Free I LOVE LUCY (The Bachelor Pact) by Rita Herron

Prologue
     
     
    7 days until Christmas
    All Emmet Roach wanted for Christmas was to break out of jail.
    Well, that and to be with the woman he loved.
    Lucy Lane.
    She was going to be so surprised when he showed up at her door. Maybe he’d wrap himself in a big red bow and drape tinsel all over his body!
    Yep, that stupid restraining order hadn’t kept him away.
    And prison wouldn’t either.
    His plan was already set. He’d faked a suicide attempt by trying to strangle himself with the garland some idiot guard at the prison had hung in the dining hall to make the room look more festive. Now the doctors had checked him out, he was riding in a prison minivan on his way back to his cell.
    His heart raced with excitement and anger as he envisioned Lucy the last time he’d seen her.
    He’d tried to convince her that he loved her, that he couldn’t live without her, but she’d testified against him and claimed he was stalking her.
    This time he would make sure she understood the difference. He wasn’t a stalker, he just felt love more intensely than others.
    The sound of an engine revving up made him glance in the rearview mirror. His buddy was right on time.
    Phase two of his plan was about to begin. The breakout.
    He braced himself as his buddy’s car roared up, then rammed into the back of the mini-van. The driver cursed, swerved to the right to avoid an oncoming car and struggled to right the vehicle, but his friend rammed them harder and the van’s brakes squealed.
    The driver lost control, the van skidded, then hit the guardrail and rolled.
    Emmet gripped the seat edge to brace himself, but his shoulder jerked with the force of metal hitting asphalt. Then the van skidded upside down into the ravine and careened to a stop against a boulder with a sickening crunch.
    The driver’s head lolled forward, blood trickling down his forehead. A second later, the van door opened and his friend hauled him through the door.
    “Get the damn handcuff key,” Emmet hissed.
    The driver was trying to rouse, but his buddy whipped open the driver’s door, jerked the keys from the key ring on his hip, then unlocked Emmet’s handcuffs.
    The sweet smell of freedom engulfed him as he tossed the cuffs to the ground and ran toward his buddy’s car.
    They tore away from the scene, leaving the driver to fend for himself.
    “Thanks,” he mumbled as a siren wailed past heading toward the wreckage.
    A few minutes later, when they both finally stopped checking over their shoulders for the cops, his friend slid a scrap of paper toward him.
    Emmet’s pulse pounded. “You found her?”
    “Yep. She was doing Vegas shows but hooked up with some builder named Reid Summers. Guy and his brother own a construction business in Savannah, Georgia.”
    Anger churned through his belly. His Lucy was shacking up with some creep after he’d waited for her for the past year?
    “Are you sure you want to look her up?” his buddy asked. “You finally got your freedom.”
    “I’m sure,” Emmet said with a sinister smile. “In fact, I can’t wait to see her.”
    This time Lucy wouldn’t get away from him.
    She loved him, he knew it.
    He just had to remind her of that fact. Then she would forget the hammerhead and be with him where she belonged.
    Maybe they’d even make a baby this Christmas.
    And no one would ever tear them apart again.
    Yes, it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

Chapter One
     
     
    6 days until Christmas
    Reid Summers counted the peppermint sticks in the Christmas countdown calendar Lucy had hung above her bed. Six peppermints left.
    Only six days until Christmas.
    And he still had no gift.
    What in the hell was he going to get Lucy?
    She made a cat-like purring sound in her sleep, then rolled over, and he turned on his side to look at her. He loved watching her sleep.
    Hell, he loved watching her do anything.
    Her fiery red hair lay in a sexy tangle around her face, her lips were swollen from his kisses, and her