#1-3--The O’Connells Read online

  The O’Connells Books 1 - 3

  The Neighbor, The Third Call, The Secret Husband

  COPYRIGHT © Lorhainne Ekelund, 2020, All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Editor: Talia Leduc

  Created with Vellum

  The O’Connells

  Books 1 - 3

  Lorhainne Eckhart

  www.LorhainneEckhart.com

  Contents

  Keep in touch with Lorhainne

  About the O’Connells

  The O’Connells Books 1 - 3

  The Neighbor

  The Neighbor

  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

  The Third Call

  About this book

  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

  The Secret Husband

  About this book

  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

  Please Leave a Review

  What’s coming next in The O’Connells

  The Quiet Day

  Other Series Available

  About the Author

  Links to Lorhainne Eckhart’s Booklist

  Keep in touch with Lorhainne

  Sign-up for Lorhainne’s Newsletter & Monday Blog

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  About the O’Connells

  The O’Connells of Livingston, Montana, are not your typical family. Follow them on their journey to the dark and dangerous side of love in a series of romantic thrillers you won’t want to miss. Raised by a single mother after their father’s mysterious disappearance eighteen years ago, the six grown siblings live in a small town with all kinds of hidden secrets, lies, and deception. Much like the contemporary family romance series focusing on the Friessens, this romantic suspense series follows the lives of the O’Connell family as each of the siblings searches for love.

  The O’Connells

  The Neighbor

  The Third Call

  The Secret Husband

  The Quiet Day

  The Commitment, An O’Connell Novella

  The Missing Father

  The Hometown Hero

  Justice

  The Family Secret

  The O’Connells Box Set Collections

  The O’Connells Books 1 - 3

  The O’Connells Books 1 - 3

  This boxed set collection in The O’Connells series includes The Neighbor, The Third Call & The Secret Husband

  The Neighbor - Book 1

  After the devastating loss of her husband, Jenny Sweetgrass packs up her teenage daughter, Alison, and moves to Livingston, Montana, hoping for a fresh start—that is, until Ryan O’Connell knocks on her door.

  The Third Call - Book 2

  Deputy Marcus O’Connell is blindsided one night after a series of calls comes in from an unknown number, and the caller on the other end is a child. All he knows is she’s six years old, her name is Eva, and there’s someone in her house who wants to hurt her.

  The Secret Husband

  Small-town lawyer Karen O’Connell believes that all of her clients who have found themselves recklessly embroiled in scandal and trouble have done so foolishly because of love. She has heard far too many times that the heart wants what it wants.

  * * *

  But one night, Karen receives a call from Jack Curtis, her vengeful ex-husband, whom she’s never told anyone in her family about. He’s found himself in a world of trouble, arrested and in jail, charged with murder.

  * * *

  He says he’s innocent, and he needs her help.

  * * *

  Her first response is to say no, but Karen knows Jack isn’t the kind of guy to ask for help from anyone, especially not from the ex-wife he openly despises and hasn’t seen in years. She knows there must be more to the story—but what she doesn’t know is that the mysterious circumstances surrounding the murder could be the reason her hasty marriage ended so badly.

  The Neighbor

  After the devastating loss of her husband, Jenny Sweetgrass packs up her teenage daughter, Alison, and moves to Livingston, Montana, hoping for a fresh start—that is, until Ryan O’Connell knocks on her door.

  * * *

  Park ranger Ryan is one of the six O’Connell siblings in Livingston, raised by an independent mom who has been a rock to him. He has a career he loves, and up until six weeks ago, he lived a comfortable life. When a new neighbor moves in and disturbs the quiet peace of the area, bringing with her a daughter who’s walking trouble, Ryan is shocked to discover that the woman is a one-night stand he picked up at a bar years ago.

  * * *

  Right now, the gorgeous Jenny isn’t too interested in making friends, but despite her cool façade, as Ryan gets to know her, he can’t fight an idiotic need to try to ease the pain he sees her trying to hide. At the same time, he knows deep down that both mother and daughter have a secret, and if he were smart, he would listen to his brother’s warning and walk away.

  * * *

  When Alison goes missing, everyone in town believes she simply ran off or found her way into trouble, but nothing about her disappearance adds up. She
simply set out on an afternoon hike into the park and never came back.

  Jenny soon learns she’s not alone when Ryan takes matters into his own hands and sets off with her into the park to find her daughter. What he doesn’t know is that Alison is actually his daughter, too, and when he learns the truth and the real reason she left, the secret could end up dividing the O’Connell family.

  Chapter One

  More or less, Livingston was a quiet town—except for the person next door, the supreme a-hole he had yet to meet.

  Ryan O’Connell’s scale of assholes went from your average pain in the ass, to the lying, cheating dirty dog, to the class A supreme asshole who didn’t give a fuck about anyone and conceivably embraced being said asshole, considering the intolerable noise from next door.

  Ryan wasn’t in the mood to deal with yet another asshole today as he dragged on a pair of gray sweats after toweling off from a cool shower in the August Montana heat.

  The stereo thumped from the Kunkels’ house next door. Actually, scratch that. Althea Kunkel had been a sweet old busybody, always trying to fix Ryan up. She had been the ideal neighbor, though she had always invaded his privacy and his peace of mind, waking him at seven a.m. on Sundays with freshly baked cinnamon rolls. At times, he’d been forced to sneak into his own house after parking up the street so she wouldn’t know he was home.

  She was now six feet under, and Ryan missed her.

  Good neighbors were hard to find.

