Back to The Beginning:
A Duet
By
Laramie Briscoe
&
Seraphina Donavan
Table of Contents
Title Page
Back to Basics
Copyright Page
Also by Laramie Briscoe
Dedication
Summary
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Connect with Laramie
Remembered
Copyright Page
Also by Seraphina Donavan
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Connect with Seraphina
Back to Basics
A Heaven Hill Novella
By
Laramie Briscoe
Copyright © 2016 Laramie Briscoe
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
Edited by: Lindsay Gray Hopper
Cover Art by: Kari Ayasha, Cover to Cover Designs
Proofread by: Dawn Bourgeois
Beta Read by: Keyla Handley & Danielle Wentworth
Formatting: Paul Salvette, BB eBooks
Also by Laramie Briscoe
The Heaven Hill Series
Meant To Be
Out of Darkness
Losing Control
Worth The Battle
Dirty Little Secret
Second Chance Love
Rough Patch
Beginning of Forever
Home Free
The Rockin’ Country Series
Only The Beginning
One Day at A Time
The Price of Love
Full Circle
Hard To Love
The Red Bird Trail Trilogy
Flagger
Collision
In Tune
Stand Alone
Sketch
Sass
Coming Soon
Shield My Heart (July 1st, 2016)
A Heaven Hill Christmas (November 2016)
Moonshine Taskforce Series (2017)
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Dedication
For all the readers who’ve loved Liam and Denise since the beginning! If this is your first introduction to them – I hope you love them as much as the rest of us do!
Summary
Family
Community
Club Duties
All their responsibilities are time-consuming. They take hours, minutes, seconds away from time that could be spent strengthening their relationship.
When Liam realizes he and Denise have done precious little communicating and loving lately, he takes her on a little road trip with one goal in mind—getting to know each other all over again, body and soul.
Amongst waterfalls, adult conversations, visits with old friends, and childless hotel rooms, the two of them get back to basics.
‡
Prologue
“It’s been a long time since we saw the sun rise for any reason other than waiting up to make sure that Drew or Mandy came in from a date. Or because Tatum had a stomach flu and she cried all night.” Denise wrinkled her nose. “In fact, I can’t remember the last time we stayed up just for ourselves.”
Liam Walker smiled as he thought about the truth of those words. He chuckled softly as he pulled his wife, Denise, under his chin, kissing her on the top of her head. As parents of seventeen-year-old twins and a three-year-old daughter, they spent a lot of time watching the sun come up in a much different way than they used to. What once was them naked watching fingers of light filter through the curtains of their bedroom was now them sitting in the living room trying to figure out how they were going to punish the wayward brother and sister for being out too late or getting the youngest back to sleep after a bad dream. It didn’t happen often, but it was often enough, now that he thought about it. It happened enough that it interrupted their normal schedule, and when their normal schedule was interrupted, there was no alone time.
Grabbing her hand, he lead them over to his bike before checking that their belongings were stowed in the saddle bags he’d packed earlier. Once he was sure everything was where it needed to be, he got on the bike and held it steady for her so that she could get on. When he thought about it, it’d been even longer since the two of them had gone riding together. And what a damn shame that was. At one time it had been one of their favorite things to do together, second only to hanging out on their screened-in back porch.
“You ready?” Liam asked as he took the bike off the kickstand and moved to start it. Her fingers gripped his shoulders, and he stopped, looking back at her.
“You’re sure they’re going to be okay without us?” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. A wrinkle of worry in the middle of her forehead made him reach out and smooth it the best he could with her sitting directly behind him.
“Roni, Tyler, and B have this. Roni and B will make sure Mandy and Tatum are taken care of. Tyler will make sure Drew keeps Charity out of this house while we’re gone.” He tried to soothe her and put all her worries at bay. If they didn’t get out of this driveway and spend some time alone, he was going to murder someone who didn’t deserve it.
It had taken months to convince her they needed this road trip. Him being husband, father, and president of the Heaven Hill MC pulled him in a million different directions. Her being wife, mother, and the person everyone came to when they had a question pulled her in a million other. Two years into their marriage and they needed some time away. They needed it alone—without the stress of a three-year-old, without listening to the twins fight, without being interrupted by someone in the club who needed something. For this long weekend, they would put their relationship and marriage to the forefront of everything. All other issues would take a backseat, and they would do nothing but concentrate on each other.
“If you think it’s okay, then I’ll trust you, Liam, like I always have.” She leaned forward on the bike and placed a soft kiss on his neck.
