Talk Dirty To Me

By Patricia Holden

When Ryan Fallon and his twin sister made a pact at the end of high school to never marry, neither of them knew that Josie Miller would walk into their lives. They certainly did not know that Ryan would fall for her, or that she would fall just as hard for him. Now, Josie is homeless and without a job, facing a week without her family, too. Ryan agrees to take her in, and the pair proceed to talk dirty while they explore their mutual attraction during a whole lot of family drama.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patricia Holden
• Release date: Sep 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370217625

Patricia Holden

A resident of Flyover Country in the Unites States, Patricia Holden, the pen name of a good Catholic girl from the Midwest, is committed to Christianity and traditional social roles, as well as high arts and culture. Watching politics, observing human behavior and writing are some of her long-time interests. The author known as Patricia Holden is a classically trained soprano and proud citizen of Cardinal Nation, although, during hockey season, Bleeds Blue. She lives with family and a cute and charming tyrant...make that a toy dog. She also crochets.Please, visit this writer's Facebook author page @PatriciaHoldenAuthor for reader fellowship and frequent conversations about upcoming books including voting on cover art, and snippets of upcoming offerings.

Book preview

Talk Dirty To Me

by Patricia Holden

Published by Susan Sampson at SmashWords

Copyright © 2017 Susan Sampson

Cover Photo from Good Free Photos

Other Titles from Patricia Holden on Smashwords:

Turn My Head

Break Through

Third Time’s the Charm

Conflict of Interest

Romeo Night

Last Man Standing

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

WELCOME

Welcome to the second half of the Turn My Head series!

In the first six books, we meet a family of seven amazingly hot, and wealthy brothers – and their brides – the Pernouds. The boys all inherited the family trait of falling in love forever at first sight, a phenomenon known as head turning in their family. Along the way in the first six installments of this series, we meet several friends and in-laws who have just as mixed up lives as every other human being out there.

Beginning with this book, the supporting characters find and commit to their better halves. We get to know Ryan Fallon, Josie Miller, Mickey Dolan, and his southern belle, Tara McKenzie. Sean Dolan capitulates on pursuing Marianne Drummond, and her big brother Linus and Sean and Mickey’s sister Maureen spend a lot of time dancing the night away.

Along the way, Gabriel Pernoud and Alicia Drummond FINALLY get married, but not without massive Drummond family drama better suited for the stage than a wedding. Picking up the rear, is a Pernoud cousin, Declan Collins, whose head turner slapped him across the face when he approached her. She was attached at the time, but is no longer.

Watch for the next installments of the Turn My Head series – the brainchild of this author and the product of her hard work, imagination, and observations of human behavior over the years – at this ebook retailer.

For updates, news, and the occasional snippet of upcoming installments, follow my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/PatriciaHoldenAuthor. Friends who are not on Facebook, but would like updates can subscribe to my newsletter at https://tinyletter.com/PatriciaHolden.

The first six books of the Turn My Head series, available via this ebook retailer, are:

Turn My Head – Adam Pernoud and Mae Jones

Break Through – Ben Pernoud and Darcy Platt

Third Time’s the Charm – Christian Pernoud and Sarah Jane Rappaport

Conflict of Interest - Damian Pernoud and Margot Dolan

Romeo Night – Ed Pernoud and Beth Hartke

Last Man Standing – Francis Pernoud and Rosemary Fallon

Chapter 1

Josie Miller flipped on the blinker of her red Cooper Mini Journeyman with the white racing stripes, and took the off ramp from the cross-country Interstate 70 onto to 270, the outer belt around her native St. Louis. 270 was essentially a ring of highway the natives mistook for a NASCAR track when it wasn’t a parking lot during rush hour. She turned south toward home, as far away as possible from the disaster she left behind on the other side of the state in Kansas City.

She turned toward the people who had known her her whole life...and who were most inconveniently out of town this weekend.

