2019 Piper Davenport
Copyright © 2016-2020 by Piper Davenport
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States
Road to Forever (previously, The Promise) is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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.
Cover Art
Jack Davenport
CONTENTS
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Back Blurb
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Reese
Book List
Reading Order
About Piper
Jenny:
Thanks for all the hard work on the editing!
Kelly:
Thanks again. Your insight is always so spot on!
Jack:
Thank you for all your hard work on the covers. I couldn’t do this without you!
Brandy G.
Thanks for the big “catch!”
Mary H.:
Thanks for the multiple read throughs!!!
Gail:
Thank you for your eagle eye!!! You’re amazing!
A promise is a promise is a promise...
Lily James has two loves outside of her family... Maverick Quinn and ballet. She’s a Dogs of Fire Motorcycle Club princess who has found her prince. But when faced with an agonizing truth, she must decide whether to pursue her dreams or protect the one she loves.
Maverick Quinn knows what he wants in life, and it all starts and ends with Lily James. He’s loved her since he was a boy and his love has only grown with age, but when she walks out of his life without warning, he questions their entire relationship.
When a threat from inside her family comes to light, he makes the ultimate sacrifice, because a promise is a promise is a promise.
For Brett
You have always been the inspiration for Maverick and I love your super pretty face! You’re a hell of a nice guy too...
Lily
A BLOODY NOSE.
Never in my wildest thoughts did I ever imagine something as simple as a bloody nose would be the beginning of the end of “Liverick.” We were forever.
I had just started my senior year of high school at the Arts school in Vancouver, Washington, and my boyfriend, Maverick, was off fulfilling his first year of a full-ride athletic scholarship playing football for Notre Dame. It was our first time away from each other, and we were miserable. But we’d concluded it was just one year. I’d join him the following year, and we’d be back on track. There was never any talk of me not moving to Indiana to be close to him, even my parents were on board. If I didn’t get in, then I’d go somewhere else close to Mav. After all, we’d been together since I was five and he was six. This was it for us.
Well, until...
It was a Wednesday. It was raining, and school had sucked. Ballet, however, had almost made up for my crappy day, but I was still late. I ran through the front door, yelling, “Hi, Mom, bus was late, sorry, gotta Skype Mav,” and rushed up to my room, powering up my laptop. Our black lab, Rex, followed, so I greeted him quickly. I peeled off my wet clothes and changed into dry pajamas while I tried to connect Skype. This was new for me... Maverick’s home was right next door, and our bedroom windows faced each other, but for now, I was relegated to seeing him on Skype. It sucked.
Maverick answered on the second buzz. “Hey, gorgeous.”
“Hi, Möosh.”
He chuckled. I’d given Maverick that nickname one night when we’d been out at Frenchman’s Bar, lying on a blanket and making out like crazy. He was always saying the sweetest things, and I always found it funny how the men in my sphere of influence were the romantic ones, while the women... not so much.
“You’re so mushy,” I said, kissing him.
“It’s because I love you.”
“So because I’m not as mushy, I don’t love you?” I challenged.
He grinned, the crater on his left cheek melting me. Seriously tall and muscular with longish dark hair, blue eyes, and dimples, Maverick Quinn was the hottest guy on earth. He’d always reminded me a little of Superman. You’d never guess he was the son of a badass motorcycle club member, being way more jock than biker... but I suppose, you could say that about me as well. I was far more ballerina than biker chick.
“Mom and Dad are the same way,” he pointed out. “So are your parents.”
“This is true.” I giggled as he squeezed me. “I do love how you get all mushy, and then you smoosh me, though. They just make out and play ass grab with each other. It’s weird.” I craned my head to look up at him. “But you’re totally my moosh.”
Maverick laughed. “What the hell?”
“I’m over ‘babe’ and ‘honey’ and ‘sweetie.’ From this point on, you’re my moosh.”
“You already picked ‘Liverick.’”
“Well, we couldn’t be Maly... that’s just silly.”
He shook his head. “Well, if I’m your moosh, I want something cool. Something with umlauts in the spelling or some shit like that... like a bad European rock band.”
I giggled. “Like m-ü-s-h?”
“Nuh-uh. I want m-ö-o-s-h. The second umlaut is silent.”
I laughed so hard, I snorted, which was always Mav’s goal.
“How was dance?” he asked, bringing me back to the present.
“It was really good, actually. Your mom’s kicking my butt.”
“As she should.”
I sighed. “She wants me to do a showcase for the Rose City Dance Company.”
He leaned forward. “And what did you say?”
Maverick knew how much I hated attention... good or bad. I was naturally shy and tended to stay in the background whenever possible. “I said I’d think about it.”
