Worth It

by Linda Kage

  She glanced up at me, and happy tears glistened in her eyes. “Maybe. I hope so.”

  We hadn’t discussed particulars, like our future, but it seemed obvious we were going to stay together. One day, I was sure we’d marry and start our family. We’d get our happily ever after.

  But for now, I was content with what we had, living in our two-bedroom apartment and working at Forbidden while we filled the rest of our days with each other. And she seemed just as pleased.

  It’d been a few weeks since Rock had attacked me at the club and been arrested, and one week since Reese’s mother’s lawyer had contacted me and coaxed me into suing Statesburg. Life was good, so of course I worried something bad had to happen next.

  But City did a damn fine job of easing my worries. She made me see how we were making it, how we were thriving. So each morning that I woke with her in my arms, I worried a little less and lived a little more.

  “Let’s go to the trouble tree,” I said as an idea hit me.

  City glanced up, surprise in her eyes. “God, I haven’t been there since...”

  I nodded. “Yeah, me neither.” It wouldn’t have felt right to go without her.

  So, after she placed a bundle of flowers on our niece’s grave, we returned to her car and drove to the convenience store that had once been my home-place. From there, we hiked on foot through the trees that seemed as familiar as they were different.

  “Wow, everything’s sure grown up in six years,” City mused.

  She was right. The brush was thicker and harder to navigate, but I still knew the way. “Looks like this tree fell at some point,” I added as we stepped over a fallen trunk. “Probably taken down during some storm.”

  Her fingers tightened on mine. “I hope our tree’s okay.”

  I cast her a glance, and simultaneously, we picked up our pace. I almost missed her impractical shoes as she was capable of keeping up with me, but then I realized we’d grown up just as much as our woods had...and it wasn’t a bad thing.

  “There,” I said, pointing as I spotted the familiar bark.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  City rushed to the trouble tree and found the spot where I’d carved a heart with our initials inside. She placed her palm on the scar and smiled fondly. “It’s still here.”

  I placed my hand over hers. “Did you ever doubt it?”

  She glanced up at me. “I might’ve worried for a while, tried to give up hope for a few years, but deep inside, I always knew. This wasn’t going anywhere.”

  “Because you never truly gave up hope,” I said, glad she’d been the strong one at the end and fought for us, kept us together.

  With a wistful sigh, she traced the heart with her finger. “God, we were so young.”

  “Too young,” I agreed.

  “But that didn’t seem to matter. Love doesn’t understand time. It doesn’t care if people change. It just grows where it grows.”

  “And it bloomed inside us.” Slipping a hand into my jeans pocket, I pulled out a knife and flipped it open. “Here’s to a new us.”

  Then I went about carving a larger heart around the original one.

  The club was quiet when I entered. I usually showed up early before we opened on Saturdays to set up the karaoke system. But my feet were dragging today. Over the past few weeks, I’d come to dread karaoke night. Ever since I’d performed that idiotic song about watching some girl singing karaoke, a horde of women had flooded the stage every Saturday, butchering that very same piece, as if I’d automatically think their performance was better than hers had been.

  I never did. She never came back. And I grew even moodier.

  I blamed my coworkers entirely.

  Every single fucking one of my friends at the bar had paired off. Even the new guy Knox had snagged Felicity—the lucky bastard. It was messing with my head, making me write stupid songs about girls I didn’t even know and had only seen once across a crowded club.

  It was jealousy. Plain and simple. I’d never been able to get what all the other guys had. Seemed like the only thing I could score were one-night stands, and honestly, that wasn’t really my thing.

  Getting all up close and personal, sharing my most private business with a near stranger...yeah, just...why? I still partook when I was hard up, but I really didn’t see the appeal, didn’t get why some men thought it was such a grand lifestyle. It sucked ass if you wanted my opinion. With no idea how a one-night stand liked it best and with only one shot to do it right, sex was always like a roll of the dice. I either struck it lucky and left her happy or failed miserably. And sex was the only thing that ever happened with one-night stands, which just seemed empty and pointless.