Today was the official beginning of summer in the United States, the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, the time the country remembered its war dead from all wars since the one that still scarred the land, the Civil War between the states. Her parents and brothers and sister were all out of town: her sister was with her in-laws at the lake, and her brothers and parents were headed down to the family time share in Destin, Florida. Her mother called her yesterday to complain that they were going to have to take a cooler full of frozen pork steaks with them since she could not get any in the Florida panhandle.

Yeah, for any St. Louis family out of town on a holiday weekend, that would be a disaster. Most of the rest of the world had never heard of pork steaks.

Josie took a deep breath as she navigated through traffic. She had been invited to join the family in Florida, of course, but right now she had other priorities. She had to find a place to stay - away from them if possible - while she started looking for another job, or hired her friend Marianne Drummond’s agent to be her representative. That man was a master at finding Mari sub work in orchestras all over the country. At violin, Marianne was a more valuable commodity since there were always so many violins in every symphony, but not nearly as many strings players played viola like Josie did. Maybe, she thought, she didn’t need a full time gig in a symphony. Maybe she could just sub.

Or not.

Josie put on the blinker again, and exited the makeshift NASCAR track to take one of the other Interstates, 44, into the heart of the metro region to a place that time forgot known as Webster Groves.

Webster Groves began as a nineteenth century upper middle class commuter town on the rail lines before the city of St. Louis grew to meet it. In the older part of Webster, there were huge, graceful, all-American houses that invoked images of flag-waving and white picket fences. It was organized, sort of, in no where close to straight streets that sported block after block of re-gentrified shops where the upwardly mobile liked to spend their money. The place where she was going...well, she hoped her host had cleared out any herbs of essence plants that might be hanging around in his yard. Not that she thought he would ever partake in marijuana, or any drugs other than alcohol, actually, but pot had been a staple in Webster for decades. One had to be careful eating homemade brownies in that part of town.

Everyone knew this.

After exiting the highway, and climbing the ramp, Josie sat at a stoplight, and blew out a breath. She was at a crossroads, both literally and figuratively. Once she made this turn toward her destination - or destiny - her life was going to take a turn one way or the other. She felt the stars aligning for just that since she called home Monday to tell her family and friends that she was leaving Kansas City by the end of the month, only to find out that everyone, quite honestly everyone - except for one person - was going to be out of town.

It was just her luck that she didn’t have the keys to her parents’ house any more, and that the rest of the circle had taken off for family visits in Europe, and for vacation houses in other parts of the country. She could have begged for a different roof over her head, and had somebody leave keys, but, really, given the events of the last six months, she needed to find out if Ryan Fallon, brother of one of the violin players in the string quartet Josie played in, really wasn’t into women, or if she had done something to offend him.

After all, his not pursuing her was how she ended up in Kansas City in the first place.

She followed the GPS instructions to his house, and wound into a neighborhood of barely maintained streets full of early twentieth century arts and crafts bungalows that were hit and miss when it came to being renovated. At the end of one street, she turned the car around in the dead end, and pulled up to the curb of a stucco house painted Blessed Mother blue with beams of white. That particular house was definitely in the renovated category. The covered front porch lacked screens, but it did have columns supporting the roof and dormer topped room above. She put the car in neutral, set the parking brake, and turned off the engine.

Time to face him, one way or another.

Josie pulled the sun visor down to check her lipstick in the mirror. It hadn’t budged despite the four hour drive. Neither had her mascara or any of the other subtle cosmetics on her face. She put a hand through the handles of the cases carrying her most valuable possessions - her viola, and her laptop - and got out of the car, snagging her backpack purse, and tossing it over one shoulder. She slammed the car door, and walked around the front of the Mini to the concrete walk that led to Ryan Fallon’s front porch.

She stepped up onto the curb, and felt her breath catch. There he stood, Ryan Fallon in the flesh, all six feet of him, dressed in old jeans and a white t-shirt, leaning against a porch column. Her eyes met his as she walked to him, her driving slippers silent on the concrete. As she got closer, she took in the dark curls cut close to his head, and the shoulders that had widened in the eight years she knew him. He had filled out nicely. His bluish-hazel eyes didn’t leave hers, or her, even when she looked down at the short stoop of steps to mount them. That was when she noticed that his feet were bare. When she reached the top step, and looked back up into the rugged Irish features - high, straight forehead, angled jaw, high cheek bones, straight and narrow nose, and full, kissable lips - everything stilled.