He gave me a gentle smile. “Just tell her no, baby. She’ll understand.”
“Outside of the fact there could be scholarship money, I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“Lil,” he said, his voice a gentle admonishment. “You won’t hurt her feelings. She’s asked before, right?”
I nodded.
“She’ll get it, baby doll.”
“I’ll tell her tomorrow,” I promised. “You’re playing Duke this weekend, right?”
“Yep.” He shrugged. “But I’m ready.”
“I know you are.” Maverick was not one to talk about game day this close to game day, so I changed the subject. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. Less than six weeks and I’ll be home for Thanksgiving.”
“I’m
crossing the days off my calendar.”
“Me too, baby.” He leaned forward. “Lil, your nose is bleeding.”
I touched my lip, and my hand came away with blood. “Oh, gross. Hold on.” I rushed into the bathroom attached to my bedroom and grabbed a washcloth. Rex followed inside and sat beside me as I got the cloth wet.
“Press it against your upper lip, just under your nose,” Maverick directed from the computer. “Apply lots of pressure.”
I kept my head tilted back slightly and sat back down at my desk, peering at Maverick around the bloody washcloth. “So video sex probably wouldn’t be attractive right now, huh?”
Maverick laughed, shaking his head. “If your dad heard you say that, he’d have my balls.”
I grinned. “He doesn’t know about us... you know.”
“I’m sure he suspects.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” I countered in a whisper. There’s no way my dad suspected we were doing the nasty because if he did, Maverick probably wouldn’t be able to walk, let alone play football.
Maverick and I had waited a long time to have sex... well, a long time by teenage standards, really. It was my seventeenth birthday, and we’d been given permission to take my dad’s boat out for the day alone, provided we were home in time for the big blowout party my parents had planned.
The whole day had been one of dreams. We’d made love, swam a little, and then made love some more. After that, I found it difficult to keep my hands off him. Everything with Maverick was always perfect, and I couldn’t wait until we could find time to be together again.
Maverick smiled. “Well, I’m not telling anyone.”
“Me neither.”
“How’s your nose?”
I pulled the washcloth away. “Seems good. That was weird.”
“Probably allergies.”
I nodded. “Probably.”
“I have to go grab dinner with the guys. I’ll text you later, okay?”
“Okay, Möosh,” I said, but it wasn’t okay. I wanted to keep talking to him.
He smiled. “I miss you, too, baby doll.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I’ll text you before I fall asleep,” he promised.
He disconnected the Skype, and I headed downstairs. Hunter, my eleven-year-old brother, was in the family room, playing some Disney Infinity game with Case, my nine-year-old brother, so I patted their heads (they did not like to be interrupted during playtime) and walked into the kitchen. Rex was attached to my side, so I once again laid my hand on his head.
“Hi, Mom.”
Payton wasn’t my biological mom, but she’d adopted me when she and my dad had gotten married. She was my mom in all the ways that counted, especially considering my bio mom was a druggy and total waste of space.
“Hey, honey. How was school?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Um, totally sucky.”
“Because it’s school or for a specific reason?” she asked, sliding some kind of pie into the oven.
“Because it’s school.”
“Sorry, babe.” She opened the fridge. “I grabbed that cheese you like. Want some?”
“Yes, please.”
She handed me the wedge of Beecher’s Flagship Cheddar.
“Thanks.”
I had a small obsession with cheese. Okay, maybe not so small—but mostly because I had to have it every day. I had a few things I was passionate about and tended to also be vocal about them. Along with my obsession with cheese, I’d always wanted to visit Charleston, South Carolina. I was a sucker for antebellum mansions and American history, and it had always been a dream to explore the East Coast and the South. I’m not sure why I focused on Charleston so much, because several other places were rich in American history, but Charleston had always been my dream. Mom always said I was born at the wrong time in the wrong place. I should have been born in the 1800s and lived through the hoop skirt era.
“Cass asked me to do that showcase,” I said as I broke a piece of deliciousness off the triangle.
“I know. She told me,” Mom admitted. “It’s five thousand, baby girl.”
“No pressure,” I grumbled.
“I am sympathetic to your stage fright and the discomfort you feel having people watch you, but if you can put that aside and are chosen, it’s a nice chunk toward school.”
“What if I’m not chosen? Then I would have done all of that for nothing.”
“Valid argument,” Mom conceded. “But the likelihood of you not being chosen is pretty low.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all we ask. You know, the collective ‘we.’ The mom and dad who work hard to pay for a great education... those two. The ones who could use a five-thousand-dollar break?”
