Text copyright ©2019 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 real-life Slate. I love doing life with you.
Acknowledgments
Golden Czermak- Photographer
Ellie McLove & 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, Diane, Sarah, 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
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
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
Castiel and Turner
Snitches Get Stitches
F-Bomb
The Southern Gentleman Series
Hissy Fit
Lord, Have Mercy
KPD Motorcycle Patrol
Hide Your Crazy (6-11-19)
It Wasn’t Me (7-2-19)
Blurb
You murder a man, and all of a sudden people are scared of you.
Slate Solis went from being a guy that people went to in times of need to an ex-con that people crossed the street to avoid being too close to.
He knows he’s done wrong, but out of all of his sins, only one really bothers him—coveting thy neighbor’s wife.
Harleigh Belle—the cute little lady that never gives him a second glance.
After seeing her for the first time while he was in prison, she’s stayed on his mind for three long years. Each time she comes in to visit with her friend on family day, he can’t help but stare.
Then the day comes that he’s set free, and he’s almost disappointed that he’ll never see her again.
Except fate has different plans.
He hasn’t been back in his house for more than three hours when he sees her.
Harleigh Belle in all her glory…oh, and her husband that is everything Slate isn’t.
He tells himself that her being fifty feet away from him, all day every day, is a complete coincidence. One that he shouldn’t take advantage of. The more time that passes, the harder it gets to stay away. Until one day, and one very ill-timed thunderstorm, ruin everything.
Who knew that baby-making-weather was a real thing?
Prologue
I didn’t mean to push all your buttons. Just kidding. I really did.
-Slate to Izzy
Slate
Three years ago
The first time I saw her I was shackled to a table with chains.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, trying to keep my eyes on Izzy but having a hard time doing that since there was a blonde woman that was about five foot nothing at the table next to me, giving the man she was visiting a rundown about a Chuck Norris race that she was running in about a week.
“I’m talking about the fact that our mother is a whore, and she tried to get the daycare that Astrid is enrolled in to allow her ‘visitation time,’” Izzy explained patiently.
I finally pulled my eyes off the blonde and looked at my sister.
“And this surprises you because?” I asked with a raised brow.
She sighed loudly. “I guess that it doesn’t. I’m just annoyed that I have to deal with it at all. I thought I got rid of her and she keeps popping back like a herpes outbreak.”
The blonde at the table next to us paused in her conversation with the man and looked at my sister with a grin on her face.
I sighed and tried not to stare.
It was nearly impossible, though.
I wasn’t sure what it was that drew me to her.
She was about five foot nothing with blonde hair that was arranged in a fighter’s braid down both sides of her head. She had bright pink strands that were woven throughout the braid, and at the very bottom, it transitioned into straight purple.
Her eyes were an eerie shade of green. Kind of like sea foam…but brighter.
She had the longest lashes that I’d ever seen, and that was saying something because it looked like she had zero makeup on.
Her forearms were absolutely tiny and were about the size of two of my fingers put together in width…but those forearms had so
many goddamn bracelets that they went almost halfway up said arm.
“Are you listening to me at all?” Izzy asked. “Are you sick?”
I looked at my sister, once again peeling my eyes away from the blonde, and shrugged.
“You’re talking about our mother,” I said, sounding bored. “What did you want me to do? Say ‘huh, that’s weird?’” I asked. “Because it’s not weird for her. Honestly, I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to do anything before now.”
Izzy sat back with a huff and crossed her arms over her chest, looking adorably annoyed.
Izzy, my baby sister, had changed a lot since I’d gone to prison.
She’d grown into her own and had become a beautiful person.
Not that she hadn’t been one before, but there was a difference between the broken and scared doll that she used to be compared to the beautiful, confident, ‘I can do anything’ woman that she’d turned in to. Though, that had a lot to do with the fact that she was married now to a man that would kick anyone’s ass that ever hurt her—my mother included.
Izzy’s dark hair was in a bun on top of her head, and I was fairly sure she had a spit-up stain on the black t-shirt she was wearing. Not that I’d point that out to her yet. I’d make sure we got all the way through our visit before bringing it to her attention.
“I know,” she sighed. “I’m just…I’ve had a bad couple of nights with Astrid. She hasn’t slept much and she’s always in a terrible mood. And then Mom pulling that shit?”
She scrubbed her hands up and down her face. “And I had to clean a house yesterday that was a complete and utter pig sty. I wish I would’ve charged them more. I’m fairly sure they did a super deep clean right before I came over to quote them a price on cleaning for them. When I got there today? It was like a tornado had gone through it. I’m going to have to charge them more because it takes me longer to clean tornado destroyed houses than the one they showed me before.”
“Please tell me that you clean in Bear Bottom.”
We both looked over at the blonde who was now staring at Izzy with hope on her face.
“Uhh,” Izzy said. “I do.”
The woman’s face showed so much utter joy that I felt something low in my belly start to heat up.
“My name is Harleigh.” She held out her hand. “Can I get your number? Do you have a card? Oh my gosh. I’m so excited to hear this.”
Izzy’s eyes flicked to me and then back to the blonde, Harleigh.
Odd name, but it suited her.
“This is my man’s baby brother, Tray.” She pointed at the inmate next to me. I hadn’t actually seen him much, but that was because he was new and didn’t quite know his place in the hierarchy just yet, so he stayed to himself. “Dre, Tray’s brother, just moved his business to Bear Bottom and I’ve been doing my best to help him, but…it’s like cleaning up in the middle of a hurricane. It’s just not doable when the men don’t clean up after themselves—at all.”
Izzy pulled out a card that she’d had stashed in her pocket and handed it to the woman.
“Just text me,” she said. “If you call, I probably won’t answer.”
Harleigh’s face went bright. “I don’t answer my phone, either, so I’m glad to hear that.”
