Text copyright ©2020 Lani Lynn Vale
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
To my other half. Love you, Will.
Acknowledgments
Quinn Biddle - Model
Golden Czermak - Photographer
My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing- My editors
Cover Me Darling - Cover Artist
My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred times.
Kendra, Lisa, Laura, Penney, Kathy, Mindy, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.
Table of Contents
Blurb
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:
The Freebirds
Boomtown
Highway Don’t Care
Another One Bites the Dust
Last Day of My Life
Texas Tornado
I Don’t Dance
The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC
Lights To My Siren
Halligan To My Axe
Kevlar To My Vest
Keys To My Cuffs
Life To My Flight
Charge To My Line
Counter To My Intelligence
Right To My Wrong
Code 11- KPD SWAT
Center Mass
Double Tap
Bang Switch
Execution Style
Charlie Foxtrot
Kill Shot
Coup De Grace
The Uncertain Saints
Whiskey Neat
Jack & Coke
Vodka On The Rocks
Bad Apple
Dirty Mother
Rusty Nail
The Kilgore Fire Series
Shock Advised
Flash Point
Oxygen Deprived
Controlled Burn
Put Out
I Like Big Dragons Series
I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie
Dragons Need Love, Too
Oh, My Dragon
The Dixie Warden Rejects
Beard Mode
Fear the Beard
Son of a Beard
I’m Only Here for the Beard
The Beard Made Me Do It
Beard Up
For the Love of Beard
Law & Beard
There’s No Crying in Baseball
Pitch Please
Quit Your Pitchin’
Listen, Pitch
The Hail Raisers
Hail No
Go to Hail
Burn in Hail
What the Hail
The Hail You Say
Hail Mary
The Simple Man Series
Kinda Don’t Care
Maybe Don’t Wanna
Get You Some
Ain’t Doin’ It
Too Bad So Sad
Bear Bottom Guardians MC
Mess Me Up
Talkin’ Trash
How About No
My Bad
One Chance, Fancy
It Happens
Keep It Classy
Snitches Get Stitches
F-Bomb
The Southern Gentleman Series
Hissy Fit
Lord Have Mercy
KPD Motorcycle Patrol
Hide Your Crazy
It Wasn’t Me
I’d Rather Not
Make Me
Sinners are Winners
If You Say So
SWAT 2.0
Just Kidding
Fries Before Guys
Maybe Swearing Will Help
Ask Me If I Care
May Contain Wine
Joke’s on You (6-9-20)
Join the Club (7-14-20)
Any Day Now (8-11-20)
Say it Ain’t So (9-8-20)
Officially Over It (10-13-20)
Nobody Knows (11-3-20)
Depends Who’s Asking (12-8-20)
Valentine Boys
Herd That
Crazy Heifer
Chute Yeah
Get Bucked
Blurb
This is for charity. This is for fun. You are a professional. You can do it.
Those are the words that Calloway Alvarez chants to herself as she watches all the large men gather into the small room where she’ll be doing the interviews for her employer—Hero Magazine.
Honestly, she’s convinced herself that she can’t accomplish the task at hand.
That is until she hears his voice, and her head turns to see him standing there.
Louis Spurlock. Greek god. SWAT officer. Keeper of her secrets. Ultimate fantasy. Man who will break her heart.
***
Louis Spurlock has been playing nice.
He’s been biding his time, giving Calloway the space she thinks she needs.
But then he sees her taking photos of his friends in all states of dress, talking to them all as if they’re best friends, and that little thread of control he’d been managing to hold on to unravels.
Let’s change it up, she says. And the moment the words are out of her mouth, he’s stripping to his skivvies, and throwing out a challenge while he’s at it.
Calloway won’t know what hit her when he’s through playing.
But he does know one thing for sure. When it ends, she’ll be his.
Prologue
Chubby, single, and ready for a Pringle.
-T-shirt
Calloway
“I think we should break up.”
I blinked, unsure whether or not I’d heard those words correctly.
Honestly, I knew they were coming, though.
He’d been very withdrawn over the last couple of weeks, and now that he was set to go to bootcamp tomorrow, and then get stationed somewhere after that—most likely out of the country—I knew that he was trying to think of me.
Trying to be the ‘good guy’ or whatever.
Instead, it only pissed me off.