Josie looked into his eyes for a few seconds, those stunning jewels, and said, Why did it have to be you who was the only one in town this weekend?

Ryan felt a corner of his lips tip up. Good to see you, too, Josie. He lifted the hand from which a glass filled with red wine was dangling, and extended it to her, taking the cases she was carrying in his other.

He watched her take the glass of red wine, and tried not to sigh. Despite the made-up, soft doe brown eyes, bowed full lips, plump cheeks coated with just the right amount of blush, and red earbobs dangling from lobes exposed thanks to her kinky, curly hair being pulled up in a barrette that had the length of it cascading down the back of her head, and the lush curves that he’d wanted to explore for years snugly covered in a white jersey dress with horizontal navy stripes that barely reached her knees, there was an air of resignation about her. He knew she wouldn’t be standing on his front porch if she had any other choice.

The thought stung.

Josie lifted those beautiful brown eyes to him, and said, Got anything stronger? before she tipped the glass back, and took a healthy swallow.

That bad? he asked. After eight years of her being in his orbit, he’d never seen her quite as rattled as this.

Worse, she took a heaving breath, and looked into the glass.

Ryan pushed away from the column, and put his free hand to the small of her back. Come on, and sit down. He led her to the glider that was on the porch along the front wall of the house. Put your feet up. He put her cases on an Adirondack chair, and grabbed a padded ottoman from next to the front door. She settled into the glider with her wine, and did as he bid when he put the stool in front of her. He sat on the porch swing facing her, and reached for his own wine glass on the table next to him. Wanna tell me about it? he took a sip of last year’s Missouri red, a Norton grape wine from Herrmann. Not bad, but not in the same league as his soon to be brother-in-law’s family’s vineyard in Italy.

He watched her take a deep breath. I got beat out at the audition.

Ryan felt his eyes narrow. What audition?

She looked up at him, those doe eyes sad with emotion, and said, The one for the chair I occupied for the last two years.

Ryan’s brain all but froze. Wait, I thought you were just going to join the orchestra at the end of last season.

I was, she took a sip of wine. Then they hired a new music director who decided to audition for all open chairs regardless of who had been subbing. She paused to look into her glass. Every one of the subs was replaced with one of his choices.

Ryan studied her. It was a foregone conclusion within the close knit circle of family and friends they shared that Josie was just going to be a member of the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra. As a sub, she took the place of a player who passed away after a long battle with cancer, and had been a stalwart member of the group for years. Then, a new music director comes in…. Can they do that? he asked.

Josie shot him a look that said, Moron, your sister was in the same boat last year. Yes, they can do that, even with union rules. She took a sip of wine. This new guy has a bit of a reputation. Word is that he has a group that travels with him - all guys, of course - and that any orchestra he takes over, he finds space for them.

Ryan took a deep breath. I thought that shit just happened in politics.

No, Josie said with conviction. It happens everywhere, and in music, every now and then you get a conductor who is really into his own shit, and has groupies. Those guys are usually not the best of the best when it comes to conductors, mind you, but the ones who get results with yelling, screaming, and belittling the musicians. She took another sip. I guess it’s just as well. I mean, I probably would have started looking for another place to play if that guy was there too long.

Ryan looked down at his wine. There was one question he wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure if he should. Being into self-mortification and torment where Josie Miller was concerned, he heard himself ask, What about the trombone player?

Christoph? she asked looking him in the eye.

Ryan shrugged. Was that his name?

Yes, she nodded. I went back to Kansas City a day earlier than I planned after Margot and Damian’s wedding, and found him in my bed with one of the trumpet players.

Ooh, Ryan winced. His cousin Margot and his soon