  He would’ve given anything to have that meddling busybody back instead of the unnamed scumbag who’d recently moved in. Every night for the past three weeks, his new neighbor had incessantly cranked the music so loud that the thump of the bass bounced the only piece of artwork, a painting of dogs smoking and playing poker, that he had on his vibrant white walls. It had been a joke from his sister Suzanne, one of Livingston’s three fulltime firefighters, and he swore she hadn’t expected him to hang it in such a prominent spot in the house.

  That was just one of those things they did on their birthdays, really digging in and competing to find the perfect gift the other would hate. But Ryan was determined always to have the last laugh, and he’d hung the painting in the living room for everyone to see. He liked dogs and found humor in it, and he could see how much it annoyed his sister every time she stopped by.

  “Goddamn asshole,” he said under his breath as he jogged down his stairs, barefoot and pissed, ready to lay out the dos and don’ts of being a good neighbor as the annoying thump continued.

  He pulled open his front door, wanting only peace and quiet, a beer, and an hour or two in front of his idiot box to watch the episode of Survivor saved on his PVR. He stepped out onto the covered porch, the sky dark except for the streetlights, and strode across his overgrown grass, taking in the rusty Hyundai parked in his neighbor’s driveway.

  Across the street, Ham Johnson, bald and fortyish, with three kids and a wife who visited her sister in Idaho every other week, which was when his girlfriend would stay over, was standing on his front porch and watching. Yeah, Ham was just another asshole, but he lifted his hand in a wave and walked back into his house.

  Ryan’s neighbor’s two-story craftsman was identical to his, with now wilting daisies in the flower boxes. He took in the lit house, the closed door, and the noise, which was nearly deafening as he stepped onto the front porch and fisted his hand. He lifted it to the screen and yanked it open with a barely audible squeak, then pounded on the door. “Hey, shut it down!” he yelled. He could be loud when he wanted to, but he was having trouble hearing himself, considering the music was still thumping.

  It was a tune he knew well, “Bad to the Bone.”

  “Fucking asshole,” he said under his breath, then pounded the door again with his fist, louder. He kept pounding until the music suddenly stopped, and he could finally hear his heart thumping, the pull of his breath, and a noticeable ring in the air as the quiet of night was no longer disrupted.

  One, two, three… He heard the footsteps and then nothing, forcing himself to listen, as he thought for sure the asshole had stopped on the other side of the door. He waited for it to open when the light suddenly flicked off, not just the inside light but the porch light too, leaving him standing in the dark. Like, what the fuck?

  “Hey, open the damn door!” he said and pounded on the door again. The neighbors’ dogs were now barking and doors were opening, as if he was now the problem. “You think I don’t know you’re in there? Like, what are you, two years old? Open the damn door.”

  He was positive his neighbor was standing just on the other side, the fucking little coward. Now he had no intention of walking away. “Look, I’m not leaving until we talk and set some ground rules…”

  The light flicked on, and he heard the deadbolt click and watched as the doorknob turned and the door opened. He was staring into the deep brown eyes of a girl who was maybe sixteen, seventeen. She had shoulder-length black hair and wore black eye shadow, a low-cut green army tank, and cut-off shorts that left nothing to the imagination. She also had a nose ring.

  For a second, he was speechless. She said nothing.

  “I live next door,” he finally said. “I’m your neighbor. Do you have any idea how loud your music was? It was so loud I couldn’t hear myself think.” He gestured next door with his thumb and took in the way she stared at him, her eyes lingering on his naked chest. Shit, he’d just stepped out of the shower and pulled on a pair of sweats. He hadn’t bothered with anything else.

  “Sorry,” was all she said as she moved to close the door.

  He slapped his hand on it. “Whoa, hang on a second. You know, it’s not as if this is a first offence. This had been going on every night. Who all lives here? Is this, like, some frat house or something?” He took her in and could see the teenage attitude emerging. She was likely going to tell him to go fuck himself.

  “What’s it to you?” she said. Her eyes went right to his hand pressed to the door, holding it so she couldn’t slam it in his face. In that moment, he realized how she could’ve taken it.

  “Look, is your mom or dad here?” he said. She hadn’t told him anything about who lived there, not that he could remember seeing anyone.

  “Nope, just me,” she said and didn’t pull her gaze from him.

  He had to fight the urge to laugh. “So you live here by yourself? A little young, aren’t you?”

  She slid her hand up the door frame and cocked her hip in a teasing motion that had him pulling his hand away and stepping back. “Depends on what you like,” she said.

  He wondered if his eyes bugged out, and he glanced over his shoulder. “Cut the crap, kid. Don’t…” he started, but just as he did so, he heard a car and saw the flashing lights of a cruiser as it parked out front. “You called the cops?”

  She just shrugged, and he thought he saw the hint of a smile. In that second, he knew what the teen, whose name he still didn’t know, had done. This was a girl who could cause him some serious trouble. He should’ve called the cops first!

  “Oh, I’m so glad you got here when you did, officer,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. My mom’s not here, and this man won’t leave. He threatened me and scared me, pounding on the door…”

  Ryan couldn’t pull his eyes from what seemed like an actress pulling off the perfect scene, and even her expression seemed to be that of a truly scared girl. He heard the creak of the step and took only a second to glance to the deputy now standing beside him, his hands on his belt. The man had the same O’Connell blue eyes he did, his dark wavy hair in the same cop cut he always wore. It was none other than his younger brother, who placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “Are you for real, kid?” Ryan snapped.

  “Well, aren’t you going to arrest him?” the kid said accusingly, and he wondered for a second if this was a joke. The look on her face was all the reality check he needed.

  “Care to explain, Ryan?” said Marcus O’Connell.

  Just then, Ryan
spotted the headlights of a small Jeep Patriot that was pulling in behind the rusty Hyundai.