“Louis…” I started, but he shook his head.
“You have another year of high school left, honey. I want you to experience things that I can’t give you anymore,” he murmured.
He hadn’t given me anything at all.
At least not in that department.
We hadn’t gotten that far.
Honestly, we’d only been ‘seriously’ dating for six months now. And during those six months, he’d been completing his senior year, heading toward graduation. I’d been spending the ma
jority of my time home-schooled because I was just too fucking sick to go to school.
Luckily that was no longer a concern.
Two weeks ago, it was decided that monthly, I would need blood transfusions to help with my anemia. There was just something wrong with me, sadly. Once a month, my periods would get so heavy and out of control that I’d get to the point where I was needing a blood transfusion to stay healthy.
I’d tried many different medicines, including birth control pills to regulate my hormones and red blood cell stimulants to try to get my red blood cell count up where it needs to be. My anemia persisted and now I was left with only one option—monthly transfusions.
“Pretty much you want me to move on, and you want to move on, and you want to maybe meet back up again one day,” I guessed.
He shook his head. “No.”
So if I was understanding it correctly, he wanted to move on, and he didn’t want me to hold out hope that he’d ever come back.
Though, again, that wasn’t very surprising.
I’d made it no secret that I didn’t want to leave Kilgore.
And that was all Louis ever wanted. He wanted to get out of this place, experience the world and travel—hence his joining of the Army.
But me? All I ever wanted to do was to graduate, go to school to be a nurse, and live life—here.
I didn’t have any innate desire to go to the other side of the world and experience things there.
I had it all in Kilgore.
My mom and dad were here. My friends were here. There was a college right around the corner that would afford me to get my nursing degree. And once upon a time, I had Louis.
I gathered up the remnants of my lunch, threw it all into the trash can, then turned back to him.
“Have a good life, Louis Spurlock.”
“But what about the transfusion?” he asked.
“Keep your blood. I don’t want it.”
***
Nine months later
Prom night.
Most girls would’ve been over the fucking moon that today was such a special day. Me? Not so much.
This was not a special day. This was another ordinary day.
Sadly, my good friend Ares was trying to convince me to go to prom when I’d rather do anything but dress up and mingle with the whole high school.
I was two days away from getting a transfusion of blood that would hopefully give me the energy I needed to finish the last couple of days of school, get my SATs conquered, and take my placement test at the college. My life revolved around getting the infusions.
From there, I had a senior trip I had to worry about—this one in Beaver’s Bend, Oklahoma. A trip I most assuredly did not want to go on. Ares’ begging had gotten a little overwhelming, and I’d given in and agreed to go even though I’d rather do anything but spend time with those people.
“Please?” Ares begged.
I looked over at her, seeing her curly red hair pinned up to the top of her head and dressed to the nines in her finest.
Me, on the other hand? I didn’t even own a dress.
Which I told her in the next second.
“That’s okay, because I purchased a dress with my father’s credit card, and you’re going to wear it,” she countered.
I gritted my teeth, wondering if I wanted to come up with another excuse or not, but decided against it.
Instead, I decided, yet again, to give her what she wanted.
“Fine,” I said. “But don’t expect me to do my nails, and it better not take you more than thirty minutes to do my hair and my makeup.”
Ares bounced in excitement, and I was stunned to see that her hair didn’t move once.
It stayed in place, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and poking her hair with one finger. It was stiff as a board.
“How much hairspray did you use?” I asked curiously.
“Enough.” She grinned. “You won’t be a problem.”
No, I wouldn’t.
After Louis and I had broken it off, I’d done a drastic thing and had cut over eighteen inches of hair off.
Louis had always said that he loved it, and begged me not to cut it. Ever since we were little kids, he’d had an infatuation with my hair.
And over the years, I’d not even thought twice about it. I didn’t mind the long hair so much and having known how much he adored it felt kind of special to me. It meant that he cared enough to express his disappointment if I were to cut it.
The moment he left, I’d hacked it off in a fit of anger.
Then I’d gone to my hairdresser and told her to do what she could.
That night, I’d taken the mass of hair that I had fashioned into a tight braid before cutting it off, formed it into a keychain of sorts, and sent it to him.
It’d been the one and only thing that I ever sent to him.
The last time I’d communicated with him at all.
