by Lynne, Donya
Strong Karma Trilogy
Book 2
Coming Back To You
Published by Phoenix Press
Copyright 2014 by Donya Lynne
For sales information please contact Donya Lynne
on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AuthorDonyaLynne,
or at [email protected]
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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 Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover Art: Reese Dante www.reesedante.com
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
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
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
About the Author
Books by Donya Lynne
Connect With Donya Lynne Online
Dedication
To those in search of true love.
Acknowledgements
No book can be completed without the assistance of a team. I want to thank all my beta readers, critique partners, and pizza-chomping brainstormers and juiceboxers. You know who you are. Notably, thank you to Liz, Sue, Leann, Sandy, Laura, Jill, and Tia. Without your feedback and support, this book would not be what it is today.
To my readers, you’re the reason I do what I do. Thank you for loving Mark and Karma as much as I do.
Prologue
They say you never forget your first true love…that one special person who touched your heart before anyone else, and who, with just a thought, can still set hummingbirds to flight inside your stomach. He will always be there, even though he’s gone. He will always hold a special part of your soul. A part he ripped from your body—because it belongs to him now—and left an empty hole that rejects any attempt to fill it with a memory. A place that aches so acutely and with such intensity that you feel as though you will never be able to breathe deeply enough again.
I don’t know who “they” are or how they came to know such truths, but I know they’re right.
Part I
Letting Go
Chapter 1
December 1
“Take off your shirt and get comfortable, mate.”
Mark loosened his tie, unbuttoned his starched white business shirt, and placed both over the back of a nearby chair. A moment later, his undershirt joined them.
The tattoo parlor was cold. It almost felt like they had on the air conditioning instead of the heat.
With a shiver, he settled into the black leather recliner that reminded him of the chairs in a dentist’s office and waited as Razor, his artist, prepped his station.
“Is your heat not working?” Mark rubbed his palm up and down his arm.
Razor glanced over his shoulder. “No, mate. We keep it cooler in the shop.”
“How come?” He didn’t remember it being this cold last time he was here. But that had been in October, when it was warmer.
“Helps keep people from passin’ out.” Razor set out a couple bottles of ink. “Y’see, people’s bodies heat up coz of the pain. If the place is too warm, folks’ll be blinkin’ on us right and left.”
Mark nodded once, understanding that when Razor said blinking that he meant fainting. “I see.” He wouldn’t pass out. The pain his first time around with Razor hadn’t been too bad. Today should be a piece of cake. But other people might not have the same tolerance for pain he did.
He stared at Razor’s slender back as he prepared his equipment. Other than the mass of tattoos covering his arms and neck, making him a walking billboard for his trade, the guy didn’t fit Mark’s image of what a tattoo artist should look like. He had imagined a biker type with long hair, leather boots with chains, and a rough disposition. Razor was slim, dressed in designer denim trousers, Doc Martens, and a heather red graphic tee. He kept his greying hair short and tidy. He could have been a banker.
Razor pulled on blue latex gloves, sat on what looked like an ergonomic stool, and swiveled to face Mark. “You ready to finish this sweet piece, mate?” He inspected his previous handiwork on Mark’s left pectoral.
“Yes.” Mark had gotten the tattoo in October but wanted to make a few enhancements.
Razor pressed his fingertips against Mark’s chest and pulled on the skin. “This healed up nice.” He tilted his head slightly to one side. “So, you want the glyphs and the surrounding circle to be darker, right?”
“Yes, almost black. And I want some shading around the glyphs. Something with texture that makes the tattoo look more like it’s been stamped on my chest.”
“Easy enough, ay? Let’s make some magic then, shall we?” Razor, a native Australian transplanted in Chicago, had a reputation for being one of the city’s top tattoo artists, which was why Mark had picked him in the first place. For something as precious as this tattoo, Mark wanted the best.
“How long do you think this will take?” Mark glanced toward a nervous blonde in the chair on the other side of the room. She winced and had a death grip on the arms of her chair as another artist hunched over her ankle, a buzzing tattoo gun in his hand.
Razor prepped his gun. “Not long. Maybe thirty minutes. Forty-five if I really get into it.”
A pained squeak drew Mark’s attention back to the blonde. Her artist was a spiky-haired twentysomething with trails of ink up and down his arms and round plugs that looked like small, black wine corks in both earlobes. He glanced up at the girl. “You doing okay?”
The girl nodded briskly as she exhaled and sucked in several small breaths. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
Razor chuckled, pulling back Mark’s attention.
“Got a cherry over there.” Razor bobbed his head toward the girl and the other artist. He spoke quietly and rolled closer. “First tattoo, and she gets it on her ankle. Ain’t that somethin’?”