  One day, I wanted to know a woman inside and out, know what made her breath catch and her toes curl. I wanted to know what made her smile, or what pissed her off. I wanted to be able to just cuddle with her on a couch and eat popcorn while watching a movie together, talk music, argue which was the best band ever made, just hang out with a person I wanted to be with. I—ah hell. I wanted a girlfriend.

  I was the freaking lead singer in a rock band and I wanted to be in a goddamn committed relationship.

  I know, I needed to get my head checked.

  “Hey, Hart.”

  I jumped out of my skin at the call, not realizing anyone else was in the building. I hadn’t seen Pick’s car parked outside either.

  “Step back in my office for a minute, will you?” he called, appearing in the opening of the back hall and motioning me forward.

  Knots immediately formed in my stomach. Frozen to my spot on the stage, I watched him turn away and disappear down the hall.

  “Shit,” I muttered under my breath.

  I’d been avoiding Pick lately. I think he knew it and had respected my stance because he’d been letting me dodge him. So I was extra worried what this conversation was going to be about.

  Regret clung to my lungs as I took a deep breath and then hopped off the stage. I never should’ve told him what I’d told him. But ever since the night Felicity had mentioned he’d been abandoned by his mother at the hospital when he was born, it had bugged me, gnawed at my conscience, evaded my every thought.

  Because my mother had left a baby at the hospital after giving birth to it.

  Two years before she hooked up with my dad, she’d been sixteen and in love with some mechanic at a local garage. I guess things between them had been intense. At least that’s what she’d always told me. My bedtime stories had consisted of tales about how amazing her life had been before I came along, before my drug-dealing dad had dragged her into his world and turned her into a crack whore, then knocked her up with me.

  Once upon a time, she’d been happy and in love with her humble mechanic. Her parents had warned her to stay away, calling him a no-account drunk, so she’d run from home to be with him. And since he’d been nineteen or so and living on his own, he’d taken her in. They were together about four months before she got pregnant. Life was perfect then, she’d always claimed. She and the true love of her life were going to start their little family and live happily ever after.

  Until her mechanic was gunned down right in front of her during some drive-by shooting.

  Watching him die had upset her enough she’d gone into premature labor and given birth to a little boy on the same day her beloved had been slaughtered. It was all too much for her to take in; she couldn’t even look at the baby after it was born. She’d snuck out of the hospital in the middle of the night and wandered the streets a few days before she tried going home to her family, but by that point, they refused to have anything to do with her.

  She was homeless and sleeping in dirty alleyways when Miller Hart stumbled across her during one of his sales. He’d offered her drugs if she’d...well, I like to block out that part of her story, so I prefer to think he only offered her a warm, dry place to stay.

  The idea of oblivion, forgetting all the pain, had been addictive to her, so she’d agreed to Mill
er’s not-at-all-sexual terms.

  And they’d become one of the unhealthiest couples to ever grace the planet. He treated her like shit, beat her black and blue when the mood struck, forced himself on her damn near every night. And she despised him right back, only sticking around so she could get her next hit.

  When he grew bored with her, he’d pick on me. I can’t remember how many times my mom had watched dispassionately as my dad wailed on me, her eyes glassy and lifeless as she inhaled whatever she was smoking.

  On the good nights, when she’d crawl in bed with me to escape him, shaking from withdrawal tremors, she’d tell me about the other baby, her voice far away and wistful as she imagined how good her life could’ve been if only her mechanic had lived.

  “I could’ve had a real son,” she would say. “One I could actually love.”

  And I’d always kind of hated that other boy, or envied him—whatever—wishing I could be him instead of me, away from this place and probably adopted by some amazing family who actually gave a shit.

  Learning about Pick’s past had changed all that though. He was the right age to be that baby, but he had never been adopted by some kind, caring family. After asking around, I’d discovered he’d had a pretty sucky childhood, yanked from one foster home to the next, forced into watching one of his foster sisters get raped and basically having the worst luck wherever he went, landing at only the awful homes.