I had gone to his basic training graduation.
Though nobody, not even my father, knew that I went.
Ares had covered for me, and I’d driven over eighteen hours to see him walk across the stage.
I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d done it. I also wasn’t entirely sure why I’d stayed long enough for him to notice me there. But I had.
When he’d started heading my way, I’d gotten lost in the huge crowd, and had driven straight home.
I’d arrived Sunday night with only seconds to spare until my curfew.
That night, Louis had called.
Actually, he’d called quite a bit after his graduation, but I hadn’t had my phone on, so I didn’t get any of those messages until so long after he had left them that I thought it’d be rude to reply.
Which led to now, six months after seeing him last, after having never returned his texts. Even the random ones that he sent once in a blue moon to check on me.
I could hear him talking with my father, his father, and my mom in the living room.
I wasn’t actually sure why they were here, but I knew that I needed to do something. Going to prom was good enough.
Thirty minutes later on the dot, I was standing in front of a mirror with my hands on my hips, staring at the girl in front of me.
She was pretty.
My hair was short enough that it showed off the dangly earrings that had been the one and only gift Louis had ever given me.
My luck, he’d never even notice.
But, seeing as he was at my house, in my living room, I wanted to prove a point.
I was not his anymore.
In fact, I never would be again.
Nope. No. Nuh-uh. He could come crawling back to me, and I would refuse.
“Done!” Ares clapped, finishing hooking a choker necklace onto my neck.
It looked good.
It felt like something was constricting my airflow.
Though, it was hot. I’d give her that.
Which was why I kept it on instead of ripping it off like I really wanted to do.
There would be time to take it off later.
“Ready?” Ares asked.
Ares wanted to go with me to prom because her date wasn’t showing up until much later in the night.
I’d agreed because I had nothing better to do.
At least, that was what I was telling myself was the reason.
The real reason was downstairs.
I knew he knew it was prom night.
I’d gone with him to his prom and had asked him way back then to go with me to mine.
And I didn’t want him to see me down.
So I was going, and I was going to walk past him with my head held high.
“Ready,” I confirmed.
I didn’t bother to put on my heels just yet.
That was the very last thing that I needed to deal with—wobbling past him like a baby fawn.
So, heels hooked in my fingers, I descended th
e stairs and connected eyes with my father almost immediately.
His eyes widened and he stood up, his mouth open to immediately deny me, but my pleading eyes must’ve gotten through before he could voice anything.
He looked over to Louis, who was out of my view as of yet, and then back to me.
His mouth shut, and he looked at me with a small shake of his head.
He knew why I was dressed like this.
“Ohh!” My mother clapped, drawing my attention as I descended two more steps. “You look so beautiful, Calloway.”
I rolled my eyes and came down the rest of the way, unsurprised to see my brother and sisters absent.
It was Saturday night. There was no way they’d be caught dead in the house like me.
Studiously ignoring the other two men in the room—Foster didn’t do anything to me. He just had the unfortunate luck to sit next to his son—I made my way to my dad.
Dad wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pressed a kiss to my head.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he murmured.
Stupid as in ‘don’t do anything that’ll get me pissed at you because you’re pissed at him.’
Well, I couldn’t promise that. Instead, I just smiled and kissed his jaw since it was the only thing that I could reach on my tippy toes.
“Love you. We’ll be back late,” I lied.
I’d be back by ten at the latest. My curfew was twelve most nights, but since it was a Saturday night, I might be able to get a little more time out of him if I absolutely wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to come home and write on my blog. I wanted to curl up with a good book. And most importantly, I wanted to not think about Louis Clark Spurlock.
“Wait!” my mother cried as I let my father go. “I want a picture!”
I sighed and turned to allow my mother to see my face, and I wrapped my arm around my dad’s middle.
He started to pull me in tighter, but I made a disagreeing sound.
“If you mess my hair up, Ares is gonna kill me,” I teased.
“I really will,” Ares supplied, grinning.
Her eyes were on the men behind me. She was grinning wickedly at who I assumed was Louis. But I didn’t dare turn around to see.
“Now you two,” my mother ordered.
I let my dad go and went to Ares.
We hugged tightly as my mother snapped even more pictures.
“How about some with…”
“I can do one with you, and that’s it,” I said to her. “We were supposed to be there over an hour ago.”