I giggled. “I hear you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Are you making a peach pie?” I asked, changing the subject.
She grinned. “I am. Your dad requested it.”
I clapped my hands. “I love your peach pie.”
She waggled her eyebrows. “So does your dad.”
“Okay, gross. I did not need to know that.”
“How’s Maverick?” Mom asked with a laugh.
I sighed. “Not here.”
“I’m sorry, honey. This has got to feel like forever, huh?”
I nodded. I loved this about my mom. She never minimized how I felt or told me things like, “It’s only a year, or a few weeks, or whatever.” She let me cry on her shoulder and validated every emotion, distracting me when things got really tough.
I heard her gasp and then a towel was pressed against my face. “Your nose is bleeding,” she said.
“Oh, yeah, that happened when I was talking to Mav,” I said. “It stopped for a bit. It’s probably just allergies.” I held the towel against my lip again and waited.
“Maybe. I’m going to have Macey take a look. If she thinks it’s allergies, then I won’t rush you to the emergency room wrapped in bubble wrap.”
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help my smile. Macey was Mom’s best friend and a registered nurse. She used to work in the emergency room at the hospital but started working in labor and delivery part-time after she had babies. Mom called her about everything more serious than a hangnail. It was the running joke, but Macey was really good at her job and could usually tell if an ailment was something minor or if a doctor needed to do tests, so everyone trusted her.
I heard the garage door go up and then Dad walked in, throwing his leather jacket and cut in the closet. My dad, Alex ‘Hawk’ James, was Treasurer of the Dogs of Fire Motorcycle Club, and tonight was their club meeting, which they referred to as “Church.”
“Hey, baby girl,” he said and hugged me as he walked into the kitchen, nodding toward the towel. “What’s up with that?”
“Hi, Daddy. Allergies, I think.”
He released me and pulled Mom in for a grosser than normal public display of affection, which I avoided by turning around and looking outside. So much for my opinion they didn’t smoosh. In my need to avoid the PDA, I almost stepped on Rex who still hadn’t left my side. I settled my hand on his head again as I kept pressure on my nose with the other.
“You call Mase?” Dad asked Mom.
“She’s coming over to borrow a dress, so she can look at Lily then.”
“Gonna go say hi to the boys.”
“Okay, baby,” Mom said.
Dad headed out of the kitchen, and I faced Mom again. “What time’s Macey going to be here?”
“I think she and Dallas are swinging by around nine.”
“Okay. I have some homework, so I’ll work on that before dinner.”
“Sounds good.”
I made my way upstairs and started on my homework. Dinner was pretty uneventful, the peach pie was divine, and then my world imploded.
Macey didn’t think it was allergies.
Macey was right
.
Lily
Two weeks later...
“I CAN’T TELL him,” I argued.
“Why not?” Mom asked.
“Because he’ll give up everything he’s worked for in order to be with me during chemo!” I snapped. “And what if I die? He’ll have wasted his whole fucking life for no reason!”
Tears streamed down Mom’s face. My aunt Kayla (Dad’s sister), dropped her head in her hands and swore. Luckily, this argument was happening while Dad was at Church. No one knew about my diagnosis outside of the four of us and Macey... not even my brothers. Chemo started in two weeks, so we’d have to tell them then, but for now, I wanted it kept secret until I could figure out how to handle the Maverick situation.
“Don’t do something this dumb,” Kayla said. “You’ll regret it.”
“Kay, I have to,” I said. I felt sick. The thought of going through chemo without Maverick almost broke me, but the thought of him giving up everything to be by my side gave me a deeper resolve. Whether or not my life was over, I refused to subject him to that uncertainty.
“I get that you feel that way, honey,” Mom whispered. “But I don’t think you need to go to that extreme.”
“I think I do,” I countered.
“This is probably the hardest thing you’ll ever have to deal with, honey,” Mom said. “He’ll want to be there for you... you’ll want him there for you.”
“Mama, he’ll stop his whole life for me. You know he will. I just can’t let him do that.” I bit my lip. “I have to break up with him.”
“That boy is gonna lose his fucking mind,” Kayla ground out.
Mom shook her head. “I wish I could give you some sage advice and make all of this better. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Kayla just groaned.
“When he comes home, he’ll want to see me,” I continued. “I’ll probably be bald, or look like some kind of ugly molting bird, which will give away the fact that I’m dying, and then he’s going to freak out and be the good guy and quit college in order to be with his dying girlfriend. No. If I dump him—really break his heart—then he’ll move on, play harder than he’s ever played, get drafted for the NFL, win a hundred Super Bowls, and be happy.”
“I thought he wanted to be a vet,” Kayla argued.
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