Wild Child

Praise for
Molly O’Keefe’s Crooked Creek Novels

Crazy Thing Called Love

“There is no stopping the roller coaster of emotion, sexual tension and belly laughs. O’Keefe excels in creating flawed characters who readers will root for on every page. Despite very serious subjects and tear-worthy emotion, the tone of the novel is a perfect balance of fun and heart.”

—4½ stars,
RT Book Reviews

“O’Keefe’s newest romance hits the high notes with a storyline that tugs on the heartstrings, maintains a sizzling degree of sexual tension, and plays on realistic, authentic conflicts that keep the audience emotionally invested from start to finish. Gripping storytelling and convincing character-building allow the story to unfold in the present and in the past, offering windows into the psyches of a damaged hero and his restyled first love. An intense, heartwarming winner.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“
Crazy Thing Called Love
has become my all-time favorite contemporary romance! … Don’t miss out on O’Keefe’s Crooked Creek series! These are the books you will still be talking about in twenty years!”

—Joyfully Reviewed

“There is nothing lacking in Molly O’Keefe’s
Crazy Thing Called Love
. I am glad to say that it has every possible thing a woman could want in a good romance story. The Crooked Creek series is something that you will definitely want to get your hands on.”

—Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews

“Wonderful story … unlike anything I have read before … Highly addicting.”

—Single Titles

“This was an absolute joy to read.… Definitely a book worth picking up.”

—Cocktails and Books

“O’Keefe keeps the momentum of the present story going at a breathtaking pace with well placed visits back to the past, providing insight into these characters.”

—Fresh Fiction

Can’t Buy Me Love

“Readers should clear their schedules before they pick up O’Keefe’s latest—a fast-paced, funny and touching book that is ‘unputdownable.’ Her story is a roller-coaster ride of tragedy and comedy that is matched in power by believable and sympathetic characters who leap off the pages. Best of all, this is just the beginning of a new series.”

—RT Book Reviews

“From the beginning we see Tara’s stainless steel loyalty and her capacity for caring, as well as Luc’s overweening sense of responsibility and punishing self-discipline.… Watching them fall for each other is excruciatingly enjoyable.… 
Can’t Buy Me Love
is the rare kind of book that both challenges the genre’s limits and reaffirms its most fundamental appeal.”

—Dear Author

“
Can’t Buy Me Love
is an unexpectedly rich family-centered love story, with mature and sexy characters and interweaving subplots that keep you turning the pages as fast as you can read. I really enjoyed it. It’s also got some of the most smooth and compelling sequel bait I’ve ever swallowed.”

—Read React Review

“If you love strong characters, bad guys trying to make good things go sour, and a steamy romance that keeps you guessing about just how two people are going to overcome their own angsts to come together where they belong, then I highly recommend
Can’t Buy Me Love
by Molly O’Keefe. You won’t be disappointed.”

—Unwrapping Romance

“A stunning contemporary romance … One of the most memorable books I’ve read in a long time.”

—D
EIRDRE
M
ARTIN
,
New York Times
bestselling author

“Molly O’Keefe is a unique, not-to-be-missed voice in romantic fiction.… An automatic must-read!”

—S
USAN
A
NDERSEN
,
New York Times
bestselling author

Can’t Hurry Love

“Using humor and heartrending emotion, O’Keefe writes characters who leap off the page. Their flaws and foibles make for an emotional story filled with tension, redemption and laughter. While this novel is not a direct continuation of the first in the series, it makes the reading richer and more interesting to devour the books in order. Readers should keep their eyes peeled for the third book and make room on their keeper shelves for this sparkling fresh series.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Have you ever read a book that seeped into your soul while you read it, leaving you feeling both destroyed and elated when you finished?
Can’t Hurry Love
was that book for me.”

—Reader, I Created Him

“
Can’t Hurry Love
is special. It’s that book that ten years from now you will still be recommending to everyone because it is undeniably great!”

—Joyfully Reviewed

“An emotion-packed read,
Can’t Hurry Love
 … is a witty, passionate contemporary romance that will capture your interest from the very beginning.”