  I owed so much to Pick. He’d let me transform his bar completely and set up a stage for my band. He’d let us have our premiere performance here and then return every Friday. He’d let me create karaoke night and install pretty much any sound system feature in the place I wanted.

  I had fans. My dream was coming true. Because of him.

  It felt shitty for me to keep my story to myself after what I knew.

  Didn’t I owe it to him to tell him I might possibly know who his mother had been?

  Well, idiot me, I’d had a little too much to drink after a show one Friday, and I’d made the decision to clue him in, thanks to some help from my buddy Captain Morgan. I’d left him a voice message, spilling everything.

  He hadn’t mentioned it afterward, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up. So I let it go, hoping maybe I’d gotten the wrong number or somehow only imagined that I’d called him.

  But an uneasy gurgle in my stomach told me he had received the message, and he hadn’t forgotten about it at all.

  “I haven’t quite set up everything yet,” I told him as I entered his office, hoping he’d get the hint that I was too busy to talk, and he’d let me go.

  There really was a lot on my plate right now, too much for me to deal with this as well. Women kept coming out the woodwork, trying to convince me they were my Incubus T-shirt girl. I was trying to set up gigs at other places besides Forbidden. And now it seemed I needed to find a new fucking drummer.

  “And we open in—”

  “The stage can wait.” He kept his back to me as he strolled to his desk and picked up a manila envelope. “Shut the door, will you?”

  I felt more like escaping out the door, but I gulped and followed his wishes.

  He turned to me, and a shock of uneasy recognition zapped through me as I took in his features. I’d been too afraid to really study him after learning about his past. I didn’t want to know if he could maybe, possibly be my brother.

  If we shared a mother, he’d want facts about her, details. He’d want a happy story of how beautiful and kind and loving she’d been.

  But I couldn’t give him that. I could only tell him she’d let herself go until she’d turned into a scarecrow, a hollow shell of existence. And then she’d died a brutal death at the hands of my father.

  No one wanted to hear that kind of shit about his mom. What if he ended up blaming me, hating me, because I’d gotten time with her that he hadn’t or because I came from the seed of his mother’s murderer?

  I shuddered, tempted to flee. Except I couldn’t.

  I shoved my hands into my pockets and stared back at a man I’d known over a year, a guy I looked up to and respected and actually liked. And suddenly, I could see my own chin, maybe the shape of my face, the cut of my shoulders.

  It freaked me out. Paralyzed me.

  “I’ve been thinking about that message you left on my phone.”

  “Aww, fuck,” I muttered.

  An amused grin lit his face. “Yeah, I sensed you regretted making that call, but I’m still glad you did. Because I’ve always wanted to know where I came from, and this is honestly the first lead I’ve ever gotten.”

  “It doesn’t mean it’s true,” I started. “It could’ve been some other woman completely who’d been your mother. I’m sure mine wasn’t the only one who...” I couldn’t finish the sentence, so I swallowed hard.

  “You’re right. It might just be a coincidence. We might not have the same mother. But I found a way to get the truth, once and for all.”

  I shook my head. “What’re you talking about?” My gaze landed on the envelope in his hand. “What is that?”

  But I pretty much already knew.

  He tapped it against his palm slowly. “It’s DNA test results, matching a piece of my hair to a piece I stole from you.”

  My legs turned to Jell-O. “Oh, shit,” I mumbled, blindly finding my way to his couch and plopping down. “So it was a match? We’re really...?”

  I glanced up at him, and his brown eyes held so much compassion and understanding that I almost lost it.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t opened it yet. I thought the two of us should open it together.”

  “Right now?” I wiped my hands over my face, still afraid of the answer. Not sure what it’d mean for us, no matter what the results were.

  “When else?” He watched me as he opened one end. I almost blurted out for him to wait. I wasn’t ready. But he’d already pulled the papers free, and was scanning the front page.

  And it was too late to stall anything.