“Why? What’s wrong with getting your first tattoo on your ankle?” Mark knew next to nothing about Razor’s profession except a good tattoo artist raked in top dollar.
Razor poised his gun over Mark’s tattoo. “The foot and the ankle are the most painful parts o’ the body to tattoo, mate.” His mouth curled in amusement as he glanced toward the girl again. “But that’s what she insisted she wanted. Wouldn’t let us talk her out of it.” He turned on the gun, and Mark sucked in his breath as the needle penetrated his skin at blurring speed.
Mark forced himself to relax and take steady breaths. A few minutes later, he turned to check on the girl. She didn’t look good. Sweaty and pale.
“We’re almost done,” her artist said.
“Okay.” The girl winced and clenched her te
eth.
Why would she put herself through that much pain for the sake of a little ink?
Mark turned toward Razor. “Why did she insist on her ankle if it hurts so much?”
Razor shrugged. “Personal choice.” His voice took on a more somber lilt. “She lost her mum to cancer and wanted a tattoo to remember her by. Said it had to be the ankle coz she and her mum shared a birthmark there. So, the tattoo we drew up incorporated it.”
Mark glanced back at the girl who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two years old. That was too young to lose a parent. “That’s awful.”
“I know. We hear a lot o’ sad stories in this business. Sure, some people want a tattoo coz it’s cool or coz they want to look tough.” Razor’s Aussie accent stroked each syllable. “But more often than not, a tattoo holds special meaning. Each person’s ink tells a story. A tattoo is a piece of custom art that stamps that person’s story on their body forever. Or maybe it just holds a memory.” Razor’s gaze flicked to Mark’s before turning back to his needlework. “Everyone has a different reason for why they put something this permanent on their skin, mate.”
Mark picked up on the unspoken question. He had never told Razor the reason behind his tattoo, but he could tell Razor knew he had one.
Razor’s silent nudge caused Mark’s thoughts to snap to Karma.
Karma Mason.
The woman he’d spent the summer with.
The woman he’d fallen in love with.
His reason. His story. It was her name tattooed on his chest in Asian glyphs. He’d stamped her name on his body like a brand declaring ownership. Because, in her way, she owned him. He willingly admitted that even if he didn’t fully understand how she’d found her way inside his guarded heart.
Since leaving her in Indianapolis in September and driving back to Chicago in a conflicted mess, he’d gone back and forth in his mind countless times about whether he should call her, return to Indianapolis for her, or leave well enough alone. He loved her. Of that much he was certain. But was that enough? For him, maybe. For her, though, he didn’t think so.
Karma deserved a man who would not just love her but marry her. And if Mark had learned nothing else from his past, he’d learned marriage wasn’t in his cards. No matter how much he loved her, he couldn’t get past the roadblock in his brain that gave him a case of the shakes every time he thought about standing at the front of a church waiting for her to come down the aisle.
Then again, he couldn’t imagine a future without her, either. To think he would never see her again rattled his cage as badly as thinking about marrying her. Where did that leave him? A hammer on one side, an axe on the other?
A year ago, he’d been self-assured. Maybe not exactly happy, but definitely content. Definitely with a sense of direction. Now he felt like he didn’t have any direction. As if he were a stalled car. No forward movement. No movement at all.
“So, what’s your story, mate? If you don’t mind my askin’.”
Mark came out of his reverie and cleared his throat. “Maybe I don’t have a story.”
Razor lifted his head and met Mark’s gaze with a dubious smirk. “Everyone has a story, especially when they don’t wear their tattoo where people can see it.” He returned his attention to his needlework. “And especially when they tattoo the word karma directly over their heart, even if the word is written in Asian glyphs.” His deep, tobacco-hardened voice sounded suspicious, almost accusatory.
For a long moment, Mark said nothing. Was Razor someone he wanted to discuss his relationship—or lack thereof—with? In a way, it felt good to think he had someone he could talk to about her, but in another, he just wanted to keep her to himself.
He rested his head back on the plastic-covered cushion and gazed up at the industrial, art deco ceiling. “It’s not a word. It’s a name. Karma’s a name.”
“Aaaahhh, a name. Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.” Razor’s tattoo gun whirred as he circled it around and around on Mark’s chest before pulling it back and wiping his towel over the freshly inked area.
“Yes, Karma’s very special.” Mark drew his gaze down to his tattoo. The skin was red and swollen, but he could already tell the shading was going to be what kids these days called “sick.”
“She your wife?”
Mark flinched. “No.”
“Girlfriend?”
Mark bowed his head. “No.”
Razor sat up, a concerned frown on his face. “She’s not…you know…gone?” He appeared uncomfortable, as if he feared he’d stirred bad memories.