—Romance Junkies

Wild Child
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Bantam Books eBook Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Molly Fader
Excerpt from
Never Been Kissed
by Molly O’Keefe copyright © 2013 by Molly Fader

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B
ANTAM
B
OOKS
and the H
OUSE
colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

ISBN 978-0-345-53371-5
eBook ISBN 978-0-345-53372-2

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book
Never Been Kissed
by Molly O’Keefe. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

www.bantamdell.com

Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi
Cover photograph © Claudio Marinesco

v3.1

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

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

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Dedication

Other Books by This Author

Excerpt from
Never Been Kissed

Chapter 1

Six months ago
    

Jackson Davies knew better. He really did. There were friends you could do free hard labor for, and there were friends you couldn’t.

Sean Baxter was decidedly a friend you couldn’t. And yet Jackson managed to be shocked when Sean sat down to watch TV while Jackson was still sanding drywall.

“You’ve got to be joking!” Jackson threw down the sandpaper. He was covered in dirt and grime and sweat. He itched. Everywhere. Agreeing to help Sean renovate his family’s old dive bar, The Pour House, had seemed like a good idea four months ago—a little physical labor, some laughs with friends.

But so far Jackson and Brody, Sean’s brother, were doing all the work.

Why are you surprised? It’s grade school all over again
.

“I just want to see this clip on
America Today
.” Sean’s face mask was pushed up into his red hair, revealing a clean circle of skin around his lips. No doubt Jackson and Brody looked equally ridiculous. Jackson needed to shower before heading to City Hall. “Monica Appleby is going to be on. You know, that writer—”

“You know, I’ve actually got work to do.
Real
work.” Jackson took off his tool belt. Behind him, Brody kept scraping away at the mahogany bar he was refurbishing.
Brody was in town for a week between jobs and he’d committed to slave carpenter labor for that time.

Jackson couldn’t help the man.

“I’m sure Bishop will do just fine without you on a Friday morning.”

“I’m mayor, Sean. I can’t just take the whole morning off.” And the truth was, working out here at The Pour House was easier than going into City Hall today and almost every other day.

Bishop, Arkansas, was dying. Slowly, from a financial wound Jackson didn’t know how to fix. And Jackson took a lot of pride in being able to fix anything.

At least sanding walls made him feel like he was doing something.

“I’m out,” Jackson said. “I’ve got a meeting with the city council, and …”

“Shhhhh, there she is!” Sean turned the volume up, and even Brody was forced to stop his relentless work and watch the screen.

Monica Appleby sat on the couch in the
America Today
green room. The reality-star-turned-author was everywhere these days. And every time Jackson caught a glimpse of her on a magazine cover or TV show, he thought the same thing:
that girl is trouble
.

Her black-haired, purple-eyed beauty was diamond bright but lined in smoke and sin. Something about Monica managed to put a spotlight on every single wrong and dirty thing he’d abstained from in the last seven years. Expensive bourbon, cheap tequila, beautiful women whose names he didn’t want to know, steak dinners, the Las Vegas strip, unpaid parking tickets—all of it.

She was the human and stunningly gorgeous personification of everything he wanted and couldn’t have.

It hurt to look at her.

“Remember her?” Sean asked. “From when we were kids?”

A terrified six-year-old, clinging to her battered mother’s legs
.

“Of course I remember her,” Jackson said. That girl’s brief nightmarish stay in Bishop was a low point, for him and for the town. It had turned them all into voyeurs, decent people with better things to do than lining up outside the police station for a glimpse of Monica and Simone Appleby and all their pain.

“I loved that show she was on with her mom,” Sean sighed.

Jackson did not want to get into the reality-television horror show that Monica and Simone Appleby had inflicted upon the world, years ago. Monica had been a nightmare teenager, and Simone’s inability to control her had made for hugely popular though short-lived television.

Simone had her own show now, by all accounts equally bad.

“I gotta go,” Jackson said.

“See you later?” Brody asked, his black hair held back with a bandana. He looked badass, as much as his brother looked like a leprechaun with drywall dust in his hair.

“I’ve got to pick up Gwen after school. She’s got an interview down at Ole Miss.”

“I can’t believe your sister is old enough to go to college,” Brody said.

She wasn’t. But she was smart enough. And he was just desperate enough to let her go.

“Can you guys cut the chatter?” Sean asked. “I’m trying to listen here.”

“We’ll talk with Monica Appleby right after we discuss one CEO’s effort to bring industry back to small-town America,” said Jessica Walsh, the
America Today
host.

“Oh, Jessica, I always knew you were a tease,” Sean said, and he grabbed the remote to turn down the volume.