Triple Diamonds (Mystic Nights Book 2) by MJ Nightingale

drawers. Finding what he was looking for, he let the towel drop and donned a pair of running pants and a long sleeved t-shirt. From the small refrigerator in the kitchen nook area, he grabbed a bottle of water, and hit the hall, doing his stretches in the elevator. He hated wasting time. He waved to a few early birds in the lobby, and then once outside began to run. Slow at first until his muscles warmed up. It was a glorious day in Lantern Hill. Spring had most assuredly sprung.
    He went round to the back of the hotel and took the paths for runners like him that enjoyed a run along the Mystic River.
    If he had the time, he’d run home. The path they had built went close to his home. A five mile stretch in both directions. Even though the five wouldn’t take him long, he wanted to do some weights today and his car was still at the hotel. And, he would like to hit the gym at the hotel before it was packed with patrons.
    He did about three miles and turned around. He felt the perspiration running down his back, and lifted the edge of the front of his shirt to wipe his brow while he thought about Jewel Diamante. What a name? Her parents, must have had fun picking that one out. She was damned difficult not to think about. Again, memories of last night flooded his brain. She had been something, willing, and pleasing all at the same time. Incredible.
    She was younger than him, that he knew. Native. They had not been in school together, but he imagined she must have been teased over her name. But he liked it. It suited her. She was a Jewel. A princess. A diamond. All woman. And she was also the kind of woman he’d always imagined himself settling down with, well, back when he’d wanted to settle down. But Tara had ruined that for him. It had been about trust, and faith. He didn’t trust her, and had lost his faith in women.
    He briefly thought of her. He didn’t like to. But, in the early stages of their relationship, he’d thought she was the one. She wasn’t. Tara George had also been from Lantern Hill, and they had gone off to college together. They were going to get their education and then come home and start a life together, do good things back home. Stupid. Young. He’d found her blowing his roommate in the dorm in their second year of university. She was drunk. And high. He hadn’t even known she had become addicted to prescription pills while studying to be a nurse.
    Immediately, he’d ended it. Humiliated, too. He’d moved off campus then, and heard she’d left school the following year. She’d married someone she had met and now lived somewhere in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, Lantern Hill was not large and people liked to keep giving him the scoop on her. Apparently she had three kids, and still drank like a fish. She was also divorced. But she stayed in Oklahoma. He’d never thought of getting back together with her. It was about trust and faith. And she’d destroyed that.
    But that was another time, and another place. He’d loved her, but he’d gotten over her pretty quickly, too.
    Now there was Jewel. He almost wished he’d met her first. But he wasn’t ready to settle down. Even then. That he could admit to himself. He enjoyed college after Tara left. Had partied, sometimes too hard. Hell, he still liked to have a good time on occasion. Plus, he had other dreams to pursue, and although he’d found Jewel strangely attractive, almost overpoweringly so, with what was going on with the rest of his life, he was better off that she had escaped him. Now, he didn’t have to worry about that awkward parting that was bound to come.
    Finally back at the casino, he went in the rear entrance. The fully equipped gym faced the tail end of the casino offering great vistas of the river, and The Mohegan Sun which sat across from them.
    The girl at the desk handed him a bottle of water as was his custom, and he drained it. Heading directly to the free weights, he adjusted what he wanted on the bars, secured the weights,