It took Mark a moment to realize what Razor was getting at. “You mean dead?”
Razor’s expression dissolved into one of apology. “I’m sorry if—”
“No, she’s not dead.” Mark smiled sadly, because while Karma wasn’t dead, there were times he felt like she was. Times when he was sad enough to consider drowning himself in scotch. Times when he wanted to ignore the voices in his head, which told him he wasn’t what she needed and reminded him of the promise he’d made to let the universe decide when—or even if—to bring her back into his life. Times when he just wanted to go to her.
“Then I don’t get it,” Razor said in his brusque accent. “If she’s not dead and so special, and she’s not your gal, what’s the story?”
“I let her go.” Mark gave a derisive chuff and shook his head at how crazy the words sounded. He’d let the one woman he loved go. Why? Because that’s what he’d said he would do. And why had he said that? Because he had sworn years ago never to lose his heart again. He would never again risk putting himself through what Carol had done to him when she’d left him at the altar. Mark had never recovered from that humiliation and heartbreak.
Razor returned to his work. “You love this little lady, don’t you?”
He’d already opened up. No stopping now. “Yes.”
“Then why’d you let her go?”
“Because I can’t be what she needs me to be.”
“And what does she need you to be, mate? Other than yourself.”
“Someone who isn’t afraid to commit.”
“Oooohhh, I see. You’re one of those fellas. Afraid of gettin’ involved past a certain point. Is that the way of it?”
“I used to be like that. Now I’m not so sure. I’ve never felt like this before.” Mark had never loved Carol the way he loved Karma. To the point that he ached for her. Karma’s absence actually caused physical pain. Much like Razor’s tattoo gun whirring over his skin, only deeper and not so sharp.
“You sound like you’re not sure you made the right decision by leaving her.”
Mark blew out a harsh breath. “You could say that, but I made my decision and now have to live with the consequences and wait.”
“Wait for what?” Razor skimmed his towel over the tattoo to wipe away the blood and ink.
“For a sign that we’re meant to be together.” That didn’t sound as ridiculous in his head as it did out loud.
Razor made a throaty noise. “Ah, yes. A sign. I believe in signs.”
“You do?” Maybe he didn’t sound so ridiculous after all, if a tough guy like Razor agreed with him.
“Absolutely. Life will give you what you need when you need it. If you just sit back, let life happen, and stay open to the signs, all will fall into place.”
Razor was beginning to sound like a mystic, but his words resonated with something deep inside Mark, fortifying his resolve to not give up hope that he and Karma would be together someday. But he’d always been such a control freak. Sitting back and letting fate choose his future clawed his nerves.
“It’s hard for me to let go. To let something else control my destiny.”
Razor shook his head but kept his eyes on his work. “You letting life unfold naturally isn’t the same as life controlling your destiny, mate. Your destiny is already set. Your course is charted. You just need to look for the signs along the way that keep you on course.” He paused and made a dismissive no
ise as he sat up. “Hell, even that’s not true. Because it’s when you’re looking for signs that you miss ’em. When you’re not looking for signs, you see ’em without even realizing it.” He bent over Mark’s chest again, and the tattoo gun buzzed back to life, followed immediately by the sting of the needle. “You just need to let go and not force it. If your Karma is meant to come back around, she’ll find her way to you and you to her without you even having to lift a finger. Believe in that, mate. Believe in that and have faith that if it’s meant to be, it will be.”
Renewed energy flowed through Mark’s veins. Razor was right. Mark just needed to have faith in the agreement he’d made with the universe on his way back to Chicago last September. Unable to reconcile his heart’s desire to go back to Karma and his head’s demand to let her go, he’d relinquished control so that fate could decide his future. In the months since, his resolve had waned. But now, with Razor’s sage advice rolling through his mind, he found new hope.
* * *
Hours later, lying awake in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling with a bandage over his tattoo, Mark was still thinking about Razor’s words.
Let go. Have faith. Don’t force it.
His advice sounded so simple. Mark knew better than to think it would be that easy, but he had to at least try.
Returning to the way things had been before he met Karma would be easier than letting go altogether. Except he couldn’t go back. He wasn’t the same man he’d been before Karma. She’d changed him. She’d gotten inside. He could never be that man again.
But for her sake, he wanted to be. Karma didn’t need a commitment-phobic suitor who could love her but never marry her…who could never give himself completely.
But if that were true, why had he enhanced his tattoo? He’d made it darker, more like a brand. If he really didn’t think he had a place in her life, he could have opted to have it removed. Instead, he’d imprinted her more heavily on his body. Why? Because despite thinking she deserved better than he could give, Mark was not just in love with her. He was unbelievably, universally lost in his love for her. She did own him. Not just his heart, but his body and soul, too.