It was enough to make him shiver, enough to put him right back to the moment she’d walked into his life. Bent over, trying to find change in her car so that she could feed her hungry kids on her birthday. She was
beautiful then, and goddamn if she hadn’t blossomed since. The years had not only given her confidence in their love and relationship, but it had given her a self-esteem she hadn’t had before. It turned him on in ways he couldn’t explain if someone had asked him to. All he knew was that his wife was his world, and he couldn’t wait to make that world his entire focus for three full days.
Reaching back, he squeezed her thigh, letting her know how on board with this he was. “Things are gonna be fine, babe. We have our cells if things go tits-up here, but I think it’s going to be great. I think you’ve yelled at the kids enough for the past few months, and I’ve lost my cool the last four times we’ve tried to get our groove on. If nothing else, hopefully we come back in better moods.” He felt horrible saying that, but he needed to be an adult with her, and there were too many things happening for them to do that. The three years since Tatum’s birth was a long time not to let his freak flag fly, and he needed this more than he needed his next breath.
She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. If there was one thing Denise had learned in their years together, it was to trust her husband, because everyone else did. No one questioned him or his authority, and he always made sure things worked out. There was absolutely no reason she should be doubting that. Hell, she hadn’t doubted it when he came into her life four years ago and turned it completely upside down, around, and sideways.
“Alright, I’m ready to go.”
Finally. Liam grinned to himself. It had only taken her an hour to relent, and he’d planned for two before they made it out of the driveway. Things were already going better than he’d thought they would. Maybe she needed this even more than he’d thought. In the end, she wasn’t putting up much of a fight.
“Where are we going, by the way?” she asked as he turned around to wave at their friends, who provided a strong unit with their kids. She tried not to think about how happy the twins looked as they got ready to drive away.
“Trust me, babe. It’s a surprise.”
He effectively cut her off by starting the bike and pulling down their driveway. If he had his way, they wouldn’t see this stretch of land for three full days, and he had to admit to himself, that felt good.
‡
Chapter One
Denise tightened her grip around Liam’s waist as they traveled the Warren County backroads leading them to the interstate, which would eventually take them to the Louie B. Nunn parkway. She wasn’t sure where they were going past that, but she would love it—wherever it was. Any place in the area was gorgeous. They could go down further into Tennessee and be in the mountains, they could stay closer to home and see the Cumberland Falls. None of it mattered to her as long as they were together. Her fingertips ran along the material of his shirt, feeling the hard muscle underneath. She ached to lift the hem up so that she could feel his bare skin. Casual hugs or an arm slung around a shoulder only went so far. It had been way too long since she’d seen him without clothing on and touched him in a way that said they would end up between the sheets of their bed.
When had she forgotten that riding bitch on the back of his bike, hair blowing in the wind, was one of her favorite pastimes? She could remember when they had first gotten together, before she got pregnant with Tatum, they’d done it almost nightly. Somewhere in the past few years that had stopped. Between being a mom to their three kids, a sounding board for all the women in the club, and a wife to Liam, she’d lost the part of her that he’d helped her find in the first place. The part of her that had wanted to take a walk on the dark side—where was she? Denise was pretty sure that woman hadn’t been around in a long time. Her mind couldn’t even conjure up the last time she was just a woman and he a man. That’s what she wanted on this trip. To be. They’d never had a chance to just be.
She remembered saying something to Meredith about it a few weeks ago. They had been sitting in Christine’s shop, both waiting to get their hair done. Denise had sighed as she caught a text from Liam that said the club members were scheduled to go on a run, and he wasn’t sure what time he’d be home. Meredith had asked if she was okay, and Denise had brushed her off until her friend had started digging deeper.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Meredith asked as she took a good look at her friend. Since Denise had taken up the role of old lady, become Liam’s wife and the face of the females of the club, she’d taken it upon herself to look her best whenever she could—especially now that Tatum was becoming self-sufficient. The dark circles Meredith saw under her eyes, along with the pair of yoga pants and loose T-shirt she wore, said a million things to her, even if her friend said nothing.
Denise sighed, obviously hating to bring it up. She opened and shut her mouth at least half a dozen times, until finally it all came out in a great big rush. “Exhausted. I feel like I’m being pulled in a million different directions. Liam needs me to be his partner, the kids need me to be their mom, the ladies use me a sounding board—not that I don’t enjoy it,” she was quick to point out. “But I can’t tell you when the last time was I had husband-and-wife time with my man, if you know what I’m saying. It gets pushed to the side every time someone needs something from either one of us.”
