option.
    But he hadn’t been willing to give up.
    He’d slipped back in when she slept and left that note. He’d tried to explain himself, tried to convince her that he had fallen head over heels for her.
    The note had concluded:
    It’s 4am now and you’re sleeping like a puppy. I’ve been out to a place called Conway and found an all-night store: I have a new cell phone now. Call me, babe. Any time. Now. Tomorrow. Six months from now.
    Give me a chance and call me.
    D
    She had the note before her now, his new cell number scrawled across the bottom.
    Her hand still hovered over the telephone. Uncertain. Should she give him one more chance, or would that be her worst choice ever?
    She pulled her hand away and rested it in her lap as if it had been stung.
    It was then that she understood: the worst choice ever wasn’t calling him or not calling him, it was allowing herself to be rushed. She needed to get her head straight, get her life in some kind of order.
    She needed to be in control.
    §
    Breakfast of pancakes with bacon and maple syrup tapped from trees in their own backyard was Sally’s answer to pretty much anything. The three of them – Cassie, Sally and Sally’s bear of a husband, Marshall – sat in the kitchen and ate, saying nothing for the longest of times, which just about suited Cassie down to the ground.
    Finally, two pancakes down, Cassie raised a big mug of freshly