“I’m normally pretty fast answering text messages,” she said. “So if you don’t get one back, text me again. Sometimes I just miss them.”
Harleigh’s smile fell off her face when her eyes met mine, and I felt like the sun had suddenly been stolen.
I looked away and hunched my shoulders a little, causing me to appear slightly smaller.
I was a big guy.
At six-foot-five, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t look down on most of the people around me.
Seeing the woman that I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes off of look at me like that? Well, I hadn’t realized I could be any more ashamed than I was. Turns out that I could.
Izzy, after a few more words to Harleigh, turned back to me with a smile.
The smile fell off her face when she got a look at mine.
“What is it?” she asked softly.
I shrugged and changed the subject.
“Tell me about Rome,” I ordered.
Izzy’s face went stoic, and she sighed before leaning back in her chair and saying, “Rome’s good. I’m supposed to relay a few things to you, but I’m not sure what they mean.”
I gestured for her to tell me, and she did, looking at me curiously afterward.
“Why couldn’t Bayou just tell you that?” she paused. “Or Rome, at that?”
Rome and Bayou both worked at the prison that I found myself an inhabitant of. It was better not to tell me directly so that they didn’t get seen talking to me.
That, and telling me that I had an inmate that was out for my blood would probably get them targeted.
Nearly a decade ago now, while on the job, my partner had been shot and killed before my eyes. My partner who just so happened to be my fiancée. My fiancée who just so happened to be pregnant.
When I’d found the man that had been responsible for killing them, I’d murdered him in cold blood.
I hadn’t cared that I’d go to jail.
Honestly, I hadn’t been thinking all that straight, but I never once regretted doing what I’d done.
To this day, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
“Slate?” Izzy nudged me with her foot under the table.
“Bayou and Rome are busy,” I shrugged. “And it doesn’t look suspicious when my sister talks to me.”
Izzy rolled her eyes and pulled a napkin out of her pocket, discreetly handing it over to me without a word.
I looked at the rolled-up napkin and felt my mouth water.
“Please tell me that’s what I think it is,” I begged.
That was when I felt someone’s eyes on me.
I flicked my eyes to the side, surprised to see the blonde staring at me with a look of concentration on her face.
I quickly looked away before she could read any of the thoughts rolling through me and turned back to my sister before flicking my eyes around the room.
When I didn’t see any of the usual little assholes staring at me—little assholes being the other inmates and not the guards—I opened the napkin and nearly groaned at the two cookies.
“Abuela made these?” I asked hopefully.
“Yes,” she rolled her eyes. “I tried to make some the other day and they turned out like crap.”
I popped the first cookie into my mouth and nearly moaned at the taste that exploded on my taste buds.
“God, these are so good,” I muttered.
One thing I could say about being locked up like I was? My health was on point. I couldn’t eat bad because we were fed ‘balanced diets.’ I also couldn’t cheat, and I had nothing else to do all day but workout and workout some more.
That was, of course, when I wasn’t doing other things like spying on inmates and feeding the motorcycle club, the Bear Bottom Guardians MC, that Rome had somehow talked me into joining, information.
Not that it took too much participation on my part.
Despite my large size, people overlooked me.
I wasn’t sure why, and it’d been something that happened since I was young. That, and people just talked to me. They always had, and it’d been why I’d been such a good cop—you know, before I was convicted of murder and all.
The bell above the doors started to ring, signaling that our time was up.
Instead of standing up and throwing my arms around my sister like I would’ve liked, I remained seated and clenched my jaw.
Izzy caught the look and grinned. “Just a few more months and you can hug me.”
I snorted.
Her version of a ‘few more months’ was more like forty something, but who was counting?
“Be good, Iz,” I said softly. “And don’t let Mom get to you. Put her on the ‘no-fly’ list and make sure everyone at th
e daycare knows that she’s not to be given access to her. Love you.”
Izzy blew me a kiss, then pushed the last cookie closer to me. “Eat that before I get in trouble.”
I did as she asked, shoving it into my mouth right as she turned to leave.
That was when I saw the woman at Izzy’s side turn as well, but not before flicking her eyes away from mine.
I watched them both go and sat there for another two minutes as we were all led out, one by one.
When the guards finally came for me, I stood up and waited patiently for them to unchain me.
It was when we were all being led back to our cells that the man that the blonde had been visiting turned to me.
“You get cookies?”
I shrugged. “I get what I want.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do I get what I want?”
“Become a cop, protect the guards’ backs, and keep your nose clean?” I shrugged. “But that’ll also get your ass kicked by the other inmates, so choose wisely.”
With that, I walked away and tried not to think of the blonde or her beautiful looks.
***
Harleigh
“Your brother is fine,” I said to Dre, then turned to my dad. “Tray didn’t get much. He said that he hasn’t had much of a chance to get any information yet because everyone still looked at him with suspicion.”
My father sighed and leaned back, his hands on the back of his head.
“I need to find someone else then,” he muttered. “Thanks, baby.”
I thought about the big man that’d been at the table next to us, then decided, fuck it.
“There was this man that was seated beside us,” I said. “He had a clock tower tattoo on his right forearm. A cop shield on his left wrist, and a thin blue line tattooed to his other wrist. Plus he looked like he was capable of taking care of himself…I have the sister’s number if you want to look into him.”
My dad looked at me in surprise.
“Yeah, give it.”
I didn’t actually need a cleaning lady.
In fact, I didn’t actually know anybody in Bear Bottom.
I’d just been listening to Tray who had absolutely nothing for my dad to go on, and I’d heard a stray comment about ‘Bear Bottom’ from the woman next to me as well as her cleaning business and I’d acted without thought.
F-Bomb (The Bear Bottom Guardians MC Book 9) Page 1