Meredith nodded in understanding. “It gets harder the older the kids get.” She was starting to see that, just by watching the situation her two friends were in; even as an outsider she could see it. In the back of her mind, she hoped it would never happen to her and Tyler.
“Oh my God, don’t I know it? For some reason,” she took a deep breath through her nose and pushed her hair back from her face, “I had assumed that when the twins were able to drive they wouldn’t hang at the house so much, but shit, now they just bring their friends there. I love Dalton and Charity like they were my own, but sometimes I wanna come home, lie in my pajamas, and veg on my couch with my husband. Instead I have two teenage couples trying to act like they don’t want to make out all the time sitting there watching TV.” She rolled her eyes, inhaling deeply again. “I want to make out too, but I can’t because they’re taking up valuable real estate.”
Meredith laughed loudly, holding onto her sides. “I know this isn’t a laughing matter.”
“It’s not,” Denise warned, her eyes flashing. Leaning in, she hissed to her friend, “Four and a half months, Mer. It’s been four and a half months.”
Meredith spit her drink out, amazed at what she was hearing. Realization dawned on her, and she shot her friend a sympathetic look. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, that situation is becoming serious. If we get stuck in this rut and don’t make it a choice to get out of it, we’re doomed. We’ll become best friends who share a bed. You and I both know that. These kids are gonna be the death of us. I thought Tatum was a cock blocker, but Drew and Mandy? Ten thousand times worse.”
Denise sighed again, wondering what in the hell she was going to do to change things, how she was going to break this routine they were in. It wasn’t like she could even blame it solely on Liam or the outside forces; it was her too, not making the effort. Some nights she was asleep before her head hit the pillow, and ninety-five percent of the time she was asleep before Liam even came home. It used to be he’d wake her up and they’d spend a couple of hours together, but now he was tired too. It was a bitch of a situation they were in.
“You’ll figure it out,” Meredith assured as she reached over and took her friend’s hand in hers, offering her strength and compassion. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Liam is probably missing the closeness as much as you are and he’s trying to figure out a way to fix it too. He’s a problem solver, and if he realizes this is a problem, he’s going to make it better.”
Denise knew that Meredith was right, but it didn’t make her feel much better.
Little did they know, across town, a similar conversation was taking shape between a set of male best friends, and they were all thinking almost the exact same thing.
*
“It’s insanity.” Liam
huffed as he handed Tyler a socket wrench.
“It’s your house,” Tyler fired back, grasping the piece of metal and using it to tighten the bolt he was putting back in place.
“It’s these fuckin’ kids.” Liam got up and walked in circles, trying to calm his irritation. “Not that I wouldn’t give anything for ’em man. They saved me; I have no doubt in my mind that they saved me. Drew is like my twin, and you know Mandy and Tatum are my princesses. But these fuckin’ teenagers are living at my house all the damn time. Tatum we can put to bed and lock our door. The other ones though, they are in and out—all the fuckin’ time. I thought getting them a license would mean they were outta my damn hair twenty-four seven. Call me crazy, but I thought that meant I’d get to spend a little more time with my wife.”
Tyler grinned over. “You’re crazy. You and I both know the kids hang at your house because you’re so easy-going. There’s no tellin’ what’s going on when the lights go out, my man.”
“Well I know what ain’t happenin’ when my lights go out.” Liam growled, pointing a finger at his chest. “I’ll be damned if my seventeen-year-old son is getting more than me. For real.”
Tyler laughed at the injustice of it all.
“Go ahead, big boy, laugh it up, because in a few years, this is gonna be you.”
“Then do somethin’ about it, pres. Take your lady away and let the kids fend for themselves. Stop your whiny ass bitchin’ and take what you want. Tatum will be fine. Me and Mer will make sure of that.” He tilted his head to the side and gave Liam a bored look. “Problem solved.”
“Sometimes you’re such an ass.” Liam shook his head as he handed Tyler the next tool he would need to finish the job.
“At least I’m gettin’ ass.”
Liam had had enough and got up, grabbing his cut and the bottle of beer he was drinking, flipping his friend a middle finger. That act of defiance felt good for a man who’d had little defiance or debauchery in his life for too long. “Fuck you, dude. I’m out.”
Back to the Beginning: A Duet Page 1