  The Girl’s Got Secrets

  Forbidden Men – Book 6

  Asher’s Story

  Here’s the same old “girl posing as a boy” story but with a rock-n-roll twist.

  Remy Curran dreams of one day being in a band, except the group she wants to join refuses to hire a female drummer. So, she auditions as a guy...and makes the cut.

  Becoming “Sticks,” a member of Non-Castrato, isn’t quite what she dreamed it would be, though. She spends most of her time keeping up the subterfuge and learning how to walk, talk, act, and drink like a man.

  But what’s even harder to deal with is acting oblivious when the band’s heartthrob lead singer, Asher Hart, treats her like one of the guys and not a woman. She never imagined he’d be so much more than a pretty face with a nice voice. But he’s better than perfect.

  He’s perfect for her.

  When love and lies collide, Remy must keep up the act or lose everything.

  Thank you to my family. Yes, ALL of you seven siblings, way more than seven sibling in-laws, parents-in-law, Mom, over twenty nieces and nephews (sorry, I’ve lost count exactly how many nieces and nephews there are now!!), aunts, uncles, cousins, and whatever!!! And a special thank you to my husband and kids: Kurt, Lydia, and soon-to-be Sadie, since you actually have to live with me! Another thank you to Shi Ann and Alaina for your eternal willingness to read my rough drafts...at any point in the story!

  Thanks to my British half, Ada Frost. There aren’t enough kind words to list everything you’ve done for me! And I do apologize for mentioning you in the six-years-ago portion of the story when you wouldn’t have had any stories published yet; I figured since this is fiction, it was okay to stretch the truth a little. And hey, it was just too fun to resist the shout-out since this story is pretty much a tribute to Ryan...whose book I’m still waiting on (no pressure)!!

  Thanks to beta reader, Amanda at Beta Reading Bookshelf, my editor, the always brilliant Stephanie Parent, and proofreaders,
Autumn at The Autumn Review plus Shelley at 2 Book Lovers Reviews. And thank you to the ladies at E. M. Tippetts Book Designs for slotting me in and making some awesome formatting for my stories.

  Here are a couple more shout-outs to some awesome peeps I’ve met just because I write books. Thanks for inspiring me to write more!

  Lindsay Brooks – For being you!

  Adrienne Ambrose – Reigning queen of the Facebook tag!!

  Michelle Chen – For that amazing letter you wrote in support of Zoey and Quinn.

  Sarah Turner – For being so darn sweet and for the Forbidden Men tip jar. Genius idea!

  Carol Sales – Because you truly GET Harry Potter mania!

  Brynne Hounsell – Mostly because I want to suck up to you in the hopes you’ll hook a girl up with some Packers tickets one day!! Just kidding, but seriously... I do envy your Green Bay connections!!

  Wild Banana women like Lydia, Adrienne, Katie, Laura, and Tabitha who never fail to entertain me with your dibs wars.

  All fellow Olicity Fans (Like Menna) – Because you have such great taste in television couples!!! And yes, if anyone was curious: my Felicity Bainbridge WAS named after Felicity Smoak off Arrow!

  And to that woman who messaged me after she read Be My Hero (It’s bugging me to death because, for the life of me, I can’t remember who it was) and assumed Pick and Asher were brothers because Pick thought Asher looked familiar the first moment they met. I only intended for Asher to look familiar because Pick had seen him in one of his glimpses, but your insight planted a seed!

  Thanks to Ada Frost, Amisha Patel, Ana Kristina Rabacca, Elisa Castro, Mary Rose Bermundo, Karen Ferry, Sarah Symonds, Amanda Sheila, Lindsay Brooks, Jennifer Fosorile Skewes, and Nehamiah Harper for your pen pal friendships! If any of you ever need me to vouch for you and say I was with you after you had to sneak off to meet a special someone, I totally will, but only in the name of forbidden love, and if that other person is totally worth it, and treats you right, and won’t ever hurt you, and makes you insanely happy, and respects you and your wishes, and neither of you are already involved with someone else, and...well, they just better be worth it, okay!! Hugs.